Welcome to the planning and zoning commission work session for Wednesday, December 11, 2019.
Seeing that we do have a quorum, I will call this meeting to order at 338.
Let the record show that currently Commissioner Smith and Commissioner Panetta are absent.
The first item of business this evening is work session item 1A, which will be a report
and discussion followed or following a presentation by Hunter Cole Ranch Master Plan.
Good afternoon.
Today, what we'll be presenting is sort of an overview of the MPC amendments for the
Hunter and Cole Ranch MPCs.
I know we've kind of talked briefly about it just in sort of in passing that this will
be coming forward.
We did go to council last week with the work session, so what you'll be hearing tonight
is essentially almost the exact same, the only modification.
We won't really be diving into the agreements associated with the special taxing district
because that's nothing that would come in front of P&Z.
But more so on amendments to the existing zoning district.
So the first part of the presentation will be done by OC Vest from Stratford Land representing
Cole MPC and Brian Karlock with Hillwood representing Hunter Ranch MPC.
Once they're done, I'll kind of get up and go through some of the items that we had as
well as some of the discussion items that we had with council where we were initially
seeking direction and then that should be it.
Thank you, Richard.
Mr. Chairman, members of the Udenton Planning and Zoning Commission.
My name is OC Vest.
I'm a partner with Stratford Land at 5949 Sherry Lane Suite, 800 Dallas, Texas.
We're here tonight representing the MT Cole Family Partnership and SLF Cole property for
the Cole Ranch, which is about 3,169 acres in Denton and I'm also here joined by Mr.
Brian Karlock with Hillwood who will be representing Hillwood and the Hunter Ranch property, about
3,179 acres, slightly larger, for the Hunter Ranch project.
We're going to do this kind of in tandem.
I'm going to go through the first part of the presentation and then bring Brian up to
do more of the vision.
I'm going to talk about kind of what the existing conditions are out there today and why we're
here today.
And Mr. Chairman, tell me what the protocol or you'd prefer, whether you want to ask questions
along the way or wait until the end, happy either way.
Yeah, I think preferably at the end would be just for the sake of the presentation but
I'm happy to entertain questions that are super pertinent at the time.
Sounds good.
Generally the agenda we're going to try to follow here this afternoon, project background,
that's what I will do.
Brian will come up for the vision and as Richard mentioned, the agreements are really the city
agreements that we're talking to related to the MMD district, the improvement district,
that will actually, you know, build some of the infrastructure for Cullen Hunter Ranch.
We do have some brief slides on that.
We can touch on that at the very end if you'd like, but as Richard said, those won't be
coming to P&Z for action.
So that be at your election.
Just a snapshot of this is actually from Hunter Ranch at I-35, looking north and west.
Here's a project timeline.
It gives you an idea how long we've been at this.
Hunter Ranch was actually annexed into the city in 2001, 18 years ago.
Cole was annexed in five years later in 2006.
Both were subsequently zoned, MPC zoning very soon thereafter in 2008.
If you recall, and I don't think anybody on the P&Z today was there in 2008, but in 2006
when we annexed into the city, there was no MPC zoning.
So we worked with the then city director of planning and city staff to develop that zoning
category so that we would have a mechanism to control large tracts of land that need
flexible zoning so that they have the ability to adapt over time.
Once that zoning ordinance was created, Cole Ranch was one of the first applications for
that MPC zoning.
I think Hills of Denton on the north side was next and then Hunter also came in very
soon after that.
So we created a zoning district in order to match up with the size of property that we
all had.
Fast forward to July 13 of 2018 and the discussions there, we felt like we had a good plan of
development, but what we didn't have is a way to finance infrastructure.
We didn't have a financing plan for the ranches.
So we started talking to city leadership about how we do that.
Our experience and Hillwood's experience is on all these large master plan communities,
you have some sort of special financing district to help you do that.
Takes a variety of shapes and forms.
There's all different ways of doing it.
We always try to look at what the needs are and fit the program to what the needs are
so you have a real custom fit.
Started that conversation with Mayor Watts in July 13 of 2018 with a tour of the Veridian
project in Arlington, which is a very similar structure to what we're proposing for Cole
and Hunter.
It's a successful project, if you've never seen it, I encourage you to drive through
and look at it.
It was developed by the Johnson Development Company out of Houston in partnership with
the city of Arlington.
We had the Arlington mayor, Jeff Williams, one-on-one conversations with Mayor Watts
to talk about pros and cons of the different districts, how the zoning is set up.
And I think it was a really good place for us to start the conversation on where to go
and how to do it.
So since that time we've had a series of meetings, city council work sessions that culminated
in February 12 of the city council agreeing to allow us to go to the state legislature
to create these improvement districts, very, very similar again to what Veridian had done.
In June of 17, 2019, both bills were approved by the state legislature.
One for Hunter, one for Cole, they're almost identical except for the legal description
that describes each property.
Those bills, however, do not take effect until we have city agreements that talk about how
the governance is going to work, how the districts are going to work, and then all the project
agreement items that go along with that.
That's the body of documents that we talk about as being the city agreements.
That work has been done, and since then we have been working on those agreements, and
what happened very soon after that was we realized there were some changes in our existing
zoning that were going to be necessary in order to move the projects forward.
Number one being the gas well ordinance and the new city development code.
So there were several things that happened along the way that are really the reason why
we're here talking about an MPC amendment.
To follow the timeline further on, December 3rd, we had the work session last week.
January 8th is where we'd like to target planning and zoning for approval of the MPC, and then
January 28th of 2020 for final city council.
Current timeline that we're working real hard to stay on.
Again, kind of the objective of what we're trying to do is provide the governance for
how we develop two large master plan communities.
We believe that doing them together makes a lot of sense, not only from our side, but
there's a lot of efficiencies with the city, I think, as well, and we'll show you that
in maps further into the development.
Probably a map that doesn't need much explanation.
The red area is the two sites together, about 6,400 acres in the southwest quadrant of the
city.
Coal Ranch, again, 3169, Hunter Ranch, 3179.
A lot of people ask, okay, in the Coal Ranch, I see this big out parcel, what is that?
That's the McCutcheon property who own that property, and they are not in the city and
not zoned.
So that's a piece that we work around.
Again, just to kind of confirm the current status, both properties have annexed into
the city, both have master plan communities zoning on them today from 2008, and both have
an approved development plan map that's required as a part of the MPC zoning process.
What we do not have for either of these projects is infrastructure available to this area.
And of course, that's what we're trying to solve.
So again, why is an MPC amendment needed?
First of all, to increase the gas well setbacks from where we are to what the city is going
towards with their new gas well ordinance.
Last week we thought that was a done deal, but evidently it's not, and there's still
some more work to be done on that.
That's fine.
I think that's great.
But we're here proposing gas well setbacks that are consistent with the ordinance that
the city passed originally.
Just to put it very briefly and plainly.
We're also adopting the 2019 DDC as our governing documents for projects going forward.
The vested rights that we have on our properties today are the 2002 DDC with about 49 amendments.
And what we realized after working with Richard's staff for a couple of weeks was it just wasn't
workable.
We couldn't even find a copy of what the 2002 DDC looked like in 2008.
So it made a lot of sense for us to bring the project forward, forget that vested right,
and to adopt the 29 DDC.
Now we are offering some changes because we do think there's some modifications that need
to be reworked in order to fit a master plan community, so we'll talk about that later.
We also think that it creates a much better coordinated master plan between the two properties.
If we do this right, you really won't be able to tell the difference between coal ranch
and hunter ranch on the ground.
You'll feel like one big master plan community is a great addition to the city of death.
As we talked about before, the development plan map is a part of the approval of the
master plan community zoning.
So why are we suggesting a change to that as well?
On the left, you can see what our two existing development plan maps look like put together.
Very disjointed, the land uses don't line up, the roads don't line up, the open space
areas don't make any sense.
And it's just obvious that they were both designed at different times and designed in
an isolated fashion.
If you look at the map on the right, that's a simple diagrammatic version of what we think
the land uses should be.
Makes a lot more sense.
It gathers intensity and density uses along I-35 and loop 288 where they're more appropriate.
And steps the density down as you go to the west to be sensitive to ropes and ranch and
our neighboring ranch community members on the west side.
In the middle is more mixed use and where we transition from the higher intensity uses
to the lower intensity uses.
You see that the street pattern makes a lot more sense.
Now you all of a sudden see logical intersections like ropes and ranch road in I-35, all red
road, a new interchange that DOT will be constructing in the near future.
And the interchange with 2449 and I-35.
Loop 288 also creates new interchange and grade separated opportunities in that area.
So with the extension of all red east and west to Lively Robe, we're providing a second
point of access for ropes and ranch should they decide to take advantage of that.
And the improvements of 2449 to the west also provide increased connectivity for ropes and
neighbors to the west.
So I think the map is pretty demonstrative that it improves tremendously from where we
were to where we are today.
Now we're going to get into the vision and ask Mr. Brian Carlock to come up and keep
going.
Good afternoon.
Brian Carlock.
I'm with Hillwood.
I wish we had a little more time to talk a little bit about our companies, probably both
Stratford and Hillwood.
I never take for granted that anybody knows who Hillwood is.
Probably folks in Denton have heard of Hillwood and are kind of familiar with what we've done
to your south along I-35.
But I'm with Hillwood communities, we're a division of Hillwood.
All we focus on is master plan community development.
We do most of our lot development and large master plans, kind of like this, in major
Texas markets.
So we're excited to finally -- we've owned this property for a long time, so we're finally
excited to really have the market more come to us, and hopefully the entitlements and
infrastructure challenges have a way to kind of get solved so we can create this awesome
community.
OC spoke to this.
This is loosely very much a similar representation to the development plan map that OC just talked
about.
This has a little more enhancement to really stress some other attributes beyond infrastructure
of roadways and consistent land uses.
This also probably highlights a little bit more of this unique opportunity that these
two properties have to create these amazing kind of linear linkages kind of to and through
the property, connecting properties to the west that will one day be within the corporate
limits all the way through the east, there's really two or three major linear green belts
that allow access all the way to the east side of the town.
Amazing things will happen within the master plan, Hunter and Cole.
Using these green belts, a lot of the vision really is to create a world class, very walkable
mix of uses, you know, community, walkability is key, leveraging the key assets that we
have on the property, both linear green belts, the pilot knob and the upland habitat that
everybody's probably familiar with, primarily on Hunter Ranch are things that we're embracing
and kind of bringing in to the master plan and using them because we think that really
is the most special thing about the property is the walkability and the linear linkages
through these green belts.
This is kind of a next step down.
This isn't the development map plan, but this is kind of what we consider the master plan
if you want to start peeling the onion back behind MR, MN, R7, R5, R4.
This is kind of our thought of maybe how this thing develops.
And actually, if you even compare the two, this one to this one, this one again peeling
the onion back a little bit, I will go back to this to talk about one thing we really
like about this zoning map, the way it looks and feels and the way at least it's been structured
in the current proposed amendment and mini DDC that we're kind of putting together with
staff is it does allow some flexibility.
We're really creating zones of land uses that we believe make sense.
In developing Alliance now for over 40 years or close to 40 years now, what we do know
is that we just don't know how the next 5, 10, 20, 35 and 40 years will really lay out.
We think there's certainly some responsibility to put some bumpers around these large land
uses, but we never want to get caught in a position to where we have an opportunity for
corporate campus, an office project, a residential project, really so unique, everybody wants
it to happen, but for some reason the zoning doesn't line up and it delays the project.
Somebody say just for example, a Google campus wanted to come to Denton and be on our Hunter
Ranch project and they thought it was going to take two or three more years to get the
zoning approved.
They're never going to pursue a project like that with us.
Part of what we're putting together is a plan that is very thoughtful, but it's also flexible.
You can kind of see that just from the large chunky nature of these land uses, different
from what OC showed you before, which is the existing zoning.
Anyway, pulling this back a little bit, you can kind of see just the representations of
color, even take the frontage along I-35, while it might be MR by zoning category, you
can see if you can kind of distinguish the colors, you can kind of see that it is a mix
of uses from high intensity commercial to office, mixed use, some residential.
It is a mix of uses.
The residential that we would propose in anything that's MR would be a higher density residential,
something that makes sense, you would want to live in an area when creating these live
work play.
This isn't where your 10,000 square foot lot type communities go, but we think it important
to be able to create that live work play.
As you transition to the west, logically you can tell because it changes patterns from
oranges to yellows, we're trying to be responsible off to the west as we have neighbors that
may be more rural, at least at this point.
We do match up very nicely with the density, we think, with Robeson Ranch, everybody may
or may not be familiar, in 2010 Hunter Ranch brought an amendment to our MPC through.
That amendment dealt mainly with gas wells, but it also dealt a lot with Robeson Ranch,
so one thing to understand, if you dig too deep into the document, you'll see that we're
really honoring the obligations that we made to Robeson Ranch in 2010, and those were setbacks,
they had gas well provisions in them, they had lot size provisions in them, things like
that, so we're honoring all those obligations, I don't believe Osie mentioned it, but we
did have a town hall meeting with Robeson several weeks ago and really went through
the whole plan with them and it was, I think, received very well.
But in here too, just to highlight the green, linear linkages, the existing tree coverage,
pilot knob, you can see really the project ends up being about 1/3 open space, both planned
and existing through ESA and greenspace, and so that's, well, and the other thing impacting
the open space is certainly the gas wells and gas well setbacks, and we'll talk about
that here in a moment.
Education, four elementary schools, two middle schools, one high school is what's been programmed,
we've been working very closely with the school district for years now on, really, the number
of schools they need, and at least right now, their projected locations, they already own
the high school and they already own one middle school, as we go over time and we really finally
find the right place to put the other middle school and the other elementary schools, we'll
certainly work with them.
We treat elementary schools and other schools within the community, you know, as valuable
as parks and amenity centers and pools, it's just a key fundamental part.
We love them, we always, we love the interaction between the HOAs and the parent associations,
this one in the bottom right corner is a Denton ISD elementary school we just finished in
our project, happens to be in the city of Little Elm, but it's in the eastern side of
a DISD, the one in the top right is one we recently finished down in Houston, we've probably
done six elementary schools across the state of Texas, so we're really familiar with school
districts, the value they bring, for sure the on-site schools that they bring, and it really
makes us way into our planning principles, making sure they are walkable and in the right
locations.
A little bit about the residential character, this is a bit of an array, of course, of housing
product, and it really represents, from a single family standpoint, largely the array
of housing that we're talking about in both projects.
You can see in the bottom right, townhomes, up to probably in the bottom left is a, probably
on a 90-foot lot down in our Austin project, this represents housing pricing, at least
in Texas vernacular, probably in the 300,000 up to probably 750,000 in that range.
If you look at all the economics that are driving the fiscal impact studies and everything
else going on with the city right now, with Hunter and Cole, we're assuming a $350,000
average home price when we kind of start the project.
We think it'll be, once everything gets lined up, infrastructure-wise, agreement-wise, we're
probably four or five years before you really would see the first home in either one of
these projects, but this is really the array of housing, so really from a townhome all
the way up to kind of more of an estate lot, I guess, is what we're talking about.
There's also multi-family that we'll talk about in a minute as a part of this project,
but our idea is to be able to offer, really, housing for everybody, good quality housing
for almost everybody.
Practically speaking, that'll probably be high 200,000s up to kind of whatever you want
to spend, but not intended to be at all a first-time homebuyer project exclusively.
On the other side, it's not intended to be a state million-dollar home project either.
I'm going to ask Robert Folzen-Logan to talk a little bit.
The commercial mixed use is an important part of this project.
It's a large part of this project, barely both projects.
Robert runs all of the Hillwood mixed use commercial projects in North Texas, whether
it's North Dallas or Alliance, so Robert's going to take you through a few of the details
on some of the mixed use.
Mr. Chairman, commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to be a part of the session.
As Brian said, my name's Robert Folzen-Logan.
I'm senior vice president with Hillwood Development, so we're the sister company to Hillwood communities
on the commercial mixed use side, and we are celebrating Alliance's 30th year on Thursday,
and you know, outlining properties from there gets you to the 40-year that Brian spoke of,
but if you're not familiar with it, that's the 26,000 acres in and around Alliance Airport.
And for me personally, I've been focused on the benchmarking, planning, and ultimately
master development of all of our mixed use projects for the past 14 years or so.
And I tell you that because it is representative of the projects I'm going to go through here
today and having the fortune to work through several different demographics and stages
and markets, which leads to really our approach to all of our mixed use projects now, including
Hunter.
Those include three really core mixed use projects, one being Alliance Town Center.
So that's the 900 acres, Belks, JCPenney's, down off of Harris Trace Parkway, Circle T,
which is represented here, very unique, one-of-a-kind in terms of corporate campus, very slow, heavily
geared off of DFW Airport, but I put it in here because ultimately it has the same planning
principles and the hope of getting some corporate users over time.
Eight, it happens to cut through the eastern cross timbers and have some of the beauty
and uniqueness that Hunter reached us from an environmental perspective.
And then thirdly is Frisco Station, which I've set up and planned and managed since about
five years from now.
And it's a representation of we are a 30-plus year perspective that the Hillwood Commercial
Group and certainly vested in the 35W corridor.
We were fortunate to go back to Frisco, which is interesting.
Mr. Perot set up the area whenever he did EDS down on 121 almost 30 years ago.
So we're back there seeing how 30-year in density and scale changes over time.
So all three of those are sort of baked into how do you future proof a mixed use community
and have the right sustainable bones in them so that it is sustainable 30 years from now.
So just background to what I'm going to walk through here in a minute, doesn't mean that
it's exactly dentin, but hopefully represents scale and time.
So circle T, we talked about this way.
So here's a representation of the corporate tenant, which we think over time as 114 continues
to build out from a commercial growth node and 35W.
So you think about everything that's happening in Denton Alliance 114.
We believe over time that there certainly will be opportunities for larger corporate
users.
Schwab, which you may have heard about recently.
They're moving their headquarters here from the west coast.
It's roughly 600,000 plus square feet, 6,000 employees, fairly low FAR, but surrounded
by lake and amenities integrated into our open space system.
Flip over to this is a Frisco building that we built, opened up a couple of years ago.
There's a second one similar to it, a little bit higher FAR in the .23 up to 7, 8 stories,
but much more urban majority glazing and you can't see it, but it's got the same parks
and trails principles with a trailhead over here that leads into a 30-acre park system.
But they're really two different scales.
Alliance Town Center.
So now I'm going back to a much more suburban market, but same planning principles, whatever
we set out 15 years ago to organize the 900-acre Alliance Town Center.
The idea of putting flexible but efficient infrastructure grid types, zoning, which allows
us to move with the market, but still keep the same quality and planning principles with
integration of parks and trails amenities.
And in this case, you're looking at 400 acres north of Harris Trace Parkway.
It looks fairly low density, but there is, over time, we'll be almost 2 million square
feet of office.
We have 600, 900 multifamily urban living units on the ground today and a couple more
projects in the future, a hospital district to the north that includes Texas Health Resources
and Cook Children's.
There's a hotel, Marriott down here, and all of it's integrated on Bluestem Park, which
is, in this case, a 14-acre restored prairie that we did with the Ladybird Johnson Group
out of Austin.
And then in the middle here is the FAA headquarters, which right now is the tallest building.
And the point here is it's down the street.
You can drive through it.
You can get a sense of it, and you don't see it, but even our office project that I sit
in today is fairly traditional Class A suburban office, which would be representative of what
would likely come to Hunter in the short term.
But we plan it in such a way that if and when you can support structured parking, then you
can begin to go vertical, but still maintain all of the planning and integration principles.
Hospitality, obviously it'll become important as the commercial grows over time, and again,
thinking 10, 20, 30 years.
This is an AC Marriott in Residence Inn project in Frisco that you can drive by and see and
walk through today.
Very urban.
In this case, it sits on top and anchors a park called the Bend in a trail system.
Flip back to same planning principles.
This is a Marriott project that Hillwood owns and maintains in Alliance Town Center.
This case, same amenities, same rooms, just more spread out and on a different parks and
trail system.
Jumping over to urban living, so as Brian said, certainly we have a number of units
as part of the project in Hunter Ranch and believe that, again, back to how do you support
corporate housing.
This is an important piece of having that mix of housing, so this is a couple of projects
in the Alliance Town Center.
We have also watched how good planning over time can generate and change urban living
markets, so Alliance Town Center, our first project there in 2008, which was an unfortunate
time to open it up, but that's what we did, is called Monterra Village, so it's 18 units
an acre, still very high quality.
We were pushing the market.
Fast forward, virtually all of our 2,500 units we have at Alliance Town Center today are
of a roughly 24, 26 units an acre on 12 acres, three to four stories, but pushed up to the
street to create an urban, walkable environment, but still surface-parked inside the donut,
if you will, highly amenitized, but all connected through the parks and trails system to the
other uses.
Now go to what you hope to have a decade, a couple from now.
This is a Hillwood project in Frisco called Station House.
Y'all are all familiar with the Texas donut style of urban living, so take the same 300
seats at Alliance Town Center, push it onto five acres, and go vertical with a structured
parking, and Station House is a good representation of that.
And then to the extreme is, this is a, to the far right is a project called Sky House
that opened up a couple of months ago in Frisco Station.
It's a 25-story, 311-feet-ish, four-rent, sky-rise project, and not to say that this
will come to Hunter Ranch anytime soon, but the reason this is here is the 15-20,000 people
through J.P. Morgan, Chase, Toyota, Liberty Mutual, who moved into the 121 D&T corridor,
you know, just two years ago.
So that type of demographic in corporate relocation is driving a different type of user, which
led us to be able to build this project.
But again, the main point is, scale and flexibility has, you know, with the right planning principles,
pays off over time.
Excuse me.
This is a picture of Alliance Town Center retail.
I really only put this in here, and again, you can drive by and see it, just to, I'm
sorry, whatever this stuff is, just to illustrate, you can do good suburban retail with the right
quality even before you can go dense with the right controls, and we are very proud
of our CCRs and controls that we put on all of our properties, so within the 26,000 acres,
we have 19 commercial HOAs, I personally sit on every design review board, and hopefully
if you drive down 35W, you see the difference on the left side, the east side, and the right
side, and that's just through good quality landscape lighting signage controls that ultimately
integrate the housing and commercial uses together into a cohesive community, and we've
been doing that with Brian and the community's team for many, many years, and finally, this
is the office that I'm in, so again, a good representation of class A, still a little
more suburban office product that's likely more representative of Hunter Ranch in the
short term, so with that, really just trying to give you a glimpse of how the commercial
mixed use side is looking at Hunter Ranch, and how we believe it ultimately will lead
to the right community with the housing piece, thank you.
So kind of back to Hunter Ranch, and Cole Ranch specifically, I've mentioned the green
belts and the linear linkages are really the key fundamental part of the master planning,
so kind of want to walk you through that, kind of in steps, so this is a series of slides
that kind of build on each other, you can see there's 915 acres of just lake and ESA
streams and buffer, load in there, ESA upland habitat, sometimes it's good just to toggle
back and forth to see where they occur, so we do both properties have ESA upland habitat,
most of the Cole properties ESA upland is actually within kind of the lake and ESA stream
buffers, different from Hunter Ranch, so if you're familiar with pilot knob and a series
of knobs just west of I-35, you can see those that pop up there, that take us to about 1,250
acres in total.
The next impact it just is, is the gas wells, so gas wells and gas well buffers, then takes
you it's really another 600 plus acres is what you can kind of see again, I'll just
toggle just so you can see, and again obviously it's green space so it is what it is, but
the buffer areas and we'll talk about the amount of buffer and how much land that takes
up here in just a little bit and why, but we've developed in North Texas for a long
time, the Barnett Shale has always been up here, we have participated and have been involved
in projects that we have owned the minerals and drilled, maybe we own the surface, somebody
else owns the minerals and is drilling, so we really feel like we've gotten pretty creative
with how to use that buffer area around there, we're sensitive to what you can and you can't
do in the setbacks for sure, what you'll see actually happens and part of our HOA lifestyle
programming within our master plans, we'll use those buffer areas for really more passive
pick up activities, even if it wasn't programmed through our lifestyle directors, that very
creative baseball coach or soccer coach will use those areas for pick up practices on a
given Tuesday or Wednesday night, so it really is additive in value. This one doesn't add
any more open space, but I think it's interesting to see where the natural existing tree canopies
are, so just kind of back and forth and by design they're in the ESA's, the buffer streams
and end up on habitats. And lastly is where we drop in, I'll just do that so you can see
where they emerge, city parks, neighborhood parks, dog parks and pocket parks, included
in our agreements, these other agreements that we're talking about that are conditions
to make the MMD really be enacted, part of those agreements we're agreeing on what land
we're giving, what are the standards of development, both infrastructure and architectural, part
of that is how much open space and parks are we donating, so just to kind of break it down,
we're giving a 50 acre, 54 acre park, city park, Cole's given a 50 acre park, 104 acres
of that, neighborhood parks, we're both giving in yellow there, you can see, two neighborhood
parks each, so a total of four neighborhood parks. All right, now those are designed to
be adjacent to the elementary schools, that's in concert and coordination with Denton ISD,
we find some synergies, I guess, your parks department and the ISD is fine with doing
it that way and I think it's a great use of that land. And then we'll each do dog parks,
we'll show you some images in a minute, we just finished dog park in Little Elm in our
other project, which is fantastic. And then pocket parks, these are half acre to acre
parks all over the community, they're really owned by the HOA, but they are open space
that will certainly add to that kind of every night park when you just want to walk down
the block and visit with the neighbors or have the kids kick around in the grass. Consistent
with the objectives of the city and certainly our major planning principles, it's important
that these parks are not, there's not a lot of them, but they are also walkable and within
range of really throughout the community. You have this half mile or 10 minute walk
concept, so this is really just an overlay to say that everywhere you are within the
community, you're well covered in very near parks. Trails in other parts, so you got all
these green spaces, you got all these linkages, what are you doing with it? You're doing parks
of course, but you really got to tie it together. Right now, our project proposes and it's actually
kind of in our agreements that we're building this magnitude of a trail system and it totals
about 58 miles, clearly far exceeding any kind of requirement or anything that's even
on your master trail plan at this point. But we think it's just a key part of actually
using those green belts to put people on 10 foot trails and six foot trails to tie these
parks and schools, live works, places together by foot and by bike and that's what you get
with these trails. And everything I'm talking about, by the way, is public. I will talk
about that in an amendment, but everything we're talking about building is public to
Denton residents. So as we're going through our design and our visioning for the community,
every project we do, not one single one is even close to being, yes sir.
Before you keep going a little bit further and away from this, so just back to what you're
showing on greenways and parks there, how much buffer are you guys, and this is really
preliminary and there's no site plan or anything given down right now, but how much buffer
are you guys giving around 288 and 35W for that green space? It kind of looks like from
what you're seeing on the map here is a lot of this green space is buttoned up right against
288. I mean, is that...
288 green space. I mean, some of it is obviously ESA and it's green space. No matter if we
wanted it there or not, it certainly is green space.
I don't know that we're proposing it.
Further north there along next to the airport and all that area, I mean, how much of that,
you know, that green space is obviously devoted to green space, but how much of that around
that do you think would actually be turning to develop a land with residential being developed
into there?
Well, nothing in green on the map is going to be developed.
No, I get that part, but obviously you're going to want to put residential near green
space. That makes more sense. So I guess with seeing as much green space there is along
specifically talking about the ESA area and a lot of the green space up there along the
north part of 288 and real near the airport, just concerns and questions about residential
development around that. Do you guys have plans or thoughts in regards to kind of that
section as of right now and how much residential would develop around that?
Yeah, a little bit and not to avoid the question at all, but you'll see kind of a little visual
fly through that we're going to do and the fly through actually flies over that area.
And that being a part of coal ranch, I'll certainly at OC speak on behalf of coal ranch
and maybe some visions there, but I think we'll fly over that area and we can push pause
and talk about it when we get there. That's okay. Yeah. Cause there are some, a little
bit of constraints, honestly, and I don't know if it shows up on any of our maps, but
there's this A-clud zone as it relates to the Denton airport that extends south. So
there are some restrictions. It doesn't prohibit based on where that is in proximity to the
runway. It doesn't restrict residential from occurring, but it certainly has some requirements
on that. Sure. I guess I'm just speaking more along
the consistency of what you see on 288 currently existing and how, how much residential buffer
there is currently along 288. There is no, there's almost no residential that's right
there along it. And so an idea of what you guys are preliminary looking at for that residential
development. If we're going to look at it later, we can address it later.
Most, and again, consistent with our vision, we're trying to really make sure we keep the
highest intensities and largely no residential. As a matter of fact, we've been talking with
the planning staff about the prohibition of along 288 and along 35, a prohibition zone
for no residential so that nobody ever does it right now. There's a map floating around.
First Richard, yeah, anyway, you may not have even taken a look at it yet, but I know we've
talked a little bit about this idea of no matter what 600 foot off of 288 or 35 prohibited,
even if the underlying zoning allows some form of residential, that not being able to
do residential. I don't know if that addresses the question in general.
Yeah, that actually addresses it perfectly. So that works. Thank you, appreciate it.
Trails, see, so again, with our master planning and visioning for this project, no projects
the same. Certainly with Denton, what we're really looking into is really how do we become
more of Denton. Denton is a very unique city. It's large. It's got the universities. It's
certainly got a culture of music and art and some really special characteristics. So the
goal is, well, how do we create spaces within these projects that really relate to those,
you know, inherent Denton characteristics. So again, we have all this parks, park space
and open space. Kind of what do we do with it? These are images of communities that we
have developed. I think representative in terms of scale and maybe uniqueness for some
of what we've done, you see trails and bridges top left, very simply down on the left, playgrounds
that are this one happens to be a part of a 30 acre community park that we developed
top right again, play activity and bottom right to really interesting amenity in a public
park that we did in harvest, which is in North Lake, just down 35. And amazingly, it's probably
one of the most simple structures we've ever done and probably the most beloved structure
we've ever done. It's just this area of unprogrammed space where people can do whatever they want
to do. So it's really amazing. We really try to make a point of not over programming. A
couple of other areas that we've done that are public. This is a fish camp on a lake
down in Houston. We just opened the two park, two right images are a dog park that we just
opened in our project called Union Park in Little Lamb. And these things are just hugely
popular. Everybody loves dogs as it turns out, and we've committed to doing, you know,
at least one on each project. Public trails, the 58 miles of trails are all public. There'll
be easements overlaid guaranteeing public access to Denton. It'll be a combination of different
styles of trails, as you can see here, different widths. And being sensitive to the ESA, we'll
run trails through and up through. There'll be different material types. There'll also
be private amenities. These are some examples of our current active projects that are going
on really in Texas, but we pride ourselves on creativity. We partner with the greatest
planners that we can find. We do almost all our work with a great firm called TBG. Mark
Meyers here from TBG, senior principal. And we just really insist on the most creative
thoughts that we can afford. Again, these are private amenities. The only thing that's
really private between these two projects, given that it's the municipal management district,
which is this public entity, which is what we're trying to create this financing tool.
