Good afternoon.
At 5.02 p.m. on Wednesday, August 13, I will call the session of the Planning and Zoning
Commission work session to order with the quorum present.
Our first order is the citizen comments on consent agenda items.
I see no citizens present as I'm looking around.
So that brings us to clarification of agenda items for the regular meeting.
There's one item on our consent agenda.
Actually, if you wouldn't mind if we could just go over that real quick.
First of all, welcome, Commissioner Garland.
So just to remind ourselves what PLATs are and how we're doing this.
Hi, Matt.
Hello, Matt Bourdine, Assistant Planner.
Here to present a PLAT for an approximately nine and a half acre tract of land located
near the corner of Hickory Creek Road and Teasley Lane.
This PLAT is associated with the development of a self-storage complex.
The PLAT has been reviewed by staff and it meets our criteria for approval.
As such, staff is recommending approval of this final PLAT.
Any questions?
Okay.
Thanks, Matt.
It brings us to our one or items for individual consideration.
First is FR250019.
Welcome, Cameron.
It seems like a little bit since we've had the pleasure.
Yes.
Good evening, Cameron Robertson, Principal Planner.
This is for a final replat of approximately 15.8 acre property located generally on the
northeast corner of Bonnie Bray and US 380.
At this time, they do not meet the criteria for approval, but staff has no objection to
a first extension request to September 10th.
I can stand for any questions.
Any questions on this item?
No?
Thank you, Cameron.
Sorry.
Commissioner MacDuff?
I missed the first round or two of this, so apologies, but I just have some concerns about
the traffic pattern over there.
Just for the record, it's going to need some work, so I assume that we've discussed all
that.
Yes.
This was all done in 2015.
Yes.
I have no concern around on this committee, but thank you.
Of course.
Thank you.
Brings us to FP250025, final plat.
Welcome back, Matt.
Yes.
Thank you.
All right, Matt Bourdine, here we go.
Matt Bourdine, Assistant Planner, here to present a plat to create five lot subdivisions
in the Extraterritorial Jurisdiction 1 of the city of Indenton.
So, Indenton County, but the city has platting authority.
This plat does not meet our criteria for approval at this time, but staff has no objection to
their request of extension of the review period to a date certain of September 10th, 2025.
Okay.
Commissioner Dyer?
I know this is a really stupid question, but as I was preparing for tonight's meeting,
you call this a five plat, a five lot plat, but I'm looking at, am I looking at more than
five lots?
I mean, I know you've got the four running north and south, and I just, I'm just trying
to like in my mind envision.
Yeah, so there's these four here, and then this is all-
There's gonna be one great big one?
Yes, one big big one.
Okay, 'cause it was the dashed lines of those other two that were just throwing me off.
Yeah, yeah.
Understandable.
They are, the property owner, it's three pieces of property.
He owns all of them.
Yes, I did.
I went back and looked at who the owners were and all that stuff, so.
Yeah, and so the plat just has to show, I guess the previous records, previous lot lines,
and then the new ones they're proposing are the darker ones.
Do we know if they're selling those four lots on the west side of the property?
Are they giving them to family members to build houses on because they own all of that?
Do we know what their intention is?
As far as I've been told, their intention is to, for single family lots, I believe essentially
to sell them.
To sell them, okay.
Thank you.
Thanks, Matt.
That brings us to ZCP 25-0010, our Razor Ranch expert, Mia.
Oh, no.
Okay, good evening, Chair, members of the commission.
Mia Hines, senior planner.
This stated in the caption is a zone of compliance plan within Razor Ranch.
Unfortunately for the new commissioners, zoning compliance plans do not come before the Planning
and Zoning Commission, but because it is specifically written in the Razor Ranch overlay district
standards, that Planning and Zoning Commission has to approve them from time to time.
You will see these as those sites out there develop.
This particular site is just over one acre, and they are proposing a quick vehicle servicing
use.
It's located just east of I-35, approximately 500 feet north of Panhandle Street, and staff
is recommending, I'm sorry, that is conditional approval, and I will correct that for the
main presentation, provided that before receiving any building permits, this site applies for
replat.
As you can see, the current red line, or the red line shown here is the current property
line for this proposed development, and they do have some parking improvements and some
landscape improvements that they are proposing, technically off of their lot.
We do have both the owner authorization form for this property, as well as the property
to the north, but before they apply or receive any building permits, they will need to come
in and replat that, so all of the development is on the same lot.
That is pretty much the extent of this, or the summary of the presentation.
I do have a more in-depth presentation to go over in the regular session, but I would
gladly answer any questions that you have at this time.
Commissioner Dyer.
So, right now, there's a lot of construction on the frontage roads and 35W, with all of
the work that's being done there.
Is this work all going to kind of coincide, or have they taken that into consideration
with the new improvements that TxDOT is making?
It is, so the right-of-way dedication for that necessary expansion has already been
accounted for, so it's not a part of this.
That is a separate project, as TxDOT is doing that widening from this, and then they don't
actually have any approaches onto I-35W.
They feed into the internal razor system that has a separate approach, so this wouldn't
be impacted by that at all, basically.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Great.
Any other questions?
Thanks, Mia.
Yes, sir.
That brings us to V250058.
Good evening, Chair, members of the Commission, Angie Mingler, Development Review Manager.
This is V250058.
This is a subdivision variance request.
This specific request is as it relates to the number of residential dwellings which
may take access to a public road by means of a private access easement.
This particular lot is 10 acres, is in the city's ETJ, and is subject to a non-annexation
agreement.
To the north, east, and south of the subject property is existing land within the city's
ETJ, also subject to a non-annexation agreement.
Further west is area within the city limits, zoned rural residential.
This subject property takes access to East Ganzer Road by means of a private access easement,
as do three other dwelling units.
The applicant intends to submit a building permit for a single-family home.
This particular requirement in the DDC allows only three residential lots to take access
to a public road by means of a private access easement, however, does grant the Planning
and Zoning Commission the authority to grant variances to this requirement.
Staff does find this is consistent with our criteria for approval for variance requests
and is recommending approval.
I do have a more in-depth presentation to go through during regular session, but I'm
happy to answer any questions you all may have right now.
Any questions?
Okay.
Thank you, Angie.
That brings us to V250050.
I think this is the first meeting that we've ever had since the 2019 code that has two
variance requests in a single meeting, so it's exciting.
This is V250050.
This is associated with the Mosh Branch Green Edition Platte, and this is a subdivision
variance for that platte.
The site is located in the ETJ1, so in the Denton County, located north of Mosh Branch
Road and west of Bartholdt Road.
It's also approximately 1,000 feet just east of the town of Crum, excuse me.
It is associated with that minor platte for 4.4 acres, and they are subdividing that 4.4
acres into two lots.
The lot is currently developed with a single-family home towards the front of the property, and
they're adding a second lot towards the rear.
This variance is from the DDC requirement that the flagpole portion of a lot cannot
be more than 300 feet, and they're requesting 475 feet to accommodate the existing site
conditions and existing lot shape and size.
This does meet our criteria for approval for you all to grant that variance, and I'll have
a more detailed presentation in the main session as well.
Happy to answer any questions.
I don't see any.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Sorry.
So that brings us to our public hearings.
I'm AESA250001B.
Hello everyone.
My name is Jennifer Revezi.
I am the Watershed Protection Coordinator, and I'm so sorry the first slide is not working.
This is for the approval of Alternative ESA Plan 25001 for the proposed Spencer Road Industrial
Site.
The overall project site is 53.5 acres located at 2201 and 2203 Spencer Road.
The proposed encroachment is to remove 0.23 acres of a complex of ESAs and to put in a
mitigation plan to remove invasive plants and restore and expand functions of the stream
system ESAs by planting native grasses and wildflowers.
Any questions?
There will be a more detailed presentation at City Council.
Any questions on this item?
Okay.
Thank you.
Oh, Commissioner Richter.
I just had a comment.
I've dealt with before.
It's not funny.
No.
So, good job.
All right.
That brings us to 5B, MPA 240003C.
Good evening, Chair and Commissioners.
My name is Sahra Svendiori, Senior Transportation Planner, Transportation Services.
Tonight, I'd like to discuss a mobility plan amendment for Eagle Drive, Avenue A and
Walter Street.
The request is to modify the roadway classification for these streets from secondary arterial
to collector.
I'll be happy to answer any questions if you have.
Any questions here?
I have more details, of course, in the presentation.
Yeah.
I guess I wanted to, obviously, we'll talk about it in the open session, but just historical
reference when we passed the mobility plan update, we actually modified this from a collector
into an arterial, and the reasoning stated then was that there was a desire to capture
more right-of-way along this corridor.
And so, I'll be interested in understanding why we have a different view now and what
the longer-term goals are.
I'm also, I'll be interested to hear about, I want to make sure that we're not using
the mobility plan amendment process to make things easier on ourselves, given that there's
a substation going in on the south side of Eagle in this area.
Maybe those are completely separate conversations, I just, I don't know, because I don't see
into the connecting silos.
So, if there is information that you'll have on those, that's great.
If not, it would be great if you could speak to that later in the open session.
Sure.
About East Eagle, that specific location that you are referring, I think Chandra, our traffic
engineer, can have a better answer.
But overall, because this area is the fully developed area, currently the width of the
road fits within a collector criteria for us.
And this is, like, surrounded by UNT facilities, a huge cemetery on Eagle Drive.
And as a secondary arterial, we have to widening the road to 110 feet.
And in order to do that, city has to buy lands from state, from UNT, and that cemetery.
And it's a huge burden on city to do that.
Also, there is a huge foot traffic, because these roads, they are inside UNT campus or
very close distance to the UNT campus.
In my staff analysis, I mentioned that how many parking lots are located, and like, students
crossing the street to get to the buildings, and lots of apartments also located in that
location.
And in order to provide better accessibility and connectivity, we recommend to keep it
as the width of the road right now is around 65, so it is good as a collector.
And also, the speed limit, which as a collector, we can maintain it as between 30 to 35 miles
per hour in order to create, like, safe environment, especially for pedestrians and students.
So if I can answer your question, I can ask my colleague to help me.
Yeah, that's fine.
I just -- I want to make sure we get some context on the history of it, if that makes
sense.
So, yeah.
Commissioner Riggs.
So I -- my question is, so the driver for reducing the -- basically, this to a collector
is basically that we don't -- we don't see it expanding, is that the driver, or what's
the driver for reducing this to a collector?
So one of the main reason is, like, we don't want and we prefer not to extend the width
of the road.
That's the main reason, as I mentioned the reasons.
And keep it, like, we are not going to reduce it, we are going to keep the current width
of the road.
No changes is going to happen.
Commissioner MacDuff.
I guess in open session I would ask that we talk about the budgetary concerns.
That was my first thought.
Well, it was my second thought.
The first was, oh, goody, it's keeping the quality of life the way it is, because I know
there's a lot of traffic and concerns in the cemetery.
But my second thought was the budgetary concerns.
This would be a cost saver, I think.
Of course.
So that's one of the main reasons we don't want to change anything on these mentioned
roads to this extent, because as a collector, these roads are fit with the criteria.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
Sure.
Thanks.
Anything else?
No?
Thank you, Sahar.
That brings us to item 5C, PD250002.
Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Ashley Eckstead, Associate Planner.
This is PD252, 415 East University.
This is a request to rezone 0.74 acres of land on the north side of East University,
240 feet west of Belle Avenue, to a PD overlay with an R7-based zoning district.
This property is currently split-zoned, R3, R7, and MN, as shown on this map in the bottom
right corner.
The future land use designation is Neighborhood University Compatibility Area, which is shown
on the map on the top right.
And I'll go over the highlights for the overlay now, I will have a more in-depth presentation
for the open session.
But essentially, it's going to establish an R7-based zoning district.
It's going to restrict the height of the buildings to two stories and 10,000 total square feet.
It's going to require a 30-foot building setback from the Belle Avenue Historic District and
a 10-foot building setback from the residential and mixed-use zoning districts.
It's also going to require a 10-foot, 30-point landscape buffer if the developing use is
multifamily, so that's an additional 10 points for the buffer.
And then the dumpsters will need to be set back 100 feet from the Historic District and
50 feet from the residential zoning districts.
That does exclude and add uses to the R7-based zoning district.
And staff does recommend approval, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
I don't see any.
Thanks.
Thank you, Ashley.
Okay.
That brings us to our work session report, which is PZ25-162, a report and discussion
on the comprehensive plan.
Good evening.
I'm Julie Wyatt.
We're going to have fun talking about this, I promise.
I have a lot of slides, but I promised Haley that I would be snappy.
So Julie Wyatt, principal planner with the City of Denton, and tonight we're doing a
boot camp on comprehensive planning.
So in our agenda, we're going to overview what is a comprehensive plan.
We're going to talk about what the state says about comprehensive planning.
We're going to give a brief history about comprehensive planning in Denton.
We're going to talk about our current comprehensive plan and then how that interacts with our
other plans with the city.
So here we go.
First, what is a comprehensive plan?
So this is a famous quote in planning.
It is attributed to Daniel Burnham, but some people think he didn't actually say it.
So who was Daniel Burnham?
He was a Chicago architect.
He actually was responsible for designing the 1893 World's Fair Columbian Exposition
in Chicago, the White City, if you've ever heard of it.
And he also was a co-author of the first comprehensive plan, and that was the Chicago Plan 1909.
And they looked at things like parks and transportation and land use, all of those things that we
see in a comprehensive plan now.
So that really was the genesis of comprehensive planning.
And his quote, "To make no little plans is to talk about dreaming big and really trying
to vision what you want your city to look like in 20 years."
So that's why it's really important within the planning profession.
So what is a comprehensive plan?
It's really a roadmap.
It's a guide to the development of your city.
It talks about where you've been, where you are, and where you're going.
The Texas APA has six purposes for the comprehensive planning process.
I won't read all of them to you.
It really talks about we want to improve our infrastructure.
We want to promote the public interest.
We want to be able to grow smartly.
And I like number five is to inject long-range considerations into the determination of short-term
actions.
So when you think about what you do as a commission, you look at zoning cases, and a developer
is in front of you asking for you to make a decision, a recommendation.
And what the comprehensive plan does is it provides that guiding document to provide
that framework for the long-range thinking when you're talking about an individual project.
So it's a really useful document for a city when we are considering what we're doing on
a day-to-day basis.
So what's included in a comprehensive plan?
Typically you see a vision, and that happens through a lot of public engagement.
And that's really what the community is saying, "Hey, here's what we want to look like.
Here's our aspirational statement."
A lot of research and analysis goes in.
You see a lot of the public engagement, that forward-facing work in a comprehensive planning
process, but a tremendous amount of work goes in in the back end.
Somebody sitting in a desk looking at demographics, looking at economic data, looking at growth
forecasts, figuring out how much land a city has to grow or how much redevelopment they
want to see.
All of those numbers and data goes into it.
That then informs the goals, objectives, and policies.
The goals are the desired outcome.
What do we want to see happen?
The policies are those specific statements that guide the decision-makers.
And then the actions, those are those specific steps that we do.
For instance, in our Denton plan or our Denton 2040 comprehensive plan, we talk about area
plans, and you saw us adopt those in the last year.
So those are those specific action steps.
Planners love maps, so there are a lot of maps and comprehensive plans.
