Good afternoon, at 5.02 p.m. Wednesday, October 8th, I will call our work session of the Denton
Planning and Zoning Commission to order with the quorum present.
Our first order of business is any citizen comments on consent agenda items.
I don't see anyone present.
Next we'll move on to clarification for agenda items on the agenda.
Any questions on the minutes or the consent agenda item tonight?
Commissioner McDuff?
May I go back, only because I'm sometimes slow and have several piles.
I have had several inquiries on my Facebook messenger and comments, and I also, on several
of my membership pages, community organizations, and I referred them to my email, and it was
very, you know, I always thought, how am I going to do this?
And so I am now going to, I said if you need to see, send me something, send something
to my city email, and I asked our marketing person to, I'll say it didn't benefit Legge,
I'll just say it.
And so she did, but I am now thinking, the other way would be the e-comment, it would
be quick, so I know I have that on our matrix to discuss, but I'm just, as a comment for
citizen input, so I wanted to make you aware of that out of the gate.
Thank you.
Any other questions on the consent agenda?
No, okay.
Individual consideration items.
First is FR250020.
Yeah, why don't you, feel free to step back in the hallway.
Yeah.
Just a brief intro.
We'll give you a knock.
A lot.
So let the record show that our Commissioner McDade is recusing herself.
All right, good evening, I'm Julie Wyatt, I'm presenting FR250020.
This is a replat of a property located on the west side of Loop 288, south of Audre
Lane.
It is a fourplex development.
It was platted previously.
A new developer has come in and has kind of changed the design of those fourplexes and
so they had to make some changes to the plat.
Right now they have some things that they do need to resolve in order to, for staff
to recommend approval, so we are recommending denial, however, we don't have any objection
to the requested extension to October 22nd.
Okay.
Any questions?
All right.
Thank you, Julie.
Yeah, thank you.
And then we have one public hearing this evening, item Z250013.
Welcome Mia.
Good evening, Chair, members of the Commission, Mia Hines, Senior Planner.
And this item, as stated in the caption, is a request to rezone a total of 6.63 acres
to the mixed-use neighborhood zoning district.
The property is located just south of East McKinney Street, approximately, or just west
of Glengarry Way and the property is currently, it's comprised of two properties.
One is zoned R4 and one is zoned RR.
It is in line with the comprehensive plan for moderate residential in this area and
so staff is recommending approval.
I do have a much more in-depth presentation to go over in the work session, but I'd be
happy to answer any questions or respond to any comments that you have at this time.
Commissioner McDuff.
Thank you, Chair Pruitt.
Ms. Hines, with this change, this would allow for multi-family dwellings, correct?
Correct.
And a multi-family dwelling is a code for apartment complexes, correct?
Correct.
Okay.
Yep.
So yes, though, currently with the existing zoning district's multi-family is not permitted,
the MN district does permit multi-family.
Yes, but not the R4.
R4 or RR, no.
Yes.
Another question, if I may, I notice that they were wanting to, proposers were wanting
to have this rezoned to make the property more marketable.
Is that your understanding?
Yes, ma'am.
Yeah.
And the applicant will be here to answer some questions later, but essentially what they've
described and sort of submitted in their narrative, I think that I've attached that also, is they've
had interests for developing the property for a couple of different uses.
Some of them are much more intense than what we would actually support.
So we wouldn't allow for one of the more intense commercial zoning districts.
In this case, the MN district does come with some buffers and some mitigation requirements
that would minimize the impact any type of development would have on some of the surrounding
developments, specifically that we looked hard at the residential development to the
east there and how that might be impacted.
And ultimately, MN, it does meet our moderate residential future land use designation, and
it makes sense in this area.
I think it provides for a different set of standards that is much more pedestrian oriented
than other zoning districts.
So this was kind of that middle and the applicant's intent or purpose for rezoning this is to ultimately
sell it.
Okay.
I just want to get that out here, talk about it, because it caught me by surprise.
And one more, if I may.
It's my understanding as well, Ms. Hines, this is across from Ryan High School.
So I just want to say that out loud too.
That's of concern to me too with the traffic patterns.
There is a light currently at that intersection that does hopefully help with traffic in that
area.
I'm assuming at peak hours it's still significant, but there is a light at that intersection
that would support a commercial development on this property as well as the traffic that's
currently there with Ryan High School.
Would we do traffic studies, or would we consider that as well, would we not?
Yes.
Any new coming development, again, they don't have a development directly attached to this
zoning change request, but any incoming development would have to meet the MN standards, and they
would have to submit first trip generation numbers with their zoning compliance plan.
And if it's determined that those numbers are high enough, then a traffic impact analysis
would be submitted for review.
Okay.
Thanks.
I guess just one or two things that may already be in your backup report, so we don't need
to talk about them if they are, but one, if we could at the public hearing see a chart
of those compatibility buffers between different uses that are applicable to this zoning district
proposed, I think that would help understand, as well as kind of understanding how wide
this parcel is.
And then secondly, if you have handy the uses that would be precluded because of the proximity
to the school, that would be helpful as well.
I can definitely get the uses that would be precluded.
I think typically that's more of a, it's a state law thing, so I have to look that up
to confirm.
I do have a little bit of information that I'll go over more in depth in the regular
session, but just because you asked it here, as far as compatibility buffers and what we
require from a landscape standpoint, it would be the same regardless, it's imposed on the
new development.
So if the new development is commercial, then a 15-foot wide landscape buffer would be required
between the existing residential property and the development of its multifamily, then
it's a 10-foot wide landscape buffer that would be required.
As far as height restrictions, that's one of the other things that's special about the
MN district, is that they do have a maximum 65-foot height requirement, but there is special
restrictions that if you're adjacent, directly adjacent to a residential zone property, then
you cannot go over 40 feet without first obtaining a specific use permit.
So if they were proposing something higher than basically what is already, or what would
be allowed in like an R7, they would have to come back before this body.
And I will note that that is slightly different from the RR district that currently just allows
the 60-foot height and doesn't have that different SUP requirement for over 40 feet.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Commissioner Dio?
I just want to make sure that I'm understanding what I'm hearing and seeing.
Since some of the information that you have attached to the agenda is the future land
use map.
Do you have that in your- Let's see.
So it's this map here.
Right.
Yes.
So that looks to be, this property looks to be in moderate residential.
Is that coincide with the MN that they're asking?
Yes.
So the mixed use neighborhood district does allow for the moderate and sort of that missing
residential.
So it allows for town homes as well as multifamily.
And depending on how the lot is plotted out, it could get over, I think that the moderate
residential future land use designation has a density of approximately six to 12 million
units per acre.
But realistically with this property, with the trees that are on site currently and they
would have to preserve, and then the distance requirements that they would have to be set
back from the single family development, I think with a multifamily development, if that
were to occur, you would end up getting about the density that we have for the moderate
residential designation.
And then similar on the other hand, if the property comes in to develop as commercial,
because right now we really don't know what the end user would be, if it does come to
develop as commercial, it's more of those neighborhoods scaled commercial requirements
for the MN district.
So it would be something useful for the surrounding residences or neighborhoods or whatever, and
they would still have to adhere to those setbacks and buffers and things.
- So that property directly to the east is single family homes, single detached.
And is it my understanding that city staff was requested to produce a whole like report
on apartments on multifamily and how many units the city had, how many were vacant and
all of that, is that true?
- We did give a report, I think Haley gave a report earlier this year on the total multifamily
and single family counts and sort of how they align with our overall goals, yes, we have
done that.
- And how are we sitting at vacancies, 'cause I'm just kind of curious that if this is being
potentially changed for marketability, and I mean, personally, I see the chatter on some
of the community pages about the like or dislike.
- So I'll add a little bit and then try to focus us back on the zoning case, because
this isn't a specific land use that they are requesting, it's just the zoning change.
So any of the uses that are permitted in MN would be permitted if this should go forward.
We haven't received, as far as public comments, we haven't received any responses in opposition
to the request or the broad request.
I tried to stay off of social media for work purposes, so I'm not sure on that end.
But as far as official like responses to the city or inquiries or calls even, I haven't
gotten anything in opposition to the proposed.
- Are there huge vacancies of apartments?
- I'd look to Haley for that, that might be a question that we need to research.
- Maybe that's just information you can bring at the meeting tonight to give you guys some
time.
I'm just, because I understand that this isn't to approve a potential development, but by
approving a zoning change, it does, if this goes through, it does open up the door as
those is one of the potential outcomes.
- Sure.
Go ahead.
- Yeah, I'll just say, I don't think we have good data from a city perspective of
vacancy.
It's something that's private data.
There are industry groups that you're aware of that you can purchase stuff from and you
trust them as much as you do or not.
We need to stay focused on the zoning case.
Did you have anything else?
- I understand the concern, but there's a lot of zoned lands for other uses that are
not in demand in the city as well, right?
- Okay, those are just my questions.
- Yeah.
Commissioner Riggs.
- Yeah, so I mean, I'm looking at the size, very skinny, skinny site.
I'm not sure how you'd do a whole lot of multifamily on there.
It seems like as if you'd have half of the site just be a roadway in.
And I think some of the concerns that you're hearing from the commissioners is that one
of the things we hear a lot is that we have oversaturation of apartments.
- Commissioner Riggs, I'm gonna cut in.
We're getting into deliberation and it's great deliberation, but it's not what we're posted
for at this time.
So I'd ask to maybe bookmark those questions and comments and absolutely bring them up
in the public hearing portion.
'Cause the reason for that is because the applicant should be able to hear and respond
or other members of the public making comment, it would be more appropriate there.
And that's kind of for everyone.
- Yeah, let me ask you, would it be appropriate to ask, is there another zoning that would
just be townhomes?
- Yeah, questions are absolutely appropriate at this time.
- Is there another zoning that would preclude it just to townhomes and not apartments?
- That R7 zoning district, I believe, I have to double check that.
I think that R7 zoning district does allow for townhomes and would require the specific
use permit to come back before this body if they were to go for multifamily.
And we did consider, we did consider or bounce that idea off to the applicant that R7 zoning
district, but ultimately the MN, what they were requesting doesn't adhere to our criteria
for approval.
So we are recommending approval of the MN.
- Okay.
Any other questions or more data or information we need or see needing at the meeting?
Commissioner MacDuff?
- Just a question as well.
I agree with Commissioner Dyer about it would be interesting to have that not for tonight.
I think we're going to preclude it because of our time and our posting, as we say, but
the data on the apartments, because I think it does spill into everything.
This work session and the public deliberation and the matrix, et cetera.
- Okay.
All right.
Not seeing any more.
Thank you, Mia.
- Thank you.
- We do have a work session item, two work session items tonight.
First is receiver report, hold a discussion regarding communal living and how small home
communities could be developed in the city of Denton.
- Julie Wyatt, principal planner with the city of Denton, and I am presenting communal
living and small home communities.
This was a matrix item that was requested last year.
We're finally coming to talk to you about it.
I'm going to issue one maya culpa before we get into it, and that is it's a very large
topic, a lot of broad things, so if I don't hit the mark, let me know and we can come
back and continue the conversation.
So with that, we'll get started.
So we're going to talk about two topics, communal living and small home communities.
We're going to talk about, we're going to define our terms.
We're going to talk about some case studies, some common characteristics, and then the
Denton Development Code regulations, which would typically apply to these.
I want you to know, these are not separate topics.
They're pretty intertwined, so the case studies, there's no one singular ideal example.
So just know that there are approximations and that there are a lot of facets for both
of these topics, which can affect a lot of different facets to the other topic.
So here we go, we're going to talk about communal living first.
There are really two broad topics that we're going to talk about in communal living, co-housing
or intentional communities, and then also co-op housing.
Co-housing or intentional communities, the ULI talks about emphasis on shared space,
shared time, shared values.
They're usually a collaborative effort between a small group of people.
Co-op housing.org goes a little further to say really it is public space, but also private
homes.
So it's really making sure that residents have those private spaces, but also they want
the community members in a cooperative and public area.
Typically these have a condominium structure, but there are other ownership structures,
and I've got one tonight.
Co-op housing is different than co-housing in that you're not buying that private space,
you're not buying a condo or a house, you're buying into an LLC, or I'm sorry, a not-for-profit.
So you buy shares in that not-for-profit and then you live in that area.
Participation, so buying into the not-for-profit usually requires approval by a board, and
they're democratically managed.
And it can apply to a variety of residential use types.
I want to be careful.
These are not really defined land uses.
They are based on home or ownership structure.
There are a lot of different uses that could go in these buckets.
But typically, given the way that these are organized and owned, they are considered multifamily
in the city of Denton, because condo ownership is actually considered multifamily.
Our definition for multifamily is five or more dwelling units on one platted lot.
So with that, let's talk about some case studies.
Co-housing Houston.
It's in Houston, Texas.
It's an infill project in the second ward, a moderate density area.
There is single family, there's townhomes, there's multifamily, a lot of different residential
types in the area.
This use is multifamily.
The community has a common house, garden, shared decision-making, and community gardens.
Ownership, this is kind of interesting, and I don't really understand it.
Hillary would probably know a lot more, but each unit is owned by an LLC, and then the
individuals are the fiduciaries.
Affordability, it is not an affordable project.
It is market rate, and in fact, there is one condo listed for $544,000 right now.
The zoning that entitles it is none because Houston does not have zoning.
Hartwood Commons.
This might look familiar to some on the commission.
This is in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It is located in a mixed-use area with commercial, employment, elderly housing, and other residential
uses.
This looks a lot like horizontal multifamily that we saw a lot of in the city of Denton
about two, three years ago, so it really follows that kind of site layout that that horizontal
multifamily had, one-story duplexes and then four-plexes on the site on one platted lot.
This appears to be age kind of over 55.
They have shared open space.
The residents own their own home, as well as a share of the common property, including
the common house, so they own their own condo, and then they also have ownership in that
lot that it's sitting on.
These are also market rate.
It is starting at $429,000, and the zoning for the property is multifamily.
And then a last one.
I had to choose ones that had different, like, contexts and building styles.
So this is Capitol Hill Urban Housing.
It's in Seattle, Washington.
It is in an urban dense neighborhood.
It is multifamily.
It looks like what you would imagine multifamily, right?
Four or five stories.
It's a 4,500-square-foot building.
There are nine dwellings in it, no on-site parking.
