Dec 17, 2019 City Council on 2019-12-17 12:00 PM (AMENDED 12-13-2019)

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Dent City Council on Tuesday, December 17, 2019. It is 12.03 p.m. Moving down through our work session agenda items, our first agenda item is citizen comments on consent agenda items. We do have one citizen wishing to comment. Eric Pruitt is commenting on consent agenda item 3L. If you'll come to the podium and state your name and your address, your time will begin. Is it three minutes or four minutes? Four minutes. Yes. Eric Pruitt, 2111 Westwood Drive. Back in the 1800s, our greatest problem were these great fires that every city was having. That was the largest public health threat. Cities are still on fire, but it's not the red stuff that's burning cities down today. We're not burning down neighborhoods. It's not city blocks. It's one single structure at a time. These are the actual risk factors that the fire chief or public officials should be focusing on. Poor walkability, lack of access to healthcare, lack of access to parks, lack of access to healthy foods. These are the things driving all the public health issues which also correlate to our fire risk. Those were not my words, but quotes from Portland Fire Chief Mike Myers describing their reasoning for moving to smaller fire trucks. He continues, "About 20% of our calls are fire and rescue work. The other 80% is medical. We've got to disrupt the size and the configuration of the fire apparatus, so we sit down block by block with street planners and the fire bureau and design the street out together. We've done that in Portland for quite some time, and we have not had any reduction in response times." What could Denton do? In 2017, there were almost 11 traffic fatalities for every fire fatality and over 187 traffic injuries for every fire-related injury. The trade-off that we have is not safety versus the cost of our trucks. It's the capability difference between large and slightly smaller trucks versus any increased safety and economic vibrancy possible with more flexible street designs. Compared to other Pierce Velocity pumpers with less than 750 gallons of carrying capacity, only one of the 38 delivered this year that were listed on the Pierce website has a longer wheelbase than this particular Denton truck that we're considering, including Texas cities such as McKinney, the Woodlands, and Dallas. Round Rock and Klein, Texas managed to have a wheelbase more than two feet shorter, even with a 750-gallon tank. Pierce Marketing Materials states, "The first question we ask is what do you need, a short body for tight turning in the city, a medium body to accommodate extra gear, a long body to haul a lot of water in the country? You specify, we deliver." This pumper is scheduled to be at Fire Station 3, near a densely populated area of UNT, with many people walking and riding bikes. But let's not be rash. An effort like this must be a unified, long-term strategy. My knowledge of fire is limited to camping. So I have no idea how many pikes and saws you need to carry, or what the optimal truck for Denton would be. But let's ask the question. Would a more maneuverable fire apparatus fleet help our planning and engineering departments design streets and criteria manuals to better support walkable, financially productive neighborhoods? Would our excellent fire department accomplish their tasks while transitioning over time to a more maneuverable fleet? I hope you consider these questions as you go forward, not only today, but into the longer term future. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Appreciate it. All right. We'll go on to our request for clarifications of agenda items. Yes, Council Member Briggs. So I have several, but hopefully really quick questions. So item D on the service agreement amendment, I'm just curious how these are initially paid for. Do they come out of rates? Because it says they'll eventually be recovered by T COAS, but I'm just wondering with a contract like this, how that's paid for initially. Yeah, all of our projects, we utilize capital improvement bond funds to get our projects moving forward, and then we do receive the T COAS reimbursement for the services required to build the projects. So they're in the actual budget each year. Okay. And then once those funds come in, they go to pay those bonds? Right. The bonds utilized to fund that. Okay. All right. Thank you. So item E, I believe that might be Danny, for the reconstruction using the Home Improvement Program. So I'm really excited to see this program being used. This is pretty exciting, but I'm wondering after the 519,000, what's left? Is there a certain limit to work with, and is there a percentage left, or is this amount significant for this program? Yes, but it's also older funding, so we still have a balance available for additional home improvement projects. In fact, we have three that we're trying to qualify right now, so we'll be able to additional. We're probably going to do about seven this year. Okay. Awesome. Thank you very much. You might need to be up there for J and K? Yes. Okay. So for J and K, I have the same questions. What kind of data and records will get back to the council, and how frequently, and does all the 60,000 go to rehousing, or is part of the funding going toward the administration of the project? For the rapid rehousing funding that was allocated, the $100,000, all of it will be going to rental assistance, whatever that takes. So it may be rental, it may be application fees or deposits as well, but it will be 100% towards direct assistance. Towards the issue? Okay. So will the data and the records that we get from that come back to council, will we be able to see? Yeah. Whatever frequency you like, we will collect it monthly as they request reimbursement. So we certainly do reporting regularly to our committees and to our other constituents. So if you'd like to be included, we can add that to Friday reports or something. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you. That's all for you. Okay. Thank you. And on L for the fire truck? I just had one follow-up. Oh, yes. And on the rebuilds, I'm looking at the actual, I'm trying to find, because I couldn't find it when I looked at it the first time, the square footage of these? They'll be 1,200 square feet for two of them and 1,300 square feet for the four-bedroom. So there's two, three bedrooms and a larger family in a four-bedroom. Okay. All right. Good deal. All right. Thank you. Sure. Thanks. So I would just like to have the chief come up, because I know we all received emails about the fire truck and would just like for you to respond to some questions that you've heard earlier on the sizes of the fire trucks. Okay. Kenneth Hedges, fire chief. Some of the information, obviously, I still knew, I just heard it right now as far as some of his comparisons. It's funny, I actually have attended classes with Chief Myers of Portland, who's now retired and worked with a colleague in Portland. He's right. Each jurisdiction designs from ground up their own fire vehicle. We're using here in Denton's, what we feel is a best fit for our city as well. One of the things I want to point out is the safety of our firefighters. Our pumpers are laid out where the pump panel for the operator is in the center. So that person can see on both sides of the vehicle. If you have hose lines off the driver's side, off the passenger side, that person's up there operating and controlling the water flow. I know Portland, they do not have that. They have them on the side, which does condense the unit. You can make them smaller. There's options out there. We have not had issues really with streets and with, there's a few areas, obviously. It's an older city as well. But at any point, we can make adjustments, but we're really trying to standardize our fleet. So what this vehicle is right here, identically matches seven other of our current engines out there. So if an employee goes up to one through seven engines, opens a compartment, they know exactly what's in that compartment. It's all about standardization. And so for station three, is there a smaller truck there now? No, it's exactly the same size. It's an older vehicle. It's just an older? Correct. Okay, so it wouldn't be anything new that you're learning about traveling through the streets around station three with a larger truck? Within a few inches of sizing, it's a newer model, just like anything with vehicles. We keep them 10 years front line, two or three years in reserve, so you're 15-year-old vehicles and you're redesigning every time. Okay. All right. I don't want to get into it because I know this is not a presentation, but I appreciate it. We'll have some more questions later. There's numerous operational facts that go into this, and the email I'll send as well. So it's a group effort on how we design these, and it's really specific for the tools we carry. Some departments do not carry EMS supplies on their units, the amount of EMS supplies. All our engines are ALS, so Advanced Life Support, capable. So each engine has paramedics and equipment can treat a patient on the EMS side, exact like an ambulance, with exception it cannot transport. Some departments don't do that. So we're talking, I mean, all the way from apples to oranges. It's a huge comparison. Okay. Thank you so much. One more. Okay. I was just seeing if anyone else had a question. Last one is P, item P, the right-of-way construction ordinance. Is this the one? Yes, ma'am. So I'm just, I'm curious because I know we had several presentations on it just about the construction. Yes. And we approved one part of it, but I remember when there was a resident saying before our bond they were saying that in our old ordinance it said somewhere that the resident was responsible for maintaining and replacing the sidewalk. Is this what that is? No. This is purely the fees that were tied to the ordinance that council just passed, so this just codifies it in the ordinance as those fees specifically, has nothing to do with that issue. Okay. Will that issue come back to us? Most likely it will. Okay. When it comes to the use of the right-of-way. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Anybody else? Council Member Davis. Just need to pull item O for recusal, please. Okay. Anybody else? Seeing none, we'll move forward on our agenda to agenda items for agenda item 3, 3A. Receive report. The whole discussion gets to after action regarding the development of the Hunter Cole Ranch Master Plan Community in southwest Edton. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the council. My name is Ethan Cox. I'm the Director of Public Works. Much like we had on December the 3rd, we have a multi-pronged presentation for you this afternoon and I drew the short straw so I get to be the master of ceremonies, so it's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. So to start out, I do want to just kind of remind everyone of the development that we're talking about. None of these points up here on the slide have really changed, but I do want to remind council the reason why we're having these discussions is trying to prepare the council to consider a consent resolution. As you'll recall, in the summer, the state passed legislation basically enabling the creation of the two improvement districts for Hunter Cole Ranch. In order for those districts to actually take effect and be activated, it does require a consent resolution being passed by council as well as two separate agreements, one being an operating agreement, the one being a project agreement. And so we'll dive into those just briefly today, but really for today's discussion, you're going to have a couple of speakers, including myself, at the podium. First item of business is going to be following up on the questions that were posed during the MPC amendments and land use presentation that we provided on the 3rd. Mr. Richard Canone will be handling that. He's our Deputy Director of Development Services. There are also some questions about municipal management districts, their governance, how they're created, some of the powers and responsibilities, and for that, we do have Clay Crawford from Crawford, and I believe it's Crawford and Jordan law firm, he's a managing partner for them, has extensive experience dealing with MMDs. You'll be in good hands as he kind of walks you through the ins and outs of that. Lastly, I'll return to the podium and walk you through some of the agreements and the terms. Really the purpose of that is try to kind of highlight the ground that we've covered so far, some things that we still need to do, and our objective is really just to kind of prep you for a more substantial discussion on those agreements when we come back in January. And then lastly, we'll close out with some next steps and some dates for future sessions. So unless there's any questions for me, I'm going to turn it over to Richard, and he's going to walk you through some of the follow-up to the questions and comments that you all had last time. Richard, real quick, a question, clarification, while my voice is still out. On our -- we've got two basic exhibits, exhibit two and three, staff presentation, MMD and agreements, exhibit three, staff presentation, MPC and land uses. The questions that you're fixing to answer, it's this one -- okay, it's exhibit three. Correct, and the version that I have -- that I'll be going over is slightly different than the version that was included in the packet. Okay. Good afternoon. I just wanted to give a quick overview, again, follow-up on essentially seven items that I'll be touching on, ESA, public amenities, tree preservation landscape, the single family detached in the MR, some changes with respect to the building height transition language. I know we had some questions on the two sort of municipal overlay district or sub-districts that we have, the height hazard sub-district and the compatibility land use sub-district. We had a question on self-storage within the MR and then the reduction of gas flow sites. And so the first one, which for the most part we think we've got most of the items resolved. This is one that is still sort of unresolved. What we have here, which is different from the version in the backup, we've adjusted the table so you see the comparison of the 2008 MPC acreage and percentage versus what's proposed in the 2019. And so what really was being proposed is really one or the other. We spoke right before this meeting. They're willing to honor either the 2008 MPC acreage and percentages as shown in the column there, that's contained within the existing, again, within the existing MPC ordinances. What was being proposed is essentially a blended rate, if you will, to an overall 55%. And so the biggest change really is just rounding numbers. If you look at upland area A and upland area C, it's essentially a swap about 19 or 20 acres is really that difference. We get through staff presentation and then ask questions. But because these are answers to questions, what I think I want to do is just open it up briefly for brief questions, clarifying questions or substantive questions on each one of these particular ones just so that we don't have too many of them at the end. We can take them as they come up. On upland area C, it says pilot knob, I'm a little confused, is that the actual hill there? Yes, so again, these acreages are estimates, they haven't been filled verified, but that's essentially the hill and whatever tree canopy is contiguous with that. So I think the area here I think is outside of the hill, but again, would still be counted within that acreage. Okay. I'm just trying to understand the numbers here because of the one in green is what they're saying they'll preserve 54. Either or. So this is what is estimated as the existing acreage. The next column is what was in the 2008 MPC that ranged from 41% to down to 100. So in the 2008, they're to preserve more pilot knob than the current. Correct. Because I remember you can help me here, but I'm going back to one of the first presentations I think we saw and there was a slide that basically said pilot knob, we're leaving it untouched basically. I need to go back and find that presentation, but so that actually isn't where they are today. No, it was either preserving 74% or taking it down to 55, but then increasing the area A. Well, I think it was something they said to council. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So I want to understand this chart. So the 2019 MPC acreage, is that MPC referring to these specific projects? Correct. These specific projects. So the text within the 2019 DDC overall, that would apply citywide. Okay. So if it's an MPC, then it would be this specific MPC. So each MPC kind of has their own. And then the 2019 DDC required, then that's for anybody else. Anyway, I just had that as a comparison. No, no, I appreciate that. So then with the 2008, it looks like they have a mixture of they're increasing some over the 2019 requirement and then they're decreasing others in the 2019. Correct. Correct. Okay. And they have that option to do either one because that's how we set up the new 2019 code that they could and I'm not saying they being this specific group, but people who are in the queue, so to speak. This one's a little different. Okay. A little unique because they had their own MPC. Right. Their existing MPC had current standards. Yes. Which is that column here. Okay. So this is by the 2019 DDC, it's the 30 if you're non-residential and 50 for residential. So initially they were getting closer to that with this blended 55% overall rate. So regardless whether it be commercial or residential, they were proposing 55. Although they would also, if that's not the case or if that wasn't something council was supportive of, they're willing to just stick with what they had initially had approved in 2008. Okay. The varying 41 down to 100. Okay. And again, these are, these acreages still need to be confirmed, but this is what we have on the books today. All right. Thank you for that clarification. Uh-huh. Oh, I'm sorry. Over here. Councilmember, let's go with Mayor Pro Tem and then we'll go to Councilmember Day. Richard, do you have that same recollection that at some point it was proposed that no changes were made because even last week over the flyover, there was the kind of commercial buildings nestled in and it was kind of, hey, we're going to keep, absolutely keep, we can. I just want to have that, have a clear record. I honestly don't recall. I don't because I don't, I know there were some presentations early on. I really didn't review that much of it. I just, I think the staff's concern with the environmental side is that there was a lengthy negotiation back in 2008 with that council over those percentages. Things have changed. Obviously, it's not significant, but we wanted to make sure this was aired out, make sure that you knew that we were still working through this and we'll be back, we'll have this resolved by the time we get back to you in January, but the previous council, you know, takes certain actions and has told something, we want to be sure that you know kind of where we are so you have that up-to-date information. Sure. Yeah, no, I'm really zeroing in on the wouldn't be untouched, going, I mean, that's, so if that's accurate, that's a, you know, that's either 30 or 50% departure and so I just want to make sure that we're clear that if that was or was not said. I think our interpretation was that we weren't going to touch the 2008 MPC, but, you know, I think it's subject to multiple interpretations, which is why we're airing it out to clear it up for you. Thank you. Well, and I think probably also when the groups come up to give their presentation, they can maybe clarify some of that as well. I think I saw a hand, so I want to give them an opportunity. No, let's just, yeah, and yeah, because, yep. Okay. Council Member Davis, you had a question. Two things. From a staff perspective, I understand kind of the reasoning behind the 55% and then also the comparison with the 2008 and what was negotiated back in 2008. Is there any benefit from a staff perspective to having uniform percentage or is it, or is there a benefit from a staff perspective to treat each ESA as its own? You know, some of these ESAs may have a different value to the community than another. From D to C, for instance, very different, very different things. I think it's twofold. I think, one, it's looking at them individually. I think we're better off. There is also some language within the 2008 MPC that was somewhat conflicting as well because it talked about, where this talked about acreage, it talked about preserving canopy and there was a 55% for residential, zero for non-residential. So there were some internal conflicts that we had in the code, at least in those provisions. I think looking at even being able to redevelop pilot knob, whether it's 74 or 55, I think it would definitely be more of a challenge just given the height variation that you have within that hillside. But it does offer the ability going with the blended rate to preserve more of A than initially, which is the largest ESA out there. So my preference is probably for the numbers in the 2008 MPC. I just want to make sure that by doing that we wouldn't throw a wrench into whatever works, the uniform percentage was there for. And then from staff's perspective, I know the developer will have some things to say probably about the preservation of the ESA and the things that they have in mind there, but I see that under their unresolved bullet points there. From staff's perspective, how is that conversation going and what are some of the things we're thinking about for making sure that those ESAs are preserved? I think it will be once we get an agreement on what the percentages should be, I think that will essentially box it in, if you will. I know one of the discussion items we had was in those areas where there would be that encroachment is allowing for the ESAs to remain zoned, so that way that encroach -- whatever is encroached or removed from that ESA does have a zoning designation. Now, maybe there's a way that we can package that a little differently and start to maybe narrowly focus in on specifically what would remain intact for those existing ESAs, if the 2008 column is the one we decide to go with. This is just a little bit of a more detailed of really A, B, and C. Again, one of the other items that they were looking to continue from the 2008 DDC is the ability for public access trails within these ESAs. That is something that the 2019 code does not allow, but again, this is something that they sought to continue moving forward. Just to give an overall snapshot of the amenities open to the public, I know this was a discussion kind of looking at it overall, how will all of the pieces fit together. So there are city parks, neighborhood parks, dog parks that you see highlighted in red, yellow, and pink, and then the pocket parks are the green squares, and then you have the obviously, the lake and stream buffer, ESA floodplain, and then the ESA upland habitat. There will be some private amenity centers that would not be open to the public, but in terms of city parks and neighborhood parks would be city parks, but those would be maintained by the district as well as any roadway or median landscaping. So can you go back to the picture with the parks? Certainly. So my question is about the buffers around the gas wells on the properties, and kind of how they fit into what's defined as a park, and my question is coming out of just kind of worry about kids playing, people doing whatever people do in parks around a gas well. I understand there are going to be attractive buffers, but I don't know if you can speak to that, or if that's more of a question for the developer. I know they're not marked on the map. If it is a designated city park, then they would need to comply with that, with the ordinance language that they're proposing to incorporate in that would prohibit anything within that reverse setback, if you will. Okay, and does it require, to your knowledge, any kind of structure? It would prohibit any structures, any designated play areas would be limited or could not be within that 500 foot buffer. Again, these are wells that are already existing, or for the ones that are already existing, that would be that reverse setback. Yeah, okay. Okay, thanks. Quick question. When I see this up here, because I know one of my questions last time, and I was refreshing my memory on the slides, I don't know if I saw it, but it may be in the project team's presentation. Because I see city parks, neighborhood parks, pocket parks, all these things, and you talked a little bit about whose responsibility it is for up keeping those kinds of things. I think one of my questions was what value added to the community as far as if we would normally would have had to have maintained these and had to have budgeted for maintenance and operations on either the right of ways or these dog parks, city parks, neighborhood parks, which I think are the private, the neighborhood parks are not city designated or is that correct or are they transferred to the city or are they just neighborhood parks that the public can use? So Gary Pack and Director of Parks and Recreation. So the city parks and neighborhood parks will be deeded to the city, so they'll be city land, but maintained by the development, the district. The dog parks and the pocket parks will be not deeded to the city, so they'll be owner of the HOA, they will be maintained by the HOA, but they will have public access to them. The trails as well will be developed and maintained by the district, but have a public access easement for the public, so anybody can use those as well. So they won't be restrained, I mean, I've known of some neighborhoods down south and other cities where if it's the HOAs maintaining the parks and trails, they literally would start charging the public to use those, but what you're saying is that's not the case here. So no, all those parks are open space for the public, anybody to use. There will be private amenities, like indoor meeting facilities, those will be private for the HOAs. >> Right. Okay. All right. But the things on this list, the maintenance or the cost of maintenance is borne by the HOA, at least on this list. >> That's correct. Now, for instance, the only thing that is different that we may maintain is if we decide to put a library or a rec center into the city park, that's going to be our responsibility. Or if it's like a skate park, something different that's not traditional, that would be on the city. >> Right. Okay. >> That's correct. >> All right. Thank you. >> Just wanted to provide a -- was that -- were there any additional questions on -- >> No, thank you. >> On the tree preservation and landscape, one item that they -- there are a couple items, actually, that they had agreed to increase, so the minimum preservation would increase from 30% to 35%. If you recall, there's some allowable reductions. They've increased that from -- or decreased, depending on how you look at it, from 20% to 25%. And then they've increased the multiplier for heritage trees, so heritage trees that are removed. Instead of that 2.5% mitigation calculation per inch, they've increased that to 3%, as well as increased the replacement rate from 2 inches to 3 inches. And then increased the minimum number of large shade trees for single family lots in R4 and R6, from one per lot, which is in the current DEC, to two. And then just to give you, again, the overall minimum canopy requirements from the current MPC to the proposed is 57. I suspect, though, that that 57 will be much larger. Again, we just looked at -- I took the bare minimum based upon what the zoning district -- sub-district requires, but I can tell you with the two trees per lot plus the street trees, it probably will be much higher. Permitting single family detached in MR, again, this was a request that they had had. And we did look at -- and they had worked on making some changes with respect to this. One of those is reducing the overall acreage of MR, and what they've done is they've converted approximately 915 acres from MR to MN, so that it reduced that overall allowable height instead of 200, down to 100. And if you recall, single family is permitted by right in MN. And so the areas here, obviously in blue, are coal, and the areas in pink are hunter, so you have an idea of what areas actually converted. In addition, increased landscape buffer, and then we've revised the building height transition to actually be a little bit more restrictive, and I'll go over that in the next slide. And then the two, the reason those aren't bulleted, those were items that we had brought up at the last that they've -- that are essentially -- that will be maintained, again, limiting it to -- limiting single family to 60 percent of that net developable acreage. The other thing I wanted to add is there is a restriction for residential uses within the A Club 1, which is essentially the area here. So we will almost have that captured already. There was a small area outside of it, but I have another slide that you can see that difference. In the -- maybe it'll flip. Okay. So this is just a change from -- so you see the areas that we had highlighted with the conversion. So this just gives you that snapshot of the overall development. And so what we -- what was created was sort of this 600-foot buffer along the major highways so that no residential would be -- single family would be located near that. And what we did is we looked at sort of these key nodes and kind of bumped that -- moved that out, looking at sort of the arrival and the likelihood of residential being, and it would probably slim to none. And so you see where that -- it doesn't -- it's not as linear, so you do have some of those areas that have expanded out further. The building height transition, this is just a strike through and underline from the current code. I won't read each line, but just to give you the gist of it is really contained right here. In the current code -- in the current 2019 DVC, building height transition only relates to when it abuts a residential district. And so if you have an MR that abuts an MN but they decide to develop single family within that MN, the building height transition would not apply because it's not a residential district. And so what the proposed change does is still applies to that district, but then also applies to any single family detached development. So if you're a single family within MN, that building height transition is going to come into effect for anything within that MN or within that MR. So a little different than the current code, actually a little more restrictive. And again, we just extrapolated this all the way out to that proposed 200 feet. And then this is -- now we have to adjust this because the measurement should be taken off the property line, but just wanted to give you a little flavor for the graphics that go with this that we'll have to adjust. So this is the current graphic in the code. This just gives that 40 foot, 65, and then you see the 100, 150, and 200. So again, these are just updating those graphics so it's clear what that means. Bernie. Good. There was -- I know we had -- there were some questions on prohibited uses or what you can do within the airport overlays, sub-districts. And so the first is the ACLUD, and there's some prohibited uses within area one that's in that area in blue. And those are educational healthcare and new residential. So if you recall, again, that -- the A-Cled almost took in half of that MN, but because it's within that -- the boundary of the highway buffer, it already excluded it. So that kind of took care of that. There is a small area here where residential would be restricted, but otherwise, for the most part, it is all contained within the industrial area where residential isn't permitted. A-Cled 2, which is the black line that comes down, again, educational and healthcare are still prohibited. Residential is allowed, but there's performance standards. And so it's one of two -- either a -- either noise mitigation be undertaken through improvements to the building standards, whether that be windows, insulation. There's a number of improvements that could be done, or an avocation easement. And what the avocation easement is really is a easement to the city that allows for flight of that airspace area within that area, and basically, it gives the city the right to create noise within that area. And so typically, that easement is recorded. It's put on the plat, so anyone that would buy a residential property within there, they would be aware of that -- that easement -- if that easement exists. The second part of the overlay is the height limitation. And so this is just a rough graphic. It really depends -- there's a number of factors that goes into play when you calculate this. But this just -- I wanted to give kind of those broad ranges. And so you have an approach and transition zone, which are these areas here. And so you see that height variation from 0, 40, 90, 129. Then you have the horizontal zone, so the maximum in there is 150. Again, it