The equal and opposite effect of creating that district is that everything is public,
except these private amenities. So think about this. If you have to have a fob, a key control
fob to get into it, that's the only thing that's private in these communities. And that's
far different than a lot of the big master plan communities. And you can just take images.
Quite proud of what we've done. The top right one just won best amenities center in Austin.
We just opened it about six months ago. So I'm going to walk you through a little bit
of an animation. This is don't get focused, please, on the building and the architecture.
These are just masses of buildings, you'll be able to distinguish residential from probably
multifamily from office. We'll stop and pause and talk a little bit about that area up north
of 288. But I think you'll enjoy this if I can figure out how to do it. Oh, I got to
go to I can do it. I've got a teenager, I can do this. Oh, boy. Let me see if I can
pause this. Okay. Okay. All right. Let's see if we can do this here. Again, everybody's
got their perspective here. We're going to zoom down and I'll be stopping it from time
to time and we'll talk about different things. Again, we're going to be flying in here from
the south. We're looking north on I-35. Pretty much everything in color is hunter ranch and
coal ranch. Even from coming in here, you really see the dominant nature of the uplands
habitat. And you'll see really all the planning goes around it. If you get into the documents
again, you'll see that we're making commitments on preservation of upland habitat. Broad general
numbers just so you know. I think we're going to be required by 2019 DDC to maintain or
to preserve I think 30% broadly depending on the land use. We're committing to conserving
and preserving 55% of our upland ESAs. So really about double what the requirements are.
We think it's hugely important. You'll see some labels that come up. I'll stop here because
every Robeson Ranch resident on the planet has asked us when the first grocery store
is going to be coming in. So never can promise anything. Most likely based on existing where
we will probably first start our project where infrastructure is, where intersections are.
We see this northwest corner kind of being hopefully a grosser anchored power center
right here on the northwest corner. As you make your way north, you'll see different
uses and that's by design in that MR zone. We just flew over a multi-family project starting
to get into really this all red I-35 intersection which we see being probably one of our key
nodes for mixed use live work play. Again, this is not intended to be an exact location
for all of this product but is intended to give you how we think the project can develop.
Really nussling projects. You can see here this might be an office building really between
the knobs. I-35 will fly over all the intersections by the way. So these intersections aren't
exactly clear but this is really the way they'll be. The all reds will go underneath them.
So now we kind of turn around on this animation. We're flying due south and we're going to
fly over Pilot Knob. Pilot Knob is the northernmost upland habitat but you can see how we're really
kind of embracing Pilot Knob. You'll start to see the trail systems start to emerge that
will run up and through Pilot Knob. So you may have noticed a little helicopter kind
of come in. In our zoning request is heliport, helipads with SUP. You just didn't have a
category for it. We certainly see and I'm sure everybody can kind of see really this
mobility need that may not be exactly here right now in full force but certainly coming.
Hillwood's a major partner with Uber, Uber Elevate. Our company happens to be Avid Aviators
as it turns out. We use our aircraft as a key marketing tool when we're marketing to
different companies showing them different opportunities throughout. So with SUP we're
proposing that we have the ability to do heliport, helipad. We'll certainly come back and get
with you all and certainly have to ask for approval from the city. FAA ultimately will
have to approve something like this but it wasn't addressed in your current DDC. So we're
working our way again south through the hills. This is actually an almost exact topographic
representation of the elevation of the hills including tree masses. Again a use kind of
position in between the upland ESA's. And then you kind of get into some residential
on the far west. So right now we're on the far west side of Hunter Ranch coming right
off of Robeson Ranch Road. There's a major green belt you see here. This is actually
the future Robeson Ranch just to kind of get you oriented. Again don't criticize our houses.
These are just really intended to be masses. But it does represent you kind of see the
elementary school and other things that are really feeding off of these green belts. This
is an existing lake. Middle school, elementary school, leveraging that. I just flew over
a park. I mentioned two 50 acre parks. Generally speaking, Cole's 50, ours is 54. We're trying
to find the right place to locate that. We've committed to work with the city parks department
in time to locate those at the right spots. We have the ultimate obligation to do it and
we will do it and we're going to work with the parks as this project develops. But we
love the idea of doing it along these green belts. High school already owned by the ISD.
And now actually you see 2449 down here on the bottom side of the slide. We're now flying
really into Cole. You'll see another lake that starts to emerge here and kind of how
we're using that lake to put again another community park potentially as well as the
schools. See if I can get this going here. So again, just to get you aligned here, now
we're really looking southeast. The roadway you see here, this is 288, the future 288,
Pilot Knob over here and I-35 here. So this is that future loop. I think this is the area
maybe you're referring to north of 288. Again, you'll have a major intersection here off
of 288. So the idea is to create these mixed use nodes. But it has a fair amount of residential
just as we want this project to be as walkable as possible. And we'll actually head into
that neighborhood we were just talking about. We'll fly north into it. So you see retail
right there at the intersection then going back into a residential community. We'll come
upon a park area. Could be an HOA park, public access, but maintained by the HOA. Lastly,
we'll just fly right back down I-35. Pilot Knob to the right. Hunter Ranch exists on the
east side of I-35 as well. But we think that's a pretty good way to maybe demonstrate the
different qualities of the project and maybe how we're planning around them. All we know
is anything that we're showing is not exactly how it's going to happen. As I mentioned,
we would never have predicted how Alliance would develop if we really said it's going
to develop exactly this way over a 40-year period. But we think that's actually not a
bad vision. Okay. I think we're about done here. Well, let's talk about gas wells. So
existing entitlements on coal and hunter are a little bit different. But generally speaking,
Hunter Ranch has setback requirements in our existing zoning, 250 feet from the wellhead,
and coal is 200 feet from the wellhead. We are limited to 19 pad sites, and coal has
15 pad sites. Some of the pad sites have been drilled. Some have not. Where we have revised
proposal means really where we are, we believe, with staff and conversations with council
where we believe we are. And this is largely intended to pretty much mirror the approval
y'all did or the city did just recently, which is largely the 500 foot setback from the gas
pad edge for protected uses. We're also agreeing to reduce the number of allowed pads from
19 to 14. That's on Hunter. So we're finding ways to really reduce the need for 19. And
we've selected five that we're going to take off our approved list. But all in all, not
to minimize or even I really probably need to stress that it really by going from that
200 and 250 from the gas well to the 500 from gas pad site, these what will be, you know,
25 or so pad sites, it really encumbers the property almost another 700 acres of unusable
land. We're doing it willingly and knowingly, I guess, but it really isn't an insignificant
matter. I don't know how many of y'all really done the math on it, but that's 700 additional
acres that really is taken out of play for development. Some of that is actually along
Greenbelch or maybe might infringe into an ESA. So I'm not saying 697 additional developable
acres were impacted, but most of it is. So to round this up, the MPC, really the key
parts of the MPC amendment that will be coming through relates to the gas well setback largely
we're accepting the ordinance that was approved just recently. Ends up being over 600 acres
of impact and we're going to reduce our gas well count, allowed gas pads from what it
is down five. So we're going to get rid of five. You know, from the land use standpoint,
like OC mentioned, 2002 ordinances, I think it's been amended 47 times, we were kind of
willingly and knowingly going to amend and live by the 2019 DDC, which I think is going
to be easier for staff, it's going to be easier for us as a developer to navigate the next
40 years. If we can't find those amendments today, I'm not sure we're going to find them
in 20 or 30 years. So it probably is the right thing to do and it brings all of our standards
and requirements up to 2019 as well. There were some antiquated 2002 as amended that
probably somebody might be able to take advantage of, maybe some standards that might not make
some sense today. So we're agreeing to bring those up to 2019. Really greater focus of
commercial and mixed use along the highways versus where it was previously kind of scattered
and chopped. Overall reduction in density. I'll get to a slide in a minute, but there's
several thousand units that we're agreeing to reduce from our zoned entitled residential
units. We're bringing it down several thousand units. Parkland trail significantly greater
than currently required and certainly will exceed the city standards. The development
plan map just makes a lot of sense. It's more usable now. We think it's more flexible. And
again, with jumping up to 2019 DDC, all those old zoning categories that are currently in
place now with the existing zoning would be recategorized and we're using current 2019
vernacular like MN, MR, R7 and things like that. I think we're going to skip all this
and just know that we have these other city agreements. Like OC mentioned, the legislation
says even though the legislature passed it, it won't take effect until the city of Denton
and developer agree on these key items. MPC is something we need to do. So we're working
on the MPC amendment. It's just going to be required. The legislation very specifically
mentions these bottom three items that have to be agreed to before we can utilize the
tools of the MMD. So I don't think we need to hit these. This is a hangover from the
meeting we had with council, unless you would like to talk about any of this. But again,
this is a slide we used for council. But speaking to the residential density, you can see we
went from an entitled -- sorry, what is it? 24,000 to 19. So about 5,000 lot reduction
in our entitled rights as we have right now with our MPC. And probably Richard will go
through the steps. This is a little bit of a moving target as of our -- about two hours
ago. But this is close to what we're targeting. We will see you all again hopefully in January.
We do have a meeting for sure next week with city council primarily to talk about maybe
any comments that come out of this work session today. But also we're going to talk about
those other agreements, the technical nature of the operating agreement, the project agreement
and the consent agreement, which are really more related to the MUD district as it turns
out. I think that's it for you all. Obviously we're here to answer any questions. I think
Richard was going to go through a few items as well.
>> Yeah, before we call Richard up, what I want to do is try to wrap up any questions
that are relevant to this presentation. If they're here and we have questions later,
certainly ask. But if there's questions now, while this presentation is up, I'd love to
take them now. Does anyone have any questions? Chris or Beck?
>> Thank you very much, Chair. So on the green area setbacks around the gas wells, how much
of that are we sort of double dipping for our park space and our ESA space?
>> None. Yeah. It's just an additional fact that we put up about the additional open space.
We're not getting any city park credit. We're not using it for city parks. It's not part
of the ESA credit. There are some gas wells that might be near, maybe when you reach out
500 feet, maybe some of that 500 foot radius reaches into an ESA, if that's maybe part
of your question. But no city park is a part of it and we're not getting any land donation
or city park land benefit or credit for that area.
>> Sort of related question to that is you mentioned sort of like sort of halfway through
your presentation that these unplanned, you know, coach usage of --
>> The buffer areas, how we're using them? Right.
>> Is that something that you envision all these green spaces, buffers, to be used? Because
I'm a little trepidatious about that because the point is to have people not have regular
use of buffer areas.
>> It is. I mean, but human nature, it's open space, right? So you never want to encourage
somebody from not using open space. What we've all agreed to and I think your ordinance even
speaks to it is that we won't do structures. You can't do park structures in it. All these
neighborhood parks and city parks that we're talking about, you know, you can't do them
within the gas well buffers. But I think human nature, and I encourage it, too. I mean, we're
going to landscape it. It will be nice turf grass. The idea of you and your son going
out and throwing the football in that great big giant 30 plus acre area that we just created
as a buffer outside of a wall and the landscape trees. I mean, it's really just human nature,
excuse me, to go to it. We won't be programmed. There won't be anything built. We won't do
ball fields necessarily to, you know, make people go there to practice. It will just
be what people do with open space.
And so for the area around the knobs, the corporate development area in between the
knobs, you were saying that, I mean, it looked like from the flyover that that was going
to be part of the business development region where you wanted sort of the class A buildings
and whatnot. But it seemed like there was a lot of interdigitation, which in some sense
is pleasant to have into an ESA, but it's pleasant for the humans. I worry about the
impact on the ESA itself.
Yeah. And recognize we're staying away from the ESA. Nothing we showed was in an ESA,
certainly near the ESA, but not in an ESA. We were protected or protecting the ESA as
we're required to do.
So that was just sort of my false impression that you had that spread of those campuses
out into those.
Those were kind of outside of the ESA zone. So we drop in the mapped ESAs that are part
of the city mapping program, right? And we'll go out and field determine where they really
are at some point. But we take the ESAs as they're on the city websites, drop them in.
That was part of the animation. So the task for our team and certainly the animator was
to stay out of those areas we told them to stay out of, which was the ESAs. So I think
what you were seeing was areas that were developing up close to the wooded areas, but not into
the protected parts of the ESA.
Okay. Yeah.
Thank you.
We think it's actually certainly a positive, whether it's a residential or a campus. Robert
can tell you when we were developing and are developing Circle T Ranch, he showed some images
there. That was one of the key drivers of getting, you know, Deloitte, Schwab, Fidelity.
Those guys there was that kind of setting with rolling hills and trees and lakes. That's
really very desirable.
I certainly agree with you that that sort of development with lots of green space in
the development is really pleasant for humans. And it's something that we all aspire to.
Again, it was sort of the flip side of the impact on the ESAs themselves. I think to
have that good human interaction, you want to green up your commercial space rather than
concrete up your ESAs to get the interdigitation.
And as I said, we're following everything we need to follow. We're staying away from
the ESAs as we need to. So anything that was interpreted from the animation about going
in and developing in the trees, that's just not, that wasn't the intent. The intent was
we're going to live by our requirements that we're proposing with the ESA in terms of preservation.
So yeah, I understand your point though.
Senior, other questions for this presentation or team? I have one as Richard makes his way
up. When you're going through to slide 31 on my packet at slide 20, there's a footnote
that says gas well buffer anchorages are subject to potential change due to gas well site reclamation.
Right there. Well, is that the 19.14? It's on every slide. It is. Are you buying that
back from the property owners? We're the property owners. Exactly. We shut them down. So what
we know is that in time, it may be just economically infeasible or we may choose not to drill in
certain places. So we're just saying that, hey, if we shut in a well or don't drill on
a pad site fully, that if we shut it down, then that's a good thing, right? And everybody
probably agrees less drilling is better regarding, you know, impact. So the idea on that note
was just saying we may not even drill all these or in time we may shut them in. So things
shown as gas pad sites and buffers may go away. Gotcha. Okay. Thanks for that clarification.
Yes. Thank you, Chair. So exactly the flip of that again. So, you know, it would be nice
to see some of these go away in terms of their human impact. I don't care about the natural
gas petroleum economy impact per se, but in terms of residential and commercial areas.
But are we also saying that sort of the flip of the chair's question that if market forces
dictate you're going to increase the number of well heads? No, not at all. Not at all.
We're limiting ourselves to what we're saying here. Hunter will have 14 pads. We currently
have 19. We're going to reduce it to 14. Cole has 15. They're keeping their 15. We're never
going up. If we do, we'll come in and ask the city for approval. I've never seen the
need to come back and ask for another pad site. If we do, we go through the city process
of asking for one. But the idea and we spent a lot of time because we have our own drilling
energy company. So we're pretty good at this, I guess, in terms of hopefully predicting
the area we need. Because the last thing we want to do is come in and ask for another
pad site, right? So right now we think this is all we'll ever need. We're living by it.
We're agreeing to it. So no, we will not, we don't have, we have no plans to come in
and ask for more pads. And the opposite may be true. We may be shutting in pads over time,
depending on the natural gas market. And I apologize for interrupting you. And then sort
of the density of the well heads on these existing 34 pads. You know, I'm not a gas
guy. So I don't know how close in the density of them. I just don't. I don't know it. We'll
have a permit through the city of Denton to do certain things. And we'll certainly live
by that permit. So I wish I knew more. Any other questions? Great. Thank you for your
presentation. Break or just go right through it? You're good, Richard. Ready to go? Let's
go for it. So just want to kind of give an overview of some of the, some of the key points
that I'll hit on, uh, get into a little bit of the background, although they've already
touched on some of that. I'll look at some of our existing policies with respect to land
use within our comp plan. Um, the start to focus on the development plan amendments as
it relates to the 2019 DDC, uh, some major changes as it relates to use comparisons.
Uh, again, some of those comparisons will be from the 2019 code, but also what they're
permitted to do in the 2008 version of the 2002 DDC that currently governs the MPC. Um,
get into a, a little bit about the density and intensity analysis, uh, ESA upland tree
preservation canopy and, and gas flow setbacks. So one thing I just wanted to start off with
is, is this slide and some numbers. And, and so when we first started looking at this and,
and just trying to wrap our, wrap our, our, our hands around it and really our mind around
just how big this project is and how it fits in with the city, you know, kind of looking
at where does the city fit in also with, with, with what's going on just in the region. Um,
and so it's interesting. Um, you know, last month I was at the Texas APA conference and
they said approximately 1400 people are moving into Texas daily. 700 of those are moving
within the, into the Metro, into the Metroplex. And then USA today had come out with an article
that ranked Denton the 25th in terms of population, 25th in the nation in, in terms of growth.
I think there was Dallas morning news came out with an article, whether it was this week
or the week before, um, very similar. Um, but we were actually ranked number two. There
are a number of factors that they looked at, population housing, job creation, new business
development. I think Longmont, Colorado was number one, Denton was two in the nation.
And so, uh, and then the Metroplex overall was, was, saw the greatest gains, uh, in that
eight year period from 2010 to 2018. And so it doesn't look like, um, it's going to stop,
um, anytime soon. But what's interesting about this project also in terms of how we looked
at just the approach for the 2019 DDC and a lot of what we went through, uh, with that,
while we, we kind of knew about the MPCs, we really didn't talk that much about these
areas as it related to the, to the 2019 DDC. And, and that's why I kind of have up their
plan versus managed growth. And so I think with the 2019 DDC, that's why I want to make
that distinction. A lot of the test cases that we ran with respect to increasing heights,
multifamily, we really looked at making sure that we were preserving or protecting some
of the existing single family neighborhoods in the city. And so looking at this in, in
And that kind of in that context really looks at truly doing a master plan community.
And so while we kind of zoned and created these regulations that were spread across
the city, we thought it really makes sense to really tailor that and focus on this area
specifically and getting out of the old code and really coming into what we recently adopted
for the 2019 code.
Again, so this is just a little bit of the background that they've already hit on it.
But again, these NPCs were created in 2008.
And as I mentioned, there were a number of iterations of the DDC.
And within 2008, there were a number of iterations.
And so even just trying to figure out what code they can go under and what's allowed,
it was almost impossible to do.
We spent hours and hours and hours.
And when we really looked at it, everything we were trying to do was get to the 2019 code.
And so that was really the decision of why don't we just look at using that and creating
sort of a mini DDC.
One of the first things we looked at, obviously with anything, is the comp plan and what does
it say.
And so there's a policy specifically to 2.11, promote development of master plan communities
that is consistent with long-term vision of the preferred growth concept.
And then 2.11.1 gets into, sort of enumerates a number of other tasks essentially in facilitating
revisions to the mix of the approved NPCs.
And so what I thought was interesting, there were some earlier discussions that we had
even with council last year, in how is what they're proposing relate to the land use map.
And what I thought was interesting, the more I read this and sort of pondered on it, when
you really looked at the land use map, and I'll put it in this context, if you really
look at the 2030 map, while we created these policies and recognized that the NPCs need
to be, they really should be updated and improved, we didn't necessarily map it that way.
And so we used essentially the 2008 NPCs, and while you could see that they are disconnected,
I think it's important to pay attention to the map, but again, I think it's hard to really
land use such a large master plan community on a very specific type basis.
This was in comparison, so when the 2008 NPCs were put in place, we were under the 2020
comp plan, again, very different than where we are 2030, again, not knocking the 2030,
but even just looking at some of the uses around 35 and where the loop.
We've got a lot of residential, and I don't know if that necessarily is probably the best
use at those two highway intersections.
In order to amend the NPC, there's essentially, it's either a major amendment or a minor.
We got one question, Commissioner Beck.
Could you flip back to that slide for a second?
So the reason I interrupt you, and I apologize for that, is just it's germane to this section
right here.
And that is, it was residential, it was agricultural, the extensions along the 35 corridor and whatnot.
So the development of this region, does that not lead to essentially additional industrial
business islands outside of our main downtown use area?
And so are we sort of creating little organelles of business throughout our cell of our city?
I think to be honest, I think that's kind of where this, if you look at this preferred
concept, that's kind of what it speaks to, is creating these distinct areas.
I think the challenge that we have always is developing in and around the downtown is
while we allow for, even in the 2019 code, we allow for multi-family by right in MN,
particularly in MR, but more so MN, which is a lot of the area around the university
that probably could use redeveloping.
The max height is 65 feet.
But in order to get from 41 feet to 65 feet, you got to go through an SGP.
And so I think there are sort of these, we kind of ratchet it down where someone may
not want to go through the whole public hearing process just to develop multi-family or redevelop
to push that density closer to the core.
And so what we have is, while we want to achieve that, not necessarily all of our policies
speak to that.
And so I think what's different here is we've already have this MPC that's established.
The biggest change is, and we'll get through that, is what the original focus on was really
creating this more of a single, heavy, heavy single family, where I think now what we have
is a much more balanced approach.
And so again, looking at that development plan amendment and looking at those bullet
points, if you will, from Policy 211, a mix of housing types, again, these were what the
MPC should focus on, these revisions.
And again, a mix of housing types to reflect changing demographics, and so that's kind
of where we are.
I think we even addressed that as part of the 2019 DDC.
I won't read every single in detail.
Appropriate siting of schools, civic buildings, and community amenities.
And so I think when you saw their proposal, there was obviously an overall increase in
open space, better location of school sites.
I think even in the old MPC, there were some school sites within the airport overlay that
really shouldn't be there.
So there's just an overall improvement.
I think what's really key to this is the adjacency to the existing transportation system.
And so rather than what we're trying to do now is go in and modify and widen roads and
deal with that growth that we have on our local network.
This is -- we're planning for it, so we know what's coming, we're right-sizing it right
off the bat.
And so there's not a concern of having to go in 10, 15 years later, acquire right-of-way,
close off streets, and have some of the gridlock that we have now from a lack of poor planning
in the past.
And so that's another -- again, how we're meeting those tasks.
Conservation development, where appropriate, I think that the increased preservation of
the ESA habitat obviously speaks to that, as well as some modifications and inclusion
of the cluster subdivision.
Again, focusing on that compact mixed-use walkable development pattern, having that
network of trails link everything, again, integrating those area-wide networks.
I think they've talked to approximately 52 or 56 miles of trails.
And then developable acreage that is in balance of overall development in the city.
I think when we look at some of the uses, particularly the corporate office parks, not
too many other places in the city do we have the ability for that.
And so I think when we look at that, as well as a planned network, I mean, 35W, they've
fast-forwarded the widening of that, as well as the service roads.
And so I think, again, it goes back to truly planning, planning for integrating those types
of uses within the city.
So looking at that balance, Hunter Ranch Sub-District, just to give you an idea of that current versus
proposed.
Again, 84% residential, whereas now we're at about 38%.
And so again, balancing, kind of balancing the scales, I think, a little more towards
the mixed-use.
Again, greater potential for employment and sales tax, and again, buffering residential
by that mixed-use along 35 and the loop.
Similar with coal, again, the proposed mix is much more balanced and in line with that
policy 211, correcting the 2002 DDC actually prohibited schools and residential districts.
And so when you see that current versus proposed, it's not that they're not going to have schools.
They're now just permitted in those residential districts, as opposed to having zoned them
specifically their own category.
But again, you see that much more balanced, balanced mix.
Some of the major changes in uses, again, this is looking at from the 2008 to the 2019.
I'm not going to hit on every single one of these.
But probably some of the key ones, especially that we discussed with council, one was allowing
multifamily in R7 without an SUP, allowing single-family in the MR district with limitations
of 60% net developable acreage.
There were some additional concerns that was previously touched on regarding that location
to the interstate that I think we're working through.
And so ultimately when this comes back, we'll address that some more.
Removing some retail limitations, again, allowing the schools, and then we do have some prohibitions
of RV parks, motels, major automotive repair, again, really focusing on kind of how we want
this area to develop, again, not looking at it, casting a wide net like our current zoning
code does and has to for the lack of a better way to put it.
Looking at allowing for solar collectors as a principle and wind energy conversion systems
within the MR, again, with an SUP.
SUP would require P&Z recommendation, council approval.
Modifying the accessory dwellings, allowing them in all districts with some limitations
further than what we have today.
So limiting the accessory dwellings to only one bedroom or less.
But then allowing outdoor storage in MR with specific standards currently, it's not permitted.
Again, with temporary uses, rather than have this nondescript what they are, really enumerating
that list.
And then allowing for open air market, parking for model homes, sales and leasing office.
And then one thing we discussed, and I think they hit on as they talked about their commercial
and mixed-use properties, is limiting seasonal sales to the property owner's association.
That way we don't have multiple tenants and everybody having different seasonal sales
that they can control it a little more.
And so that would be an application that would come in from the property owner association.
They hit again on the heliport helipad, again, both of these only in the MN and MR with an
SUP.
Again, we didn't really have any major concerns with the proposed modifications.
Again, we're looking at this as we're planning for it.
So again, we're not putting these provisions in for protection.
We're already planning for it and it's intended.
Looking at the density analysis, again, you start to see that ratio mix, but more importantly,
you see the overall reduction in proposed units, both from multi-family and single-family
from both than what's currently permitted.
So I think, again, you have to-- this isn't a brand new-- well, it's essentially a new
project.
It's really not because they do have some rights already that are allowed.
And so again, it is a substantial reduction in what's permitted today.
One of the requested changes was reducing the minimum lot width in R7 from 50 to 40.
And I think they kind of showed that in their image of some of the housing models.
Our concern always has been when reducing the 40-- reducing it to a 40-foot lot width
is we still have the provision in there with the two-car garage can't exceed 40% of the
front of the house.
So once you factor in setbacks, you can never have a two-car garage on a 40-foot wide lot
that's front-facing.
And so we discussed that.
They're well aware of it.
And really what that would do is push the parking, whether it would be alley-loaded
or set the garage well behind the front of the house.
And so again, when you look at that in terms of an urban context, if it is delivered, it's
planned.
This is what's intended.
Again, we didn't really have a concern with that.
One of the other components was looking at a zero lot line.
You kind of see the diagram here that provides for a-- again, still a 10-foot separation
between the buildings, but allowing for a 4-foot maintenance easement.
Again, that would be for whatever would be needed-- window change, outpainting, a variety
of things.
Height analysis-- one of the proposed changes, again, is in the MN, increasing it from 65
to 100 and not requiring an SGP for that increased height.
The current DDC requires in MN a SGP from 41 feet to 65.
MR, they're proposing it to increase from 100 to 200.
Different standards-- anything over 100 requires an SGP.
Again, I think when you look at this, there's a number of other provisions in the DDC.
One that we're modifying as part of this, it's section 710-5 in the current-- in the
2019 DDC.
We expanded on a provision that we previously had that talked about transition-- building
height transition when adjacent to single family.
The modification that we did here that's actually more stringent than what the 2019 code would
be, where we're headed.
Currently single-family detached is permitted in MN.
That building height transition only comes into play if it's adjacent to a residential
zone district.
And so while you can still do by right single-family in MN, you could put a 100-foot tall building
next to it without that building height transition standards coming into play.
What we had proposed and had sent to them earlier in the week or last week was modifying
that where it would still apply to the residential district, obviously the R4 or 6 or 7, but within
those districts themselves.
So within the MN, within the MR, now requiring that building height transition within the
district itself.
So it'd be to the district if it's not outside of it or abutting it, but then to the residential
development within the MR or MN.
This is just a height comparison of what they're currently allowed to have today.
So in Hunter, the max height goes from 35 feet up to 100.
In Cole, if you remember, the old CMG had no height limitation.
So whether they could, again, some of this will be controlled by the location approximate
to the airport.
But again, you see the changes.
One thing I wanted to point out here, and I kind of have my first two bullet points
under consideration, when you really look at the NR10, 15, and 20 under Hunter, these
were sub-districts that were created that were essentially multi-family districts.
And so while we talk about the MPCs being these walkable urban environments, the standards
that are put in place really don't allow for that.
And so within 35 feet, I mean, you're essentially building a two-story garden-style walk-up
that we have everywhere else with the sprawled parking lot.
And so really, it almost forces, you know, the old standards really forced that as opposed
to being able to be creative, provide for integrated parking.
You just can't do that within 35 feet of height.
One of the other proposed amendments is to the cluster subdivision.
Again, because this is going to have a multiple property owners/homeowners association, one
of the proposed changes that they're proposing is one, to increase the number of units on
a shared driveway, but reducing the minimum drive area and really only having two parking
spaces on-site that would be in a garage with one off-site space on-street.
And so really what that would do is it almost self-governs it to an extent where you don't
have parking within the driveway because you just can't get out.
Now while we did have some initial concerns with this, what they have agreed to is limit
that to 15% of the net developable acreage within the R7, MN, and MR sub-districts unless
it was age-restricted.
So if it would be 55 and older, typically at least what I'm familiar with, not too
many 55 and older couples have more than two vehicles.
Again, governed by an HOA.
Upland habitat, I think what you'll see is when this ultimately comes back, this will
be modified again.
They hinted to that already and showed some of that.
But some of the biggest changes is under the -- again, they're under the 2008 version of
the 2002, 2019 DDC required an increase from non-residential ESA preservation from 0-30%.
And then in residential, they had it at 55.
They're looking at actually maintaining an overall ESA preservation of 55%.
I suspect it might even be a little higher.
But again, we're looking at really pulling -- one of the items that council had discussed
is really pulling these areas out of the zoning and just identifying exactly what's anticipated.
And so I think part of that question earlier about kind of eating away at these, they've
already sort of self-imposed a limitation much greater than what the code would even
allow for.
Looking at tree canopy and preservation, the new tree code, obviously everyone hopefully
is familiar with, requires a minimum of 30% of the DBH and the mitigation for payment
or planning.
One of the items that they had proposed, again, is increasing actually that minimum to 35%.
And then if you remember, there was sort of a multiplier.
So for every inch that you took -- that you removed of a heritage tree, it was a replacement
-- the replacement rate was 2.5%.
They've agreed to up theirs to 3.
So again, putting more value, if you will, on heritage trees that would be out there
and requiring obviously much more mitigation if they were to take those down.
But this just gives you a bare, bare minimum of looking at what the current MPC, what the
minimum canopy would be, and then looking at the future minimum canopy.
I suspect this number will be much higher.
One of the other provisions that they built into their amendment is for single-family
residential, the current 2019 DDC requires one shade tree.
For those, our four or six subdivisions, they've agreed to double that to two shade trees per
lot.
So again, I think we'll see a much -- I think this number will be much greater than what
we're planning for.
Where a lot of the discussion obviously even today has already gone to is gas wells and
pad sites.
So what this shows you is the -- under the MPC, what's currently there, what's existing,
what's platted and undeveloped and allowed, undeveloped existing wells, undrilled wells.
So for coal, I'll start there on the bottom only because they have 15.
That's what the MPC has.
That's what they have.
There's no undeveloped platted well sites.
They do have some undrilled wells, but again, those would -- that -- there's 38 existing,
so 24 additional wells could be -- could be drilled.
Hunter, the MPC allows for 19.
They have five existing sites, four unplatted but undeveloped, and then an additional 10
that are allowed that are undeveloped.
That number may reduce to five.
Again, they're going to reduce it overall to five.
It may come from -- it may come from this column.
It may come from this column.