They talk about intergenerational rooftop farm.
They are required to share three meals a week.
It is non-smoking and gun-free.
So they definitely have a point of view in this community.
The ownership is long-term rental.
It's market rate, and the zoning is mixed use.
So what are the common characteristics of these co-housing types?
And just to let you know, I did not include a specific co-op, because once again, it's
very similar to what these are.
It really is depending on that ownership.
And before I talk about the common characteristics, I don't know if you're familiar, but there
is one similar in near Denton.
It's the White Hawk community, and it is off of Locust to the north.
It has been there since the 1970s, and the homes are partially built underground.
So we have one local.
So once again, not a defined land use.
It is based upon ownership and how that is structured.
Typically, these are designed as multifamily.
It is not necessarily intended to meet affordability needs.
It's usually intended to promote a sense of community.
There are affordable ones, particularly in the co-op space, but in terms of co-housing,
it really does seem to be mostly market rate from what I found.
They really emphasize common amenities.
Communities can be shared or organized around shared interests, lifestyle, age, location.
And I found that they could either be ground up, so a group of residents could say, we're
going to create this and then go find a developer and build it, or it could be developer driven.
How could you build one of these in the city of Denton?
Well, really, we have the regulations already kind of in place because they, once again,
would follow our multifamily.
So we're just going to kind of go chapter by chapter in the Denton Development Code.
In chapter 212, we have affordability incentives that applies to multifamily.
It would apply to this.
Our incentives allow developers to maybe increase building height or reduce parking in exchange
for including affordable units within their projects.
Multifamily is allowed in MN, MD, and MR.
It requires an SUP and R7, SC, HC, and GO.
So there are a variety of districts where this type of use would be allowed.
We do not separate condominiums out as a separate use.
Once again, it is under the multifamily umbrella.
We have residential use standards.
Minimal multifamily dwelling unit size is 400 square feet.
And in mixed use districts, the bottom floor has to be at least 12 feet in height.
In terms of SUP Chapter 7 and site design, parking, two-way drive aisles are typically
26 feet wide.
And multifamily parking is based on the number of bedrooms.
Multifamily projects over 10 require 8 percent open space.
And then the buildings, their specific building orientation depending on where it is and the
type of buildings.
There are also some general fire safety considerations that one would have to keep in mind.
Not necessarily apply to all, but things like sprinkler in the building, fire lanes adjacent
to buildings, hose lay.
You want to make sure all parts of the building can be reached by a hose.
And then adequate access.
And finally, platting, lot planning, essentially the lots have to meet the minimum zoning.
So did you have any questions about co-housing or should we do questions at the end?
Yeah, let's take a break, I think Commissioner Riggs had something before we get too far.
I just had a question about one of the examples that you had where the essentially looks like
there's garages off to the side, the one you were just on.
This one?
Yes.
So who maintains that drive aisle, who maintains, or how does the ownership of those garages
split up?
You know, that's a good question.
I would anticipate that because all residents own a piece of the common area that it would
have to be maintained by their association or their LLC.
Okay.
I just had to deal with a few of those and those ended up being a lot of problems later
on in the future.
Okay.
Right.
Keep going.
Thank you.
Okay, moving on.
All right.
And now we have small home communities.
What we're going to talk about is tiny homes, zero lot line and small lot and then cottage
courts.
So, just define our terms, a tiny home per the tiny home industry association is a single
dwelling unit suitable for a full-time habitation of less than 400 square feet.
It can be on a permanent or movable foundation.
When we talk about suitable for full-time habitation, we're thinking it's got to have
a kitchen, it's got to have a bedroom, it's got to have a place to live and it's got to
have a bathroom, sanitation.
Our building safety, we talked to them.
Tiny homes are not HUD manufactured homes.
Those are different things.
They have different industry standards.
They are inspected within the city of Denton, subject to specific building codes and in
the city of Denton, in order to be considered a tiny home, it has to be on a permanent foundation.
We do not allow tiny home developments to be on a movable or chassis, some other foundation.
The DDC defines that tiny home as anything between 300 and 500 square feet.
If it is not on a permanent foundation, it is in the recreational vehicle bucket as a...
I've got it later.
It's not one that goes on its own.
It's one that's a travel trailer.
That's it.
And then tiny shelter, that is something we kind of hear about.
A tiny shelter is not a dwelling.
It is a detached building without some key elements.
So it might be just a place to sleep and a bathroom, but no kitchen, or it may have no
bathroom or kitchen, just a place to sleep.
There are lot line homes.
We had one of these recently, so I thought I'd toss this in here.
These are single family dwellings arranged on individual lots, either as detached structures
and with one or more side walls on the property line.
So if you have your lot line, one of the building sides would be on that lot line.
If you're just a small lot, it would be kind of centered in a lot, but the zero lot line
has to be on that property line.
And then cottage courts, those are kind of a different residential type.
And one place that really defines this is missingmiddlehousing.com.
If you've not gone to that website, it's pretty interesting, you should check it out.
But it is a group of small detached structures, and it's arranged in a shared courtyard.
Okay, so let's talk about some case studies.
So this one is close to home.
Tried to pick things that kind of were analogs to Denton.
So we have the Lake Dallas Tiny Home Village.
It is just south of here.
If you've not been, it is in an infill area, mixed use, including commercial, single family,
government.
They do have tours, if you're interested on their website, they have tours.
The type of use, these are small travel trailers, so these are not tiny homes the way Denton
defines them.
They are not on a permanent foundation.
They have to be tied down, they have to have skirting.
The community has 13 lots.
The lots are 800 and 900 square feet.
Each house can have two vehicles, and the maximum home size is 340 square feet.
The tiny homes are individually owned.
They rent the space.
And that's about, the space is about 700 to 750 a month.
I think that includes water, wastewater, and also solid waste.
And the zoning that made it happen was a planned unit development, or I'm sorry, planned development
district, other places called planned unit development.
But yes, so they used a PD in order to allow this.
Some other tiny home communities that I thought kind of captured the breadth of what tiny homes
could be.
This was kind of neat in Oklahoma City, Pivot Tiny Homes.
This is actually kind of purpose-built, in that they are permanent homes.
They are on foundations.
But they provide social services for youth who are transitioning to adulthood, maybe
youth in foster care, youth whose parents are not around.
So it gives them no support for, as they're transitioning to adulthood.
A PUD was used, so that's what Oklahoma City calls that, but the use is multi-family.
So it's a variety of homes on permanent foundations on one lot.
And then the Waters Tiny Home Community.
This is also in Texas.
It is in a semi-rural area, and it really is just an RV park.
But it is a community for 55 and older.
The homes must be owner-occupied.
Permanent foundation is not required.
They do have a lake.
The tiny homes are individually owned, and once again, those lots are rented, and they
rent for about $600 to $675.
It's outside the city limits, so there's not a zoning district to really reference.
When we talk about zero-lot line or small lots, I brought a variety of sample of examples.
We have a one-in-flower mound just south of here.
They've got a minimum lot size of 4,000 square feet.
It is their central business zoning, so it conforms to that existing zoning.
They have that side yard setback of one feet, so it's not quite zero-lot line.
But the homes do have to be separated by 10 feet.
That's for fire rating, so it's kind of a standard.
If you are closer than 10 feet, the walls have to be fire rated.
And the lots are 40 feet wide.
They are alley-loaded, from what I can see.
In Coppell, there's one development in kind of the Old Town area.
It's a commercial area with some residential.
Lot sizes range from 2880 to 3488.
The side yard setbacks are zero and seven, so this is a zero-lot line community.
Homes have to be 25 feet wide, and it is a planned development.
And then finally, Plano has a zoning district which actually encourages this.
So we've kind of got three ways to approach this.
We have a zoning district which allows it.
We have a planned development, and then we also have a zoning district where that is
kind of what the city anticipates would be built there.
Minimum lot area, once again, at 4,000 square feet.
And in this specific instance, it's a planned development, but they do have that specific
district.
Cottage courts, as I mentioned, this is kind of a missing middle house type.
It is intended to be kind of between single-family detached and then multi-family, kind of that
transition.
It's intended to fit within existing infill lots, kind of smaller lots.
And cottage courts are detached residential, but they could also be multi-family, depending
on how the lot is plotted, right?
And organized around a central courtyard.
Kind of the ideal would be five to ten units, one to one and a half stories, and then one
to two parking spaces per unit.
One that is kind of similar to this is Conover Commons in Redmond, Washington.
It's suburban infill.
It is single-family detached or multi-family.
I don't really know, because I couldn't discern the platting.
But they are single-family detached units.
It is a nine and a half acre site, 24 dwellings.
4.6 acres could not be developed, because it had a pretty steep slope and wetlands.
Each home has a private yard.
I thought this was interesting.
They require, how they design it is residents pull into their garage, and then they have
to walk around into the public space to get into their home.
So it really is forcing those community members to interact with the community.
Kind of reminiscent of that co-housing, like that shared common space.
I believe it's private ownership, shared open space, but once again, it kind of depends
on the platting.
Not affordable.
A unit sold in August for $850,000.
But they were required to have one affordable unit.
It actually, the zoning was pretty interesting.
It was an innovative housing demonstration project.
And I believe the community allows for five a year.
And just kind of these interesting development plans.
There's a process.
They have to go to neighborhood meetings.
There's architectural review boards.
So it's an intensive process in order to develop these in Redmond, Washington.
And I thought this one was really interesting as well.
East Lake Commons.
Once again, this kind of brings in all of the different housing types that I've talked
about tonight.
This is in Decatur, Georgia.
It's actually in DeKalb County.
Did I say that right?
In Georgia, counties have zoning.
I know we don't really have zoning in counties in Texas, but other states have zoning in
counties.
It is in kind of suburban Atlanta.
It's located on 20 acres.
It's small lot townhomes and also cohousing.
It's 67 townhomes on individually platted lots with a community center, garden, orchard,
and greenhouse, and also common area parking.
The ownership is fee simple lots.
So you can see the site plan here on your screen.
Each of those little boxes is a little lot in the middle of a big lot.
And then the common areas are owned by the HOA.
These are market rate.
There was one listed for $389,000.
I anticipate that this was actually built several decades ago or a couple decades ago.
And so their current zoning doesn't really speak to this specifically, but I did find
it was interesting in their zoning regulation that they allow cottage homes and urban single
family defined uses in their use tables.
And the cottage is a detached dwelling unit that is one to two stories, no greater than
1200 square feet, arranged around a commonly shared open space.
So once again, it really follows that missing middle definition of cottage courts.
And then they also have urban single family dwellings, which are residential dwellings
that share a similar configuration to townhome develops.
They may be attached or detached or zero lot line.
So that was interesting that they had those two use types defined in their code.
Common characteristics, we see a lot of plan developments in all of these.
Once again, they're kind of unique, kind of unicorns.
Tiny homes, remember, if they are not on a permanent foundation, they really are kind
of managed like RV parks.
And foundations can be used where permanent dwellings are desired, particularly with the
city of Denton's definitions, and we'll talk about those.
So a lot line cottage courts, these zoning typically includes plan developments, but
there are some based zoning districts that can be affordable, but it probably depends
on location and amenities.
And uses are typically those single family detached dwellings on separately platted lots.
And it is really based upon lot size, access and design.
Sometimes they could be multifamily, particularly with cottage courts, because those could be
all on one lot, but just a range around the court.
So what are the applicable regulations?
This once again, not an exhaustive list, and in subchapter three, we've got our zoning
district dimensional standards.
R7 and MN are probably the most relevant regarding these use types.
R7, the minimum lot area is 4,000 square feet.
It's very similar to Plano as well as Flower Mounds examples, lot width of 50 feet, lot
depth of 80 feet, and then we have those setbacks.
Zero lot line would not be allowed in this zoning district because you've got side yard
setbacks, but smaller lots would.
MN is a lot area of 2,500 square feet.
It does not have any required side yard setbacks, so you could have zero lot line homes in MN.
And just to let you know, per the code, lot depth is measured at the right of way.
I'm sorry, lot width is measured at the right of way.
These would apply to our affordability incentives when you've got single family, multi family,
and tiny home developments, it would not apply to RV parks.
So once again, those tiny homes would have to be on a foundation.
And once again, providing affordable units would allow them to reduce parking or have
greater building coverage or changes in minimum dwelling unit size.
In subchapter five, that has our use tables.
Single family detached dwellings are allowed in all of our R districts as well as MN.
Once again, those R7 and MN are probably more consistent with what we could see in the small
lot or zero lot line.
Our R through R6, those lot sizes are much larger and really probably wouldn't fall within
this milieu.
Tiny home developments require a PD full stop.
There is not a permitted use in our zoning table other than you would have to get a PD
to build that.
And then RV parks are allowed in our R and HI and require an SUP in R3, R4, R5, R6, R7
and LI.
And this would be similar to that Lake Dallas model where it would be on a chassis or tied
down or skirting.
We do not have any minimum unit size for single family dwellings.
So we have, remember, 400 square feet in multifamily, I believe 900 square feet in town homes and
duplexes, but single family does not have any minimum unit size.
And manufactured homes in our residential districts that allow single family could be
allowed if the property gets approval of an SUP.
These are the use specific standards for these different types of uses.
Tiny home developments, we talked about it, it's 300 to 500, permanent foundation has
to be organized as a condominium development.
And then RV parks, it limits the maximum occupancy, so it could not be used as a permanent dwelling.
And it requires public bathrooms and the dry vial widths have to conform to the minimum
dimensional standards.
Residential streets require 55 feet of right of way dedicated, so keep that in mind as
well as those alleys require 20 feet of width dedicated.
And so in some of these use types, you see a lot of alley loaded, and that is another
thing that has to be added to any project.
Single family detached dwellings require four spaces.
They can be reduced to two, subject to approval, there's some criteria for approval.
And then single family can be oriented toward green spaces or common areas.
Once again, you've got those general fire considerations, you've got to make sure the
air trucks can turn around, that they can access the properties.
And then if they have a certain number of units and they would need secondary access
or have to sprinkle it.
Subchapter eight has some regulations related to these types of uses.
Residential lots have to have a minimum of 15 feet of frontage along a public street,
but up to three single family detached or townhome dwellings can be accessed through
a private access easement, a private driveway.
And flag lots, those are those lots that have a skinny little tail that come off the public
right of way and then a larger property in the rear.
