>> Good afternoon.
At 5.01 p.m. this Wednesday, February 25th, with the quorum present, I will call this
work session of the City of Denton Planning and Zoning Commission to order.
Our first order of business is citizen comments on the consent agenda items.
I don't see anyone, so that brings us to clarification of the agenda this evening.
Any question on the one consent agenda item?
No?
Okay.
Items for individual consideration, I believe both of these have now been requested to be
postponed, or not postponed, but the extension granted, right?
Are there any questions on either one of those?
Given that, okay.
Brings us to our public hearing.
First one is 5A S25-1A.
>> Good evening, commission, Bryce Van Arsdale, assistant planner.
This is S25-0001A, a request for an automotive fuel sales use on approximately 2.46 acres
of land.
This is located just south of East McKinney Street and on the west side, excuse me, east
side of Glengarry Way.
This proposal is consistent with the moderate residential future land use designation as
well as the goals and policies so forth in the comprehensive plan.
For this specific use permit, we do ask that the applicant goes above and beyond the typical
standards in order to mitigate potentially adverse effects as well as ensure compatibility
with the surrounding area.
And a couple ways that we did that is the first is to locate the building as far away
from Glengarry Way as possible, as well as as north as possible to East McKinney Street
in order to separate it from the single family residences in the area.
Additionally, through a neighborhood meeting, we heard that there was interest in a community
garden and we located that here in the southwestern corner.
Additionally, on the west side of the property along this Glengarry Way area, we wouldn't
typically require a buffer as the adjacency requirement is typically met by that right
of way.
But we asked the applicant to put this buffer in which includes street trees, ornamental
trees as well as some shrubs.
I do have a longer presentation for the public hearing but I'm open to any questions.
Commissioner Riggs.
Hey, Bryce, remind me again, but haven't we already heard this?
No.
So this was noticed at first for the meeting which got canceled due to inclement weather.
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Dyer.
Did I, I can't remember, did I read in here that they were thinking of having a
car wash in with this?
There was something in the caveats like if you put this in, you have to do that.
Correct.
So this building down on the southern property line right here is a car wash and within the
conditions of the specific use permit, we put in hours of operation that are allowed.
Okay.
I was trying, I was like racking my brain to figure out where everything was.
So on the left side there, is that just green space all in that area?
In this area right here?
Yeah.
Yes, ma'am.
So it'll be, it's basically turf grass today and it's proposed for future development,
but there's no specific plans at the moment.
Okay.
So something could be like another building, another business.
Correct.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Oh, sorry.
Commissioner McDade.
Excuse my voice, guys.
No worries.
There's a gas station, where's the parking around the gas station?
So the parking's located here on the western side, I suppose, of that building and there's
also a little bit right here along the access way and the actual gas pumps are located right
here with where the cursor is.
And forgive me, but do they need to dig for and put the pumps and the gas underneath the
ground, correct?
I would assume so.
I don't know a lot about the infrastructure of fuel sales, but yes, ma'am, I believe that's
pretty typical.
So the city does have some requirements regarding things like that, right?
I'm certain that we do.
I would also imagine it goes back to the state level with TCEQ as well as all those environmental
standards.
On all those compliances?
Yes, ma'am.
Would be the state?
I believe it would mostly be the state.
Haley can maybe fill that in a little bit.
Yes, to my knowledge, the city has very limited ability to enforce anything like that because
underground storage tanks are regulated by TCEQ.
Yes, sorry, Commissioner Ketchersid?
When we do a gas station so close to residential properties, do we look at current evidence
of potential exposure, risk to the residents around it?
Exposure in the sense of dangerous chemicals and things like that, I would say.
VLCs, things like that.
Sure.
I don't know that we do that through our specific use permit review, but that is something,
again, that's regulated by the state with TCEQ as well as any of those environmental
agencies.
Okay.
Well, I was curious, so I took it upon myself to look, and I did find many studies in different
journals that say that within 300 feet of a property is a higher increase of things
like leukemia and things like that.
So do we look at, even though it's regulated by the state, do we ever look at those types
of things?
No, that would be outside our purview as the city.
So the state does have regulations in certain areas that meet certain air quality standards,
do have higher, like the standards where you see the additional covers on the pumps to
reduce emissions and things of that sort, but that is all regulated by the state.
We would not have that ability.
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Dyer.
Getting back to Commissioner McDade's questions about the parking lot.
So the two-story building, is that where a convenience store gas station will be on the
first level and something else above it?
Correct.
So it'll be a general office above.
So basically everybody's got to go through cars pumping gas to access the building because
there's only one, two, three, it looks like there's only five parking spots in front of
the building.
Correct.
So there's a crosswalk that leads through those gas pumping areas, but the general office,
as far as I'm aware from the applicant, will be for the applicant themselves, not a rented
space.
Is it normal that the city is okay with a setup like this for pedestrian traffic?
It does meet all of our code requirements.
Okay.
I have one, I'm trying to read the arrows correctly and it looks like there's two parallel
out drive aisles on the east side of the building, is that correct?
Correct.
Is this proposed to be a drive-through use?
There is a drive-through use that is associated.
It's going to be a fast food restaurant.
Okay.
And will that be covered in the full public meeting?
Because I believe we require an SUP for a drive-through in the MN zoning district as
well, right?
I'm going to lean on Haley for that one.
Okay.
Microphone's not working.
Yes, so food sales is one of those uses that is allowed to be incidental to the automotive
sales use.
Sure.
So those are all being considered under the same umbrella.
But yes, if it was a standalone drive-through restaurant, that would require an SUP.
But in this case, there's uses customary to fuel sales that are lumped into that definition
of fuel sales and considered accessory uses to it.
So it's not uncommon to see a setup like this where there might be a Sonic or a coffee
shop or something associated with a fuel sales station.
Okay.
So the specific reason trigger, I guess, for this requiring an SUP is different, but normally
we would see SUP requests with drive-throughs in this zoning district.
I am 90% sure I can look that up for you, but yes, I do believe MN requires an SUP for
drive-through use.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any other questions, helpful information that we could scrounge before the hearing from
anybody?
Yeah.
Commissioner Riggs.
So it may be preliminary, but have we done any kind of TIAs or anything?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay.
So there is one.
It's actually on the sheet.
It's kind of zoomed into the landscape.
Our engineering reviewed that, approved that, as well as our transportation department.
I have a couple of those numbers if you'd like to hear them, but I don't have the full
breadth of the TIA with me at the moment.
Yeah, sure.
I'd like to hear them.
Sure.
So just for the trip generation and what came out of the TIA was roughly 3,362 weekday trips.
Fast food and that associated use had 608.
The convenience store had 2,121, and the car wash had an estimated 780.
And there's no issues with that entering onto McKinney right there?
No.
So one thing that we did do on our transportation requirement was that they install a right
turn in to the property from McKinney Street.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
I'm not seeing anything else.
Thank you, Bryce.
That brings us to our second public hearing, 5B, Z25-25A.
Good evening, Commission, Matt Burdine, Assistant Planner.
This is, as I mentioned, a rezoning case, Z25-25A, calarcamima.
This was opened at the last P&Z, but the applicant requested it to be the actual IS presentation
and stuff be done today, so hence today.
In summary, this is a request to rezone just a little over five acres from rural residential
to general office district, is located on Barthold Road, which is in the northwest part
of town, just west of I-35, up in that section of the city.
With this request, they're proposing to develop various commercial uses.
Staff did find that this request is consistent with the definition of both the general office
zoning district as well as with that future land use map designation of light industrial.
Additionally, noted that there has been significant and will continue to be significant growth
in the area, in part due to tech stop expansion projects that are currently underway.
Staff is recommending approval, have a longer presentation in the meeting, but I'm here
to answer any questions.
Any questions?
I just wanted to tie the agenda sheet mention about the frontage along Barthold with tech
stop to this map.
Is that 150 feet deep equivalent to the green portion that is not under rezoning request
for the CD?
Yes.
Yeah.
So, I failed to mention that.
That little green strip on the north of Barthold Road has already been dedicated to tech stop.
It's not included with this rezoning request as the property owner is no longer on that
street and it's going to become a future roadway.
Okay.
So, this parcel essentially has direct access to the right of way of Barthold Road.
Yes.
Yeah.
It currently does and will continue to do so after the road widening.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
I don't see any.
Thanks, Matt.
Okay.
That brings us to our work sessions, which we have plenty of healthy time for, so get
your questions ready.
First one is 3A PZ26-34, Receiver Report Holder Discussion on how the city's fiscal impact
tools applied to the review process.
Good evening, Commission.
I'm Charlie Rosendahl, Interim Director of Development Services.
This was an item that was on the Commission's matrix to discuss just a little bit about
how the fiscal impact tool that we use that's included as part of your agenda backup works,
and then also just talk about one of the questions was staffing availability and who attends
PNC.
So, I wanted to have those conversations with the Commission.
So, just a little bit of background on how the fiscal impact tool that we use came to
be.
So, with the new development code when it was adopted in 2019, we added a fiscal impact
as an approval criteria as part of that, and then with that coming forward, City Council
requested staff to develop that model and then include that as part of projects coming
forward.
So, in July of 2020, we issued an RFP, a Request for Proposal, and AECOM was the firm
that was selected to help create this fiscal impact tool for us.
It is an Excel-based tool that was developed shortly after that, and you'll see that this
presentation was given to this body, I think, in September 2022.
So, a lot of this is similar information to what was given then, but I know that some
of you weren't in attendance at that point.
So, just a refresher of how this came to be, yeah, most of you.
And then one big, this slide is just one big asterisk that the fiscal impact tool is meant
to be one of 13 approval criteria when this body is considering a project.
There was a lot of discussion at that point that this shouldn't be the sole deciding factor
for whether a project should move forward or not.
Just a reminder that these projects come forward individually, but we think of this as a holistic
view of the city, and so while you may have some projects that are net positive or net
negative, that there's a mix throughout the city, and the goal is to have a balance citywide
for all of that.
So again, just here, this is a tool to understand the costs and benefits of each project that's
being proposed, and a way for us to look at a 40-year perspective of these projects and
make data-driven decisions on city revenues and general fund impacts for these various
projects.
And also, we'll talk about roadway maintenance a little bit, but that is a consideration
that's contemplated as part of this tool.
So really, how the tool was created.
So we have a base layer of GIS information that's on a parcel-by-parcel basis throughout
the entire city, and then we take some assumptions from a future development, and then we use
a mix of effective rates based on historical information, and then actual rates where we
can, such as fees and things that we know are going to be the actual rates for these
different developments, and then that's how we come up with the future impact to the city.
So here on the revenue side, you can see the mix of revenues included here and how they're
calculated and whether they're actual, effective, or a mix of both.
Some of the ones like property taxes, we can get actual.
We know what the property tax rate is.
We know what the future value, or we have an estimate of what the future value will
be.
Same with permitting fees.
Some things are blended, like development fees.
We have some fees that, like civil engineering plan review, that is based on an hourly rate.
So we had to make some assumptions in the model based on size of what that future revenue
would be for that, and then also some things like mixed beverage tax and retail sales tax
was using historical information to put to a per unit basis and project out into the future
for these.
And again, I mentioned it a little bit, but really what we're looking at is a parcel-by-parcel
basis, and that includes not only the information that we would get from the county appraisal
district, but it includes historical information that we have from utility data.
So the tool goes in and assigns a per unit cost, if it's a multifamily, for example.