It may come from that column.
I think that's where we're working out those final details now, but when this ultimately
comes back to you, that will be -- that will be -- that will be established.
And so looking at just the gas well regulations, this gives you an idea of what the current
-- what the current MPC has.
So there's -- there were four well sites that had a setback of 750 or 500 with written approval
from the well head to structure.
Again, this is the -- this was a 2010 amendment, but that was done prior to the 2010 gas well
amendments that increased the reverse setback.
So you can imagine going through the DD -- the various versions of the DDC and trying to
figure all of this out.
But then, again, looking at the absolute minimum, again, these are -- these are fire codes.
So currently, they're about 100 feet from the well head.
Looking at their proposed four sites at 750 from the well head or 500 with written approval,
again, these are very similar language to exactly what's in the code today.
Five and then any new well sites would be 1,000 or 500 feet with written approval from
the property owner.
So again, they're proposing to follow the exact standards that are -- that were recently
approved, but will be reconsidered.
On coal, again, very similar with them since there are no new wells, it's really the reverse
setback, and so the biggest change is measuring that from the -- from the pad site.
And so just to give you an idea, again, they had those kind of -- that number, but just
to give you an idea of what's out there in terms of existing wells and kind of this example
map that we put together.
So overall, looking at the proposed amendment reduces the single-family residential lots
by 29%, so again, lessening -- overall lessening that impact of where they are today, and then
reducing the number of well sites.
Increasing tree canopy obviously assists with sequestering air pollution, but again, looking
at these 20 existing pad sites, we looked at kind of the gross area, pad site area,
and when you really looked at that setback, what that actual area is that's encumbered
outside of the well site, it's just under two acres, 1.7 acres, and so again, now taking
that setback out, so it goes from .03% of the overall -- both sites together to almost
11% that are now -- that are now captured.
So while there's a number of increases, this is probably, I think, the most dramatic out
of -- out of all of the changes, again, 11% of the land.
And so one -- when we finished with council, we had a number of sort of considerations
that we went through with them, and one was our seven lot with reduction, and whether
or not there was any real concern with that.
We didn't really hear from council that had a huge concern.
Now, that might change, but at least at the meeting, the feedback that we got, there was
no real concern with that, really, either for the parking.
Most of the discussion had to do, obviously, with calling the ESA area out specifically,
and then most of the discussion was around allowing that single family in MR, particularly
with that increased height.
I think the provisions that we're putting in hopefully will address some of those concerns,
the modification of that height transition.
While we did talk about it, while I kind of went back afterwards and looked at it, that's
when we started making those adjustments.
So council hasn't quite seen what that language means, but again, looking at it as it compares
to what we currently have in the 2019 code, it would only apply if it abuts a residential
district.
So in the MR to MN, it wouldn't apply.
Then again, not requiring the height, while there were some that had concerns over this,
again, we looked at this as, again, this is what we're planning for, for this area.
When we talked about the height, particularly for the MR currently and MN, most of our test
cases that we looked at were really within the city.
How would these impact existing single family neighborhoods?
Currently, there are none there.
We have one question, Commissioner Ellis.
Yep, and I'm done.
Thank you, Chair.
Richard, it's actually on this.
So with that increased height, so there's a piece in Hunter in the very southwest that's
an MN piece that abuts to an R4.
Did you?
Yep.
I think that's Robes and Ranch that it's facing, I think, that piece, right?
R4.
Correct.
It's actually subject to that height transition.
So the height transition is the first from zero, and again, it's property line.
So if it's abutting that district, so from their property line, the MN property line.
So the max height in our single family districts is 40 feet.
And so for the first 50 feet, it's 40 feet, can't exceed 40 feet.
The next 50 feet, I want to say I think it's the next 50 feet, the max height is 65.
And so you start to slowly taper up or transition up.
And so at 100 feet, again, we're following kind of what we previously had in the code,
but really defining it a little bit more, because we had it add 15 feet for this, but
really, it's 60, I mean, 40 plus 15 is 60.
So why don't we just say 65 as opposed to adding the numbers?
And so we're just much more explicit about it, as well as working on updating a graphic
to show what that transition is.
So again, that would be that 100 feet.
So within that 100 feet separation, the building couldn't reach that, couldn't maximize.
Now depending on the width or depth of that lot, they may never be able to, it may not
work given the setback and other site constraints.
Any other questions on this presentation?
Or did this presentation elicit any other questions in general for this work session
item?
Christian Beck.
Thank you, Chair.
So on the tree ordinances, you mentioned they voluntarily proposing going up to three inches.
Do we have, I mean, because this is a budding upland at ESAs and wooded property, but they're
only required to preserve certain amounts, is there, what are we doing that's encouraging
development to retain rather than replace?
Because replacement is not as good as retention.
I think what we'll see in sort of the next iteration is really, is when we really look
at these ESA areas, it will be very specific.
So they may not have a, they may not be under a zoning district, if you will.
So it'll be specific as to what that area is and how, and the percentage amount.
So that won't, the guesswork essentially will be out of it, if that makes any sense.
Because right now there, you can, it varies between 50% or 55% if it's residential, 30%
for non-residential.
They're looking at calling out each specific upland area.
So area A or area B, area C would be 70% or 60%.
Whatever that area is, that will be called out.
And then for the rest of the property, it would be the standard 2019 tree ordinance
for the rest of the two properties rather?
So anything that falls out, so if there were to be some trees that say there would be some
encroachment into that upland habitat, anything that would kind of fall in would essentially
get looked at as part of that tree preservation.
And so what they're proposing though is a minimum of 35% preservation as opposed to
the 30.
And then any larger tree, the mitigation rate would be higher.
It goes from two and a half inches per one inch to three inches per one inch for mitigation.
In addition, the replacement trees, well we have a minimum of two inches, they have agreed
to up that to three inches, so they've increased the standards, they've self-imposed that on
themselves.
And I have an additional question.
I was glad to see that we have these changes that are being proposed to allow for solar.
Is that rooftop solar, field solar, what are we doing in that regard?
I think these are really looking at it as a large solar, again it would be with an SGP,
but any large solar, really as a primary use.
And so it wouldn't be an accessory to a building, this would be a primary use solar collection.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any other questions for Richard or others here?
Commissioner Ellis.
Thank you, Chair.
Just real quick.
So January 8th, effectively we are seeing this again as far as recommending a council,
correct?
Yeah, so what we're anticipating now is potentially holding the public hearing on January 8th.
And so when this comes to you, you will have about 1,000 pages of maybe less, but essentially
a 29-- two versions of the 2019 DDC.
Hunter and Cole are very, very-- they're almost identical.
The only real difference between the two is that Cole has a portion of their site that's
with LI where Hunter doesn't, and so if it doesn't apply, we've taken some-- we've just
said let's remove it to avoid the confusion.
And so we may try to whittle that down even further.
There are some provisions, in fact Cynthia and I were just talking earlier, there are
some provisions that are being-- that are made part of the operating agreements and
project agreements, specifically as it relates to utilities, that we may end up just pulling
a good portion of the utility language out of the mini-DDC if it's already being addressed
in one of the operating agreements to avoid those conflicting provisions.
And Richard, will the staff provide a summary of changes to help guide us through the document
as--
Yeah, what I anticipate doing is really having a-- for lack of a better way to put it, almost
the term sheet, which really highlights some of the major changes, kind of hitting where
I-- some of the items I hit today.
But there are some additional minor tweaks, one being like perimeter fences is one where
we allow wood perimeter fences facing rights of way.
They're proposing to prohibit wood, so it would either be wrought iron, brick masonry,
or combination thereof, so I'll hit on-- I'll hit all of those changes.
But here, I really just focused on some of those major, kind of policy type items.
Any other questions?
Well, I appreciate, Richard, your presentation and Hillward and Schachtford land for being
here.
Thank you for your presentations.
We still have an abundance of work to do in one hour.
So what I'd like to do, if it's copacetic with the commission, is if we can get through
the consent and individual, we'll take a break and then come back with food and go into the
public hearing.
Is that agreeable?
Anyone starving?
Perfect.
So clarification on agenda items, the thing to point out is on public hearing 5A, that's
being postponed, and individual consideration, item 4D, they have approved the necessary
items for that to be an approval this evening, not a denial, correct?
That is correct.
That's item 4D.
Our backup says it's recommended for denial.
They have satisfied everything for an approval this evening.
With that, is there any changes or notes besides the one we received this evening to the minutes?
From November 6th or November 20th?
Seeing none, we'll go into consent.
There are five items on the consent.
Does anyone have any discussion items or questions to ask staff of any of these items?
Chris or Beck?
Yes, thank you, Chair.
On 3B, if this is the one, this is the industrial one, along the creek.
Is that, if I've got my, let me just make sure, let me look at the map.
Yes.
So, can I have some questions about that?
Yeah.
Hailey will create us now a problem.
Oh.
Congratulations.
Sorry, Mr. Cole, I had a note and a text drafted for you, and just totally ignored that.
I didn't hit send.
It's drafted and not sent.
That's terrible.
Chris or Beck, your question for this plaque?
Yeah, so, oh.
It's right there along the drainage and creek bed, especially in the west part of the plaque,
and I guess, I can't quite tell because I'm not used to reading these.
What's the elevation out of the creek bed, and what's the potential for both flooding
of the use and in drainage of industrial materials into the creek, both directions of sort of
trying to keep the thing separate?
Are you referencing the drainage easement?
Mostly on that side, but sort of all along how it would impact the property just to itself.
Just trying to look at the contours here.
It looks like there is, let's see, approximately 622 would be the elevation over here, 614.
On the other side of the creek, it appears to go down as low as 608 in the middle of
the channel, so there's a pretty significant change in grade throughout the creek itself.
In terms of drainage, they are required to comply with all of the city's standards for
drainage, so there couldn't be any negative impacts to adjacent properties.
They can drain to the flood plain if they meet certain standards for not increasing
the flow to the creek too substantially or too rapidly, so they will have to detain on
site if they can't meet the standards for drainage into the creek.
In terms of potential pollutants on site, we do have a stormwater quality group that
does inspections.
They require industrial pretreatment of anything that might be released from the site, and
of course the state regulates that as well.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks, Haley.
Is there any other questions for consent agenda items?
Okay.
Great.
So on the individual consideration items, items 4A, B, C, D, and E, item 4A, our staff
recommend denial, 4B is denial, 4C is denial or postponement, D is now an approval, and
E is an approval.
Happy to walk through or ask staff to walk through any of these if we need clarification.
Commissioner Ellis?
Thank you, Chair.
Any other clarification on E?
That is Julie.
Let me pull that up so I can -- here we go.
All right.
Yes, ma'am.
So Julie, actually, my confusion was with the analysis, so when you do the chart, you
know, it had to do with the -- applying applicable standards, DDC, it's note number four, it's
got met and not met on there, and both are checked, and so I was confused.
So is that something that was handled, or is there a condition on it, or --
Yes.
All DDC requirements were met.
The one issue was that condition that staff recommended on the preliminary plat.
Okay, and it's been --
Everything else has been met.
Yes, ma'am.
Thank you very much.
You bet.
Commissioner Bec, do you have questions on an item?
I'll pass.
Thank you.
Any other questions or inquiries on the individual items for consideration?
Great.
And obviously we'll have an opportunity when we take votes to discuss them further in chambers
if needed.
Just point of order, I did skip over, when I was clarifying the agenda item, item work
session 1B, that's to receive a report, hold discussion, and give staff direction for the
public notices.
We're going to do that as time permits, Charlie.
We'll see if we have time coming back, or we will -- if we need to reschedule, we'll
work something out, yep.
So with that, let's take a 10-minute break, then we'll come back and finish up the public
hearings.
It is 5.30.
5.40, I'll call the meeting back to order after that break and move into our public
hearing items.
Item 5A has been postponed to a date uncertain.
That brings us to 5B, S19-3B, and I'll invite Julie Wyatt for presentation.
All right, this one might look familiar.
We actually talked about this at the November 20th meeting.
I believe Commissioner Preneta was quite prescient in one of his questions about the notification,
because when we went back and just did a -- make sure that all the notifications were done
correctly after the meeting, we discovered that there was one that did not actually go
out.
So this is actually coming back to you.
So it allowed us to re-notice the project to make sure that we met all of the -- not
only the state requirements, but the city's requirements for notifications.
So this is a specific use permit for multifamily dwellings.
The subject property is 12 acres, and it's currently undeveloped.
As I said before, this came before this commission on November 20th of this year.
It was recommended for approval at this time.
There haven't been any modifications to this request, so it really is the same thing you
saw before.
So I'll leave it up to you if you want me to go through the entire presentation again
or just talk about the public notification piece.
Does anyone want her to go through the presentation again?
Let's just skip to the notifications.
>> All right.
So I just wanted to let you know the notification was sent to the newspaper as well as the mailing
was sent out again.
We received five in opposition.
Two of those responses are not within the 200-foot boundary, and two in favor.
And just to let you know, staff is recommending approval of the request with some conditions.
One, that they comply with the landscape plan that is reflected in the staff report and
in your backup material.
There could be some minor modifications for plant locations, but generally it needs to
meet that landscape plan and the Denton Development Code.
We did add a condition about parking light fixtures to make sure that they were capped
at 14 feet to provide adequate parking in the park and adequate lighting in the parking
lot, but to ensure that it didn't unnecessarily shine on the neighbors.
And then the perimeter fencing materials to be limited to either masonry or wrought iron
with screening.
>> Julie, we have a question.
Commissioner Smith.
>> Thank you, Chair.
On the notifications, we did have some notifications from the previous notice.
Are we including those into this as well?
I just, for re-noticing, I don't have the rules and carrying them over and all that
kind of stuff.
>> You are correct.
I included all of those, and those will go forward to council as well.
>> She wanted to confirm.
>> That was great, yes.
And then as part of this request, there is an alternative development plan that will have
to come back before you for a couple of deviations from the 2002 subchapter 13.
So that is part of the conditions as well.
And then also as part of the recommendation, we did have some questions at the last BNZ
meeting about the wording of some of that recommendation.
So this gives us an opportunity to make sure we've got that cleaned up.
So we went back and looked at that, and the underlying portion is the part that we've
changed that staff will have the ability to approve increases up to and including 5% of
any amount in the amount in requirements 2 through 4 below there, provided that all applicable
requirements of the DDC are met.
Increases greater than 5% would require a new specific use permit.
So hopefully that clears it up because it was a little unclear on the 20th.
That's all I have, and I'll stand for any questions.
>> I don't see any.
Thanks, Julie.
Next item is 5C PD19-3B, and I'll invite Haley Cegerski for presentation.
All right, good evening.
This may also look familiar.
We ran through it at work session last time, but the item was ultimately pulled due to
notification errors.
So we will go through the full endeavor tonight and then have the full public hearing.
So the request before you is a rezoning from the R2 district on just over 34 acres of property
and R3 district on 2.34 acres to plan development for the entire 36 acres.
The property is located here where you see the yellow outline.
It's just on the north side of Ryan Road.
This is simply a look at the current zoning map, so you can see the majority of the property
is R2, and then this little northern dogleg of the property is currently zoned R3.
The entire site would convert to plan development if this were approved.
So as part of the plan development, there's really two critical pieces.
There's the zoning documents that outline the regulations for the PD, and then there's
the map that shows where everything's going and how it's laid out.
So this is the site layout for the proposed subdivision.
It didn't fit properly without turning the orientation, so north is to the left side
of the screen here, but you can see how that orientation looks here on the aerial.
Overall, there would be 154 residential lots.
There are five HOA lots proposed.
Those are outlined in green on the map.
There is a plugged gas well within the site that is located here approximately where that
star is on the map.
That would be within an HOA common area.
And then circled in orange are the points of connectivity where the future residents
of this could have access.
So there would be one direct access to Ryan Road, shown here.
And then there are three existing streets stubbed out to this property today.
So Mizzen Lane would connect from the east side of the property.
That's from the Teasley Trail subdivision.
And then currently Monte Carlo is stubbed out on both the south and north sides to this
property.
So there would be the direct connectivity to complete Monte Carlo Lane so that we no
longer have two separate pieces of street with the same name that don't connect.
So the other critical piece to a plan development are those development regulations that I referenced
earlier.
So first we'll look at the uses that are proposed within the PD.
This table shows all of the uses that are within the base R4 district in our code, which
is kind of the underlying zoning for this PD.
And then the column in the middle shows what's proposed with the PD.
So the proposal is to only allow single family detached dwellings, but then also allow any
of the accessory and temporary uses that are permitted within the R4 district in case anyone
needed, you know, during construction, allow a field and construction office on site, things
of that nature, the standard accessory and temporary uses that would be permitted within
any residential district.
The more critical piece where there are a few more changes that we want to look at in
more depth are in the proposed development standards for the PD.
So this table was in your staff analysis.
It's outlined here and I tried to color code it as best I could to show in red what are
decreases from the R4 standards and in green what would be increases.
So some of the major changes that I wanted to call your attention to would be in the
minimum lot area.
So the R4 district has a 7,000 square foot minimum.
They are proposing for these lots to be slightly smaller.
Up to 10 of the lots could be as small as 5,000 square feet.
All of the other lots would have a minimum area of 5,750 square feet.
Some of the other larger changes, you'd see there is an increase in minimum lot depth
from 80 feet in R4 to 100 feet in the proposed PD.
Minimum garage setback, they're proposing at least 20 feet there.
There's not a standard in R4 for that.
It would just be whatever the front or the side yard is, depending on how the garage is
oriented.
They are proposing that the side yard on corner lots could go as low as 10 feet.
In R4 it is 20, so that's a slight decrease.
They're proposing building coverage, be allowed to go up to 60% as opposed to 50%.
But then some of the other larger, more significant changes, landscaping for this, they're proposing
to increase landscape standards.
Single family homes citywide just have a requirement for one yard tree, it can be front or rear.
They're proposing both a front and a rear yard tree on each lot, and then corner lots
have an additional two trees, so up to four trees on the corner lots.
And then overall open space, they're proposing, as opposed to the DDC's minimum of 5% for
a subdivision, they're proposing a minimum of 15% open space for the subdivision.
And then the other piece is tree preservation.
So if you remember on our last agenda, there was a general development plan for this subdivision.
That was submitted prior to the 2019 DDC going into full effect, so that allowed them certain
vesting privileges under the 02 development code.
The only one of those that they have indicated they wish to reserve for themselves is with
regards to tree preservation.
So their PD is indicating that they would, at a minimum, meet the 2002 tree preservation
requirements for a single family subdivision, that could, of course, go above and beyond
that, once they get into the details of laying out the subdivision.
So that, at a minimum, would be 20% of all quality trees and 10% of all secondary trees
preserved.
If you noticed, within our 2019 DDC, we have general provisions applicable to all things,
so we'll go through those very briefly and then look in more detail at the PD approval
criteria.
So each of these was outlined in your backup.
I'll just hit the highlights.
With regards to this, the project was found to be consistent with all DDC and comprehensive
plan requirements, except for these deviations that we explicitly looked at on the table
that they're proposing to change with the PD.
There are no prior approvals or other agreements applicable to the site.
They're not proposing phasing, so those conditions did not apply.
Staff did not find any potential for adverse environmental or fiscal impacts, and we did
find that there's adequate infrastructure available to be extended throughout the subdivision.
So there are six specific criteria for approval of a PD, and I'll go through each one of
these in turn.
So the first criteria is, rather, it is consistent with the comprehensive plan.
So looking at this area, you'll see that most of this property and all the surrounding
area are designated as low residential.
Our comprehensive plan indicates that that is intended for one to four dwelling units
per acre.
It also has goals such as providing development contiguous to existing development to limit
sprawl and calling for development within established residential areas to be responsive
to what's around it, to be consistent with that scale of development.
So when you look at the density of this proposed subdivision, even though the 2019 code does
not regulate by density, it works out to be about 4.23 dwelling units per acre.
So that's just above that one to four units per acre.
So then we took a deeper dive to see, is it consistent with what's in the area?
Does it still have a potential to meet the low residential designation?
And what we found is that as you travel from west to east on Ryan Road, density tends to
increase as you get closer to Teasley and Ryan.
So some of the existing subdivisions to the west of this are as low as 1.5 units per acre.
As you get closer, we have 3.7 units per acre in the Ridgemont subdivision.
Teasley trails varies and goes from an average of three on the north end to as much as 4.4
on the southern end where the newer phases are.
And then as you hit this corner, if you recall, the SGP for multifamily here at the corner
was up to 20 units per acre.
So we do see that transition and this falls within the realm of that.
So we did find it to be consistent with those goals of the comprehensive plan.
Just looking in more detail at some of the other underlying factors within the comp plan,
there is what's called a preferred growth concept.
So this calls for things like cluster development, compact developments with increased walkability.
So this would provide those connectivities for increased pedestrian connections between
these neighborhoods.
And again, looking at infill within our residential areas to encourage us to fill in the city
center before we sprawl outwards.
So this again would fill in a gap between these two neighborhoods where the streets
were intended to connect and just haven't done so yet.
This would provide for that connectivity.
The second criteria is compliance with the DDC.
Again, they are proposing to comply with all aspects of the 2019 DDC except for the standards
that are specifically listed here that vary from those standards.
There are a few things in the 2019 code that it calls out that you cannot deviate from
with the PD.
That includes ESA regulations, gas well regulations and tree preservation.
They're proposing no variation from ESA or gas well standards.
And again, with tree preservation, this is a bit of a unique case because they did have
vesting in the 2002 code.
So they're proposing to meet those standards that are applicable to them.
The third criteria is whether it provides for a greater building design, greater level
of amenities and greater connectivity.
So looking at building design, the PD doesn't specifically have any standards related to
building materials or design.
They would meet the standards of the code.
Under House Bill 2439, the city can no longer regulate building materials as you all are
aware of.
But the developer did indicate at their neighborhood meetings that they intend to impose a 40% minimum
masonry via deed restrictions on these properties.
So that would go into the HOA documents and deed restrictions to control what is built
in the future.
That's not something that staff included in our recommendation.
And we actually asked them to take it out of the PD document itself because the city
would not be able to enforce those standards.
That is in excess of the 25% minimum masonry that was in the DDC prior to House Bill 2439.
Again in terms of amenities, the PD document references things such as the green space
with walking trails and benches.
The DDC standard is a 5% minimum for any subdivision with 10 units or more.
We're proposing a minimum of 15% open space for tree preservation and community use.
And then finally with connectivity, we did find that with the connections to the existing
street stubs as well as sidewalk connections that would go along with those, this would
improve auto and pedestrian connectivity between this subdivision and the surrounding subdivisions.
Haley, can I ask you a question?
Yes, sir.
You mentioned the 40% masonry requirement.
There's no way to enforce that or hold them that.
They're saying that they're committing to do that.
Correct.
They committed to the neighbors at the neighborhood meeting that they would be doing that, but
it's not something that we as a city could impose on them.
So it's simply in here for informational purposes for you all.
Is there an HOA can't enforce that, correct?
Correct.
And that's what they're proposing is to put it in those deed documents that the HOA could
enforce.
Thank you, Chair.
Just to follow on because I think I had the same question and that is you asked to remove
that language because of a lack of enforcement, but their intention is at some level of hierarchy,
the HOA, to keep those requirements.
Correct.
Okay.
Thank you.
Correct.
We didn't want it in an ordinance, a zoning ordinance for the city because it would be
unenforceable.
The fourth criteria is for residential uses, whether it's compatible in terms of buildings,
uses, and character of the area.
Again, the proposed single-family subdivision is what's found to be comparable to what's
around it in terms of the density.
It's the same use as all of the surrounding properties.
The plan and the standards reflect HOA lots around the perimeter of the subdivision.
So even though the uses are consistent and the code would not require buffering between
those, they are proposing to provide those open green spaces for tree preservation and
buffering between the lots.
The fifth criteria relates to non-residential uses.
There are none of those proposed within this PD, so it's not applicable.
And then the sixth criterion is the provision of public facilities.
So in terms of schools, this would be within the attendance zone for Ryan Elementary, McMath
Middle, and Denton High School.
These are the expected student generation rates that Denton ISD provided to us.
Both McMath Middle and Denton High have capacity for this expected student generation.
Ryan Elementary currently does not have capacity for that, but Denton ISD asked that we keep
them informed of the status of this case.
If it is approved, then they would look at rezoning this area into another nearby school,
Sam Houston Elementary, that has plenty of capacity for these students.
In terms of fire, this is within an eight-minute response time boundary for the fire station
up here on Teasley.
That's fire station six.
And then one of the other criteria is law enforcement, so I reached out to Denton PD.
They indicated that they don't have any significant problems in this area with crime or response
time, and they didn't expect that these 154 homes would have any negative impact on that.
Looking at water and wastewater infrastructure, the blue lines on the map are existing water
lines, red are sewer lines.
You can see there are stubs provided at all of the surrounding streets for them to tie
into and extend within the subdivision.
Looking at streets, I mentioned earlier that there were existing street stubs to this,
so Monte Carlo Lane, again, stubs out currently at the south edge of the property as well
as the north edge.
The DDC does require connectivity to all existing perimeter streets.
Their layout does propose providing that connectivity both at Monte Carlo and at Mizzen Lane here
on the east.
I wanted to point out the circumstances in which the city engineer does have the right
to vary from that requirement because there is significant neighborhood opposition to
Monte Carlo Lane being extended through the property.
So if this would require crossing a significant physical barrier or ESA, if the extension
would be to an existing development that was designed in such a way that connection would
never likely occur, that is not the case here because the street stubs were provided, if
the extension would be to a government property or public utility that would have restricted
vehicular access, again, that is not the case here, and then would the connection or extension
be to a property that is developed or zoned for a use whose level and type of traffic
would be incompatible with the proposed development, and again, that is not the case because all
of the surrounding uses in this case are the same.
So it does not meet these criteria.
The developer is voluntarily complying with the code requirements, but I wanted you all
to have that information in light of the neighborhood oppositions that you have received.
Thank you, Chair.
We will probably get into this a little more, but in light of the number of interactions
from the public, what sort of traffic flow mitigation efforts are we allowed by code
to implement, to manage flow?
There are traffic calming measures that could be imposed, the plan that you have before
you reflects an intent to work with our city engineer to find a traffic calming measure
that could be utilized on the street, but at this point they have not gotten that granular
and looking at this, but there are things such as the bump outs in the roadway that
are actually shown on the plan as one thing that can be used to calm the speed of traffic.
Speed bumps I think are discouraged a little bit more by our city engineer, but that is
another option that could be utilized so they can work with our city engineering staff to
design those if it is something that is identified as a need here and they have not expressed
an intent to do so, to proactively look into those measures.
Thank you.
Haley, I have not driven back into that neighborhood, that Monte Carlo right now is currently going
into what I imagine is a temporary barrier, it is fully stubbed out, it is not a curb
turn on a road, it looks like the road can continue like a general stub out, correct?
Well there are actually two scenarios here.
So Monte Carlo does have that dead end with a barricade on the south side, on the north
side when this phase of Teasley trails was platted, not knowing when this site would develop,
they actually got an easement from the current property owner of this site to put in a temporary
turnaround for fire purposes because this was such a long dead end street that it generated
that need for emergency services.
So there is a cul-de-sac on this northern stub that would be removed as part of this
development for the extension to occur, but it was platted as a temporary access easement.
I don't know if you have mapped these responses.
Is it equal distribution from each, they're both Monte Carlo streets, equal distribution
from the north and the south in terms of opposition of continuing it?
There is some opposition on both sides, but it is largely from the south side.
Oh, from the south side?
Yeah, and I do have that map in here.
Looking at the other street that they would connect to, Ryan Road of course, they will
be providing the required right-of-way dedications on Ryan Road.
In the November bond election, Ryan was part of that and it was approved to be expanded
to a three-lane roadway.
So that construction is expected to begin in 2023.
The developer did a preliminary traffic assessment for this request and found that Ryan Road
is operating today in this area at a level of service C, which is within the city's acceptable
parameters for streets.
And with this development as well as all of the other ongoing developments in this area,
so the multi-family that's down here at the corner, some additional commercial development
here and other single-family subdivisions that are platted on Ryan Road, they found
that that level of service would be maintained at a C with these developments.
Once that construction is completed to three lanes, that is expected to increase to a level
of service A or B.
The other elements of criteria six include parks, so of course we have Lake Forest Park
across Ryan Road.
It's approximately 500 feet from the property, so well within the 10-minute walk to a park
goal.
And this development will be obligated to provide for the standard park dedication and
development.
All right, so this is the map that you requested, Chairman Rosell.
So notifications were provided regarding this case.
As of 2 o'clock today when this presentation was put together, I had 34 total opposition
responses.
That has gone up to 36.
I have two additional that I can read into the record at tonight's public hearing that
came in during the work session.
So these numbers would now be increased to 36 total.
Ten of those are outside the 200-foot buffer, so we're at 13.46% opposition within that
200-foot radius.
We do have two property owners who expressed to be in favor of this request, and those
are shown here in green.
So you can see there were a few on the northern side, but largely south and to the west of
the development is the opposition so far.
So staff is recommending approval of this request as we found it to comply with the
general criteria and the PD criteria for approval.
And if this gets through the commission tonight, its next step would be city council next week
for a public hearing.
Happy to stand for any questions.
Any questions for Haley?
Thank you very much, Haley.
Next item for business is item 5D, SD19-1A.
Cindy Jackson.
I mean, who's going to hit Brian on the head?
Cindy, it is all yours.
Okay.
Thank you.
SD19-0001 is a request to amend the special sign district for the First United Methodist
Church to permit wall signs as provided in the sign code.
The sign district was originally approved in January 2010 and amended in 2012.
The 4.17 acre site is located at 201 South Locust, you can see here.
It is between Mulberry and Sycamore Street.
Again, this is a criteria for approval of a special sign district or to amend a special
sign district.
I've got it all listed here but I'm going to go into it in detail.
Criteria one, that it provides a comprehensive plan for signs that would be clearly superior
to what would be allowed without the plan.
Subject site is designated as downtown Denton on the future land use map.
It's in close proximity to the courthouse square.
The area is a pedestrian-oriented district which has a certain vitality which encourages
the pedestrians to explore the area.
Signage is one of those aspects in a downtown area which adds to the vitality of an area
and encourages pedestrians to explore other parts of the city.
The signage that is proposed would contribute to this type of atmosphere.
Criteria two, the proposal would be compatible with surrounded properties in considering
whether a district and sign plan is compatible and clearly superior.
The commission and council shall consider but are not limited to considering the following.
One is scale, the relationship between the compatibility of the sign scale, site scale
and the scale of the buildings.
This proposal is to permit signage not addressed by the special sign district but is regulated
by the sign code.
The site is in a business corridor adjacent to the downtown square.
All signage in this location is regulated by the sign code as would be the signs that
we are talking about tonight.
And therefore they should be compatible with the nearby buildings.
Criteria two is color.
The relationship between the compatibility of sign color to the color of the nearby buildings
and landscaping, the degree to which sign colors are complementary to its surroundings.
While the building, as you can see, is a neutral base and as such is compatible with all colors.