They require 30 feet of width and a maximum of 300 feet.
Over 150 requires a turnaround once again for the fire trucks.
We also have something in our Denton Development Code and I don't think, Haley may correct
me, I don't think we've had one go forward yet since we adopted the 2019 Denton Development
Code, but that is cluster subdivisions or auto courts.
These require approval of a PD, so these are really single family homes.
So it would be allowed in any single family district, it's just a PD would be required
in order to plot the property.
It would require a minimum of five acres, 30% continuous open space.
Auto courts allow for an alternative to cluster subdivisions.
Cluster subdivisions are really, well it doesn't have to be, they are intended for conservation
development, so the intent is to cluster the residential portion outside of any maybe open
space or environmentally protected spaces.
Auto courts are a little bit different in that they allow up to four single family units
to be accessed with a shared driveway.
This is in the Denton Development Code, kind of shows how it would lay out, so instead
of being kind of organized around that common open space, it's got the common driveway.
Anything, or in cluster subdivisions and auto courts, you'd still have to build streets
with the minimum street widths, and then the maximum block length would be 600 feet.
That ends my presentation.
If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them, or if I got it wrong and talked
about something you did not want to hear about, please let me know and we'll come back.
- Thank you very much, first of all, that's an amazing amount of information.
Couple of points that I just looked up, just to set our understanding of things, I know
the Redmond, Washington example, those were I think 800,000, 860, something like that
market rate, but it's a very different market there.
I just looked up the median house price in Redmond, Washington is over $1.3 million,
so it's, there's context, right?
I guess I will dive too deep if I let myself, so I'm going to pause and say, let's have
some discussion, what are people's reactions, thoughts, questions, anyone?
Commissioner Garland.
- I just want to thank you for putting this together.
I think it, like Chairman or Member Pruitt mentioned, it's a lot of information.
I think that that's something that we all kind of collectively welcome in our community
is more diversity when it comes to our housing.
I love the idea of tiny homes, making young adults, home ownership more affordable to
people that don't otherwise have access to it, and then also maybe the other side of
life where seniors are ready to downsize, but they don't want to be in an apartment or assisted
living.
I think the one thing that all of these things kind of have in common is kind of collectively
a sense of community and kind of bringing people together and sustainability and just
kind of a close knit of, you know, it's like a little community, and so I think that probably
resonates with a lot of people, and a lot of people would find more housing options
ideal.
- You gotta say something before I go in the weeds.
Commissioner McDuff.
- Do not go in the weeds.
It's kind of scary, actually, but I love it when you do.
I will say there's been considerable, I've had considerable input on this topic, and
I'm very interested in it.
Julie, I want to applaud you on your ability to put something like this together.
This is a lot, and I appreciate all that, and I am personally ready for us to do something
like this, and so thus the number of questions and the layups from our prior discussion.
I will say that it looks to me these are commercial that we've talked about, commercial type
dwellings, but I do think we've had some interest in the other type of tiny houses
where we have clusters in communal living, where we provide basic services to our homeless
population, or just say our population's in need, how's that?
I'm interested in that, too, and have been associated with some of this conversation
when we started our Serve Denton movement again several years ago now, but I know that
you're involved in this, Chair Pruitt, and the concept, and so I am personally interested
in being able to study this, to hear more about it, to discuss it.
Thank you.
Okay, I warned you, I'll try to stay higher level, I promise.
You mentioned that the current site design requirements for single family allow it to
be -- allow the buildings to be oriented around a common green space, but there's also a street
fundage requirement.
Let's imagine we live in a world where there's a zoning district with no minimum lot size
and no setbacks.
With those two requirements, can you explain to me how one would develop that in Denton?
That is a good question.
I don't think we've had one pursue that, so I'm not really sure.
I don't know if Haley has any thoughts as to how that would be plotted.
I think you've seen maybe something approximating that in the landmark and -- well, probably
just in the landmark communities, because they do have some where the home's all front
on like a shared green space lot, but then their street frontage and right-of-way frontage
is achieved in the rear of the homes, so that is a possibility.
Sorry, refresh my memory on what the landmark that you're referring to.
Hunter Ranch.
There are some blocks, if you look at the plats that you all have seen for phase one,
where the home's front on a shared green space or like a little parklet, and they achieve
that right-of-way frontage for each lot in the rear of the property.
Instead of having an alley in the rear, they have a full street width in the --
I believe they have alleys, but that is technically right-of-way.
Okay, so I will stop soon, but when we say must have street frontage and alley counts
as street frontage?
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
It is technically a street type.
No, that helps.
My thoughts on this is, we've talked about this before, we've seen pictures before, Denton
is creative, Denton is, you know, hey, let's try some stuff and see what happens.
It's sort of the, you know, how we grew over the last hundred years.
I don't think, and I'm pretty confident on this, that any of these are going to happen
if we required a plan development district for them to move forward.
Just because the -- especially, for instance, the cottage court kind of thing, right?
If you're dividing $300,000 of lawyers and landholding cost over eight units, you can't
sell them anymore.
I think if we want to see more of this in Denton, we have to start looking at modifying
existing zoning districts like R7, R6, I don't know what it is, that may not be full four-story
multifamily by right to allow these types of things by right, right?
I'll just put out a few numbers there, right?
We talked about the 400 square feet minimum for a dwelling unit when it's in a multifamily
use.
You know, obviously it varies, but let's just say, for instance, that it's new construction,
renting it around $2.50 per square foot per month, that comes out to $1,000 a month, which
in order to be affordable by the 30 percent AMI affordability criteria requires a yearly
income of $40,000, right, or roughly $20 an hour if it's hourly pay.
And a large number of City of Denton employees make less than that, right?
So I think when we look at the chasm between traditional single-family homes, setbacks,
large lots, and stuff that everybody's scared about, we have systematically laid up a foundation
of this is how things should happen that have removed the ability to build any of this economically.
Right?
Technically, could you do it?
Sure.
But you have to spend more building it than you would a single-family home, right?
Anyway, so I'm very interested in everything from the how do we allow -- I think you had
a definition in there of the tiny shelters, was that it?
You know, some of this communal living in areas for transitional housing and that sort
of thing where maybe common eating and bathroom facilities are provided, just like, look,
if we don't want people to be on the street, we've got to figure out how to build housing
that people who are not earning very much money can afford to pay for.
It's really not -- it's math, right?
But then it also goes up, as you said, to a lot of the Denton ethos of, hey, I want
to have a garden that all my neighbors help tend and do all this stuff, and the way I
see it, I just -- I would love for more of that to happen.
I don't think any of it's going to happen until we are comfortable modifying our zoning
districts to say, hey, if you want to go build this, here's the requirements, here's how
you should do it, go for it, right, instead of having to design a custom PD.
But thank you very much.
I'm done.
Commissioner McDade?
>> I just want to clarify, I think you may have said it, but would a city of Denton fire
truck fit down an alleyway if that's the setback?
>> Yes, so I don't know if a city of Denton fire truck -- they would -- they could.
A fire truck has to have 20 feet, and so it would fit.
The alleys are intended or required to be designed to accommodate not only fire trucks
but also solid-waste trucks, so -- >> Commissioner Dyer?
>> First off, thank you so much, I mean, this was a lot of information, and I'm sure it
took a lot of time to put together, so thank you.
Kind of piggybacking on Chair Pruitt talking about the need for a different -- you know,
for housing for different communities in our area.
What is the city's stance or requirements, you know, a lot about strip malls or shopping
centers that are no longer being utilized, some of those getting converted to housing
that might fit in some of these, you know, requirements, like how does that all fit in
there where you're meeting the needs of fair housing, trying to recycle a building, and
also meet the needs of the requirements that the city has?
>> I am looking at Haley.
I don't know.
>> I mean, you hear about, like, you know, shopping malls that are abandoned that are
becoming like retirement communities because they're a perfect place to put apartments
inside of them.
>> Sure, I would say -- >> Old hotels.
>> Most of our districts that I can think of that would permit something like a strip
center or the mall would permit multifamily.
Some may require a specific use permit for it, but it would -- based on the way those
facilities are typically platted, it would fall under our multifamily definition if someone
wanted to do that.
They would have to, of course, meet all building and fire code requirements, so that may be
the cost prohibitive piece there, you know, to install, like, fire sprinkling and things
like that within those buildings.
But from a zoning perspective, I would imagine the majority of those districts would permit
both the commercial use that was previously there and multifamily.
>> Commissioner Garland?
>> To me, the holdup is typically whoever owns the property or the land wants to turn
the highest profit.
And whatever the highest profit, if that's apartments, $2,000 multiunit apartments, if
they can sell it for that much, or are we ever going to have, like, somebody that has
the motivation to go, I have this land, this is what I would like to do with it.
You know, that's where the disconnect is, is who owns what and what is their intention.
Is it max profit?
Absolutely, and I think that's why we can never find, bridge that gap of what we need,
what our community needs, and what we keep getting.
And that's just kind of on a side note there, so.
>> Commissioner MacDuff?
>> What is the action step here?
>> That's a good question.
Staff?
What are your thoughts?
>> So no direction is needed.
This was purely an informative work session based on a previous matrix request.
I would say if the commission's interested, you know, we could discuss something later
in our matrix section about if there are additional items you want brought back at a future date,
or alternatively, several members of this body are on the development code review committee,
so this is a topic that could be brought up there as well.
If there were any of the things that you heard this evening that you would like that body
to consider code amendments for.
>> Very good.
All right.
>> All right.
>> I said I was done, so I'm going to be done.
But thank you very much for --
>> You bet.
>> Yes.
As well as any other staff that helped.
It's a lot to wrap your head around.
>> It was a group effort.
>> Thank you.
That brings us to our second work session report.
Receive a report, hold a discussion, give staff direction on the Southeast Denton Zoning
Overlay Districts.
Yeah, I'm going to say let's take a five-minute break and grab some food so that we don't
get squished up against the 630 regular session.
So at 603, we will take a five-minute recess.
Thank you.
>> Our recess.
Welcome up PZ25-194 work session on the Southeast Denton Plan Zoning Overlay Districts, et cetera.
>> Hi, Julie Wyatt.
I'm going to start the presentation and then I'm going to turn it over to Mia because we're
both kind of working on these overlay districts.
So we'll get started.
We're going to talk briefly about the Southeast Denton Area Plan and then some public engagement
and results of the overlay districts.
As some of you recall, Mia and I both presented information related to the overlay districts.
Mia was in May and I think I presented in June.
So just a quick recap and then to let you know what public engagement, what we've heard
so far.
And then any discussion?
And I promise I'll try to talk fast.
Okay, so the Southeast Denton Area Plan was adopted in July of 2023.
It was the effort over 18 months, partnering with the community over 40 public engagement
events.
So it was a pretty intensive process with the Southeast Denton community.
As part of the plan, the community developed a vision for how Southeast Denton should look
and feel in 10 to 20 years.
And in order to achieve that vision, came up with some goals.
We're not going to talk about all of them today.
Really we're just touching on honor the culture and heritage, invest in economic prosperity
and also strengthen neighborhoods and affordability.
Also as part of the plan, there were 53 action items to help the community and the city achieve
those goals.
Today we're really touching on three of those and that is a residential overlay district,
a height overlay district, and then a live work overlay district.
Since we spoke in June, we have done some public engagement related to these overlay
districts.
At this point, we've only heard from 14 respondents.
So we're going to talk about that later in the presentation.
We had a block party at Fred Moore Park.
That was actually before we talked to the group here.
And we advertise that with door hangers.
We had over 100 people attend.
It was a really big success.
After we spoke about the overlay districts, we went to Juneteenth, had a pop-up there.
We also presented the information to the June CEDNA meeting.
We talk every month at the CEDNA meetings and then talked with them additionally at subsequent
ones.
We've also had three community workshops.
Because of the rousing success with the block party and the door hangers, we decided, well,
that's the secret sauce.
So we put door hangers on each resident in Southeast Denton.
We wanted to make sure we touched every person who lived in Southeast Denton.
Then we had an in-person meeting on Saturday, September 27th, a pop-up on October 2nd at
American Legion, and then we had a virtual meeting on October 3rd.
Upcoming, we had a survey with our community workshops.
We're going to launch that on Discuss Denton so that people can take the survey from the
comfort of their own home whenever they want to.
We don't have the beginning and end dates for that yet, but it'll be up for a little
bit so that the community members can weigh in.
Then also a property owner meeting for residential overlay and height overlay districts in particular.
We understand that while there are a lot of residents in Southeast Denton, there are also
properties where there isn't maybe a house on it or there's a different property owner.
We want to make sure we touch everybody, and so we'll also have a separate meeting for
that group as well.
As we talked about earlier, overlay districts are a balancing act.
We want to make sure that those regulations are restrictive enough that we can work with
the community to achieve the vision that they have.
We don't want to make them too restrictive.
That would deter people from investing in the community.
We want to make sure, are they clear?
Do they actually achieve what the plan says they want to achieve?
With that, we have three proposed overlay districts.
The height limitation, that's that area in blue.
It is that transition area between the DCTA station and really those historic neighborhoods
in Southeast Denton.
A live work overlay, that's what Mia's going to be talking about.
She's done a lot of work related to that.
Then the residential overlay district, that's that area in yellow.
This really captures those single-family neighborhoods in Southeast Denton.
We're going to talk about the residential overlay first.
That action item is to create a residential overlay district to maintain the scale and
character of the neighborhoods while fostering community investment.
We heard from the community over and over that they wanted to retain the scale, the
look, the feel of their community.
That is really hoping to achieve that desire.
When we're talking about it, keep in mind, this is as proposed for new construction and
substantial expansions to homes.
We're going to talk about that.
It really is related to three proposed overlay topics, not focused on use.
It is really design-related, home size, front setback, and building architecture.
Once again, residential district, and here we go.
As part of formulating the draft regulations, staff first started with going out to the
community and see, "What is the character of the homes in Southeast Denton?
What are the architectural styles?
What are the scale?
Where are the garages?
How do they look?
What are the front entries like?"
Really we came up with some consistent themes.
There are a lot of craftsmen and bungalow and vernacular architecture homes in Southeast
Denton.
There's also a lot of ranch style homes.
Those architectural elements that we're proposing are consistent with those architectural styles.
