Jan 15, 2025 Planning and Zoning Commission on 2025-01-15 5:30 PM

Good evening at 5 37 p.m. January 15th I will call the work session of the Denton Planning and Zoning Commission to order. Our first item of business is if there's any citizen comments for the consent agenda I don't see any. Does anybody have any questions on the consent agenda the one item on the consent agenda this evening? No? Okay and then any any questions procedurally or otherwise on the item for individual consideration? This is coming up because Chair Ellis resigned effective after the last meeting and it's also the new year so we would have to do this anyway even if she was still here. So okay so and the public hearing has been renoticed and withdrawn so we won't be looking at that this evening and so I will move to our work session reports PZ 25034 holder report and a discussion regarding master plan communities in particular Coleranch and BC. Welcome Angie. Thank you Planning and Zoning Commission Angie Manglars development review manager here to talk to you today a little generally about master plan communities and then a little more specifically about the Coleranch master plan community so the objective of this work session just provide a brief overview of what MPCs are where they currently exist within the city give a high-level overview of the history of landmark or what was Hunter Ranch and Coleranch MPCs and then go into a little bit of a deeper dive on the Coleranch MPC that'll include the project location the sub districts that are located within the MPC some of the deviations between the master plan community guiding documents and the 2019 DDC and then just kind of look at some of the maps you all would typically see with the development case that includes phasing mobility and ESAs and then we'll talk a little bit about some of the uniqueness with Coleranch and that includes developer responsibilities as part of the master plan community and their associated agreements. So having said all of that master plan community is a zoning designation utilized for large-scale comprehensively planned developments we currently have four MPCs in the city of Denton that's the hills of Denton the hills of Denton North landmark or you've commonly heard Hunter Ranch and Coleranch all of these MPCs that we have today in the city were created under the 2002 DDC and were carried forward with the adoption of the 2019 DDC. Master plan communities they provide alternate zoning districts and development processes and are generally used to accommodate large-scale master plan developments. If an MPC request were to come in today it would be processed like a plan development request. So hills of Denton and hills of Denton North where are these these are generally located north of loop 288 west of Locust Street and east of Bonnie Bray. Hills of Denton and hills of Denton North they're contiguous. Hills of Denton was adopted in 2007 it's approximately 2100 acres it permits a variety of residential land uses that includes single-family townhomes as well as some commercial land uses and then just to the north of that is hills of Denton North it is smaller it's 501 acres and focuses on single-family and commercial uses. These plan developments have not been amended since adoption they are as they were adopted in 07 and 08 and are situated on the northern portion of the city limits. Further south generally along I-35W we have the landmark and coal ranch MPCs. Similarly these are also right next to each other if you can follow my mouse this hatching area is where the landmark MPC is it's approximately 3200 acres it was initially zoned MPC in 2008 it has had it had two amendments in 2010 one was to rezone out approximately 195 acres and then the other was to allow various exceptions to the gas well and subdivision regulations. Coal Ranch is situated a little bit further to the north and was also zoned MPC in 2008 both MPCs were adopted in 2020 they adopted the 2019 DDC is the base development code with some major deviations which will go into detail on and then the base zoning for these sub-districts also transitioned to match our zoning districts within the 2019 DDC. So both Hunter Landmark and Coal Ranch adopted these MPCs which function very similarly to our DDC they have the same subsections that our DDC has with accepting some of those minor deviations and outline the various development processes that these respective MPCs would go through as they begin build out. So now we're going to focus a little bit more on Coal Ranch and just talk kind of specifics about Coal Ranch and some of the nuances and differences between the 2019 DDC and the Coal Ranch MPC. So as I said Coal Ranch is approximately 3,200 acres it is situated entirely on the west side of I-35 it is situated southwest of the Den Enterprise Airport which is right here and northeast of the Robeson Ranch plan development and then surrounding it would be where the Hunter Ranch MPC is located. There are six base zoning districts in the Hunter Ranch MPC so MPC is kind of the overlying zoning designation outlined in orange but within that there are there are sub-districts that match what you would see in the 2019 DDC and so those include Light Industrial, Mixed Use Neighborhood and Regional, Residential 7, Residential 6, and Residential 4. Along with that there are caps on the maximum allowable units for single-family and multifamily with single-family being 5,900 single-family units and multifamily being 3,200 units. So now we're not going to go over all of the deviations between the Coal Ranch MPC and the Denton Development Code. There are several some of them are minor and likely would not be seen before you all but the ones we're going to cover are kind of the more the major deviations and also things that you guys will deal with on a regular basis including tree preservation. So first process differences just wanted to highlight a few things that are unique preliminary plats will continue to come to you all for the Coal Ranch MPC as you know