We don't have an approved color scheme for the downtown area.
As such, the color of signs should be compatible with the surrounding areas.
This is a church.
I anticipate they're going to have neon green or future or anything like that on there.
Material, materials of the signs and how they relate to the surroundings.
The proposed wall signs are an applique sign.
If you look at this, it looks, you can see that the definition of the bricks behind it,
it looks like it's a painted on sign.
There are painted signs located in the downtown area and as such these types of signs would
not be out of place.
This is the type of wall sign that the church is proposing to use.
These are semi-permanent in nature and they can be removed as desired.
All other signage that is not regulated by the special sign district must conform to
the regulations of the sign code and these do conform.
Shape, the shape and design of the signs and how they relate to the surroundings.
The proposed wall signs are rectangular which is a standard shape for signs.
You can see a couple of them here that were already approved as part of the special sign
district.
The signs won't damage the overall environment of the area or the building and all other
signage must conform to the requirements of the sign code.
With regards to landscaping, the relationship of the signs to the landscaping, signage won't
be located near featured landscaping.
Traffic safety and traffic circulation, the impact of the signs on the driver's view to
which obstructions, to which view obstructions are created or improved and so on.
The proposed wall signage will not create obstructions.
Any other signage that the church wants to put on the site will have to comply with the
requirements of the sign code which requires them to not obstruct or driver's view or cause
any conflicts with other signage traffic signs.
Illumination, the impact and compatibility of sign illumination within the district and
in relationship to neighboring properties, the avoidance of glare and light pollution.
Proposed wall signs are not illuminated.
Any other signs that the church may want to put on the site will have to comply with the
requirements of the sign code with regards to light and glare.
Integration, how the signs in the district are integrated into a unified development
concept with topography and so on.
These regulations state that the request is not being used merely to avoid or gain a variance
for a sign or the sign regulations.
The applicant is requesting to be permitted to put signs on the site which are regulated
by the sign code but which the special sign district is silent about.
So there's no interest in trying to do a variance to the sign code.
They will be required to comply with the sign code itself.
Does not violate the spirit or intent of the sign codes.
Again, they're going to have to follow the regulations of the sign code if the proposed
sign is not addressed in the special sign district.
So they're not trying to avoid any regulations.
Complies with the requirements of this section.
Proposed signage complies with the section 33-14 of the code of ordinances and any proposed
signage will have to comply with section 33 of the code of ordinances as amended.
Notification we did send out, we had a newspaper ad and the property was posted.
We mailed newspaper notices, 29 newspaper notices within 200 feet and 399 courtesy notices
within 500 feet.
We received no responses in opposition.
We received two in favor.
One is in your packet and I handed one out to you.
The land area represented by the people who are in favor represents 3% of the area within
the 200 foot buffer.
A neighborhood meeting was not held.
Staff recommends approval of this request to amend the special sign district for the
first United Methodist church to permit any provision of the sign code that is not addressed
by the special sign district to be governed by chapter 33 as amended.
That concludes my presentation.
>> Any questions for senate commissioner Ellis.
>> Thank you, chair.
Okay.
So what is the purpose of the special sign district?
>> The purpose of the special sign district is to permit them to have banner signs year
round and it also provides for the signs that I showed you in the pictures and they are
in your packet as well as future -- they've got a plan for future signage which includes
an electronic message board along Locust street.
>> And that's the special sign district.
>> That's correct.
>> Right.
So what are we actually doing here?
Well when you have a special sign district you can't have any signs except what is in
the special sign district.
So what we're doing here is the applicant is requesting to be allowed to put additional
signs as allowed by the code that their special sign district is silent on.
>> So it's basically we're negating the special sign district.
That's how I read it.
>> No, because we're still allowing them the banner signs.
>> The banner signs are allowed for only a period of three months and they want them
to be able to use them year round.
>> I see.
Okay.
>> Any other questions?
Christian or Bec?
>> So the surrounding businesses and properties in the region, have they used similar signage
even if it's just for three months?
>> Banner signs?
>> Well the kind of signs that you were describing in the presentation.
>> Wall signs?
There are wall signs in the Locust street corridor as well as in the downtown court.
>> And they have to get SSD approval on that?
>> No, they don't because it's permitted in the sign code.
>> It's specifically permitted.
>> But because they have, the church has an SSD, we have to amend it to permit them to
have additional signage as permitted by chapter 33 of the code of ordinances.
>> So are we going to be establishing sort of an exception that other businesses will
want to make use of?
>> No.
This is just for this site.
As far as I'm aware, there is not another special sign district in this area.
I'm aware of one, this one, and Unicorn Lake has a special sign district.
I believe those are the only two that we've got, aren't they?
>> Yeah, the auto dealer, James Wood and Razor Ranch.
>> That's right.
>> Is there a reason this property is just not being removed from a special sign district?
>> Because they still want to take advantage of the banner signs that are allowed all year
long instead of just for three months for the entire year.
>> They just want to be signed out, like they just want signs all the time, like they love
signs.
>> I wouldn't think so, no.
In their application, they said that they wanted to add like traffic direction signs
and special event signs and things like that.
>> Okay.
Any other questions for Cindy?
All right, thank you very much.
Next item is 5ES19-12B, it's Julie Wyatt.
>> All right, so Julie Wyatt, senior planner with the city of Denton and I'm presenting
S19-12 to you, Denton Grove Apartments.
The request before you is for a specific use permit for multifamily dwellings.
The subject property is located adjacent to loot 288, it's here outlined in yellow, it's
just to the west of loot 288, south of McKinney.
It's about a 15-acre tract.
The request was submitted prior to October 1st of this year, so it is being reviewed
under the 2002 regulations.
And then the City Council has also weighed in on this project as part of a resolution
for no objection for the construction of affordable and market rate housing.
But this council action does not negate PNZ's recommendation for approval or denial as part
of this SUP request.
So as I said, the project is being reviewed under the 2002 code due to the project timing.
Here's just a map that shows what the 2002 zoning was, which is CMG.
It is transitioned to SC, and multifamily is permitted in both of those zoning districts
with approval of a specific use permit.
Here is what this proposed site plan looks like.
They are proposing 12 buildings, one community center, a community pool and pavilion, various
playgrounds, as well as an enclosed dog park.
All in, it is 276 dwelling units, about 18 dwelling units per acre.
In order to support those dwelling units, they are proposing 568 parking spaces in addition
to bicycle racks.
This project is proposing 61% lot coverage and 39% landscape area.
And those open spaces are provided throughout the site, once again includes those playgrounds,
the dog park, barbecue, grill and picnic space, and that's about 11% of the site.
Here's the landscape plan.
Just to point out some of the features of it, they are proposing landscape islands within
the parking area, 39 street trees along loop 288 and Dutchess, as well as those bicycle
racks located in this location and about in this location.
There is also a buffer on the west side of the property adjacent to that commercial use
that includes 24 trees and 100 shrubs.
Here's what the sample building elevations would look like.
They are proposing some earth tone colors, some muted colors with various balconies and
building materials, as well as articulation offsets from those facades.
The criteria for approval in the 2002 debt and development code is in subchapter 6.
I won't read all of these to you, but it is in your backup material.
And we're just going to hit some of those requirements.
So first, the comprehensive plan, the subject property is in a community mixed use area,
future land use designation, intended to promote a mix of uses where the predominant uses are
commercial and service, but where residential uses such as higher density, multi-family
type uses are appropriate as they complement those commercial uses.
We want those -- we want those diverse uses to be located close to each other because
we want to encourage dynamic development and walkability, so we want different modes of
transportation.
We want a compact development, and multi-family is consistent with the future land use because
it does provide that necessary residential component of mixed use.
In this instance, it also provides that physical buffer.
There is residential to the west of the subject property, and it does add that transition
area between the residential to the west and loop 288, that commercial corridor there.
As part of your backup, I know this is a little hard to read, but as part of your backup,
we did do a comparison of the 2002 and 2019 code.
For elements such as lot coverage, landscape area, building height, density, unit size
and parking, as well as overall tree canopy, the proposal met not only the 2002 code but
also the 2019 code.
There were two elements that they didn't quite meet.
One would be the tree preservation.
The 2019 code requires generally 30% preservation of protected trees.
They're proposing 27% preservation of quality trees as well as 50% of the secondary trees
on site, so they don't quite meet the 2019 regulations.
And then the street trees.
We did increase the street tree requirements as part of the 2019 code, and they're proposing
to meet those 2002 regulations, which includes the 39 street trees.
The proposed use is compatible with the surrounding development.
There is multifamily adjacent just to the west of the site, as well it is in a diverse
commercial corridor with some undeveloped land, some future park space, retail area,
some office, and then other not only existing multifamily projects, but multifamily projects
that are proposed and you've seen recently.
We did an analysis of the infrastructure of the site and what could support the development.
The applicant also submitted a TIA as part of the analysis of this site, and it has been
approved by our engineering group.
We're anticipating that the use would generate about 2,000 trips a day, 125 morning peak,
146 evening peak.
As part of the TIA recommendations, there is some restriping proposed for Dutchess,
and that would restripe it.
There's enough pavement there to allow a dedicated left turn and a dedicated right turn onto
loop 288 to allow that intersection to function a little better.
Additionally, with this proposal, if constructed, this intersection would meet the warrants
for a signal, and they would have to participate in any cost that their impact generated for
that signal.
>> Julie, quick question.
What would be the timeline for the construction of the signal, and two, are those 2,000 trips
equally split between the loop 288 access and the Dutchess access, or how does that
break down?
>> Access is -- that's a great question about access.
So there are two access points -- let me go back to the site plan that might explain it
a little better.
So there are two access points for the proposal.
A full access to the south, directly onto Dutchess.
There is also one access point onto loop 288.
The one on loop 288 only allows a right in, right out, as well as a left turn in.
If you're going north on the loop, you could turn left in it.
There is not the ability to turn left out of the development onto loop 288.
Which does affect the trip distribution.
In terms of the signal timing, that would -- I've reached out to engineering and I haven't
gotten a firm answer on that, but that as development in this area does commence and
does move forward, there will be payment into a fund that will then provide for that construction
of the signal.
So there is not a firm date of when that signal would be installed.
>> Commissioner Bec.
>> Thank you, chair.
So if we put a light there, then just across the bridge we have the existing light?
South to the south?
>> At least I can't remember the -- >> Shady oaks, thank you.
>> That feels like it's really tight for two adjacent lights.
>> And Dutchess is actually intended to at some point punch through all the way to Colorado.
So Dutchess will be a connector, an additional connector connecting loop 288 to closer toward
the city center.
So it is anticipated to have more traffic because it will provide that east-west connection
from the loop toward the west.
So that should generate more traffic as well as just the development of that area.
>> Thank you.
>> As we talked about, there is the access to the site, the limited access to the loop,
but the full access to Dutchess.
There are also pedestrian and transit facilities, not only that would be installed as a result
of this development, but also that are in place with DCTA.
So they would have to extend an eight-foot sidewalk along Dutchess as well as a five-foot
sidewalk along to loop 288 on their site, on their perimeter.
And then there are two bus stops for DCTA didn't connect route 4 within the area.
This map shows where that is, and that is about a quarter-mile walk.
There is water near the property.
There is a 20-inch that actually runs through the site.
They can't tap onto that, so they will have to extend an eight-inch line along north loop
288 as well as extend a 12-inch on Dutchess Drive.
They can tap onto the existing wastewater on the site.
Park fees and credits would be required at permitting.
The site is about 130 feet from a city-acquired open space, but it is currently undeveloped.
It's actually across loop 288.
They would have to dedicate -- they would have to comply with all park dedication as
well as park development fees as part of development of the site.
There are also on-site recreational facilities like that that enclose Dog Park, the playgrounds
as well as the pool area.
It is -- the site is intended to generate about 34 elementary, 14 middle, and 17 high
school students, and that is in the Rivera Elementary, Myers Middle School, and Ryan
High School attendance boundary.
There is fire station near the site.
A notification was sent out.
We have received opposition letters that will -- that do total 29% of the property within
200 feet of the site.
So approval of this request at this time at City Council would require a supermajority
vote, which would be six out of seven.
They did have a neighborhood meeting a couple weeks ago.
There were about five attendees.
They talked about things like traffic, just land use compatibility, and they are having
ongoing conversations with the applicant.
Based upon the criteria for approval, staff recommends approval of the request with the
condition that it does seek an alternative development plan after approval from council.
Once again, this is one of those sites that will need that deviation from subchapter 13.
And that typical condition we see with SUPs is that they need to comply with the landscape
plan.
They could substitute some landscaping elements out, but they would still have to meet those
minimum requirements.
>> Commissioner Smith.
>> Thank you, chair.
This is -- this project is approved for affordable housing credits for the build, correct?
>> Well, the applicant can speak more in depth about that.
They did receive that recommendation from council.
They'll now have to -- my understanding with the process, they now have to complete their
application in order to see if they get those tax credits.
But the applicant is here and he'll be able to talk about it.
>> Thank you.
>> And that's it as far as staff's presentation on this item.
Do we -- >> Thanks, Julie.
Real fast, can you enlighten me on the ordinance you referenced on your first slide and the
implication of what that is?
And if there's no inflation, why you had mentioned it?
>> I'm sorry?
>> Can you just tell me about that resolution?
What does that mean?
>> Sure.
When a developer wants to seek tax credits for an affordable housing project, prior to
submitting for that -- that application for that, they do have to seek a resolution or
some sort of approval from a council of a municipality in order to move forward with
their application.
So that's something that they did this fall.
And that resolution number is just kind of giving you a project history of what's happened
on this.
They went to council then, and they recommended approval of that.
>> So they come to -- to clarify, they come to council, get approval to seek that, and
then if that's approved or not approved, then they go through the traditional channels back
up to council?
>> Correct.
>> Okay.
>> So that resolution does not approve that land use.
It doesn't approve the SEP.
They still have to go through that process.
>> Great.
Commissioner Ellis.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Just a quick question on that.
So the no objection that you've got in there is to not object to seeking those credits?
>> Correct.
>> Not the no objection to a proposed development.
>> Correct.
Correct.
Thank you.
>> Great.
Any other questions?
Speaking of no objection, if there is none, would it be agreeable to the commission to
hear Item 5F in council chambers about the DDC update?
Great.
So is Charlie still here?
Thanks for hanging out.
We're going to push you to next meeting.
Sorry about that.
We're going to go ahead and close the work session at 630, and I'll ask commissioners
to be in chambers in five minutes.
Thank you.
>> Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Planning and Zoning Commission session for
Wednesday, December 11th, 2019.
I appreciate the patience.
We will open the meeting at 639.
The first item of business is to stand if able and give a pledge of allegiance to the
US 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, on earth and on earth as one, with liberty and justice for all, one state under God,
one nation.
>> The next item of business is to consider the approval of our minutes.
We'll take this in two separate votes.
The first one will be the minutes from November 6th, 2019.
Commissioner Pernetta.
>> First, Commissioner Ellis.
>> Second.
>> We have a first and a second.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote of the board.
Motion carries 7-0.
The next is November 20th, 2019 minutes.
Commissioner Ellis.
>> I move approval.
>> Commissioner Pernetta.
>> Second.
>> We have a first and a second.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote of the board.
Motion carries 6-0 with one recuse.
The next item of business is our consent agenda.
The chair will entertain a motion or discussion on any of the items.
Commissioner Ellis.
>> I move approval.
>> We have a first for approval.
I think I saw Commissioner Pernetta up there.
>> Second.
>> Can you click that button?
We have a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote of the board.
Motion carries 7-0.
The next item of business is our individual consideration items.
The first one is item 4A, MP 19-18.
Staff recommends denial.
Is there any motion or discussion?
Commissioner Smith.
>> Motion to deny.
>> We have a motion to deny.
Commissioner Pernetta.
>> Second.
>> We have a first and a second for denial.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
First for clarification, a vote yes is a vote to deny.
Motion carries 7-0.
The next item is 4B, PP 19-35A.
Staff recommends denial.
>> Excuse me?
>> Yes, Commissioner.
>> The applicant has submitted a request for a 30-day extension after this report was written.
And so your options are either to approve the request for an extension or deny it.
That would bring them to the January 8th Planning and Zoning Commission meeting or to deny the
plat with conditions or approve the plat with conditions.
>> Perfect.
Thank you for that clarification.
>> Yep.
Would it be a motion to postpone a date certain or would it be a motion to approve a 30-day
extension?
>> It would be to a date certain of the 8th, right?
>> Correct.
>> Okay, just the way City Jackson referred.
So motion to postpone to date certain of January 8th.
>> We have a first, Commissioner Pernetta.
>> Second the motion.
>> We have a first and a second.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
>> The next item is 4C.
Staff recommends either denial or the same postponement to January 8th.
Commissioner Smith?
>> Motion to postpone the date certain of January 8th.
>> Commissioner Pernetta?
>> Second.
>> We have a first and a second.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
Motion carries 7-0.
Next item is 4D FP 19-32.
Staff recommends approval.
Commissioner Smith?
>> Motion to approve.
>> Commissioner Ellis?
>> Second.
>> We have a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
Motion carries 6-1.
The last item for individual consideration is item 4E PP 19-13.
Staff recommends approval.
Commissioner Smith?
>> Motion to approve.
>> We have a first for approval.
Commissioner Ellis?
>> Second.
>> We have a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I call for a vote on the board.
Motion carries 7-0.
That brings us to our public hearing items.
Item 5A, if you'll note in the agenda, the staff has postponed this item to a date uncertain
so we'll not be hearing that item this evening.
That brings us to our next and first public hearing item.
Item 5B, that's S19-0003B, by Julie Wyatt for presentation and open the public hearing.
>> Good evening, I'm Julie Wyatt, senior planner with the City of Denton.
Did you want to go over the presentation like we did at work session or do we want to go
through the full presentation?
>> I think a summary presentation would be adequate.
>> Okay, great.
So this project looks familiar to you because it did come before you on November 20th, just
last month.
It is S19-3, Oxford at Sherman.
So the request is for a specific use permit for multi-family dwellings.
The subject property is outlined here in yellow.
It's about a 12-acre site.
It's currently undeveloped.
As I said, it was originally presented on the 20th of November and it was recommended
for approval at that time.
After that public hearing, staff discovered that there was a notification error.
One of the public notifications was not mailed out.
So we had to re-notice it and that's why we're here today.
However, there have been no changes to the project.
It is the same as the original request.
So just to go over the public outreach portion because that is why we're here today, a newspaper
ad was placed on November 24th for this meeting.
The property was also posted.
There were also notices mailed that included all within the 200-foot boundary.
We've received five in opposition.
Two of those responses are not within the 200-foot boundary, but those three represent 1%.
And then two in favor.
They did also have a neighborhood meeting over the summer.
So based upon the criteria for approval in subchapter six of the 2002 Denton Development
Code, staff does recommend approval of the SUP with some conditions.
First, that the landscaping plan does need to be consistent with what is provided in
your backup material.
There can be some substitutions for some specific plants, but they do need to comply.
The parking area light fixtures do need to be capped at a 14-foot height to make sure
there's adequate lighting, but that there's not impacts to adjacent property owners as
far as glare.
And that perimeter fencing material should be limited to masonry or wrought iron.
And if it is wrought iron, that they make sure there is some sort of evergreen hedge
there to make sure that there's adequate screening.
Additionally, there is an alternative development plan that the applicant will have to pursue
as a part of this request.
We'll need to come forward with that 30 days after if this is approved by council.
And that is to deviate from two provisions within subchapter 13 of the 2002 Denton Development
Code.
And then also to comply with the site plan, the landscape plan, and elevations that would
be attached to the ordinance if it's approved.
This provision does allow staff to make some minor modifications, up to 5% increase in
a couple of the provisions, but any increases over 5% in things like the number of dwelling
units, parking spaces, or the square footage of lot coverage would require another specific
use permit.
But they are proposing eight, we'll go over the site plan just quickly, just to refresh
your memory.
They are proposing eight three-story buildings.
They are oriented toward Loop 288, the buildings are outlined there in purple.
Three access points are proposed, full access along Loop 288, and then exit only, one to
the future commercial lot there at the quarter of Loop 288 in Sherman, and then one exit
only to Poinsettia to the south.
They're also proposing some site amenities, some open space areas, community pool with
the amenity center and clubhouse, that's shown here in yellow.
That's in the center of the proposal, just to make sure it's separated from those existing
neighborhood areas.
They're also proposing outdoor eating area with a fire pit, and then also a dog park
in this location.
There is fencing and landscaping, along with one-story garages proposed along Poinsettia.
And then the three-story residential buildings would be set back at a minimum of 101 feet
from Poinsettia, as well as 49 feet from the property line to the east.
And the proposal also meets parking regulations.
So with that, I'll stand for any questions, and the applicant is here, I believe, to answer
any questions as well.
>> Thank you, Julie.
I do not see any questions.
>> Great.
Thank you.
>> This is a public hearing, anyone wishing to speak may certainly do so on this item.
I don't have any cards filled out right now, but happy to welcome anyone who wants to speak.
Okay.
Seeing none, I will close the public hearing and turn to the days for discussion or motion.
Commissioner Pernetta?
>> I motion to approve.
>> We have a first for approval.
Commissioner Smith?
>> Second.
>> We have a first and a second for approval.
Is there any discussion on the item?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
Motion carries 7-0.
The next item of business is item 5C, PD-19-003B, I'll invite Hayley Zagorski for presentation
and open the public hearing.
>> Good evening.
This is a request for rezoning to plan development, so the specific request before you is to consider
a rezoning from both R2 and R3 districts.
R2 makes up approximately 34 acres of the subject property, R3 makes up just over 2
acres.
The proposal is to rezone all 36 acres to plan development.
The subject property is outlined in yellow on this map, and you can see it's located
on the north side of Ryan Road between the Ridgemont and Teasley Trail subdivisions.
These maps show you what the current zoning map is today, so you can see the majority
of the property being R2 in yellow, and then the northernmost portion of the property being
the slightly darker yellow, which is the R3 district.
If this is approved by the city council, then the entire property would be rezoned to plan
development.
There are two primary aspects to a PD, so it's not just a straight zoning, it comes
with more detail.
There are development regulations that are approved as part of a PD that specify any
unique standards that would apply just to this development that aren't present citywide,
and then there is the site layout that shows how those proposed uses and things would be
arranged, how traffic would flow through the site, and those more detailed almost site
plan type elements.
So the proposal for this particular PD includes 154 residential lots.
It includes five HOA lots that are shown in green on this map.
Some other key features to the site, there was a gas well on the site that's been plugged
within the last year that's generally located here where the star is shown that would be
within an HOA lot, so nothing would be built over the top of it, and then there are multiple
points of connectivity proposed with this plan.
So there is one point of connectivity directly to Ryan Road, shown here, and then there is
a connection to Mizzen Lane, it's important to note north is the left side of the screen
in this instance, so this is actually the east side of the property here where it would
connect to Mizzen Lane that is stubbed from Teasley Trails, and then on the north and
south side to the property, Monte Carlo Lane was stubbed out to this site as a part of
the developments of both the Ridgemont neighborhood to the south and Teasley Trails to the north.
As we discussed at work session, existing conditions for these stubs in Ridgemont, that
is just a dead end with a barricade, and Teasley Trails, there is currently a cul-de-sac if
you drive out there today.
The cul-de-sac itself is actually located on the property that is the subject of this
rezoning case tonight, that was plotted as a temporary access easement because the length
of that cul-de-sac called for a turnaround for emergency services purposes at that time,
so that was provided as a temporary means of having a turnaround there.
So the other key element of a PD are the development standards, like I referenced earlier, so this
chart is intended to show you how the uses within this PD would compare to the standard
R4 district, which is the closest comparable based district for what's proposed.
So whereas R4 permits a variety of uses, this would only permit, the only primary use that
would be permitted would be single family detached dwellings.
They're also proposing to allow for any of the accessory and temporary uses that are
allowed within the R4 district so that these residents could enjoy those same benefits
if they, for example, wanted a home occupation or an accessory dwelling unit in the future
or if during construction there's need for a field or construction office on site.
Those could be allowed with the same permissions they have citywide in R4.
The other piece to this are the actual development standards, so for the most part this development
is proposing to comply with the 2019 DDC.
There are a few changes that they're requesting as part of this PD.
So this chart shows the proposed development standards outlined in yellow, the R4 district
in the middle, and then over here we see the difference between those standards, red indicating
a decrease from the R4 standard, green being an increase.
I'll just hit some of the highlights of that.
They're all outlined in more detail in your backup.
The minimum lot area is one of the key deviations that's requested.
R4 requires 7,000 square foot minimum.
They're proposing that no more than 10 lots within the subdivision could be as small as
5,000 square feet, all others would have a minimum lot area of 5,750.
Some of the other key changes, lot depth would be increased in this subdivision.
They're proposing 100 foot as opposed to 80 foot standard.
They're proposing an increased garage setback, citywide there's not a specific garage setback.
They are proposing some decreases in terms of the side yard on a corner lot as opposed
to being 20 feet.
They would propose as low as 10, not to say it could not go higher.
And then the other things I wanted to hit are landscaping and tree code.
So they submitted a general development plan before they submitted for the rezoning of
this site.
The GDP itself is a document that allows for vesting as it's a plat type document.
So under subchapter 245 of the local government code, they do have the right to vest in certain
provisions from the 2002 development code.
The only one that they've expressed an interest in vesting in is tree preservation, which
they are allowed to do so by state law.
So rather than meeting the 2019 minimum of 30% of heritage and quality trees for preservation,
their minimum standard would be 20% quality trees and 10% secondary trees.
That's not to say they couldn't, of course, preserve more of those if they find the ability
to do so once they get into the site grading and those details.
In terms of landscaping, citywide there is a requirement in the 2019 code for one yard
tree.
It can be located anywhere within a single family lot.
They're proposing to increase that standard to provide for increased tree canopy over
time.
So they would have one front yard tree and one rear yard tree in all lots.
And then corner lots would have an additional two trees required in the side yard.
And then overall the city standard is 5% minimum open space for single family subdivisions.
They're proposing to increase that minimum to 15%.
So there are two sets of criteria for approval that were outlined in your backup.
The first of those is the general criteria that applies to all applications made under
the DDC.
I won't go into those in detail to spare some time this evening, but the highlights
of that is that it's generally in compliance with all of these.
The project is consistent with the DDC and comprehensive plan requirements, except for
those specific changes that are requested as part of the PD.
There's no prior approvals or phasing proposed here, so those criteria were not applicable.
The development was not found to have any expected adverse environmental or fiscal impact
for the city.
And there is adequate infrastructure, which we'll look at in a little more detail.
So there are six criteria for approval specific to PDs.
I'll go through each of these in more detail at this time.
So the first of those criteria is consistency with the Denton Plan 2030.
The first thing we look at in the comp plan is generally the future land use map.
This entire area of town is designated primarily for low residential.
That typically means one to four dwelling units an acre.
There are some additional goals of that future land use area that include having development
contiguous to existing developed areas to avoid sprawl, having new development that
is within the context and sensitive to existing development patterns.
So we dug a little bit deeper here.
This site itself would come in at approximately 4.23 units per acre, so just over that four.
But when you look at the general trend in this area, you see on Ryan Road, we go from
lower density such as one and a half units per acre to the west of here in the Montecito
subdivision.
And as you get closer to the corner, Teasley Trails, newest phases, are actually closer
to four and a half units per acre.
So the smaller lots such as we see in this development.
And then once you hit that hard corner, the future land use map transitions to community
mixed use where we see things like the recently approved multifamily development that will
be at about 20 units per acre.
So this is well within the existing development pattern for this area and within those goals
of the comp plan.
Additionally, the comprehensive plan is based on what's called a preferred growth concept.
So this concept, city-wide, is intended to encourage compact growth clustered around
distinct locations, limiting sprawl, so really filling in the city center before we expand
outward at our edges, increasing walkability and trails.
And so when looking at this, this does meet one of the policy and action goals of that
that is specific to residential, which is infill within residential areas.
So this development does kind of fill in that gap between existing subdivisions along Ryan
Road and Woodfall within this criteria.
The second criteria for approval is compliance with the DDC.
I won't go through this table again in detail, but as we looked at, they are proposing compliance
with all provisions of the DDC except for those that are specifically outlined in this
chart where there's either an increase or decrease from the proposed standards.
The code has three specific areas where a PD is not allowed deviations.
That's our ESA standards, environmentally-sensitive areas, gas well standards, and tree preservation.
There are no proposed changes with this to ESA or gas wells.
Again, with tree preservation, they are claiming vesting under the 2002 code, so they'll be
complying with that as opposed to the 2019 standards.
Area three is with regards to whether the PD provides for greater building design amenities
and connectivity than what we would normally see.
So with regards to building design, they will follow the 2019 DDC standards for single family
in terms of architecture, such as not repeating elevations on homes adjacent to each other
and things like that.
At one point in time, the developer did have some standards written into this PD regarding
minimum masonry.
If you all remember with House Bill 2439, the cities in Texas have lost the ability
to regulate building materials, so we asked them to take out those standards as they would
not be enforceable.
However, the developer did indicate at both of their neighborhood meetings that they intend
to self-impose a 40% minimum masonry standard on this development through their deed restrictions.
So the HOA documents and deed restrictions filed on this property will mandate that builders
comply with that minimum masonry standard, but that's not something the city can enforce.
That is higher than the city-wide standard that we did put in place with the 2019 code
though, which was 25%.
In terms of amenities, again, they're proposing 15% minimum open space that would be utilized
for tree preservation, buffering between the proposed lots and existing lots, as well as
just general community use.
They speak to things like trails and benches within the PD document.
The city standard is 5%, so they are in excess of that.
The third element being connectivity.
This development would improve auto and pedestrian connectivity in this area.
As we looked at earlier, they're connecting to all of the street stubs that were provided
to this property as the surrounding areas developed.
By providing those connections at Monte Carlo and Misen, they're achieving that cross-connectivity
that's desired between residential neighborhoods that increases options for not only residents
that live there, but also for emergency responders trying to reach the property.
The fourth criteria is rather for residential use.
There's compatibility of buildings, uses, and character of the area.
This being a single-family use, there's no expected nuisance or anything generated here
that wouldn't be found within the surrounding single-family neighborhood, so it is consistent
in terms of use and density, as we saw earlier.
The plan and standards do reflect the addition of HOA lots around the perimeter of the subdivision,
so the DDC does not require buffering between the same use, so single-family to single-family.
Normally, lots could butt up against each other directly.
They're proposing to provide those buffers around the edge to preserve trees and provide
some separation between these lots and existing lots.
The fifth criteria does not apply, as there are no non-residential uses proposed here.
And the sixth and final criteria that has several subcomponents is rather there is adequate
provision of public facilities to support the development.
The first of those categories is with respect to schools.
Currently, Denton ISD indicated that this area would be in the attendance zone for Ryan
Elementary, McMath Middle School, and Denton High School.
McMath Middle School and Denton High School have adequate capacity to support the expected
student generation from this neighborhood.
Ryan Elementary currently is at capacity and could not handle additional students.