Things like dormer windows, bay windows, front porches or stoops, oversized windows with
substantial trim, and gable roofs or also hipped roofs.
We don't typically see recessed entries in Southeast Denton.
We don't typically see maybe some of those more modern roof styles like shed roofs or
flat roofs or maybe mansard roofs.
That was the basis.
We talked to the community in March.
We heard from them, "Yes, we want to maintain the one-story and two-story.
We prefer not to have three-story homes in Southeast Denton."
We also talked to them about where the houses should be placed on the lot.
Sixty-three percent of the community felt that houses could be located a little closer
to the street, and then also talking about parking for ADUs, 63% said no additional parking
for ADUs.
We also talked to them about those design standards, additional bigger windows, front
porches and stoops, maintaining that existing roof style, the hipped roof and the gable
roofs, and then also where garages are.
The community felt like front-facing garages as well as detached garages were appropriate
in Southeast Denton.
With that, I won't go in depth on this.
We're going to talk about it briefly.
We are proposing, as part of the overlay district, is to reduce that front yard setback for lots
that are less than 7,000 square feet.
Typically the front yard setback is 20 feet.
We're proposing 10 feet.
It was kind of mixed.
I think it was mixed with this body as well, a little concern about that front yard setback.
And I'd say the community reflected that.
Five agreed, two disagreed.
Max building height, I'd say there was overwhelming agreement, and to limit the building heights
for the primary structure to 30 feet, and then the accessory structure to 20 feet.
In terms of entry feature, the overlay as proposed would require a front porch or a
stoop.
The community agreed with that proposal.
And we're also proposing, as part of the overlay, to require larger windows and doors
on the front facade than what we would typically require in single-family neighborhoods in
Denton, as well as prescribing the width of the trim, making sure it's real visible
from the street, consistent with that craftsman style.
The community agreed with that, six to one.
Roof form.
All of those who responded agreed to limit the roof form to the hip and the gabled.
And then in terms of the additional architectural features, we're proposing, remember those
two architectural features in that green box, five respondents agreed, zero disagreed.
There was one question about affordability.
I thought we'd go a little bit deeper on this, just very quickly.
We looked at both new construction and then existing expansions.
So new construction, we just looked at kind of volume builders, what their quick move-in
homes are, and then what the average or what the average price per square foot is if you
have a large porch, a small porch, or no porch.
And really, it was pretty consistent.
It went anywhere from average of $187 per square foot to $192 per square foot, so in
the same range.
I think where it was a little different is when you're talking about adding a porch to
an existing home.
But that, because you have to tie into the roof, you have to get an engineered foundation,
you have to do all the engineered framing, it does run between $8,000 and $25,000 ballpark.
And then there are also some homes being constructed in Southeast Dent right now.
We compared these regulations to those homes being built, and the majority of them have
those larger porches with the decorative columns in their designs.
When we talk about applicability, we proposed required on all new construction, only requiring
the maximum height and roof forms for expansions less than 50% of the existing square footage,
requiring all of the regulations on expansions greater than 50%, and then not requiring it
for maintenance.
So you maintain your home without having to adhere to any of the regulations.
So with that, I just have some questions.
Feel free to give me some feedback.
Once again, this is just a feedback.
It's not intended to, it's not a public hearing, so we're just kind of talking about it and
wanting to hear what your thoughts are and concerns.
So any other additional ideas to engage the public?
We want to make sure property owners and residents understand that these would be additional
regulations than what you would typically have in another single-family neighborhood
in the city of Denton.
So we want to make sure that while we know the community is very keen on keeping that
character, we just want everybody to be aware.
We heard the community responses are mixed on that front yard setback.
Do you think it should go forward at this time, or maybe wait on that proposal?
And then regarding the front porch or stoop, do you think it's an important design feature?
If so, given the potential cost, should there be some variability or some modifications
allowed with director approval for that front porch?
For instance, maybe allowing a 10% reduction with director approval.
Then is the cost of a front porch or stoop too prohibitive in an expansion?
So I don't know if we want to talk now or at the end.
I know Mia has slides, too, so I don't know how we want to approach this.
We don't have a lot of time left, and I don't want to rush the discussion.
We do have an ability on our agenda to postpone the rest of this until after the culmination
of the regular session, so I just want to take the temperature of the commission.
Would it be okay if we did that, just to give everybody a chance to get to the bathroom,
and then maybe after the end of the regular session, we could come back to this?
Where are your feelings?
I like that idea.
Okay.
Is now a good pausing moment?
It's a great pausing point.
Okay, thank you so much.
You bet.
With that, we will recess for five minutes, come back at 630 in council chambers for the
regular meeting.
Thank you.
PM with the quorum present and will call us to order for the City of Denton Planning and
Zoning Commission meeting on Wednesday, October 8th, 632 PM.
Our first order of business is to stand and say the Pledge of 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.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state, under God, one indivisible.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state, under God, one indivisible.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas flag, under God, one indivisible.
That brings us to item 2A, PZ25188, consider approval of the September 24th planning and
zoning meeting minutes.
Any discussion or a motion from the commission?
Commissioner Riggs?
I make a motion to approve.
Thank you.
And Commissioner MacDuff?
I second that motion to approve the minutes.
Seeing no discussion, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 6-0, brings us to item 3A, FP25-0026, our singles consent agenda item
for this evening.
Any discussion or a motion from the commission?
Commissioner Riggs?
I make a motion to approve.
And Commissioner MacDuff?
I'd like to second that motion to approve a request by Robson, Denton Development for
a final plan of the Robson Ranch Unit 30.
Seeing no discussion, I'll call for a vote on the board.
Oh, sorry.
I apologize to the commissioners, but I don't know that I can vote on this because I live
there.
Am I right?
So the decision to recuse is a personal one and I can't advise you on that, but generally
speaking in the past, commissioners who live where a property is located, a project area,
they don't vote on the item.
Okay.
So I apologize that I didn't catch that when we were in the other meeting.
It's not fatal.
This is a consent agenda, so we're not having a presentation.
So my suggestion is to not vote and then get with Kathy afterwards for a recusal form.
Okay.
Good timing, though.
Okay.
Thank you.
Seeing no discussion, I'll call for a vote on the board.
And that item passes five zero with one recusal.
Sorry.
That moves us to item 4A, our item for individual consideration, item FR25-0020.
Excuse me.
Yes.
Excuse me, chair.
Yes.
I would like to recuse myself from this item.
Very good.
Commissioner MacDuff, there's an area right back to your right there.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I'm Julie Wyatt.
I'm presenting FR25-0020.
This is a replat of a four-plex subdivision.
They do have some items that they do need to work through.
The property is located just west of Loop 288.
It was previously platted, but they have changed some of their designs, so they are making
some changes to the lot lines and some of the design.
We do recommend denial because they have some items they need to address.
However, we have no objection to their request for an extension to October 22nd.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Any questions from the commission?
I have one just because I'm curious, and I think it's an educational opportunity.
The agenda information sheet mentions that this was due to alleys were needed in order
to meet the design considerations.
Am I reading too much into that to say that they're opting to build three-plexes or four-plexes
in the form of what we would typically think of a townhome?
And that's why?
You are correct.
Yes.
I do think that that's a known way to make these three-plexes and four-plexes not as expensive
to build because once you move into a triplex, you have to abide by the International Building
Code book as opposed to the International Residential Code, which requires seven plus
architectural and engineering stamps and that sort of thing.
The more you know with the rainbow and everything.
Any discussion or motion from the commission or questions?
Commissioner MacDuff?
So can I actually ... Oh, I'm sorry.
One question from Commissioner Riggs.
No.
So we're going to have another recusal.
I have to recuse myself from this one too.
Very good.
Yes.
They're dropping like flies.
Thank you for everybody else being here tonight.
Commissioner MacDuff?
Well, I'm not going to recuse myself.
So I'll make the motion for approval by the request by ECM Eden Village LP for approval
of a replant of the Eden Village edition.
And this would include a 30-day extension to a date certain of October 22nd, 2025.
And Commissioner Garland?
And I will second that.
Very good.
Seeing no more discussion, I'll call for a vote on the board.
And that item passes 4-0 with two recusals.
Commissioner MacDuff, would you mind tapping on the door to invite our other commissioners
or secretary?
Yes, thank you.
Thank you.
That brings us to our public hearing this evening, item 5A, Z25-0013.
Evening, Chair, members of the commission, Mia Hines, senior planner.
This item, as stated in the caption, is a rezoning request for just under an acre, currently
zone R4 and 5.75 acres zone RR to go to the mixed-use neighborhood MN district.
The property is located south of East McKinney Street, approximately 600 feet west of Glengarry
Way and just directly west adjacent to the McDonald Highlands subdivision.
The applicant's stated purpose for this requested zoning is to have consistent MN zoning in preparation
for resale.
They have received some interest that they believe the MN zoning would help with that
property.
So here is the current zoning map to the left.
Again, that northernmost tract is zone R4, which typically requires that minimum 7,000-square
foot lot.
The southern R track is RR, which is typically a minimum five-acre lot, so very different
in dimension standards and zoning district standards there, but primarily the uses that
would be located on those lots are single-family residential.
Compared to that, the requested zoning district, MN, is primarily pedestrian-oriented in design
and development regulation standards.
There is a maximum 15-foot front yard setback that requires that certain portion of the
building be pushed up to the front and, again, really oriented towards that pedestrian scale.
There is a max building height of 65 feet, but as I'll discuss throughout the presentation,
there are some transitions that could help sort of mitigate any negative impacts or adverse
impacts to the property to the east.
So an overall overview, of course, we did, once we got this request, put it up against
our criteria for approval, and we do find that it does meet the criteria.
I'll go through in detail a little bit in my next couple of slides on that piece, but
here I just wanted to mention that it is consistent with the future land use map designation of
modern residential.
The proposal is generally consistent with the purpose statement for the MN zoning district.
The property or the request does allow for the existing use of single-family residential
on the property to continue, and development plans would be required and must comply with
the DDC or other criteria should this property or the MN zoning district be approved.
And then finally, zoning is not expected to generate significant adverse environmental
infrastructure or fiscal impacts.
So as far as its consistency with the MN purpose statement, in our DDC, the MN is intended
to support compatibility between higher-intensity mixed-use areas and adjacent residential and
commercial areas, and that's exactly what we have here.
The property directly to the west of it has not developed yet, but it is planned for -- it's
a part of a PD, and it's sort of planned for transitional housing.
Essentially, from our point of view, it's multifamily.
There are quite a few different structures that are permitted on there to support residences
as well as programs intended to support those residences.
So the intended audience or the intended market for that development would be those in need
of transitional housing, and then there would be some buildings and offices and things and
programs that would sort of help them within their transitioning state.
And that's on the property to the west.
The property to the east, conversely, is a single-family residential subdivision with
a density of approximately six units per acre.
As far as the roadway, of course, East McKinney Street is located just to the north.
It is a primary arterial with recently improved pedestrian facilities, and I'll go into that
a little bit here in a second.
And then development standards would require compatibility transitions and buffers if this
property were zoned MN as opposed to any other sort of residential district between them,
these two properties.
So I brought up this table a little bit in the work session to talk the comparison or
to give you a comparison between what is currently permitted on those properties, what could
be permitted with maybe a more intense residential district, and then what would be permitted
under the MN zoning district.
For the most part, the dimensions are significantly different.
You're looking at a maximum 2,500 square foot lot size compared to the five-acre lot size
minimum there.
But again, existing zoning is not in line with our future land use map of moderate residential.
So really, when we're looking at differences, we're looking at how the property can be built
and developed.
The MN district does impose that maximum 65-foot building height and requires a specific use
permit for anything over 40 because it is adjacent to that single-family residential
district.
A wider range of land uses could be permitted in the MN, ultimately helping us achieve some
of the goals of the neighborhood scale commercial services and other things that are intended
to support residential development in those moderate land use designations.
As far as compatibility requirements, you'd be looking at the same generally across the
board because that's more based on the land use, and we would look at that once the land
use came in.
And then, like I said before, permitted uses, whereas the current zoning districts and residential
zoning districts would primarily permit residential and community facilities, that mixed-use zoning
does permit more commercial opportunities as well as the more dense residential development
such as multifamily.
I wanted to show you this slide as we talked a little bit about the buffers and transitions
that are applicable to MN.
If you could reorient yourself, because I want to blow this up as much as possible,
north is to the left of the screen, and so this area here is East McKinney Street.
What would be required with MN zoning or with a new development in general is that 10-foot
to 15-foot landscape buffer here, so you're looking at at least this area that cannot
contain anything but landscaping and possibly utilities, and then you have a maximum building
height of 40 feet up to at least this orange line here, and then a maximum 55-foot building
height at least up to this yellow line.
Beyond that, they could go above 55 feet, but it would still require a specific use
permit.
So we're really looking at a max 40-foot blank here in general, and then a specific
use permit would be required, and within the request of a specific use permit, they still
have to meet the maximum 40 and maximum 55-foot within those distances.
I did do a rough calculation and pulled up the property dimensions for this, and the
property width total, I think that was a question, is approximately 215 feet, so that gives you
an idea of scale and the permissible developments that could occur on this property.
With regard, I talked a little bit about this so far, but regard to our comprehensive plan,
that moderate residential land use is what we have on this site, and that MN district
does conform to that land use.
This zoning change would help us achieve a couple of our other goals, specifically the
goal of growing with character and supporting desired forms of development that improve
standards for urban design.
As I discussed, that mixed-use neighborhood district really is intended to be more of
an urban pedestrian-oriented district, similarly creating character, achieving that exemplary
urban design, and then finally, the goal of designing a fiscally advantageous land use
pattern paired with fiscally responsible infrastructure management and investment.
I included that one in there because we just made improvements to East McKinney widening
it and adding those pedestrian facilities, so if this property is to redevelop, it would
make sense to be able to utilize that improved infrastructure, either from a commercial standpoint
or from a residential standpoint that connects to those pedestrian paths and, again, makes
use of those improvements.
Here is a picture.
I don't know if you can actually see it clearly on this blown up, but here's a comparison
of East McKinney back in 2021 compared to 2025.
I believe 2021 is around the time that they began construction of that expansion.
At one point, it was a two-lane, center-turned-lane divided, and currently, it is a four-lane.
That isn't correct.