It says, "This multifamily has this much in water and wastewater fees, and it has this
many units," so then we're making assumptions on units to project out to what those revenues
would be for the future.
This is an example.
So the parcel-level data goes into roadway impact fee zones, wastewater, water impact
fee zones, and the point that I'm trying to make here is that, really, a staff member
will input a parcel number, and then it gives all of those attributes to that parcel that
then uses to build the future costs and revenues for that parcel.
So as far as costs go, they're based on the city's annual financial report, our historical
expenses, and then it projects it based on a population and commuter number, and then
so we're taking that number when we get a new project and estimating the future residents
and future commuters based on that project to project out to future costs.
It has a growth factor of 2.4% based on historical growth, and then it's discussed here, marginal
cost for providing city services.
It's really based on density, so we do have a density factor in here that I'll show an
example of later that if you have more lots on a single parcel, then your per-person cost
goes down for that.
And then roadways.
So what we've done with roadways specifically for this model is look at two things.
So there's the impact of new residents on existing roadway networks.
So that's done through the roadway impact fees.
The assumption is that that captures the expansion of roadways required for those new residents,
and then specifically we've included maintenance costs in this.
You'll be familiar when I'll point it out when I show the example where we have roadway
maintenance at the bottom that factors into the future long-term costs, and that goes
into whether it's an asphalt roadway or concrete roadway and the lane miles associated with
the new development to project out to a 40-year future cost for maintenance of that roadway.
So here's a little bit of the backend.
So this is what it looks like on the staff side.
So what we're doing here, and I'll point to it on the screen, is we're putting in use
types.
We take up to five use types.
So if it's even a multi-use parcel, we could have apartments, retail.
We factor in buildings, tenants to come up with a total building area.
And then how we assume the future property tax value of that is shown here on the right.
So the way it calculates future revenues, at least for ad valorem property tax for the
city, is that it takes the current value of the property and then it looks at the uplift.
So post-construction, what is the future value going to be?
So that is baseline using international building code costs and then associating that with
the building area.
And that's how we come up with this future appraised value.
That's also how we calculate our permitting fees.
But it also gives the option for staff to override if something were to come in and
say our building code assumes that it'll be a $15 million value.
We're hearing from the developer that they estimate that construction at the point that
it's built out that it'll have a $20 million value.
So not an often used option, but it is there for us to do that if we need to.
And then down below you can just see the variety and types of uses that we have available as
we build these out.
This one is what the commission would be familiar with.
So this is the fiscal summary that gets included in your agenda back up.
So I'll just take some time to walk you all through what this is.
So here on this left-hand side, you're going to see all of the projected revenues in the
top here and then the projected expenses.
So these are 40-year totals and then that along with the roadway maintenance costs,
this one doesn't have any, but if there were to be let's say subdivisions putting in roughly
two lane miles of roadway, then there would be a negative cost here that would factor
into the overall net impact here on the right.
Now this other fund revenue information is put up here.
This is more just informational on what the other wastewater utilities, electric, are
going to receive.
We've made assumptions here that those would be expense to the same rate since enterprise
funds balance each other out.
This doesn't go into the overall net impact.
This is only looking at the general fund net impact.
This is just a density example.
I mentioned earlier that right here in this very last line where it says cost of municipal
services per resident, this is just to show this body that as we increase density on a
particular parcel, so this is ran on a single parcel to just show what happens if it develops
in different ways.
So this is if you have one large parcel with a single unit or if you had the same parcel
with 14 units.
Even though the municipal service cost goes up, because that's based on per resident,
the actual cost per resident goes down.
Because the assumption is that to send a fire truck to that one unit is going to have a
cost of that roughly three residents to the house.
That same cost going to the same parcel will have increased but not at the same rate.
So even though it's three people to a single house, if you had 10 units, that's 30 people,
it's not going to cost the same to send that one fire truck to 30 people that it would
be decreased.
I'm just using the fire truck example, but that goes for library services or police services,
things like that.
So that was based on a study done that is incorporated in this model that shows a drop
in municipal costs for a single parcel based on density.
And then here's just a few more project examples to show the commission just the overall value
and net impact of different development types.
This is nothing in particular, just ones that we had pulled in from recent pasts.
And so 156 single family residential subdivision of roughly these number of units.
And then if the size goes up, then the value, the net impact goes up.
So if we're putting it 250 units at 2,500, and then you can see here with the change
with single family, multifamily and light industrial.
And then chair, if you're okay with it, I can stop and take questions on the fiscal
impact information before I move on to the staff attendance portion.
Sure.
I guess I'd defer to Commissioner Riggs because he's the one that asked about the staff attendance.
Do you view these as related where we should listen to both before we launch the discussion
or separate?
No.
So I think this is very helpful.
I think one of the things that I attended a council meeting, particularly not necessarily
P&Z, but a council meeting where we had a 2,000 acre development come in and there was
a lot of misunderstanding about the financial model.
And so I really thought it would be good to run through, particularly with this body that
just give us some basic understanding of what it is.
And so one of the questions I have for you, Charlie, is, you know, we're projecting out
for 40 years.
Are we also projecting out how much we think property values are going to increase, what
the tax rate or what, you know, property taxes income is going to be, or particularly like
roads, road maintenance, you know?
And I know trying to project out 40 years, I think about 40 years and like that was when
I was listening to cassette tapes in my car.
So there's a lot of technology.
There's a lot of things that change over 40 years and I understand this.
It's a projection, right?
But I'd like your input on that.
Yeah.
So the way the model handles it, it's a hard coded increase, annual increase.
So I had mentioned the 2.4% for the general fund costs annually increasing.
We have a similar number for the property value increases and some of the other revenue
increases as well.
And those were based on history and one of the things I failed to mention in this is
we do go through annually and update the city's budgeted costs within the model.
We update the parcel data that's in the model to get the latest certified parcel numbers
and costs associated with it.
And then also the inflation factors is part of that.
But I'll be honest, 40 years it's a complete, you know, it's just making assumptions based
on history and there's no way to tell what those are like.
And then if you will, if I may, there's one thing you brought up that I do want to mention.
On the 2,000 acre development that you mentioned, this model is really good at single sites
and analyzing them.
The reason we don't use this for something like a Craver Ranch or a Hunter and Cole Ranch
is because this was never intended to incorporate that level of a development because they have
a mix, a lot of mix of uses, not the maybe level of parcel detail that we have here.
And so each of those did have their own independent fiscal impact model.
And we have a lot more detailed costs associated with those as well.
We know what the engineering costs are going to be or the projected infrastructure costs
are going to be for those.
Actually, if I can, I just wanted to follow up to that.
So is that financial model for those large developments like that that are obviously
a little bit more complex, is that something that the developer contracts or the developer
pays the city to use, someone we choose?
Yeah.
So in both instances that we've done that, we set up escrow agreements with the developer
where they cover the costs of not just the fiscal study, but other studies that have
to be done so the city can ensure that we're making good decisions about those developments.
So in short, yeah, the city selects and hires the consultant that we choose and they reimburse
the cost for that.
Okay, yeah, I think that was some confusion maybe during that meeting too.
Yeah.
And I will tell you that this fiscal impact model and other fiscal impact models aren't
looking at any of economic factors.
And so a lot of times you'll get a fiscal impact model that will come in and they'll
look at multiplier effects where you bring in a new resident and then that resident's
going to spend sales tax dollars and that's going to create new jobs and then that person's
going to spend sales tax dollars.
These look at like one level, the fiscal impact models we've done, including this one, look
at like one level of information to say either this much new retail will generate this much
sales tax or this property value will generate this much sales tax, but nothing into like
this is going to bring new jobs and those people are going to bring sales tax.
But if you were to see an economic model, that would include some of those things.
And that was one of the things that came up with the Craver Ranch also is they brought
an economic model that did look at multipliers.
But that was someone we hired essentially and they reimbursed?
No, no, our model didn't look at that.
So we had a model that was done by AECOM.
They had their own fiscal economic model that they included as part of the backup to that.
So there was two separate models or studies that were shown in that one.
Commissioner McDade?
Thank you.
I was just going to clarify my understanding of what you were saying, but if you said something
about the city would contract for this study and then the developer would reimburse the
city for the study in some cases, but in that case, they brought their own economic study?
Yeah, they did their own economic study.
Okay.
But just to be super clear, we did our own study that we contracted with AECOM on that
particular development.
They independently, they also did a study, there was an economic study that they provided.
So there was two separate studies done, one contracted by the city, reimbursed by the
developer.
My other question was regarding your comment regarding the density per person reduces the
like resident services costs, is that what you were saying?
Okay, thank you.
Commissioner Dyer?
Can we look at the fiscal summary page that you had up there?
Yes.
So when I'm looking at the expenses that the city has, it says neighborhood, public safety,
transportation, administration and community services.
Can you give us examples of each of those categories and what those expenses look like?
Yeah, so this is just the way to break down our current budget into different categories.
So like administration and community services might be the city's like finance department,
city manager's office, community improvement services, code enforcement, things like that.
neighborhood, our departments would fall into the neighborhood category.
Public safety would be like police and fire, some examples of those.
And then transportation would be the streets department, some of those expenses.
So these are basically all the city offices and departments that have their hands on a
particular project.
So this is like salaries and administrative costs and all of that that you are adding
up over a 40 year period.
Yes.
So the way it works on the expense side is we've taken the city's entire budget and these
are then in the categories you're seeing are just ways to categorize those things.
So we've taken the entire city's entire budget.
And then this 800 new residents right here, it's saying there's a certain cost per resident.
And then we attribute that cost to those 800 residents and then project that out 40 years.
>> So when I look at this, because for two of the items that are on our agenda for
tonight, this report is actually included in both of those.
And so if you look at the general fund total revenue,
subtract out the general fund total expenses, which those four categories fall into that.
Then you have this net impact.
What are we looking at like those of us that sit on this board or city council,
like what do we want to look at when we want to see that this is a good project?
I mean, I know this is just one aspect that you guys are presenting to us.
But what if we see time and time again that the net impact is very low,
like the revenue that's brought in, like the expenses on the city is way higher.
And we're seeing a lopsided or maybe our net impact is not as great as what we want it to be.
Like, sometimes not all projects are a good project for the city.
And so how do we know that we should be like, this might not be good.
Like, do you guys, are you the first line of defense on that before you even bring it to us?
And you're like, yeah, this isn't adding up?
Or do we use a report like this to help us in making a decision?
>> Yeah, I think it all goes into staff recommendation.
And then it's up to the commission on what kind of weight you would give this.
But I would say if I were to be in your shoes and you look at a project and
you're seeing in your mind of those 13 categories,
like you think it doesn't match on the fiscal side, it's not fiscally beneficial to the city.
And then there's like three or four more of those items than it weighs into your mind, right?
Like maybe I shouldn't be approving this.
But what I was mentioning in the beginning is maybe, or not maybe,
the fiscal impact shouldn't be the only deciding factor of whether this is good or not.
But I would say in totality with the other factors within a given project,
that's what you would make your decision on.
>> Because I'm looking at this one in particular for tonight and
fortunately it's almost 16 million of revenue and only 3 million of expenses.
So it's a good bet, it's 12 million left over that the city is going to be left with.
But I'm looking at this one and it's like the expenses almost outweigh the total revenue that's going to be brought in.
So I don't know what the project that was, but that project there would kind of catch me off guard a little bit,
that maybe that's not a good project if the city is having to spend more over a 40 year period than what it's going to bring in.
>> Yeah, even this one over a 40 year period would still be a net positive to the city, small given that.