And then implementation and monitoring, that's where we're looking at those action steps.
How long do we think it's going to take us to get it done?
Who are we going to have to partner with?
So that's really important.
The Texas Local Government Code gives us some direction when it comes to comprehensive plan.
It essentially says, "Yes, you can do a comprehensive plan as a municipality, but you
don't have to."
The content and design, they don't really prescribe that.
It does say you can have land use, transportation, public facilities.
You can have one big plan, or you can have lots of little plans, and it's used to guide
and coordinate decisions.
The municipality can also define the standards for determining consistency between the comprehensive
plan and development regulations, and also the municipality can determine how they want
to adopt the comprehensive plan or modify it.
Other factors to consider, as I said, they're guiding documents, they're policy, they are
not zoning.
Typically a 20-year horizon, so in 2022 we adopted Denton 2040, about a 20-year horizon,
but it should be updated every five years, because you think about how much Denton changes
every five years, you really should re-look at some of those land use assumptions, talk
to folks to make sure it's still valid.
All right, so this is going to be fun, I promise.
A brief history of comprehensive planning in Denton.
We have seven comprehensive plans.
I think the last time I did a boot camp on this, I had only found five, but I found two
more.
So our first one was in 1931, and the most recent one we adopted in 2022.
So here is an image or a map from the first Denton plan in 1931.
It actually recommended Denton's first zoning ordinance, and it was 41 pages, and so when
you look at the behemoths that comprehensive plans are now, 41 pages is very slight.
And you can see on the map, Denton was very, very small.
In 1948, we had another Denton plan, and I highlighted this language because the writing
of comprehensive plans has changed.
This said, there appears to be no good reason why Malone Street should not enter state highway
number 24 at right angles, eliminating the presence angular connection.
So that's not really the way we write comprehensive plans now.
It was a little more folksy back then, but you could see that they did actually Malone
at one point jogged when it connected to university, and they straightened it out.
So this aerial image is from 1942, before they adopted the plan, and then this image
is from today.
It was 34 pages, so it was a little slight as well.
1960, our comprehensive planning got a lot more detailed in 1960.
We had things that look more familiar to us now, like a land use plan, a mobility plan.
It had this quote, and I love this quote.
It said, "If some method of measuring intellectual level of a city were known, Denton would be
listed among the leaders of the nation."
So we, yes.
- Is that the 288 loop on the west side?
- I'm so glad you asked, it included a thoroughfare plan.
- 1960, and this is 2025, and we're still talking about building that western 288 loop.
- That is a really good point, and you actually made my point for me.
- Did I steal your thunder?
I'm sorry.
- It's really good, because for those of you who were maybe around it on PNC or watching,
there was a lot of discussion with the 2022 mobility plan and putting all these roads kind
of out in the outlying areas, but when you're talking about a thoroughfare plan, you have
to think about these roads very far into the future.
- Well, I have seen TechStat, they've got a bunch of roads north of Denton, and it's
like 50 years down the road, they had those planned out.
- Yes, and Denton did as well.
So yes, the loop was planned, and the outer loop, you can see that it actually was supposed
to really be a loop.
Today it's more of a disconnected loop, but at that time they were anticipating it was
going to be a proper loop.
They also were proposing an inner loop around the square, and then 35W was just a dream
at the time.
I forgot to mention the previous plan was, it was planning for the federal highways.
You can maybe see on the 1942 map that I-35 wasn't there, so they were planning for those
highways at that time.
1960, 35, here's an aerial image from '62, 35 was there, but 35W wasn't, and the city
was planning for those additional roads.
You can also see it had grown, the city had grown.
That plan also included a downtown plan.
Some fun features of it, they were proposed a one-way traffic loop for pedestrians and
slow-moving vehicles around the square, I think in what we call the Mews streets now.
They were recommending a facelift for architecture, that it should be modernized to provide shopper
appeal.
That was the era of the mall, and so they were talking about putting those modern facades
on the older buildings to make it look fresher on the square.
Also, city hall offices did not have air conditioning, so the comprehensive plan talked about adding
air conditioning.
In 1974, we had another comprehensive plan.
It starts looking, again, more like what we see today, having those goals, those objectives,
those actions.
Denton plan 1999 to 2020, this was actually the plan in place when I started the city
of Denton.
It was adopted in 1999, it was the basis for the 2002 Denton Development Code.
It focused on reducing sprawl, projecting neighborhoods, mixing of uses, and development
scale.
Denton plan 2030 was adopted in 2015, and that really was the basis for the 2019 Denton
Development Code.
That really kind of takes us to today, where we've got the Denton 2040 comprehensive plan,
which was an update to the Denton 2030.
Y'all saw this slide a few weeks ago on the area plan, just wanted to talk again about
the hierarchy.
We're talking about comprehensive plans tonight, so we're talking about the very top.
The umbrella over all the other plans that we have, including things like mobility plan,
capital improvement plan, area plans.
And then ultimately, it informs our zoning and our investments.
So how to read the plan.
If you don't have a copy, you can look online and see the Denton 2040 comprehensive plan.
I encourage you to at least read through it a little bit.
You don't have to read word for word, but kind of skim through so you have a good understanding
of it.
There are 10 chapters, and each chapter really contains those things that we talked about
early, the research and analysis, the goals, policies, and actions, and our beloved maps
in the planning department.
So just to kind of point out what those look like, first of all, we have our vision statement.
Now in old plans, vision statements were maybe like one or two sentences.
Now vision statements are a couple of pages, and Denton's vision statement is organized
around four strategic directions.
And those are the character of Denton, the people, institutions, and government, strength
of economy, and sound growth, which is form and function.
So those are the four organizing principles of our current comprehensive plan.
And each chapter tackles something related to the city.
I just pulled up land use because that's what we talk about most at the Planning and Zoning
Commission.
So land use chapter, we have a land use chapter.
It includes the portions of the vision statement that are relevant to land use.
And that is always at the beginning of every chapter.
And you'll see that it's got that blue heading.
The chapter includes research and analysis.
So often at the beginning of the chapter, we show our work.
We show all what the city consultants did to come up with the conclusions and the recommendations.
The items in the green box, those are the goals.
Those are the goals that are intended to help us achieve the vision.
The policies are in bold type, and then the actions are underneath the policies.
It is a large document.
I think we have like 573 actions in the plan.
So it is big.
Now remember, it is bigger than just land use, right?
It is all those chapters.
It's things like solid waste and infrastructure and parks and housing and community development.
We also have a future land use map.
This is a document you see a lot at the Planning and Zoning Commission.
The map has colors for all parts of the city, and those correspond to the descriptions in
the comprehensive plan.
So if you wanted to, you could always refer to the comprehensive plan to see what all
that data is related to the future land use designation.
Other items to keep in mind, remember, comprehensive plan is comprehensive.
It's so easy to focus on that future land use map, but you want to also make sure that
the goals and policies and actions are considered with any consideration or recommendation because
those are important, too.
Maps and actions also give specific direction, but there's also just a lot of text.
All that research and analysis, that gives us some context and some ideas on how to approach
a project as well.
Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 211, that's the zoning part of Texas Local Government
Code.
Remember, the state says cities, you can have a comprehensive plan, but you don't have to.
But if you have one, your zoning needs to be adopted in accordance with your comprehensive
plan, and that's why we've made changes to the code based upon our comprehensive plan
and the community's vision.
The Debt and Development Code talks a little bit about the comprehensive plan.
It is in the approval criteria of zoning map amendments, PDs, SUPs, tax amendments.
It is something we are always referring to and looking at.
We should weigh those competing goals, policies, and strategies.
Sometimes the future land use doesn't always quite coincide with all of the goals, and
so we have to weigh those.
That's a big job that you have is how do you weigh those things.
Sometimes an application may make sense from the goals and policy standpoint, but maybe
not make as much sense from the future land use map.
And that's okay, because the Debt and Development Code gives us that flexibility to do that.
And then the Debt and Development Code also tells us how to amend our comprehensive plan.
We treat it really like a zoning action in the city of Denton, in that it goes through
the public hearing process and that we send out notification.
We have specific criteria for approval for a comprehensive plan, and it really does allow
us to make changes when conditions change.
And we want to do that.
We want to make sure we keep that flexibility.
And then here is the network of all of the plans that we have in this city.
I think I got them all.
They all really feed into the comprehensive plan, and it goes from land use all the way
to the infrastructure and everything in between.
The city also has a strategic plan, and I'm going to see if it works.
We don't know if it will work.
No, it doesn't.
Anyway, you can go on the city's website and you can look at the strategic plan.
We have a dashboard that allows community members to look at all of those elements within
the strategic plan and all of the plans to see what the city has accomplished.
Now, not all of these plans are in that dashboard yet.
The city staff has been working feverishly to get them all in, and in fact, the comprehensive
plan is now in.
We're going to start reporting on the comprehensive plan through this dashboard as well.
So it should be really nice for you to go just take a look and see from a visual standpoint.
And that concludes my presentation.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Don't be shy, this is the fun part.
No questions?
Okay.
Commissioner Dyer?
I don't have a question.
I just have a comment.
Excellent information.
Somebody with a minor in history, I love to hear, you know, like it's good to know where
we've been to know where you're going.
And I know I've talked about this before, but do you guys ever utilize like the city's
Facebook page to talk about this to like inform the public?
So like this is a very interesting map.
So just like a little history, like what is the debt in 2040 comprehensive plan?
And then these are all the things that these are all the components of that plan.
I think that residents would appreciate learning more because that's how you engage your citizens
is by informing them of, you know, what the city's doing and what are all these things
and what you're working under the structure that you guys are working under when you're
making decisions, all the different boards that are making decisions, especially as the
city grows.
I think it's, it gets harder and harder to keep that connection with residents because
there's so many moving parts as the city increases in size, and then the government increases
in size.
That's a great point.
Yes, we are not doing that.
We have been working.
The long range planning team has been working on updating the website to try to get a little
more clarity and where all of this information is.
But that's a really great point, and we'll keep working on it.
I've got a couple.
Do we have a process in place for other city activities when they are taking future projective
data, that they must use the comprehensive plan flume as the basis for their assumptions?
I don't, and Haley may correct me here, so I don't, I can't speak to all departments.
I can say that the planning department in the last year has been very intentional to
meet with other departments and coordinate with them, and as a reminder, like, hey, we
have a comprehensive plan.
So it's really been on the forefront of our minds, and I know we have a lot of department
heads and departments who are very invested in the comprehensive plan.
So I don't know about everyone's processes.
It's a great question.
I don't know if Haley.
All of the plans I can think of that have been recently updated, yes, have taken that
future land use map into account.
For example, the, like, even the impact fee studies and the utility master plans that
we've been working on, I know they've met with planning several times to go over, like,
what do these things on the future land use map mean and have us walk them through, like,
future growth projections that they could assume safely based on if things developed
as anticipated by the future land use map.
Yeah, I mean, that's good to hear.
I think obviously we've made a lot of changes in the last five to eight years.
We have a more unified transportation planning group now than we used to.
The one example, sort of a counter example, perhaps from several, many years ago that
I'm aware of is we did sort of an area-wide South Denton transportation analysis study
that was done sort of as a precursor to the Hickory Creek Road.
I really can't speak this night, I apologize, the Hickory Creek Road area kind of thing.
And I know the land use assumptions that it used were definitely not what was in our comprehensive
plan.
We were doing, you know, four to six units per acre in areas where we had rural identified.
I trust that we're doing that less.
And it's good to hear that the water and wastewater plan, you know, because it's not just the
plans that show up here, it's also the traffic studies, the drainage studies, the water studies,
all those sorts of things, and certainly the road studies.
So it's good to hear if there's a need to get more direction to make sure that we're
doing that more than just incidentally as we bump into people in the hallway, I would
be interested in seeing that.
But I don't want to layer on red tape that just slows everybody down, if that makes sense.
Thank you.
And then I do have one, it's not really a question, but to Commissioner Dyer's love
of history, oh, one, before I forget, I want to find out where you found the 1999 plan,
because I think I read some stuff in there many years ago, and then I couldn't find
it again.
I have a real life copy.
Oh, my goodness, anyway, but, you know, I think a few months ago, we had talked in one
of the boot camps, I think, about zoning, and in the way now that we implement our zoning
codes based on a rational nexus from the comprehensive plan, the 1960s plan also had some things
that it talked about that were then implemented in later plans.
So that zoning ordinance prior to the CIS 65 had, you know, three different zoning categories.
I think it was residential, mixed use and industrial or something like that.
It was business.
Business.
I apologize.
And then the next zoning code expanded that into 17 categories, right, so it went from
three to 17, and there's a little -- I am not making any claims that this is happening
now, but I just think it helps us to understand our history as a city as well as as a nation
and how these things came about.
So a part of that 1960 comprehensive plan talks about sort of neighborhoods and what
they are.
And then it goes along and says, you know, residential areas to include features which
will contribute to this ideal arrangement.
These neighborhood units are usually set off or defined by natural barriers such as drainage,
courses, railroads, or major traffic thoroughfares and highways.
The objective usually attached to such neighborhood concept, such a neighborhood concept, is the
development of neighborhood units of homogeneous groups of people having similarity in racial
characteristics, income levels, and general social and economic interests.
And then it goes on and talks about shopping districts at the intersection of these.
So I just found that interesting, you know, to see the history behind a comprehensive
plan that was rooted in some not great things into a zoning code and how we can move forward
from that, so.
Any other questions, comments?
Commissioner Riggs?
I think can you just talk to maybe the collaboration between city departments, because that was
something that was mentioned, like I'm sure it's there, can you just talk to it?
I can.
I have, so with any comprehensive plan or planning effort, we typically have a technical
advisory committee and that is made up of different departments who they weigh in on
any recommendations, any ideas associated with it.
So from the beginning we do talk to the different departments.
But other departments don't live and breathe the comprehensive plan like the planning department
does because, you know, it's kind of our guiding document, but other departments, you know,
they have other plans that they look at as well.
So that's why we have, in the last year, we did a large meeting with all city departments
and then we also did individual meetings with each individual department and went over with
them what the comp plan says that they are supposed to be doing.
And then even before that, we provide an update every year, and I still haven't done it for
this year, but it's coming, about what the city has accomplished with the comp plan every
year.
And so that keeps it on the forefront, especially when directors are doing work plans for the
year to see what does the comp plan say, what do we need to accomplish.
So all of our departments or directors really have been great about that.
And then with the new Envisio software, that dashboard where we can keep track of these
things, they will automatically be making a yearly update to the comp plan to say, hey,
here's what the comp plan says you were going to do, you know, what progress have you made
on it, can you give a quick blurb and update.
So we do try to keep it on the forefront and continue to coordinate with the different
departments.
>> It's interesting that you just brought that up, that you like meet with the departments
and say like this is what you're supposed to be doing, because when you talked about
-- did you say there was like 500 like statutes or something in there?
>> Like 573 action items.
>> And that was one of my first thoughts is like, how closely does everybody follow this?
Because when you get to have so many, like do y'all know it like the back of your hand?
Like are you tracking that people are following this?
Is there any like ramifications if they're not, like what does that all look like?
>> Well, it is ambitious, because remember, make no little plans, right?
So it is an ambitious plan.
And so we -- there's not really a punishment, but we encourage the different departments
to accomplish the things.