Not six-lane.
Four-lane with the center-turned-lane divided, a 12-foot-wide sidewalk on the north side
and a five-foot-wide sidewalk on the south side.
As far as changes in the area, again, I've mentioned a little bit to the west, the property
that's entitled for that mix of uses and those transitional housing that hasn't developed
yet, but within the past just seven-year span, here's what we have.
There have been significant changes in that area to the west.
On the other side of that transitional housing property is a multifamily development that
just occurred, and then to the west of that is a commercial development that just occurred.
Additionally, Ryan High School, I believe that's Ryan High School, has expanded their campus.
They've added some buildings and increased their capacity a little bit.
Then similarly, the property to the further down east along McKinney is currently developing
a manufactured home community.
There has been an increase in rooftops in this area.
There's been an increase in residents, and there's also been an increase in commercial
activity along with the infrastructure improvements that we've seen happening to East McKinney.
There has been changes in the area that an in-men property could or opens up opportunity
for a property zone in-men to either, again, contribute to that residential growth in this
area or actually provide neighborhood-scaled commercial services for these new residents
that have been added to this area.
With that, we did do public notification as per state law.
We have not received any letters in opposition.
We have received one in favor.
It was the property owner, technically accounting for the property they own to the east.
That is not a part of this subdivision.
That will be updated as we go to city council, but that's the only response that we've seen
of the notifications that we've sent out.
The applicant did inform me that they sent out letters to the neighboring community basically
explaining what's in their project narrative, what their goals are and what their purpose
is for this rezoning, and asking the community if they had any questions being open to contact,
and they had not received any inquiries or any questions, so they did not host a neighborhood
meeting from that point.
With that, staff is recommending approval of this zoning change request to mixed-use
neighborhood as it does meet our criteria.
That concludes my presentation.
Following this, if this body is able to make a recommendation this evening, it is planned
for the November 18, 2025 city council meeting.
That concludes my presentation, and the applicant is here to answer questions, if you all have
any.
They do not have a presentation, but if you have questions, they are happy to answer.
Thank you, Mia.
I will open the public hearing at this time.
In our public hearings, the applicant has an opportunity to go first, if they so wish,
but you can defer if you want to, and then we will open up for the public to comment,
so it's up to you whether you would like to speak at this time.
This is a public hearing.
I don't have any cards in front of me, but you can easily fill out a card after and come
up and speak as you are ready.
Please come up to the mic, just for the record, we need your name and address, and then you'll
have four minutes to speak.
Betty Keeley, 5213 Gaelic Court.
It's the first street as you pull into the subdivision there.
We are in, I believe, the 500 zone, but we did not receive any other documentation on
what's intended to go in there other than the card that was recently sent out.
Right now, to our subdivision, we've got a dollar general on the corner, which by the
way has caused complete havoc for us and all of my neighbors along that backside with all
the stuff that goes on there, the lights, the noise, the traffic.
There's no traffic signal coming out of our subdivision.
I've come to several of these meetings and requested somebody to look into putting in
a traffic light there for mainly the kids, but now we've got more residents, all the
traffic from the dollar general, and now we're going to have something on the other side,
which that would dump out right where the kids go in, it's a crossing for the school
there.
Again, I don't know if the detail of what is planned for that area went out to the 500
foot, but we did not receive anything, and I'm opposed to the change.
Just to give you a little understanding of how this confusing process works, the zoning
on this parcel currently is in some designations that would allow single family homes, if one
could develop that in this parcel, and would not allow much else.
The applicant is asking to change that zoning to a different zoning district that would
have the uses that Mia presented, but there's no specific development plan at this time.
It's really just what we call a straight zoning case, so it's should these other uses be allowed
within this area?
Does that help clear that up on why you didn't get additional details about what would be
developed?
She said something was sent out to the residents outlining what was going in there, and we
didn't receive anything, at least that's what I heard.
Maybe you can get with staff, but I think that postcard is what she was referring to,
so it will just state what the current zoning is and what the application is for a different
zoning district.
Is there anything else that staff needs to correct me, or change anything on?
Okay.
Any questions from the commission?
I don't see any.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Thank you.
This is a public hearing, so if anyone else would like to speak, you're welcome to.
I'm representing my client.
The only reason that we want to do the rezoning is because the adjacent property, 5130, is
already mixed use, and we're trying to sell the 8.5 acres, and the majority of the people
who have an interest is like, "Well, you have 1.7, one zoning, and everything else is different,"
so we want to just kind of match everything, so whoever buy it, they have to come to you
and request whatever permit and see what they want to do, but we're just trying to make
it easy for the sale.
I mean, we don't have a buyer yet, because obviously everybody's waiting for us to have
rezoned it.
Sure.
We just want to make it kind of simple for a buyer.
Okay.
That's it.
Okay.
Any questions from the commission?
Thank you.
I don't see any.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
This is a public hearing.
If you'd like to speak, you can come down, state your name and address, and you'll have
four minutes to speak.
Careful on those steps.
I've played hockey too long.
My name is Mike Keely.
I live at 5213 Gala Court.
I guess my biggest concern is that we never, ever want to see another dollar general in
a residential neighborhood.
I know that you're people that are supposed to come in and check for the standards.
We have semis that park 10 feet from the back of our backyard and sit there and idle overnight.
So I have to call the police and have them come out and try to wake up this driver.
This is not supposed to be.
There's not supposed to be any commercial vehicles, especially idling overnight.
That's against the law, for God sakes.
I've called the city manager's office on this.
Also the street lights in the parking lot.
I could sit and read a newspaper at my kitchen table 24 hours a day.
These lights are so bright, and they're way too bright.
I've complained, but nobody's done anything.
Four people had to come out and check it, but I know they didn't, because you can get
an app for your phone and hold it up, and it'll give you the lumens of the light inside
my house, which is just incredibly bright.
Of course, the noise, driving in and out of the parking lot, all of that is ... I can't
wait to sell my house and get the hell out of debt.
It's a nightmare.
We built this house.
This was our dream home 35 years ago, and all of a sudden, this thing pulls in, and
we never got any requests for zoning change or anything for this dollar general.
They kind of snuck it in on us, the way I see it.
I don't know why we weren't notified that this was coming, but here we go.
We got it, so that's why we're here.
We just want to make sure that everybody follows the rules, and it didn't happen with Dollar
General.
There's no way they follow the rules, and they're not following the ordinances of the
city of Nettin that you have on your website.
All these rules, they're there, but somehow they get away with it.
What else?
What about sewers?
We don't have storm sewers in our neighborhood, and you're going to add this stuff on.
The storm sewer for the Dollar General, the water ... They put a trough in, basically,
and run it out to the street, and it runs down the street to the end of ... I don't
know what those streets are, and dumps into the creek.
There's no storm sewers, and what's going to happen with this?
This is more of that, and I've never seen anything like that, and I didn't realize it
when we purchased our house, but I need to look into getting some real sewers put in,
storm sewers, so we don't have open storm sewers.
When they dump their trash, it's basically running down their streets, which is not a
problem.
It doesn't sound like so.
Just one point of clarification on the ... When you talk about storm sewers, you're talking
about storm rain runoff, as opposed to refuse water, if you will.
Yeah, it's not that.
It's everything else, though, and most neighborhoods, they have a storm sewer, and a storm sewer
system.
We don't have that.
We have the curbs.
We don't have the six inch, nine inch curbs.
We have this thing, so that's where the water runs, and it runs down to the end of all the
streets in that neighborhood, to the cul-de-sac, which then has a ... I don't know what you
would call it, just a drainage area that runs to the back of the houses down there, and
all that dumps into the creek.
Right.
Okay.
Really?
Thank you very much.
Into Lake Louisville?
Thank you.
We can have a drink in one of those, please.
All right.
I don't see any additional people jumping up to comment, so at this time, I will close
the public hearing.
I guess I'll ask for staff to come up and address a couple of things I heard.
One, can you give just a very brief explanation on what the stormwater evaluation and remediation
process is for development in general, and then the other one must not have been important.
Start with that, please.
I'll go through a couple of them, and if you think of the other one, you can, of course,
ask me.
Thank you.
I think for, yes, so for lighting, for utilities, public or water, sewer, drainage, all of those
things, traffic impact, all of those things are reviewed when we have an actual development,
and the reason that we don't typically discuss them with straight zoning changes is because
we just don't know.
So anything from a single-family residential home to multifamily development with a lot
of residences or a commercial use, like a retail store, could be developed on this site,
and there's more information that goes into site development and site design to answer
questions related to those things.
We do check those when developments come in with the zoning compliance plan as well as
the civil engineering plans, so they are engineered drawings that are intended to meet the minimum
requirements of water, sewer, drainage, and things like that.
One of the other questions?
There's general confusion about lighting.
I guess let's couch it for this parcel in particular.
What would be the requirements of site lighting, be it landscape or parking lot, side of building,
in any development, especially to the west of the neighborhood that's to the east?
So I mentioned a little bit before, there is a buffer requirement or a landscape buffer
requirement between the property and the existing single-family residential structures.
The width of it is going to be dependent on what actually develops on the site, but there
will be at least a minimum buffer that's intended to shield from car lighting and things like
that in parking lots.
As far as site lighting, there is a minimum standard that site should be downcast and
shielded downward so it's not reflecting on neighboring properties.
There are minimum foot candle requirements that have to be met at the property line as
well.
That is checked when we typically either check for DCPs or a site plan, building site plan.
Pardon my ignorance here, but when we go through a development process, how do we check foot
candle illumination based on a site plan?
What is the name?
Photometric.
Submit photometric plans that identifies where the proposed lighting structures will be and
then literally has measurements of how much illumination is going to be on the ground
in certain locations.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Yes.
Commissioner McDade?
Sorry.
Excuse me.
Dyer?
Commissioner Dyer.
Just a question, when the Dollar General was put in and it is also MN, which is what the
applicant is asking this area to be, do they also have to follow that buffer zone with
certain amount of landscaping?
Yes.
Now, I need to maybe do some research on that one because it's not a part of this request,
but yes, if they came in under the current DDC, I'll put it that way, I'm not sure what
the timing, if they came in under the current DDC, they would have also been required to
do that landscape buffer as well as those lighting requirements.
And with MN, one of the objectives, if this land is to be sold and somebody comes in and
buys it, one of the things that they would now be allowed to do if we do the zoning change
is for apartment complexes, correct?
Correct.
But they can also do townhouses.
Correct.
And what is the zoning if they just, that would just allow townhouses and not apartments?
Most townhouses could potentially be like an R7 or maybe R4 as far as residential zoning
districts and not apartments, and then it would also alleviate most of the opportunities
for commercial in that instance because it would be residential.
So MN is our most least intense commercial district, and then if you're wanting less
intense density in residential, you start to leak back into the residential district,
so that's your R7s and R4s, which doesn't allow for much of those commercial uses.
Could you on the .93 acres there up against East McKinney where that right now is R4,
could you just do that as MN because it's up against the road and then the remaining
5.75 acres, could we recommend a different zoning?
Is that always a possibility?
Yeah.
So I talked over with the applicant a couple of, I think they initially submitted this
two, three months ago, so we've thought about it extensively and talked about it extensively.
The R7 zoning district, I think, would also meet our moderate residential future land
use designation and would also be appropriate for this area.
I understand the applicant's goal of having consistent zoning across the property for
their purposes, and the moderate residential or the mixed use neighborhood zoning designation
does also meet our moderate residential future land use designation.
So you could request R7, and if that is the direction of this body, I believe you have
the flexibility to do that.
Jeff is recommending approval of the full, the MN for both tracks.
Point where I guess to follow up on that question on the, my understanding is that the purpose
of the rezoning is because this is all a single parcel and because of prior annexations and
whatnot, the, there's a strip along East McKinney Street, which is a different zoning than what's
south of there.
And so am I correct in thinking that in order to have two different zonings and still have
this land developable, you'd have to replat it so that both parcels would have street
access essentially?
You would have to replat the second lot or at least provide some type of public easement
to that property.
I didn't want to clarify that, yes, they are two different parcels under one ownership.
And I believe that a large part of that split is if you follow the history of the annexation
is because of the, the property is basically along East McKinney Street, we're annexed
first and then we kind of came through and did the southern half as well.
And could you, sorry to put you on the spot, but I know you know this stuff like the back
of your hand.
One thing I think didn't come out is the tree preservation requirements for the more intense
uses in MN versus what would be allowed that would be mostly residential in, in R7.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, just if you can talk to that.
I don't know the difference on top of my head with tree preservation requirements.
So I'll point to Haley for that.
I will say they require a similar landscape and tree canopy coverage requirements.
That is supposed to say tree canopy coverage, not tree preservation.
My apologies.
But go ahead, Haley, if you have something to add.
Yeah, I was just going to add the tree preservation requirements would be the same regardless
of zoning or land use, the same standards apply across the board.
Okay, I guess since we heard talk of townhomes, that would be single family residential or
that I thought those tree preservation requirements were different than commercial and multifamily.
Residential is they are allowed to drop a little lower than commercial.
So for tree preservation, is it ESA on site or are we talking just straight tree preservation?
There is ESA on site.
There is a difference and you may be thinking of the upland habitat ESA type, which has
a lower standard for commercial than single family in terms of the amount that has to
be maintained.
Straight tree preservation for things outside of ESAs is the same across the board.
It starts at 30% being the required, but you can drop to 20% with higher mitigation.
Okay.
Thank you.
So let me just make sure I'm understanding this right, because it's lots of tree talk.
And that is the key difference between perhaps an MN and an RR7 would be that with single
family type uses, any upland habitat in the area has a larger upland habitat ESA preservation.
It's probably not the word our code uses, but you must maintain a higher percentage
of that for the commercial and multifamily uses than you do for the residential uses.
Yes.
Is that correct?
Yes.
And I do want to point out that because this is a straight rezoning request, the MN district
does still permit some of those single families, so it could develop either way, but that is
the case, correct?
If it is developed with residential, they are permitted to preserve or conserve less
than commercial and multifamily.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any other questions from the commission or discussion?
I will actually ask our legal to explain a few issues, because one is we have six commissioners
here.
We will explain what our procedure is in the case of a tight vote, as well as give us some
background and information on how to form a motion if the intention is to require counsel
to trigger the super majority requirement on the council for a motion where we would
not...