But if you were to only see projects like this, the city would still be based on the model,
a net positive if we did ten of these projects.
I think that's kind of what I was going back to in the beginning is you're going to see,
I don't know how many projects come through this commission, 50 or 75 a year maybe.
And it's really how do you weigh in if 20% of those are negative net impact to the city and
80% of them are positive, but we need all different types of housing in the city.
It doesn't really help with your decision.
>> So there's not really a standard that you can say, we want to see these types of projects that have like,
math is not my strong suit, I'm trying to do math on this one where you got
almost 16 million and almost 13 million difference, so what is that?
One to four, I don't know, I can't do the math, it's not my strong suit.
But when I look at that and I think, wow, over 40, yes, I get it's still,
you're still in the green where you're getting 2.3 million.
But I'm thinking, the city is losing $40 million.
They're having to spend $40 million for that project.
That's only bringing in 43 million.
But no, I'll tell you from a staff perspective,
there's a lot more that goes into it than just the fiscal impact.
And just generally, anecdotally about these developments is the more dense a development.
If it's a commercial development, it'll be a greater net impact to the city.
We're not going to have to provide the same level of services we would to this one that has 800 new residents.
If it's a industrial type facility, we'll collect more property tax because it's higher value.
But then those people need jobs, so that place needs workers and
those workers need somewhere to live.
And so that might go into a subdivision,
which will have more of this $2 million net fiscal impact.
Or if it's a large lot subdivision, it may even have a worse net fiscal impact.
If they choose to live in multifamily, I think it's different.
So that's what I'm talking about, a balance of different housing types and different projects.
>> Okay, thank you.
>> I would just add to that, a general rule of thumb for planners is residential development
is hardly ever going to be financially beneficial to a city.
But we still need housing of all types, to Charlie's point, to make the city function as it should.
So just something to keep in mind that even when it shows a negative,
that does not necessarily equate to it being a bad project that we wouldn't want in the city of Denton.
>> Thank you.
>> Commissioner Hutcherson.
>> Does someone keep track of the net impact throughout the year?
As far as negatives, positive impact?
>> We do not. >> To make sure that we end up positive every year?
>> No, we don't keep track of the totality of the projects coming forward.
And I will also say that there are projects that don't come before this body either,
that the staff just go through and it's built by right.
And those have their own impact to the city.
I think the city as a whole looks at that information, right?
Like what is the new property tax revenue coming in each year?
And that's part of the budgeting process overall.
>> Okay, thank you.
>> Commissioner Garland, did you?
Okay.
Sorry.
>> Yeah, no, I really appreciate talking through this slide.
Because this is most of what we see and there's lots of numbers and sections.
Just have a couple of clarifying questions.
So the right 60% of this is general fund impact summary.
So is it correct to say that that does not include revenue or
expenses from the other fund revenues section that's listed in the table?
>> That's correct, except for roadway maintenance at the bottom.
>> Okay, got it.
So the roadway maintenance which comes from the road maintenance fund as opposed
to the general fund is included in the costs on the right side?
>> It is included in the cost on the right side.
It's not because it comes from a specific fund, but it's because the model is set up
to calculate the projected future actual cost of maintenance of that roadway.
>> Okay, no thank you, that helps.
And I've never really known this, but
within that roadway maintenance calculation.
Are we using maintenance values that our
roadway maintenance staff manage within?
Sorry, I'm getting, let me start over.
>> No, I think I know- >> There's a certain number of lane miles in the city.
Some of those are so far gone that we don't maintain them.
That's what I've heard from staff before.
Some of them are better than that.
And therefore, those are quote unquote in our maintenance plan.
So the roadway, what's the name of the department?
I don't remember, Ethan and- >> Streets, the streets department?
>> The streets department, thank you.
They have a program where they say, okay,
here's all of the 685 lane miles that we maintain right now, right?
We're not pending a future CIP to replace them or widen them.
We're responsible to maintain them, right?
And we have a certain amount of cost, but they also have a model where they generate
what they believe is the amortized average cost for
maintaining a lane mile of road over its lifetime.
So first of all, am I describing that correctly?
>> I honestly don't know if they, what kind of cost information that they have or
have done in the past.
I know specifically that this was a study done that was completed by
Fries and Nichols when the city lasted their roadway funding strategy work
session with city council, and then that's attributed a weak
subgrade and a strong subgrade cost per lane mile over a 40 year period.
The city worked to maintain those roadways based on a certain schedule.
And then that is how this roadway maintenance cost is built.
So not based on our current dollar spent for roadway maintenance, but
based on a projected cost, depending on asphalt or concrete,
based on that study from Fries and Nichols.
>> Okay, no, that's helpful.
And then for that first 40 years, right, for a new development,
if it puts in new lane miles of streets, the developer is paying for it and
then rolling it into the mortgage on whatever sort of properties they're
selling essentially, that cost flows through to that.
Who pays for rebuilding the roadway after 40 years?
>> The city would pay for the rebuild.
>> Okay, and so which revenues here, which captured revenues here are and
expenses are accounting for that rebuild?
>> So the Fries and Nichols studies said that based on a maintenance schedule,
a concrete roadway would last a little over 50 years.
I don't remember the exact, it's somewhere between 50 and 55.
So that is not included in this 40 year outlook.
>> Okay, so the- >> So reconstruction isn't considered?
>> The reconstruction isn't considered.
I believe our comprehensive plan says to consider the cost to maintain and
reconstruct the roadways in these fiscal tools.
Okay, and then I guess this is a little bit more minor, but
I've always been confused, the service fees and
license permits, those are all one time revenue, right?
>> Generally, yes, like swimming pool inspections,
if you have a commercial swimming pool, you pay fees annually.
>> Okay.
>> Grocery, restaurant, if this had any of that, those are annual fees also.
>> Okay, but the ones that we see in this example anyway,
they're the high dollar ones, electrical, plumbing, development fees,
planned review fees, those are a one time revenue source.
>> Yep.
>> And then in the expense side, I think you described that really what we're doing
is we're taking the general fund and splitting it up into the four buckets of
neighborhood, public safety, transportation, and admin, and community service.
>> Yep.
>> So help me understand if we have a one time
fee collection, right, that's a result of the development.
But then we're taking the expenses of those departments divided over
the whole city, how does that equate to the same thing?
Does that make sense?
>> I think I'm following you.
>> Like, I'm sorry, my presentation got confusing again.
>> No, no, I understand what you're saying.
>> The thing I'm trying to get to is that we've had
development fee service discussions more counsel than us in the past.
And they're, at least within my tenure here,
there's always been some sort of a subsidy, right, from tax revenue
into some of the development fee work, right?
Because the fee studies we've done say that the cost to the city to do
the inspections and that sort of thing are higher than the fees we charge, right?
>> So we collect our costs, our fees are based on cost recovery.
So we're not recovering 100% of our total departmental fees.
But there are things like GIS, for instance, that have been, or
historic preservation, this is a better example, that have been designated as
having a city-wide benefit.
So not all of that position's costs are development-related.
So I guess my answer would be, we are recovering our development-related costs,
but there are some things in the department that have been identified as having
a community benefit, and that's why you see less than 100%
when we do a cost of service study.
>> Okay, thank you.
And I guess just to give the commission an idea, say it was a subdivision with
50 lane miles of concrete streets, do we have any idea how much that would cost
to reconstruct that hypothetical subdivision at 50 years, like you said?
>> I don't know what the reconstruction cost would be.
I don't know, somebody would know, but I don't know at this point in time.
That's something I can bring back to the commission.
>> Yeah, I'd appreciate an update with that information,
cuz it sounds like that's not, I mean, that is a cost to the city, and
it's not necessarily reflected within these summaries.
Is that a fair statement?
>> That's correct.
>> Okay, any other questions?
Yeah, Commissioner Riggs.
>> I might be able to clarify, and Charlie, tell me if I'm off base.
But you basically have your franchise utility funds, and
then you have your general fund, and your general fund funds street maintenance.
It funds street, well, unless you go for bond, it funds street reconstruction,
police, fire, all the other general services.
And so that's essentially funded by property taxes to the biggest extent.
So whenever you're talking about how are you going to reconstruct a street,
it's gonna go to your property taxes.
And so one of the things that I think we need to consider too is what the state's
doing on their level of basically decreasing
the city's ability to raise those rates in order to fund those different projects.
And so you're constantly competing with the two.
And Charlie, I think we have a dedicated sales tax for street maintenance.
>> I don't think so.
We do have franchise, I think, that goes into the street improvement fund.
>> Okay. >> Yeah.
And so basically, your water and sewer are basically funded by your fees, right?
And so we don't have a street fee.
So it's all based on taxes.
And so that's kind of where all that comes in.
And so to reconstruct any kind of street,
it's gonna be based on what you can bring in through your tax rate.
>> Yeah, I appreciate that.
I just want to make sure I'm understanding, though, on these summaries.
This includes all the future property tax revenue of the development,
is that correct?
>> Correct. >> And it does not include the cost of
reconstructing the roadways, is that correct?
>> It does not, because we're looking at a 40 year time frame.
If we were to project out to a future replacement or
reconstruction time frame, then we would extend this out further.
We would include the additional property tax revenue over that time frame, and
then the reconstruction costs as well.
>> Okay.
>> I'd say too, the other thing too is it's funded by the impact fees.
And so what you gather in impact fees too.
And so if council decides not to fund, or
not to charge 100% of impact fees, then you're already starting on a deficit.
>> Commissioner McDade?
>> I think I was swallowing a bird, probably.
>> [LAUGH]
>> My apologies.
Apparently, I'm the one calling people out for.
>> [LAUGH]
>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> Okay, all right, anything else?
Is, you mentioned that if we were to do this model out to the reconstruction,
to include one of the reconstructions so that we have a full life cycle,
essentially, of that expected time frame.
Is that something our existing model could be easily modified to do?
Or is that something that we'd have to start back from scratch and
create a whole new model?
>> I think it would be difficult to do with the way the existing model is set up.
>> Are there any streets that do last exactly 40 years?
>> [LAUGH]
>> So that it would be easier?
>> Yeah, I mean, obviously, not the way we've discussed the way that this fiscal
impact model is set up.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay, no, I appreciate that.
I think if we could just in a AIS or something, no need for
another presentation to understand the reconstruction cost for
a concrete and an asphalt lane mile, cuz we see those in different types of
applications, that would be helpful.
>> Yeah, and I'll just mention too one other thing, I guess,
when you start projecting out into these more long term things is if we're in 50,
55 year territory, then depending on the development type,
we could be talking about maybe even reconstruction of the property at that
point, depending on what the structural conditions are.
>> Would that be 1970 for us today if we were looking at that time frame?
>> So maybe this is more of a planning question, but
when we have an aged building that somebody wants to reconstruct, but
it exists on an already platted lot next to city streets, are they responsible for
completely reconstructing those streets when they do those building improvements?
>> Not necessarily, I mean, it would depend on the condition of the roadway and
the things that we've identified that might be like immediate needs.
But I mean, they would pay impact fees depending on what it is that would
contribute to those funds, but we wouldn't necessarily say the road that is in
serviceable condition needs to be rebuilt just in front of your property because
you're redeveloping the building on site.
It would be very situational.
>> Okay, all right, yeah, Commissioner Beeks?
>> Yeah, so I think one of the questions is whenever you're talking about your
general fund, and how do you increase funding to support these different things?
And this is where we take a measured approach, right, of what type of
development we want to see.