So some of those action items really are those probably more closely aligned with policy
statements.
And so, you know, it does help us if, for instance, if I know there was one statement
that in the comp plan that parks needs to coordinate with Denton ISD.
And if you recall, maybe in the last year, there was a coordination with parks and Bournemouth
Elementary with Denton ISD.
So the comp plan may not be extremely prescriptive on how it gets done, but it just gives that
supporting documentation to say, hey, parks, this is what the community said we wanted
to do.
So we really just kind of track it in that manner and just provide the support for the
different departments.
>> Thank you very much, Julie.
>> Thank you.
>> Excellent presentation, by the way.
And we really enjoy your yearly updates, so I'll be looking forward to that.
I think that is it for our work session.
So at 553, I will call our work session to a close.
Thank you.
>> Good evening.
At 632 p.m. on August 13th, I will call our regular meeting of the Denton Planning and
Zoning Commission to order.
With the quorum present, our first order of business is pledge allegiance to the U.S.
and Texas flag.
>> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic
for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all.
>> Honor the Texas flag, pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God, one indivisible.
>> That brings us to item 2A, consider approval of the Planning and Zoning Commission minutes.
This also includes the capital improvement advisory minutes from June 23rd.
Take a motion or discussion.
Commissioner Dyer.
>> I make a motion to go ahead and approve the minutes.
>> Commissioner Riggs.
>> Second.
>> Let's vote on the board.
Item passes 5-0.
That brings us to item 3A, FP250020B.
Yeah, sorry.
This is the consent agenda.
Any questions on the consent agenda from the commission or motion?
Commissioner Riggs.
>> I make a motion to approve the consent agenda.
>> Commissioner McDuff.
>> I second.
>> With that, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 5-0.
Brings us to items for individual consideration for a FR250019.
>> Good evening, Chair and commission.
Cameron Robertson, principal planner.
This is for a final replat of the North Lake Shopping Center addition.
It is approximately 15.8 acres located generally on the northeast corner of Bonnie Bray and
US 380.
Currently at this time, it does not meet our criteria for approval, but staff has no objection
to a first extension request to September 10th, and I can stand for any questions.
>> Commissioner Riggs.
>> I make a motion to extend to September 10th, 2025.
>> And Commissioner McDuff.
>> I'll second that emotion to approve to a date certain of 9/10/25, an extension.
>> That's to continue not approve, correct?
Commissioner McDuff.
>> Granted to a date certain of September 10th, 2025, an extension.
>> With that, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 5-0.
Brings us to 4BFP250025.
>> Good evening, Commissioner, assistant planner, here to present a request for approval of
a final plat that is a five-lot subdivision on the southeast corner of Oak Ridge Lane
and Fincher Road and the city of Denton's ETJ1.
This plat at the time does not meet our established criteria for approval, however, we have no
objection to the requested extension of the review to a date of September 10th, 2025.
>> Commissioner Riggs.
>> Make a motion to extend to September 10th, 2025.
>> Commissioner Dyer.
>> I will second that motion to extend to September 10th.
>> Thank you.
Seeing no questions, I'll call for a vote on the board.
>> That item passes 5-0.
Brings us to item 4CZCP25-0010.
>> Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Mia Hines, senior planner.
This item as stated in the caption is a zoning compliance plan for a property proposing quick
vehicle servicing in the Razor Ranch overlay.
The site itself is just over one acre and it's located east of I-35, approximately 500
feet north of Panhandle Street.
The site itself is currently vacant and undeveloped, but to the north is another site that's undeveloped
to the east, also within Razor Ranch is a hotel convention center and indoor recreation.
And then to the south is a retail, existing retail store.
So details on the site itself, it's located, like I said, off of I-35, just east of I-35,
north of Panhandle Drive.
The zoning or the base zoning within the Razor Ranch overlay area is south commercial district
or SCD, and the use is generally permitted in that SCD district does include commercial
services like as being proposed, as well as the retail and restaurant that we see surrounding
it.
So typically, zoning compliance plans do not come before this body, but it is stipulated
in the Razor Ranch overlay standards that approval of site plans must come from the Planning
and Zoning Commission, so that is why this is before you this evening.
And what we take a look at is the site plan, the landscape plan, as well as four-sided building
elevations to ensure that they are complying with the appropriate standards within Razor
specifically.
And as provided in your backup, this one is Exhibit C1 for architectural requirements,
and Exhibit D1 for landscape requirements.
This does meet all of the approval criteria listed in the Razor Ranch overlay ordinance.
Specifically, the site plan does comply with the concept and schematic plan approved for
the overall area of Razor Ranch by City Council.
The site plan does also provide for compatible arrangement of the one building that is proposing
and land uses as it is approved and was approved for that site.
The site plan provides for adequate and safe circulation of vehicular traffic, and the
plan does fully comply with other specific sections as stipulated in the overlay ordinance.
So on the site plan, you'll see a just under 6,000 square foot building with 10 service
bays for quick vehicle servicing.
They do have 37 vehicular parking spaces on this site and two internal bicycle parking
spaces.
The driveways themselves do not connect to the public street.
They connect to the sort of internal Razor system, Razor private public access easement
system, and they also are proposing extension of some existing pedestrian stubs and sidewalks
in that area.
The green area that you see there is an existing portion of the driveway developed with the
rooms to go to the south, so they are maintaining that through access through there, and then
they are also of course providing what you see in orange as the other vehicular access
there.
Similarly, the purple area that you see there is the pedestrian path just adjacent to the
property line and connecting to the other areas within Razor for people to walk.
As far as landscaping, they are meeting the minimum requirements with an overall landscape
area proposed at 28%, and an overall 36% tree canopy cover.
They are proposing a bit of an alternative landscape plan as the requirement of street
trees for this site makes it, or an existing easement makes it challenging to plant the
trees that are proposed or would be existing on the side that is closer to I-35, so majority
of those trees they have moved to screen the actual internal private drive and the parking
area that is between the building and that internal drive that is most likely the way
that people would be accessing this building.
So the trees are there and the shrubbery is there just in a different location on this
site.
Here are the conceptual building elevations that they are proposed, that color palette
that they are proposing is consistent with the Razor Ranch overlay color palette standards,
and basically the rear facing elevation or the rear facing west elevation is what you
would see off of I-35, and that front elevation is what you would see from that internal private
drive system.
So with that, staff is recommending approval, and I didn't, I felt to mention this in this
portion so I'll talk about it here, staff is recommending conditional approval of this
site plan provided that a replat occur prior to the issuance of any building permits.
As you can see on the site plan, the red line is representative of the current property
line for this site, they do have some parking and some landscaping proposed technically
outside the boundary of their existing property line, and so in order to make sure that it's
all in the same lot and a service of this use, they will need to replat that property
before they receive any building permits.
Other than that, they are meeting all the criteria as discussed before, and so staff
is recommending conditional approval subject of course to that replat occurring prior to
them pulling building permits.
That pretty much concludes my presentation, are there any questions?
- Dr. Dyer. - So going back to the landscape plan when
you said that they are not gonna put any trees along the property boundary with the interstate
because of the 20 foot requirement from TxDOT, is that all the space they have?
Is there an opportunity in the future once all the frontage roads and everything is done
for them to go back just to visually kind of make that a lot nicer as you're going
down the interstate so it's not just all road, grass, some bushes and parking lot?
- I'm not sure I can look into what the TxDOT street tree plan is, I doubt that there is
one in that area, I will say that the requirement is a 15 foot landscape buffer in between the
parking and the right of way, they do still have that, maintain that landscape buffer
there, it's just the placement of the trees becomes a little bit challenging because they're
trying to maintain the easements and fit in the parking that they need for this site.
I think one of the other challenges is that they've had to work with the existence of
this cut through here and that was kind of orienting their site around that and so any
other additional parking spaces that they might have been able to put elsewhere and
maybe plant trees, they're a little bit restricted to the existing site conditions but the trees
and the canopy that we're going for is still there and then again the screening of the
parking lot is still occurring, it's just on the other public access street.
- Do we know how tall those hollies will get?
- Not off the top of my head, no.
- Okay, I guess I'll just say I do appreciate the fact that while they couldn't have as
many trees on the western border, they did move them sort of right above where the pedestrian
access is so it should provide some shade there and separation from the rest of the
things within Razor Ranch area.
- Commissioner Riggs.
- Thank you Mia and I make a motion to approve as presented by staff.
- So at conditional approval?
- Yes.
- Okay and Commissioner MacDuff.
- Thank you Mia, Ms. Hines, I appreciate your attention to detail and I'd like to second
the conditional approval as presented by staff.
- Any other questions?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes five zero which brings us to our next item of individual consideration
item 4D V25-0058.
- Good evening Chair, members of the commission, Angie Manglars here to present V25-0058.
This is a subdivisions variance request.
Specifically, this is a variance request from standards in subchapter eight requiring that
no more than three residential dwelling units access a public street by means of a private
access easement.
This particular 10 acre tract of land is located approximately 390 feet north of East Ganser
Road.
It is situated in the ETJ and it does have a non-annexation agreement on it.
That does mean that this particular piece of property not only is required to follow
our subdivision standards but also does need to submit building permits through the city
of Denton.
The applicant intends to build a single family home on the lot located to the north, east
and south of the subject property are additional properties with NAAs in the ETJ division one.
Further west is undeveloped property inside city limits developed as rural residential.
There are currently four dwelling units that access Ganser Road through this private access
easement.
As stated, the applicant does intend to construct a single family home that would make this
the fifth home thus the variance request.
When reviewing a variance request there are a couple of considerations to take into account.
Staff does find that this application meets all of those requirements.
I'll just give you a little bit of a summary here tonight.
This is not anticipated to be detrimental to health life or safety of residents or other
property.
It is because of the particular physical surroundings of this lot that this variance request is
coming forward not just by mere inconvenience.
It's not feasible or proportional for the property owner to dedicate and construct a
public road to their property.
Furthermore, this doesn't vary any other provisions within the comprehensive plan, the DDC or any
other city of Denton plans apart from the specific variance that's being requested
tonight.
And this particular condition that the owner is requesting a variance from is not due to
the owner's actions.
It's by kind of the unique manner in which properties in the ETJ tend to develop and some
of the lack of public infrastructure that this variance is needed.
Having said all of that, staff is recommending approval and does find that this request meets
our criteria for approval as specified in the DDC.
I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have.
Any questions or a motion?
Commissioner Riggs?
Yeah.
I have a question.
So you mentioned the infrastructure.
So how is the infrastructure to this home provided?
Is it by a typical meter or, I mean, does that make sense?
Water and septic, you mean?
Yes.
That particular infrastructure, I don't have the answer to, I do believe they're served
by septic.
Okay.
They're out in the ETJ.
They're not on city infrastructure.
Okay.
Well, I think that answers it and everything else that you provided, thank you.
Commissioner Dyer?
Okay.
No question.
Okay.
Oh yeah, I want to make a motion though.
Yes.
Okay.
I'd like to make a motion to go ahead and approve this recommendation.
Okay.
Commissioner MacDuff?
Yes.
I'd like to second this motion for the proposal as recommended by staff.
Having no other questions or discussion, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes five zero, brings us to our last individual consideration item, V25-0050.
Good evening, Erin Stanley, Assistant Planner.
This is a request for another subdivision variance.
This site is located north of East Mosh Branch Road, west of Barthold Road, approximately
a thousand feet just east of the town of Crum.
It is in the ETJ-1 territory and this is a subdivision variance request from the DDC
requirement that flagpole drives cannot be more than 300 feet long.
This applicant is proposing a 475 foot long flag drive to access the rear lot for R1.
So some considerations.
This site is already developed with a existing single family home.
The granting of this variance would not anticipate that it is detrimental to the public safety,
health or welfare of the property or adjacent properties.
The required minimum 24 foot wide flagpole drive is being provided.
A permanent turnaround will also be provided in the rear lot and access will be taken either
from the existing drive or another drive onto Mosh Branch Road.
The request is also due to the particular surroundings and shape topographical condition.
In particular for this property it is a long narrow shape which would be difficult to subdivide
any other way than a flag drive.
They also are on well and septic similar to the last plot and that requires a minimum
of two acres for each lot, kind of requiring this configuration and that longer flag drive
to be able to meet that two acres.
And like I said there is the existing home which would limit their ability to divide
it any other way.
This subdivision variance would not vary any other DDC comprehensive plan or mobility plan
provision except as authorized by this variance.
And the specific conditions which make this variance necessary were not created by the
current property owner.
He did purchase it after the lot was already plotted in this configuration and the specific
size and shape would reasonably warrant a desire to subdivide this property in this
manner since it is quite a large lot and has that long narrow shape.
With that staff is recommending approval as it meets all of the criteria for approval
and I will be happy to answer any questions.
>> Commissioner.
>> Sorry, I have lots of questions.
So is the total between the two, is it like four or five acres?
>> 4.5 is the total, yes.
>> And then I notice that all of the neighboring properties seem to be of the same size.
Have any of the neighbors, have you heard good or bad from them about their thoughts
or have they been -- are they required to be notified?
I'm assuming not because it's ETJ.
>> Correct.
And plots of subdivision variance does not require notification.
>> Okay.
And is this being divided because it's being sold to like a family member so that way they
can have two residences on it?
>> I do not know who it is intended for.
I don't believe it will be the same owner.
So --
>> Okay.
Thank you.
>> Commissioner Riggs.
>> Thank you, Erin.
Erin and I make a motion to approve as presented by staff.
>> Commissioner McDuff.
>> Yes.
Thank you for that attention to detail and I want to second the motion for staff approval.
Having no other discussion or questions, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 5-0.
That brings us to our public hearings.
First one is 5A, AESA 25-0001B.
Good morning, commissioners.
I'm Jennifer Rabezi, watershed protection coordinator with watershed protection and I am presenting
tonight for the approval of alternative AESA plan 25-001.
This is for mitigation of encroachments at the proposed Spencer Road industrial site.
This alternative AESA proposes mitigation measures for two impact areas within the riparian
buffer and undeveloped floodplain ESAs.
The total acreage of the proposed site, so Spencer Road industrial, is 53.3 acres with
proposed development consisting of four industrial buildings and all associated infrastructure
including sidewalks, interior roads, detention and necessary utilities.
The anticipated development impact area is approximately 42.9 acres.
The current zoning for this tract is general office which allows for the proposed development.
So it was determined that there were existing ESAs at the site using our official map and
then through ESA field assessments, so ESA field assessment 25-001.
It reviewed the status of a section of unnamed tributary to Pecan Creek that bisects the
property laterally, so on the screen it's that kind of blue squiggling line.
Developed floodplain and riparian buffer ESAs were confirmed as a result.
ESA 25-001 also identified a contiguous tract of cross timbers upland habitat on the eastern
perimeter and extending easterly beyond property bounds.
So a portion of a larger cross timbers upland habitat forest of greater than 10 acres, it's
included and the development will be removing a portion of the permitted amount and is thus
not included in this request.
It is not included because 34% of the cross timber ESA is being retained.
So the proposed mitigation for the impacts is the proposed encroachment.
It consists of a connecting road and detention outfall.
The road crossing was placed at the northern section of the stream due to engineering constraints
and transportation requirements resulting in unavoidable impacts to the ESA.
0.23 acres of ESA are anticipated to be removed.