transitions out. And then there's a conical zone, which starts at 150 up to 329 feet. So those are the limitations. What's different, though, is while we have -- when we measure building height, typically on a project, it's done at whatever that base elevation is. And where we measure it within this zone, or these zones, I should say, it's done off of the airport elevation. And so the graphic here I've added to kind of give you a little idea of what that translates to. And I used the knob. And so you give a base elevation of 720 feet, essentially, around this location. Top of the knob, 900 feet. So under a building height perspective or point of view, that would be 180 feet. Using the height district, the height hazard district, you would use the airport base elevation of 660 feet. And so it puts it at an elevation of 240 feet. And so, again, there's -- it could vary on the amount of height. And there's so many -- that property, the elevations change quite often in a number of places. And so there might be some instances where they may not be able to reach the maximum height, again, depending on -- that's permitted in the zoning because of the restrictions that's put on for this district. And again, there's some areas that are less where they may be able to get the height because it's well under that minimum, the minimum of 660. The reduction of gas well sites, if you recall, the current MPC in Hunter Ranch allows up to 19 sites. We had some that were approved but not permitted through gas well plats or gas well site plans. And so we have the nine existing and then five new wells. And so they did reduce that. So these are the locations of those new wells, again, allowed under the MPC but just not approved yet with a gas well site plan or plat. One thing to note, pad five initially was a little closer almost to the boundary of the southwest park. So there was a concern with that site. And so they did move that slightly to the west and north so that it would not -- that setback would not encapsulate any part of the park. The question on self-storage being permitted in MR, 2019 DDC allows MN and MR with an SUP and site-specific standards and those standards are here on the right. What they're proposing in the MN -- in the MPC amendment is to still have it in MN with the SUP and site-specific and then within the MR be permitted again with those site-specific standards. So it wouldn't be an SUP within the MR. >> Question. >> No. >> I see up there site-specific standards and I see building material requirements. Refresh our memory on someone can agree contractually to certain types of building materials but I know that the city cannot require building materials, a percentage or certain, you know, or prevent them from if they're allowed pursuant to one of these international codes. So help me understand how that overlaps or interplays with the site-specific standards where I see 100% masonry stone, architectural concrete, blocks, et cetera. >> Nothing prevents the developer from imposing those requirements on themselves which they're proposing to do as part of their MPC ordinance. We can't legally require on, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, residential or really any building material so. >> So this is voluntary. >> Yes, sir. >> Even though it would be in an ordinance, it's understanding that they want their project to be the best quality and the best aesthetically so I'm just wanting to clarify that it's here but we don't necessarily have any enforcement opportunities, it's just would be more voluntary compliance with their own ordinance. >> That is correct. >> And lastly, this is a new item that came up in looking at preparing for planning and zoning. Council has a policy of proposing the properties, one signed for 500 feet of frontage. I think when we looked at that, we looked at sort of, again, in-town projects, never something this large and so if we were to follow that, it would require essentially 204 signs which is a lot of signs and that's the yellow dots are representative of that, of those 204 signs. They're proposing an alternative given the size of the property that they would install those at key locations and intersections as well as increase the font size and size so that it would be legible as you're going down 35, 65, 70 miles an hour. And so it would be seven signs at Cole, 11 signs at Hunter, again, what they're proposing. But the mailings at 200 and 500, that would still be a requirement. >> So when you say they suggested the seven and 11 signs, you mean the developer? >> Correct, the applicant. >> The applicant. And what about the placing of those, so they recommended the number of those signs or the placing? >> And the locations that you see here in the darker, the darker dots, I don't know if it's blue or black. >> And was that, I'm just curious because I feel like, I mean, I would trust staff more to know, and residents to know, where signs should be placed on the property so as to best notify people passing by. Does this, what they're proposing, make sense to you? I'm looking at it right now and they're just kind of dots. >> We think it makes sense. It's at those key intersections as well as roads within. 204 signs is a lot, it's a lot of signs. >> No, that's a lot, yeah, so that's a lot of signs, but also, it's a lot of area, and there's a big difference between the 18 signs and 204. So again, I'm not saying we need 204 signs, but to do, we still want to do the job of what those signs were supposed to do, informing people. I'm not saying that's not the case. I just wanted to just make sure that this was vetted, it sounds like it was, so. >> I think we might be able to add, possibly add one additional sign closer to this area here, closer to Robeson. But I do know they had a separate meeting with Robeson, but it might assist with, just to kind of square off that boundary. >> And why not along, I could get a satellite map here, but that street in the upper right hand, that area. >> I don't know that this street continues all the way. >> Sorry, on the upper, right under the Y, under property. >> I think the road ends. >> Okay. >> I don't believe, this is, I know the airport, the runway's here. >> Okay, okay, okay. And the, you mentioned that the font will be different, but the actual wording, it'll still be. >> Correct, it'll still be the- >> City sign, it's not, okay. >> Correct. >> Okay, thanks. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Yeah, I think I had some similar questions about placement, but I think only other point you didn't touch on is kind of this stretch. But I think, just visualizing, I don't think there's a way to get out of here without bumping into one of the signs. So I think that that's the last place I was looking. And then the other thing, Mr. City Manager, if we begin to look at that. I mean, because I think it's a fair point to have supplement that sign requirement for larger spaces and half staff. Is that process already rolling to kind of see what we do want to begin to segregate those two? Say, in town kind of quote unquote development and acreage to address this very kind of requirement. So that we have another requirement on the books or a rule of thumb? >> I'm not sure if we got a requirement yet, but we can certainly take a look at that. This makes sense in terms of, these are probably the places where you're going to see people slowing down and would actually read the signs versus dotted up and down, basically saying 200 blurs. So we thought it made a lot of sense. And I think we'd probably take the same approach to any other development that was of a significant size. Wherever people have to stop, slow down, and can actually see the signs, read it, it makes a lot of sense. So we can certainly wrap a policy around that. >> Yeah, and I would think, especially to codify around the highway best practice, here's a size that fits, at least we have something that's kind of staff generated that begins to kind of lead the conversation. >> Yeah, we're happy to do that. >> Councilmember Davis has a question. >> So this probably represents a significant reduction in the amount of material used, the amount of plastic, and a big piece of plywood that can fly off in the highway and that kind of stuff? >> Correct. >> And that was all I had. >> Okay, all right, Councilmember Briggs. I did ask to see a tax bill of what an equal bill would look like from one in the city of Denton with a 2,000 square foot home versus one in Coalhunter Ranch with 2,000 square foot. >> So in the next set of presentations, we've got some responses to your questions regarding, and just kind of a refresher of how the MMD's formulated, kind of disclosures that would be used. And David Gaines has put together two or three examples of what that tax bill would look like for folks out there, so he can pull that up when you're ready. >> Thank you. >> All right, who's up next, bad or up? >> So it's not actually me, I'm just taking everybody out. So we're actually going to have Clay come back up to the podium, and he's going to walk the council through the municipal management district, the governance, the structure, some of the powers and responsibilities. And so Clay, without further ado. >> I'm Clay Crawford, I'm with Crawford and Jordan, part of the legal team. >> And Clay, if, depending on how long the presentation goes, we might take a break in about 15, 20 minutes. Just wanted to let you know so that I don't interrupt you mid-screen. >> Mr. Mayor, I'm told that I need to make this really short and sweet. >> Okay, fantastic, that's what I like to hear. >> Do whatever you would like. 4100 McKinnon Suite, 1100 Dallas, Texas. I'm here today to talk about the mechanics of the district and how it works. I want to make sure that everybody understands I'm part of the legal team that represents the Hillwood and the Stratford group. I don't represent the city, but we have been working very closely with Mac Rinewood and Greg Shecker with McCall-Parkerson-Horton, your outside bond council. Before I go through these slides, I'd like to make just a couple of general sort of contextual comments. And basically three adjectives is how I would like to summarize the presentation. And that is limited, transparent, and performance based. And the reason I say limited is if you look at this first slide, it lists these statutes. And the point I want to try to make there is, and I'm sure Erin has told you many times, there's between a general law city and a home rule city. Well, this district is much like a general law city. It only has the powers that are granted to it by these bills. So their purpose and powers are very limited. And this statute limits the general law on MMDs even further. The way that this bill is drafted, the city has the right to limit by contract what specific projects can this district perform and how it finances those projects. So the powers of this district are limited to those particular items. And that is the construction and financing of some very specific water, sewer, drainage, and roads. They're being specifically identified with the staff. And how we finance those, again, there are very specific rights that are given to the city to limit how that's done. Both in the general statute and in the consent ordinance and in the operating agreement. And then geographically, we cannot change our boundaries without city consent. And again, only the people who benefit from these facilities are actually going to pay for them through taxes or assessments. So basically, the development is to fund itself. Then financing wise, again, the way this structure works in Texas, the developer is at risk. The district is going to actually manage the construction of the process of these facilities. But the district will not reimburse the developer until various tests are met. So this is what we call basically takeout financing or reimbursement financing. The developer stays at risk until he has a successful project, until we meet the various performance criteria that are not only in the district's documents, but also in the project agreement that the developer and the city will enter into. There's multiple levels of control here. Mr. Mayor, before I get into those, that's on the next slide. In terms of city liability for the financing, for the bonds, the statute is quite clear that the city has no obligation for those bonds until it chooses to assume those when and if they dissolve the district. In terms of district existence, these districts are not intended to be out there forever. These districts, if and when their functions are complete, the city has the right to dissolve those districts pursuant to the process set forth in the statute. So we'll make that point number one, and that is limited transparency. Before this go, how do I, let's see here, I'm going backwards here. Okay, in terms of limited, you can see on this slide here, this is a list of the various statutes that relate to this district. I'm not going to bore you with each one of these, but the point that this slide is trying to explain to you is that the district is a highly regulated entity, and it functions, probably the most important thing for the council to know is it functions very much like you in terms of open government, open records, open meetings, truth and taxation, public hearings on tax rate, things of that nature. So again, in terms of limited, this is a list of statutes that limit how the district operates. Disclosures, transparency, what I want to make clear to the council is that the existence of the district, its tax rates, its bonds authorized and bonds sold. We try to get that out to the district in response to various statutory requirements that are on the district. And these requirements have been on the books for about 25 years. But you can see item number one there, the district is required to post two signs, at least two signs at two principal entrances to the district, informing the passengers that they're entering into the district. And of course, the size and the information is all set out in the requirements of the TCEQ. A seller of property in the district is required to give notice. If the homeowner is going to buy a piece of property, the seller of property is required to give notice to that purchaser twice. At the time that the earnest money contract is signed, either that notice is in the body of the contract or is in a separate disclosure. And then again, at closing, there's a separate notice that's given at that time. And that second notice is actually recorded and filed in the real property records of the county. There are other sources of information regarding financial information about the district, such as tax rates, bonds, outstanding, things of that nature. Community websites, we find that our districts, once they reach a certain level of population, they will adopt a website. And that website will have references to other links to like the central appraisal district, to the TCEQ, various other public agencies that have information. The Comptroller of Public Accounts, various agencies that have information about the district. There is another form, and it's not mentioned on this slide, but the district is required to keep certain information about the district filed in the real property records of the county. And that information would include the district boundaries and a map of those boundaries. It would include the bonds authorized, bonds sold, it would include the current tax rate. And all of that information is required to be filed in the real property records of the county. So you see that on the ground, visual notice is given. You'll see that the seller property in the district is required to give notice to the purchaser. And then, when a title commitment is issued prior to the closing, the title company should pick up the district information form filed in real property records. That should show up on the commitment to title and the insurance commitment there is at the closing table, or prior to closing. >> Clay, just to sort of repeat what you just said so that I have a clarity on what you're describing. So it looks like there's two things that may be, or that are recorded in the county deed records. One is that one disclosure that you said from the seller to the buyer specifically for a specific property transaction. >> Correct, yes, sir. >> And then the other one is more general information based, giving information on the, and educating the public on the MMD itself. Some very general information, size, scopes, those kinds of things. >> That's correct. And the actual form of those notices is in a handout that I gave to you, but these are statutory in