But ultimately, because of what the state's doing to the city's ability to tax,
the only way you increase income from property tax revenue is to increase density.
And basically add rooftops.
And so if you're not adding rooftops, then you're gonna constantly be going into a deficit.
>> Yeah, I appreciate that.
And I also appreciate, maybe I didn't understand you, but saying adding density.
Is that because other options are to add costs more than the revenues?
>> I think if you look at Charlie's model of basically how much you bring in from
property taxes based on density, you see that you bring in more property tax that way.
Now, that's where we decide, what do we want?
Do we want a super, super dense, or do we want not so dense?
Understanding what the financial impacts of that are, so.
>> Thank you.
I caught that that was not a hand, raised hand, so Commissioner Getcher said, good call.
Thank you, Charlie.
Is there any action or needed?
>> No. >> Okay.
Let's wrap up the staff attendance questions.
>> Yeah, I think this came along kind of the same lines.
There's a request, why don't we have other staff from other departments in attendance for these?
So just a little bit of our current process.
If we have an item that was gonna come before you that we think is gonna have a significant
area of discussion, a lot of times this will happen with transportation.
We do have staff in attendance to help answer those questions,
especially in some of those PD plan development cases.
I did wanna let the commission know, you can see here.
In the bottom, some of the staff that go into the review.
So before it comes to this commission, there's a lot of review that goes into these things.
Less so on the zoning because it's still speculative and not necessarily an exact concept.
But you can see if they do have a concept on a PD that we have all of these staff that are reviewing these.
So the planners will be familiar with the projects.
They'll have been in multiple rounds of review.
So we'll have these projects probably six months, I would assume, four to six months maybe.
We've been reviewing these projects before they come before this body.
And so we have staff from other departments reviewing them.
I will say if the commission's open to it and happy to have this discussion,
that we could follow a process similar to what we do with city council.
Where if you get and then are able to look at it and you have any specific questions.
If you could let us know, and you already do this.
But if you let us know by the end of the day, Monday, we can get a response back to you.
And then if you still feel like that response isn't sufficient,
then we can make sure that we have staff here to attend the meeting.
What we're trying to avoid is having a bunch of staff from other departments who may not be needed here.
But I'm definitely happy to bring somebody here to answer any of the questions so that you guys feel comfortable in the decisions that you're making.
>> Thoughts or questions on that?
Commissioner Riggs.
>> So that was one of the things that I brought up.
And it goes back to the 2000 acre development that we were talking about.
And one of the things that I felt is through the PNZ process,
we knew what a lot of the questions were gonna be.
And so when it got to council, I thought, actually one of the things for you,
whenever you're sitting there talking about a financial model, it might have been helpful if you had a CFO there.
Or whenever we're talking about the utilities and what's gonna happen with the utilities to have our utility director there.
Or even just a statement from TxDOT.
And so when it's something kind of big like that, I would think that we would
at least have a response to those kind of questions that we know are coming or have the staff there.
That's kind of- >> Yeah, and we do, like I said, a similar process.
We did get some of those questions in advance and responded to them.
But then also, you're right, a lot of times we could have the experts there.
And I think we do a lot of, we have transportation staff there that help assist in answering some of those questions.
I think our general manager of water utilities was there too.
This was a significant project for the city.
Okay, well, yeah, I hear you.
>> Any thoughts on the proposal for future,
especially the public hearings, cuz they're usually more in-depth?
>> Yeah, and I will point out, if we get any individual questions from committee members,
we'll share those with the whole committee in case anybody else is having those questions when we respond.
>> Yeah, I've always found staff to be very responsive and
helpful even when I have not provided them three days in advance.
So my apologies for that, but I think a little bit more expectation and
process might help guard their time.
Another thing I find that is sometimes helpful for council is that I believe
these questions and answers are then collated to just publish within the agenda.
And then it's updated on Granicus after the meeting, so
that the council members and the public can see what those questions and answers were.
Is that something you would propose in this, or is that?
>> It's something we can look into.
I'm not sure exactly how that happens on the back end, but it's something we can definitely consider.
>> Okay, yeah, I mean, I think it, yeah,
it would help me make sure I don't be mean to somebody, so, thank you.
>> The staff isn't recreating what they're already doing for council if you have anything for us.
>> Yeah, we'll have to get with the city secretary, so I honestly don't know what that process looks like, but-
>> Sure, sure.
>> Happy to look into it further.
>> Okay, yeah, I'm even thinking it might help council and staff in the sense that if we ask some
of the questions that council's wondering, they can just look up on the agenda and see the answers are already there.
You don't have to answer them twice, you know that kind of thing.
>> Yeah.
>> So, okay, I don't see any other questions, thank you very much, I appreciate that.
It is 603 now, let us take a five minute break and
grab some food so that we can listen about the updated housing report while we eat.
And then hopefully we'll be finished eating by the time we have questions.
So at 603, call a five minute recess and we'll be back at 608.
>> Yeah.
>> The Planning and Zoning Commission.
Our last work session report is 3B PZ 26-35.
Receive a report, hold a discussion on the housing memo provided the previous January.
Sorry, this January which was an update to the previous December/January/February, so come on up.
>> So I'm here tonight to present the undeveloped land analysis that kind of went into
finding what land was undeveloped in areas that were zoned for residential multifamily.
So just a quick overview of what is GIS.
GIS is an acronym, of course, for Geographic Information Systems.
You know, this is, people won't realize, but it's intertwined a ton into what we do every day.
You know, if you put it simply, it's where things are and what they're like there.
So it can be as simple as using your GPS to go to the store or
looking at your tax information on DCAD's website.
So we use GIS a lot.
So kind of to go some background into the data that we used.
The existing land use data set that we currently had
available to us was approximately five or six years old at this point.
So we determined that was not going to be a good candidate to determine if parcels are still
developed or undeveloped within the city.
For that, I turned to the National Land Cover Dataset, which is a data set that's
created from multiple federal agencies each now, each year starting in 2025.
And that is actually gathered from the Landsat satellite program, which takes a continuous,
takes a, or maps the earth out approximately every eight days.
And what that gets us is something that you would see here on the right, which has the 16
different classifications for the entire US down to what's a referred to as a 30 meter resolution.
So it's basically a 30 meter by 30 meter square.
And for reference, that 30 meter by 30 meter square would fit up about half the
courtyard in front of City Hall, just to give you all a kind of spatial reference for that.
Now, to determine these land uses, they do use deep learning models.
And how that kind of works is someone goes and looks on a map and draws a square and
says, hey, this is a road, you know, goes and does that for a while and then runs the
model and it sends back to the person like, hey, I think this is all the roads that I
found. And that person goes back and checks it and goes, well, this is a road.
This is a road and it goes back and forth until they're satisfied with the deep
learning model that they've created for the accuracy that they want.
And just clarify, this is not based on any of our permit data.
We purely used this NLCD data set for this.
So to go into the actual analysis part of it.
So each raster is basically that 30 by 30 square converted that into four equally
spaced points, which over the entire city equated just just short of a billion
points. And for that point, they have value of zero for developed or one for
undeveloped. Those came from reclassifying that initial data set and saying, you
know, this these are considered developed and the rest are pretty much
considered undeveloped and also took out any open water features.
So we weren't considering that as undeveloped.
And then for each parcel, we said counted the number of points and averaged them
out. So if that number was greater than point five, it was considered
undeveloped and was less than point five.
We considered it developed and we did that for all the parcels throughout the
city and then compared that to the zoning to get the numbers or to get those final
numbers that were sent to you.
Now, these next few slides, we're going to be going over just some examples so you
can see up here in the top left how the data set or what the data set showed
versus what was actually on the ground for these three time periods throughout
the year of January, June and October in twenty twenty four.
So for this one, this is the Lang yard multifamily.
We can see that the data set classified this as developed with high intensity,
which does reflect in the aerials.
We can see that that apartment building was being built throughout the year.
On this next one, this is the Sherman crossing apartments up off of the loop and
Sherman.
So this one, it shows it mostly as that developed open space and the apartment
started about halfway through this site.
I kind of dug into this side a little bit more specifically, and this site was
actually graded whenever the roads were built around it in twenty twenty.
So that's why this is considered that developed open space rather than just a
undeveloped land, because it was developed at some point just to this point.
And then they stopped.
And then this is example of something that is considered an undeveloped project,
prestigious made at Mayhill state as this undeveloped piece land throughout.
And it reflects that within the data set.
And then this is McKinney Oaks project, which was was under review at the time.
And you can see how it does reflect the mix within the neighborhood here.
Let's operate how it is showing it as a higher density developments and also with
the apartments here to the right and to the south or east and south, sorry.
So you can see it does get a pretty good coverage of the city and what it actually
is like on the ground at the resolution that it has.
And then this is the data that was provided to you in the study.
And at the site for the analysis.
And then I stand for any questions.
>> You went a little bit too fast.
>> Sorry, I see people still too.
>> No, [LAUGH] quite all right.
>> Commissioner Dyer.
>> So in trying to review the package that was emailed to us,
did you ever figure out how many total apartment units we currently have?
Of those units, how many are vacant or not vacant?
And then how many more are coming?
I mean, I know there's some projections and stuff in here.
But do we have an example of the apartments that we have now?
They're 75% capacity.
>> I'm going to refer to Haley for that.
So we don't have a unit by unit vacancy tracker for the city.
So in the memo we gave, the best data we have, which is from, I believe it's COSTAR,
which is a commercial real estate firm that issues kind of regional reports.
And there's one for the Denton region that our economic development team gets,
I believe on a monthly basis.
And that report's kind of a Denton sub market vacancy rate overall.
But we don't have a way of tracking development by development,
we don't know what their rental or vacancy rate is at any given time.
>> I guess my biggest concern is, it seems like a lot of the projects that get put in front of us are for multi-family.
And I see the chatter on social media that residents are
kind of upset about the number of multi-family units that we have.
And I know we have to balance that out with affordable housing.
A lot of people just automatically equate apartments to being affordable housing for people.
And it's not necessarily.
And I just remember sitting in a city council meeting months ago and
there was the discussion about these housing, Section 8 housing, this and that.
And just how Denton, our city, seems to have a higher percentage of all of that compared to some of the other cities.
And so I don't want to say that we should never do multifamily housing.
But I'm sure it's not this board that makes this decision.
But at what point does this board, does the city council kind of decide,
maybe we have a moratorium on future projects like this?
Because we have to fill up what we have.
And there's still some that are still being built, like the ones that are already in the pipeline that just haven't been built yet.
So that's just, I guess that's kind of one of the reasons why I was looking at this is because I was hoping to kind of get some clarity on just.
>> Is it what my perception, is my perception that I am gleaning,
correct, that we have an overabundance of apartments with more yet to come?
And do we, because I know we're in this balance legally between
having to accept some of these,
because you've got legal parameters that we are required to work within.
>> Sure, and Hillary, feel free to jump in.
>> I'm sorry, that was a lot, I'm sorry.
>> I was just going to say, based on the information available to us that was reported in the memo, our vacancy rate right now is around 16 and a half percent.
So that is up from historic averages for Denton, but it's not out of character with the broader DFW market.
So I can't speak any more specifically, unfortunately, to what that looks like.
To the question of when do we have enough, I would say that's going to be largely market driven.
We also have to be mindful of people's right to develop things that are permitted in their zoning.
>> It's absolutely a balance.
>> And any contemplation of the dreaded M word, I would say,
would be a city council decision that would have to be weighed with our legal team.