Proposed mitigation activities consist of removing invasive understory Chinese privet
growth from the ESAs not impacted by encroachments.
Once the privet is removed, additional native habitats will be provided by planting native
grasses and wildflowers in its place.
So the overall intent of the mitigation plan is to offset the lost ecological values at
the road crossing by improving conditions downstream.
The resulting mitigation activities are anticipated to improve water quality conditions leaving
this development.
So this all ESA generally followed the procedures in DDC 272 for zoning map change.
All necessary public hearing notifications were made and a neighborhood meeting was advertised
but canceled due to a lack of response.
So none was held.
It is our recommendation for approval with conditions in our backup materials.
So in our appendices and in the all ESA report itself, some of the highlights include that
any improvements so any improvements to utilities, things like that, they are to commence prior
to the issuance of the first building permit, vegetation will be monitored for growth until
the project is accepted by ESS and a perpetual maintenance plan shall be filed with planning.
So thank you for your time and I will accept any questions now.
Any questions?
Oh.
Was it just?
Sorry.
I was like that the whole time.
So it mentions vegetation but do we expect any proposed impact to any wildlife or anything
like that that may be currently inhabiting that space?
So the 0.23 acres, they do not refer to actual area because it's by type.
So they're actually layered on top of one another.
So the actual impacted area is slightly smaller.
There will be some impacted but it won't be these kind of larger species.
It will be kind of mostly your macroinvertebrate species.
And then what we're returning is of greater value.
Chinese private is so invasive and so hard to remove and really outside of the city's
purview for any private project.
So that is a big boon with this project, especially returning native grasses and wildflowers.
Thank you.
And I guess I had a question just to make sure I'm understanding what you're mentioning
about that portion of the upland habitat that will be encroached upon that our requirement
for upland habitat preservation is the same as our requirement for tree preservation essentially.
So as long as they're requiring or preserving the trees that we require, then that encroachment
is typical if they weren't asking for an alteasa.
Is that correct?
Sorry.
I can answer that question.
Joada Daly, Watershed Protection Manager.
The preservation for commercial properties on upland habitat ESA is 30% and they're preserving
34%.
Got it.
Thank you.
All right.
Any other questions?
Okay.
Commissioner Riggs.
I make a motion to approve with conditions as recommended by staff.
And Commissioner McDuff.
We have a second here with motion to approve with the delineated conditions by staff.
Any other questions or discussion?
Seeing none, call for a vote.
I'm sorry.
This is a public hearing.
I will open the public hearing.
I do have a card to speak.
Can I have a motion to table that motion, please?
Yeah.
I guess I jumped the gun.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's my bad.
Okay.
So I do have a card to speak with Ms. Amy Bissett.
You're welcome to come forward.
Good evening, Commissioners.
Amy Bissett, 109 North Elm, Denton 76201.
I had a few slides, but if you all are prepared to vote, then I think that's fine.
I'll just be here for any questions.
Yeah, I think maybe if there's anything you have contextually about wildlife in the area,
that might help.
So, yes, let me share a couple of, a little bit of context on the questions that were
asked.
So Chair Pruitt, to your question regarding tree preservation versus the preservation
requirement of the upland habitat, those are two separate requirements that have to be
met individually.
So the 34% of upland habitat that we are preserving does not count towards tree preservation.
So then we have to also meet 30% of trees that are outside of the ESA, a minimum of
that preservation as well.
And as it relates to wildlife, the riparian buffer today is thoroughly inhabited by Chinese
privet, which will inhibit the natural habitat for wildlife and by removing that privet and
replacing it in 2.9 acres of area that is going to be maintained as a riparian buffer,
or replacing it with native seed mix, that will actually enhance and protect and allow
that ESA to provide a more appropriate and thorough habitat opportunity for wildlife.
The disturbance is less than a quarter of an acre, so there may be some, there's a
small amount of the habitat that will be disturbed, but there will be enhanced habitat, more enhanced
habitat remaining for that wildlife to migrate over to.
Did that work for you, Rudy?
He wants to answer too, so, this is Rudy Reinike with IES.
State your name and address.
My name is Rudy Reinike, I work for Integrated Environmental Solutions, I'm the environmental
consultant associate of this job.
I can't resist talking about wildlife, so I appreciate the question.
So what's unique about this project is the fact that there is an Atmos gas line on the
north end, and part of this design was looking at access to either side, and for wildlife
purposes, a lot of Texas Parks and Wildlife's concerns is about habitat fragmentation.
So the component here is putting this road along an area that's already been divided,
we're not increasing any habitat fragmentation as opposed to say, hypothetically, putting
a road through the middle of it and dividing it into separate tracks.
So the project as designed would limit the amount of impacts to these wildlife species
by not creating more edge.
The other thing to bring up is what Amy already discussed was the species diversity associated
with privet dominated forests is very low.
It's pushing out the native vegetation, the diverse vegetation, so the actual food sources
for the wildlife is minimal.
So there is lots of literature out there that these privet dominated woods really lack species
of, a variety of species that would occur.
So with the proposed project, we anticipate a lot of the native species coming back into
these woods.
Any questions?
Commissioner Dyer.
So I know that you said that about 34% of tree preservation is, you know, what you're
required to do.
Are you guys aiming to try to get more than that just because of, you know, I'm looking
at a satellite view of this area and there's a lot of trees in there.
I don't think it's all in the ESA.
I think that's probably in your buildable area.
But are you trying in that ESA to really, I just feel like sometimes developers just
go and cut all the trees down because it's easier to move the dirt when you have no trees.
It's less costly, but, you know, you can't, like that's years worth of growth.
It's very hard to get that back.
Absolutely.
So I did go ahead and share a slide.
I don't know if you guys can see it on your screens or not.
Can you see the slide that I have shared?
So the upland habitat ESA, which is shown in green on the eastern side of this site,
we have taken the original site plan and that building that's in the northeast corner.
We have reduced the square footage and pushed it as far north as we can in order to preserve
as much of the upland habitat that you see to the south of that building as possible.
We have also pushed the two buildings on the western side of the site south to preserve
as much of the tree stand in the northwest corner as possible.
And we have oriented the site so that trees that are near the riparian buffer but outside
of it can be preserved as well.
So the buildings really were placed in the locations that allowed us to preserve as many
trees as possible.
So is that a question?
Thank you.
I, for one, really appreciate that, so thank you.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Any other questions?
Commissioner MacDuff?
I just have a comment.
Hi, Amy.
You had me at privet removal.
We were in a rush to do the motion because I think that's critical and thank you for
those additional comments.
Thank you.
Thank you, Amy.
So this is a public hearing.
I don't have any more cards wishing to speak, but anyone who's present who would like to
speak on this item may come down and speak.
Just have to fill out a card afterwards.
Seeing no sudden motions, I will close the public hearing.
I'll ask for a new motion just because we had that interruption, and I apologize for
that.
Commissioner Riggs?
I'll make a motion to approve as presented by staff and assume there's not any weird
bats or anything over there.
And Commissioner MacDuff?
I'll make a second for that motion.
That motion is approved by staff.
Commissioner Dyer, you're still on the board.
Are there any questions or comments you'd like to make?
No.
Okay.
Sorry.
I didn't get erased.
I didn't know.
All right.
I forget, Suge, too, sometimes.
Okay.
Seeing no additional discussion or questions, I will call for a vote on the motion to approve.
That item passes 5-0.
It brings us to our -- excuse me -- our second public hearing, 5B, MPA 24-0003.
Good evening, Chair and commissioners.
My name is Sahar Esfandiari, Senior Transportation Planner, Transportation Services.
Tonight I'd like to discuss a mobility plan amendment for Eagle Drive, Avenue A, and Wiltshire
Street.
As you can see in this map, the target roads located in the pink loops, for the Eagle Drive,
the portion that we have studied is from North Texas Boulevard to South Carroll Boulevard
to the east.
For the Wiltshire Street is between Eagle Drive to the south and West Oak Street to
the north, and for the Avenue A is between I-35 East to the south and Eagle Drive to
the north.
Also the mobility plan amendment for 2022 identified these roads as secondary arterials.
So the request is to modifying these roadways functional classification to collector.
As I mentioned, the mobility plan identified those as secondary arterials, which means
to extend the width of the road to 110 feet of total right-of-way and a speed limit between
35 to 40 miles per hour.
However, the existing width of the road of these roads are between 50 to 65 feet, which
falls into the criteria of a collector.
So staff recommends to keep the existing width of these roads for the following reasons.
First of all, as you can see in the map to the right, which is a future land use map,
these roads are located in a very close distance to UNT campus or inside the UNT campus.
And this is a fully developed area with all the university buildings, facilities, parking
slots, apartments, and also a huge cemetery on Eagle Drive.
So if we want to go with the secondary arterial, the city has to purchase lands from states,
UNT, which is going to be a huge burden financially for the city.
Also and the most important reason is safety.
As you know, these roads are having very heavy foot traffic and very pedestrian focused areas.
By keeping these roads as a collector, we can maintain them under the safety speed limit,
which is between 30 to 35 miles per hour.
And we can maintain the roads safe for all road users.
So this proposal meets the criteria for approval, especially regarding to the future land use
and mobility plan.
We have done the public outreach criteria for this request.
We had in-person meeting and virtual meeting with the community.
Also we had newspaper ad, website announcement, property signs, and we mailed notices to 200
and 500 feet buffer around the target roads.
We have received one letter in favor of this request.
So staff recommends approval of the proposal as it complies with the criteria in section
271D of the DDC for approval of a comprehensive plan amendment.
Thank you.
Questions?
>> Thank you.
Commissioner Riggs.
>> Yeah, so Sahar, thank you for that.
So it was basically not a collector, and now you're recommending to make it a collector.
Do you see any traffic movement issues by doing that?
>> We have the numbers of the traffic, Chandra, a traffic engineer has the numbers.
We can be sure that there is not going to be a huge hinder in the traffic movement,
especially on the Eagle Drive, which has the most traffic movement.
The concern should be that.
But at the same time, we are considering, as I mentioned, because there are lots of
parking lots and apartments on the both sides of these roads, and very pedestrian activities
that we are having there, somehow we are preferring to slow down the traffic on Eagle Drive to
make sure that there is a safe zone for the crossing pedestrians on the roads.
>> No, I think that's great, but that's not going to put us to level service F or anything
like that.
So thank you.
>> No, the numbers are okay with the traffic movements, yes.
Thank you.
>> And I guess, do you have any information on sort of the reason why we went from a collector
to a secondary arterial to back to a collector?
>> So, the decision for the secondary arterial happened when the mobility plan approved back
in 2022.
We all know that the mobility plan is a broad plan, talking about, like, high level roads.
Somehow there are lines on the map that shows the future growth of the city, which direction
should we go, and, you know, lots of changes since 2022 when they make that decision happen
so far.
Right now, transportation services has enough staff to focus on the roads and the needs
of the day-to-day, you know, the roads and what's happened and the traffic and everything
that's happened, especially in the city of Denton, and that area which is the focus because
of the UNT campus and safety, which is our major priority.
Therefore, after the closed study on these roads especially, and you know that the, you
know, constructions are happening, which we have on Welsh, and the road diet that we had
in Eagle, after all of this study, we realized that keeping those roads as a collector is
a better decision for all Denton, especially people and especially the pedestrian who use
these roads and crossing those.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
>> Yeah.
Thank you.
Any other questions for staff initially?
This is a public hearing.
I will open the public hearing.
I don't have anyone registered to speak on this item, but if you're interested or would
like to comment, you're more than welcome to.
Not seeing anyone coming down.
I will close the public hearing.
Yeah, I'll just say I never really understood why we reclassified this section of Eagle
to a secondary arterial.
I think it functions as a collector.
It will be fine.
I think our, you know, in general, I prefer to have, you know, two or three times as many
collectors and fewer six-plus lane roads around town anyway.
I think people don't get quite as mad and we wave to each other then.
Commissioner McDuff.
>> Yeah, I just want to say this.
Going back to the collector from the recommendation of the secondary arterial, I think this recognizes
too the complexity of the traffic around the university community and the pedestrian, the
business, all those types of things.
So I agree with this recommendation.
Thank you.
>> Commissioner Riggs.
>> Yeah, so I just have to say I agree with what your comments were and also with Commissioner
McDuff and I make a motion to approve as presented by staff.
>> Commissioner Dyer.
>> I also agree so I'd like to second that motion.
>> Okay.
Any other questions or comments, discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 5-0.
Let me call this next item and then I have one thing of housekeeping before you start
your presentation, Ashley.
This is item 5C, PD25-0002.
I do have one card registered on this once we get to the public hearing from Angie Stripling
as a group speaker, that's fine, but just be aware that that is intended for when you
have four or more people as a group where the other three of them are not speaking.
So be ready to identify yourselves once we get to the public hearing, I'll ask.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
>> Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Ashley Eckstead, associate planner.
This is PD25-2415, East University.
This is a request to rezone .74 acres on the north side of East University, 240 feet west
of Bell Avenue to a PD overlay with an R7-based zoning district.
The property is currently split zoned, R3, R7, and MN as shown on the zoning map here
on the bottom right.
The property was previously developed as a church with the properties to the north.
Those properties to the north have been subdivided and they are not a part of this zoning request.
Some zoning history on the property, the zoning was based on previously unplatted parcel lines,
which were the boundaries for several decades.
Prior to the 2019 DDC, it was zoned NRMU, NRMU-12, and NR3, and those transitioned to
the current zoning.
And then pre-2002, the portion along University was zoned MF1, multifamily one, and single
family seven on the portion on the rear of the property.
This is an overlay PD, which is different from a standard PD.
An overlay PD is used to address concerns of the neighborhood and ensure compatibility
with surrounding neighborhoods or less intensive uses.
PD overlays can be used to restrict or expand uses within the base zoning district and also
to modify setbacks, landscaping, and buffering requirements with those less intensive land
uses.
The criteria for approval are outlined in DDC subchapter two.
This new PD would be subject to the R7 development standards of the DDC.
It does minimize adverse impacts on surrounding property by restricting the building size
and height, adding additional setbacks for buildings and dumpsters, and limiting the
number of residential units.
It also would require additional landscape buffering if the developing use was multifamily,
and it adds hours of operation for most commercial uses.
It does comply with the future land use designation and other goals of the comprehensive plan.
It is in compliance with the Denton 2040 plan, the future land use is neighborhood university
compatibility area.
This future land use does apply to areas that are in close proximity to the university,
typically abutting single family neighborhoods.
As the universities increase in enrollment, they will require additional commercial uses
and student housing.
So this designation aims to create compatible land forms and land uses that serve the neighborhoods
and the universities.
It is also complies with other areas of our comprehensive plan, such as growing compactly
through infill development, redevelopment of key corridors, of which 380 is one, protecting
Denton's historic character through thoughtful integration of new development, and designing
a fiscally advantageous land use pattern.
So the base zoning district for this PD will be R7, and the PD does propose additional
standards beyond what R7 requires.
The building setbacks will be 30 feet from the Bell Avenue historic district, and then
10 feet from the residential and mixed use zoning districts.
And this blue area on this image is the location where the building could be placed within
those setbacks.
It will also reduce the building height to a maximum of two stories, and it will require
an additional 10 point of landscape buffer with the developing multifamily use adjacent
to the single family, so the buffer would be a minimum 10 foot width and 30 points from
Table 7G.