However, Denton ISD indicated that that wouldn't be an issue because the other nearby elementary
school, Sam Houston, has adequate capacity, so they would simply zone this into that attendance
zone if this were approved.
In terms of fire and law enforcement, the fire department generally has an eight-minute
response time or less boundary that they seek to go by.
There is an existing fire station, fire station number six up here on Teasley.
This would be well within that eight-minute response time boundary, either via Teasley
Lane or coming from Ryan Road.
I spoke to Denton PD with regards to law enforcement in this area.
They identified no significant problems in this area with respect to either nuisances
or crime rates.
They also spoke to me about their response time and indicated that this general area
of town falls well within their standard for response times, and they don't anticipate
that 154 additional homes would cause any effect on that.
With respect to water and wastewater utilities, this map shows the lines that are in the area
today.
The blue lines being water lines, the red lines within the streets being existing sewer
lines.
Again, when these subdivisions developed, they were required to provide connectivity
to this property for future connections, so there are existing stubs in Monte Carlo Lane,
Mizzen Lane, as well as lines along Ryan Road that they can tie into to circulate water
and wastewater through the site.
Then finally, with respect to streets, I broke this into two components to look at the neighborhood
streets and then Ryan Road itself.
With regards to neighborhood street connections, again, as we saw, Monte Carlo and Mizzen were
both stubbed to this property with the intent of future connection.
The DDC does require that connection, and the applicant is proposing to provide all
of those connection points.
Because of the large amount of neighborhood opposition, I wanted to provide you all with
the criteria that are in the DDC for when the city's engineer can allow for deviation
from that code requirement, so there's four specific instances.
The first of those being whether there's a significant physical barrier or environmentally
sensitive area that would be crossed.
That is not the case in this instance.
The second, rather, the extension or connection would be to an existing development that was
designed in such a way that connection would not likely be to ever occur.
That's not the case here since the street stubs were provided to this property.
Third, rather, the extension or connection would be to a government property or public
utility to which vehicle access is restricted.
That's not the case as this is all privately owned.
And then the fourth criteria is rather the extension or connection would be to a property
that is developed or zoned for a use whose level and type of traffic would be incompatible
with the proposed development.
All development in this area is single family.
There's no incompatibility there.
That would apply in terms where say an industrial property was being asked to stub to a residential
site and you obviously wouldn't want the truck traffic going through the residential neighborhood.
So this development did not meet any of those circumstances, and again the developer is proposing
to provide all of the required street connections.
With respect to Ryan Road, this development when it gets to platting will be required
to dedicate the necessary right of way for the full width of Ryan Road.
In the November bond election, there were improvements to Ryan Road that were approved.
That will be for Ryan to be expanded to a three-lane section.
That construction is expected to begin in 2023.
The developer did a preliminary traffic assessment, they'll go through the full TIA during the
platting process.
That assessment found Ryan Road in the vicinity of this development to be operating a level
of service C. The city's standard for acceptability is level service D, so that is within that.
They analyzed the expected traffic from this development as well as four other developments
that are in the process that were identified, being the multi-family development here.
There is a dollar store that will be under construction here in front of Walmart.
They looked at the new Parkview subdivision across the street, as well as the Creekside
subdivision under construction further down Ryan.
All of that combined, Ryan Road would still be expected to operate at a level of service
C, so there's no impact that would be seen there.
Once Ryan is expanded to those three lanes, that level of service would increase to an
A or a B.
And then finally, with respect to parks, our Parks Department has a goal for a 10-minute
walk to a park for residential development.
This subdivision would be approximately 500 feet from Lake Forest Park, so well within
that 10-minute walk time, this development will be providing for park dedication and
development fees when they get through the planning and permitting process.
Notification was provided, if you recall, this was actually on our previous agenda,
so notices were actually sent out twice.
All of those notices have been totaled together, and since your packet went out on Friday,
I received a handful of other responses over the weekend, and early this week, those were
handed out to you all during the work session, and then two additional responses came in
during the work session, and I have those available and can read them into the record
if you wish.
They were both in opposition and were outside the 200-foot buffer.
So total, I have 36 responses in opposition, 10 of those being outside the 200-foot radius.
Within the 200-foot radius, we're at 13.46% opposition and 16.1% in favor from two property
owners.
The applicant did hold two neighborhood meetings, one in September, one in October, with fairly
high attendance at both 23 people at the first meeting, 18 at the second.
There were a multitude of concerns expressed at those meetings that are described in more
detail in your backup.
Staff is recommending approval of this request, as we found it to comply with all of the criteria
for approval, as well as the PD-specific criteria for approval.
After this meeting, the next step would be a public hearing at City Council that's been
noticed for December 17th, and I'm happy to stand for any questions.
Thank you for the presentation, Hayley.
I don't see any questions.
I just have one.
When looking at the streets, we talked several commission meetings ago about the potential
for signaling on Teasley Lane.
With the connectivity to the north, into that neighborhood, was there any further discussion
or does this put any increased threshold numbers on getting the light at Ranch Man Boulevard
or Hunters Creek Road?
How does the traffic interplay with that connectivity impact Teasley?
I know we talked about Ryan, but how does it impact Teasley?
Certainly.
They do anticipate that some traffic from this neighborhood will go through Teasley
Trails to get directly to Teasley, as opposed to going to Ryan.
This particular traffic study didn't show that we would meet any warrants for signals
there.
Of course, Teasley being a text-dot roadway, the city is looking at all of the developments
occurring in this area comprehensively to see if any of those intersections can meet
the signal warrants that text-dot has set forth.
But at this time, I don't believe any of them have been identified to meet the warrants.
Okay.
Thank you.
I do not see any other questions.
Commissioner Beck.
Yes.
Thank you, Chair.
We briefly touched on this in the work session, but can you talk about the kinds of traffic
calming opportunities that we have for Monte Carlo in particular?
Certainly.
Let's see if I can get back to the site plan here.
Traffic calming was something discussed at the neighborhood meetings.
The engineer for this project is here tonight, and he can speak more to what those specific
options that they've looked at would be.
They did just reflect on the plan to put it on the record, the intent to provide some
mechanism for traffic calming on Monte Carlo.
That could include things like the bump outs in the street that would narrow the travel
lanes and as the lanes narrow, people just tend to move slower because you feel more
confined.
That's one common option in residential areas.
Other things such as speed humps or putting stop signs at one of the intersections, those
could certainly be looked at as well.
That would be done typically in the process when they get to Platting and during their
civil engineering plans when they would do that full traffic impact analysis to determine
where the best point for that would be.
Thank you, Hayley.
I don't see other questions.
The applicant is here this evening as well.
Yes, ma'am.
They're first up.
We do have a lot of cards for individuals who are wanting to speak and not wishing to
speak.
I'll get to these in just a minute.
If you are wanting to speak and you want to fill out a card, you're more than welcome
to do so, or you will be free to talk here in a little bit.
To start, we'll have the applicant come up and speak.
There's one of two applicants speaking.
First is Jim Strange.
You'll have up to 10 minutes, and then Thomas Fletcher can have the other 10 minutes for
presentation.
Okay.
If you could just state your name and address for the record, you know the drill.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mr. Chairman and commissioners.
Jim Strange, 3613 Falcon Court here in Denton, Texas.
I've been in the building and development business for 30 years here in Denton.
Over that history, I've had the opportunity to work on lots of different projects as well
as serve publicly.
I served six years on the building standards board and six years on this board.
So I've had the opportunity to do a lot here in our city.
As it relates to this project, I began working on this back in December of '18, where the
first significant issue we had to deal with was it had an existing gas well that was producing.
It also had a compressor on site.
The compressor was burning between 25% to 50% of the gas that was produced on site.
So there were some environmental concerns, and at that time, the setback was 250 feet.
So really, my first hurdle was what we were going to do with a gas well, and in January
this year, made the decision to try to buy it out.
It took quite a bit of time to do that.
Finally, in the spring of this year, we were able to get all the parties involved to come
to consensus to do that, and then unfortunately, it took about six months to get through that
process before the well was actually capped in August, and then in September, we got the
Railroad Commission letter back that had been approved and done correctly, and that environmental
concern was eliminated.
Knew this was going to be a tough development because it's an infill site, and there's
neighbors that have moved in recently to our east, and then there are neighbors that have
been there for 20 years, which makes it a challenge for folks that are accustomed to
things being a certain way for a certain period of time.
We did two neighborhood meetings, as Haley said, made a number of changes to our project
over those couple meetings.
We've had Thomas Fletcher's been available, and I know he's had some calls and emails
and texts with some of the neighbors as we've continued to try to work with them and effectively
be a good neighbor as best we could.
Some of the main things that we've changed from our first neighborhood meeting, we were
originally looking at an NR6 and NR4 to straight zoning.
There were concerns about the number of lots that we could do, concerns of what the uses
were in NR6 being duplexes and so forth, so we backed up a little bit and then resubmitted
with a PD.
That allowed us to put a lot of restrictions on this project and hopefully give some, for
those neighbors that were concerned about those things, some piece of maximum number
of lots and what the uses would be.
We also, from those meetings, we originally had deep lots, which is pretty typical that
you go lot line to lot line backing up.
A number of the neighbors were concerned about trees that weren't on their property that
they had come to enjoy over the years.
So we, as you see from our concept plan, voluntarily basically put a buffer around the entire subdivision.
That allowed the trees that were on our property that backed up to the existing neighborhood
for those to be put in a conservation easement, they'll be maintained by a homeowner association,
so those trees will be permanently protected.
And then we, because of some of the changes, and Haley went over this, I'll hit it quickly,
we changed the, put some restrictions in for building material standards.
I understand we have to do that through deed restrictions.
We will do that.
And then we voluntarily increased the tree plantings within our site.
We've got about 60 feet of topography change from high to low, which is going to make it
pretty difficult in the middle.
So our best next step was to enhance the tree plantings.
And Thomas can probably go through some of the numbers in greater detail, but essentially
over what's required, we're about 150% over what's required.
We've also tried to work with the neighbors to address some of the through traffic.
We obviously have to connect to the existing street stubs.
We don't have choice on that.
It's part of our city code, but we are looking at options through top stop signs and traffic
calling measures to do what we can and be a good neighbor.
And with that, I'm going to turn over to Thomas Fletcher with Kimley Horne and provide additional
details.
I'll sit up here front if you have some questions, I'd be happy to stand for questions now or
after our full presentation.
I don't see any questions yet, so welcome Mr. Fletcher.
Good evening commissioners.
My name is Thomas Fletcher with Kimley Horne, 6160 Warren Parkway, Frisco, Texas 75034.
Appreciate the opportunity to come before you tonight with this project.
I've got a quick presentation for you.
Again, this is just the existing zoning map.
I won't go into it in detail.
I know Haley had kind of gone through all the surrounding uses and showed that what
we are proposing is compatible with the surrounding uses with the low density residential.
We're at 4.2 units, which is slightly above the goal of four, but it's compatible with
the surrounding uses and kind of acts as a transition as you go closer to Teasley trails
and the Ryan Road intersection.
Here's the aerial of the site.
There are trees located within the property.
You've got some scattered nice mature oak trees.
There's some other scattered trees and then you have some pretty large tree clusters that
are on the western side of the property.
If you look at our large open space, you will see that we've strategically placed that where
we can maximize our tree preservation.
This also shows some of the developments around us.
Teasley trails to our east, to our north, Ridgemont addition to our south, Montecito
Dilser to the southwest.
You can see Parkview to the south of Ryan Road that's currently under construction.
And then there's also the Hunters Creek Apartments that was recently approved via SUP that's in
process as well.
So here's our layout.
It kind of shows, what we try to show here is where our open spaces are.
And as Jim pointed out, when we had the original neighborhood meeting, it was really, we were
requesting a straight zoning request, didn't have a lot of information, got a lot of feedback
from the residents, negative feedback, concerns, uses, were we going to say we're doing detached
residential and then come in with townhome or something that was of higher density.
So we went back, we looked at it, we've had discussions with the city, we came in with
the planned development.
And this is some of the things that we show.
We've got the buffer around the entire neighborhood.
We're calling for a privacy fence adjacent to the adjacent, the existing development.
We're showing where that existing tree preservation would be located.
And then we've got the minimum building standards that we're going to put in with the deed restrictions,
the additional tree, yard trees.
And just some of the things that we've added to the project to try and be a good neighbor
and hopefully appease some of the concerns.
The site does have moderate to steep topography.
There's a lot of fall across the site, which when you get into the design, you have to
take that into account for drainage reasons.
I do know at both of the neighborhood meetings, the neighbors located in the northwest corner
of Ridgemont addition currently have a large amount of offsite water that's currently coming
through their properties.
We did explain and kind of go through the processes.
We go through the design process, meet the subdivision ordinance.
We'll have to pick up that water, convey it in an underground storm sewer system, take
it to our detention pond where it would then connect to an underground system that would
tie into the existing system there.
So some of the issues that they're experiencing now when this project develops will actually
improve because there will be less runoff directed towards those lots.
So we do think that's important and a benefit of the project.
Another thing that we also offered in discussions with the neighbors to the west is they were
concerned that there were some areas along the current fence line that really didn't
have any existing mature trees and felt like that with this development then they were
going to be seeing in the backyard.
So we've proposed some additional tree plantings in this open space buffer where there's currently
not existing mature trees.
This is just an aerial showing Ryan Road where we would be connecting.
You can kind of see the existing connections there.
Our connection would be in the midpoint of the tract.
The proposed development of Ryan Road is for a three lane roadway with a continuous turn
lane which would be essentially classified as a collector and the spacing and everything
with that works out for that.
Here's the existing, you can see kind of in the middle of the screen to your right, that's
the existing tree preservation within Teasley Trails.
It's also located where our open space is where we would have contiguous open space.
One of the things I wanted to talk about with the trees is that so with the PD we're proposing
a requirement for a rear yard tree and then additional trees on the corner of the lots.
The other thing in the current code, the minimum tree size is two inch.
We have proposed a three inch tree for all trees within the development and then we've
also proposed trees around the detention pond.
So when you take the number of the lots, you take the number of the corner lots, the additional
trees, you look at the trees that we've added adjacent to Montecito, the trees that would
be added as part of the detention ponds, we're going to have over 1,626 caliper inches of
trees within this development.
If you compare that to the 2019 code, the 2019 code would have only required 582.
So we've got we've got 930 additional caliper inches that is in the form of additional trees
and larger trees that we're proposing with this development.
So I did want to did want to point that out because we think that's going to provide value
to the community and to the to all the residents of the development.
This is just some images of the gas well back in March of 2019 when the gas well was still
in operation, you can see the compressor, the tank battery, and the well head.
The middle picture is when they were going through the process of capping the well and
then the picture to the right is with the well completely capped and all the all the
equipment and everything removed from the site.
So the minimum building standards, as was discussed, the developer has committed to
deed restrict the building standards to a minimum of 40% of the total net exterior wall
area of each elevation and basically if you go through there it kind of talks about what
would be excluded as far as windows and doors and how that was how that would be set up
in the language for that but you know that was I know that was important and it came
up in several of the neighborhood meetings as far as you know all the surrounding homes
or masonry and construction and and they want to maintain that quality and we want to maintain
that quality and that value so that was that was a commitment that the developer made to
the to the neighbors.
So traffic impact you know I won't go through all this I'll be happy to answer questions
regarding the traffic memo.
I think Haley did a great job kind of going through that and explaining that but overall
community benefits the plan development standards are beneficial to the development of surrounding
neighbors in the city because they they really create a higher level of standard they they
create building standards that the city can't currently regulate the development cap the
gas well which is an environmental benefit to the overall development we utilize neighborhood
meetings to try and take into account the neighbor concerns and try to address them
as best we can and then you know we don't want to detract from the existing home values
by doing materials that aren't consistent with those surrounding uses 15% open space
the tree plantings we talked about tree preservation and then the visual harmony and really that's
it I mean I I will appreciate the opportunity to stand before you and we'll be happy to
answer any questions that you may have appreciate the presentation we do have a question I'm
not sure which one it's for but it's from Commissioner Smith nature Thomas Jim either
one of you guys can answer but just for everyone in the audience to know because we were talking
about three years at best until Ryan Road has begun to be worked on underneath the new
bond that was elected talking about from date of approval at City Council for this this
rezone all the way to plotting everything else to the day that you guys get first resident
moving into that place you're talking about four years correct so the if we're talking
about the zoning getting approved at City Council in December next week then we would
go into a preliminary plat process so we would have to prepare the preliminary plat make
that application it would go through the city process for approval generally with the new
regulations that looks like about a 45 day process once the preliminary plat is approved
we have a TIA that has to be done we have to prepare the construction plans we have
to prepare the final plat so usually with that the timeframe for a final plat and construction
plans is generally six to eight months so now we're talking about ten months for approval
to go to construction we still have to bid the job we have to do three-way contracts
to get our pre-con so usually you're looking at probably ten to eleven months before you're
breaking ground usually on a site this size the construction process is a fourteen to
sixteen month process so that's getting you pretty close to two years or a little almost
two and a half years and then depending on the velocity we're talking about a hundred
and fifty four homes that I think most builders their programs are probably running eight
to ten homes per month maybe a little less than that maybe a little more than that so
you know you have that time frame it could be it could be twenty months across the you
know for the development to build out and sell all the homes so I mean I think the four
year time frame long answer yeah the question was four years absolutely for all the homes
to be built out Jim you want to answer that next time or what just kidding Thomas thank
you I appreciate it I don't see any other questions presentation this is a public hearing
I do have several cards to run through these as efficiently as possible I will call the
first card and then kind of let the next person know they're about to to be up next forgive
me in advance if I have trouble reading or pronouncing any names the first I have is
Matt went hold followed by Jacob Scott and Mr. went holding you a purse the mic I just
need you to state your name and address for the record and then everyone will have four
minutes to speak my name is Matt went hold and I live at 1405 San Marino Lane and I prepared
some notes here you know they got a lot of time they weren't squeezed down to four minutes
we should not get all the downside of this change a legacy neighborhood should not be
damaged in order to build a new one the new neighborhood should not get a free option
at our expense turning Monte Carlo Lane into a steeply downhill drag strip is physically
dangerous to residents people looking at their phones are not watching where they're going
a 20 year old traffic plan that does not take in the new technology of GPS and people looking
at their cell phones is too old and so if we're going to go with a 20 year old traffic
study technology let's stay with the 20 year old r2 zoning and be consistent the new neighborhood
already has three access points in three different cardinal directions without connecting Monte
Carlo Lane I don't think the city staff has told you guys house deeply downhill Monte
Carlo Lane will be and whether there's if we put traffic calming bumps it'll send cars
airborne into houses this is crazy the city staff has left out the topography this is
not connecting two level on the same plane streets this is given people a running head
start to come downhill at a very high rate of speed looking at their phone may be directed
to our neighborhood which they are not familiar with for the GPS shortcuts for Teasley and
also Walmart cut through we need to bring all of the facts into this and not just presentation
that favors the developers we can live with the Ryan only access that we have now we unalterably
oppose a decision that does not conform to reality common sense or goodwill now also
there's many references to the DDC the Denton Development Code and punching Monte Cristo
Lane through making it a through street violates two parts of the code 1.2.1 promote the health
and safety and general welfare of the city's inhabitants 1.2.5 improved mobility for all
modes of transportation and promote traffic safety this is to make Monte Carlo Lane a
through street and essentially we're asking to be left alone by this new neighborhood
and to preserve our dead end and this is the goal of this commission preserving and protecting
existing neighborhoods community amenities in our case the community amenity is the cul-de-sac
and I challenge the police and the fire chief to come walk the ground note the downhill
run and then give this neighborhood in writing on city letterhead signed by them that this
connectivity is necessary because when the city traffic engineer looked at it I could
see that he was stunned by the amount the geographical downhill race and he recommended
that we suggest to you that we just stay with the dead end so the 20 year old traffic study
no law is not taking into account cell phones GPS so if we got to stick with a 20 year old
technology then the land ownership needs to stay with 20 year old zoning R2 thank you
appreciate you being here I don't see any other questions or any questions next will
be Jacob Scott followed by Beverly Hoke Steinle even wrote a pronunciation out for me and
I still messed up I apologize mr. Scott if you could state your name and address for
the record Jacob Scott 1400 San Marino Lane didn't Texas 762 10 my house the mailbox is
within the 200 foot mark but the rest of the house isn't so I don't know how that falls
in that anyways I digress so quoting exhibit 2 from the staff analysis quote the southwest
corner of the subject properties located approximately 500 linear feet from Lake Forest Park walking
along Ryan Road and Duffy way this would be approximately a two to three minute walk distance
meets the park department's goal of ten minutes walking to a park in quote so this shows that
the development is within ten minute walk to Lake Forest Park without going through
the Ridgemont edition development it's not mentioned in that discussion quoting the same
exhibit to staff analysis the single family subdivision is expected to generate approximately
fifteen hundred and forty seven daily trips a hundred and fourteen during the a.m. peak
hour a hundred and fifty four during the p.m. peak hour the traffic analysis completed by
Kimberly Horn indicates although the proposed film it would increase daily traffic along
Ryan Road this subdivision alone would not decrease the level of service on the roadway
end quote shows Ryan what road can handle the extra cars but the main point I wanted
to make there was just the numbers of fifteen hundred and forty seven daily trips from this
new development so mentioning quoting the PD traffic analysis which was exhibit ten they
estimate approximately sixty percent of the runway development to utilize Monte Carlo
Lane as the most attractive access point to Ryan Road and then it continues on to say
sixty nine trips from runway development use Monte Carlo Lane during peak hour which would
be one vehicle every fifty two seconds and that will be a noticeable increase in traffic
for the existing houses along Monte Carlo Lane they acknowledge but there's no indication
it will impact the delay of actually turning off of Monte Carlo on to Ryan end quote so
if we take the sixty percent of the expected fifteen hundred and forty seven daily trips
that's going to be about nine hundred extra trips a day down Monte Carlo I can count on
probably two hands how many cars drive through that on a day to day during peak hour instead
of it being like quadruple the amount so it doesn't really provide any measurable benefit
to offset the nine hundred extra cars a day going down our street versus us being able
to get to Teasley Lane I've never thought to myself man I wish I had connection to Teasley
Lane it's never been an issue for me and then also just noting the nearest fire station
is to the north of the development so most likely the any emergency vehicles would be
utilizing moon sail to the north to connect through the northern portion of Monte Carlo
and that's the direction they'll be coming from and additionally the nearest hospital
saying ambulance comes has to pick up a passenger as I'll call it they will have to leave back
to the north to go to Denton region which is the closest hospital so there's not a lot
of reason to connect to Monte Carlo to the south additionally there is that street E
as it's labeled that's within about a hundred hundred and fifty feet from the existing Monte
Carlo Lane it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to put two streets that close together
so my main ask is Monte Carlo has been or Ridgemont addition has been a cold sex style
neighborhood for better part of 20 years over 20 years and it's something that we've known
and loved a lot of us paid a premium to get into this neighborhood I have two toddlers
that are running around the neighborhood all the time and we don't have a lot of traffic
and they're able to do that we moved from a development that did have a lot of traffic
specifically for that reason so if we're adding this many more trips an hour it makes me concerned
to let my kids run around in the front yard so I ask please do not allow the stub out
on the southern end of Monte Carlo into the runway division or try to take at least at
minimum a more effective traffic calming measure like a traffic circle or stop signs the little
bump outs will not do anything to slow people coming down a 60-foot hill so something more
rigid a physical barrier in my opinion needs to be there and I thank you thank you very
much next is Beverly followed by Mike Steinle Evita state your name address for the record
good evening I'm Beverly Hoke Steinle I live at 3819 Monte Carlo Lane so if Monte Carlo
Lane goes through when I'm looking at the map I see that behind my house there will
be a new 31 foot highway and in front of my house there will be it so in fact the three
or five or six eight houses that are actually on Monte Carlo Lane will see a lot of traffic
both behind and in front we've just had some new neighbors move in on both sides of us
with children it's the first time that I've seen kids playing basketball in the yards
and I really like the way this neighborhood feels right now and I believe that with the
three planned egresses that I already see on the map I am very strongly opposed to having
Monte Carlo go all the way through also with all of the developments that are happening
along Ryan Road I see my backyard bird population absolutely plummeting we've lost an entire
forest across the road and so these are just some of my concerns as a homeowner and I hope
that we can reconsider and be able to keep Monte Carlo Lane stuffed as it is thank you
thank you next is Mike Steinle followed by Holly Kramer I'm Mike Steinle I live at 3819
Monte Carlo Lane and just real quickly I wanted to bring out something that I haven't heard
in the presentation forgive me I can't remember the names of all these new subdivisions but
we've been on the street for 10 years and I think in the last five years has been Teasley
trails and then the one across the street and then the one down by the the elementary
school and then between those are two new ones that are being under construction there's
no homes in there yet and and then in one right across the street from us so those are
three new subdivisions that haven't even been populated yet so the impact and just in the
sheer density and the load on Ryan Road and on the neighborhood and the loss of green
space has been really dramatic so I would urge you to figure out if there's some sort
of variance for the code that that street Monte Carlo could be preserved as is thank
you thank you hello everyone my name is Holly Kranzer yes and I reside at 1424 Montevideo
court I'm on a corner lot that faces Montevideo but the side of my house that is most vulnerable
is on Monte Carlo and it is most vulnerable because that happens to be my bedrooms that
is my place of sanctuary that's where I come home at night I rest my head hopefully quietly
safely just like the children in our neighborhood as Miss Steinwell pointed out in the last
eight years that I have resided here I've seen our empty nesting neighbors move out
younger families with younger much younger children are moving in we have a little Mayberry
we have no cars in the street these kids are allowed to ride their tricycles bicycles families
are pushing strollers around with babies and the one neighbor that we have she rides her
little pink Minnie Mouse car I fear the day that when they connect if you connect because
it's up to you Monte Carlo to the north end one of those 1500 people are going to hit
that little girl or her brothers or one of any of our many children who are now populating
and will populate this neighborhood additionally I do I oppose this obviously I would not come
up here and point these things out my neighbors have done a great job I do recommend or suggest
perhaps consider closing it off capping it off and extending that green space that I
saw on a map make that a park make it a pedestrian way to connect their neighborhood to ours
to continue on to Wigley's dog park great place by the way great planning the Denton
y'all want trails y'all want green space I think that would be a perfect compromise so
far we have not really heard any great benefits of connecting the north end to the south end
of Monte Carlo other than it's just a perk for the new neighbors there would be a negative
or neutral impact to emergency services because those fire trucks are not going to be flying
through a very highly condensed neighborhood because there's going to be cars piled up
in the streets if you have not seen one of these neighborhoods lately drive through one
I drive through one as a cut through every day from 7-eleven to my neighborhood there's
no kids out there it's desolate because it's obviously too dangerous for kids to play in
the front of their yards because the driveways are short there are two car garages one storage
for the lawnmower once for one mom or dad's car the other one is the parents is either
in driveway and maybe the juvenile 16 year old his cars in the street these neighborhoods
are loaded with cars and so there is gonna be a lot of property damage that's also gonna
be the longest extension in the biggest radius people are gonna find that as a shortcut and
it is so I'll wrap it up because I was gonna repeat myself but um thank you very much for
considering and let me speak tonight thank you thank you for being here next is Brett
Blackstone followed by Claude Dryery if you just state your name and address for the record
you have four minutes I'm Brett Blackstone 4000 Cross Trees Drive I was one of the few
that voted or sent in a ballot in favor of the project when it was announced that the
project was gonna come about I had two real concerns my property backs up to the west
facing into the Harry Castle tract and that there was considerable amount of trees behind
my property and I was concerned about the status of those trees and expressed that at
the meetings that were provided to us and I found that the developers were very responsive
to my concerns about the trees the other thing that I was very concerned about was House
Bill 2439 and the impact that that would have on the possibility of the type of housing
that would go in there having the developer to verbally to commit to minimum standards
I think was very very nice for us and so those are just two of the things that I wanted to
bring out that I thought were worth considering and for that I'm in favor of the project thank
you thank you next is Claude Dreire followed by Leslie Yamashita Claude Dreire 3520 Monte
Carlo Lane thank you very much for hearing me I I agree with everybody who lives down
the hill that Monte Carlo it will become a very very busy street if they cut through
traffic already because Teasley at night if right now it backs all the way all the way
up to the library in the evening so people are already cutting through Teasley trails
you know cutting and going out that way to get over to Ryan in the future if they connect
all the way through Monte Carlo they're going to cut over on moon sail make that quick left
hand turn and then speed right over the hill you know in Monte Carlo the second is the
density the density of of that neighborhood I live in Teasley trails the density already
is something that I would not think should have been approved because the size of the
garages are so small you can't get the two cars in the garage unless they're very small
cars you can't fit a full-size pickup so it ends up on the in the driveway or in the street
well if you have two cars in the driveway my wife is disabled we can't walk Teasley
trails because there's car the cars cover the sidewalks the sidewalks are taken and
if you look at the number of cars that are parked in Teasley trails on the street and
you're going to increase the density and in this neighborhood from 7,000 7,500 square
foot your lots cut down to 5,000 square foot lots you're not going to have sidewalks to
be able to walk on the park they'll be parked on also too there's other two two other things
from the in Teasley trails we've got an amenity center and a swimming pool and you know it's
all nicely done it's going to be as if these do connect it'll be seamless for them to be
able to come in and not be part of our HOA and use our amenity center so it'd be nice
not to have Monte Carlo connect all the way through and then the yeah so yeah right so
the density I think the density would be insane to put that many houses in there you're just
going to have cars on the street and if the cars on the street do cause a danger for the
kids in our neighborhood already so that's about all the time I'm going to take but thank
you for hearing me I'm not a very good speaker next we Leslie followed by Jill Cruz Leslie
Amashina 1404 San Marino Lane my husband Randy and I moved into Ridgemont 18 years ago when
we were looking for a home for our to raise our family we had the choice of Hickory Creek
at about 250 homes we found Ridgemont it's about 75 homes two ways one way in one way
out nice small community to raise to raise children to get to know your neighbors we
have a good mix of retired retired folks and young children now someone's Haley brought
up the fact that this new neighborhood should be sensitive to the existing residential established
neighborhoods but opening up Monte Carlo is not being sensitive to our well-established
20 year old neighborhood people have have told you the numbers that are going to be
coming through I have lived and worked in Denton for the last 30 years lived in this
neighborhood for 20 18 and I can tell you just getting out of our neighborhood right
now to go to work you have to sit there for maybe 8 to 10 minutes sometimes just to get
out of our neighborhood without these this this drive-through right now so it's going
to get even worse people are already taking chances cutting through it's getting dangerous
already with the amount of traffic that's on Ryan Road Haley also mentioned that they
did a study that there shouldn't be any significant impact of crime but I bear to differ if you
look at the numbers from Hickory Creek Hickory Creek is just over there by McNair Elementary
they've been in this they've been established about as long as the Ridgemont and they have
225 to 250 homes in that neighborhood which is what ours would be if you opened up Monte
Carlo and it became a great big humongous merged neighborhood now in the last six years
our neighborhood has had eight crimes and our my information is being taken from the