we amended the DDC back in 2023 making the preliminary plat process optional. One preliminary plat has been seen and approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission for Coal Ranch and that's phase one and this is just kind of what that looked like. Another difference is cluster developments where we consider different densities for single-family to preserve more open space. In the DDC they're only allowed by PD. Coal Ranch does allow them by right. The Coal Ranch MPC also outlines a couple minor amendments that may be approved by staff but also major amendments that function similar to a public hearing process such as zoning changes. Those would continue to be seen by you all. In terms of zoning districts the DDC establishes 16 zoning districts I'm not going to read them all but they're there. Seven overlay zoning districts and allows for the creation of new plan development districts. Coal Ranch as we discussed earlier it establishes six base zoning districts and establishes one highway overlay buffer zone. There are some differences when looking at these zoning districts and some of the dimensional standards specifically residential 7 lot width is still 50 feet in the Coal Ranch MPC as it is in the DDC but does have a carve out that allows for up to 40% of the land areas zoned R7 to have a 40 foot wide lot width for single-family residential. There's also a difference in residential 7 side yard setbacks in the 2019 DDC side yard setback is 5 feet. Likewise the Coal Ranch MPC does carry that 5 foot setback but does allow for the option for there to be a 10 foot setback on one side and a 0 foot setback or have the the structure situate on the property line on the other. So slight slight difference there where it does allow for essentially zero lot line for one side and then creating that side yard being 10 feet on the other rather than 5 feet on both sides. So a little bit of a difference there. In mixed-use neighborhood the DDC does allow for a maximum building height of 65 feet. Coal Ranch does allow that height to be up to 100 feet and then mixed-use regional DDC has a 100 foot maximum height Coal Ranch MPC 200 foot maximum height. In both of these cases both DDC and Coal Ranch MPC buildings are subject to height and transition requirements and there is a difference between the DDC and the Coal Ranch MPC. Where in the DDC we have our 0 to 50 foot so for any building next to a residential use if it's within 50 feet of a residential use so if it's a commercial structure coming in next to a residential use or zone property those buildings within 50 feet are not allowed to exceed the building height in the residential zoning district. For buildings between 50 and 100 feet away from that residential structure they could be the height of that residential zoning district plus 15 feet and then for buildings a hundred feet or further away from that residential zone property or use they could have the maximum height that that zoning districts allows. The Coal Ranch MPC takes that height and transition and continues to expound on it going up to distances of 150 feet away as well as 200 and 200 feet away so for a building in the Coal Ranch MPC that might be 200 feet in height if it's adjacent to a single-family residential use or lot that is zoned that way it would have to be at least 200 feet away so it takes that transition and expounds upon it so that buildings that are 200 feet are at least 200 feet away from a residential use or zoned property so it adds a couple of additional steps to accommodate that additional height. Subchapter four in the DDC goes over overlay and historic districts many of these don't apply to the Coal Ranch MPC such as the Fry Street overlay and some of our historic districts situated along Oak and Hickory so those are not included in the MPC. The Coal Ranch MPC does retain the municipal airport overlay district and it does introduce a highway buffer zone. That buffer zone is generally you can see one kind of the yellow dashed line outlining the future loop 288 and does state that no single-family detached platted lot can be located within that 600 foot highway buffer zone so that is a change in that subchapter. There are various land use differences that are allowed between the MPC and the 2019 DDC but I wanted to highlight a few. The Coal Ranch MPC does allow for multi-family NR7 without an SUP. It also permits single-family in the mixed-use regional zoning district and permits self-storage in MR without the requirement for an SUP. Major automotive repair is prohibited in MR and retail 15,000 square feet and greater is allowed in the MN district without the requirement for an SUP. Those are some of the deviations that you might see as projects start to come in for the Coal Ranch development. Gas wells there's not a lot of changes between the DDC and the Coal Ranch MPC. One thing to highlight is the only approved drilling and production sites in the Coal Ranch MPC are those that were shown on gas well development plats and in existence at the time of the adoption of the Coal Ranch MPC. Apart from that the various setbacks match what are in the DDC today as do protected uses. Some things to note differences in environmentally sensitive areas. Some changes were made from the 2019 DDC in the Coal Ranch. One I wanted to highlight was credit the Coal Ranch MPC does not allow for ESA that's preserved to count as parkland dedication so that is a difference between the two. It does allow for two additional permitted uses within the riparian buffer and water related ESAs and that would be the placement of trails as well as culvert and bridges. It takes all of the allowed uses within those buffer areas of the DDC and adds on trails as well as culverts and bridges provided that that area is restored and any invasive materials are mitigated at that time. So tax on a couple of additional allowed uses there. Tree preservation you'll also notice some differences. Preservation requirements are slightly different in that Coal Ranch MPC