Additionally it will restrict the building size to 10,000 square feet of gross floor
area.
These images show what a two story building would look like.
It would be approximately a 5,000 building footprint that is shown here on the left,
and then on the right it shows an approximately 10,000 square foot building, which would be
a one story building on this property.
It also limits the units to 18 units for the site, the entire site, and drive through facilities
are not permitted.
It also imposes hours of operation.
Weekdays would be 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and weekends 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and then dumpsters will
need to be set back 50 feet from the residential zoning district and 100 feet from the Bell
Avenue historic district, and this red area on the screen shows the approximate location
where the dumpster could be placed within those setbacks.
The permitted uses were provided in your backup, so I won't read all of these to you.
They did remove some uses from their base R7 zoning district and also added some uses
that would not generally be permitted in R7 zoning.
As are posted in the newspaper and a sign was posted on the property, we mailed notices
to everyone within 500 feet.
We did receive four responses in opposition, and a new response was sent to you this morning
for a total of 12.52% of properties within 200 feet of the subject property.
We did not receive any responses in favor.
Additionally, the applicant held four neighborhood meetings, two in 2024 and two in 2025.
Staff does recommend approval of this request as it complies with the criteria for approval,
and the next step is tentatively scheduled for city council on September 16th.
I'm happy to answer any questions, and the applicant also has a presentation.
Any questions for staff before we get into the hearing?
Commissioner Riggs?
So with the current zoning, what type of uses could be placed there now?
So with the current zoning with the MN and R7 along the frontage of the property, it
would depend how they wanted to develop it.
MN would allow quite a few more uses than R7, so it would really be up to them how they
wanted to do that or whether they wanted to pursue an SUP for something that would be permitted
within SUP and R7.
However, with the R3 to the rear of the property, that wouldn't be able to be included in the
development plans for any portion along the front.
So I guess, let me ask more specifically, would an apartment complex or something like
that be permitted under current zoning?
In the MN portion, by right, yes.
Commissioner Dyer?
So if the owner developer puts a apartment complex, is this needed for the university?
Do they not have enough housing, number one?
And then number two, since it touches the Bell Historic community, would there be any
sort of requirements that when they design the building that they make it look like it
fits in historically, that they kind of go old school with it?
Sure.
The Bell Avenue Historic District does have architectural requirements, but they only
apply to the Historic District, so they don't apply to properties that are not within it.
And then for as far as housing for students, typically the universities do not build enough
housing for their students.
So these properties that are adjacent to the university are needed for student housing.
I guess just a couple, Commissioner McDuff, do you have any questions?
Just a comment, I have been in the Denton Development Code since I've got all the letters
in my email.
I wanted to make sure I was familiar with this.
But it seems like on number five, rezoning to PD, or page 95, rezoning to PD district
approval criteria, and it says number five, in the case of proposed residential development,
development will promote compatible buildings and uses, and it will be compatible with the
character of the surrounding area.
My interpretation is it would take on the historical Bell Avenue neighborhood.
So it would prohibit some types of buildings and structure, I believe.
That's my interpretation.
Sure.
And so they have done that.
So they've limited the size and scale of the building significantly to 10,000 square feet
total, and also only two stories, where generally for 40 feet it would be a three-story building.
So they have tried to adjust the compatibility with the surrounding development with the
size and scale, and then also additional buffering.
Just a couple questions, and then we can get to the hearing.
One, it looks like the property immediately to the west of this is already a two-story
multi-family development.
Is that correct?
Yes.
Okay.
And it's been a while at least since this body has seen a zoning change application
within the neighborhood compatibility area.
I'm more familiar with it around the UNT area, just because it's a larger zone.
What types of zoning districts are compatible with that compatibility area, since that's
kind of a rarer definition that we look at?
So we don't have this future land use in a lot of areas, but generally we do see MN
is typically a zoning district that we see within this future land use designation.
And I think there are some MR properties even down by UNT that are compatible with that,
right?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And then as I look at this, when I try to separate out what could be done by right versus
what would we get with this PDE overlay, it looks to me like more units could be developed
by right in some configuration, might look different than what the proposal is.
And the proposal is for a shorter and fewer number of units than would be maximally possible.
Is that a correct interpretation?
Correct.
So if they were to develop multi-family by right on the MN portion, they could go up
to three stories, and we have other areas of the code that would assist with developing
on infill sites.
So they could develop a large portion of, or not a large portion, a significant portion
of multi-family on that smaller lot if that is what they wanted to pursue.
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Dyer?
A couple things, piggybacking off of Commissioner McDuff, Ken, were she saying it looks like
you have to still build compatible to the neighboring community?
Can you still, once they put in a permit for building, can the city require them to make
the building, the structure look like it historically fits in?
We could not require it today.
We cannot require that of properties outside of the historic district.
Not even with a conditional?
If it was added to the PD, we could require it, yes.
Okay.
The question is, if they put multi-family, if they put in housing apartments for the
students, is there enough space to put in enough parking?
We have not, so we have not reviewed any site plans yet.
So with the maximum 18 units that they are proposing, we don't know that it would actually
be that many units.
They would need to be able to provide enough parking, landscaping, tree canopy, tree preservation,
open space, all of our other DDC requirements.
So they may not get to the maximum of 18 units, but our required parking would be met, yes.
So the city is recommending doing this, but you haven't checked to see if they do put
the 18 units in, you don't know if they're going to have enough parking for it.
It is a maximum 18 units, so if they didn't have enough parking for 18 units, they wouldn't
be able to build 18 units.
The parking would need to be met.
Okay.
Commissioner Riggs, sorry, Riggs.
So thanks, Ashley, and I understand this is kind of like we're just basically approving
zoning, so the site plan, everything has not been fleshed out yet, and that would obviously
be fleshed out in the future, it's just whether or not this use would be permitted.
I want to make sure I understand properly.
Under the current zoning, they could build up to a three-story structure?
Yes, the maximum height is 40 feet in all three of the zoning districts around here,
and then actually goes to 65 feet, but not with single-family adjacency, so 40 feet maximum
height, typically a three-story building.
So if we were to recommend this, then it would essentially restrict a three-story building
from going in and reduce it to a two-story building?
Correct, yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
At this time, I will open the public hearing, I do have a card from the applicant, Lee Ellison,
and sorry, is that Carl?
Sharon.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Please state your name and address, and you'll have ...
Lee Ellison, 2415 North Elm Street, Denton, Texas.
I'm with Ellison Engineering Group.
With me tonight also is Carl Sharar, the owner of the property.
Staff has given you an excellent staff report, particularly if you look into the body of
your backup material, and they did a good job in summarizing it.
I'll try and go quickly over and not repeat too much.
Basically, as you can see, this site is divided into three zoning categories.
Split zoning is not a great thing to do.
I have worked on split zoning sites in the city before, and it's a nightmare.
Nobody wants that.
It needs to be a single zoning, and that's really our concept at this time, to get it
to a single point where it could be worth trying to develop.
Right now, it's not worth much of that effort, and I'm going the wrong way.
This is an aerial of the site.
You can see the lower part is the site that's under question.
The upper part was what was there before when the church still had facilities.
Carl purchased it from them.
He demolished the buildings.
He'll explain more why later, and then he replatted that.
This is now three lots, two residential lots to the north in the R3, and the larger lot
to the south.
I'm still tempted to go backwards.
There's a copy of the plan that was approved by the city as on file.
The two residential lots have been sold.
Not sure when they plan on building on them, but the intent is to build homes in that area.
As indicated, this is in the neighborhood university compatibility area.
There is a map that shows with it, and here's a discussion off the comp plan that describes
what a compatibility area is.
I'm not going to bother reading it at this time.
This is a larger view that shows the entire university and the compatibility areas around
them.
The compatibility areas too, I believe, needed to be something that was more likely to be
redeveloped over time.
I think a lot of that low density residential in the area was so well established, and for
a long time, the compatibility areas would not extend into that area.
We looked at the zoning when we first got started, and as we look at this relative to
the site, along the north is R3 running east to west, facing north with us up to the backyard
properties.
Along the east is R3 also, but it has the Bell Avenue Historic District overlay on top
of it.
It backs up to our site.
It runs north and south.
When we look at the street, University Drive, the pattern is running east and west.
It's mostly MN.
The blue area there is owned by the university.
It's also state property.
Bell Avenue is classified as a collector street in the city's mobility plan.
It's not quite built to standard yet.
I'm not sure if the city has any plans to improve it in the near or long term future.
Of course, university is an arterial.
We held four neighborhood meetings.
My policy at Allison Engineering, they will always hold at least one neighborhood meeting
prior to even making an application to the city.
We want to start out really from scratch on a blank piece of paper.
We held one meeting in our office on August 22nd of 2004.
We didn't get very far.
We were presented with some information that there were other documents that may prohibit
the development of this site.
We paused.
We went back and consulted our title company as well as an independent real estate attorney,
Lance Van Zantz in the audience tonight if he has any questions for him regarding that.
He should have copies of the two reports related to the documents that were presented to us.
After that, we came back on November 19th and informed the neighborhood that we were
going to proceed.
We didn't see any inhibitions to developing the site.
We went ahead and prepared a zoning application and submitted it.
Again, at that time, it was based on MN.
We had another meeting on May the 1st at Emily Fowler Library.
Then the discussion went from being in MN to being MN with an overlay so we could better
address some of the neighborhood concerns.
Through that discussion, we went to where it would be R7 with an overlay.
Instead of deleting from MN what wasn't wanted, we added to R7 some of what was wanted and
much of what, pardon me, other things that were not wanted.
Some of the neighborhood concerns were raised were traffic being just how much there is.
There's a lot of traffic there with Bell as a collector, universities and arterial with
the development of the ETJ to the north and communities to the north, i.e.
Sanger, Pilot Point, and Aubrey.
The demands on these roads will increase.
These are things that need to be taken into consideration through the city's comprehensive
planning, thoroughfare planning, master planning, etc.
Same is true with pedestrian.
Somebody mentioned a concern of somebody jolting across the street, jaywalking and getting
hit and all that traffic.
That concern exists there today and exists all over town, even in downtown Sanger.
I mean, downtown Denton, I apologize for that profusely.
Again, that's something the city needs to work with with their planning, providing appropriate
pedestrian facilities, and then of course monitoring and watching things.
Someone mentioned that we might should have an on-site manager for multifamily.
We put that in the restrictions, but just as quickly the city called me back and said
they can't enforce it.
They wanted us to take it out instead of bring it in front of you and have to deal with it
here.
The building size, we did limit it.
We did a concept plan to look at a balance of building size and parking spaces.
We did not look deeply at landscape requirements and tree preservation.
We don't think we're even going to be able to make the numbers we presented, but we did
put some maximums there so everybody would have a good feeling for what mostly could
be there.
There's not going to be a 10-story, 300-unit apartment building there of anything of that
kind.
We did look at the number of multifamily units.
We based our analysis based on one-bedroom units.
Since those are the smallest, that gets the maximum number of actual units.
We balanced that with parking.
We had determined that 22 was the maximum that could go there.
We didn't think that much could actually get there because of the other constraints.
Then as requested, we did reduce it back to 18 units.
Tree removal, one neighbor indicated they were concerned that some trees had been removed.
They weren't supposed to be.
I contacted Ashley and she quickly found me a copy of the clearing and tree removal permit.
It does have some trees to be removed.
I cannot confirm that the trees this person was concerned with were ones that are on the
tree removal list, but I have two copies of that application, that permit with me, and
I'm going to give it to that person if they desire it so they can double-check and make
sure things were done correctly.
Parking on Woodland Street, that's an issue around universities typically.
Students who either can't find spaces or don't want to pay for parking permits will park
on the perimeter streets.
I don't know what the city can do about that.
One possibility is to make it a permanent parking street where you have to have a permit
to park there regardless and, of course, the property owners maybe get two free ones for
guests.
Outside lighting was brought up and we mentioned about the city's code related to lighting.
We looked at the facilities existing up and down the street.
I'm going to get my glasses on, but starting on the far left, that site, it's only 0.48
acres and it has 4,600 square feet of living space.
I believe that's really a house with maybe garage apartments above it.
The next one is a lot area of 0.33 acres with 4,560 square feet of living.
Then we go to 0.29 acres at 7,600 square feet of living area.
Then right adjacent to us is a lot of 1.1 acres, a little larger, and it has 14,688.
We believe the 10,000 square feet is a good number, a good step down as we go with this
direction.
Again, it's going to be difficult to get that.
The one to the left of us or to the side of us, it looks like there's an area where another
apartment could have been constructed, but for some reason they never proceeded with.
They might have waited until the codes changed because just taking a quick look, it does
not appear to me that any of these sites would meet today's parking standards.
There's not enough parking spaces on any of those.
Uh-oh, now what do I know?
Again, as I mentioned earlier, the zoning progressed from being an MN.
- Sorry, Lee, just to give you an idea that your time is about to expire, so if you want
to wrap up.
- Okay, well, I'll go through with the zoning progression.
The items we brought in from MN, just two, the items that were in MN are seven, but we
modified, including multifamily, elderly, et cetera.
Oh, boy.
Yeah.
- Yeah, I looked at the clock right when it started.
It was set at 20, right?
It's 10 for the applicant.
So yeah, so I think that's the 10 minutes, but if you want to wrap up quickly, you can.
- Well, these are ... - I'm sorry.
I was informed.
The entire group can have up to 20, so now I understand your question.
Yes.
If you want to continue, five more minutes, and then we'll have five minutes for the land
owner.
- I'll still make it quick or try to.
These are the two items we added from MN that the neighbors were satisfied, desirable of,
apparently, we thought.
Then there was four items that are part of R7, but we modified them.
R7 requires an SUP for multifamily.
It is permitted there, but not by right, and we removed the SUPs because of all the other
restrictions we were putting on there.
These are all the items we removed from R7, so it's greatly diminished.
This is the resulting table that I think you can see is much smaller than any table in
the code.
These are the overlay restrictions that staff went over with you.
We didn't put one in there for lighting, and we are willing to add one that says all
outdoor lighting should be directed downward at 90-degree angle to the ground.
No lighting should project directly upward.
We asked why an SUP for multifamily or why not have one.
It's a very small lot.
There are city adjacency requirements related to single-family residential.
We put so many additional restrictions on there, and these were developed during multiple
meetings.
If the commission determines that an SUP is necessary for this development, then we're
willing to accept that if you want to recommend that.
In fact, really, we wouldn't mind if we just went straight R7 zoning on the entire site.
We look at SUP approval criteria.
Even now, we're already meeting that, so getting an SUP shouldn't be difficult.
Staff is already in their report showing that we've met those items as well as these DDC
criteria.
Then, Carl May, we want to continue briefly with his history with the site.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
Good evening, Chair and commissioners.
My name is Carl Lester Schera.
I am a manager for Burbank House LLC, which owns the property at 415 East University Drive.
We bought the property as part of a larger property, single property in 2021 that extended
from University Drive all the way to Woodland Street.
That property had two tax parcels on it, the north one and the south one.
On the north tax parcel, there were three buildings.
There was a church on the northeast part of that tax parcel, residents on the northwest
part and a storage building on the south, just next to the church.