form. >> No, so my question is, I understand that on the more specific seller to buyer notice form that's probably filed based upon either grantee or grantor's name, which is easily searched. >> Yes. >> But as far as the general recording of the MMD itself, how would that come up? And maybe just something outside of this meeting, I don't want to take up too much time, but I'm just, I want to make sure that when someone's searching the deed records, because that's important. I mean, you're charged with constructive notice, and so if you, how are those going to be found? Like if I'm going to buy a house from you, and the title company does a search, they're going to see your name on the chain before with this specific seller disclosure buyer. How is that going to be linked to the general MMD disclosure, do you know? >> I can't answer that, I guess I suppose some people might say I'm kind of an expert on districts, which really means I know more and more about less and less. That particular mechanic. >> Well, that's more of a title, that's more of a title searches. Okay, well, we'll- >> But the process is, it's supposed to be picked up by the title company. >> So that would be one question of clarification maybe for the legal department, how exactly that might get picked up. Because I think that would provide two sources of disclosure that people will get on a title commitment, which describes what's encumbering that particular property. >> That's the way it's supposed to work. >> And then in the district websites, those forms are also typically put in. >> Right, okay, I appreciate that, thank you for that clarification. >> And of course, I mentioned the reporting we have to make to these other agencies here. It's another source of information, and then we'll talk about performance here in just a minute. But in terms of management, your statute is a little different than the general MMD statute. There are five board members, they're initially appointed in the legislation. But there will be elections held, and you can see that the city may also appoint a member. There can be six members to the board. Once the district becomes activated, the five temporary directors will call an election to elect the permanent directors. And you can see the qualifications that are required to serve on the board. At least 18 years old, resident of the city, citizen of the state of Texas, owner of property, or owner of stock, and a corporate owner, or a beneficiary of a trust that owns property, or an agent employee, or a tenant of one of those entities. And you can see that the, I'm not very good at this, but the right of a director to participate in voting is subject to 375.072, the local government code. Which basically is a reference to the conflict of interest statute under the local government code section 171, which applies to, really to all elected officials. >> I believe Councilmember Davis has a question, and then Mayor Pro Tem as well, Councilmember Armitage, do you still have one, or do you want to? >> Okay, all right, sure, okay, we'll queue you up at the end. >> So I have a couple of questions, but my first one, can you give us a rundown of who is not eligible to be a director? Either under our statute or, I mean, you don't have to prove the negative. But some folks who, under the water code, under local government code, who are not permitted to be a director of such a district. >> If you're referring to 49052, which lists prohibited relationships, then the way that my co-counsel and I interpret the statute, that would not apply. Since this section of 375, I think 063, would be controlling. So I think you're referring to the section of the water code, which basically lists some prohibited relationships. And because of the way this statute is drafted, that would not apply. But what would apply is, if there is a director that has a beneficial interest in a matter that comes before the board, unless it's uniformly an application to everybody on the board, they would have to disclose it and they could not participate in any kind of vote or action on that matter. >> Could you give us an example of what you're talking about? What kind of matter may come before the board where an employee of a property owner, for instance, within the district, who might be otherwise eligible to be on the board, may encounter a conflict that under the government code, they would have to recuse? >> If he was an employee of an entity, a certain amount of his income, annual income, was over a certain amount, coming from his employer, and a matter came before the board involving that employer, he would have to disclose that and abstain from participating in any kind of discussion and voting on the matter. >> Did you happen to know those thresholds off the top of your head? >> Not off the top of my head, no sir. >> But they are listed in 171 of the local government code, or the government code. >> In Denton, we're a little more familiar than most municipalities with that section of the government code. We have our own ethics code that we've adopted that goes beyond some of those limitations. Is it possible, through our agreements in the creation of this district, that we can require directors of the management district to be subject to the City of Denton ethics code? >> I think that's a possibility. Districts are required to establish codes and policies. So I think the answer to that is probably yes, we'd have to look at all of them to make sure that there are none that are not specifically contrary to anything in the legislation. But in terms of adopting policies and procedures and standards, conflict of interest or whatever, there's probably many of the things that are in your policies that could apply. >> Looking at this list of qualifications, are there any people currently residing within the district who meet these qualifications other than being an employee or an agent of a land owner? >> I don't know the answer to that question. And then also through our agreements, is it possible to restrict the place of meetings? >> Absolutely, the statute requires that the board establish meetings inside the district and outside the district. Once there are a certain number, practically speaking what happens, once there are a certain number, until a certain number of residents live within the district, meetings are usually held at a lawyer's office, an engineer's office, or another office, usually outside the district because there's no public meeting place. However, at such time as there are a certain number of qualified voters and a petition is submitted to the board with five people requesting that they establish a meeting place inside the district. And the board has to do that if it's possible. If not, then they have to establish a meeting place within ten miles of the district. >> So we didn't discuss with your staff possibly even meeting here at City Hall until there is a public place in the district. >> So that could be included in the agreement, a place certain or a geographic district. You have to meet within the city limits of the city of Denton or at City Hall until such time as you can meet in the district. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> You touched on it a little bit, help me understand the sequencing. Obviously it's a new development, so phase one, let's say, is, I don't know, 100 homes? And so how does it, I'm driving at the five residents. They're appointed, but let's say there's more than five that have purchased homes that are moved in. Just what you've seen kind of just walk me through that sequencing. >> Yes sir. First off, as to my knowledge, there's nobody that lives out there today. >> Correct. >> So the five folks that have been listed in the legislation are basically called temporary directors. They volunteered to serve in this capacity. There is, and maybe there is a, they will have an organ, if and when it looks like that these projects or these contracts are going to be approved. If they're in a mutually acceptable format, then the board will call an organizational meeting to approve those documents. And at the same time, they'll call their, maybe they won't call it then, but we can have elections, as you know, two times a year. So as soon as these contracts are put in place, because the district has no authority to do anything other than to approve these contracts, but once that happens and when it gets close to calling an election, as you know, we typically, and this is again just a rough number, usually about 75 days before the date of the election, we have elections the first Saturday of May, first Tuesday in November after the first Monday. Well, what will happen is that temporary board will call a directors and confirmation election, okay? And those persons that are named in the legislation, they're on the ballot, but there can be write-in candidates, and so you'll have an election. And prior to that time at the organization meeting, the five temporary directors usually draw straws to see who serves the shorter term, because the five directors serve four year staggered terms. We'll have some that will be up for election in 2022, and some will be up for election in 2024. And so every two years we'll have an election. And eventually what will happen is that as residents move in, they will vote and they will vote themselves onto the board. And so it's all a function of how quickly the development goes forward, how quickly homes are actually constructed, but the district will conduct elections, directory elections in May of the even numbered years. And it's usually, probably the best example I can give you, maybe the most familiar you might be is with Lantana. We went through three or four election cycles before each board was entirely a resident board. >> And those original appointees, is there a prohibition once there are homeowners in the district, is there a prohibition against those original appointees being filing to be re-elected or- >> They could file, they could file. Sometimes they are re-elected, most times they're not. What will happen is that as people move in and they become aware of things, well, they will begin to come to meetings, just like you have here. We have a public, if you looked at one of our agendas, we have a public comments section. And then if there's an item on the agenda that somebody wants to discuss, we recognize them. But this knowledge is transferred to the folks who began to move into the district. And if they want to be involved, if they want to run for the board, they do. But we do have these staggered four year terms, and the purpose of that is to maintain a continuity of knowledge of the sort of history of the district and the development. >> Okay, okay, thank you. >> Councilmember Armitage. >> So looking at the qualifications to be an elected director. You need to be a resident citizen of the state of Texas. Do you need to be a resident of the district? >> Yes. >> So you'd have to- >> No, no, no, I'm sorry, no, an owner of property in the district. So you don't necessarily need, it's not a requirement that you be a resident of the district. >> So you have to be a resident to vote. >> Correct. >> But to be elected, you don't have to be a resident of that district. As long as you're a resident of the state of Texas. >> Correct. >> Okay, so anybody who lives in Texas, who's an agent, employee, stockholder. >> Yes. >> Any of those things. >> Yes. >> Okay, yeah, so thank you for clarifying that. I don't like that, but I understand that's the way it is. That's part of what I don't like about these municipal management districts. But I do appreciate, I'm glad all this is coming before us, and I appreciate what you mentioned before about how it's somewhat like a general rule city as opposed to a home rule city. And I think that we can see now, this is the first time in our discussions here on council, that we're really getting in detail into these governance aspects. This is where I start to see, and by the way, I agree with you, it has a number of things in common with home rule city. But the fact that you don't have to live there to be in the governing body, that's of course a big difference. >> Yes, my experience is that when the residents move in, they want residents on the board. So as a practical matter, that issue just basically goes away. >> Okay, and thanks for mentioning that. So if that's the case, would you, and I know it's not up to you, you're working for, but would your client consider limiting board membership to residents of the district? >> I mean, that's certainly an option, but again, are you talking about the temporary directors? Are you talking about, they can't control who files to run for the district board, but. >> And so, and can you explain that? So, because this is the state rule that you need to be, but so they can't improve. I should say improve, they can't, can they add anything to it? Those requirements that would, without contradicting anything in there, just limit it to, for instance, a stock owner who happens to be a resident in the district. See what I mean? Kind of like how, to use our ethics ordinance as an example. We can, when cities write an ethics ordinance, we can raise the bar on state law, but we can't contradict state law. >> You know what I'm saying, is there a similar possibility in MMD law that allows for, would allow for that? >> That would not be appropriate, or it wouldn't have a place in the operating agreement between the district and the city. Now, you know, maybe that's a discussion in another document, but. >> Okay, well, thanks, that's interesting. Just a quick question and clarification, because I know we've seen in the past, and I may be getting this confused with other types of districts, where for the district to actually be created, there has to be an election of the people in the district, and so sometimes you see where there's one person that lives there, or so is that the way this is? In other words, we've passed legislation that allows us to go into a conversation, but the actual creation of the district, is that done through these five sort of appointed directors through the legislation, or is at some point there's going to be an election of someone in the district? >> There will be an election of someone in the district, that's what perfects the creation of the district. >> Okay, and so what I heard you say earlier was that, I thought I heard you say you're not sure if there's anybody there now, but that there may not be someone there now, so that if you're going to have an election, someone's got to get there. >> That's correct. >> Okay, all right, Council Member Briggs, and then Council Member Ryan, and then Council Member Davis. >> So just a few follow up questions to some of the things that I heard earlier, and so you said there's no potential harm to the city. You said that the city or the board can vote, but they can vote to dissolve, right, the district. And so what happens if they vote to dissolve before the time needed? >> So, doesn't that debt fall back onto the city, or am I? >> They cannot, once the district sells bonds, they cannot dissolve. The board on its own motion can't dissolve. >> Okay, so I believe that I heard that they could vote to dissolve themselves. >> They could until bonds are sold. >> The point I was trying to make earlier is that the city could dissolve. In terms of city having responsibility for district debt, the statute's clear that the city is not responsible for the district's debt. And until the city chooses to dissolve the district before the debt's paid off, and the city then would be assuming that debt. That's the vote I was discussing earlier, vote of the city council, not of the board. The board could dissolve the district, but once the district has sold bonds, that ability goes away for the board. >> Okay, and so, would those bonds be sold before the district is even voted in? >> No, no, no ma'am. >> No, okay. And so next, you talked about there would need to be five people or the individuals can petition for a change in the board or the structure of the process. >> No, and what I said was that five people could petition for the district to establish a meeting place in the district, or within ten miles of the district. >> For the process, so are they bound to open meetings and videoing of the meetings just as any other government? >> No, districts don't video, they're not required to video their meetings. They're only required to video their tax rate hearings. >> Okay, and so how do those five individuals know that they can petition to do that? >> They can come to the board meeting and ask. >> Okay, all right, so it's just really on their