communitycrime.com powered by Lexus Nexus database in conjunction with in conjunction with Denton
PD our neighborhood has eight crimes and that's small crime someone stole the hubcaps so something
out of a car that was unlocked Hickory Creek has had six times that many crimes and it's
been elevated it's aggravated aggravated assault so six times and it's just in the numbers
you you are bringing the numbers into our neighborhood so our crime is going to go up
people are going to get hurt things are going to get stolen and it's not going to be our
nice little neighborhood we had the decision 18 years ago live in a big neighborhood or
choose a smaller one don't take our decision from us thank you thank you next is Jill Cruz
followed by Steven Flowers if you just state your name and address for the record you have
four minutes yes Jill Cruz I'm at 1404 Montevideo Court and I don't have much more to add than
any of the other people who spoke before me I am opposing the opening of Monte Carlo for
every valid reason that everyone before me spoke to not to waste any more time thank
you thank you next is Steven Flowers followed by Jody Williamson hello Steven Flowers I
go by ward my middle name 3811 Monte Carlo I would like to echo of course everything
everyone said about opening Monte Carlo as a throughput as a throughway the the key things
and I Tim I really liked your question or your clarification about four years to build
the subdivision however we have multiple as Mike mentioned we have multiple subdivisions
in progress now that have zero homes open yet and so the the fear I have is it is that
we probably should consider this again in four years versus today because we still have
all of these that are already planned growth they're already zoned they're in development
but they're not yet there's no homes open Ryan Road Teasley Road Teasley Road alone
is as you all know if you've been down that way is backed up beyond belief I don't know
how we could do any traffic analysis based on homes that aren't even open yet based on
multiple subdivisions Parkview and the other down Ryan that aren't even open yet on Ryan
I don't think three lanes is enough for Ryan if you were to introduce this project as well
and I'm assuming three lanes is two lanes in a turn lane is that correct I mean maybe
five lanes would work with two you know to each way with a turn lane at some point with
this type of development requirement but without those developments that are already already
approved already passed zoning we we just don't have the infrastructure to support this
today obviously opposed because of the the Monte Carlo direct path across the front of
my house and and our neighbors with with children but I think enough's been said about that
thank you very much next is Jody Williamson hello everybody my name is Jody Williamson
my address is 745 Seville Road in Denton I live in the Montecito del Sur section abutting
this property I'd like to start off before I speak my opposition with a question for
Haley she showed a slide up at the top that said 36 people were opposed to this development
10 of which live outside of the 200 for a total of 13.46% two were in favor for a percentage
of 16.2% or something how does that math work it's based on linear feet of adjacent property
so if you have more linear feet abutting the 200 feet you'd have one property that has
80% potentially if it owns all the adjacent land next to it it's not calculated by per
unit it is a measurement of feet adjacent to that boundary okay I'd still be interested
in seeing those numbers because our property alone has 203 feet and our next door neighbor
has twice that much because they own two pieces of land so I'm not real sure I'm buying that
anyhow to go on in addition to some of the density concerns that have been brought up
today our opposition is a little bit different and that is because of where we live there
are two neighbors the Williamson's and the McDonald's who live in Montecito del Sur and
we back up to this property we live on half acre lots and an R2 our houses are about six
hundred seven hundred thousand dollars this new development as it is proposed shows four
houses backing up to the back of my house while we appreciate a lot of the items that
the developer and the engineer have put forward to try and ease some of the pain to those
of us who are existing neighbors it really isn't going to help us we don't have any
existing trees so what we will end up with is a buffer of green area that people can
now walk behind directly behind our house and then we'll be looking into the backyard
the 40% masonry requirement is really nice but I'm sure that'll be on the front of their
houses and not in the back and again because of the way our homes are situated on these
streets we'll be looking directly into the backyard where likely families with small
children and lots of things in their yard are going to live in addition to this my next
door neighbor just spent twenty five thousand dollars to put in a wrought iron fence that
runs the distance of their backyard and this was done because we were told by the owner
of this property that it would never be developed now obviously the property owner can change
his mind and he has his right to develop it but that's really kind of a sad situation
for us we remain opposed unless a couple of things are accomplished one of them would
be to change the lot sizes whether they're changed throughout the development or simply
behind our property I don't understand what the difference is between four homes at seventy
five thousand dollars each or two at a hundred and fifty if you're talking land values does
it make any sense to me another thing that could be done is there's a gray wall that
goes around the Newman property currently so that his entire family will be protected
from this new development why not put it around ours and protect us as well thank you for
listening thank you miss Williamson I just want to just one thing I misspoke in my clarification
of the calculation it's not linear feed it is actual square footage that falls within
the 200 feet but to maybe make it more clear can I have Haley can you show the actual breakdown
just for our edification do you want to see the map or the spreadsheet with the calculations
the map I think is helpful yes so the area within the 200 feet is what's highlighted
in either green or red to indicate support or opposition so so it looks like miss Williamson
your entire property and your neighbors property is all highlighted red and it's part of that
calculation right I said I just want to make your property is on that diagonal in the cul-de-sac
correct okay I think it is shown all and Haley can verify the actual calculation but what
we're saying is that the owner of the land immediately gets the majority of the votes
just because he owns the land that backs up to it is that correct that's really what we're
saying here well I think everybody who lives around it is against it except the man who
owns the property it's worth noting just a clarification the threshold for opposition
is 20% correct so the the opposition right now is 13 is it 13 and a half is that current
that was as of this afternoon I can recalculate if we want to take a break and let me tabulate
all the addresses that are that have cards here tonight I'm not sure if they're reflected
on the spreadsheet again if you're talking about sheer numbers of residents you've got
26 but then 200 feet that say no and two yeah just to clarify the only bearing that this
number has is whether the City Council has to have a supermajority vote for approval
or not it's a state law requires we calculate the the percentages opposed within a 200-foot
radius based on land area if that number is over 20% then six out of seven on council
would have to vote for approval that's the only bearing that that number has on any results
so I understand that that meets your criteria but I hope that all of you understand that
that's just total yes I think that's clear our commission that it is more homeowners
in opposition than than in favor we understand that yeah that's all the cards I have for
individuals to speak that's not to say that if you want to speak and haven't you're not
able to while I'm waiting for any of those I want to read in the following cards into
the record these are individuals who filled out cards but elected not to speak I want
to read them into the record Jean man is in opposition Selena man opposition Keith Gansler
opposition Beverly spoke Mike spoke Richard worth is in support Michelle McDonald opposition
Danny Dutmer is in opposition Rebecca or is in support Ray Maori is in opposition Donna
D span the span D Spain is in opposition perfect are they wider those white perfect can you
bring them up or can thank you this is Sherry brand in opposition and Neil brand in opposition
Christian back you have a question yes thank you chair this is a city I guess a lot of
the comments are about the sort of straight through pass of that piece of Monte Carlo
in the new development do by our code can we have a 90 degree turn and jog that piece
of Monte Carlo left to right west or east a little bit in order to act as a traffic
calming mechanism is that allowed if we could if we could refrain from if we have refrain
from the audience speaking I appreciate that Haley so when there is a 90 degree turn it
does merit a change in street name so if that were to occur and the the road came into the
property and then turned that the street going east and west would have to be named something
different we ran the traps on that to see what issues it would cause if we had a Monte
Carlo lane to the north and Teasley trails in a Monte Carlo lane to the south the fire
department would require that one of those be renamed which would require replating one
of those subdivisions to rename the dedicated street so it could be done but it's not likely
that all of the homeowners that are have property on that street would ever all be in favor
of a street name change given the implications that would have just for their personal records
and changing their address but it that is the option of of how that would work if that
were to occur okay thank you Haley so so Haley can you clarify that because right now there's
in looking at the Google Maps there's a Monte Carlo lane coming right off Ryan there's a
Monte Carlo lane off moonsail lane and there's also a Monte Carlo lane off Spinnaker so right
now there's three portions of Monte Carlo how is that persisting without what you just
said of a name change so I'm not sure the one off of Spinnaker is that here to the it's
directly north of Monte Carlo so my understanding is because this this street doesn't have that
90-degree bend it's probably all named Monte Carlo this street was allowed to be named
Monte Carlo when it platted later than this subdivision because I'm sorry this is Monte
Carlo here because the intent was that these would all connect at one point in time the
fire department for emergency purposes can't allow streets that don't connect I'm not sure
if something happened within Teasley trails and those don't connect I could look into
that but what was conveyed to me from the fire department is if it were to be a permanent
condition where the streets would not connect as intended with these street stubs they would
require one of those to be renamed okay Commissioner Smith thank you Chair Haley one quick question
the or two I have two questions but one for you the we've seen a lot of Ryan projects
come up and I think that as we slowly start seeing them and we did Hunter's Creek and
we've done we did the couple of ones further down Ryan recently as these projects come
up and we're doing TIAs how is traffic incorporating projects that are approved under construction
but don't have current traffic being generated from the site into their calculation are they
are they not because from I remember from TIAs it's it is it's true traffic and they're
looking also they're incorporating number of houses in the area but I can't remember
what the gray area is on houses number of houses or units that are approved but not
currently existing yeah so the in this instance at least that we staff specifically requested
they incorporate all of the known future lots along Ryan Road so all of those new developments
on Ryan were incorporated into this TIA those calculations when there's not existing traffic
counts and they did go out and take traffic counts this fall for this TIA so those are
recent existing counts that they're utilizing everything that's not yet built and occupied
is assessed based on the international traffic engineers ratios assigned to single-family
homes or whatever they are including they're including the non-existing units but that
were approved under construction so that's what I thought that was but wanted to hear
it out loud from you on that so that's one that's one there because of that there's
so many projects in in current construction that I wonder how it stays a class C how it
stays a grading C underneath the grading that was given during the bond it just seems that
it just it seems like there's a lot of give then for it to stay a C if there's that many
units that are it's already currently a C as it is now that many more units are added
it's still gonna stay a C any shedding light on that what not being a traffic engineer
I wouldn't want to try to explain what goes into that analysis but I believe Thomas indicated
that he could speak to the analysis that Thomas come on up I got another question for you
so that's all good you and Jim Jim I need to translate for you into shorter simpler
things for my simple brain so the basically when the traffic impact analysis is done they
as Haley mentioned they would go out and take traffic counts to establish the baseline the
existing traffic in each direction then they take and look at all the proposed development
use the ITE manual to determine the future counts and then they run their models so they
set up the system all the connections the traffic within their models and then within
that model that model generates a level of service based on the capacity of the road
and the current road configuration now there are areas of Ryan Road that have kind of been
piece milled together so there might be the level of services the type of the road there
might be some issues with the quality of the drive or whatever but that doesn't affect
the overall level of service and then what they did is basically knowing that the improvements
are coming to Teasley Trails or Teasley Lane and then also Ryan Road then looked at the
model with all these developments included to see what that future level of service would
be and then when they ran it it was kind of right there at the high B low A so that was
reported back to the staff good quick question on the Monte Carlo piece okay I get the name
change for the 90 degree angle and all that good stuff from the way it looks the neighborhood
has multiple points of entry and it would seem that you would have to make a decision
of favoring either the northern neighborhood that you connect into or the southern neighborhood
because Monte Carlo really you for fire for fire purposes you would need to have some
sort of connection that's other than just that one new road that you would create off
that one slender piece connecting down to Ryan that the property current connect currently
connects to we're only voting on a zoning issue tonight so this is really not even this
really isn't a germane conversation even though I know I understand the traffic is a big concern
traffic's really not the conversation tonight it's a zone issue that we're really talking
about here but is there a chance from the way you're looking at it as an engineer is
there a chance for you to build a roadmap within that in the put in the preliminary
planning process preliminary planning process a lot of peas in there Thomas is there a way
for you guys to build the roadways in there that wouldn't include the connections there
or that affect other areas with that effect with that effect with that effect utilities
or other things as well if we don't stop it if we don't connect the Stubbs in on that
now are you saying don't connect at all or within that connection turn at 90 so that
it's not a straight through doing either either either or is it is there is a possible engineering
solution to do that if the all the staff departments were to sign off on that got it so but to
go back to the original point I did make tonight's not about roadways and traffic and how the
cow it looks it's about the zoning but you do you are saying that there is a possibility
absolutely we could we could look at that further with staff that I would heavily encourage
the both of you to seriously take a look at it and of course we're gonna see it again
in the preliminary plot but would love to see it so and I'll stall as Jim comes down
to probably say something we've heard that concerns from the city I mean the neighborhood
we've shared those with the city we're working on some possible alternatives at the end of
the day we don't get to decide those things at the end of the day the city is going to
be the one that tells us how we connect the streets whether it's nineties whether there's
other things that we can do we've spent the time and the money to try to present some
alternatives presented those to staff and if they're alternative we're happy to do them
but at the end of the day I don't want to stand before this commission and make a promise
to do something that I don't have the authority or the power to make the final call so we're
happy to continue to try to be a good neighbor and minimize the effect but on this one this
is not our call on the other ones I've done all I can on our call but I can't on this
one but we will do what we can in the city will I'm personally not asking you on the
record to make a promise to that I'm more or less given direction that would would would
appreciate it we see when we see the preliminary apply for this project if we do approve it
tonight for the zoning that at least an attempt had been made or something I would love to
see an option where it's not they're not connected or at least there's some way of of turning
it connecting it back to Street C that goes back to the front of Teasley trails so something
like that yeah thanks it's all I got Mr. Ellis thank you chair it's along the same line but
I think I'm gonna go to hailing Thomas because I think you answered most of my questions
I basically wanted to see if there was a workaround can you elaborate on hurdles other than name
change of streets are you allowed to do that so again we ran through the processes that
would be required for the street to not connect based on those four criteria that I went over
earlier the staff cannot approve the street not connecting at all that's not within the
parameters that the code the council recently adopted allows us to do that would require
the applicant to request a variance that would have to go to the Board of Adjustment and
there would have to be a hardship for the zoning Board of Adjustment to approve that
and I just want to clarify the the site layout that you all see is going to become part of
the PD ordinance so the layout is tied to the ordinance and is germane to the conversation
this evening okay so I'm going to further than go to Thomas so if we get through the
approval of this PD and we can't change because it doesn't sound like we can if we're incorporating
the plan that's in front of us can you talk about the concerns with the downhill is that
going to change with development so the within the current city of Denton development code
within the subdivision ordinance there's minimum and maximum street slopes there's also a requirement
that all intersections do not exceed two percent in slope for ADA reasons so another thing
to point out is that previously the city of Denton did not typically require or want stop
signs within residential subdivisions here recently that has changed and the direction
and indication is that the city does want stop signs within residential subdivisions
so if there is a concern about speed on the street there's the opportunity to place stop
signs at all of these intersections or whichever intersections make the most sense to slow
that traffic down coming through there different types of traffic calming we do the bump outs
that have the the mountable curb with the stamped and stained concrete there's other
different types we've talked about the speed humps I know that the city's transportation
team in the past is that's not one that they they desire I think it creates more issues
than problems that it solves so I mean we would definitely look at that and how we can
address that I think that the the minimum and maximum slope requirements are going to
drive that design I think stop signs I think traffic calming we can certainly we're showing
a traffic calming measure on the southern end we could we could add one to the northern
end as well so that we're adding a series of elements that's going to help slow that
traffic and control that traffic through that through that proposed development.
Commissioner Pernitta.
My question is for Haley so just to to address a few things I know there was a question that
came up about the number of residents that were opposing this right now we're at 13.46%
you mentioned that you know you would recalculate based on everything that came in today so
when that recalculation goes through and if we take into account the number of cards that
have been submitted to that and I guess you know account for how many are within 200 feet
etc. regardless of you know what we vote today I mean would that have would that final tally
be included before you go to city council to determine whether or not they correct okay
so even though we even though we're only seeing 13.46% if by the time it goes to city council
you're at 20% it would require the supermajority right correct and we have it as a spreadsheet
like I said so we can can calculate those on the fly so even if people attend the council
meeting that aren't here this evening and voice opposition we can we can take that into
account to inform the council of other supermajorities required okay so so then that's that's a recourse
that the residents have right now they have one more chance to discuss this before city
council to require that the other couple of things that I did want to clarify that I heard
you correctly on generally speaking you know one of the disclaimers that we would give
everybody tonight is that we're not voting on you know a plat we're looking at a zoning
so what we're looking at isn't generally speaking going to be something that we would consider
but you're saying but because it's a PD what we're actually the plan that we're looking
at right now it goes toward this consideration correct this this exhibit there is that is
certainly in more detail for you to look at in your backup this is part of the PD the
PD standards and the code require there to be the zoning document that outlines the regulations
as well as the the map of what the proposal is okay so generally speaking when we would
get a you know a plat approval later later on what we're looking at right now would have
to basically be close to what they spent on the plat approval right is that the correct
it's kind of a conceptual level preliminary if you if you want to think of it that way
they'll still have to go through the full plotting process but it will have to be in
general conformance to what's attached to the ordinance okay and then once again because
I just wanted to cover this because almost all the concerns happen to be about traffic
and speed and everything and the idea of basically mitigating that with stop signs right now which
would reduce the flow of traffic because it which makes sense because they don't connect
right now anyway you could put two stop signs out there and it would pretty much you know
keep you close so so that process would take place with staff would that be a staff recommendation
or how do we how would that be those traffic calming measures or anything within the right
of way would be part of the civil engineering plan process which typically takes place in
between preliminary and final plat so a final plat doesn't come before you all until the
civil engineering plans have been completed and meet all of the requirements so it if
you wanted to codify it if there were recommendations put in place for specific measures those become
part of the ordinance and within become absolute requirements of the development okay thank
you I think that was all the questions that I heard raised thank you I know we're need
deep in discussion real fast but I wanted to pause to make sure that we we didn't needful
for the public hearing I still have another card to read in and then we'll close public
hearing and then continue the further discussion so I have a card from Randy Yamashita that
is in opposition and one more Ryan Montcalm who's in opposition this is a public hearing
I want to make sure of anyone who wishes to speak does have an opportunity to do so now
would be the time is there anyone else wanting to speak yes sir indeed to state your name
and address for the record you have four minutes my name is Danny Dubmer I live on 3823 Monte
Carlo Lane I'm the neighbor of Bevin Mike here we moved in August of 2018 me and my
wife we have a little 22 month old son who's always out in the front while we try and keep
him out of the street as much as we can he's gonna get older and start to get daring and
that concerns me I have a little nephew a little niece another little nephew they're
gonna be coming over playing I live closer to Ryan so if you guys put you guys if you
connect it and you put a stop sign at that connection they're still gonna be getting
up to speed we still we I have we have neighbors in the neighborhood already who can get up
to 40 miles an hour going past our our house right now so it may seem like a great solution
sitting here in the chambers but for me hanging out with my son out front it's gonna change
so and I know Haley had mentioned there's a new neighbors on the other side of Bevin
Mike they have I think four kids and they're out there every single day and they're riding
bikes up and down the street all that they're they're gonna they can't just be sitting out
there playing like that if this happens so I would urge you to consider that more than
just throwing up some stop signs is probably not gonna be a solution for me at least so
and I I do appreciate the developer doing everything he can especially on the back side
of our house because it's kind of my sanctuary I got a you know a couple chairs out back
there and enjoyed all the trees so I appreciate you creating a buffer zone and all that my
biggest concern is the safety of my child we plan on having at least one more and we
don't feel like moving anytime soon so I just urge you to consider that so I appreciate
it thanks for being here is there anyone else wishing to speak this evening okay with that
I will close the public hearing and turn it back to the day is for further discussion
Mr. back I appreciate you waiting thank you chair so I'm unclear how much if this layout
is a pseudo preliminary plat as it were and I realize that's that's not precise language
it's just informative what how much variation can we make on it at final plat time I mean
and would a a 90 degree dogleg be beyond that or some other significant property change
be beyond what's allowed I'm gonna let Richard answer the question if if it's if it's the
Commission's desire to request any changes or modifications to the site layout now now
would be the time so once once this assuming the PD moves forward just assume council passes
it as is then then this this is that pre preliminary plat if you will this is the site plan for
all intents purposes so short of coming back and doing them an amendment to the PD to change
that once this moves forward the final plat would reflect whatever design ultimately is
approved as part of the PD so if I could just clarify essentially if we approve that sort
of map that's on the screen right now we're basically going to have that map going forward
correct okay thank you any questions or other discussion doesn't seem like any but I have
some questions for you Haley well namely one and then I would like to echo some points
made and provide some insight but Jacob Scott at 1400 San Marino said his mailbox is in
the 200 foot can you verify that he his opposition was recorded he had mentioned he didn't know
how that sliver worked out certainly it's our GIS group just buffers from the property
boundary so even if just the tiniest corner of a property is clipped by it that portion
counts it would count it wouldn't be his entire property it would be whatever sliver bigger
small of that property was within 200 feet correct that's the way the law is written
great and then more generally just speaking maybe thinking out loud given what has been
said about Monte Carlo and what we've talked about it seems like one solution would be
to prove the PD get it going and then the developers can ask for variance through ZBA
that'd be on their own volition to do so correct correct and I believe that variance would
be needed prior to this so that the map could reflect those changes I'm looking to Richard
and Cynthia to confirm that Mr. Chair I just I wanted to clarify what the DDC actually
calls this site layout they call it a development plan map and that's what you'd be approving
with the standards of the PD so in order to to change it as Haley said it would have to
go through a different process and I just wanted to point it out point out that the
criteria for approval for PDs number three is that the PD provides greater connectivity
than a development that's not zone PD so that's something else to consider that this would
this project would essentially exceed our standards and in addition to the criteria
that that Haley pointed out for the City engineer to I guess not allow a direct connection I
appreciate the information I'm not sure my question got was clarified I believe the process
if that were if the developer or the property owner wished to seek a variance from the street
connectivity requirement in the code I believe that the most appropriate process would be
that this zoning process that includes the development plan map be paused so that the
variance can be sought if that is approved by the ZBA then the plan could be changed
to reflect what ZBA approved but again that is a variance is a hardship there would have
to be a hardship something unique to the property that merits ZBA approving a variance from
the code standard like a gigantic hill possibly it like I said I think a lot more effort would
need to be put into the the street design on the engineers part to to potentially justify
a variance okay I so if I understand you correctly in order to potentially change the roads that
has to be a variance has to be applied for before anything gets approved at P&Z for the
road to not connect if the connection is some variable option that again we would need to
see plans for our engineering staff would need to review those plans for the road to
say connect and jog 90 degrees like was thrown out right that could be something again that
the plan would need to be modified to reflect those changes before this goes to counseling
gets incorporated into an ordinance but as long as the connection is provided I don't
know that the variance would be needed it's if the street were not to connect at all the
road requires the connection because the street was stubbed to the property okay so here's
what what I think is potential solution Haley you tell me how this potentially gets done
if it's if it's in favor of the commission to do so Monte Carlo gets connected into this
development and immediately turns I'm looking at the site plan it turns west on street A
and then goes up to street C which leaves street B as a full cul-de-sac in the middle
that I would think provides the developer four additional developer developable lots
which hopefully incentivizes them to reroute I don't think they have an opposition to that
to begin with it sounds like they were just following the city direction but it seems
like the developer could get four additional lots and Monte Carlo does get connected yet
it just takes longer which de-incentivizes people to race on a hill or go directly through
if that was agreeable to everyone including this commission which I have no idea what
would need to be what needs to happen in order to jog that street provide them a cul-de-sac
on street B and potentially give them four new lots I guess step one would be the developer
would need to have the plan redrawn to reflect that to see what that would look like would
it modify the lot count within the subdivision and the other standards in the PD and then
on our end we would we would need to do more research into what would be needed for Monte
Carlo because for emergency service purposes like I said the having multiple streets that
don't connect name the same thing creates a potential hazard for for a fire truck or
an ambulance trying to reach a home so in order to alleviate that like I said the initial
response I got from the fire department is one of the streets would need to be renamed
that would require replatting one of those existing street segments which all of the
homeowners would have to sign off on not to say that is the only option I can certainly
try to track down if there are other options there but that's that's what I found out
so far okay I'm gonna let that percolate my brain for a little bit Commissioner Ellis
thank you chair so to continue with this conversation I mean you're effectively saying the code
reads where the it has to be a straight line connection no that the property has to connect
to existing streets so any existing street that abuts the property they have to connect
to it does not stipulate how that connection has to occur the issue here is both the subdivision
north and south were platted with streets named Monte Carlo Lane that connect in roughly
a straight line so when a plan was proposed to staff that showed a straight line connection
our engineers said that makes perfect sense it meets the fire department's need for those
roads to connect and have continuity so that's not say additional options can't be looked
at okay so you're so if north Monte Carlo connects south Monte Carlo connects into the
new development can the new development not use Monte Carlo and turn the street or no
I need to look into that more typically the standard I've seen applied is that at a 90
degree bend a street name change has to occur okay what if it's 85 degrees I'm not sure
like I said I'd have to look into that further okay okay Mr. Anderson thank you chair thank
you chair I don't know if this is even a solution but if you're looking at the map on the right
side you see the little square box the little square ring the whole neighborhood they're
doing a great job by outlining with the green where Monte Carlo comes up from the from the
citizens neighborhood if you just didn't connect it there and like you said you had a north
Monte Carlo because right now the if there was a fire in their neighborhood right now
they would have to go all the way down Teasley and come back up ryan road so if you didn't
even intersect it there connect Monte Carlo there just made it more green space and just
let Monte Carlo connect from the north side and they could come through moon cell or whatever
those other streets are called that that would that would suffice wouldn't it I mean that
would suffice the emergency services that would be the one option that would generate
the developer having to apply for the variance this is the way the code is written if there's
a road that touches your property you are obligated to connect to it and extend it through
your property to the next adjoining property so they have to provide a connection there
to that street in some configuration how likely is the city to do you know I mean do you know
how likely the city is to grant that variance it goes to the board of adjustment they have
very strict criteria through state law that stipulate there has to be a physical hardship
on the property that is unique to this property and applies to no other properties in the
area it's a pretty hard threshold to meet typically so I can't hazard a guess as to
how that would work because I wouldn't cause any more redrawing of the plats and all that
stuff because the streets lined up right there it would just be just not connecting on the
south end you know okay thanks. Can I hop in real fast? Haley you've been a rock star
I appreciate it I have a question for either Jim or Thomas he pointed you Thomas you're
up Thomas you've heard my crazy idea you've heard Mr Anderson's crazy idea you've heard
all of these things what is because here's here's my attention it seems like the citizens
have legitimate concern about the traffic flow of Monte Carlo I have a legitimate concern
that it's not the developers issues and so there's this tension where I'm not inclined
to quote unquote punish a developer for trying to act within the city code that we've created
but I also have no inclination to disregard all the citizens feedback of what they experience
every day that I don't and so there's the tension there what is your feeling about the
things that you've heard in the timelines of these these projects whether it's variants
or postponing to come back to the plat that turns and figure out what to do with road
changes there's a lot of different things what's your gut on what you like to see and
is it just move forward as is because you're meeting all the requirements what do you what
are you thinking right now so on your suggestion with turning the street 90 degrees so typically
what happens when you create a knuckle street you end up with a pie-shaped lot so it's less
efficient so in your scenario where you talked about probably adding two to four lots the
reality is is if we turn the street and knuckle the street we're probably going to lose a
couple lots because you're creating pie-shaped lots regarding going through the zba process
I would really kind of defer that to Jim to see if that I mean I don't I mean it sounds
like just listening to Haley listening to the process when I look at the site when I
look at the topography when we did Teasley trails I was the engineer on that project
at one point the Teasley trails was going to build the road connection down to Monte
Carlo so when Mr. Newman dedicated the street easement for the temporary cul-de-sac the
agreement at the time was to dedicate the right-of-way for Monte Carlo to be built at
that time at that time Teasley trails didn't include the old mobile home park that became
part of the project when that added to the project there was no longer a need to build
the road all the way through so we have looked at the engineering aspect of can we get from
point a to point B and meet the city's criteria and we can so as far as that goes it sounded
like based on the threshold to allow a zba approval it would be a hard I mean even if
we went through that process it sounds like that there's not certainty there so from
a from a layout standpoint if we're looking at alternates other than what we're currently
proposing then I think the knuckle in the road would probably be the most realistic
alternate I'm not sure if that would you know satisfy the residents or not and I mean
so so when you when you talk about doing a true cul-de-sac that takes up because of
the fire requirements it takes up a significant amount of land so really if you were looking
at doing something you would probably knuckle here so the traffic would turn come around
in the knuckle right here as well the other thing you have to look at and consider is
all this drainage is coming down so you still have to have connectivity of infrastructure
so even if we get rid of the road we have to bring the sewer through we have to be bring
the storm sewer through so it's a lot easier for city to take on facilities for maintenance
purposes that are located within a street than if they're located within easements
on people's side yards so I mean from an overall I mean I hear the residents concern this is
certainly something that could be looked at but from a you know it creates an additional
infrastructure requirement an issue that would create easements with city infrastructure
located inside yards which could potentially create future issues that would have to be
addressed great I appreciate the sketch that's helpful that's all I had on who Commissioner
Smith who his question will be directing to Thomas would you be open to a post moment
to be able to at least try to see if a see if a an engineering change to this otherwise
if not I mean just we'll we'll we'll take a vote on it but would you would you even
want would you even want to do that Mr. developer Mr. engineers that does something like this
I mean if you look at what we've sketched out we're currently looking at yeah it's
better than we're currently looking at yeah and I I agree with your sentiments of that
I think the engineering of it all makes it about ten times harder and probably a lot
more expensive and makes lots not nearly attractive because they're gonna have to put you have
to take side yards and start putting in storm drainage easements to that which doesn't sound
like a really great thing for this project but you know I think I think I think public
safety is a pretty important thing too how many lots based on your sketch I have a four