From the first time I entered the church and the residents, before we even bought the property,
I smelled mold inside those two buildings, everywhere I went in those two buildings.
Inside the sanctuary of the church, the ceiling was, there was a place where the ceiling was
sagging severely, like a ceiling sags when it's had a bad roof leak.
The same was present over in the residents also in a hallway there.
The ceiling was sagging severely.
So I pretty much quickly realized that as far as we're concerned, this would not be
economically feasible to restore these buildings to safe for human occupancy or use.
So we also did asbestos surveys and found that asbestos was present in all three of
the buildings.
So we invested, since 2021, we've invested over $200,000, and most of that was on asbestos
abatement and on the removal of the buildings.
It also included the tree protection and tree management plans.
Those buildings with the mold and the asbestos, they represented a significant environmental
liability, and Burbank House LLC has cleaned up that environmental liability.
And we now ask that you consider, and I'm confident that everyone here present tonight,
we can work together in order to take the steps that will enable a responsible and economically
or environmentally and legally responsible development of 415 East University Drive as
advocated in the Denton 2040 plan.
Thank you.
Any questions for the applicant?
Commissioner Riggs?
Yeah, I have a question.
So no matter what you did with this lot or with this property, all of those concerns
about mold and needing to demolish and remediate, no matter what you wanted to do, would have
to be addressed, right, whether we change the zoning or not?
Well, this is all water under the bridge, and it was done on the north tax lot or tax
parcel, but I want to make sure that you understand my experience with the greater University
Baptist Church property, there have been some concerns voiced in some of the meetings, and
I want to make sure that you understand my experience with the property.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
So thank you.
So this is a public hearing.
I will call that group request to speak.
This gives the representative a 10-minute time slot instead of the typical three minutes.
There are three names on there that did not come, but I have an additional three names
to take your name.
Okay.
Yeah, that would be great, because I did double-check our rules of procedure, and it does mention
four people present at the meeting, just so I can hear them more clearly, so I don't spell
them wrong.
If you can come down and say them into the mic, then I'll make sure to record them here
for the secretary.
If I'm speaking for you, will you stand up, please?
Meg?
And then, yeah.
Well, they want me to all speak for them, but they're all going to speak together.
So just the four, so just the four, Meg, Chuck, Sub-Meg Cochran, Chuck Dietrich, and then
yours.
And could you get your Charles Dietrich for reading a little bit, and then I have a couple
in the back.
Okay.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Is that good?
Yes.
So you'll have 10 minutes to speak.
Thank you.
Hey, thank you, commissioners, for all that you do for us.
I'm Angie Stripling.
I live at 1815 North Bell and 1811 North Bell.
And I am in the historic district of Bell Avenue, and hopefully you received my email.
But I'm going to speak on additional things besides that email, because I think the facts
are there.
But one that I want to say that went ahead and started today is they talked about the
sign that's supposed to be on that property to let the public know that there's a public
hearing.
I called staff in July, and I told them the sign was leaning.
It had been down ever since the end of July.
I took pictures until today.
Flat down.
You could not see it.
In fact, we have a relator here tonight that drove by and he said, "There's no sign.
There's no notice."
I said, "Oh, it's there.
It's down."
And then wouldn't you know, today it gets put up.
I think that's on purpose, guys.
That's not by mistake.
That's on purpose.
Those are the types of things that we've been dealing with on this property, and I'm going
to continue with those.
You know the 200-foot zone where people can vote to force a super majority?
In that 200-foot zone, five of those properties could not vote because three of those people
are deceased.
Two of those properties went to the former owner, not the current owner.
They never received it.
So how can your neighborhood, how can our citizens have fairness?
How can we uphold our neighborhoods when this type of things are going on?
And there is way more that I'm still going to tell you about.
I've never seen a zoning plan with no plan, a zoning change with no plan whatsoever.
You know, you've asked some great questions about, "Hey, it's butting up against the
Bell Avenue Historic District.
What is that going to look like?"
Well, we don't know.
There's not a plan.
Because we just want to change the zoning, and let's cut to the chase, why?
We just want to make money.
That's it.
They want to make more money.
And if you will look at the original, this is the original, when it was up for sale,
this is the plat, and you look at that MN, and yes, they say, "Hey, we could do a three-story
building there."
It's not large enough.
They could.
So when they tell you, "Oh, we could," but guess what?
They wouldn't have parking because it would have to go into the R3.
This is where some of those facts that they're delivering us facts get cloudy.
And when you say, "Why was there patchwork?
Why does it look like this?"
That R7, when there was a church there, was to protect.
It was to protect the history of what's on Bell Avenue, but also what is on Woodland
Street.
Those are all older homes.
And we talk about, "Hey, there's mold or sagging roofs."
We live in historic homes.
We deal with it every day.
We preserve it.
That church also had beautiful stained glass.
They failed to mention that.
It was beautiful.
And by the way, a church fits the development code, a church in neighborhoods.
In addition to that, they're talking about, "Hey, what's on the west?
What's to the east?
What looks at the development code?"
I asked staff to look up and look to the east.
Because you know what's at the east?
Single family.
You know what's next?
Single family.
You know what's next?
Single family.
You know what's next?
Single family.
I think I got them all.
Maybe one more.
Single family.
The applicant, when we met as a neighborhood, told us nobody wants to build there on University
for single family.
And I said, "Tell it to the blue house that the driveway is on University.
Tell that to all those houses there."
And yet, you come back and you want to put more traffic.
You want to put a multi-family when you just told me that no one would build on single
family there on University.
It makes no sense.
Now, as a neighborhood, did we meet?
We did.
We met.
And we tried to come to an agreement.
And some of these things are true.
But what is not true is that we never agreed to multi-family.
Sorry.
Mm-hmm.
If you want to show the paper, if you put it in the middle of that little felt area,
we'll be able to get it on the camera.
Thank you.
We did not agree to multi-family.
And in fact, if I am speaking for you and you're in opposition, would you please stand
if you're in opposition of this zoning change?
Okay.
Those are people that live on Woodland and Bell.
And what our opposition is to is when you look at this property, when they talked about
the traffic on Bell, when you come out of the property and you want to go east on University,
guess what you have to do?
You have to turn right.
Guess where you're going to turn again?
You're going to turn right again.
Then guess where you're going to turn right again?
On Woodland.
And then you're going to have to turn right again on Bell to be able to go east on University.
And so, yes, we have a concern.
And when we look at the existing apartments that are already in place there, they do not
have that many units.
And they do have adequate parking.
And we've never had issues with that.
And right down from there, there are historic homes.
Yes, they have businesses in them, but they're historic homes.
When we talk about the traffic, too, on University, we've already had people killed at Bell and
University.
There are accidents there at too many to count.
And we're adding more and more traffic.
It makes no sense.
They also said, hey, we limited the number of units to 18.
What you didn't ask, how many bedrooms?
Because typically, if you are dealing with students, they rent by the room.
And if you rent by the room, you do not have enough parking.
When they talked about, hey, we did just like we put it down as maybe just one bedroom,
that means a husband and wife couldn't live there together and have both have a vehicle
because the parking is 1.5 places.
But if you go and you start running by the room, how many parking spots do you need?
And we're concerned that it will go on Woodland.
The parking would be forced over to Woodland.
And Woodland is already saturated.
Once school is in session, it is saturated with students that are parking there to the
point we're having to call the police because only one vehicle can get by.
And now we're going to add more and more traffic to that.
I have a lot more on the narrative that was sent to you and also on staff's analysis.
There are a lot of inconsistencies here, I've already mentioned some of them.
I don't have enough time to go through all of them.
But all I'm saying is these are words on paper.
There are facts.
And also, there is one in here that said, hey, we had an attorney look at a paper.
And it's okay.
We had a title company look at it.
It's okay.
Guys, anyone can get an attorney to say anything.
What we have to look at is what is legal?
What could be litigated?
And what do we need to stay away from?
I also ask you, and you've asked some great questions, especially about the historic district
and about the history.
The church that they tore down, they also have in their narrative about its infield.
It's infield.
Let me tell you, that was by design.
Tearing that church down and tearing the house down was by design.
So now they could come back and say it's infield and it works for our development code.
But again, it was on purpose.
So all of these things that I'm encouraging you to really take in consideration are really
-- we just want our neighborhood.
We want it quiet, just like it was.
People have lived there 20, 30, 40 years.
We were told that property would always be a church.
I personally was told that.
It would always be a church.
And then because of shenanigans that happened, poof, it's no longer, and it's sold.
Sold and signed by not a trustee, but by a trustee's daughter, because that trustee had
passed away.
It is just like you.
If something happens to you, this is not inheritance.
It doesn't go to your family member.
It's the same way as a trustee.
That does not happen.
So there's a lot of things that we ask you to really consider.
One of the things that I'm going to ask you to consider as well is the history.
Do we care about the history?
Do we care about the history in the neighborhoods and what's bedding up against?
Also, if you look at this property, the same engineering company is representing another
property on Bell Avenue and University.
And so what it is doing is pushing out the Bell Avenue Historic District.
It would cause, if you pass this, it is giving leverage for them to try to change zoning
at Bellin University, and the only thing in between these two would be two homes.
Two.
How much longer before they're coming and saying, "We want to do away with this.
We want all of that to be commercial."
So do we care about history or do we not?
We'll be able to tell in your vote.
Thank you very much.
Angie I do have one question.
I just want to make sure I heard you correctly.
You mentioned the multifamily to the west of here, that fronts university.
I heard you say that you've never had any problems with that property.
Did I hear that correctly?
We don't have problems with that property, and in fact, those properties have for rent
signs up.
So when they're talking about that the university might need more student housing, they have
for rent.
Yeah.
Well, classes haven't quite started yet.
I guess my question is it seems like there's no problem that you're facing with those,
but these immediately next door, if they were to be developed, you're very concerned about.
Just in a one-sentence answer, can you tell me what the big difference between those two
would be for you?
They have adequate parking.
Okay.
Thank you.
And they're quiet.
Yes.
Okay.
I have another card to speak.
Mr. Mike Lavelle, if you want to come down and state your name and address, you'll have
three minutes to speak.
Thank you.
Chair and members.
My name is Mike Lavelle.
I live at 3109 Broken Bow, and a lifelong resident of Denton, and I'm here to speak,
and I'm not going to be for this proposed change that is being presented to you tonight.
I suggest strongly that you leave it as is.
The common-sense approach would be to allow a historic home, maybe one, maybe two on this
lot that we're talking about here this evening.
It makes more sense just to have a single-family residence than instead of a building with
more parking spaces, more traffic.
We have a lot of problems with traffic here in Denton.
Discussion earlier tonight was about changing the way our roads are designed or stated.
You want to lower speeds because of traffic and pedestrian traffic.
This is what we're talking about here, too.
The change, if you make it, would allow more of that to happen, and that's not in our favor.
Less traffic.
We need to find something that fits with the neighborhood more than the options that are
available if this change goes through.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you.
I also have a card for Miss Verena Laurel.
I defer to Angie.
Okay.
Very good.
I have another one for Miss Jean Hanson.
She'll state your name and address.
You'll have three minutes.
Thank you.
And try to pull that mic down.
Thank you.
Yes, I'm short.
I'm Jean Hanson.
I live at 300 Woodland Street, and thank you, commissioners, for letting us speak.
I'm going to speak on traffic, and we've heard a lot on traffic, so I think I'll start it
out by speaking what the current state is as I perceive it.
I'm working on flipping my front yard to native plants, and so as a result of that, I'm out
there early in the morning and I'm there late at night.
The current traffic that I see there, which is foot traffic, parents taking their children
on walks in a stroller, a child's car, a retired fireman with a cane taking his daily walk,
a teacher walking his dog, a couple walking their four dogs, three of which they foster,
a woman with a neck brace walking her dog, a man in a notarized wheelchair traversing
the area.
So these are things that I'm seeing every day.
It should be noted that on Woodland, there's no sidewalk, so they're in the street.
And there's a lot of car traffic as well.
You may not be aware that people use Woodland as a shortcut, and so when they're turning
off Sherman, they're driving at a speed, a Sherman speed.
I don't know how fast that is, 35, 40 miles an hour, and so I see the cars coming down.
They hit a speed bump, they bounce.
I see the same thing happening with people on motorcycles, and it's very frightening
for me.
I'm older, as you can tell, and going outside and when I have guests, seeing this kind of
traffic, especially when I have kids that are under the age of four.
So when we talk about traffic, and you heard previously what's happening down on University
and Bell, I personally, when I'm down in that space and there are cars parked on both sides,
I can't get through.
It's a single lane.
I've called the police.
I've called the non-emergency number and said, "What do you do?"
I've had to back up on Bell, and that's extraordinarily frightening, especially for me, because I'm
not a good driver.
Let's just put it right out there.
The other item that I'd like to bring to the table is, we heard about traffic if you were
going east on University.
Well, what about if I were at Razor Ranch?
How would I get to my home at my apartment at 415 East University?
The path that I would take would not be doing a U-turn on University at Bell.
Instead, I would go down to Lotus, take a left-hand turn.
I'd take a right on Sherman, a right on Woodland, and then a right on Bell, and then a right
on University.
I look at Woodland as being the easy access path to get to those units.
Already, we have too much traffic, and I believe that it's dangerous.
Thank you very much for listening to what I had to say, and I look forward to hearing
your vote.
Thank you.
I think we have a question for you, Gene, Commissioner Riggs.
I have to tell you that I've lived my whole life in Denton, and I've grown up in Denton.
My dad actually taught at TWU for 50 years, and during the summer, we'd actually get dropped
off at the Civic Center Pool, and then walk up to Old Main and visit him.
Then I used to own the house on Strickland, and I was probably one of those people that
sped down Woodland, so I apologize.
I guess the question is more to staff.
Is there access to Woodland?
Is that a concern?
What kind of thoughts are there?
There is not access from this property to Woodland.
Concerning Woodland, we heard the concerns from Woodland in several of the neighborhood
meetings, and transportation is interested in no parking signs on Woodland.
They are going to do neighborhood outreach.
They need to ascertain whether it's going to be no parking on either side or no parking
at all.
They are going to do neighborhood outreach on Woodland, and he expects they could have
this completed within eight to 10 weeks.
Is it fair to say that there would be no access to this property from Woodland?
Yes.
Okay.
Then the idea of this increasing traffic on Woodland would not be there.
Good evening, Chair and Commission.
Chandra Muruganandam, City Traffic Engineer.
So with the site plan, if it's proposed, it will have a connection, but if they don't
show one, then it might not connect with the Woodland.
And Woodland Street is very narrow, 26 feet, so even parking on one lane or both sides
would be an issue for a fire lane in case of an emergency if they have to access.
But with the no parking request we got from the residents, irrespective of this development,
we were planning to reach out for no parking either on the north side or on the south side.
So do you foresee if this zoning was recommended to Council, would this or would this not increase
traffic on Woodland?
If the developer would not propose any connection on the northern side, then it will not have
any impact on the connection side.
But it's a public street.
So if anybody wants to drive from Sherman on Woodland and turn on Bell, it would not
be restrictive.
Okay, so basically at this point in time, we don't know if there would be access to
Woodland, is it?
I'm not sure.
I haven't seen the site plan.
I just returned back today, so I would defer to the planner.
We can confirm there's no access from the property that's the subject of this request
to Woodland.