requires 35% mitigation rather than the 30 per the DDC and then for replacement rates heritage trees are required to be mitigated at three inches for every inch removed versus two and a half inch for every inch removed for the DDC. Those are some of the major differences between the two. I just kind of wanted to go through some of the other plans that are attached to the MPC including the phasing plan that was adopted with the Coal Ranch MPC outlining four phases for development for this moving forward. The mobility plan is the city of Denton's 2022 mobility plan but it does help to highlight some of the roadway network that is planned for this area as it begins to develop. You may remember some of you at least in the fall of 2024 there was an amendment to some of the roadways in the Coal Ranch MPC boundary and that was to reclassify underwood which generally runs along this area to a secondary arterial from a primary arterial and then to remove a portion of the extension of Amex Road avoiding this soil conservation lake here. So there have been a couple amendments to the mobility plan recently for this region. And then I also wanted to show just the environmentally sensitive areas both confirmed and unassessed in the area just to kind of give you an idea of where these are located throughout the Coal Ranch boundaries. There is as I said the soil conservation lake kind of situated central and water would generally flow this way and then there's also some water related habitat meandering throughout the southern portion of the MPC. And then so we've gone over a lot. So Coal Ranch MPC is a large land area and there is a lot of moving pieces to the Coal Ranch MPC in addition to the guiding document of the MPC that guides development processes there's also an operating agreement and a project agreement. And that memorializes the developer obligations. So the developer is responsible for either land conveyance or monetary contributions for parkland as well as other city and Denton ISD facilities. The developer is responsible for construction of public improvements and that includes roadways unless it's otherwise specified. And then as part of both the Hunter and Coal projects studies were done regarding transportation water and wastewater and facilities to ensure that adequate public facilities for these areas are able to be provided as they begin to build out. The findings of those studies identify the infrastructure and capital contributions required by the developer and the results of those studies are captured and enforced in the project and operating agreements. So as these developments move forward those infrastructure and capital contributions are memorialized in those agreements and that's how they're enforced as they begin to develop. And that is my very high level overview of the Coal Ranch MPC just to kind of give you all an idea of some of the things you might see unique to that development versus the DDC and also familiarize you all with the various project agreements. So I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have. Yes sir. Thank you. Just real quick going back to the allowed uses and ESAs under section 7 you were going over. So why are placement of trails and culverts and bridges allowed here in the Coal Ranch Development District and what makes their ESAs different from other ESAs in the in the city? So we do already allow for some roadway construction to take place within the various ESAs. Some of the why I may have to look into and get back to you on how we got to some of these decisions but that's not the placement of culverts and bridges is in line with the roadway allowances for these areas and trails are designed to accommodate pedestrian travel and so to help create sort of a cohesive connected integrated pedestrian trail system my understanding is is that was allowed however those do come with the caveats like I like I stated that those areas do need to be restored invasive species do need to be removed and so it's not as though we're giving anyone a free pass to do construction in those areas this is tacked on to the the additional uses that are permitted by right in ESAs and they're subject to those same standards but I'm happy to follow up with more detail if that would be helpful. Yes that would and if this were if we're proposing placement of trails or culverts and bridges in the ESA outside of this area would that require an AESA at that point? Yeah if the if the ESA is being disturbed it would require an AESA to ensure those mitigations are happening. Okay thanks. I'll I'll have what follow up on that I when you look into the the trails and culverts and bridges I believe we went through an amendment of the 2019 DDC after the 2020 amendment for the the coal ranch and hunter ranch MPC which added trails as a permitted use within you know within certain constraints within ESAs okay so I maybe those are more aligned now than they were when the MPCs were passed but there may be some differences so it'd be interesting to know the differences so. Haley says that's correct so I'm gonna take her word for it. Okay any any other questions? I was just wondering can you pull back up the ESA coverage across the property because it does look like it'd be pretty difficult to not cross that and then develop so that's all. I have a couple small ones the when you talked about compatibility setbacks we're very familiar with that in Denton and in areas where it development comes in adjacent to existing development because this the the coal and hunter MPC permits single-family and townhome uses within MN and MR. I believe our 2019 code requires those compatibility setbacks adjacent to a residential district which is RR through R7 or a residential use. How do we anticipate handling those setback requirements in the case when there is likely to be a residential use in a non-residential district it just hasn't been developed yet does that make sense? So commercial comes first yeah so I can speak to that there are carve-outs within the the