Yeah, I'll stop there because I'll just make it easy.
Thank you.
Okay.
I've got you.
Okay.
So no worries.
So if there's a tie vote here, then the item comes back at the next PNZ meeting.
It escapes me whether it comes back as an individual consideration or a public hearing,
but you will have another opportunity to take a whack at it and hopefully resolve the tie.
If there is a desire to recommend an alternative zoning district to council and make it clear
that planning and zoning's opinion on the request to rezone MN is a denial, then probably
the simplest way to do that, pardon me, is to make a motion generally in the form of,
"I move to recommend approval of R7 and recommend denial of MN for the subject zoning request."
I just want to note that that's a motion that's doing two things, and so consider in your
vote whether you agree with both things should that motion be made and seconded.
And please ask questions before the vote if you're not sure.
Thank you.
Commissioner McDuff, I think you had your name on the board for a question.
Yes.
I just wanted to say this in a public hearing that I do have some concerns about this, and
my first concern is that the MN rezoning allows for multifamily construction, and that would
mean apartments behind the neighborhood.
The other thing that concerns me now that I hear from the public is the light pollution,
the noise pollution, just of some concern.
So for the record, we were hearing it for the record, but I guess the big one for me
as a retired educator is the traffic that will be involved with the more commercial
development right across from Ryan High School, and the staff is assured that that would be
one of the steps of analysis, the study further on down the line, but I want to register that
as my concern.
I will say I am thinking from looking at what's around adjacent to this property that requested
to be rezoned, I do think an R-7 might be more appropriate.
Thank you.
Sure.
Commissioner Dyer.
Sorry.
I would also like to say that after hearing everything and looking at the property located
on the east side being a single family residential, and the property on the west side of this
particular strip of land, I just don't have concerns that if we move to do an MN zoning
approval that having the potential to have apartment units there is not a good transition
between a single family residence into what is slated to be built on the west side of
this property.
I also have concerns about lights that would be accompanied with the parking requirements
for apartment units, the noise that would also be associated with that.
You're already up against a busy street.
I think an R-7 would be a better suited zone for this because I think having town homes
would be a great transition between what is established with the single family, what is
scheduled to be built on the west side of this property, and I think it also is a great
way to achieve home ownership for some of our residents who I would think townhouses,
as long as they're not luxury, I think in this area it would be a good affordable plan
for this.
So as it sits before us, I would be a no vote on an MN zone motion.
Commissioner Riggs.
Yeah, I share the same concerns with the MN zoning.
Not only can you do apartments in MN, but you could also do retail, so it sounds like
another kind of dollar general situation.
I personally think I'd be more concerned about the apartments, and Mia, this is maybe a question
for you.
With the R-7, multifamily is still allowed, but it's a specific use permit.
What would that process be, because it's still technically allowed?
Yes, so the specific use permit process, that R-7 district does allow multifamily with a
specific use permit.
That process, basically we review the zoning compliance plan beforehand, so before the
zoning change instead of with a straight zoning change, we do it after.
We would review the zoning compliance plan, landscape plans, as well as building elevations
in some cases, and then we would make sure that it is in compliance with the Denton Development
Code standards for development in multifamily.
We would bring it before this body as a specific use permit.
It would be noticed, so the neighborhood or the adjacent property owners would also get
a notification of the hearing, as well as they would be available or able to see copies
of the site plan and the actual development plan for the area.
This body would make a recommendation, and then city council is ultimately the approving
body for specific use permits.
Okay, I kind of like that, because if we go with R-7, it doesn't preclude a multifamily.
Maybe there's a plan they could come up with and come back to us and go, "Maybe that's
a good idea," but as of right now, it kind of precludes the multifamily and definitely
precludes the retail, so I think I would be more in favor of that.
The other question I have is the property to the west is a PD.
Can you talk a little bit about the PD and what's going to go there?
Sure.
I tried to explain it a little bit.
The intent behind the PD or the applicants for the PD is a non-profit organization.
It's the Love First Community or Grace Like Rain.
I can't remember the name of the community or the organization.
They are proposed or they have approved or they have been approved for ... Basically,
it's multifamily.
From our point of view, it's like horizontal multifamily.
It's a variety or a bunch of different residential structures on one site.
As a part of their PD, though, they also have to have program buildings, so they also have
to have an office space, certain community features for the enjoyment of those residents,
and then the housing is intended to be transitional housing that supports people who are sort
of an in-between state.
They're either looking for jobs, they're looking for service, they're looking for assistance
in some kind of way.
That's what that's intended for.
I think from a land use standpoint, it's largely multifamily.
That's the best way that what we see from the outside and what we'd see on the ground,
that's what it will look like.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I do think that the R7 sounds like a good transition from single family into the PD.
Understood.
I shared concerns.
Just one question from me.
There's a separate parcel from where the Dollar General is that's north of this neighborhood
to the east of the subject property.
That's also zoned MN right now, and I think it's undeveloped.
I want to make sure that because of the complication of how zoning works, I want to make sure that
the public who's here understands what could happen on that piece of land as well and how
that impacts what we might decide on the subject property.
If you could just confirm what zoning that is and explain what could be built.
Yeah.
Just to confirm the property you should talk ... Are you referencing this one here at the
corner?
There's that, and then I think there's the one to the east as well.
This one here?
Yeah.
Yes.
Those properties are currently zoned MN.
The land uses that have been providing your backup that would be permitted under the current
MN zoning is also currently permitted on MN property.
General retail is permitted on those properties, so I know that the neighborhood expressed
concerns about the existing retail there.
That could occur.
We don't discriminate against the specific brand of retail, but that could occur there
also.
Okay.
As well as multifamily?
As well as multifamily.
That is correct.
Okay.
I want to check with the applicant, just because there's some differing opinions.
I know staff spoke to the discussion between you all on MN versus R7.
Is R7 something that you are willing to entertain, or would you rather have an up-down vote on
whether MN is approved?
Well, we would prefer the MN.
The only reason is because the adjacent property is MN, and on that point, we can sell the
8.5 acres as a one zoning and not different zoning.
I see.
That's why we have people ... Well, you have right now, we're trying to sell three different
parcels, three different zonings, and it's what is causing conflict.
They're all looking for one zoning, so it's make it easier.
I think I now understand, and I missed this point before.
The applicant that you're representing owns both the R4 zoned parcel next to ...
It's the RR and R2, that's the 6.7 acres in total, and then the property next to it is
a 1.7 acre, that's MN, and so we're trying to sell everything as a bundle.
Got it.
It's three different parcels, three different zonings.
So three different parcels are under common ownership, only two of them are for the rezoning
this evening?
Yes, because one is already MN.
Understood.
And everybody who's showing interest for the MN is like, "Yeah, but you have two more zonings
in here, so everything should be one."
Okay.
That's the reason.
Thank you.
Commissioner Dyer.
Just to piggyback off of Commissioner Riggs, Mia, so if we do the R7 and they were to come
back with the PD overlay, do you as city staff, because city staff changes, the people sitting
up here on this board changes, do you guys go back and look at transcripts to see what
the discussion was in the past?
Sometimes.
I think probably with the more particular, not odd, PD overlays, but if there's something,
we'll pool the overlay, of course, and if there's something in there that's very specific,
sometimes there is curiosity about, "Well, what was the discussion that led to that?"
And then sometimes we'll put it, I think Hillary might come in on this, we'll put it in the
statement for the ordinance as well.
If it's something very specific or very niche, we'll put it in the whereas statements that
expresses the desire behind the intent of the ordinance and the PD sometimes as well.
Commissioner Riggs.
I just wanted to follow back up on that.
So I'm looking at the zoning uses and it looks like also general retail would be allowed,
but would be a specific use permit again, right?
Let's double-check.
Because what I'm thinking is if it doesn't preclude, it makes it a little bit more difficult,
but it doesn't preclude, say, having some kind of retail up there against McKinney Street
and then possibly multifamily that just make it harder and they would have to come in with
the specific plan and then we're talking about a specific plan instead of just blanket zoning.
Yes, that is correct.
If general retail were to occur on an R7 property, it would require approval of a specific use
permit.
Commissioner Dyer.
Oh, no.
I'm sorry.
At one time, I thought I was reading minds and I was not, my apologies.
No, I mean, I know you said R7, but is there one that would exempt a potential, you know,
the PD for the multifamily or for the retail where it's just some form of residential in
the long strip?
I mean, I understand the applicant's desire to have it all MN because it matches what's
to the east of it, but, and I also see the, like I said earlier, that .93 acres up against
McKinney because that all makes, I mean, it all makes logical sense to have potential
retail space up there because you're on a major road, but just that long strip where
you're butting up against a whole single family unit, to me, it just, the transition between
that and the PD overlay on the west side, townhomes just seem like such a better fit.
I think if that was the move of the body, it would most likely, there have to be a PD
or one of the less intense residential districts that just doesn't permit many of the commercial
land uses.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's an interesting parcel.
It has the one remaining crosswalk since as we widen the road, we like to close crosswalks.
If you look back at the overlay, I think in your presentation, before we widened the road,
we had two crosswalks there and it was safe for people to walk across the street and now
it no longer is, so we closed one of them, but it does have a light there, so as long
as people stop at the red light, it's safer than it would otherwise be.
I understand the desire for R7 as well, I mean, sorry, for MN as well, for contiguousness.
I think it's likely there is some upload and habitat here, so we've got to be conscious
about the priorities that we're setting in place.
I think I've said before that almost all applications have some competing priorities and we need
to be mindful of that between habitat preservation and development and that sort of thing.
I'll just remind the commission that R7, I think I could go along with that, R6 or below
I couldn't, just because all it does is move the neighborhood concerns from this eastern
border of the subject property to the western border of the subject property.
It doesn't actually resolve them.
One thing just for the applicant's awareness, in some cases like this, adjacent to residential
neighborhoods, while it would cause an additional public hearing process to come before council
and this commission if multifamily use was proposed, because of our requirements in the
MN district for height of the first floor, in some cases you can actually be more creative
in site layout and number of units that you can get on the property with R7 than you can
with MN, because of that 12 foot first floor combined with the 40 foot height limitations.
So it's not necessarily the downgrade in buildability that it might appear.
Commissioner McDade.
Thank you Mike, we're here tonight and what's on the agenda is a straight zoning the applicant
has requested for MN.
We would vote up or down on that for the item that's on the agenda and if the applicant
then wants to come back and request R7, is that how it will work or we would tell the
applicant what we're going to do tonight, whether they want it or not.
Yes, so what I heard was that MN was preferable, but R7 would still be accepted, the process
would, it's not so much that if we approve MN they would come back later for R7 if they
wanted a use in R7, because MN is a superset of what's allowed in R7, it would be sort
of the opposite if we were to approve R7 and they wanted to do one of the two uses that
requires that SUP, which is the multifamily and/or retail use that would require them
to come back with a full SUP request, which typically includes a site plan, layout, that
sort of thing.
Does that answer your question?
A little bit, but whatever someone wants to build on this site, they're going to still
come back here or to council?
Only if a specific use permit would be required, so for all those uses that have, for example,
the P or the P+, those are buildable by right, whereas staff was still, we reviewed site
plans for all developments, so we would still review it to make sure it meets our DDC, but
it wouldn't require a public hearing process.
Commissioner Riggs.
Yeah, just to piggyback on what Commissioner McDade was asking, so we make recommendations
to council, so technically we don't approve or deny, we're just recommending, but the
next step, no matter what we recommend, is to go to council, and so what we'd be voting
on or making a motion on is whether or not that we recommend to approve MN, and then
is there something, anything else that we would recommend to council for them to consider?
That's the way I understand it, so.
Yeah, yeah, that's correct.
Any other questions or discussion or a motion?
Commissioner McDuff.
I'd like to make a motion that we disapprove, mixed use neighborhood MN zoning district,
and approve, or recommend for approval, residential 7, an R7 zoning district, and this is in reference
to Z25-0013, a public hearing recommendation to city council requesting a request by Veronica
Yeary on behalf of Benjamin Delcea and Oswaldo Canales to rezone 0.93 acres of land in approximately
5.75.
Okay, just let me get the second.
Commissioner Dyer.
I would like to second everything Commissioner McDuff said.
Thank you.
And staff, is there additional comments?
Just wanting to get clarity, because of the discussion that we had, I think if the intent
is to have the property to the north zoned MN, I think it needs to be, the motion might
need to be slightly different, or at least clarify that that one can be MN and the southern
5.75 track to be R7.
Thank you for that.
So, sorry, it's, I'm doing a good job at making this more complex than necessary because it's
confusing me.
Do you want to speak to that?
No, I think, yeah, I would just like to clarify, was your motion for the entire property before
you tonight R7 instead of MN, or was the front portion MN, as had been discussed earlier,
and then the southern partial R7, if you could clarify that.
I believe to reflect a concern is the currently zoned R4, I'd like to recommend that that
be modified, the request for MN to R7, and the MN request is allowable, the one that's
on McKinney.
So, it's just the property to clarify the R4 presented is R4 on the existing zoning
map, exhibit four.
Just for clarification, can staff pull up the GIS map or the current zoning map so that
we can kind of play, pin the tail on the donkey?
Of course we need to.
I think that's probably the best map I have.
So the brown portion adjacent to McKinney is currently R4, the green portion below that
is currently RR, both of them contiguously are requested to be rezoned to MN, so could
you clarify your motion based on that information on the map?
Yes, exhibited we want to, is shown, I'm talking like you Eric, is depicted on the map, that
would be R7, both of those properties.
Okay, is that the consensus of the seconder?
Okay, so I have a question about that.
Okay, hold on.
No, no, go ahead.
All of it R7, or the first part MN in the southern half R7?
Well, I believe the concern was R7, all of it R7.
Yeah, I would like to see all of it R7.
So if, yeah, all of it R7.
So I'm going to pop in, because it's getting a little weird.
I'm going to revise my recommendation, I'd like to do a straight up down on MN, so we
have that on record for council, so that if they want to proceed with MN, they understand
that it's a super majority requirement.
Then I would like to recommend that we all understand that a subsequent motion may come
up, and that is basically what Commissioner McDev has said, which is to substitute staff's
recommendation that says MN with R7.
I like that.
Cool.
So Commissioner McDev, the most procedurally correct thing to do would be to withdraw your
motion, and then make a new one.