own initiative to find out what they can and can't do? >> Yes. >> Okay, so on the temporary board, the temporary board members also have to recuse themselves on voting matters under that local government code? >> Yes. >> Okay, and the last one, do the elections sync with municipal elections, typically? >> That I don't know, we can only hold our elections on those two election dates. What all of my clients do is we contract with the Denton County Elections Department to conduct our elections. So they're generally held in conjunction with other municipal elections and school district elections. >> Okay, thank you. >> That's all right. >> For clarification, the list of requirements for being an elected director, is that straight out of the state law? >> No, that's out of your statute, yes, sir. >> Okay, cuz it reads a little confusing, cuz normally you have either a list that's all ands or all ors. And this obviously one and two is gonna be a must be, and then it's one of the following. Can we- >> No, you're absolutely correct there. One and two are requirements, and then it would be or of three, four, five, and six. >> Correct. >> Are you a lawyer? >> No. >> He just slept it, no, I can't say it, it'd be a correction, nevermind. >> It's the hat. >> Maybe a good way to say it would be three, four, five, and six, and you gotta be 18 years old and a citizen of the state of Texas. >> Right, and I guess what I would like to see is that some of those items, whether it's at a 25% or a 50% developed, that those would drop off. That it wouldn't be an employee covered by this or an agent covered by this. But if you drop to just a tenant or someone who lives in the district or owns property in the district, if you own a lot. >> If you're talking about changing the statute, that would require a legislative act. If you're talking about practically speaking what would happen, practically speaking what's gonna happen is that the residents of the district will vote themselves on the board. >> Okay, will this be codified in the operating agreement or any of those items? >> It's codified in law, I mean, it's in your statute. >> So what I'm hearing is that this particular provision pursuant to state law does not provide an avenue for an agreement that may modify this particular, with the operations agreement. Yes, you can say, where do you want to meet, and these kinds of things, but this particular one, what I'm hearing you say is that this cannot be modified by any agreement with the city. >> That's what I mean to say. >> Okay. >> Okay, all right, thank you. >> Let's see, did you have a question? I think you were on the queue after me. >> I did, Council Member Ryan asked my question, and he had a better observation than I had. But I had the same question that after some operation of time or some operation of number of residents that, for instance, number six. Some of the others I don't have so much of a problem with. I mean, number five at first blush, you'd think that's some big corporate thing. But that could just be somebody with a charitable remainder trust, that could be somebody with a family trust, something like that. But the others, I would rather see some operation, and then maybe we fix the grammar at the same time. >> Yeah. >> Council Member Robert. >> Can you speak a little bit to how these elections work? And I understand that in terms of law, but just in terms of the realities of these elections. In other MMDs that your client has elsewhere in the country. Do you have, do people have signs up, or actually let's just focus on Texas because it's about Texas law, that signs up inside the area saying vote for me or what is- >> I think the same election laws would apply. >> So again, I understand same election laws apply, but just how does it work pragmatically in something like this? I mean, do people have competitive- >> My personal experience is that you may have people that will walk the neighborhoods. They'll walk the neighborhoods. You will have people at their HOA meetings stand up and say, I'm running, and this is kind of what I believe. You may have people that during public comment session at the board meetings, they'll stand up and say, I'm running for council. Do we see much signage like you do on municipal elections? No, you don't, you don't. Because most of these neighborhoods are, I mean, one of the reasons that people move into these neighborhoods is because they create a community. And people know one another, and people have clicks, and so that sort of signage I typically don't see. I'm not going to tell you how long I've been doing this, but you don't see that, but people know. And people, what will eventually happen is the folks that are going to be on these boards eventually will all be people that live within the district. But they will qualify because they're over 18 and they own property. >> Yeah, so I would love to see some sort of data on that. If that could be provided at a later date on the boards of other districts and kind of what percentage or after a certain amount of time, what percentage are made up of residents, voter turnout. I don't expect you to have all that in your head right now, but I would like to see. >> You know who would be a great reference would be the Denton election administrator. I mean, because they conduct all the elections for our district clients, they conduct, so. Anyway, I'm not sure what I can come up with, but I will see. >> Okay, thank you. >> Councilmember Davis. >> I'd be happy to take my answer in an email, but if you could point me to where these qualifications are in our statute. I went to check the grammar issue and we have numerous references to other statutes. And we specifically accept ourselves from that section, the water code that you talked about. But if you could help me find that in our statute, that'd be helpful. >> The way I would do this is I'm going to pick the Hunter Ranch statue, which is chapter 3980 of the Special District Local Laws Code. And I would direct your attention to section 3980.0107, which basically says except as provided by this chapter, 375 local government code applies to this district. And then I would refer you to 375063 of the local government code which is the general law on municipal management districts. And that is where the qualifications are set out. >> The next slide, again, relates to the authority of the city to appoint somebody to this board. And that would be a voting member, that would be a voting member. And this slide is really not mine. I think this basically came from the city. But I think the same philosophy, I think, has served as the basis for the developer selection of those people. We typically want people that have business experience in these kinds of matters. So the point to be made to the city is for the initial district, and recall that these districts have the right to divide. For each district that's going to be out there, the city has the right to appoint a sixth director. >> So we're going to, I'm going to ask you a real quick question and then we'll take a break. So this opportunity, is that in the state statute? Is that codified in the state statute? >> That's in your statute, not in the general law statute. >> But in the one that you just, the one that you just specifically said for Hunter Ranch, there would also be one in Coleray? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. Okay, let's go ahead and take about a five minute break. Welcome back to this meeting of the Dent City Council on December the 17th, 2019. This is 1.40. We remain on agenda item 3A. So we'll resume our presentation. >> Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to clarify, because again, I think maybe I wasn't as clear as I should have been in my response over here. But in terms of the qualifications for the five elected board members, the first two on this list, every director has to meet those qualifications. Then the remainders, you can be one of those. So you can be one of three, four, five, or six. But you have to be at least 18 years old, and you have to be a resident citizen of the state of Texas. So I just wanted to clarify that point. >> Sure. >> And the other point on the city appointment, that member does not have to meet those qualifications, okay? So the city's appointee is specifically carved out for meeting those requirements. >> Okay, all right. Thank you. >> Yes. >> So the city's requirements totally up to the city to decide, if nothing. So I'll just kind of just mention for the record, I would be more comfortable if this were in an elected position instead of an appointed one. And that whoever's elected have to meet the same, any other requirements for any other elected positions, since the other positions on the board are elected, correct? >> The other positions on the board are correct. >> Yes, this one would be appointed by the city of Denton. I would prefer for it to be the city of Denton, that's just my, I'm just stating preference. >> That would require an amendment to the legislation. >> Right. >> Okay, so the fact that it is appointed, that comes from the state. >> Yes, ma'am. >> It's just the terms of that appointment are up to the city. >> Yes. >> Okay. So yeah, so I guess I'd be, well, I'd be curious to know, don't have to answer this now, just from a legal perspective, if could it potentially be a position that is elected, and then there's kind of a formal appointment of that elected person, or does that- >> We would probably have to amend our charter at an election as well, because our charter provides who are the elected positions in the city. And anybody new who would be representing on behalf of the city would probably require a charter amendment to election as well. >> So if I'm not mistaken, this was one of the things that was asked for by this council when we talked about just approving for the legislation to even move forward. And I know that wasn't a unanimous vote on this council, but that was one of the things we asked for. >> Yes, sir. >> Moving forward, so. >> And it's an option, it's not mandatory, it's an option. >> Right, right. >> Yep. >> The next slide, we talked about the first two points. But again, this basically mechanics of the meeting, three members of the board constitute a quorum. It takes two, a majority of a quorum for the board to take binding action. Then the board doesn't have in-house staff. They typically employ consultants to help them manage their business. And this is a list of the typical list of consultants that the district would hire. I would point out on item six, it would be our firm's recommendation, and this is typically how we do all our clients do. We hire the Denton County Tax Assessor Collector to do all our taxes, assessing and collecting. And again, the values in our district, we don't have anything to do with that. That's the Dallas, I mean the Dallas, excuse me, the Denton Central Appraisal District that sets those values. The next slide basically lists the responsibilities and powers of the district. And again, I want to use that word limited because really all this district's role is to do is to construct and finance a certain specific set of water, sewer, drainage, and road facilities. And to operate and maintain the landscaping and road right of ways and the parks, okay? We've talked about the district's ability to levy taxes. Our agreements are capping those at a 49 cent tax rate. That would also include, that rate would include any assessment. All our projects have to meet city standards at the time that the plat is filed in terms of the construction standards for roads, utilities, things of that matter. Under the statute, we go forward under a public bidding process that's applicable to water districts in Chapter 49 of the water code. However, and again, all of the facilities, the winning bidders provide payment performance bonds, maintenance bonds in the same format that provided to the city with your projects. All construction projects are subject to periodic and final inspection and acceptance by the city. And once the district's projects, the water, sewer, and drainage roads are finalized and they're in a form that's acceptable to the city, then they're conveyed to the city for operation and maintenance other than the park improvements. And those stay with the district until you, until you ask for them. But the district's responsible for funding the maintenance of the parks. >> Councilmember Davis. >> We had a question the last time about whether or not this district board would have planning and zoning authority. Could you address that and kind of, maybe when you do that, highlight for us the difference between the property owner's association or the HOA or deed restrictions and some of those things. And how the district is separate and apart from those things and separate apart from our planning and zoning process. >> District is totally separate and apart from both of those functions. The deed restrictions are put in place by, and are enforced by the HOA. The district has nothing to do with that. That's a contractual obligation among all the people that buy property in the district. The district's not involved in that. Zoning, land use, the district's not involved in that at all. We have no powers. Again, as the point I'm trying to make, think limited, limited. The district has very limited powers, and those powers do not extend to zoning. Now, the developer's going to cringe when I say this, but again, remember that the way that your legislation is set up. When this district is in a position, when it's met all the criteria, all the feasibility criteria, has all the feasibility tests satisfied with the state and comes to the city to go forward with a bond issue. The developer has to certify on various things, just like the district does. If you look at the statute, when we come to present our bond package to the staff, there are a lot of certifications that need to be made. And so there may be things in the HOA document that need to be enforced or taken care of. So the district's not really involved in that. That's really between the HOA and the developer. >> So Clay, before you move on, I just want to point out those last two bullet points are what happens in general when we have a subdivision typically. I want to verify that with the city manager. In other words, new subdivisions that come in, they put in the infrastructure, they get inspected. And at some point, when it's finalized, they'll turn that over to the city where we will maintain the operations and the maintenance. Unless it's a fully private development and it stays private, is that right? >> That's correct, yes. >> All right, thank you. >> And that's the extent of what I'm supposed to speak about. >> Okay, all right, thank you Clay, appreciate it. >> Yes, sir, appreciate the opportunity. And I'm happy if there are any other questions that the council may have, just forward them to me and I'll respond as best I can. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you, Clay. So David Gaines, our director of finance, is going to come up and share the slide regarding the assessments based on different home values. I'll let you have it on that. >> Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, David Gaines, Director of Finance. We have our full financial analysis that's being worked on in conjunction with Tishler Weiss, our consultant, coming to the council on January 14th as part of that work session. So we'll definitely get a lot more into the weeds in that presentation, talk about the impact to the general fund, the impact to the city across multiple funds at that time. But we do have this analysis to answer the direct question of what is the tax bill for current city of Denton residents versus those residents that would be in the MMD. And we can obviously send this out to council as well, and it will definitely be included in the January 14th presentation. But really, it just shows, took a few home values here, 300,000, 350,000, and 400,000. It just walks through with the current tax rates, assuming it's a homestead, just to show those homestead exemptions in there as well, as we look at those tax bills. So really, for those residential homestead homes, 300,000, their tax bill. And that's including, obviously, the city, the school district, and the county of about 6,500. And then the MMD with that 49 cent tax rate, obviously, for this analysis, assuming up to that cap of the 49 cent, $1,470 tax bill for the MMD, bringing their total tax bill to 7,930. So you can see those across the different home values there. But really, it just calls out that those residents will be paying all their current tax bill plus the MMD. So again, we'll definitely have more information on the 14th, but we can answer any questions that you have now. >> Questions? Councilmember Ritchie. >> And that doesn't include insurance, right? >> Sorry, this is just the tax bill. >> Yeah, just the tax bills, okay, thank you. >> It's whether you're in an MMD or the city, you're going to be paying insurance, so, yeah. >> Yes, I know, I was just making a point so that when people see that number, there's nothing included except just taxes. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. >> Councilmember Armitage. >> And so, if somebody has a lot of home that it turns out that they can't afford, right? That if they can't pay their taxes to the MMD, they'll be holding to the same laws. When I say can't, I mean can't afford to, you hold them to the same laws that any tax payer, right? So they have serious legal problems. >> Yeah, they're a subdivision of the state or whatever language. >> Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly. >> Same city or anything else. >> Yep, nothing, no exception, okay, I think so. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> So we're in the stretch run here. Really for the remainder of the presentation, I just want to try to orient the council a little bit with some of the parties, the agreements you're going to be considering as we move forward into future work sessions, public hearings, and the consideration of a consent resolution as well as project agreements. So really what this slide's intended to convey is number one, the parties that are involved here, as well as the agreements that basically obligate the parties to one another. So obviously, the city of Denton is involved here. When we say developer, we're really talking about Hillwood and Stratford as the developer/owner. When we say the districts, that's actually the MMDs for Hunter Ranch and Cole Ranch. And so as you kind of start here at the top, like we discussed at the outset, in order for the MMDs to be created and actually functioning, it will require a consent resolution for council. Following that consent resolution at the same time as the consent resolution, the city will enter into an operating agreement with the districts, as well as a project agreement with the developer. The operating agreement here for the district is really just the governing rules, as well as some terms and conditions for some of those improvement projects that Clay had mentioned. It also has some additional obligations in there. The project agreement is really obligations between the developer and the city of Denton. And one of the things that the developer is agreeing to do is basically front funding for the infrastructure to be extended to the project. And so as we start diving into this next time, you'll hear quite a bit about improvement projects, regional infrastructure, major infrastructure. Those are the types of things that Clay alluded to earlier. Because they're fronting money for that, the district has some bond issuance capacity. That bond issuance is really there as a reimbursement to the developer for front loading that capital expenditure. That is basically described in a reimbursement agreement between those two parties. The city is not a party to that agreement, however, you will see it alluded to in these other agreements. Clay also mentioned earlier that each of these districts, one for Hunter, one for Cole, has the ability to, via vote, subdivide into four separate districts. So you could have a total of eight districts between the two developers. If a district is divided and comes online, it's basically made party to the district's operating agreement, as well as the reimbursement agreement and the consent resolution via what we call a joiner agreement. >> Ethan, real quickly, I think it's in the project agreement where I know that we talked about earlier. I think it's even when we talked about the legislation early on that one of the things that had been talked about, whether it's been agreed upon or not, I don't know. But it was discussed was on the development or the reimbursement that you could ask the developer to say, you need to have ten times your valuation of the bonds that you want to issue. Like if you're going to issue $10 million worth of bonds, you need to have $100 million of valuation that those bonds are representing or that of assets that that's reimbursement for. Is that something that would be in the project agreement? >> That's my understanding. >> You've got something, is that, okay, I'm ahead of you, then. >> That's okay, that is, and I believe that that's been negotiated. >> No, no, sure, we'll just, sorry about that. >> That's okay. >> We'll roll through, I apologize. >> So if there's no other questions, this is really just kind of a reiteration of what was on the previous slide, just in text, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time here. So what we'd like to do the rest of the time is just kind of give you a brief preview, kind of a cliff-notes version, if you will, of what's in the project agreement, what's in the operating agreement, what staff, as well as the developers and all the attorneys have gotten up to in terms of negotiations, and what's still, we have a little ways to go. So again, the project agreement is between the developer being Hillwood and Stratford and the city of Denton. Over here on the left, you'll have topics, these are the topics that are essentially covered within that agreement, and these are some of the proposed terms and provisions detailed here. I'm certainly not going to read these one by one, and I'll caution counsel and any of our viewers that these are basically just paraphrase, they're not verbatim what's in the agreements. And then over here in the far right hand column, it says ready for recommendation. Anywhere you see negotiated, that means that both parties, we feel like we're in a good spot, comfortable with the language, it's ready for a recommendation to counsel from staff's perspective. If it says unresolved, that can mean a couple of things, could mean that there's still a difference of opinion there between the two parties, could also mean that we have work outstanding. For instance, we do have several studies that the city's undertaking, and so those haven't been finalized yet. And there may be some other work outstanding, i.e. an exhibit or something that we just haven't finalized. >> Real quick, and I know that this isn't the specific language, but just conceptually, it's sort of on the first one where it says exterior materials approved by agreement in CCR can't be reduced without city consent. I don't think that that's necessarily correct based upon the statute as far as enforceability of exterior material elements. Is that, and so I just want to make sure that seems to be inconsistent with what we talked about earlier, so if I'm missing something, then that would be great. >> Mayor, we're going to take a closer look on that after this meeting and before the next meeting to hone that down so that we can give you a better opinion. >> Yeah, and I'm not trying to create an issue, I just want to make sure that we have an understanding and clarity that if you can agree to those kind of provisions, that it takes it outside the purview of that and lack of enforceability in the statute. So that's the only reason I bring it up, yeah, okay, thank you. >> So just in terms of unresolved, some of these things are what you've talked about a little bit earlier in the meeting. Preservation standards compliance with the 2008 MPC, particularly for the SA in the upland habitat, there is some additional discussions that need to take place regarding building codes and other development ordinances. Does that get locked in at preliminary plat, final platting, what are some restrictions on that? And then in terms of vested rights, it's my understanding that's really a discussion about if this agreement is in place, does that supersede some vested rights, and if so, what are those? So certainly our attorneys are here if we want to dive into these. The other thing I'll say as we go through these slides is we may not have the answers today, but we can certainly field the questions. And then tee those up when we come back in January for anything that's negotiated or anything that we have deemed as unresolved. >> Councilmember Amater. >> So this is kind of following up on something else, something that I had asked earlier. But because this is here in the project agreement terms, I had more time to think about it and got an email about it, asking about it. >> That is regarding the parks open space and trails. So I understand, excuse me, that about the gas well buffers that be holding to the same laws, our city laws for reverse setbacks, right? But would it be possible to, in addition to that, just to make sure that we can make sure that 500 feet within the reverse setback is not considered a recreational area, so that recreation doesn't happen there. Can there be signage saying that this is part of the reverse setback? Don't, this doesn't count as part of the park? What I don't want is, for me anyway, personally, would be to seem as if we're inviting people to come and kind of frolic within this, the setback. The reverse setback area. Anyway, and I don't know if there's any problem with that legally about requiring that here and not elsewhere, but it's kind of a unique situation, it seems to me, so. >> Just clarification, because I know, and it just happened that reverse setback was used as a term regarding these developments. So it's my understanding that there is not a reverse setback, I mean the setback is 500 feet whether the house is coming to the well or the well is coming to the house, is that correct? >> I'll have to defer to Richard or Scott on that. >> If it's a brand new well, so there's the five that will be brand new. >> Right. >> If a house happens to go in first, then they would be subject to that, the provision. I believe it's 1,000 feet, but it could be reduced to 500 with the property owner's approval. I believe that's how the current language in the code is today. >> Well, you mean current language within the MPC that's being proposed? >> Within the DDC that was adopted that's being reconsidered, unless Erin had something. >> I just had a clarification on Council Member Armator's question. Are you proposing no recreational area within 500 feet, which is a reverse setback of an existing gas well for those parks that were shown earlier in this presentation, that are maintained exclusively by the HOA and/or MMD and not the city, because we had two city parks and then the others. So the city parks are part of the reverse setback, or at least if the council adopts that in January, the other parks aren't picked up by the reverse setback. So I just wanted to clarify your question exactly. What are you asking to be negotiated, assuming the rest of the council wants us to negotiate in that manner? >> And anyway, thank you for asking that question, it's a very good question. Ideally, I would like it to apply to all of those because, but I don't know legally if there's a difference in terms of what we could and couldn't require in the parks that they're saying are open for public use versus the parts that are just for their use. Again, because it's such a unique situation with the MMD and they're a taxing entity and there's an agreement, I don't know. In other words, as I understand, we wouldn't be able to tell someone if they own a gas well on their private property. You can't stand next to, you can't have a picnic there, right? But because this is a special taxing district, even in the areas that do belong to, that are not open for public use, I would still be concerned. I still feel responsible because we're agreeing to this. >> So as far as back to my question, it doesn't have to happen now. But my understanding was that the setbacks would be particular to this MPC. In other words, and my understanding was that it's 500 feet, but if it's 1,000. So I just need to know if there's different setbacks for different situations within this MPC. I know what our ordinance says, just need to clarify. >> I think we can present something very similar to some of the tables you've seen with the ESAs and such that illustrate that. And then on the unresolved here, where it says building codes and other development ordinances in effect at the time of plenary plat applied to that portion of the development. My understanding is that most often, building codes, when you permit the construction of your structure. In other words, I go pull a building permit from my house, that those are the building codes. I know there's an exception, I think 245, for building codes or certain types of codes, that those are the codes that you're building that by. Is that my understanding of how that works? Just in general, not, I mean, I understand this, people are going to ask for something different. But I always thought that if you plat, you're vested in some things. But when you go to build your house on that platted lot, you are going to be building it pursuant to the codes. That are in place at the time of the pulling of the permit, is that correct? >> There's an exemption in the best rate statute for building codes. There's a couple other requirements that must be met, but in general, yes. >> Okay, so is this bullet point a deviation from that or is this a deviation from that general principle outside of the exceptions? That building codes, and I'm going to say other development ordinances, I don't know what those are referring to, so I could totally agree with this. But I sort of got that building code is what, because you could plat it and not build it for a year or two. And you could have all kinds of code changes, international codes. These aren't codes that we're changing. These are international building codes that we typically will adopt, electrical, plumbing, fire, things such as that. >> The only point of this bullet is just that we're still working our way through. I think we've basically taken the position that you're articulating with the building codes. Where there's criteria manuals, which is something that's kind of given us fits at Robson, where they tied in the 2002 building specs and development specs. So we're trying to overcome some of those challenges and make sure that we've got one document, one easy place, and contemporary standards to administer plat by plat. But yeah, the building codes will likely be administered that way. But this is really just saying that we're trying to lay all those various policies out and really clearly articulate which code it applies, when it applies, and how we're going to be applying it to avoid any disputes in the future. >> Okay, thank you. >> In the last one, again, I just want to reiterate there's not been necessarily a disagreement on the ESA and upland habitat. But our staff did catch that the 2008, I guess commitment to council is different than, it appears different. So it's just really our note that we still need to come to a common understanding on that. So it doesn't necessarily mean to take a hard position against any of this. >> Okay, just need some clarification. >> And pardon me if I wasn't paying attention, but did we come to an agreement on which one of those the council's preference was? Do we need to weigh in on that today? >> I think that right now it's just sort of one of those things I wanted to make sure that everybody was aware that there is some difference with staff right now. That we're going to be coming together tomorrow to try to see if we can't reconcile that. Make sure that we're doing exactly what was committed to the council in 2008 and be back with a proposal at full council to make sure they're comfortable with that. >> Got it. >> But I just wanted to be sure that it was fully disclosed. >> And we talked a little bit about the parks, open space, and trails, so I'm not going to be redundant here. The one thing that you may not have picked up on earlier is in lieu of paying park development fees, the developer, sorry. >> No problem at all. Just in that deliberation, my thought on that is I like the 08 because it has a greater percentage in those percentages. Understanding the enormity of the property is significant. So A is closer to the highway, which I think will be developed more. And so to lose a percentage there, but pick up a percentage kind of set back further. I think is kind of flows better with the development. So what it's worth, those are my thoughts. >> Okay, so like I was saying on the parks and open space, we've hit most of this. We talked a little bit about the trails in