Okay.
Those adjacent lots to the north have been sold and would have to be developed with single
family homes per the zoning.
So there couldn't be access through a single family property for any of the uses proposed
within this PD.
Okay.
I think that's what I was looking for.
So there would not be, if this were to be an apartment complex, there would not be any
apartment access from Woodland, is essentially what you're saying, because these would be
single family lots to the north.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Next card I have to speak is Ernie Stripling.
If you'll state your name and address, you'll have three minutes.
Yes.
Thank you, Chairman Pruitt and commissioners.
My name is Ernie Stripling.
I live at 1815 North Bell, and I live at 1811 North Bell.
We've been there for 20 years, and before I bought the house, the real estate agent told
me that, oh, you'll never have any development, nothing will be built behind you because that's
a church.
And I don't know if you know the rules of a church, but let's see, Highland Baptist
Church bought that lot for University Baptist Church back in 1951, 52.
That's what's on the deed.
And the trustee that signed for it wasn't even a trustee and didn't have, that was not
their land.
That's not family land.
That was a church.
So rightfully, the church should have went back to Denton County Baptist Association.
That was the true handoff back because there's plenty of churches that are looking for land,
especially in town, and it would have been a perfect location for a church.
If you go back and look at the conservation district plan, Ashley, in the conservation
plan for Bell Avenue, there is nomenclature in there about that land being the church,
acknowledged it was a church, and it's a buffer zone for Bell Avenue.
So that's some more information there.
I'm sure y'all all entertain, you entertain at your home.
Yeah, you have maybe six, seven people over and they'll park, they park on the street
or if there's a no parking zone on Woodland, they can't park.
You can't entertain people because there'll be no parking signs.
So that's not very well thought out.
The other is traffic.
Traffic backs up at least 20 times a day up to Woodland on Bell Street from university.
It's horrible, it really is, and it's the apartments that come in, it's just a bad situation.
The plan, supposed plan that this owner has proposed, he doesn't have a plan.
Please understand that.
He does not have a plan, he's flipping the land, okay?
So whatever is built there is going to be on the next person.
So I just want you to keep that in mind, he didn't even live here.
So he just came in, swooped in, bought the land and wants to turn it.
I think, like I said, I'm gonna wrap this up.
There are houses up and down university right there that face university.
They just have not looked hard enough for someone to develop the land with the house
or houses.
So anyway, I thank you for your time, and I appreciate it.
I vote no for this, and I hope you keep the zoning the same, and I hope you decline this
one.
Thank you.
>> Okay.
I'm sorry, Commissioner Dyer, did you have a question for the speaker, Ernie?
>> I do for Ashley.
>> Okay, go ahead.
>> Mr. Stripling brought it up, but it was also sent in an email talking about deed restrictions
and that the deed was restricted to the property only being a church.
Has the city investigated that, is with the sale of this, does that kind of rewrite what
the deed requirements, if there's any restrictions on there or not?
>> Sure, so the city enforces zoning, so we do not enforce deed restrictions, and that
would be a civil matter if there were deed restrictions in place.
We have not seen any.
>> So does that mean like the residents could sue the owner of the property because they're
not gonna use it, what the deed restrictions are, that that's not the responsibility of
this board or the city?
>> I don't know that staff can opine on whether or not residents could decide to sue, but
the main thrust is that deed restrictions are a civil matter that need to be resolved
between civil parties and not the city.
>> So not city and not this board?
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Commissioner McDuff?
>> Yes, I have a question for Mrs. Stripling.
>> Yes, ma'am.
>> One thing, or rather, could you delineate some of the other offices or boards that you
serve on?
My quick Googling this afternoon discovered you as chair of the Historic Landmark Commission.
>> Yes, ma'am.
I am.
>> Do you still serve in that role?
>> Yes, ma'am.
I do.
>> How does this impact, how does that role impact your role as a citizen, private citizen
and a homeowner?
>> Can you rephrase the question?
I'm not sure.
How does that role impact your role that you're speaking for tonight as a private citizen
and a homeowner in historic?
>> The role really doesn't impact it except for the knowledge that I've gained from serving
on that board, but it does not impact that I am currently a sitting chair of the Historic
Land Commission.
It's more important that I am a homeowner and that I have two properties that border
this, that share the property line with this.
So it would just be with knowledge, not anything with the Historic Land Commission.
I am not speaking for them in any way.
>> So what knowledge would that be?
>> Knowledge would be with historic homes, historic districts.
And I was interviewed for the development code when we talked about having borders and
something bordering historic districts and that it be something that's attractive.
So I was interviewed for that.
So I have a passion for that.
So other than my passion and the knowledge that I have, I don't know that I can't speak
for the Historic Land Commission because we're one board, just like you guys are and can't
speak individually.
So as far as that, but this property is not in that overlay, but it's always been like
when they talk about the church being older and that property being older, when they talk
about just tearing it down, it rips my heart out because I know what was in there.
I know about the stained glass that was there.
I know the history.
We knew the pastors of that church.
So the history there is what I'm passionate about.
Did that answer your question?
>> Thank you, Angie.
Appreciate you.
>> Thank you.
The next card I have is for David Pierce.
If you'll come on down and state your name and address.
Good evening.
>> Hello.
So I'm David Pierce.
I live at 2016 North Bell, right on the corner of Bell and Robert Street.
And Angie and Ernie and everybody that has already spoken, I guess I'm not adding too
much to it.
I don't want to take anybody's time.
I know I only have three minutes.
So I guess in the efforts of brevity and just keeping everything simple, it's really just
a matter of a couple of things for me.
I've lived in the house with my wife since 2005, so for about 20 years.
You know, it has the street, the whole neighborhood, Woodland and Bell obviously has a strong Denton
identity.
You know, I went to school at the music school in North Texas and I knew that when I wanted
to move back here, it was to find the older neighborhood with the trees and the homes
and the quiet and that's exactly what we found.
And it is exactly true and I really think that whether there's a connection to Woodland
or whether there's not a connection to Woodland, the traffic is going to be a big problem.
We already know that Bell is small enough, narrow enough that you can't park on the street
on Bell anywhere, so obviously that's going to mean side streets.
And whether there's access to it or not, people are going to have to park there.
They're going to park somewhere, you know, and so I just think that we're already congested
as it is and adding anything else would just be a mistake.
So I am just letting everybody know that I do oppose this and I hope you guys agree with
that.
Thank you.
Next card I have is for Victoria Hodge.
Hi there, Victoria Hodge, 1823 North Bell.
I have the honor and privilege to live in one of the Denton Historic Districts.
This is very important to me.
I'm part of the original group of people along with Dr. Rick Smith and Kirsten Deterly who
were part of the original group of people that wanted to make this a historic district.
We did start off as a conservation district because we knew that would be the easiest
way to get through to make our area special.
And luckily, probably about five years ago, we got switched over to a historic district.
So that means a lot to me.
I also have the privilege of living on the corner of Bell and Woodland.
So all this traffic I see every day, I see people backing or pulling into Woodland from
Bell to back up onto Bell to go in a different direction.
I know that on Woodland we have, and this might be a P&Z issue, so maybe I'm bringing
something up, but we have a house that is rented and they provide no parking on their
property for their residents.
And so we have three cars that park on Woodland because they have no place to park in a driveway.
One of the things I do appreciate the developers or the landowner, whatever they're called,
of wanting to do an overlay of this, but just like Angie and other people have said, they
have no plan.
Their plan is to get this rezoned and then sell it.
And then we're going to be here in front of you guys again whenever that sells, and it's
all going to start over again.
And speaking of landscape plan, I've been here long enough.
I've been in Denton since I was 12, so not as long as you got here when I could.
My mom worked at TWA, retired from there.
But talking about landscape plan, years ago, 20-something years ago, when Wal-Mart on Loop
288 was built, part of the thing that they discussed with the city of Denton to get past
the landscape plan was that they would leave an area of old growth live oaks on the corner,
and so that would help make up for their lack of greenery in their parking lot.
And I will tell you now that the city forgot all about that, and that now is a Cain's chicken.
So a lot of things get forgotten.
So the information that you receive today and the decision you receive now and the decision
you make now is going to make an impact for us in the future.
So I hope that you guys will consider that.
Thank you.
Next card I have is for Mr. Richard Smith.
I'm Richard Smith, 1920 North Bell, 76209.
We moved into the neighborhood almost 30 years ago now, so we've been through all the machinations
over the years with becoming a historic conservation district, then a historic district.
We participated in that.
We've had a couple of false starts previously on the corner of Bell and University, and
we were involved in kind of speaking up against those efforts, too.
We've seen a lot of interest in that corner and in the current property over the years.
And for the most part, our neighborhood is extremely united and has been characterized
at various times over the years as maybe being a little bit difficult in terms of any new
development coming into our area.
I attended the last meeting and what was notable to me at the last meeting is the only thing
standing between the neighborhood and approval of this is that multifamily designation.
All the other uses were acceptable to the neighbors.
I mentioned this at the last meeting.
In fact, at the last meeting, I think some of the neighbors were surprised to see that
you still in there because they had voiced at the previous meeting that their opposition
to multifamily.
And I'd just note that we're this close, folks, to accepting something.
We know that things will change in our neighborhood over time.
We just want to have a voice in making sure that the neighborhood I moved into 30 years
ago remains that special neighborhood, that special older protected neighborhood that
we moved into 30 years ago.
So we hope you'll do that, too.
Thank you.
Those are all the cards I have from people wishing to speak, but it is a public hearing.
So you're welcome to come down and share any thoughts if you've heard something that you
want to add to at this time.
Not seeing anyone.
I will let the applicant know that our rules of procedure for public hearings stipulate
that the applicant after the residents have had an opportunity to speak has the option
of coming up and offering some additional thoughts or rebuttals, just a minute.
You don't have to.
If you do choose to exercise that option, then any of the previous speakers who did
speak during the first round will have one minute to speak only on the items of which
you spoke to.
So it's up to you if you'd like to do that.
You're welcome to at this time.
Very briefly, when it comes to the sign, we put it up in accordance with city requirements.
We were notified a couple of times it was down.
We went back out there and put it up.
We didn't have somebody sitting out there 24/7 to avoid vandalism.
On the 200 feet notifications and the 500 feet for the neighborhood meetings, we notified
out to 500 feet as we always do, but the official notices for this are something the city does
and I cannot reply to that.
When it comes to making money, we're all making money.
We have salaries, we have IRA investments, we're saving, we're hoping our IRAs are making
good investments on our behalf, so everybody's working in different ways to make money.
Three-story building is allowed in MN.
Three-story building could be done in the R7.
But it is correct.
The site is so small, it would be very difficult and possible at all to get a three-story building
on there, particularly within the confines of the zoning areas.
The historic zoning, there is a historic district next to us.
We're adjacent to it.
We're not a part of it.
We're abiding by the city ordinances related to that.
There are some adjacency requirements of something next to single families and that's being taken
into consideration as well.
If there's no issues with parking on the existing apartments and the parking standards are higher
today than they were then, then I would think that we would have responsible parking.
At that time, I cannot speak to any property manager anywhere that might be renting out
multiple people or multiple people in a single room or on a single bed.
That's another issue.
Traffic, that's a formidable thing for the city to deal with.
Yes, there's a traffic issue there and I think that's the main things I can think of at this
time.
Thank you.
So at this time, if you did speak the first time, you're welcome to come down.
You'll have one minute and I ask that you restrict your comments to just those items
that were shared on the rebuttal, so that's the sign notification, the mailed notifications
for the community meetings, the potential for profit in our activities, the three stories
versus two, the historic nature of the historic overlay next door and the parking.
Thank you.
The sign was down 15 straight days.
That's not going for maintenance.
That's purposely 15 straight days that I went and took photos.
I can forward this to you if you'd like.
Making money, everybody wants to make money, but we also want to keep our property values
up and appealing if we need to sell.
So they're making money, it hurts all of these people behind me.
The adjacent requirements, it's already been said when they talk about the greenery, it
was told to me by staff that they cannot enforce that.
So tell me what good that is.
So yeah, okay, we're going to put it in here, but we can enforce it and we've seen that
all around town.
So a lot of these things do not apply.
Does someone else get to talk?
Can someone else talk about traffic?
Okay.
Sure.
Any one wants to talk about traffic?
In a minute.
Ernie, you want to?
You want to?
All right.
The traffic when they say it is what it is, let me tell you this.
The apartments that are currently there, when we say we don't have an issue with those,
it's because they have adequate parking.
That part is being left out.
They have adequate parking.
And when you see that this property with no homes there, they do have access to that if
they built apartments there.
They walk right across that lot to their apartments.
There is no guarantee on where it would be built if it would be built.
From what we understand, according that it was sold to some people in California, they've
not done one thing about building.
So there would be issues and there would be access just walking across that lot.
Thanks.
Thank you.
And then, if anybody else would like to address the rebuttal comments, you're welcome to.
You'll have one minute if you so choose.
Come on down.
Thank you very much.
You said there's adequate parking at the adjacent apartments.
There was a mistake made.
You mentioned the apartments right next to this land, they're single storey.
They're not two storey.
So a three storey would stick out like a sore thumb.
Now, they say just last week when we had a meeting with them, they said 22 single room
apartments.
And then now it's back down to 18.
So that means they're going to do multi-bedrooms.
And they'll have more cars than they have spots to park in.
So the place they're going to park is they're going to park right next door in that apartment
complex where there's going to be extra parking and they're going to walk through the shrubbery
there to their apartment.
So that's how it's going to happen.
That's what it's going to tell you.
Anyone else not seeing any?
We'll close the public hearing.
Questions from the commission or discussion?
Commissioner Riggs?
So I think one of the big things to ask is what could go there now with the existing
zoning as opposed to this request?
So I guess if staff could answer that, I think that would be very, very helpful for the commission.
So I do have a slide that I think would probably be the easiest to look at that on.
Okay.
So the table of allowed uses in the center here, that is what is permitted within this
PD.
So R7 is one of the zoning districts currently on the property.
So this kind of outlines what would be permitted in R7 within SUP, which is everything down
here would be permitted in the PD and then everything over here would be permitted in
R7 within SUP and then MN would allow multifamily by right and a lot of other land uses.
I don't have a printout of the MN zoning district, but multifamily in particular would be permitted
in MN by right within SUP and R7.
It would really depend which particular use, whether that would be permitted by right in
R7 and MN, which would make developing the front of the property easier.
Okay.
Thanks, Ashley, that's very helpful because I think that's one of the things is, you know,
whenever you look at this, we approve zoning now, no matter what the plan is right now,
it could totally change once we change zoning, right?
So it could definitely be something totally different.
So whatever is being currently proposed, it could change based on our recommendation to
council on the zoning.
So I just kind of want to put that out there.
Thank you.
I have a couple of questions for staff just to understand what's possible as far as our
actions and the future for the neighborhood.
First of all, our buffering and fencing portion of the code, doesn't it require within that
buffer zone some sort of fence between a multifamily property and single family property?
So the landscape buffering doesn't require a fence, but typically, especially with something
like this, where you need 30 points, you're going to need to put a fence in to meet those
point requirements.
So something like a masonry wall is worth 20 points, so you would typically see that
around multifamily.
Got it.
Okay.