landscape buffering that do account for that in that well that didn't work I apologize so today if it is not multitask and do this so today if a residential use were to come in next to a commercial use there is a minimum of 10 feet 10 points from our buffering table required not necessarily a buffering distance so when multifamily comes in adjacent to single-family it's the developing responsible for creating that buffering and that in the DDC when single-family is coming in next to the more intensive use commercial industrial multifamily they're required to provide some points but not necessarily the buffer width and so to accommodate for some of that and some of those situations that may occur like you said this the coal ranch NPC does call out in the MR and MN sub districts when that situation may occur that they provide a minimum of a 15 foot buffer and provide 15 points from table 7 point G to create a little bit more of that that buffering separation between those types of uses okay thank you and then is there a place as we start to see more of these applications that we can find the the MPC full equivalent of the DDC somewhere it's you know the the full DDC is available on Mina code and the download and that sort of thing but I'm not sure just for the benefit of everybody of where access to these is I don't know that we have those on our our like the website we can certainly look into what it might take to get them on there in the meantime I can certainly send out the adopted 2019 MPC for y'all to have on hand okay I think that'd be useful looking forward to our CIAC meeting coming up I know for our development within the city that's not in the MPC's the impact fees are set and and they're essentially made effective at the time of platting is that correct and is that the same for the colon colon PC or is it different my understanding is it's the same but I've asked Charlie to come for this very reason yes so the the hunter landmark and coal ranches would be required to pay the impact fees at the time of final platting so whenever they go and they're adopted whatever the new impact fee is that the city's currently working on them that would be applied to them okay thank you anything else anybody thank you very much Angie that's our last work session report so we will go into recess and reconvene at 630 in the council chambers for the regular meeting thank you good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the Denton planning and zoning Commission at 6 31 p.m. on Wednesday January 15th our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag in the Texas flag that brings us to pz 25 0 0 1 consider approval of the December 11th planning zoning agenda minute minutes Commissioner Villarreal move approval Commissioner Padron I second and I will call for a vote on the board that item passes 5-0 that brings us to our consent agenda fp 24 0 0 4 3 Commissioner Villarreal move approval Commissioner Riggs and I will call for a vote on the board and that passes 5-0 our one item for individual consideration is to elect a chair and a vice chair for the planning and zoning Commission we have a motion on the floor from Commissioner Villarreal I'm gonna motion to nominate our current interim chair and vice chair Eric Pruitt for a full term as chair although we don't always agree on everything I think Eric would be a fantastic leader someone who's gonna offer a good conversation during PNZ and be a good facilitator for our meetings so look forward to having you as our full-time chair thank you and Commissioner Padron I second I reiterate what Commissioner Villarreal expressed I've really been impressed by your leadership Eric thank you I will try to live up to Commissioner Ellis's coattails especially defining all of the typos on the flats call for a vote on the board that passes 5-0 we also need a vice chair and and I see a motion from Commissioner Padron I move to nominate Commissioner Villarreal as a vice chair for this Commission I believe with his tenure and then also the work done with the development Ruby board committee he would make a great vice chair and Commissioner Prado Carrillo I second I'll just echo those thoughts so thank you for your service over the last three plus years and I will call for a vote on the board that motion passes 5-0 our one public hearing this evening has been withdrawn and renoticed for our January 29th meeting so come back for that one and our last item or next to last item of business is PZ 250013 the Commission matrix report thank you chair Pruitt so no changes were made to the actual matrix itself since there were no requests from the prior meeting then I do have several items for your benefit so make yourselves comfortable I have a list actually a couple of things to bring to your attention our CIA see meeting capital improvement advisory committee as some of you may recall the planning and zoning Commission members also serve as the capital improvement capital improvements advisory committee and so with our utility impact fees we are needing to have that committee convene in February so right now we have that scheduled for February 12th a reason why I want to bring that to your attention is because that would have a 4 p.m. start time so for those of you that have busy calendars if you could put that on your work calendar I would appreciate that so that way we can ensure meeting quorum also if you could please be sure to respond to Kathy's email that she sent you about that just so we can confirm your attendance which friendly reminder just give it given our five members on the on the Commission if if you could stay on top of your email correspondence with her on your availability I would I would greatly appreciate it she also had sent correspondence regarding an upcoming training event focused North Texas it is a planning and planning profession but also elected and appointed officials educational opportunity that's actually locally here in the Dallas Fort Worth area it is on February 21st in Dallas if you are