Because there are only very specific, nuanced parameters in which that can even be considered.
>> Did you say 16%?
>> Yes.
>> I apologize, I didn't bring the backup material.
But I recall seeing a study from, I believe it was Texas A&M on specifically Texas cities and
their vacancy rates related to whether rents grow faster than inflation or go down with respect to inflation.
I think it was somewhere around 10 to 11% where the median rent growth was at inflation.
Such that if you had higher vacancy than that, prices would tend to trend down in the future, excuse me.
And lower vacancy than that, they would tend to go up.
So as far as a healthy vacancy percentage, that's what I'm familiar with within the state of Texas.
>> Well, and rents, there's a lot that goes into it, more than just vacancies.
Because you have property taxes, you have insurance, you have kind of what the market is demanding.
If you have, when there's less supply and demand,
when you have less supply in the market and
a high demand of people needing apartments or even rental houses, then you also see the rents go up.
So it's, as in everything in life, there is not an easy answer to this situation.
>> Other questions?
Yeah, Commissioner Biggs.
>> Can you go back to the table summary that you had?
>> Sure.
>> So if you could summarize kind of what this is telling us.
Haley, you want, sorry.
>> Sure, and I will admit it's been a bit since I've looked at this.
But it does tabulate by zoning district the various scenarios in which single and
multi-family uses are permitted either by right or with an SUP.
And just provides that breakdown of the number of acres that are undeveloped outside the floodplain.
So we tried to net out land that generally, I mean, you can do things to develop in a floodplain, we all know that.
But generally, those pieces that could be developed and
shows citywide that we have about 20,000 acres, it looks like,
that could have some sort of residential development on it.
I would just caution that all of these districts, with the exception of the R districts, and
even some of those, also permit a variety of other uses.
That's not to say we're going to have another 20,000 acres of housing developed in the city of Denton.
So I would say it's purely there for just informational purposes for you all.
I wouldn't take a whole lot of assumptions from it and say, we're going to have this much multi-family coming across the city, or anything like that.
I don't know, Angie, if you wanted to add more to it, because you kind of worked on this while I was out on leave.
>> It's been a second.
You covered most of what I was going to say.
I would just kind of wanted to add some clarity as it relates to trying to project out ultimate single family homes.
We took the minimum lot size that was allowed for each zoning district, but
tried to net out 0.2 for possible roadway acquisition or right of way that may be needed.
And then also tried to net out what's in the floodplain to just give you a realistic picture of the number of lots.
And then for our master plan communities and the Craver Ranch development,
we took the maximum number of single family homes that they could develop and plugged those in for the ultimate total number of units.
So again, to that point, that 46,936 possible single family homes is really just that.
It's a possibility.
We're projecting the absolute maximums and not really taking into account.
R7 allows for a variety of commercial uses.
The master plan communities may not develop that full, what they're allowed.
But we did take the assumption of what could be possibly done.
And so does that clarify?
>> Yes, very helpful.
>> Yeah, Commissioner Garland.
>> I think maybe to kind of piggyback off what Commissioner Dreier was saying was I think sometimes the concern is
if you have a developer and they invest in a piece of property and they can, these are their options of what they can develop it with.
And I think sometimes the perception is the easiest flip for the most.
>> Bank for your buck is apartments.
>> And so I guess the question would be, do we ever go back and kind of challenge that?
Because I do think it's a healthy balance where we're bringing in all of this residential,
no matter if it's multi-family or what, but also having a strong economic
development that's going to provide jobs for all of these people.
Because that's kind of, as a commuter that drives an hour each day,
I think that is kind of also on a lot of people's minds is we see apartments and houses and
apartments and houses, but we're not really seeing the commercial economic development that matches that pace.
So how do we kind of balance that?
>> Sure, and I think I can try to answer that, because when you all see requests for
multi-family, it's usually because a zoning change is needed or an SUP.
And that's because multi-family is really, really allowed by right in a handful of districts and everything else is SUP or not allowed.
And so it does feel like maybe sometimes you see a lot of those requests, like do we ever push back?
I would say you all really only ever see the projects that ultimately get to a state where
staff feels comfortable recommending approval.
There are a number of projects where maybe somebody's seeking, not even just multi-family, but any land use.
Where we really find that in that location, it may not be feasible,
be it because of future land use designation or surrounding conditions.
And so a lot of that back and forth between is this really right or
is this the appropriate use for this location comes well before it ever gets to you.
And ultimately, most people choose not to take an application with the recommendation of denial forward.
And so they just kind of filter out before they get to you.
>> Sorry, I'd looked halfway through the hand motion.
Was that a hand or not?
Okay, just shortly, I think when I looked at this data,
it looked like as far as buy right, like land where you could buy right, build multi-family.
It's roughly the 278 and a half acres under the MN district and
then a 50.8 acres of the MRMD district, right?
Is that a fair assessment?
So we're talking about 330 acres?
>> Yes.
>> I apologize for not having the slide number, but
I believe there was an assessment of roughly 20 units to an acre was typical density
that you see with multi-family when this was done last January.
And so in my mind, that equates 20 times 330, you're talking about 6,600 units, rough or take.
Is that a fair assumption of what we could build on land that's known for that right now?
>> That's a fair assumption that obviously doesn't take into account if any land area
that needs to be set aside for roadway improvements or utilities.
But if we assume absolute max, then yes.
>> Okay, so we would expect it to be that or less, typically?
>> Typically, yes.
>> Okay, and then in the multi-family projects in development,
there were 4,000 units in construction and 8,000 units in review.
The in construction, I appreciate that that came from 2024, so that's relatively recent.
You would expect projects that have broken ground, certainly vertical, but
even some of the flat work, it looked like that may have picked that up as developed.
But the 8,000 in review, I'm assuming that would be currently undeveloped MN property or MR property.
Is it a lot of that?
Is that correct?
Or does this include zoning changes and other things that might come before us in the future?
>> I'm going to look at Haley.
>> If I'm remembering correctly, because it's been a little bit since we did that analysis,
that did include those projects that would also be coming before this body.
So things that would need a zoning change or a specific use permit, but
we knew their intent was to work with some sort of multi-family.
>> So from a high level view, it looks to me like if nobody asked for
another zoning change, there's a decent portion of
the currently zoned mixed use land is in a process, in the pre-development stage.
Whereas the majority of single family, R1 through R7 zoned land is vacant at this point.
Is that a correct high level assessment?
>> I believe that's accurate, just looking over everything.
That's a good generalization.
>> Okay, yeah, and I'm intentionally trying to not get into the numbers too much.
>> Sure, yeah, I appreciate that, yeah.
>> They're going to change.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah, I appreciate all the comments.
I think it's important.
But yeah, any other questions?
Okay, thank you very much.
Yes, Commissioner McDade.
>> Excuse me all, just a clarification too.
The all multi-family housing is a section eight housing or affordable housing.
The majority of it is not.
There is no section eight housing to be built.
The section eight is a program that assists families with their rent.
So, private landlords own those homes and houses.
They're building them or buying them.
They're renting them to those families.
We do build and do affordable housing in partnership with private developers.
But it's, you know, we have quite a few and quite a bit.
And we're just trying to build something that's affordable.
In the city of Denton, there is a lack of affordable housing.
We saw that during COVID time.
There were not enough units.
There were not enough housing.
Even with the city, the state, and the federal government paying rents for families,
there was not enough apartments for people to move into.
And certainly not any single family homes.
The majority of our section eight voucher holders, the majority do live here in the city.
But a whole lot of them do not even live here in the city.
They take their voucher and they move outside of the city of Denton.
So, if any clarification for tonight, it's multifamily, affordable housing,
and section eight housing, there's a whole lot of difference.
And it can be all of those things.
And you would be surprised to find that one of my section eight families may be living next door
to some of you, just so you know.
>> Yeah, I appreciate that.
Thank you.
I won't go into more detail, but thank you.
Okay, with that, at 635, we will break and reconvene the meeting.
Council, do your best for the meeting.
>> Good evening.
It's 641.
This Wednesday, February 25th, with the quorum present.
And we'll call this regular meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission of Denton, Texas, to order.
Our first item 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.
>> Honor the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state, under God, one indivisible.
>> Thank you, everyone.
And I apologize to the public for us being 10 minutes late here.
We'll try to get to your items as soon as possible.
Next is item 2A, consider approval of the February 11th, 2026 Planning and Zoning Commission minutes.
Commissioner Getcher said.
>> I motion to approve the meetings, minutes.
>> And Commissioner McDade?
>> I second that motion.
>> Motion and second on the board.
Not seeing any discussion, we'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 6-0, moves us to our consent agenda.
Entertain a motion or discussion on this.
Commissioner Garland?
>> Motion to approve the consent agenda.
>> And Commissioner Dyer?
>> I will second that motion.
>> Motion and second.
Seeing no discussion, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 6-0.
Brings us to items for individual consideration.
First one is 4A, FP26-2.
>> Good evening, Commissioner Matt Bodine, I'm standing in place of Mia, who's a plan
reviewer on this.
This is a final plot for Hickory Grove Phase 5, it's about an 88 acre site located in the
ETJ, being developed for a single family residential development.
It does not meet our criteria for approval at this time, however, staff has no objection
to the extension requested to date certain of March 18th, 2026.
>> Commissioner Dyer?
>> I would like to make a motion that we go ahead and grant the extension to March 18th,
2026.
>> Okay, motion to approve the extension request.
Commissioner Garland?
>> And I'll second that motion.
Seeing no discussion, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 6-0, brings us to 4B, FP26-3.
>> Hello again, so this here is a final plot for Hickory Grove Phase 6, a 67 acre development
in the ETJ, residential home development, as said, does not meet our criteria for approval,
but once again, we have no objection to the request extension to March 18th.
>> Understood.
Commissioner Dyer?
>> I would like to make a motion that we go ahead and grant the extension on this item
until March 18th.
>> And Commissioner Garland?
>> No, I'll second that motion.
>> With the motion and second, seeing no discussion, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That passes 6-0.
Thank you, Matt.
Brings us to our first public hearing of the evening, this is 5A, S25-1.
Good evening, Bryce.
>> Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Bryce Van Arsdale, assistant planner.
This is S25-001A, related to a request for a specific use permit for an automotive fuel
sales use on approximately 2.46 acres of land.
This property is located on the south side of East McKinney and on the west side, excuse
me, east side of Glengarry Way.
The surrounding area is predominantly residential zoning with a mixture of R2 and R3 in the
area and is across the street from a commercial property as well as Billy Ryan High School.
This proposal does meet our criteria for approval as it is consistent with the goals and policies
of the Denton 2040 comprehensive plan as well as the future land use map.
It is also consistent with the use specific standards for automotive fuel sales.
The future land use map designates this area as moderate residential, which typically applies
to the central areas of Denton as well as some transition areas and adjacent key corridors.
This district does typically consist of uses that are residential, but allows for some
residential supportive uses such as neighborhood scaled commercial at arterial and collector
street corners.
This proposed use is once again an automotive fuel sales use.
We believe it is compatible with the surrounding area and supports the neighborhood in the
area.
This is an example of the landscape plan, which staff has reviewed and approved.
With specific use permits, we do ask that the applicant goes above and beyond the typical
standards which are in the Denton development code.
A couple ways that that has been done is by placing the building as far to the east as
possible and as far north as possible in order to separate it from these uses.