And then I guess I understand, and please steer me clear if I'm going awry, I understand
that the question of previous deed issues are not a city matter.
My question would be, in our recommendation to city council, could we recommend that a
zoning change be, I don't know if contingent is the right word, perhaps made invalid in
the future if legal action were to change the ownership of the property because of a
previous deed restriction?
Does that make sense?
I would have to look into that.
I don't know if that's been something that we have tried in the past.
There's very much meant to be two separate processes.
So my initial gut reaction is I would not recommend going that direction, but ultimately
I would need to do some additional research, but I guess you could direct staff to do additional
research, but I wouldn't have an answer for you this evening.
Okay.
Thank you.
To piggyback on that, I'm assuming we can only make a decision on the here and now what's
before us.
Yeah.
I think that's our purview, right?
Yeah.
I would just add to this discussion that while staff has not seen any deed restrictions or
found any in our searches, the applicant I believe does have their legal representation
here who did research the property extensively if you would like to hear from him.
Okay.
Let me hear from Commissioner McDuff first and then maybe we'll look into that.
My father didn't work at TWU for 50 years, but I did, Clay, so just to let you know that
and I've seen the development and the encroachment of development on the TWU campus and the implications
of the traffic.
Clearly so.
It is of some concern and the vacant lot on the corner, I did get a letter about that
too.
There are many concerns though raised this evening I think with the traffic, historical
neighborhoods, even the tree removal which we're all concerned about, but I am concerned
most about the voice of the neighborhood and so I think from my seat, I'd be remiss if
I didn't say those things representing District 3 because we were neighborhood centric and
for one believe in that perspective.
Thank you Chair Pruitt.
So we have the legal representative of the applicant here.
Could you give some background on, just to give us some understanding of how much risk
there is in that regard, and Commissioner, I would just ask that you understand that
this is not our legal representation, this is the representation of the applicant.
Thank you Chairman.
I'm Lance Van Zandt, 512 West Hickory here in Denton, Texas, and I was going to say you
certainly want to take your attorney's advice, not mine.
I'm one of those paid lawyers that will say anything if somebody had mentioned.
Not the case here.
I think probably what caused me to be called by the owner on this was he had already been
through a couple of the community meetings I believe and there had been some information
presented.
I don't know if it was actually presented to Mr. Sherar, he found it based upon something
that was told him at one of the meetings about this lot being dedicated for church use only.
So obviously that brings to mind was there a deed restriction somewhere in the past.
Someone made that a restriction that ran with the land that you would, any restriction that
runs with the land you find in the deed records.
And you know, attorneys can search, anybody can go search the deed records looking for
deed restrictions.
Mr. Sherar did have a title policy on the property that, you know, a title company has
essentially said they would insure them for any litigation related to a purported deed
restriction because they didn't find one related to church use.
I think what, probably what caused the confusion or what brought this to someone's mind is
there were some, we did find some documents that were the articles of incorporation for
the University of Baptist Church and of course in any nonprofit corporation you state in
your articles what your purpose is and you can only operate under that purpose or you
might lose your taxes, get them status.
And they of course had a provision in there that said all church assets including, you
know, church building will be used for church purposes only.
That doesn't, but that, you know, that restriction goes with the church if they buy more land.
That doesn't stay with land they previously owned.
That was just a restriction on the entity of the church, not a permanent restriction
on the use of that land.
So when the church sold it there was no deed restriction that a subsequent owner would
be bound to and that was our finding and the title company's finding and again take your
city lawyers advice, but that was my involvement sir.
Thank you.
Okay, you bet.
Thank you.
Discussion?
Any other questions for staff?
Thoughts?
I have some thoughts.
Oh, sorry.
Do you want to go first?
Go ahead.
No, I've been talking way too much so go ahead.
So I'm looking at the property and I'm seeing that this property in particular starts as
you move from the east to the west.
It's the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eighth property before you get to a
big shopping center there on the corner of North Locust and East University.
What did I just say, seven?
Eight, sorry, eight.
Two of those on the far east are businesses and they butt up against the big shopping
center there on the corner.
One is an empty lot, but all the rest are multifamily and we don't 100% know that this
is going to go multifamily, but we talk about compatibility in the zoning and that would
be compatible for all of those properties that are on that north side of East University
Drive.
I understand and feel for the residents that are on North Bell and Woodland because they
are residential and they are historic residential.
And when you've been next to a church and it gets sold it's a bit of a shock because
you don't think that a church is going to get sold and in development.
But the north part of this property that got sold is going to be residential and so it's
just this southern property up against East University.
It does fit if we approved this zoning.
It does fit and a potential two story multifamily would be a lot better than a potential three
story that what could go in now.
I would encourage the applicant to be a nice neighbor and work with the residents and plan
something that looks historic that blends in with the community because you are going
to be the first property on that east side of this whole strip of multifamily that these
residents these it's really six three on North Bell three on Woodland that are going to touch
your property and one on North Bell on the corner that's really going to touch this property.
Even a really cool looking set of townhouses would be a nice ease into the multifamily.
But do something that looks historically do something that blends in I think that might
go a long way to kind of ease the neighbors concerns but I will vote to go ahead and approve
it if that's what the motion is just because I do feel like it does fit in with everything
else and hope that the applicant would take tonight's concerns from the neighbors into
consideration when they move forward with what they plan for the property.
Mr. Riggs I'll defer to Commissioner McDuff okay Commissioner McDuff okay I'll just share
unless you wanted okay I'll share a couple things you know I this is a unique neighborhood
it's a historic area it's also unique because it is one of those rare neighborhoods in Denton
that grew up before the zoning code was extremely specific about what you could do where.
So if you if you go up on Woodland Street and you go a couple properties to the west
you find a triplex in a single family home neighborhood right and it's fine you go about
a block to the east and you see a whole row of duplexes on the north side and it's okay
you know I heard that the existing multifamily is it hasn't been causing a problem but then
I also heard that you know with the existing neighborhood there were times when parking
was excessive and it was causing concerns for safety there's there's limited control
we have as this body when we decide a zoning change for a single parcel about that but
I will tell you almost to a tee every application like this where it's adjacent to or or in
a neighborhood and there's a potential for a zoning change that's a concern of people
especially when there's already a problem.
I will also say that and I'll ask staff a question on this in a minute with the exception
of the comment that that is well heard of the potential for future residents to walk
along the other property that the applicant owns in between the property in question and
Woodland and and being able to park on Woodland and then walked south to the a future development
I understand that and I see that as a concern independent of that I don't know I haven't
talked to a developer in ever that would imagine building multifamily here with not enough
parking because it means they wouldn't be able to rent the stuff out right.
I mean we we already have a hard time walking a block and a half when we park at the square
to go to Beth Marie's and and I will tell you the number of people who would stomach
parking two blocks away and then walking to their apartment complex would be very small.
You know the I was a little bit confused by I'm all on board on safety and let's let's
find solutions I was confused by the simultaneous concern that this loop that I think I understand
the the geometry of what was being suggested that to go east since it's a right out only
you would turn right on University then right on Locust right on Sherman right on Woodland
right on Bell and then turn left on University right totally understand that but that doesn't
that doesn't seem to go in congruence with this statement that well there's already a
lot of backup on Bell because honestly if there's a decent amount of traffic there already
that dissuades people from doing that action right so it's trade-offs here and there.
Question to staff I feel like I'm still learning the the fuzzy line between overlay PD and
full PD would an overlay PD in this case would it still be consistent with that designation
if we were to put a stipulation that the at least at the northern border that that buffer
would include offense and this is specifically to the question of if they don't put offense
up there and you have two vacant properties even though it is trespassing it could happen
quite easily does that make sense it does make sense and just to note that this property
owner has sold those lots so it's no longer under his ownership but I do believe it would
still meet the requirements if we require defense okay thank you yeah I mean my thoughts
are that that's that's the one thing that I heard that could turn into a real problem
right is if you have two vacant lots that people are trespassing through in order to
parking from somebody else's house and it creates disagreements and you don't have friendly
neighbors anymore so I would be supportive of supporting the motion as is or with that
stipulation to give the the neighborhood some confidence that that particular problem is
not going to to occur if that makes sense any other discussion or I'm not sure Commissioner
Riggs yeah I would say between multifamily and single-family I believe that's a requirement
that there is a basically offense or masonry wall so I don't have that concern I do have
concerns though I feel like as if there should be maybe somewhat of a buffer between multifamily
and single-family in this area I also understand that the way it's currently zoned it seems
like as if essentially something similar could go in there with the current zoning so kind
of go even if this is denied or this is not that we don't deny or approve but even this
is recommended to deny then you the neighborhood still could end up with something similar
next to them so I just want to let that be known that's a good point I guess I'll offer
that when I was looking at this combination of parcels I'm not a developer but I can read
and do math you know I came up with depending on the tree survey and everything that likely
by right you could put somewhere between 30 and 37 units here from being creative and
and if I can figure that out then applicants certainly can so yeah I guess just to clarify
when when Commissioner Riggs was speaking about there would have to be offense my understanding
was that there's a 10-foot buffer at the north side of the property in in the R3 current
R3 portion and then there's a 30-foot buffer on the eastern side but neither of those buffers
would absolutely require offense we just typically see them as that correct and so the 30 foot
setback that's for the building from the historic district the buffer would be 10 foot with
30 points and I have the table up here just to kind of show some of the points that you
get so typically you do end up with the fence it's just the easiest way to to get the points
that you need and within that space so the buffer would be 10 foot width 30 points for
developing multifamily for commercial it would be 15 foot width and 30 points so either way
there's 30 points an extra 5 extra feet does that communicate no it's not necessary requirement
but it's almost it's almost a given it's the cheapest way to do it probably right okay
any other discussion or questions or motion
okay I will make a motion to recommend approval with the stipulation that the northern buffer
zone require offense given the the existing conditions of the area just to clarify do
you have a particular type of fence that's in mind or any any any qualifying fence in
our wonderful five by eighteen tape commissioner dire I will get go ahead and second that motion
to recommend that we approve this with those considerations any other discussion or questions
I will just go ahead and say that I'm gonna vote not to approve this just because I do
feel like there should be a buffer whether current zoning is what it is or future zoning
so that's okay sure just just for staffs understanding is that a buffer of space or a buffer of a
different buffer between multifamily and single-family so something between just an apartment complex
right next to some type of development building vertical construction okay so like a townhouse
I have no idea what that looks like but I just don't like what I'm hearing yeah I'll
just say I I understand that unfortunately this is not sim city we don't get to determine
what pencils and when I look at again the what could be done with the existing zoning
I think that the the 30-foot buffer to the east is a very large concession it's something
that under any other development plan with the r7 zoning that's there would not be required
so I view this overlay PD is being honestly very very sensitive to to the existing neighborhood
so yeah and I will say that also I totally appreciate the current zoning and also property
owner's rights and traffic concerns and the fact that this would go on to University not
necessarily woodland so I totally understand that and I'm I'm really kind of 50/50 but
I'm gonna lean toward not approving so this was a hard one all right see no further questions
or discussion I'll call for a vote on the board
that item fails two to three so is this posted for Ashley for a city council hearing at this
point yet or not yet okay so it will be re-noticed if it goes forward to city council so be be
aware of that
okay that brings us to items 6a hold a discussion regarding the planning and zoning matrix
that evening we have had no changes to the matrix since our last meeting and similarly
there have been no items taken before City Council that the sports were done since our
last meeting so no updates from staff any requests to add to the matrix from the commission
mr. McDuff yes just some comments I have my notes if could we highly number this matrix
so I could find what I'm looking for one two three have another column perhaps would that
would be helpful for me and then also I was wondering if we might add these are some sticking
points for me that I have trouble with in the middle of the night when we have how to
handle contact from developers and also contact from citizens for example we had all these
emails from the citizens I appreciate all those but I'm unsure if I should respond how
should I respond I believe I should not forward them because of open records and certainly
not reply all but if we could just have some just some discussion on on that topic it's
that would help me we can certainly have that thank you so I have one and a half that I'd
like to mention I don't know that this would necessarily be on our matrix but the main
one is many many of these applications come to us with existing challenges I see our transportation
staff is is already left unfortunately but existing challenges having to do with roadway
safety right and we are just too slow to be able to take action on that this body doesn't
have purview over that and that's what ends up being talked about and we need to figure
out a way to make that loop of improving those street safety issues in neighborhoods a lot
smaller some so my recommendation would be that mobility committee take up an action
on whether to recommend to City Council to change our ordinances around parking prohibitions
and turning movement prohibitions those those typical legal prohibitions that you put up
to address some of the existing conditions issues right now those all require specific
City Council approval for every street segment and in my view that holds this up and and
we need to fix that so so if that's something staff feels comfortable with with that recommendation
to go to the mobility committee for I think that's long overdue can certainly pass that
message along and ask our friends in transportation to discuss that with the mobility committee
yeah I would just say I this is one that I feel strongly about if if there's some reason
that that this is not sufficient direction then I'd be open to having an item for a resolution
for this body as a whole to debate that and choose whether to support that so other thing
is I just like to remind staff that you know there's that parking study that's going a
citywide parking study this is yet another example of somewhere that's not necessarily
just downtown and not one street over from a university that has parking concerns and
I remain hopeful that that we will learn through that study what tools we can use to have better
managed parking in these areas so that residents concerns are are alleviated and we can encourage
people to park where is best for for them to park basically so anything else from the
Commission I just wanted to comment on the the parking traffic analysis part of it is
you know we planning and zoning we're kind of like the first step right and it's essentially
like can can you essentially do this type of development here and kind of like yes no
you know kind of whatever and so a lot of times that planning and the engineering that
goes into like a traffic impact study you don't a developer or property owner doesn't
want to invest that money until they know that they have the zoning and so I would just
be cognizant of that as whatever is being considered by staff you know because we don't
want to make it so onerous I mean obviously but we hear the concerns and we want to address
those but I said need to be cognizant of not being over owners yeah no completely understand
my my goal is that staff would have the tools they need to go fix these problems before
zoning cases come to us okay that brings us to item seven concluding items anyone have
any concluding items to mention yes thank you very much for Commissioner Garland being
brave to to come to a little bit of a later meeting as your first one appreciate you being
willing to step up and serve your community in this capacity so thank you thank you I'm
very happy to be here yeah and I will get the dates wrong but if you have them I believe
there was a notice that went out for the ADU and something else feedback sessions over
the next few weeks just in case everybody as somebody is still watching and if you are
you're probably interested in this I'll let Angie give us those dates I might get dates
wrong so let me okay so there are a couple community input meetings coming up on town
homes and ADU specifically two of those opportunities are in person they're on the evenings of August
21st and August 28th both of those are a Thursday night starting at six there's one virtual
opportunity you can register for on the city's website that's Friday the 22nd I think that's
at two or three in the afternoon those are those okay thank you yes I'd just also like
to say thank you to Commissioner Pradron for her time with us even though she's not with
us this evening we do appreciate her I believe almost one year of service to the Commission
all right with that sorry Commissioner McDuff yes I just want to say thank you Haley for
stepping in and we appreciate so much in your new role as acting director we promise we
will support you and we appreciate all the good feedback the coaching the mentoring and
I know that Commissioner Garland will appreciate that just like I appreciated it when I started
my role so just so welcome all right thank you and with that at 903 I will call this
meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission to close thank you