session, obviously the presentation on December the 3rd. But one thing is in lieu of paying park development fees, the developer will be improving the parks and trails to either meet or exceed current park standards. As it relates to some of the improvement projects, there is some oversizing considerations. Essentially, if the study is deemed that this requires a four lane roadway, the city asked for six. There's some provisions and terms in the project agreement that really hit at how that developer reimbursement would occur. In terms of affordable housing, both developers have agreed to pay $1.5 million to the city's affordable housing program. So that's a total of $3 million. >> Okay, council member Briggs. >> Can you go back to the park development fees? How come in lieu of paying park development fees and how much we're foregoing? >> There's Gary. I'm going to allow Gary Pack and answer that question. >> So the Gary Pack and Director of Parks and Recreation, the approximate number is a little less than $5 million based on our current ordinance. So they'll be making more investment in those park development than that number is required by ordinance. >> Okay, so we're in lieu of paying $5 million development fees to us. >> Yes. >> We're allowing them to improve the parks and trails. So is that the private ones that they're for the development or would it have to be for the public ones? And could we do more with that $5 million say than they could? >> So the four neighborhood parks and the two city parks. Those parks are what we're identifying the development fees. Okay, so those are associated directly to the parks that are going to be turned over to the city. The private parks, or I should say, they're still public. But the pocket parks that will be owned by the HOA are not included in that number. The development of parks, based on our current ordinance, the revenue that we're getting does not provide enough funding to build the parks. So we anticipate them probably to be spending more than what is going to be needed than what's required to them. >> Okay, and so with parks in this area, is there a larger section on what's required besides these bullet points right here to make sure that our parks, we get there, what we expect here in our city? >> We haven't gotten into the point of actual design yet. That'll be a next step, other than using that template of the approximately $5 million in fees. As we design that, we'll keep that in mind in regards to a budget to make sure that they're exceeding that. But typical things, playgrounds, trails, restrooms, those types of things. The basic amenities that are in our park system will be part of that design process. >> Okay, I just want to make sure you were okay and have been part of this process. >> All the way. >> And I think one other provision that we have been discussing is it's been 20 years since we've updated the park development and parkland dedication fees. And so we're currently working with Texas A&M on that right now to try to bring something back to you. And I think to your point, we're probably under collecting, just because of the time value of money, 50 to 80%. And so that's going to be an interesting policy discussion for you. But one of the provisions that we've talked to them about is whatever that, and it goes back to the other development ordinances in effect at the time. The council adopts different 9, 15, 16 standards at the place of platting one of the next phases. They agree to use that as the formula. So right now, because the fees right now are so low and they're not even collecting half of what it costs to build a park, this is a much better deal for us right now. But that could change and there could be a different bar that's reached depending on what the council decides to do when you see the results of that study. >> Okay, thank you. >> Okay, our turn. Did you have a question? >> Yeah, a couple of questions. Well, my first question, then another question based on what the city manager just said. So first of all, I wanted to thank Councilmember Briggs for asking that question because I had actually misread it. That second bullet point misinterpreted what exactly was involved with that. I didn't realize that it was just their parks, I mean, just the public parks that are in Coal Hunter Ranch, right? That they'll be developing beyond park standards. >> The property that will be turned over to the city. >> Yes. >> Which would be the two city parks and four neighborhood parks. >> Yeah, okay, and the four neighborhood parks. >> Yes. >> Yep. So my, and so I understand what you're saying about that it's a better deal in terms of if we're seeing these as city parks, right? Because of the amount that's going to be put into improving them, we'd not be able to make a new park, right? We're going to be getting new parks, theoretically. We can use that same, we can use the money collected under the current development fees to make a new park. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, but because it's part of Coal Hunter Ranch, I can't imagine them because they wanted to look really nice and attractive. That they would just leave that, that they would just let it go, you know? So were they not to invest, excuse me, in that park? In other words, say it would look nice anyway, it would be a nice park anyway. And then they could give us money, which, and I understand that we're undercharging. And that is quite likely to change when we get that A&M study result back. But my concern is, are we letting them invest money to make an area look nice that would end up looking the same or near the same anyway, and we could have money to go to some of our existing parks in the city that could need help? Even though it would be, I understand, less money invested. I just don't, I don't see these parks as the same as a city park that is not in Coal Hunter Ranch. I think it'll take a lot of coaxing people out, you know, to get people to see them as truly public parks. >> So I'm really confused about what you just said. So I just want to make sure I understand what we're talking about. The parks that were on that chart. >> Yes, sir. >> The two city parks and four neighborhood parks, which we've got us a couple of city parks here in the city. And we've got neighborhood parks here in the city. >> Correct. >> Those parks are going to be given, dedicated, deeded, whatever the term is, to the city. So they will be city parks, both city parks and public parks. >> Yes. >> And what I've heard you say, so if I'm not right, just correct me, is that if we were to go in and do those same things, those two city parks and those four pocket parks, it would cost us probably more than the $5 million. >> Yes, sir. >> Now, it's also my understanding that they will maintain those parks. The HOA maintains those parks, is that correct? >> District. >> The district, the district, the district will maintain those parks. So even though they're our parks, we're not maintaining those parks. >> That's correct. >> So then my last point of clarification or observation is, let's say we didn't do it this way. We just collected park dedication fees and all those kinds of things. They can only be spent within, is it a half mile, mile and a half? >> Half mile, yes. >> A half mile radius of these two large developments. So this money isn't going to be able to go be applied to city parks who are outside of that radius, is that correct? >> The way the ordinance is currently written, correct. >> Okay, all right. >> And I just think to further put a point on the point you just made, Mayor, we just developed Patrick Park. If you remember, the city ended up bringing about 50 cents on the dollar to that project as well, just to make that park whole. This is exactly the kind of arrangement that basically keeps the city's investment at zero, provides that amenity. And it essentially assumes that we had the proper 9-15-16 funds in place to develop the park at no impact to the taxpayers. So it corrects that, which is the policy discussion we'll be having with you later. >> Right. >> And in addition to that, anticipating that if the project was approved and everything moved forward, it may be a couple years that the first house is started. Now, there's triggers in regards to when the neighborhood park would be built, over 1,000 permits and 1,500 for city. So we're really talking probably five years from those parks being built. So the longer that takes, the less value that money is, because construction costs keep going up. So that update to that ordinance as it changes will help that process. >> Can I say a few follow-up questions? So first of all, so thank you, Mayor, for raising the point about the limited area in which those development fees can be applied. I wasn't taking that into account. And so I would be curious to know if there even are, what public parks are within that radius outside of Cole Hunter Ranch, if there's even anything. >> Right now, I don't think there's anything. We have one park in that district that's undeveloped, it's Robeson Ranch Park. >> And that's Robeson. >> And that's the only one that we have in that entire area. >> Okay, and that's a big, that changes things, so again, apologies for not having thought of that. Can you, Mr. City Manager, speak to the timing of, and maybe you mentioned it before, that it didn't sink in, when that A&M study is going to come back to us? >> So we've formed a focus group of some local developers to get some feedback off initial draft and have some discussion on the process. So we met about two weeks ago, and we're going to meet after the first of the year with that group again with Dr. Crompton. And then we'll be coming to you shortly thereafter, hopefully in February, with a proposal. >> Okay, okay, yeah, so I'll be following that. And we'll be interested to know if we end up raising the fees, then to go back and to weigh the pros and cons of the difference this would make also. And can park development fees be used for open land acquisition, or? >> The park, the land dedication is used for land acquisition. The way the ordinance is written today, the land acquisition could also be used for park development fees. If there's no land to be purchased, or you already have land in an area, but you can't go the other direction. >> Okay, okay, and it's okay, thank you. >> And I just kind of repeat that, I guess I would call it like bootstrap language. But even if the council, let's say for argument's sake that you double the park land dedication development fees from a purely theoretical perspective. The way the agreement's going to work is they're going to be required to show that same value on their end, too. So all it will do is require that there's just a different level of reporting and I seriously doubt they're going to have much trouble doing that. I think the other thing is this area is so huge that it's unlikely that we're still going to be in a position where any parkland impact fees collected on this site would be able to be used off site. Because there's just not much around it right now, and it's so much of it's internal that even if we went to a mile or mile and a half, two miles distance, you're still going to have a tough time finding other places to invest it. So either way we go, the city's going to be in a position where it's kept whole. >> So with the combination of the city parks, the neighborhood parks, the pocket parks, and then the green spaces along the creeks, there's a tremendous amount of park space in that area, and it reaches all of our ten minute walk goals. >> Okay, so this makes sense to me now, thank you, I'm glad I asked, got that out there in public, it's good for people to know. >> Thanks for clarifying that for me. >> You're welcome. >> Councilmember Davis. >> So if this is a developer question, let me know, but just from kind of the staff's side of the conversation. When we talk about the ESAs and we talk about parkland dedication, how are those things been related in the negotiations? And we understand that the preferred method from the developer, from the applicant to preserve the ESAs is through deed restrictions. At some point in the conversation, have we talked about city ownership and what have been kind of the advantages and disadvantages from the staff perspective to city ownership of some of those ESAs? >> So I don't know all the answers on the ESAs, but I'll do my best. In regards to the park spaces, those are all currently we're discussing is outside the floodplain that could be used for development. And there may be some areas of that that may be beneficial for us in the floodplain to make sure they're located. So we do have access to the trails for connectivity. The trails are owned in most often outside of the right of way in the ESAs or along the creeks that are created or developed and constructed by the developer. But we have access easements over top of them. So we can make sure they can be part of our trail system to provide connectivity throughout the entire district, but also connect to the other areas in the community. >> So we kind of covered some of that earlier. What I'm asking about specifically are the big upland ESAs that we looked at earlier in the presentation. >> So what we have negotiated is again, easement trail on those as well. So there is anywhere between a 26 and a 30 foot trail easement following the trail when it's finalized, designed all the way up and around those upland pilot knobs for public access. So it's not a blanket over the entire space, but it's on the trail itself. >> Have we explored with the developer city ownership of that space? Have we explored conservation easements and access easements for some defined area contiguous with those ESAs? >> Yeah, we've discussed all those items. I think there really hasn't been much disagreement in terms of conserving it obviously. Especially the pilot knob piece because they've got some very grand plans for how to utilize that. What we really insist on is public access to it. If they want to maintain it, I think it's just something that as long as we agree on what those standards are and it's taken care of. It's just an asset that's not on our books long term. Our main concern has been public access as if it's just any other park amenity in the city because it's such a special thing. So I can certainly ask Brian Carlock if he's got anything else to add, but we really haven't bumped heads on this one at all. I think it's just more of a matter. They may feel that they have even stronger protections privately than we do in their own interests from the development perspective. So do you have anything else you want to add? >> No, if you do, yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Good afternoon, Brian Carlock with Hillwood. I don't think we're in any disagreement on what the intent is. It's just maybe the mechanism. The one we've been pursuing based on our prior meeting was drafting a deed restriction that would overlay any area that's preserved. Not any of the upland ESAs that would prohibit it from really any use except trails. And when those trails are put in, they would be public with a public access overlay. So I think we're achieving the objective of both parties in terms of really ultimate in perpetuity preservation on those areas with limited passive amenities in that being a public trail. >> And I don't want to imply that you all don't have an interest also in preserving that asset, the marketable asset of the property. My concern would be that deed restrictions create private causes of action. That if somebody runs a bulldozer up the hill, contrary to the deed restrictions, that there are people who can do each other. There are people who have property rights between each other, but there's very little that the city would be able to do. My concern is, and in my position on the council, that someone would want me to preserve those ESAs in a way that the city can enforce. >> Sure, my guess is it's all about the deed. Christy Ventura is our attorney who's actually working on that deed right now. I'm sure she's happy to address the cause and effect or the recourse in case of breach, maybe that you're mentioning. But I think we can work around that so that you're not left in a no protection provision. >> But in that case though, the city would have certain property rights then to that property. To be able to enforce the deed restrictions, we'd have to be in a situation a little bit different from what I've heard described so far. So, that brings my questions up about city ownership similar to the parkland that we've talked about that would be under city ownership but maintained by