Additionally, at the first neighborhood meeting, Esper Community Garden, which has been located
in the southwest corner of the lot and along the western side of Glengarry Way, the buffer
is not a requirement per the Denton development code, but in order to mitigate some of the
light and maybe some of the sound, the applicant has installed a buffer including some street
trees as well as shrubs and ornamental trees in this area.
The city has been notified in accordance with state statute and we received three letters
in opposition.
The applicant held two neighborhood meetings in which we heard from the community at the
first, but we did not have any attendees at the second meeting.
Staff does recommend approval of the specific use permit with the several conditions.
The first being that this will substantially comply with the site plan that's been presented
to you and only minor modifications are allowed administratively through staff.
Anything larger than that will require a specific use permit amendment, which does have to come
back before this body as well as city council.
Additionally, one thing to note is that the accessory car wash use will be limited to
operating hours between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
The next step would be city council at the April 7th meeting, and I'm happy to stand
for any questions.
Thank you.
At this time I will open the public hearing on this item and ask the commission for questions
of staff before we hear from the public, if any.
Just one, just to get you thinking about this since I did not mention it during the work
session, I'm interested to understand what the capability of the city to control the
design and crossing treatments of McKinney in this area are based on whether it's TxDOT
or City of Denton, and also if there are any planned pedestrian crossings between this
and the north side of the road within this vicinity.
Not seeing any other questions.
This is a public hearing.
I have a few cards to speak.
First one I have is from Ms. Isabella Sample or Sample?
Sample.
Okay.
If you could come forward and state your name and address, you'll have four minutes to speak.
My name is Isabella Sample, and I live at 5304 Polly Drive, Denton, Texas.
In reviewing the plan for that lot specifically, I've lived in that neighborhood almost all
20 years of my life, and a couple years ago they installed the Dollar General right across
the street from the lot in question, and I think despite what they thought when they
installed it, it is not beneficial for our community, it has caused more problems in
our neighborhood than good.
I witness people almost getting into accidents every single day.
I witness kids from Billy Ryan High School where my brother did attend running across
the McKinney instead of using the crosswalk.
People park and block the general road from where we enter off of McKinney onto Glengarry,
and I think that building this kind of establishment in the open lot is only going to make these
problems worse, especially with what I've noticed around town that things like gas stations
do tend to attract a certain type of clientele outside, and while I have no issue with that,
I do have an issue with it being so close to the school and to the neighborhood where
we do have several kids.
There are three on my street alone that are under the age of 10, and I think that this
would pose a safety problem for members of this neighborhood.
In general, I also think it's just going to make traffic a lot worse for all of us.
I know many people in my neighborhood, on my street specifically, we all work nine to
five jobs that already have to deal with the traffic coming from Billy Ryan High School,
so adding something like a gas station with a car wash is only going to make the problem
worse.
That's all I have.
Thank you.
The next card I have is from Mr. Travis Sample, same drill, name and address.
Travis Sample, 5304, Pauley Drive, Denton, Texas, 76208.
Yeah, Mr. Pruitt, I think you were prescient in your remark about asking about the crosswalk
situation.
The nearest crosswalk is in front of Billy Ryan, where their main entrance, T-Bonson,
to McKinney on the north side, and whereas that is the place to cross, humans are lazy,
kids are triply so, and none of them use it.
They all cross there, right in front of our subdivision, which is a terrible place because
there's also a hill heading east on McKinney there, which is a bad sight line, and so also
the gas station sitting on the east is going to interfere with that same sight line of
you being able to tell when people are coming over, and we already have a problem where
with the Dollar General, people don't want to go all the way, because people are lazy,
they don't want to go all the way into the parking lot, so they just park right up to
McKinney, which then when you're out on the street, you have a problem with your sight
line going into the subdivision, and so you wind up having to slow way more than you would,
which again, okay, well you're doing that, you're being slow, but the people behind
you who want to be in a hurry will then whip out so that they can cross in the left lane
instead of the lane that you're in, which is them making rash decisions where, as I
mentioned before, kids are crossing because already they were going to the Dollar General,
now they're also going to the gas station, proposed gas station.
It's just in general, it's the front of a neighborhood, it's not where you need this
sort of thing, as Isabella pointed out, certain elements will definitely be attracted to hanging
out there, this is a family neighborhood, I've lived there, I'm intimate with the dynamics
of the traffic in that area, I've lived there, not five, not 10, 25 years, I've been a five
year old child for 20 years, I've been a full grown adult for 25 years.
The Dollar General was not a good addition to our neighborhood, this gas station is not
going to be a good addition to our neighborhood, and not only that, McKinney going east is
a dead end, I don't know what you're trying to serve, there's a Valero less than one
mile to the west, another half mile and you'll find a 7-Eleven and a Murphy's.
This is served, it does not need another one there, so that's all I have to say.
Thank you, Travis, I have a question if you don't mind, when you mentioned, sorry, it's
coming back, it's somewhere in there.
Was it about your pressures?
No, it was, sorry, it was about the parking on the street question, I just want to make
sure we understand specifically what location you're talking about.
In that case, that's the Dollar General, on the west side of Glengarry, and their parking
is, if I'm looking at it with you, so here's Glengarry and here it is, the parking area
is back here, their front door is all the way up at Glengarry, so people do not wish
to walk around the whole building, because literally their parking is in the back, and
the back left side of their building is not even up towards the front, and there's none
in front, only there is, there's even a fire hydrant there, and they still park in front
of that, and somebody went out there and painted red, don't park here, but I don't think that
was an official city, it does not look like an official city job, I think that was just
one of us that went out there and decided to try, and they still just park there anyway,
and like I said, that limits the sight line coming in, you wind up having to be very slow
and worse, you'll start to pull in, and then all of a sudden somebody's opening that driver
door.
Yeah, sorry, my concern is really to understand specifically where people, if it's consistent,
are parking for five minutes to run into the store, is this inside the parking lot once
they turn in, or is this on Glengarry?
No, this is Glengarry, and this is McKinney, they are parking here.
On Glengarry?
Correct.
Heading, or pointing the vehicle southbound, instead of turning into the parking lot?
Correct.
Okay, thank you.
And I mean, that's consistent, I mean, please.
Appreciate that, thank you.
No problem.
Any other questions from the commission, Commissioner Dyer?
I have two, I have questions for our two speakers.
So I'm always curious, and I get it, you live in this neighborhood and something new comes
along and you're like, oh, not that, we don't want that, like, what would you guys like
to see the person that purchased that lot put in there if you don't want a gas station
there?
Do you want to see nothing there, is there something else you would rather see?
Yeah, go ahead on that one, I'll have to think about that to give you a good answer.
So I kind of have a little bit of insight into this, as someone that lived there as
a child, and I'm also an education major at Texas Women's.
I would honestly prefer to see some sort of community-based development be put there.
We have a lot of kids in the neighborhood, and I myself played in that field growing
up.
So in the plot map that they showed, they put the gas station as far north and east
as possible.
If they would develop something like a park or a community center there, that would be
far more beneficial for the students of Billy Ryan, for the kids that live in that neighborhood.
Well, that's not a business.
I think she was saying for the people that bought it to get a return on their investment.
So usually, this is what's very hard when we sit up here, is because we have to balance
like your rights as the neighbors, but also balance between the property owner's rights
and what they want to put in there.
I'm sure they've looked at all different things and due diligence and where they're going
to make the most profit, and they talk about their ROI, their rate of return and everything.
So it's always really hard, because I get it.
I've had this in my area too, like, "Oh, I don't want to see that," type of thing.
And so we sit up here and have to make these decisions, and so I'm just kind of curious
that I get it's residential and I get it's across from the school, and I get the concern
about a gas station, but there's also going to be potentially a food portion in there
with a drive-through window.
There's an upstairs, so there's going to be more offices, so it's going to be a little
bit more than just this, and there's even the potential on the portion closest to Glengarry
that there could be another structure built sometime down the road.
So I'm just trying to gauge what would you like to see in there if we voted no for this.
I think what I came up with, just again, not having long to think about it, but I'd love
to see a daycare going there.
That would really serve the populations that are there.
Right down the street is a very large trailer park.
I'm quite sure that most of those folks have to work a lot of jobs, so I'm sure that they
need quite a bit of daycare just right off the top of my head.
But second, to address the idea that you have to balance, and I know something new and it
seems scary, in a vacuum for us, it's not exactly something theoretical for us.
Instead, it's something we've already tested.
We had the Dollar General put in at the front of our neighborhood, and we know how it goes.
I was trying to demonstrate our experience with that and how it has been not positive
at all.
It has attracted the kids to run across from Billy Ryan.
It has attracted the people to park in an illegal way and create traffic problems and
potential accidents all the time.
So for us, it's not theoretical.
It's practical.
You've had some experience.
We have practical experience with businesses being on that corner, not being good for our
neighborhood.
So a question for staff and maybe the owner, if the owner is here, have there been any
neighborhood meetings with the community, whether it's the school or whether it's this
particular neighborhood that this is going to sit next to?
Thank you, Travis.
To get their input, so the owner could get their input.
Sure.
So the neighborhood meetings were held, and that was with that 500 radius that we would
typically notice.
We had, I believe, two or three different groups of attendees at the first one, families,
households, and I don't believe anybody showed to the second meeting.
Okay.
I guess we're not as done as 500 feet, but we're still in the neighborhood.
So we found it hard to find information on this.
Okay.
Three residents showed up for the second meeting, and there was no meeting.
Okay.
We'll get to that in a minute, but there is one more card here wishing to speak.
Ms. Adriana Sample, welcome to come forward.
Adriana Sample, 5304 Poly Drive, Denton, Texas.
My husband and my daughter pretty much covered all of it, something I really want to point
out and why it's critical that this does not go in there.
The entrance and exit to Dollar General is on Glengarry.
One of the proposed entrances and exits for this facility, one's on Glengarry and one
is on McKinney.
Our neighborhood only has one exit and entrance.
There's no other way out of our neighborhood.
We're increasing traffic to the one area that we go in and out of.
We have kids crossing in between cars because they're parking illegally, we're making the
turn off McKinney, and all of a sudden there's this kid bolting between cars to get to the
car across the street where the parents have parked because they didn't want to park on
the side.
When the plan for Dollar General was done, I think that wasn't considered that really
that entrance and exit should not have been onto Glengarry but maybe onto McKinney, so
we're just exacerbating the problem that's already there.
But they, like I said, covered most of the other issues.
I just want that looked at also because we have no other way out of that neighborhood.
Thank you.
I don't see any questions.
This is a public hearing, so anyone else, if there's anyone else present that would like
to speak on this item, you're welcome to come up.
One, two, if that's all right.
I'll just ask that after you finish speaking if you could fill out a card so that the secretary
has record of it.
My name is Marjane Vesuas, 5908 Woodwind Drive in Plano.
I'm the architect for the project.
We had the first meeting, the first neighborhood meeting, and we tried to incorporate everything
that was given to us by the neighbors.
We have a community garden for them to enjoy and very close to in the Glengarry area.
We also have made a traffic impact analysis to make sure that there is no traffic impact
coming into the gas station through East McKinney.
In Glengarry, we do have an exit there, but it's only for the fire trucks, it's not as
a main entrance or exit.
We needed an extra exit, and that's why we had to put it there, but it's not intended
for people to come in through that area.
The owner wants to be a good neighbor.
They have listened to the neighborhood and incorporated everything that the neighbors
said during that first meeting.
In the second meeting, you said that there were three people, but I don't know if there
was no one that showed up when they were there in that meeting.
I don't know if there was a miscommunication about the timing, but we really tried to incorporate
all the concerns from the neighborhood.