chairs and two yeah I would you turn a knuckle like that it would probably reduce the overall
lot count by two in that area for each knuckle for each knuckle well two total okay one one
per knuckle I mean we'd have to lay it out because we're we're designing it for a building
pad for the house but I would say that with this layout there would be a minimum of two
lots that would be lost now with the easement for the sanitary sewer and the storm sewer
it could possibly be up to four my recollection is all the drainage is from west to east so
I can have the floor back now or do you want it back well I mean he's still he's he's
interrupted yeah I know I appreciate it so would you be open for a post moment if we
were to look at that though just to give you a chance even if you brought it if you brought
it back exactly as I say look it's not engineeringly possible and I hate I hate to delay you on
it well we've been delayed a couple times already just for the record we were originally
to be on the November the 6th P&Z and I think that was the night of the gas well ordinance
and we were asked if we'd voluntarily move we did and then we were on for the 19th and
there was a notice error so we've we've moved a couple times I know Christmas is right around
the corner so the likelihood that we will be back here will be sometime in probably
January at the earliest if that's the purview of the commission for us to go try to do additional
work to do that I don't want to stand before you and be unreasonable say no I will tell
you we've spent a tremendous amount of time working on it to get it to this point we offer
traffic calling measures we've done what the city has asked us to do but if that's the
purview this commission that you all want us to go back and and and pull it tonight
and do some more engineering I will do that it's certainly not my first choice because
of the reasons I've already said but if that's the purview this commission you ask us to
do it I'll agree to do it okay thank you Mr. Anderson thank you one more time this is for
the engineer sergeant and I hate to it feels like we're punishing the developer Jim for
something that the city did and and that's not right but another solution may be and
I'm sitting here looking at the pictures of the other neighborhoods and stuff and there's
a lot of curved streets instead of a straight shot where people can pick up is there a way
you can curve the street make it like a little s street instead of just a straight shot you
know that tends to have people slow down so right because of the short distance between
the two connection points and the minimum radius requirements when you do your development
and we're in an infill situation it would really be hard to add curvature to the streets
the other thing that that might do is would affect the buffer around the neighborhoods
because when you start adding the curves to get your lot depth it starts kind of trickling
through the site so I would say that adding curves to this particular piece of property
would be challenging with the topo and the geometry constraints I'm just trying to come
up with a solution for the developer and the citizen in the residents of the neighborhood
so they can all you know have a happy neighborhood so at this time the public meeting has closed
so unfortunately there wouldn't be the opportunity thank you so right now the chair will entertain
a motion or further discussion kicher smith I'm gonna make a motion to approve see what
happens I think the project I think the infill makes sense in this area that this is a zoning
change I don't I don't know if the map that we're currently looking at is the the best
possible option but I think the developer is working with what they've been given with
I think it'd be a little bit too punitive to to make them have to go through and wait
a little bit longer so I'm gonna make a motion to approve we have a first for approval so
I like I've mentioned I have some some extraordinary tension here and and to be honest a lot of
it is ultimately going to be folks at the city I think city stuff is a lot of good work
and they they work their tails off but the idea that we have three segments of Monte
Carlo Lane currently and yet the developer is told that he couldn't change the road because
it would cause Monte Carlo issues is beyond my my logic and I'm looking at Haley I don't
know if it's you I don't don't take this directly but I'm having significant issues with the
city telling because it seems to come down to that that the the city said we can't change
names when there is literally three Monte Carlos so the developer comes in says okay
see what you've told us they get delayed they come to us they've made concessions it appears
to the neighborhood but yet because of this city's decision we I feel inclined to like
postpone this and I just that is a compute so on one hand I have what the citizens feel
about the speed trap and on the other hand I feel like we have developers who've been
in our town for decades doing exactly what the city told them it's not an easy it's not
an easy decision for me personally but with that I'm gonna second the vote to push it
to a vote so we can get a vote on record and we'll see what happens but it's with it's
without it's not with great concern or an easy decision that I necessarily support this
I think it's a it's a bad situation that the city happened to put our planning and zoning
in on on this one so with that we have a first and a second is there any other discussion
Christian Ellis thank you chair I just want to say a couple of things because I really
think this is a really good infill proposal but it's got some flaws that I really want
reworked and I know that that the developer and engineer have done what the city has asked
but it's hard for me to discount what the community has expressed without trying to
at least work through that so yeah I was really hoping for a postponement just to see what
Thomas could do on the plan so unfortunately I would have to vote against what's on the
table right now and again I think it's a really good infill proposal I think it just needs
some tweaks Christian Bernetta I'm pretty much repeating almost exactly what Commissioner
Ellis said I like the idea I like the proposal I think it I actually do think it makes sense
for the zoning if it wasn't a situation where the vote that we're having to do right now
wasn't simply for the zoning I'd be you know a yes on this one because you know I think
right now my my conflict is that because it's a PD and because the vote for the zoning is
tied to you know what we're ultimately strapped to on the map is an issue given the safety
concerns of the citizens and given basically you know what it looks like or valid concerns
on that I have to vote no on this one I was kind of hoping that nobody would second the
motion and we could we could at least go you know to it to you know to a postponement to
see if something could be you know be resolved and if not then then you know vote on the
merit of that but yeah I mean I admire the plan I admire the work that you did I you
know I think it's kind of I don't know what the adjective would be that I could actually
say yeah there we go you know that you know that ultimately you're kind of hobbled by
you know basically city you know regulations but but you know I'm with Commissioner Ellis
on this one and I apologize I'm sorry Christian back yeah I actually just wanted to reiterate
the same thing so I'm not going to that I like I like the backfill and unfortunately
the safety concerns bother me greatly and I don't blame you for it so we do have a first
and a second I don't see any other discussion we'll take this is the vote you vote on the
board well hold on last minute Mr. Strange we'll go back and redesign we'll take a continuance
and we'll go spend some more engineering time we'll get with staff and we'll try to come
up with a another solution I mean we've worked too hard on this project to get this far and
take a chance to be in voted down I don't know where some of the other commissioners
are obviously I'd prefer to have a 7-0 vote and move forward with that but we've been
put in a really bad position and I don't think it's right that we continue to get delayed
but also don't want to take a year's worth of work and effort and all the other concessions
we've done and flush it down the drain so I'd request that we be moved to the next
available planning and zoning commission we'll get with staff starting tomorrow we'll see
what other designs we can do and work with the city engineering department thank you
Jim Christopher Smith Jim you you wouldn't want to see if there is an approval and if
this approval fails then there probably would be a mo it sounds like a lot of the commissioners
would would probably then bring up a motion to to postpone if that's an option for us
to do if this motion would fail and then there'd be another motion put forward for a continuance
and we'll do that so if you want to move forward with your motion to approve we'll
see where it goes I would like to hold I would like to hold my motion for an approval and
see how the vote goes okay I see no other discussion we'll take it to a vote
motion carries four three with that our next item of business is item 5d but before we
move on I want to take a ten minute break to let the room clear it is 848 welcome back
to the planning zoning commissioned thank you for that break I'll reopen the public
hearing or the meeting at 859 the next item for business is item 5d sd 19-001 a I'll
invite Cindy Jackson for presentation and open the public hearing happy for you tonight
a request for approval of an amendment to the special sign district for the first united
methodist church the site is located at 201 South Locust Street between Mulberry and sycamore
the sign district was originally approved in January 2010 the criteria for approval
of a special sign district or to amend a special sign district is in section 33 18 of the sign
code and here is a listing right here it relates to compatibility scale color material shape
landscaping traffic safety and circulation illumination and integration into the district
the proposal complies with all of these requirements as noted in your backup notification went
out we sent out 29 public notices within 200 feet of the site and 399 courtesy notices
within 500 feet of the site we received two responses in favor of the request which composed
or which comprised three percent of the area within the 200 foot buffer a neighborhood
meeting has not been held staff recommends approval of this request to amend the special
sign district for the first united methodist church to permit any provision of the sign
code that is not addressed by the special sign district to be governed by chapter 33
as amended that concludes my presentation and the applicant is present if you have any questions
perfect thank you Cindy this is a public hearing anyone wishing to speak on the item may certainly
do so Commissioner Ellis thank you chair Cindy I didn't have a quick question and one that
we didn't have time to talk about work session so are the other buildings in the area governed
by the sign code everybody is is it used to the same sign code that's correct and effectively
the only reason they have a special sign district is to hang their is for their banners that
banners that you see along the front of the street that they have out all year long different
types of banners so banners are typically only permitted for three months of the year
but their special sign district permits them all year okay great I don't see other questions
thanks Cindy Oh Commissioner Beck oh thank you Cindy so this is just for the church yes
and it's basically as we briefly talked about it basically prevents them or allows them
to not come and seek special permission for new banners it no not new banners it basically
the banner part of this has already been approved it was approved in 2010 because this is a
special sign district they can't have any signage except what is permitted by the special
sign district and they would like to put up signs that advertise their daycare and they
want to put up signs that would advertise special ministries and they are unable to
do that without amending their sign code every time they're the special sign district every
time they want to do this so what our proposal for them is to allow them to put up signs
per the sign code whose provisions are silent in the special sign district right now there
is a copy of the two ordinances for the special sign district in your backup and it permits
banner signs a few wall signs and a plan for future signage so if it permits wall signs
but they're requesting permission to get wall signs only permits two or three wall signs
they want to put up a few more a couple more okay thank you sir okay so on the same note
so let's say there wasn't a special sign district let's just pretend how many signs could they
have up I could have as many as they want that was what I wanted to know thank you I
believe that is all the questions we have for you okay this is a public hearing anyone
wishing to speak may certainly do so seeing that there seeing that there is no one wishing
to speak I'll close the public hearing commissioner Smith I'll make a motion to approve we have
a first question for that I'll second the motion we have a first and a second for approval
any discussion seeing none I'll call for a vote on the board motion carries seven zero
the next item of business is item five e s 19 - 12 be I'll invite Julie Wyatt for presentation
and open the public hearing good evening I'm Julie Wyatt senior planner with the city of
Denton and I am presenting s 1912 Denton Grove apartments the request is for a specific use
permit to allow multifamily dwellings on a about 15 acre site the subject properties
outlined in yellow it's adjacent to loop 288 just west of loop 288 south of McKinney McKinney
is right here on the project the the proposal was submitted prior to October 1st of this
year so so it is following the 2002 Denton development code standards and that would
require an SUP for multifamily developments also to let you know city council did did
approve a resolution earlier this year of no objection to the construction of affordable
and mixed and market rate housing at this location however just want to let you know
that council action does not negate the planning and zoning commission's recommendation regarding
the land use the SUP and then councils approval of that SUP so that that's a separate process
altogether so a comparison of the 2002 zoning map in the current 2019 zoning map subject
property is outlined in black in 2002 it has a zoning it had a zoning designation of CMG
that's what this project was reviewed under that transitioned as of October 1st of this
year to SC CMG was somewhat similar to our SC zoning and once again it does require that
SUP for multifamily I'll go over the site plan briefly they are proposing 12 multifamily
buildings there are a mixture of two and three story I believe the two story buildings would
be one two-story building here and one two-story building here and the rest would be three
story except for the amenity center which I believe is one story there is a as I said
the community center here in the central location of the site and that's the leasing office
they're also proposing a community pool and pavilion playgrounds as well as a dog park
in this location down here the total would be 276 dwelling units which comes out to about
18 dwelling units per acre the associated parking is 568 seven five hundred and sixty
eight spaces and they are also proposing to add bicycle racks in that in a central location
near the the amenities this proposal includes 61% lot coverage which is all impervious surface
per that 2002 DDC requirement and then 39% landscape area I mean just a little further
on that open space those open spaces would be 11% of the of the site the landscape plan
does include landscape islands within the five hundred and sixty eight parking spaces
and you can kind of see the landscape islands and in caps spread throughout the site they're
also proposing 39 Street trees along Dutchess Drive and loop 288 so meeting that 2002 Street
tree requirement and they're also proposing a buffer along a along the the west side of
the property adjacent to that commercial development next to it that would include 24 trees and
100 shrubs per the code these are their sample building elevations they are proposing sort
of a muted color palette with a mixture of balconies and patios that's criteria for approval
as in subchapter six of the 2002 debt and development code and we'll just go over the
most germane parts of that first of all the dent plan 2030 so does the proposal meet the
comprehensive plan this is within a community community mixed use area it's actually in
the cusp of community mixed use and moderate density residential but the but the community
mixed use is the predominant future land use designation is intended to promote a mix of
uses where commercial uses are are the main use commercial and service uses but residential
can serve as a complementary use to support the the commercial development the intent
is to encourage diverse uses close to each other to to encourage multimodal transportation
and to really create vibrant centers within the city multifamily is consistent with this
future land use designation because it does provide that supporting a residential use
which is really needed for commercial areas.
Additionally just from a compatibility standpoint this this proposed multifamily would provide
that physical buffer along loop 288 from the the continued residential development that
that moderate residential development off to the west although this is being reviewed
under 2002 debt and development code we did compare it with the 2019 it's something we
just adopted so we we wanted to see how those two things stacked up in terms of elements
like lot coverage landscape area building high density unit size parking and overall
tree canopy the proposal met both the 2002 and the 2019 codes the the two deviations
would be tree preservation we did adopt new tree preservation requirements this year which
require essentially 30 percent preservation of protected trees they're proposing to preserve
27 percent of quality trees and 50 percent of secondary trees so not quite hitting that
that 30 percent of the quality trees and then the street trees we also increased our street
tree standards this year they are proposing to meet the the the previous standard of 45
not every 45 linear feet so it doesn't quite meet those street trees street tree standards
in in the 2019 code as we kind of talked touch briefly on the compatibility with the surrounding
uses if you look around the the aerial and the surrounding uses you have multifamily
to the west as well as some office development you also have some undeveloped commercial
to the south and a bank across the street there's also some open space that will be
improved or developed at some point some additional undeveloped commercial around and then and
then there was actually a multifamily development that was approved as an SUP just to the northeast
of the site so it's really is a mixed use area it is it is on the loop the loop is a
commercial corridor within the city of Denton so there there are commercial commercial uses
but this is sort of transitioning into that mixed use bringing in that residential component
in this area not quite as heavy commercial as you see just south on on the loop and then
the SUP does does want to ensure that the use would not create any offensive odors fumes
dust noise or vibration because this is a residential use that's not intended or expected
to create either any of those there was a TIA prepared as as as for analysis for this
project the applicant did and that was reviewed and approved by our engineering group their
analysis showed that there would be about 2000 trips per day generated from the the
multifamily development morning peak of 125 trips and then evening of 146 trips the TIA
did have some recommendations first there is sufficient pavement width on on Dutchess
to to allow restriping as a result of this project to allow both a dedicated left and
right turn lane from Dutchess on to loop 288 and then also once this project is is if it's
approved and then constructed that intersection would meet the warrants for a signal and they
would have to contribute to that signal there it touches in loop 288 access was analyzed
as part of the request they are they are proposing two access points one that would access directly
on to loop 288 that it allows due to the median openings allows a right in right out as well
as a left in it does not permit the left out so so it's it's not quite full access at the
at the loop 288 entrance point and then to the south off of Dutchess there is that would
be a full entrance and exit point the applicant is here and he does have more information
regarding specific information regarding trip distribution in that TIA so he'll be able
to share that information with you as part of the development they would also have to
extend sidewalks one an eight foot sidewalk on Dutchess and then a five foot sidewalk
on loop 288 there's also a there's there's also a bus transit available in the area DCTA
didn't connect route four is within a quarter mile both to the north and south of the project
there's water and sewer available they cannot tap into the 20 inch water on the site they
would have to extend water both along loop 288 and Dutchess but they could they could
access that 18 inch wastewater line that does flow through their site additionally impact
fees would be required at development there is a open space that the city owns across
loop 288 from the site but it is undeveloped but the applicant is proposing on-site amenities
like that like that dog park that is fenced the playground areas in the pool area there
are schools there the project would generate approximately 34 elementary students 14 middle
school students and 17 high school students and there is a fire station within the eight
minute or less response time boundary a notification was sent out on the property or on the project
there we have received responses in opposition that do equal 29 percent of the property in
within that 200 foot boundary so approval of this request would require a super majority
at City Council they did have a neighborhood meeting a couple of weeks ago there were four
attendees I believe and they and they talked about traffic and about appropriateness of
land use and they have continued the conversation they did have a conference call with the applicant
a couple of days ago so they've been communicating with the applicant.
Staff does recommend approval of the request because it does meet the criteria for approval
for an SUP but there are conditions that we are proposing one that that they will have
to seek that an alternative development plan for a couple of areas where they would like
to deviate from SUP chapter 13 of the Denton Development Code that will have to come back
before you so if this is approved by City Council you'll see this again and for for
that alternative development plan they'll also need to comply with the landscape plan
as they've proposed they can make some small alterations with the planting materials but
they'll have to generally comply with it will determine the parking area light fixtures
at building permit they will have to meet all Denton Development Code requirements.
And then there's some and then we also have a provision in the recommendation that allows
staff to approve reductions in things like lot coverage or an increase in landscape area
or a decrease in the number of dwelling units with the associated parking this also would
allow if approved staff to approve increases up to and including five percent of the the
dwelling units and the the parking spaces in the in the lot coverage square footage
provided it still remains within the Denton Development Code regulations anything over
five percent change those that small modification would require a new SUP if it's approved as
it's as it's proposed and and the the rest of the provisions lay out what those specific
site plan requirements are that is because ordinances when those site plans are reproduced
for ordinances they're really difficult to read so the text just sort of lays out the
the provisions and the and the specifications of what they've proposed.
So that concludes my presentation I'll stand for any questions and the applicant is here.
We do have a couple questions Mr. Ellis.
Thank you Chair Julie can you go back to your slide about schools because that has got to
be a typo or there's no way that 34 elementary students is right for this development that
cannot be right that is based upon Denton ISD's let me let me check the staff report
make sure I'm not not a chance hold on you are correct thank you 83 elementary school
students yes thank you staff report is correct it's 83 elementary school students a 30 middle
school students and then 44 high school students and that that's based upon Denton ISD's formula
that seems yes that seems more in line you are correct okay thank you for clarifying
you bet Christian back thank you chair so are they being given credit for 10-minute
walk for that green space across 288 or not I'm confused on that I would imagine that
that would not meet our requirements for a 10-minute to a walk park just because it's
still you still have the loop 288 barrier there's not really there's not an easy pedestrian
route to it of course as the crow flies it meets it but really walking to it would probably
take much longer than 10 minutes and there is broken you know there's there's not a complete
sidewalk there but the site does provide those on-site amenities to allow play space for
children there's two playgrounds the pool area there's some meaningful open space not
just if you'll look at the site plan so to the south they have just just open space in
this location in this location it's also fenced so so if if kids were going to just run and
play frisbee or throw the ball it would be fenced to keep kids to make sure they're corralled
so there is a there is some meaningful open space for active and passive recreation on
the site so those those green areas to the south or what are being considered for for
that sort of recreational green area activity and not really the the 10-minute walk requirement
at this point that that park is not probably because it just seems like a field we haven't
done anything with haven't done anything with it no now once that signal is installed at
duchess and that field is improved it certainly could be something that would provide recreation
for the residents not only at this location but surrounding properties but you are correct
right now we're not we're potentially considering that a crosswalk right there over to a park
well what if when that signal is installed at duchess it will provide you know a light
that could provide a safe pedestrian passageway across loop 288 i would not advocate anyone
crossing loop 288 at duchess right now yeah nor would i thank you thank you i don't see
other questions thanks julie this is a public hearing anyone wishing to speak may certainly
do so i do have a couple cards uh the first is thomas crowe sure yeah and when you say
y'all you mean you and john yes okay so the only two cards i have is uh john rainy and
kent key uh and we spoke previously john rainy wanted to yield his time uh to kent key so
uh the chair will allow kent key to speak for eight minutes
thank you for letting me speak tonight i'm kent key 3100 triple crown court here in denton
and i am a resident of denton have been for only 60 years so i've tried to develop the
city the way that you see the city today i mean i i've been part of that influence i
i feel like i've developed a lot of subdivisions thousands of lots and a lot of commercial
work i am the one can we i'm gonna put up some stuff i'm the one that is the opposition
all the way around them so me and my partners own everything in red and i sold a lot to
the bank over there so we own 34 acres out there and that is a we feel like a prime becoming
now after all these years we've owned it a long time but after all these years it's now
becoming a prime commercial spot office we're building we built the denton record chronicle
out there we own that and we have other businesses slated i have three or four other uh businesses
that i'm working on right now then you're you're going to see plats come before you
to break that up into businesses out there the owner of the property and i have known
each other a long time since we bought it back in the i bought mine in the late 80s
he bought his in the early 90s and he and his name is dennis coop and he and i've known
each other a long time that is always supposed to have been a commercial corridor over there
and that's what i thought it was going to be until i just happened to see the signs
about a week week and a half ago the signs popped up that something was changing out
there and so when i investigated i found out that it was a low income housing project that
was going to go up and i became concerned about that not not that we don't need low
income housing we need low income housing and you guys are going to see a lot of low
income housing projects come before you already have and you're going to see a lot more because
there's some studies out right now that show developers like us that denton is prime for
low income housing so i'm all about low income housing i put the street in i put duchess
in i donated the land and i paid for the road to go in when southwest housing was putting
the subdivision right back here in the back if you could zoom down on me please so john
and i paid for this road right here all the way back to our property and we supported
this low income housing of southwest housing that went in and it's 270 some odd units i
believe so i think that is and we've been a very good neighbor to them and they've been
a very good neighbor to us so it's been it's that's been a very good relationship when
i found out about this since i have hadn't had much time to study it you know i asked
the developers and they weren't going to have a neighborhood meeting they had turned that
down because they didn't think there would be any opposition to it i don't think i think
they thought it was undeveloped land around it and there probably wasn't any opposition
but they we asked for that and they and they gave us a low i mean they gave us some time
to talk to them they asked us what we wanted you know what our what do you want or trade
you know what what can we do and i was like well i just really want to know about the
project right now i mean i've only known about a week i need to know a little bit more about
it before i know what i think so i asked john to go do a little bit of studying for us and
so we did started looking into low income housing in denton and when we pull up the
low income housing chart in denton it's this chart and this shows a pretty good scattering
of low income housing how it's scattered around the interior of the loop this is loop 288
the highway coming through and you can see there's a good spattering this is right off
of the the website that the city supplies for that but when you drill down to it and
you start getting into the minutiae of the low income housing like these dots over here
are a duplex so there's two these out here around are single family or duplex low income
housing there's no density no concentration so when i drilled into it a little deeper
i found out that with this approval of this project if this project gets approved which
is right here we will have over a thousand units concentrated in district five in one
little area so i think i'm all about low income housing but i don't think we ought to have
it all in one area it should be diversified throughout the city this is how we got into
trouble years ago in the 70s and 80s when we had projects so we do not want that i don't
want that i don't think the city wants that and i don't think the city recognizes that
the concentration of low income housing is all in one area look at the numbers this is
their proposal 274 or 276 this one that we supported was 264 there's a brand new one
that's 322 another one 120 and another one 120 down here that's a lot of low income housing
concentration and no diversification there's nothing over here on the north side there's
nothing on the west side why do we have to why are we putting it all in one area that's
what the sup that you're voting on tonight is about it's because you guys and the council
control the development of the city and you all have the power to control what goes on
here and that's why in the development code it has an sup on multifamily housing to go
in here so it's up to you whether we allow multifamily housing and increase the density
and increase the location of what we're doing here this is one of our main quarters loop
288 is one of our stellar parts and it is developing along here but it is developing
commercially the hospitals are over here closed doctor's offices are wanting to go in veterinary
clinics I've got a vet that we're talking to about building them an office building
over here those kind of things are the way that I see and my partners see John Rainey's
one of my partners Bill Patterson is one of my partners over there and Tony Clark is one
of my partners over there they all are in opposition to this as I am and it really wasn't
that I was in opposition to it until I started looking at the density of it and it was kind
of eye opener to me maybe you all have studied that but I'm gonna bet probably not and didn't
realize that we were concentrating it all in one area I called and talked to a council
person that's in charge of this area he had no idea that it was concentrated that deep
in his district and I think he was awakened a little bit the other day when we talked
about that so that's a real issue that I have you know I'm a developer I developed it's
an oxymoron that I would be here speaking against the development so it has to be pretty
strong I don't usually come before you guys I usually send my engineers but tonight I
felt like it was important for me to be here and talk about how we're developing the city
and I believe this is a crucial point it's a crucial time we need it we want the ped
corps is a I researched them too I think they're a great company they're the company that we
would want to develop this kind of project in Denton I think they do a good job they
have a long history there's nothing not one thing against the developer for what they
do I think it's the wrong location the wrong piece of land and the concentration is already
too deep to add more into that area so that is my that's my one of my biggest concerns
is Ellis you brought up while ago as as you caught as we quickly went through those slides
the schools but the school the number of kids that come out of a thousand units right there
that are going to those schools is horrendous it will take a lot more schools concentrated
in that district to take care of those children over there so for that reason I'm opposed
to it and I think it's contrary to our I know that this is why I told you that multifamily
is a component of that area I think it can be and I think it could even be on that side
if it was pushed back and the front was left commercial maybe Dutchess was less commercial
and there was a strip in the back and maybe it's 75 units or or less I'm not trying to
crush be a dream crusher for them over there but I'm I'm very concerned that we're really
way too dense and way too concentrated in low-income housing and low-income housing
over here I just don't want Denton and Southeast Denton to be known for low-income housing
I don't think I think we're labeling and I think that's wrong so I'm I'm opposed to it
for those reasons I'm also opposed to it for a reason that you pointed out while ago which
was walkability there's no walkability to this so every single person that lives here
is going to get in their car and start up their car to go somewhere we have a huge problem
right now on Dutchess it's a dead-end Street it's not put through yet we have a huge problem
when they try to cross book 288 and turn left cannot build tells me Bill Patterson tells
me that his people have struggled with that all the time right now adding 2,000 trips
is like a no-go I mean I don't know how you add 2,000 trips when it doesn't work already
so anyway those are the reasons that we are opposed to it tonight I have several others
but I run out of my time and their time I got a question for you so maybe in your question
you can give the other points Commissioner Ellis thank you chair thank you mr. key are
you familiar with the resolution that the City Council passed I am and I want I became
aware of that through my research after I saw the signs so that was that's actually just
a resolution that they said they they did not approve it the council did not approve
that with that resolution they just said that they thought that it would go that it could
go in that site however I don't think the City Council was privy to the numbers I just
showed you before they did that I do have one other question I heard you all I heard
Julie I think say well go that there was another multifamily project just approved on Virgil's
site right down the street is that low-income too I think it's market rate that's market
rate yeah okay that's a different animal you know market rate is a different animal than
low-income housing and I I know we need low-income housing we are gonna get besieged with it
low-income housing we're gonna have a lot of developers coming forward with low-income
housing because the studies that are out right now that's why these guys are here they freely
admitted that to me the other day so you're gonna see a lot of it and you're gonna see
a lot I just don't want this or the next 30 projects to go in another one-mile segment
it just seems crazy to me well I appreciate you being here and speaking on behalf of your
group thank you and since I want first this time would I have a chance to have a rebuttal
depending on what the developer has to say well we don't want to go back and forth all
night but we might be able to find a question for you to bring you back down Thomas Crowe
and John so together you all have 20 minutes I'm happy if you want to split that however
you'll like tonight all right thank you good evening mr. chairman members of commission
city staff I'm John Cornelson president of evolving Texas 420 Throckmorton Fort Worth
Texas and we worked with the ped corps for some time now and this is the first time that
I've met Tom who is their executive vice president has been for 25 years and he flew down tonight
just for this meeting and this project is important to us we've worked extensively with
the staff for a long time on this you mentioned the resolution no objection which was passed
it was unanimous with one abstention because of an absence but that was approved as a necessary
first step this is the following step and so that's why you're here tonight to try
to get this approved I would just you know kind of would like to defend a little bit
about not having a neighborhood meeting through all of our conversations with city staff over
the course of this project it did come up a couple of times about you know typically
this is done and then I agree with that we'd have neighborhood meetings on many of our
projects personally I love them because it creates feedback and it shows engagement and
and it always results in a better project but in this particular case we looked at the
site as you mentioned we had the public hearing with the resolution no objection with no objection
we did put our signs up about a month ago November 5th heard nothing until the day before
your last hearing whenever we we found out we had opposition and so immediately you know
we scrambled the jets and said we have to take care of this fortunately we had a notice
error which caused us to be pulled from the last agenda and we said great let's have a
meeting and I just I appreciate the neighbors for all showing up I mean everyone showed
up people across the street in favor of us people against us and I felt like we had good
dialogue about the project and and you know as Kent mentioned really their main interest
to that point was to understand you know what was going on so you know after kind of that
meeting we kind of had a follow-up conversation with them and they basically said we really
think that you need to postpone this for a month because we would like to negotiate further
on some improvements and so we asked what those were and and and I would like to address
those since he didn't get to I'll go ahead and cover the ones that I know of and and
specifically we talked about traffic they're very concerned about traffic specifically
on Dutchess Lane and and we agree that a traffic signal is something that is wanted there with
the timeline of this project how it works you know residents won't be here until 2022
so there's time but as part of this project we are contributing a hundred and thirteen
thousand dollars to the traffic signal it's a four hundred thousand dollar traffic signal
we are contributing another I think it's three hundred and twenty thousand dollars of traffic
impact fees you know roadway impact fees to help to get that constructed I would like
to pass out one quick exhibit if I may because it's also I think helpful for another part
of the conversation.