Commissioner McDev.
Well, Lisa, I've withdrawn my motion, and Commissioner Dyer, I believe, has a motion.
Commissioner Dyer.
So I would like to make a motion that we vote to deny staff's recommendation that the .93
acres, and the 5.75 acres be zone MN, that we deny that request.
With the understanding that there will be subsequent motions?
With the understanding that we will have a subsequent motion.
Commissioner McDade.
I'll second the motion on the floor.
Very good.
Any other questions or discussion on this first motion before the commission?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
And I'll call for any subsequent motions at this time.
Commissioner Riggs.
Yes, I make a motion for both the R4 and the RR to be considered as R7.
Certainly with the idea, just to clarify, that both multifamily and commercial is still
allowed but would require specific use permit.
And Commissioner Dyer.
I would like to second that motion.
Seeing no discussion or questions, I'll call for a vote on the board.
And that item passes 6-0 as well.
Thank you.
That brings us to item 6, the planning and zoning commission matrix.
Does staff have an update?
Yes, so we will be marking the communal and small home item off of the matrix after this
evening's work session.
With that, I have no updates to report from City Council.
I did want to remind the commission, you should have received an email this week from Kathy
regarding our next meeting on October 22nd.
We are looking at a couple of more robust work session items for that night and are
seeking to know if the commission can come in at 4.30 that day in the event that both
of the tentative work sessions move forward.
So please respond to Kathy and let her know your availability at 4.30 that day.
Thank you.
That would be appreciated.
Any additions to the matrix from the commission, Commissioner MacDuff?
Yes, I'd like to add, as we discussed in the work session, there was a request for
additional apartment versus single family occupancy data.
So I'd like to add that to the matrix so we'll have that documented.
I believe there was also a request for, although we have finished the small communities agenda
item on our matrix, there was some interest in having more discussion on that item.
So I'd like to make sure that that's noted.
Sure.
Just to give staff clarity, are there any specific goals or proposals that you'd like
to see on the second item?
Thank you for asking that, Chair Pruitt.
I think in our work session we talked about the next step to our action item, how we could
take some sort of action in recommending development code changes to allow for these types of communities.
And I think on the first item, within about last year we had a pretty beefy update on
that already.
I'll leave it to staff to see whether we need to come back and present that or if we can
just send out the information.
I will make one request though to add a small item to that information, to that presentation,
even if we do just email it out.
And that would be, we talked about how we don't have occupancy data, but we do have
land area data.
And I'd like to see the total acreage in the city that is currently zoned to allow multifamily
and is currently undeveloped.
So that would be MN, MR, MD zones, as well as the total acreage in the city currently
zoned for single family residential uses, so R1 through R7, and how much of that acreage
is undeveloped, essentially.
I think that would help us understand the difference between unmet housing need and
land availability, if that makes sense.
Sure.
So I believe what I'm hearing is recirculate the previous presentation with the addition
of data regarding zoning that allows those uses but is undeveloped.
And then we may be able to get some occupancy data, I would say take it with a few grains
of salt, but I'll look and see what we can find with the help of our friends in economic
development.
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Dyer.
Can I add something else to the matrix?
Just because we have such a newer board, there's so many new members, you know, what, six-sevenths
of us have not even served a full year yet.
So is it possible that when we have some of our workshops that staff can just go over
all those different zones, zoning things, and, you know, where it has P and S and the
asterisks, and just, not necessarily in one time, I mean, it might be a couple meetings,
but just to kind of review all that with us so we have a true understanding of it.
We know what questions we should be asking.
It will help with our questioning on that as well because, like, I sit here sometimes
in awe that, you know, Chair Pruitt can just, like, rattle them off, but he's also been
here for three years, and so we, I know a lot of that comes with having this information,
you know, on a bimonthly basis or biweekly, so, yeah.
Any other matrix requests from the Commission?
Okay.
That brings us to concluding items.
Anybody have any concluding items this week?
I have one concluding item.
Because of work travel, I was absent for a couple of meetings.
I know that we've discussed the implications of land use and mobility planning and how
they intertwine, and I'd just like to take a moment to recognize two people in Denton
who lost their lives since the last Pleasant Planning and Zoning Commission that I was
at.
That was on August 31st.
I apologize if I get the pronunciation wrong, but Christian Chovannetz lost her life near
Dutch Brothers Coffee, and then last month, on September 22nd, someone lost their life
on University Drive near Ector.
It's near the new home zone that's being developed, so I'd just like to take a moment of silence
for them.
Thank you.
Any other concluding items?
Seeing none, I will adjourn the public regular meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission,
and we will resume from our recess of the work session here momentarily once the room
clears.
Thank you very much for coming.
Thank you for coming.
If I can get an indication from staff whether we need to recount or not, I'm not sure, to
restart the video.
This time, we will reconvene from our work session and continue work session item 3B,
PZ25-194.
Just to remind you where we were, we had discussed the overview of the Southeast End Area Plan,
what the goals were, and then what the proposed residential overlay district includes.
That is the proposed reduction in minimum front yard setback for a lot smaller than
7,000 square feet, a maximum building height of 30 feet for the primary structure and 20
feet for the accessory structure, some requirements for the entry features as well as larger windows
and doors and trim, and then specific roof forms, and then those architectural elements.
We also talked about affordability and then applicability.
That gets us to where we were talking about ... I was requesting feedback on what you
thought in terms of ... We have talked to the public about some of these things.
We are anticipating getting more feedback, but if there's anything else that you think
we should be doing or where we should be, so any additional ideas, we're open to.
Some direction on that front yard setback, whether we should continue to pursue it or
do you think it's something that maybe we should table for now, and then those elements
related to the front porch or stoop, given there should there be some flexibility in
the size and then what that applicability is.
If you have any direction or thoughts, we'd love to have them.
Is this separate from the portion that Mia was going to present?
Yes.
Okay.
So direction from the commission on these?
Yes.
Do you just have any feedback regarding the residential overlay you wanted to provide?
Of course, you don't have to answer these questions, but if that ... You can use that
as a framing device.
Yeah, Commissioner McDade?
Just some concerns regarding the requirement to have the porches and the stoops.
If someone doesn't have it and they're remodeling, I think it'd be a bit much to require them
to add it on there if it doesn't already have it.
And then the other side is to require it.
It would be nice, may be consistent, but are we telling everybody they have to put in a
porch or a stoop?
I think maybe that might be something to discuss further or not make it a requirement requirement,
but maybe a suggestion.
Do you think like a requirement on new construction, but not like if they don't have it, it's grandfathered
in and if they decide to do like remodeling of their current home, like existing homes
kind of get grandfathered in that they don't have to have it if they have it, but new construction
has to have it?
I don't even think new construction should have to have it.
What was the percentage of residents that liked having?
At this point we had six agree for that regulations, zero disagree.
So six residents of the entire community.
I think I should kind of share the concern of, it seems like we have low participation
in the voting on this and there's a lot of people in the neighborhood.
I know one of the concerns that we had is obviously gentrification and if we start requiring
a lot of these things or we're just making it more expensive to build a home in order
to keep the feel, we definitely don't want to do that.
We don't want to make it to where, what we're doing is going to make it harder for somebody
to build and stay in the area.
So that's a big concern I have.
I don't know how you get more public participation, because it sounds like you all have gone above
and beyond trying to.
So that's just some of my thoughts.
Commissioner McDuff.
I want to address the engage the public, I'm going to be a little flippant here.
The only way I would recommend would be to see if you could get CDLAM to come over there
and have a public and have some barbecue or something, but a sports figure to come.
That's always a great attractor to see somebody to sponsor that.
But I agree with Commissioner Riggs, that's not a very good showing to make a decision.
My other comment on that, Ms. Julie, is I was waiting for Commissioner McDade to come
and give her thoughts.
This is her district, district one.
She's a lifelong native of Denton, I believe, and went to school here, too.
So I value her opinion.
So I will defer on making that a requirement.
But I will not defer on CDLAM if you could make that happen.
Please not catch it.
Yeah, I'll just -- I know budgets are tight.
Maybe we talked to some of the churches and community groups over there.
But I will echo Commissioner McDuff in what gets people out is food.
It's really that simple.
And I can't find it right now, so I will have to look and send it to staff later.
But there was a portion of a Friday staff report at some point in this last year that
talked about some of the Southeast Denton processes.
And it went through and described specifically how some of these overlays to ensure design
compatibility can be married with additional housing option types in order to allow more
affordable homes to be built.
You know, our Southeast Denton area plan states it a little bit differently, but it talks
about these districts being the overlay districts, can limit height, allow additional uses, require
higher design standards, just parking regulations, or anything else normally regulated through
zoning, which is what we're talking about, except we're not really talking about the
allowing additional uses piece, right?
And it says Southeast Denton residents welcome new development in the area if it respects
the scale and feel of existing neighborhood, of the existing neighborhood, such as moderately
sized single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes, small apartment buildings, and pocket neighborhoods
clustered around a central courtyard or green space, like what we heard earlier today.
So I guess my suggestion would be food.
And then when you get people out there, you have a poster that says we can get these things
and we can get affordability if you're willing to have a marriage of the changes.
I want to do what they want, the last thing I want to do, and I think the last thing they
want is to hasten displacement, like Commissioner Riggs talked about.
I don't want to impose things they don't want, but I want people who come because of food--
sorry, I'm just going to keep saying it-- to fully understand and appreciate the trade-offs
they're making and how to get the combination of goals, if that's what they seek.
Yes.
And at this stage, we have not addressed use and kept it more of those design guidelines
to get that umbrella of protection in place to protect that scale and character.
If and when there's ever a part two of that conversation, that would be-- was our approach
thus far.
I don't really understand.
I'm totally on board with that phasing from a procedural ordinance perspective.
But I think we have to have the conversation at the same time with the public, right?
But yeah, whatever the feedback is, if we could have clarity on what staff's future
intentions are based on that feedback, and then we can move forward, I think.
Commissioner Riggs.
Julie, I do have one more thing to say.
You talked about the front yard setback, and that was pretty much even kind of a 50/50
split on that.
Not quite.
It was slightly in favor of allowing it, but it seems to be a little more mixed in terms
of the community as well as what Planning and Zoning Commission expressed at the last
meeting.
That's why I was kind of on the fence.
Is that a part two conversation?
Is that something that we should just set aside for now and think through that a little
more, open to any and all suggestions, recommendations?
Unfortunately, it's still only seven people.
Right.
Well, and that's kind of where I was going with it, too.
Remind me again, did we-- on the front porch, Stupe, I feel like as if we had conversations
as if that would be-- is that allowed in the setback or nothing's allowed in the setback?
The front porch or Stupe is allowed to extend into the front yard setback, so it is allowed
to encroach as long as it is not enclosed.
Okay.
With that, I would kind of lean toward not changing it, but allowing the front porch
to encroach.
Okay.
I don't know about anybody else.
Staff, and I'm going to assume you have, please, I apologize for my ignorance, but is there
some sort of like survey monkey with all these things that you're doing where every single
resident property owner in this overlay gets a postcard that says, "We are doing an overlay.
We have some suggestions.
We want your input.
This is your community.
Do you want-- go to, you know, go to this, put a QR code where they can take their phone
and you know."
So that way, at least, you're not having to do events there or do the online meetings
or the pop-up meetings.
It's just another opportunity for those individuals who are probably working and can't make the
meetings because only having five, seven, 12, 10, that's not a good read.
And I agree, like, I don't live in that area, so I don't know what those individuals would
like.
You know, obviously, Commissioner McDade is the closest thing, you know, that we have
to hearing what these individuals will like, but it's all about we want to engage.
We want to engage with our community, which is why last week or last meeting, I said,
you know, thank you to all the people that came because that's how our system is supposed
to work.
That's how government is supposed to work.
It's not supposed to be just us up here making all the decisions.
We're just supposed to be representing what everybody in there or outside of these walls,
what they want.
So we-- there will be a survey online.
So with our community meetings, we had a minty meter where we had a survey during the discussion.
All of those questions will be put online along with a video of the virtual and then
the slide deck.
We chose to do the door hangers instead of postcards.
The door hangers were much more successful than we had had with postcards.
With this area plan, it has been, you know, public engagement has been something that
has been very-- we've had to be in the community in lots of places in order to talk to as many
people as possible.
I would say that this residential overlay is a result of the community engagement and
adoption of the area plan by council.
So the community has indicated that they want to protect the scale, that they want to protect
the character.
So we're-- that kind of-- that foundation is in the area plan.
Now we're kind of like, what are those details associated with it?
We have not found like a community meeting that really like pulled in a significant percentage.
It has been those small interactions with community members over many months.
So maybe instead of the postcard, maybe it's another set of door hangers that say, your
voice is important.
We want to hear from you.
Please, you know, click on this link, put the QR code like, you know, we want you to
be engaged.
We want you to be in the decision making of what P&Z and your city council are voting
on.
Have a voice, you know, type of thing.
And we're also-- we are proposing to send out a postcard to property owners because that
is while, you know, they're not necessarily residents of Southeast Denton.
They may have-- if they own property, we want to make sure that we've heard from everybody
who has a-- who's a stakeholder in Southeast Denton.
So that's-- yeah, that's a great suggestion.
We'll see if that is something that we can accomplish.
But we'll definitely have that survey available.
Maybe it's more social media, kind of those-- that opportunity, but we'll continue to try
to find ways to get the word out on that one.
Well, especially-- I mean, social media can be a huge tool.
I mean, I'm looking here and all the Halloween posts that the city of Denton is putting,
like-- I mean, I don't-- I know that whoever your team is, I'm sure they work really hard.
But we've talked a lot about some of the decisions that we're making and it would be nice to
see more posts about what's happening in the government, you know, like, your city council.
Here's your agenda.
Come to the meeting.
Come to the PNZ.
Come to this committee.
Come to that committee.
And it's just kind of another thing because when I see stuff like that, I share it out.
You know, there's so many around Denton, the Denton downtowners, like, there's all these
different groups that you can share it out.
And I'm sure this community has their own group that if the city puts something out,
it can be shared to that group because that is, fortunately, unfortunately, it's one of
the major places where people get their information.
Yep.
That's a good point.
Also, a recommendation that you leave some door hangers or flyers or postcards, whatever
you're going to put out, at the churches in the neighborhood.