Thank you, Commissioner Garland, you have a question.
Can I ask what led you guys to decide to do a gas station there with just knowing there
were already a couple in such close proximity, and then was there any other development considered?
The gas station is an acceptable occupancy type for this particular zoning, so the ones
that we're here for is the car wash, which is a single person, a small one, like 7-Eleven
type, and the drive-thru, but everything else is allowed in that area.
Okay.
Thank you.
I think there's one, yeah, one more speaker.
Good evening.
Thank you for having us here tonight.
My name is Neil Harkrider.
I'm at 5224 Tartan Circle.
My office window actually overlooks this lot that we're talking about.
A couple different things that were pointed out by other people, and I loved some of the
comments that they made.
The Valero is, like was mentioned, very close by, and then Murphy's is right there, and
right next to Murphy's is a car wash.
So it's being served, what they're dishing up is being served in a very close proximity.
I think the point of, it's a residential street, Glengarry Way is a residential street,
so you're putting this business on a residential street.
Okay.
But it is one entrance and exit for the entire subdivision.
It's 143 families in that subdivision.
It's already difficult enough to get on to McKinney.
This is going to exasperate it significantly.
I love the fact that maybe it's for a fire only, but the fact of the matter is there's
an entrance and exit being proposed onto the residential street.
Not to mention, again, theoretical versus reality, the lights and the noise and all
this, and a 24/7 business.
How exciting at the one entrance to our subdivision.
A question was asked, what would you rather have?
Certainly, I'm pro-business, absolutely so.
Been that way for my whole career.
That said, I would think if you're going to nest this into a residential neighborhood,
make it an eight to five job.
Make it an eight to five clinic, an eight to five business, something like that.
Not something that's going to be there all day, all night, lights, music, action.
The Valero, if you happen to be, because you guys are all, I'm sure, residents of Denton,
if you drive by the Valero there on the corner of Mayhill and McKinney, there's a significant
presence of what I would say is a homeless character type of thing.
It's very significant, and there's a high number that hang out at that Valero.
I can imagine now that we're going to have this high population hanging out right in
front of our houses.
That's hard enough in Denton, with that particular issue.
Don't put it right there at our front door.
Thank you.
This is a public hearing, so if anyone else would like to speak, you're more than welcome
to.
I do not see anyone else.
I think we get the gist, unless there's a completely new ...
It is.
Okay.
I'll permit, but you'll have to come up to the mic just very briefly, if you can.
Just the idea.
I know the circle, but I saw 500 feet, whatever, who had to be contacted for the initial meetings
meets some sort of definition, but when you actually look at that map and see that, as
my wife pointed out, that's the only road in, that circle should really have been extended
to include us, so that we would have been at those first meetings, rather than having
to wait until that sign went up, and little tiny sign, and then for us to go figure out
how to get to this meeting.
I think I would have preferred that perhaps the entire neighborhood which is affected
would have been consulted.
Thank you very much.
Yes.
Commissioner McDade?
Sir, do you have a homeowners association or a neighborhood association over there?
Thank you.
Okay.
With that, I will close the public hearing.
I will ask staff to come up and just try to address a few things that I heard.
The crossing, general questions, if you have any information on that, as well as just for
the benefit of the public, if you could explain what our process is for notification, I understand
it's not necessarily encompassing that, but also pointing to the online capabilities that
we have for subscribing to additional notifications, if one would wish.
Sure.
First, to address the crossing, East McKinney is a text dot right of way, so I'm not sure
maybe Haley can speak to the ability of our transportation department to work with text
dot and how willing they are to work with us on getting crosswalks like that established.
I'm not sure if there's a certain separation that needs to be met between crosswalks or
anything like that, but that is why there's not, or one of the reasons there may not be
a crosswalk there is because it's a text dot right of way and not the city of Denton.
Thank you.
And as far as the notification questions.
Sure.
So for the notification, the city of Denton, so state statute mandates a 200 foot notice
for these public hearings.
The city of Denton has extended that to a 500 foot courtesy notice where we mail these
out to a larger, so it was a larger area than what would typically be included and captured
within those state mandated notices.
As Commissioner Peruzzi said, there are some additional ways through our website that you
can sign up for those notifications and things like that.
We also did publish a notice in the Denton Record Chronicle as well as our city website
which maintains these notices.
I believe that answers your question and I don't miss anything.
No, that's it.
I think it's always hard when we're doing notifications because you have to have some
sort of process.
At the same time, we've had applicants who've come in and chosen to notify more than just
the 500 required, especially for the neighborhood meetings.
Can you just explain to us so that we understand ... I understand we can't require an applicant
to notify additional residents.
Is there any sort of general process that we have for suggesting, "Hey, if you want
to involve the community so you don't have a surprise, we would recommend this?"
Sure.
As far as I'm aware of, what we typically rely on will be those HOAs and neighborhood
organizations that are going to fall within that 500-foot buffer.
We do send the mailing list out to the applicant.
We do include that 500-foot list rather than the 200-foot list.
The difference in those two, just for the sake of the public, is that the 200-foot list
is able to register opposition and the 500-foot is just a courtesy notice.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any ... No, because our public hearing is closed.
I think we understand ... We've heard many times from others, as well as you, notification
is always a challenge, but we understand that it would have been nice to know about the
neighborhood meetings beforehand.
Any other questions of staff of the commission?
Oh, sorry.
Commissioner Riggs.
Yeah, Bryce.
Thank you.
One of the things that was said was that a gas station could go here by right, by the
current zoning.
Is that the case?
That's not correct.
There are a litany of uses allowed within the MN zoning district, such as hotels and
multi-family that are allowed by right, but the gas station itself is why we're here with
a specific use permit.
Okay.
I just wanted to clarify that.
Then with regards to the entrance onto Glengarry, is that a requirement by a fire marshal?
I don't believe it's by the fire marshal.
I could be incorrect in that, but any development over 30,000 square feet will require two entrances.
There's also different distances and separations from intersections, which is why we ended up
with one on Glengarry, one on East McKinney, rather than two on East McKinney.
Okay.
Thank you.
Sure.
Commissioner McDade.
Could you put the map back up, the drawing showing the fire lane or onto the street?
That's what I was trying to understand, the difference between an entrance and exit and
a fire lane.
Is it an entrance and exit?
It can be used as an entrance and exit, yes, ma'am.
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Catreson.
Are the trees and the fence, are those supposed to be mitigation for odor for the gasoline?
I believe that just knowing the ecology of trees, I suppose, there's some level of that,
but I don't believe that it'll be from a perspective of mitigation.
Then the approval for HUP also requires mitigation for things such as noise, odors, things like
that.
So I was just making sure.
Correct.
The lights and the noise will be mitigated by those trees, but I'm not sure about the
odor aspect of that.
Okay.
Commissioner Dyer.
Just getting back to notification, I get that the city and the applicant follow to the full
extent of the law that it requires it to, but we see this time and time again where
sometimes your neighbor is a couple people, where it really affects more than that, but
because of the size of that radius, it only falls in with a select few.
This is where it would be really nice if staff did work with the applicant and say, "Hey,
yes, legally you are required to notify between the 200 and a 500-foot zone," but in this
instance, you have a whole neighborhood, and when you have those neighborhood meetings,
you really should send it out.
What is it, just 100 more houses that they're really having to send a postcard to to say,
"Hey, we're going to have these couple of things."
It just would be a courtesy and a respect thing to the neighbors so that they, at that
time, can have a say of, "Hey, this is what we experienced with Dollar General, and we
don't want to see this happen," and there can be that back and forth between it showing
up here.
Just on an unrelated note, just looking at the Dollar General, maybe staff can go back
and look, because it looks like at the parking lot, you could almost put another entrance
onto McKinney to avoid people pulling in and parking on the street, but that's just a,
"If you all want to check that out," type of thing.
Other questions?
Yeah, Commissioner Ketch is it?
I would also like to add, I did a quick little Google search before coming up here, and there
are seven gas stations within a three-mile area from Billy Ryan High School, just FYI.
Yes?
Please.
I just wanted to add a little clarification on the access to McKinney Street.
Since the Dollar General has developed, we do now have that two points of access requirement
in our code.
That did not exist when Dollar General was developed, and we do not allow access to an
arterial street, which McKinney is, if you have access via another street.
They could not have access to McKinney when that developed.
The parking location that was brought up by the neighbors, and why that's not facing McKinney
is because of the MN zoning, which prohibits parking in front of the building.
Just some things for you all to keep in mind.
Commissioner Ketch is it?
Sorry.
I might add that as far as the parking goes, if you will put that on the Denton 311 app,
that might help in taking care of that for you.
Thank you.
Other discussion or questions at this time?
Yes.
Please do.
While we're not posted for an overall discussion on sufficiency of notifications, I do just
want to confirm for everyone's benefit that notification followed state law and our DVC
procedures.
Thank you for that.
Yes.
At some point, we'll stop adding things.
I also did want to point out, I know it's been a while since we've discussed notifications
for the commission, but the neighborhood meetings are also an optional thing, so we can't dictate
how an applicant chooses to hold or not hold those.
We can just recommend and give them the minimum notification standards for it if they choose
to have one.
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Riggs.
So, Bryce, I know we're talking about a SUP.
Could you talk about maybe just a quick brief summary of what some allowed uses would be
in the mixed residential?
Sure.
I do have the use table on my hidden slides as well if you'd like to go over that, but
a couple that I have written down as possible uses would be most of your residential uses,
single family, townhome, duplex, triplex, fourplex, but it does also include the multifamily.
There are use specific standards that come with that.
Some other options would be, as previously mentioned, the daycare is an option, schools,
medical office, restaurant, private club, personal service general, tattoo parlor, hotel,
as well as some very minor industrial uses, which would be allowed by Wrighton's zoning
district.
And so any of those could go in today without any specific use permit?
Correct.
They'll not be coming to public hearing if they would like to go through any of those
uses.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'll say many things about this area of town and the application really to me tell
the story of how we allow the need for conveyance of vehicles to drive the land use decision
instead of the other way around.
It's a textile roadway, so we have limited control.
Therefore, whatever we choose about what we build there is going to impact the choices
people make.
And so in my mind, the choice of what we allow there within the zoning rules directly impacts
the safety of the community.
Any other questions or discussion from the commission?
Or a motion?
Oh, sorry.
Commissioner Ketcham said.
So not only due to opposition, but I feel like I've given also reasons to motion for
denial for this SUP based on odor mitigation, potential health risks.
We've talked about traffic risks.
And even though they do have the right to build whatever they want on their property,
this is an SUP, so they're asking for extra rights as well.
So I motion to deny.
Commissioner McDade?
I whole second that motion to deny.
Any other discussion points?
Yeah, I'll just add that I think I'll be supporting this motion.
And I fully understand that there are other by-right uses that can go here.
Again, I'm chiefly concerned about the safety and how this impacts an area that will see
increased car traffic over the next several years.
There's a couple of subdivisions east of here that are going in, right?
And while other things can be built here, in my judgment, those things are likely to
induce less darting across the street, as we've seen, which is really just people wanting
to get to the other side of the road and not take a 18 minute detour to walk down to the
traffic light.
Commissioner Riggs?
Yeah, I will say, you know, whether this passes or not, I do appreciate the applicant's willingness
to move the building as far away.
I do think most of the traffic is probably going to, because of the way you situated
that building, is going to necessarily be on McKinney and not Glengarry.
So just wanted to make that point.
Thank you.