So this is an exhibit that really shows the north end of our property as part of our initial
conversation with our neighbors there was consideration to move the entire project north
and they would like for us to shift it all the way north this hundred and seventy five
feet that you see because it's owned by the same you know property owner that we're buying
from but in fact that's not the case the little the small piece south of the jack in the box
is owned by our seller but the other property is as part of the larger tract to the north
of it so really shifting the entire project to the north was not an option however after
talking to them and understanding their concern for Dutchess and understanding the timing
of the traffic which I think if I'm not mistaken we still don't have an answer so when this
signal is going to happen what we would like to propose is that if we're approved we would
work with our seller who will give us permission to construct a temporary drive that will connect
over to these existing drives that you see here which will provide some relief this would
be an exit only and we want it to be temporary because it has to be gated and then later
on we'd rather just close that gate right and not have to have that kind of extra access
point but once the signal is in and perhaps it'll be in before we build which would be
ideal then we would not have to build it but we're willing to do that and I felt like this
is an opportunity that we're trying to say how can we you know contribute to the real
challenges that our neighbors see with this development I think the other concern we heard
was around fencing specifically at the southwest corner they're concerned about the visibility
of their project and didn't want us to put up a wood fence that might fall down over
time and we're putting up a wrought iron style aluminum fence you know powder coated and
also as you mentioned the landscaping and the park areas and so I think they were satisfied
with that so I'm thankful for that and then the last comment was really the biggest one
was to kind of change the style of the development they really didn't want multifamily along
Dutchess and you know my point on that is that if you can look at our overall site plan
we have one building that's within that 200 foot of Dutchess really because we have I
say 200 it's actually more like 160 feet the rest of it is open space grass trees dog park
going to be a detention pond and that sort of thing so in my opinion that creates a really
nice buffer to for people to have visibility visibility corridor and a great place to live
and work so that's our attempt to to really address their concerns and and I would suggest
you know they offered this morning they talked about us possibly extending again to negotiate
further and to work on something that would work if there's something concrete that they
could bring forward tonight I'd love to hear it we would we're willing I think we've proven
that to try to work with them to come up with a quality development but to to put out parcels
along 288 to put out parcels along Dutchess and then to put us in the back corner you
know at a project that's one-third the size is is kind of a deal-breaker for us it just
doesn't work I would like to point out one thing on the exhibit that you see in front
of you the with the idea of putting out parcels along loop 288 I think this has actually been
tried this project this actual property I think has been on the market for four years
and another person had it under contract and they tried to try to do that they tried to
do commercial up front and what you see is there's a 75 foot easement that is for overhead
power line there's a 20 inch sanitary sewer line and I think think a 20 inch water line
transmission line so those basically kill any type of traditional development you can
see the jack in the box which is had to deal with this and it's basically squished all
the way up again I think their dumpster is like right on the edge of that easement they're
accessing it from the back and they end up with a lot of concrete and not a lot of landscaping
as opposed to us which our proposed development will provide twice as much almost twice as
much landscaping as is required almost twice as much open space as is required in fact
I'd like to offer as a an additional condition that we would like for you to put on our project
with approval noticing in the presentation how we are not meeting the street tree requirement
under 2019 we would like to go ahead and offer to add those trees in and meet that requirement
so go from 39 to 56 and add 17 more you know at the end of the day you know I think that
whether these guys believe it or not Pedcor is a good neighbor I've worked with them for
years they are the number one developer of this type of product in the country and they
are not a developer that buys and flips it they operate it they own and operate 24,000
units so I think they're going to work to make this a successful project that'll stand
out for the city of Denton I'd like to turn it over to Tom to say a few closing words
I think Kent covered everything very well I'll say that I think our opposition noted
the apartment complex next to us Rosemont at Pecan Creek is a good development it's
been a good neighbor for a couple decades but then he went on to say that affordable
housing when concentrated isn't a good thing I have found through 24 years of experience
that these developments are no different than any market rate apartment complex what really
makes a difference is who's managing them Pedcor manages all these properties and will
continue to manage these properties and I would say the same thing about a market rate
community it doesn't make a difference whether it's market rate or tax credit these people
are an important part of our social fabric they work in the medical facilities their
entry level people coming out of schools this is a big university town there's lots of folks
that make incomes anywhere from 20 let's say to $57,000 that you know and you work with
every day so to put this connotation that they can't live harmoniously in a community
together is kind of a ridiculous comment in my opinion and I know that this isn't an affordable
housing question to begin with this is really a land use thing so I'll leave it at that
but we have been in business for over 30 years we do this across the country we're in it
for the long term that's what's important for us our financing requires that we're in
it for the long term many of you may know the tax credit program it basically requires
the developer to be with the development for the 18 years we also have a lot of investors
lenders we have the state housing authority that looks over our shoulders and they come
out and do annual audits every year to make sure that there's nothing out of whack physically
at the site or in the units themselves they also look at our files make sure that we're
renting to people that truly are in those income brackets and we're not allowing other
people into the units so there's tremendous oversight in this program much more than you
would find in any multi-family apartment community or frankly any single-family subdivision so
I'll leave it at that and answer any questions you might have I appreciate it thank you Commissioner
Smith thank you if you were to do this without the tax credits if this was not affordable
not an affordable living apartment complex it's just regular old market rate complex
would it be a feasible project not at these rents that the trade-off is we reduce our
rents down from market rate rents by hundreds of dollars and let's say you just the rent
you just the rent to affect the fact that it's not you're not getting tax rates right
because basically you're saying is the tax rates are what you're then passing on savings
to the renters the less ease because you're you're not having to pay as much why would
they have to pay as much and that's the purpose of the affordable housing you adjust the rents
is there anything you just engineering wise about the current project right now to make
it more feasible if this were a market rate project rather than affordable housing project
if I was doing an affordable housing a project I might have nicer countertops nicer cabinets
I would spend more money if I was trying to hit that part of the market rate apartment
complex let's say an a a type building if I was trying to do a B I would say that I
wouldn't change anything I would grade our apartment somewhere around a B plus okay thank
you I don't see any other questions I do have a yes sir I just want to add one thing and
I meant to say this earlier but I just want to appreciate staff for all their work there's
been a lot going on with staff and even Julie stepping in for Karina when she was gone suddenly
with her baby but it's just want to say that I appreciate staff working so well with us
over the past almost year so thank you guys this is public hearing anyone wishing to speak
may certainly do so seeing none I'll close the public hearing but I do have a question
Mr. Key if you could come back down trying to drive at the the heart of the opposition
I think you're articulating and saying the primary reason but also some secondary reasons
if this is a market rate apartment complex what changes in your estimation about your
disposition to the project well I think he misstated my position a little bit he said
that I didn't want I wanted commercial on Dutchess that's not correct I think that I think commercial
should be on loop 288 and on Dutchess so that's that's where I would differ with him the seventy
foot high line that goes through there is a workaround I mean we work around that stuff
all the time you all know where heritage car wash is on that operated for 20 years had
a 70 foot easement right through the middle of it and I'm ventured to say none of you
even knew it so it can be any any of that can be worked around for commercial work so
I'm not I can buy that front and I guarantee you I can market it and I can fill it up but
what I would rather see I don't care if it's income assisted housing which I don't I mean
it's a lower end product obviously and I know he said it was a B minus I would say maybe
it's more like a C to a D as compared to a market rent higher end product they don't
have the money they don't have the money to be able to do that so but that's where the
money comes in is from this federal subsidy from them the tax credits are what the whole
deal is about obviously they can't do the project without the tax credits it doesn't
make sense it's not a marketable deal they can't pay the money that they're paying for
that side without the tax credits they have to have it because it's upfront money that
they get so that's a real that's a real thing but I'm about how the city develops not just
about how my land develops over there I'm about how the city develops and the better
look for the city I think we all agree that razor ranch is coming along nicely that's
a much nicer area out there we had that years ago on loop 288 going through there and now
that loop 288 has expanded we have the opportunity to be able to take that type of development
through there and if we stack apartments in there luxury or no not or not apart are not
luxury apartments subsidized housing I don't see that being a as a desirable area as the
razor ranch area that we're looking at right now but we have the opportunity to make it
that way and I just say I would ask you guys to seize that opportunity because sir back
you have a question actually was a following from your your question chair and and that
is if a market rate apartment complex were to go in there would you have objection to
a market rate apartment complex going into that lot on the on 288 or that's a 15 acre
side so retail cannot go on 15 acres so it's going to have to have some component of housing
on there you know market rate housing subsidized housing it could be either one in the back
of it I'm opposed to it being the whole 15 acres and now then if they move it to that
side it would be more like 17 18 acres the proposals that they had asked us for and they
did there I mean these guys are good to work with and I think I've said pedcor is a good
company they are a very good company we know that I researched them they're good I just
think it's the wrong piece of land for our city and that's my opinion it's my partner's
opinion and you can take it for that we'll find out what your opinion is here in a minute
thank you sure I think I have a question for Cynthia can you can you enlighten us on the
resolution I know it speaks to approximately this area and I know it speaks to no objection
of the project and I know I know it doesn't speak to the SUP per se or density or anything
like that but could you explain what it actually does speak to please certainly what that what
the resolution does is say that the city doesn't object to the application for the tax credits
I got a question for the applicant if I may is there anything prohibiting from your application
to receive incentives having some sort of retail lower first floor we have some apartments
in town that have like first floor like retail components is maybe I'm speaking out of turn
or maybe it's certainly from a position of ignorance but is that something you can consider
or we can't claim credits on that first floor that so it would render the apartment complex
and feasible again okay that makes sense thank you well there's no other questions or anyone
wanting to discuss so the chair only say entertain a motion at this this point and we can from
there discuss and progress this along Commissioner Beck motion to approve we have a motion to
approve on the floor Christian Pernetta would that motion include the amendment to meet
the tree requirements that were bought up by the kisser back yeah I'm really glad you
brought that up I was not sure I meant to ask chair this earlier so I'm glad you brought
that up what can can we approve the motion with the offering of the applicant or must
we approve the written one no no you can you can make a motion to approve with the addition
of the 17 trees then then I would like to amend my motion to approve with the addition
of the additional trees okay and and sass recommendations yes and stuff recommendations
great we have a first Mr. Pernetta I'll second enthusiastically he says we have a first and
a second for approval is there any discussion on the matter
so because it was twenty nine percent this will require super majority vote yeah yes
Christian Smith I personally it's gonna be hard for me to vote for this project I think
it's a I think I think affordable housing is an important thing that we needed to have
in the city I spent time I was in the leadership didn't focusing on the affordable housing
issue we have in the city I've also because I've done a lot of research on this I've seen
a lot of research that's had to do with concentration of affordable housing in areas and the reason
why in the 60s 70s and 80s we had we had bad parts of town we had projects with things
that caused economic depressive areas and I'm afraid of seeing that area go that way even
though services like served in or right down the road from there and that would that would
meet that need it's it's hard for me to impact one area of the city that much and so on top
of that just it it seems like this has been more of a discussion of what is the most economically
feasible thing for us to do to build a cheap product with the least with the least amount
of cost in because our tax credits I just don't feel good about it don't feel good about the
project in general so I think it's gonna be a no for me we have a first and a second for
approval of this project I don't see anyone else wishing to discuss we'll take a vote
on the board. Motion fails four three the chair will entertain another motion. Commissioner
Smith make a motion to deny. We have a motion on the table to deny. Commissioner Cole. Second
we have a first and a second for denial is there any discussion
just to clarify with staff on this motion to deny if it passes which I'm gonna read the tea
leaves here the applicant can still proceed to counsel with the exact same super majority
requirement yes so whether we approve it or deny it they would have the option to go to counsel
and get a super majority vote correct correct if they decided not to go to counsel they would
have to bring a project back that is substantially different within a year or they have to wait a
year or they have they have the option to bring back a substantially different project if what
happens if they choose not to go to counsel the substantial change provision doesn't come in
unless it goes to counsel and is denied if I'm thinking of that correctly so they could come
back with a change to the project which I I think if if they elected not to go to counsel they
probably would if they came back would have a change to it it would just come back like a
a new just a new project would be a notification so it would be kind of a time time limit on that
no no time limit okay thank you for that clarification we have a first and a second
for denial is there any discussion seeing none I'll call for a vote on the board
and again as a reminder a vote yes is a vote to deny
the motion to deny carries four to three
the next item of business is item 5f dca 19-23 I will
invite Julie Wyeth for presentation and open the public hearing
all right
let me find my presentation
didn't make it on the desktop
here we go
all right so this is dca 19-3 offices in r7 so this is a proposed text amendment to the 2019
that the newly adopted dent development code regarding specifically to amend sub chapter
5 regarding the table of allowed uses and also the use but specific standards
related to administrative professional and government offices and also medical offices in
the r7 district this is a staff initiated code amendment to a remedy the creation of non-conforming
uses and structures with the adoption of the 2019 ddc and as we talked about with the with
the adoption of the 2019 ddc and creating that document it was a very large complex document
we knew there were going to be some tweaks that we would need to move forward this is one of those
tweaks that that we're moving forward with so just to give you a little bit of background
part of the part of the intent of the the new code was to sort of simplify some of our zoning
district to compress some of our of our zoning districts that were in the 2002 code to kind of
streamline the code as part of that dd the 2019 ddc removed dr1 downtown residential one and also
nrmu 12 in favor of the mn district the mn district was is is our mixed use neighborhood district it
permits a variety of commercial as well as higher density residential uses and it's a really good
district near our neighborhood areas but as we were implementing and as we were looking at the map
as we were transitioning those zoning districts we realized that there was kind of a missing piece
to our zoning districts and that was sort of a a a not purely residential zoning district a zoning
district that would allow some mix of densities and some some small scale commercial uses that
were really limited to kind of bridge that gap between our purely residential districts
and the more intense mn district so that's how r7 was born r7 was created to create that transition
not quite residential not quite fully mixed use kind of in those areas that are more maybe
infill or kind of that transitional context you know we want to provide that mix of residential
and also the low impact commercial uses within close proximity to neighborhoods we want to make
sure that we we're creating walkable spaces so things like day-to-day services or maybe
some office uses are appropriate near residential areas provided that they're that that low impact
and and as long as they're developed in a scale that is in harmony with those residential areas
the transition table transitioned that nrmu 12 and the dr1 to r7 because those were the districts
that were most closely aligned but there were some some areas where where it didn't quite align and
have created some issues and in two of those areas are administrative professional and government
offices and medical offices so just to give you some of the broad guidelines of what those are
administrative offices are essentially office buildings it might be something like a real estate
office or an insurance office or travel agency a law office something like that and then medical
offices we had a code amendment a few years ago to introduce medical offices to make sure we were
really clear on what a medical office was and it really is your your pediatrician your dentist your
general practitioner kind of those just just your doctor's offices it's not it's not a clinic or a
hospital it's it's a place where you make an appointment and go visit the doctor
um so i want to go over the comparison of how 2002 treated those two uses and how our 2019 code
treated those two uses and specifically regarding the nrmu 12 the dr1 and then the r7 districts
so for the the administrative and professional offices in nrmu 12 it was permitted by right but
he couldn't be more than 12 or 10 000 square feet of gross floor area in dr1 it wasn't permitted
r7 only permits it with a specific use permit and it can't be more than 10 000 square feet of gross
floor area so it really does limit it what it was permitted back in in in 2002 for medical offices
they were it was consistent with what the professional offices was it was permitted but
no more than 10 000 square foot limitation it wasn't permitted in dr1 it is not permitted in
r7 and the result of that has been some issues with the implement implementation of the code
we have some existing medical office and professional office uses by our by our land use
analysis about 54 parcels that were made either non-conforming and would have to follow the
non-conforming standards when it comes to medical offices or for those professional offices that now
require an sup if they wanted to to kind of modernize and and and and rebuild a facility
they they would have to get an sup so it would have to be an additional approval
and and these are uses that have in some places been been there and operational and and good
neighbors for for decades so and now they're now they're rendered non-conforming it was not staff's
intention to make these uses non-conforming or to limit their ability to modernize their facilities
so what we're proposing is a text amendment to address this issue but we want to address it in a
responsible way and so we're proposing to to permit professional offices in r7 with use specific
standards those are going to require a revision if approved to to the existing use specific standards
to remove r7 from the provision that administrative professional and government office uses shall not
exceed 10 000 square feet per lot we would keep that in place for zoning districts r3 to r6
but then when you get to r7 we're proposing the following use specific standard that anything
greater any use greater than 10 000 square feet would require a specific use permit unless it was
located in arterial because those are the places that you typically see commercial development
someplace like teasley lane or loop 288 so that is our proposed language for the professional
offices and we're really proposing to do the same thing for medical office to go ahead and permit
that in r7 but once again provide that use specific standard we want to make sure there's guard rails
we don't want 20 000 square foot uses within neighborhoods we want to make sure that there
there is limitation to that and really that is more that is consistent with what was what was
really permitted in 2002 so um so we had findings regarding that so you know r7 is kind of a distinct
district and that it really could fit under a lot of future land use designations so you know our
our comprehensive plan has these these overarching future land use designations things like business
innovation or moderate density residential or community mixed use and depending on the context
of any of that of any of those places r7 could kind of fit within that so so to allow this code
amendment to allow what is really a low impact use into r7 makes sense in terms of a comp plan
the proposal would allow for more vibrant development but we want to once again make
sure those constraints are there to ensure compatibility that's why we're proposing the
sup for larger facilities we also felt like and and this came to our attention recently because we
we've heard we heard from from one property owner in particular and then we did our analysis and
realized it really affected a lot more um that you know how do how do we address this because
you know one way could have just been say well just rezone to mn but we were we were concerned
about that especially given the number of properties that you know by rezoning to mn and
the intensity that mn has may not be appropriate in all places it could introduce additional uses
or development scale that really wouldn't be compatible so we felt like this approach
would be the most um uh surgical and targeted and and um and uh um conservative to just because
office uses are really typically low impact you know they're they're often that nine to five during
the week you don't get a whole lot of you know it's not like a 7-eleven where people are coming and
going all the time but this would be the most limited approach and it really is more consistent
with that 2002 code this map shows that r7 that is that is with that is near arterials and you can
see really r7 is often found near arterials anyway because it does it is consistent with those previous
zoning designations of nrmu 12 and then that dr1 so based upon our findings staff recommends approval
of the text amendment and i'll stand for any questions thank you julie we do have a couple
questions commissioner beck thank you chair uh julie so i have two questions one uh and this is
i'm sure just a trivial answer but i assume this includes veterinary practices because i'm i'm only
asking because it's there's sort of an agricultural role to veterinary let me let me get my code hold
on okay and i was just curious because they often need green space and property that dentists and
other professional buildings don't need i anticipated you would ask about like hair salons
didn't anticipate veterinary so let me look i can't and i love your surgical pun by the way
veterinary veterinary is a separate use and it is not permitted in r7
and this code amendment would not change that
this is probably beyond the pale but is there a reason why it's so distinct is it the agriculturally
sort of use of veterinary you know i could i i could see that there could be different impacts
with veterinary there you know one could there could be variations within the veterinary world
where it could just be dogs and cats but it also could go to maybe more animal large animals so
that might be why that's a distinction in the code okay and my second question actually probably
goes to either richard or cynthia and and are we not actually just essentially requesting a
a special district the way we said we couldn't do for gas wells at trying to cover commissioner
roselle's amendment several votes ago we said we didn't want to do things like that
because we didn't want to create new restrictions new zones all the time that the city was against
creating special uses like that and this feels very similar to creating a a medical professional
special case and and you know if there's a distinction i i would like to understand that
distinction just so i can clarify you're suggesting this is comparable to the creation of new non
conformities of the gas we're discussing taking properties out of non-conformities and making
them conforming which is at least some of the desire of previous votes and it feels at least
we're overlapping some of that intent so if we can do that here why can't we do that with other uses
well if i understand it correctly the non-conformity wasn't a matter of land use that was a
a blanket any land use there this is specific to a land use item yeah i think there's the
distinction is there's a non-conformity for a use non-conformity for a a setback so that the
difference here is um it's a it's a measurable standard essentially you can get a variance
a variance on um you can't get a use variance
so the cure the cure the cure for this if they would have to be a a rezoning we had issues with
supporting a rezoning in these instances because if it went to mn it could easily without having
to do a pd it introduces a whole number of uses um including multifamily by right if it goes a
suburban corridor there's a number of other um well it might be appropriate in some areas
abutting right up against single family it may not and so that's where we looked at
really tailoring this more on a use perspective as opposed to a cure that might be from a
a non-conformity resulting as a setback with respect to a building or or some other site
feature if that makes sense if i'm understanding the question correctly
i think before i respond i'm probably gonna have to think and bring this up maybe at future
discussions about future items that might come up so i think i'll just leave it there for now
commissioner alice thank you chair julie with regard to um we talk about if it's greater than
10 000 it needs an sup unless it's located on an arterial or what do you have yeah on the mobility
plan so that is whether or not the road is complete or not correct correct so are we not
possibly setting ourselves up for an issue you know how long roads take to come into play
do we need to leave the sup in there to possibly safeguard something if the arterial is not there
yet i'm i'm throwing that out there i don't know if that was considered because we have a lot of
arterials that are incomplete you know we felt just like because offices really are one of the
lower impact uses that we have within the in the code um maybe for something like retail you know
for instance in r7 a retail requires an sup and in that instance i can see that that is that's an
appropriate um that's appropriate to keep in place but but because the nature of offices we really
didn't have any concern about it and that's not my concern either it's just the size because
effectively you're saying anything any size could go in there if it's on an arterial that's that's
what that reads yes so for me the concern is more on putting a massive development before an
infrastructure you know the roads there and then if we don't require an sup are we setting ourselves
up for some issues that we have no control over i don't know it's not so it's not the use i have
an issue with okay zone at all it's just giving the blanket you can build 20,000 square foot office
if whether the roads there are not as long as it's on the future mobility plan as an arterial
so that's that's why i'm bringing it up as a concern just didn't know if it was floated around
staff at all yeah and i think when we did that and maybe if the map if we go back to the map helps
there weren't that many parcels that of r7 that were on that were on arterials um probably the
majority were on maybe this is a bad example easily 12 to how many did you say it's 112 to
1000 112 properties of r7 are within 100 feet of arterial and there's a thousand other r7 properties
am i reading that correctly yes yes so 10 percent we don't know how many of the 112s are
developed or not developed you know a lot of them are developed because of the nature of r7 it's
often found in sort of our urban core um so you know when i when i when i you know reviewed the
map and and and looked at that zoning district specifically a lot of it is developed within
within the city um you know there are the one that was brought to our attention
because teasley is being expanded you know there's right of way um that is um being that right of way
is being expanded and so it's it's creating a situation where they're having to redevelop
the site and so you know there are there are potential where redevelopment would happen
on those arterials that are that are currently under construction as well
christopher neta yeah i just want to make sure i understand uh what's allowed in r7 right now so
so right now for r7 any commercial requires an sup right and we're simply adding in uh you know
medical use to those that are allowed with an sup it's a variety i would say r7 is not a commercial
heavy district right so um for instance daycares are permitted by right which makes sense in r7
but general retail requires the sup so if you want to put a 7-eleven in r7 you'd have to get an sup
so yes this proposal would just just um move forward for those those offices in the medical
offices to allow them by right with those you specific standards is this kind of low impact
like so like a bank or a real estate office or something like that it wouldn't even be a bank
a bank is a separate use a bank often has a maybe a drive-through so that might be something you
want to think about limiting in that area so that is actually a separate use all right thank you
christopher back yeah so thank thank you for bringing that up commissioner prunetta um is
are these standalone commercial uses or we are talking about strip centers at the edge of
development or what are we allowing by saying that we can just do this now i mean if i if i have
seven things in a row i can have four doctors and three lawyers and i mean all right i guess i'm
trying to understand what are the ramifications of the blanket allowance on an arterial or on
if we vote yes okay so within um you know if it's not an arterial as proposed anything over
10 000 square feet would require a specific use permit so it would require additional scrutiny
it would have to come here would have to get approval from council um if it was pulled out
to the to the um to an arterial so someplace like on the loop or teesley it would be permitted if
r7 is adjacent to it um by right provided that it meets all buffers that it has to meet all
landscaping you know all the site design requirements so i don't know how each of them
would look it really is this is just in terms of that use and then we have development standards
associated with r7 so um for example um i made a note of it so i could so in r7 um the maximum
lot coverage or the maximum building coverage is 65 so that keeps that keeps it small because the
building has to be can only be 65 of that lot and then the maximum building height would be 40 feet
so the development standards are also in place those dimensional requirements to make sure that
the scale is compatible with the with the surrounding development okay thank you julie
commissioner panetta yeah and i just want to clarify so so right now we're trying to remedy
the fact that uh you know our our updates have rendered a number of existing properties non-conforming
right correct do they already have sups in place or the sup wasn't a requirement so for for
professional offices the sup wasn't requirement pre wasn't required previously it was just permitted
by right um and then medical offices were permitted so now those aren't permitted at all so so yes no
they don't have the sup okay and and by doing this are we going to require them to apply for
an sup or by right because they already existed um we would apply you know we would technically
kind of grandfather them in well the dentin development code speaks to that if if a use
that was permitted that was in place and legally existing prior to the adoption of the 2000 or 2019
dentin development code that net the use now requires an sup they're not considered non-conforming
but if if something happened to their property where they wanted to tear it down and build a
new modern facility if if if the adjacent road expanded they would at that point they would have
to get an sup in order to to build an office that had been there previously okay thank you
chrissie alice thank you chair so just a little more clarity on the it says use is greater than
10 000 so that's the the whole development so if we have five doctors they would in a complex
10 000 total on a lot on a lot if they're if it's like a connected but divided building
yes right correct now they could come in and separately probably own and then that
would be different they would have to be 10 000 a piece they would have to meet all access
requirements and and plot and lot widths and sizes okay i did not see any other questions
one acre would a one acre site would be on about a 25 to 28 oh thank you
like with your with the limitations of the just with the code yeah
uh this is a public hearing uh i i have uh two cards uh for for you pam are you wishing to speak
are you going to read in the record as as support or are you are you wishing to speak
sure come on down well both cards cover that so we're okay
if you could just state your name and address you'll have four minutes to speak
pam rudley and my husband and i and our kids have rules family limited which owns the property a
property on teesley 3490 teesley um our property we have lost the first 25 feet of our frontage
because of the utility easements and the state taking over some of our property
so now our dental office our patients are laying down and their feet are going to be 20 feet from
the front of the road so that's really dangerous and we have already had probably eight cars go
off the road and into the neighbor across the street and i don't want them coming into our
building we can't get up and run fast because we're laying down so it's just not safe for us to be
there we already had engineering done the architecture done to build a new office
in our 1.75 acres that we have um we are just north of teesley trail the property you were
talking about earlier and um we we have a long skinny 1.75 acres so we would like to build a new
office in the middle of that piece of property further back from the road and then build a
second office back behind that as well they're very residential and nature looking um they are
we have been working on this for two years and already had everything all ready to go and then
all of this changed so we've already 100 grand into engineering and architecture
we just want a safer place for our patients a little bit further back
and it's because the city's taken and city and state have taken over the frontage of our property
so it's just not safe for us to be there once that new road is finished um and as we understood it
when we met with julie and our engineer in this replanting that came effective october one there
now is no longer a place for medical and dental offices you all completely left us out of your
plan so i assume you still want a dentist to go to and a physician to go to so you need to tweak
your plan a little bit so that you can still go to the doctor and the dentist so we're just asking
you to make sure you include us we are on a main road we just want a safer location for our patients
and for our staff um ours is under the 10 000 square feet of business property it is also
combination residential which is what we were zoned in our mu 12 we have apartments on the
second floor um so i just want to make sure that you include doctors and dentists and we would like
to have a safe space to take care of our people thank you thank you this is public hearing anyone
else wishing to speak i don't see anyone here i may certainly do some seeing none i'll close the
public hearing commissioner smith make a motion to approve we have a first for approval commissioner
pernetta second we have a first and a second for approval um i have a discussion point i think
commissioner alice brings up a valid point it's not very many properties but i could envision
a a world in which someone could find our mobility plan an arterial that's like a two-lane
junkie road and go and build a massive office not maybe that's not in their best interest to do that
because they wouldn't be able to get cars there but it is odd that if they're on a primary or
secondary arterial they get free reign and so i'm wondering maybe this is back to the commissioner
smith we can just take my recommendation would be take that after the the uh comma out that
anything over 10 000 square feet requires an sqp uh without the condition that they're free to do
whatever they want with if it's on an arterial or if it's a planned arterial accept the front line
a minute commissioner pernetta would you accept that as well as second second yes
thank you for the consideration is there any discussion on that
is the motion cleared everyone
could chair restate the the the syntax please yeah let me pull up the language or
mr smith whoever is appropriate uh that can get quicker
so so my recommendation oh you have it yeah i have it okay um i'm gonna make a motion to approve uh
that this uh this amendment be changed uh but scratching out uses greater than saying that's
gonna say uses greater than 10 000 square feet require a specific use permit pursuant to sub
section 2.5 to 0.2 specific use permit and then i'm striking out the comma unless located on
an arterial roadway as designated by the city's mobility plan i i will uh i want to make a motion
to accept this change with everything before the comma is that clear christopher thank you
that's thank you mr smith yes uh everything would require an sup right commissioner alice
thank you i just was wanting richard's two cents is that does that make sense i mean effectively
we're just anything over 10 000 square feet would require right yeah whether yeah i just wanted to
confirm i know they had some play i just wanted to see so if she was aware if the if the sqp if
they were going to be required to have an sqp but i think they their plan is under 10 000 square feet
i just wanted to make sure she understood the commercial is under 10 000 square feet but if
you add in the residential it's more than oh he tried to pick that up
so does that mean just the commercial under 10
yeah it would just be the office perfect i think you're good mr chair we didn't have that under
the microphone so so the resident was was uh explaining that her property is the commercial
portion is under 10 000 but she has a residential component that would push it above 10 000
city staff's confirming that that would not require an sqp uh because the 10 000 only applies to the
commercial portion of the property thank you chair we have a first and a second for approval
any other discussion scene nine i'll call for a vote on the board
motion carries seven zero the next item and final item for this evening is item six a the matrix i
will turn uh the floor over to richard and then uh we'll have questions
just a just a quick update i know we had on here um discussion on city initiated rezoning
just given the amount of agenda items obviously we didn't hear that um but we will look to bring
that back uh in in january again plan accordingly along around the um the two mpcs i imagine
we'll probably have an earlier start as well when we bring those um actual amendments forward
when we have the full um thousand pages of of associated text with that
with respect to the i still have we're still waiting to hear back from from on that on that
black substation so as soon as i find that out i'll just send an email around um and then on
mockingbird uh still working with with engineering currently right now there are no plans um for
mockingbird um but that's not to say there there won't be so i think it's just something that that
we're monitoring um but again we're trying what we're trying to do is create a a map i think i
mentioned this before um so that when projects are brought forward we can start to identify all of
the um capital projects there's there's the data now that shows what's what's kind of currently
underway but what we're trying to do that now is provide that so we can start to forecast and see
what's planned in the net in those five-year horizons and then tie that into these projects
so as it comes forward if it is an r7 on an arterial and it's only two lanes but yet we know
there's a cip project funded and they're start going to start construction in two years
those are things we want to be able to start to have um as as we bring these projects forward
that was all i had commissioner smith thank you chair um one thing i was brought up and we're
talking a lot about that that's easily project out there tonight uh in regards to tis and t and the
traffic going through and taking into account projects that are already currently existing
and making sure they're counting those approved homes but not constructed homes into those numbers
is that can we get any information if the isds are doing the same thing as well
because one thing that it's also being brought up there is that if we're seeing you know apartment
complex and and phil happening along ryan or and whatever the next ryan's going to be in the next
10 years do we does the does the isd keep a running tally of of approved but not constructed so they
can give effective numbers for how many students are going to be added to that school in that area
just because that could be an issue where stuff like ryan blows up and they say by project yeah
this is fine it's going to add this amount of students and just this project alone is good
but when compounded with five other projects that have improved in the last 18 months
it could not be good and i'd hate to have it where four years from now three years from now
they're adding i'm just talking about even looking at just the that that ryan area the
projects we've approved we've probably added 500 elementary students in that area
does the isd know that yeah well i'll confirm it my understanding just going back to that presentation
we had maybe a year was a while back um i didn't remember anything specifically from that
presentation that made me think that they were keeping a running tally of approved but not
constructed units i believe they do i just don't know how they calculate it how they plan as to
when it's gonna i mean right because if the plaque gets approved obviously it takes some time to
build a build a school um homes can it varies but we'll get that answer okay yeah we don't need a
work session presentation but more just an answer just what do they do if it's a yes they keep tally
cool i trust them on that then thank you chris charles thank you chair richard i don't want to
forget about um charlie's presentation that we didn't get so can you make sure that that gets
thank you and um any updates with regard to city council vote that we need to be privy to
sorry i know it's late
i don't know that we had any items i'm drawing a blank that we've had any items since the last
there there were some items that we had that we that didn't move forward because we had they were
pulled or or they were the items we heard tonight that we renoticed but i don't believe that we had
taken anything um since the last meeting and i know there's the reconsideration do you know when
that's happening um probably in in the 28th of january okay that's the plan i know we there was
a discussion about it um the first meeting in january but yet there we had also concern with
sending out the notices for that over the holiday and getting misplaced um so right now the plan is
to have that um on for the 28th okay thank you chris you're back uh thank you chair this this
falls directly off commissioner ellis's question and and that is are we going to see that come back
before us no that that just goes back to uh anytime there's a reconsideration um it essentially
starts it over at at council it doesn't start it all the way back at at p&z um what it does is it
just reconsiders the council vote okay thank you seeing no other questions or additions to add to
the matrix i will call this meeting to a close at 10 36 thank you