interested in attending this if you could please let Kathy or myself know I do have some money is available for training to descend some commissioners so if you're interested again would would love to afford you the opportunity just let us know if you could let me know by this Friday that would be great because then we can take advantage of a reduced registration fee but but I realize you may want to monitor your work schedules also leading up to that so just let us know our Development Code Review Committee so our Development Code Review Committee is in need of a Planning and Zoning Commissioner representative on that and so if you are interested in serving that capacity I would encourage you to reach out to Councilmember Beck Councilmember Beck is the chair of that committee and so I know that he has expressed interest in appointing someone from the Planning and Zoning Commission to that for those of you new to the Commission the Development Code Review Committee it is comprised of three council members and three Planning and Zoning Commission members and the we also refer to them as the DCRC just because Development Code Review Committee is a lot in the mouth there so but the DCRC typically is working on with staff amendments to our Development Code typically their larger scale amendments items that have possibly more that policy discussion and so that's where we benefit from the assistance of three commissioners and in three council members for us to vet proposed code amendments through it also then ideally helps us through the public hearing adoption phase when we get to that point so that way the Commission and Council can assist us with helping to get those amendments carried across the finish line so again if you're interested please do let Councilmember Beck know so since your last meeting on December 11th we have had a handful of council meetings so back on December 17th just wanted to share with you the final outcome of some projects that you all had previously considered let me get to that portion of my agenda so the first item was an alternative environmentally sensitive plan and or an ALT ESA if you will that was done for Hunter Ranch now known as landmark and so if you recall that was the plan that had the the opportunity for more of a master plan approach to addressing any impacts to the ESA areas and then how's how those would be mitigated over time associated with that development so that was approved 6-1 we also had a consideration of a change in zoning from rural residential in R2 to suburban quarter this was the six tenths of an acre property that was located over there on Teasley Lane near Denton Geyer High School and so that was approved four to two on that the dissenting votes had some similar concerns that were expressed by former Commissioner Ellis related to doing the quarter study first prior to taking action on any zoning there and then also oh you'll be happy to know one of the primary action items or first key action items listed on the design downtown Denton plan was expansion of the Terz district so council approved the final ordinance to allow for that expansion expansion so I feel like we've already checked an item on the to-do list out of the design downtown Denton plan so I'm happy to have that being accomplished on their January 7th meeting we had the rezoning of property from rural residential to light industrial district a light industrial district is about 16 acres located off of our near Mosh branch and lovers Lane if you recall Bryce presented this zoning case we had noted it as metal metal towns rezoning this property it shouldn't develop as particularly with a retail use will probably benefit more residents out in crumb just given its proximity to crumb being right there on the edge of the city limits so nonetheless that was approved five to two dissenting votes had some concerns regarding the unassessed ESA on that property that that was the only case we had that evening and then last night we had another environmentally or an alternative environmentally sensitive area plan that you had considered previously for Harris Ranch industrial this was to offset about 1.92 acres of ESA area and it is located west of interstate 35 and about 1900 feet south of the intersection of State Highway loop 288 and interstate 35 so that was approved last night with a vote of 7-0 so that concludes council's actions and then also if you've kept up with some of the council conversations and there was a two-minute pitch back on January 8th that mayor Pro Tem Meltzer had made to allow planning and zoning commission members to participate remotely that request did receive the four votes necessary to be able to move it to the next step in the two-minute pitch process which is the development of an individual staff report or assuming an informal staff report or a legal staff report as needed so I will keep the planning and zoning Commission informed of what the outcome is associated with that and then lastly I would like to thank Commissioner Thagard for her time on the planning and zoning Commission and she recently had stepped down due to having some professional promotional opportunities and also wanting to be there for her family but I would also like to welcome Commissioner Riggs so thank you for joining us as well and that concludes my report thank you that brings us to concluding items anybody have any concluding items Commissioner Villarreal thank you chair just wanted to thank both chairwoman Ellis since I was not able to be at our previous meeting and Commissioner Thagard for their work on the Commission anyone else I'll just think Commissioner Riggs and welcome you to the planning and zoning Commission and Commissioner Prado Carrillo I think this is your second or second meeting so I'm very much looking forward to our future in 2025 as we all learn together and and see what what we can do to make Denton better going forward with that I will adjourn the meeting of the planning and zoning Commission on Wednesday January 15th thank you