I have an echo of that.
Often, we see applications that come before us that staff and applicants have worked very
diligently on to attempt to mitigate the things that they know are a challenge within the
constraints of the site and what roads we have control over.
And I think in this case, it's just a challenging place that it's hard to complete all that
mitigation.
Not that it in any way will probably affect UL's decision here, but I did want to correct
one thing on the record.
We did find additional information.
While Bryce is correct, McKinney used to be a textile roadway up until very recently.
It was handed over to the city for maintenance just in the last couple of years.
So just wanted to correct the record on that and make sure you all knew that it is a city
street at this point.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
I also am confused.
Some areas, there are text out streets that we have an understanding to do the maintenance
on.
So you're saying this is a city, right?
It's been turned back to the city already?
Yes.
Our maps were recently updated and show it now as a city-owned road.
I believe it's just been in the last couple of years that TextDOT completed whatever obligations
they had for maintenance after the reconstruction projects that were done and now it has been
handed over to the city.
But you are right, it is very confusing and nuanced and there are many roads where I would
question whether what I was telling you is accurate or not because of those agreements
that we have with TextDOT for maintenance.
Okay.
No, I very much appreciate that.
I'll try to move to this quickly so we don't waste any more time.
I mean, not that we've wasted time, but that we are expedient.
Given that information, I'm going to move to table this until an event certain when
the city can come back with information on whether safety improvements are planned and
possible here, as that's an allowable motion on the main motion.
Commissioner, we already have a motion on the floor.
Yes there is.
However, my understanding is that's a main motion and that the motion to postpone would
be a...
I will look to Hillary on that.
I believe you're correct, but I can't say for certain.
I'm Googling that real quick, I'm so sorry.
That's quite all right.
Commissioner Kutcher said, did you have something to add?
Does that change your decision?
It would change my decision on whether to support it, but again, if there's not interest
in the commission, then this motion would either not get a second or fail and then we
can vote on the main motion, which is perfectly fine, but let's take a little one minute with
Jeopardy music while we're confirming.
Question for Haley.
If we do pass the motion that's currently in front of us to deny, they have to go back
and...
Oh no, does it still move on to city council and then what happens at the city council
level?
So they could choose either to go back to the drawing board and see if they can come
up with another idea or they could choose to proceed to city council.
It would require a super majority vote at council if you all have recommended denial.
Motion to table can intervene.
Okay, so that's my motion is to continue to an event certain when the city can come back
with a plan for crossing McKinney if there is one or just confirm that there's not one.
And for the public's benefit, the reason I'm making that motion this way is just that we
don't have our transportation staff here because this was not necessarily anticipated, mostly
my fault.
So don't think anything badly of staff, but this is a way that I see if there is a reasonable
plan in place already that would allow the applicant to continue with this application
and address this issue and still move forward, whereas a motion to denial, to deny would
trigger the other things that you've heard.
So that's my reasoning.
Is there a second?
Not at this time.
Yeah.
I understand.
Can we have some quiet?
I understand.
I'm just trying to express myself.
This is the way these meetings go, ask that you would trust the parliamentary procedure
and that we would get through this.
I don't see anybody, Commissioner Riggs.
I just have a comment, and this is just my own personal thinking without having transportation
staff here, but the only way I think you could possibly make a safe crossing across McKinney
is by putting in a traffic signal.
I don't think the city has any plans of doing that anytime soon, nor would this development.
So that wouldn't change my vote if we were to table it.
I think my vote would still be the same.
Understood.
And I don't see a second to that at all, so that motion fails.
We're back to the main motion, which is a motion to deny with a motion and a second.
Any other discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 6-0 to deny.
So as Haley mentioned, the next step for this application is the applicant will decide whether
to continue to counsel for a public hearing or whether they would like to go back and
rework the application.
Thank you.
Any other ... Okay.
That brings us to our last public hearing of the night.
This is 5BZ25-25.
Good evening, Planned Zoning Commission.
My name is Matt Bourdine, Assistant Planner.
I'm here to present the rezoning case Z25-0025A, ARCA MIMA.
So this is a request to rezone approximately 5.4 acres from the Rural Residential Zoning
District to the General Office District.
This is located in the northwest part of town, with access off of Barthold Road.
Currently there is a home on the site and some accessory structures.
The surrounding area is largely undeveloped and is a mix of rural residential and light
industrial zoning.
This request was reviewed against our criteria for approval and was found to be in compliant
with them, and so a little bit more into that.
And with the General Office District, so this zoning district is intended for a variety
of workplaces and those complementary uses, such as commercial, which is being proposed
on the site, and is generally encouraged in areas that are near commercial centers of
the city and employment areas.
This geo-zoning district on top of office does allow for various commercial uses and
is located near the I-35 corridor.
The future land use designation for this area is light industrial.
This was found to be in compliance with that designation, as is intended for light industrial
activity, but also associated supporting uses, such as office, retail, as is being proposed
here.
Additionally, found it compliant with the economic goal of the city to ensure there
is land available for development to ensure future economic growth.
Another criteria for approval is that we do see there has been significant change in this
area, ongoing as well as into the future.
There's been certainly industrial development just south of here, as well as textile projects
to expand I-35, as well as realign and expand our hold road.
This request was notified according to city and state standards to the public.
In addition, the applicant did hold public meetings or notified for public meetings no
one attended.
In addition, the staff has not received any responses for or against this request.
Staff is recommending approval of the request of rezoning to the Geo District here to answer
any questions.
Any questions for staff at this time?
I don't see any, so I will open the public hearing.
I forgot to mention applicant is here and they do have some slides they'd like to present.
Oh, I'm sorry, I misspoke.
The hearing is still open from this item being continued from our previous meeting.
I do have one card from the applicant representative, Ms. Amy Bissett from McAdams, and thank you
for putting the new company name on the card so I remember it and don't misspoke.
You're welcome.
Good evening, Chair Pruitt, commissioners.
I appreciate the opportunity to be in front of you this evening.
I will be quick.
I do want to start by saying that our client, the homeowner, is with us this evening.
Art and Kathy Smucker in the audience, in case you do have some questions specifically
for them.
This is their homestead today.
Just to give you a little bit of context on this property, I'm not going to rehash what
Matt has already shared with you, but I do want to zoom out a little bit and just give
you kind of the aerial context of the changes in this part of town.
First of all, as you're all aware, the northwest side of Denton, on the west side of I-35,
is designated in our comp plan as our future industrial area.
As you can see on this aerial when you zoom out, it is adjacent to I-35 and we're seeing
some of those types of development on the west side of 35, including Primoris on the
north end.
There's a cold storage facility south of that.
The property immediately to the east of the Smuck property has been resoned, has been
annexed and rezoned for future industrial.
Then there's the significant industrial development on the south as well.
I do want to address, Chair Pruitt, you asked the question in work session about why we're
only rezoning the piece.
There's a large strip that's being left rural residential and that has already been acquired
by TxDOT for the realignment and expansion of 1173 in the future, so it is not owned
by our client and will eventually be right away on the future land use map.
We did make a decision to go with general office over light industrial and wanted to
share our reasoning behind that.
The two zoning districts are very similar in terms of allowable land uses.
A lot of overlap, including light industrial uses, can go in the general office zoning
district.
However, this is an entrance into Denton and general office zoning has more enhanced commercial
design standards and we felt like that would be appropriate for this area.
The home itself is intended to be repurposed.
It sits up on a hill and it overlooks a beautiful floodplain and also overlooks a nice industrial
park and I-35 and could be repurposed into a restaurant or jazz lounge.
There's a number of things where it would have a really nice view and be a good lunch
location for employees of this area.
Because of the size of this site, we were also proposing, again, this is just concept
at this time and we do not have a developer with us today.
This is the property owner who's initiating the zoning change.
We've also envisioned a boutique hotel here as well as some inline retail.
We did notice two virtual neighborhood meetings.
We did have one person RSVP, but they did not attend.
They are the property owner to the north and west of this site.
We did follow up with them and share the information and make ourselves available if they have questions
in the future.
And that is all I have for you this evening.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Any questions from the commission?
I don't see any, thank you.
This is a public hearing.
If you'd like to speak on this item, you are certainly welcome to come down.
Not seeing any.
We will close the public hearing, open the floor for discussion or a motion or questions
of staff.
Commissioner Ketcherset?
A motion to approve this item.
Commissioner Garland?
And I'll second approval.
Okay.
Any discussion?
Sorry, were you?
Okay.
For the public, we're having a little bit of a humorous night this evening where Chair
Pruitt is very good at misinterpreting arm and hand signals, so feel free to laugh at
my expense.
Yeah, I'll just say I appreciate the unknown future of a situation like this.
I acknowledge that this is probably not the future that you saw 20, 30 years ago, whenever
it was.
We frequently get people who are surprised at that and can't find a path forward, so
I appreciate that the applicant was able to work with staff and with the representative
to find a way to move forward and give this area a potential for future use that does
have enhanced right-of-way design standards and allows the current property owner to walk
away not completely empty, so thank you for that.
Any other discussion?
Okay.
Good.
Not seeing any with a motion in a second.
Any questions at the end there?
We're good?
Okay.
I like looking at maps.
We had the GIS guide earlier tonight.
It's a very interesting area.
I commend you for pivoting on ... I mean, that's good that you have foresight because I'm looking
at ... It looks like the tiny home community is supposed to be built there.
A church is just south of you, the convention center to the north, so to think futuristically
and to come up with a different use, not many people would do that, so congratulations.
Not seeing any more discussion with the motion in a second.
I'll call for a vote on the board.
That item passes 6-0.
That brings us to our last item on the agenda, which is the matrix, I believe.
Sorry.
Navigated away.
Yes, 6-A, the planning and zoning matrix.
Yes, just a couple of updates for you all on items that you've heard that have recently
gone to council.
At their February 17th meeting, they did vote favorably for the comprehensive plan amendment
and zoning for the commercial portion of the Hickory Grove development that's out west
of town on 380.
They've also considered a handful of annexation cases, those don't come before you all, but
the city has initiated annexation of properties that have expired non-annexation agreements
that have been lingering for a while, so we will be working with council on that, so you
might anticipate some of those coming before you all in the future.
With respect to the matrix itself, we will be, I believe, removing three or four items
that we accomplished at work session this evening, so I'm happy to make any other changes
that you all might like to see.
Any questions or additions to the matrix from the commission?
Yeah, just appreciate the expediency from some of the recent requests and turning around
that GIS analysis.
I know that's not an easy task.
I don't see any additions to the matrix.
That will bring us to item 7, concluding items.
Anyone on the dais have concluding items?
I just have a couple short ones.
It is the March, which we're not in March, primary election season, early voting is ongoing,
as well as I want to highlight, especially because several of our planning staff have
been involved in this in the past, the Denton Evening Rotary is holding their winter warmer
fundraiser for laptops for students this next Friday, March the 6th, to be aware of that.
Anything else?
Commissioner Dyer?
I would like to thank the city staff and the county of Denton County for their ability
to listen to the residents that live out in my area off of Robeson Ranch Road.
We had some new traffic signal go in and it caused quite the stir and it may have gone
in a little prematurely and I think it was the city that went in and kind of changed
it so they took out the left turn only lane and for right now, I'm sure it will get changed
once HEB is finished and all of that, but thank you to the city staff and those powers
that listen to the community.
Very good.
Not seeing any others at 7.45 p.m.
With no objection, I will conclude and adjourn our meeting this Wednesday, February 25th.
Thank you.