That's the biggest meeting every week for everybody in the neighborhood and community
is at their churches.
Thank you.
Yes.
Thank you.
Maybe the church.
I will commend staff for the meeting you had in Fredmore Park where you had over 100 people
because I heard about it and thought that sounds fun.
And I even let my staff leave to come early because there was free pizza.
So maybe the staff works with some of the churches to do an event on a weeknight at
the church.
Any other thoughts?
Sorry.
I didn't know if I was seeing a stretch or ... Okay.
And just to follow up on Commissioner Riggs, who we'll get to in a second.
I'm fine with the reduced front setback.
It's a detail people probably don't understand.
My explanation of that would be to allow homes to be placed closer to the street more like
a lot of the older homes in that community are today, right?
But that's not a hill I'm going to fight for, so Commissioner Riggs.
Yeah.
I'd say ... I think we all know there's a couple of homes that went up that don't quite
meet the character and assuming that if these recommendations were put into place, those
homes would not be able to be built right now.
Is that correct?
There are elements to those homes which would not be consistent with the proposed overlay.
Okay.
I think that's the overall intent.
I think one of those was actually caused by traffic violence itself, but the car instead
of hitting a person went into the home.
Yeah.
Is it an accident if it happens 40,000 times a year?
I don't know.
Okay.
Any other feedback on this portion?
Okay.
One more.
The height overlay.
This is just two slides.
This is really quick.
If you recall, the community is concerned about the downtown-style development encroaching
in those single-family neighborhoods.
The plan calls for a limitation on heights in that area in blue.
That's the area between the DCTA and then the neighborhoods.
Our proposal is to ... All that property is on either PF or MN, and PF is public facilities.
Those are city facilities or government.
An MN allows that height up to 65 feet.
We are proposing to limit that height to 40 feet.
That would allow a nice transitional zoning or a nice transitional scale between areas
to the east and then ... I'm sorry, to the west and then areas to the east.
I don't know if you have any feedback on that.
That one's pretty straightforward.
I think it's a good idea.
Okay.
Awesome.
All right.
I like that the city's going to follow its own suggestions.
I think it's the same feedback I had previously that I'm fine with the height overlay.
Let's just make sure we're explaining it to people with the knowledge that we may be limited
in how short we can enforce that in the future because of state legislation.
Awesome.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you so much for your advice and your help and your guidance, and now it's me's
turn.
Okay.
Evening again.
I'll try to be brief with mine.
Like Julie, this is mostly an update from the last discussion or last time we talked
about this as the feedback that we've gotten since then has not been significant enough
to really have changes here, but there are some changes based on our last discussion.
With this, just to remind you guys, this is the live work overlay.
Like the other goals, this is our actions.
This is helping us achieve some of those goals of honoring the culture, investing in economic
prosperity, and strengthening neighborhoods and housing affordability, but I wanted to
bring this specific language that the action recommends because what we are proposing,
especially at least in one section, is slightly different from what the action recommends.
The action in the southeastern area plan is to create a live work overlay district that
focuses on allowing small mom and pop retail, such as bookstores, toy shop, coffee shop,
music stores, bar, beer shops, those types of uses, and a portion of a single family
home with a portion being used as a residence simultaneously.
What we are proposing, and especially in one of the districts, especially, or one of the
areas especially, is different than that in that we are proposing to allow standalone
businesses as opposed to them being combined with the single family home residence, but
that's because we've run into some challenges with implementation and things like that that
I'll talk about now.
The live work dwelling unit as a land use in our DDC, as well as as defined by the International
Building Code, has some very specific requirements to allow for both the living and working component
to exist in the same structure.
Primarily it is, I won't go into, we kind of covered this in the work session earlier
this year, but primarily the residential piece is subordinate to the work piece.
So the live work structure is intended to be sort of commercial in the front or commercial
on the ground floor, the residents up top or in the back, and the residents should not
exceed 50% of the total gross floor area.
So within this overlay district, if our goal is to basically allow for some of those uses
to exist, I think the question is, is it more important that we allow those uses to exist,
or more important that we require them to exist with the combination of a residential
structure?
So one of the challenges that we've run into with implementing the live work, just land
use with absent the overlay, is that the, I think the major one is that the International
Building Code requires fire suppression for the mix of uses.
If you have a single family residence and a commercial use in the same building, that
mixed use type of building does require a significant investment in the existing structure
to be able to utilize that as such, or for both of those uses.
So the area that we're talking about here, just to remind you guys, is along East Prairie
Street, properties west of Skinner, and then properties south of, or on the north and south
side of Robertson Street, and on the east and west side of Cook Street.
We sort of subsection these out based on the existing land uses, as well as the future
land use map designation for these, and mostly what we've been discussing so far is Section
A. Just looking at the future land use map, you see Section A there has a neighborhood
mixed use designation to the north.
They do have those sort of multifamily developments occurring to the north.
There's an existing industrial facility in this location here, and so there is an existing
mix of both existing land uses, as well as what the future land use map intends for the
future.
The other sections are a bit more homogenous, that Section B is mostly moderate residential,
and Section C is mostly single family residential.
So those, in our mind in proposing this, are slightly different from what's along East
Prairie Street.
What we are proposing, and this is just a further, a closer look at some of those existing
land uses, the character I think for the most part is still largely residential.
You drive down that street, you see mostly single family homes.
There are a couple of different businesses and churches on this street, as well as those
industrial facilities that I mentioned earlier.
So we asked the community, one, if they believe that uses should stand alone in this area,
and specifically which uses should be allowed to or be permitted to stand alone in this
area.
And what we see is shown there in this table.
We've got overwhelming support from the respondents that we spoke to, that restaurants, small
retail, personal service, daycare uses are all appropriate for this area.
So what staff is proposing is to allow for those uses and those uses alone to stand alone
as permitted offices, I'm sorry, as permitted uses within section A, and that's the properties
along East Prairie, of the overlay.
The properties that are underlying there would be potentially permitted with a specific use
permit.
Those are land uses that the community, again, is in support of, but staff may have some
concerns and would like to take basically the opportunity to take a closer look at them
where they are proposed.
So Mobile Food Corps typically comes with outdoor events and noise and things, and we
heard that that was a concern from the community, similar with professional offices, lighting
in that aspect, and possibly what it could bring to the area.
So those would be proposed, or those are proposed to be permitted with a specific use permit.
Some of the use-specific standards that we would propose for those uses would be to limit
the size of the property.
I think the commission last time we talked had expressed concerns about the potential
of if we do allow for standalone commercial businesses in this area, that the concern
about gentrification where this area is redeveloped and looks completely different.
So we would impose some size limitations to ensure that it is more compatible with the
existing structures and the existing character.
We would also impose some of the architectural components that are included in the residential
overlay.
We would make sure that those were imposed on these properties as well, so that should
someone decide to use the existing single-family structure as a business instead, if they were
to want to make improvements, they would have to adhere to those architectural standards
that the residential area adheres to, and similarly, if they were to want to construct
a new building, it would still have to meet the architectural character of the area.
At one point earlier in the year, we were proposing a change of base zoning to R7 for
the remainder of these properties basically that are not currently zoned R7.
After talking a little bit more with the community, there was some concern about how that might
impact property taxes and some other things, and ultimately, we can still achieve what
we're trying to achieve with allowing those land uses with just keeping the base zoning.
So we have removed that from the proposal.
Specifically to address some of those other concerns and things that we would include
in the proposal would be a minimum hours or limited hours of operation restrictions, specifically
that would be the 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday
through Sunday.
Again, the community seemed to be generally in support of those restrictions, as well
as a minimum buffer between a new commercial business and an existing residence that would
be an 8-foot tall wood fence along the entire property line, as well as a landscape buffer
to help mitigate any lighting or things that impacts in that way that might sneak through
that fence.
Some of the other concerns that we heard were about noise in general.
The city does have a noise ordinance that everyone has to adhere by.
Most uses have to adhere by.
I believe there are some exceptions for the airport and some of the other more intense
industrial uses.
But in this case, the height or the noise ordinance requirement here would be a max
65 dBA measured at 50 feet from the source, and that's about just over normal conversation.
So that would be imposed, and if there are concerns, there are paths to enforce that.
And then the proposed parking requirement.
If you look at our standard, a live/work dwelling unit only requires 1.5 spaces per unit, and
so what we are actually imposing would be four spaces per non-residential use.
And again, that's the only those uses that the community has said that they would like
to see in this area.
That basically is consistent with the four spaces per residential or single-family residence
that is within the area.
So for people who are trying to use their existing structure, it wouldn't require again
significant investment and extra paving and things like that.
And we do feel like the size of the structures, given the size of the structures and the properties,
four spaces would be adequate enough to support parking on that site and not create significant
traffic and congestion on the residential streets.
One of the other questions, now that we've kind of thought about this, we've had some
time to sit with this a little bit and we've talked to the community.
So one of the other questions that I wanted to post to commission, and we really hadn't
had the opportunity to get community feedback on this piece, but it's those other sections
of the live/work overlay.
Do we feel like the commercial land uses that we're permitting or we're trying to propose
permitting to stand alone within East Prairie, do we feel that those might also be appropriate
for this area?
And again, we haven't had the opportunity to take that to the community, so I absolutely
would, once we find ways to get an improved participation, I would like to discuss that
with him.
But I also, because we were here at this presentation, wanted to gauge the commission's opinion
on standalone commercial uses in the other area, given their existing land uses and sort
of what is shown on the future land use map.
And I believe that is, yeah, that concludes my portion of the live/work presentation.
I can pose that question, Chair, and then if there's any other discussion or questions
that the commission has about that, we can dive into that also.
Sure, so specifically on the proposed land uses, as staff has explained, any comments
of support or concern on that?
I'm sorry, I made them all tired.
Yeah, sorry.
I think it's a very thoughtful proposal.
I appreciate the parking flexibility.
I think that will go a long way to allowing the types of small lot uses that the residents
have said that they want.
I'm not seeing...
Are we happy with what staff has said?
I'll just say it sounds good that I'm happy with what you put together, but again, I'll
defer to the community.
I particularly like the eight-foot fence in between, like if there's an existing residence
and then new retail commercials going in, eight feet, that's a nice-sized fence.
And then having some vegetation and stuff so that the parking is not right up against
the fence will be great.
I just echo those sentiments.
I feel like it's very balanced and very reasonable on it.
I don't know, I think it looks great.
I do have one redirection, not on the policy.
If you can go back to your slide where it was showing the 50% live work and explaining
that.
Oh, this here?
Yes, thank you.
I don't blame anyone because this is way in the weeds, but I keep making a point of this
and it keeps getting lost, so I'm just going to read out the actual verbiage in the building
code and Fannie Mae's requirements and in our code, and this is where I see a contradiction.
So in the building code, when it's defining live work dwellings and saying if you meet
these conditions, you can build it under the IRC code, it says the non-residential area
is permitted to be not more than 50% of the area of each live work unit.
And then Fannie Mae, for financing reasons to make it so that you can actually build
these things, quote, "Requires that no more than 35% of a condo or co-op project or 35%
of the building in which the project is located be commercial space or allocated to mix use."
So those two are saying the commercial has to be less than 50% or less than 35%.
And then when I read in our code, the definition of work live dwelling says the residential
component of a work live dwelling shall not exceed 50% of the total gross floor area.
Do we understand how those are contradictory?
So say the first part of the building code.
So the builder code says the non-residential area is permitted to be not more than 50%
of the area per live work dwelling unit.
It is the non-residential piece.
I see.
Yes.
And then our code says the residential component shall not exceed 50% of the total gross floor
area.
Yes.
Okay.
So do we understand now how those are contradictory?
Yes.
And I will say that the live work use has been interesting to work with because of those reasons
where we have the requirements in our DDC and then we are ready to go and then we get
to the building permit phase and realize that actually it's what we're requiring immediately
kicks into the fire suppression system.
So I mean, if that's maybe something that we need to take a look at to allow this use
to be more useful within the city, then we can absolutely take that direction.
I think it has implications beyond just Southeast Denton.
Of course.
Right?
There are seven areas that may be appropriate for work live dwellings that if we just flip
a greater than to less than sign, maybe if there's demand then there's financing and
everybody's happy.
Yeah.
I know it's late and we all probably want to get out of here soon.
But I would just add, I think the distinction for the work live dwellings in the DDC, those
do have to be considered under the IBC, the International Building Code, as opposed to
the International Residential Code.
So we do understand there's that challenge.
However, what the International Residential Code is describing is essentially what a home
occupation is in the DDC.
So we do allow that to occur just under a different title where the residential is the
primary and the occupation is the secondary.
Okay.
And I threw that definition up here.
I talked a little bit about it more in our community meeting to make sure that the residents
understood that distinction, but I didn't go into detail here.
That use is, we do have the opposite use permitted, like Haley was saying, where it's predominantly
the residential piece as opposed to the other.
Yeah.
I mean, I think when most people think of a live work thing, they're thinking of someone
who lives there and has a business.
And yes, I recognize we have the home occupation, but that has...
It's really intended for non-public facing occupations.
You can't have a sign announcing that there's a business there.
There's all sorts of limitations like that.
It's a broader discussion.
I don't want to get off on the weeds, but I see that as a good intention by our code
when we passed the 2019 code, where we didn't really fully align those things, at least
in my mind.
Right?
So, I'll leave it at that.
Any other...
Okay.
I really put everybody to sleep with that.
I'm sorry.
It was...
I'm sure it was me.
I'm so sorry.
Up and up here.
Sorry.
Anything else, Mia?
That's it for us.
The last part of it was just open discussions and any general feedback on what we've presented.
I did have just one question.
Mia, do you feel like you got the feedback you're looking for?
Because I feel like we're just kind of like, "Yeah."
Yeah.
I think this has been a challenging one to address because just building off of the base
use of the live work dwelling unit and its challenges and then trying to apply that to
what the community called for and then what, in practice, could actually happen and how
much it would cost.
So, marrying all those things has been a challenge.
I'm hoping that I'm explaining it correctly and that's not why it's just quiet and supportive.
But I think I got the feedback that I need.
If we're all on board with it, then I think I'm okay.
Okay.
Thank you for all the work.
And with that, I will conclude our extended work session with Planning and Zoning Commission
at 8.26 p.m.
- Thank you.