the district. So, can you help me understand from the developer's standpoint the negatives to that? >> Sure. >> I mean, something that's- >> Are we talking specifically about the pilot knob and the airplane habitat? >> Yeah, sure. >> Yeah, so I guess the only hypothetical we see in terms of, if our objective is long term in perpetuity preservation of that is theoretically it's deeded to the city and some council, likely not this one, but maybe some council in the future grants a variance to itself on that city owned property to do something. Build a water park on the top of the hill, clear trees, things like that. That's our concern is that obviously the city can grant itself a variance. Again, I don't think it's the intent of any council anytime near term. But it's not certainly incomprehensible to think that somebody someday, some council one day sees maybe a use for the upland habitat that we can't contemplate right now. We certainly don't think it's in the best interest to do mass clearing, to do an entertainment venue at the top. That's not, I don't think y'all's intent of the council, certainly not our intent of the council. We think it's more at risk, honestly, for the city granting itself a variance than if it's put into a deed restriction, a conservation easement that's protected from everyone. >> Would, so it seems like we're all kind of worried about some future iteration of ourselves doing something that the other party wouldn't be that excited about. So I'm not foreclosing the possibility that could be okay with deed restrictions. That they could be written in such a way, conveying rights in such a way, preserving rights in such a way, that could be happy with it. I'm a little bit less concerned about a future council in the city of Denton knocking down trees than I am a future development or a future successor in rights. But again, that's just something that's on my radar that is of concern to me, is of concern to people in the city, and it's just gotta be airtight. >> And we are happy to work to that airtight scenario. All I know is that people will move in and around the upland habitat. Jobs, buildings will be built, people will choose to move corporate campuses nearby because of the value of things like pilot knob and that. So to me it would be certainly risky to put it into any kind of a situation that has discretionary risk to it. Again, I can't contemplate some future form of ourselves doing that, but I've been wrong about a lot of things. I think our idea is to build the tightest mousetrap we can right now to make sure that it is what we want it to be in perpetuity. >> Would y'all ever consider a third party conservator as a preserve of some kind? >> What I would like to ask if it's okay, can we work through maybe some mutually agreeable deed restriction that really protects it as maybe a first path and see if we can't get there that way. I think that would be our preference, and I'm absolutely 100% positive we can get there. >> Sure, I'm happy with solutions. >> Okay, great, thank you. >> So just, I mean, because that's very different than how we treat all our other ESA upland habitat. We don't require any kind of city deed or, I mean, so this is a pretty large exception to the rule that you're talking about. Understanding that because of what it is, I get that, but I just wanted to make sure that I didn't miss something on how we handle these in general. >> Oh, and you're absolutely right, the thing that is different about these, specifically ESA, is it C, pilot knob with C? The difference is that is the single most geographically recognizable feature in our city limits. >> Sure. >> And it is not merely symbolic, but it is, like you said, it's a markable asset of the property. >> Right. >> It is, when you talk to people, where is this development that is massive and adding so many rooftops to our city going to be? Where is this development that is going to be bringing billions in tax revenue to our city going to be? The first thing you say is pilot knob. So that is part and parcel of the whole conversation. >> No, no, I get that, I get that. I guess I hear that, and I don't necessarily dispute that, but I also know that it is under private property ownership. And so that if we weren't having this discussion at all, then there's going to be other rules and regulations that they could do with that. So, I mean, I get what you're saying, but I think we have to understand, too, that we're dealing with a discussion here on how we can meet each one's interest to the best of our ability to satisfaction. So I get that, I just want to make sure I haven't missed something as far as are we doing this differently. So I certainly understand what you're saying and don't disagree with you. Council Member Briggs. >> Yeah, I just want to weigh in back, Council Member Davis up on that. I'd also like to see something more refined to protect that area. And it's not only beautiful, it's also historical, right? So there's a lot for that property. And this is different. This is a completely different development. I mean, it's a whole nother level of government, a completely additional tax. This is our opportunity to use this conversation to make it worth it, basically. >> No, I don't disagree with that. >> But I also want to make sure that we understand that if we don't come to some type of agreement, or some type of resolution, that they already have rights and entitlements to that that they can do with no control that we have whatsoever other than what our current code is. So I guess I'm going to say this, because I've been, it's, but I just want to make sure that when we had this conversation about creating this district at the state legislative, there were three of you that voted not to even continue the conversation, which I can appreciate that. And certainly you're entitled to be part of the conversation here. I hope that as the things that you're asking for, that you're asking for them also in good faith to help you try to come closer to supporting the project instead of just saying, hey, we want this. And then eventually saying, well, it's not enough because I'm going to struggle with having a lot of back and forth. If we're not all working to figure out, do we want to move forward with this or do we want to move backwards? That's just my own opinion. So when I hear these kinds of things, I just want to put it in that context for me, not for anybody else, just simply for me. OK, so I think you're up. Yeah, you're down. >> I'm off. >> Gary, let's, we got to wrap this up. I mean, because we've been going at this for almost three, close to three hours. So Council Member Armitage, if you've got a real quick question, let's do that and then let's start moving back through the slides. >> Not a question, but it is a quick statement. Just it's probably obvious, but I want to put a word in that I do agree with the concerns expressed by Council Member Davis and Briggs. And again, precisely because this is private property, because they could otherwise do what they want on the property. So I do think it's a good idea to make sure that we have the protections airtight on that ESA. >> Okay, I think probably the developer. I will tell you, the developer has much more of a vested right in this bringing value to their development outside of tearing it down, but instead of tearing it down. So I trust, we'll come to something that I think will be agreeable to everybody. >> We'll bring you a couple options in January. >> Go ahead. >> So wrapping up the project agreement, one of the things that we have had quite a bit of substantial discussions on is land convenience in municipal facilities. As we've talked about through both meetings, one of the challenges with this development is it's relatively undeveloped land, there's not an extensive infrastructure. While there will be a rate base and a tax base that's developed as the development comes online, one of the challenges from a municipal standpoint is the huge capital expenditure for city facilities and making services available for that area in an efficient manner. And so some of the items that have been negotiated, land for fire stations, we've talked a lot about the parks and co-location for libraries recreation. Developers also agreed to contributions for fire stations, police stations, or the police substation I should say, as well as some upfront contributions for the preliminary design for the water treatment facility. Some things that we're still working on is provision for land for a future service centers and/or solid waste transfer station, water pump booster and lift stations to provide water for the area. Substation for DME, contributions for design and construction for the water treatment plant expansion to avoid a rate increase in an expedited timeline. And so the way I would package all those up is really from a city standpoint, from a staff standpoint, is looking at this saying, okay, we know that this will be probably a financial positive at some point in the future. Those upfront capital expenditures, we really want to try to navigate and get to a point to where there's not subsidization required by the existing rate base and tax base. So I think we will have something worked out by the time we circle back with the council in January. Dane Municipal Electric, this section is basically just stating that where they have service rise, DME will be billing and collecting and providing services there. And in terms of the exhibits being unresolved, I think we have drafts on most of these, but some of these will also be coming online with the studies. And really our goal when we circle back to council in January is that you have a complete packet of the agreements, all the exhibits and all the studies for you to kind of pore through before we start that discussion. Council Member Armitage. What percentage of the district does DME have service rights to? It's about two thirds. Okay. And the rest, it is co-server, it could theoretically be whoever. I think there's one. Oh yeah, somebody's going to be speaking, yeah. I can just repeat what he said, encore in concert. So tonight by the chief financial officer, the majority of development is duly and triply certified, but there is a portion of it that's only served by co-server. Thanks. Question, Council Member Briggs? Yes, are we done with the presentation? I don't think so. We still have a few more to go. Okay, I'll wait until the end. Okay, thank you. Switching over to the operating agreement, I'm not going to hit things that are duplicated. The difference between the project and operating agreement is just the parties project, again as a developer, this is with the district, and so operation of the district is really just codifying those governing roles as that first section. In terms of the improvement projects, it talks a little bit about the developer, requesting the district to initiate design and construction, getting reimbursed for the funding, the upfront funding of those improvements. The only reason we have this unresolved is we do have the water waste water study and transportation study outstanding, we'll be meeting with the developers on those on Wednesday, and then once we start solidifying those exhibits, I think we'll be in good shape here. We talked about parks already, financing of improvements, the few things to kind of point out here is again just the advancement of the funds on behalf of the district by the developer, reimbursing developers cost through the issues of bonds. Under no circumstances can those bonds be secured by city funds or revenues has to stand on its own, and then the benchmark tax rate was mentioned earlier, we'll certainly dive into that in a little bit more substantial manner when we get back together next time. Real quick question, on the advanced funds on behalf of the district to acquire, construct major infrastructure and regional infrastructure, are those going to be specifically identified, I mean, as far as either the roadway or the arterial or the right of way for the water and sewer, that will be specifically? Yes, they'll be laid out in the exhibit, and the study is the transportation study, the water waste water study will speak specifically to those as well. Assessments, I believe Clay had mentioned earlier that the assessments is built into that 49 cent tax rate, however, this is a little bit different because these cannot be secured, cannot issue bonds secured by assessments, and these are really for that ongoing maintenance that was spoken about like with parks, right of ways, landscaping, things of that nature. Financial reporting is required, I'm not going to spend much time on that. In terms of bonds, this kind of goes into the process for the issuance of bonds like Clay mentioned earlier, this is a heavily regulated, and a lot of governance goes into these districts and so TCEQ, the attorney general, they're all involved whenever an issuance comes about, the city will be getting notices on that. So we can certainly visit a little bit on the process if we need to, but the thing I'd really call attention to here on the unresolved issue, this is something we've been spending quite a bit of time the last few weeks talking about, and it's really directed toward, I believe it was Council Member Briggs, you asked a question about taxing into perpetuity, so really what we're working with the developers on is we need to set some type of cap or limits here in terms of reimbursements through bonds, and that will essentially at some point sunset the district as well as the taxing requirements. That's required to pay back those bonds. Water, sewer, recycling, solid waste, same thing as DME, is we will be providing as the city those services and billing and collecting for those as such. We talked a bit about dissolution earlier, so I'm not going to repeat that, I think we're in a good spot there. We've also hit on the district boundaries and divisions, so I'm not going to repeat that, and then in terms of exhibits, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of these will be getting resolved as the studies and the finalized exhibits are made available. So that's really kind of a quick cliff note status check on where we are with both of these agreements, I'm happy to field any questions on that or defer to the staff member that can. So is this the end of the formal presentation? It is. Council Member Reed? Yes, so in the beginning when the projects were separate, I think Cole came in and did a project for council that basically said that the Cole Ranch project had $86 million worth of public benefit. So I'm wondering if that is still, if now that they're joined, what kind of cost or what kind of number we can add there for public benefit? We're still working our way through the fiscal analysis right now, we got an early draft last week, but I've asked David Gaines to work with our consultants to update it for what we believe are going to have to be some enhanced public safety costs over time. What I can synopsize for the council pretty clearly from a property tax perspective, general fund perspective, there's no question that once we start hitting year five to ten and on, it's a very net positive for the tax base. That's really because the average EAV out there is so much higher than it is in the rest of the city, so it's going to be a net positive. My concern right now financially has to do with the water and the waste water. There's going to be some expediting of costs on the treatment plant, and so we're currently discussing exactly how much the pre-design and the design of that treatment plant is going to have to be, and I'm talking about the water plant expansion is going to have to be moved up and how we ensure that our rate payers aren't impacted at all. So that could be an upfront contribution from the developers or something, because they're not going to be in a position to be providing impact fees when it's time for us to get into those studies. So that is right now the only, I guess, weakness that I'm seeing that we're having to overcome, and we're just trying to sit down and go through the data with them. And so when we come back to you on the 14th, we can clearly articulate that our residents and rate payers are not being harmed at all. Anybody else? May I put it? Well, I think, not specifically for staff, the developer coming up to talk about the, because I didn't want to interrupt while Brian was up there, but he was going to talk, he was going to speak to the trees and kind of that legacy data. I just want to get that on the record, clear it up. Do you have a specific, I mean, yes, so the statement was made that at some point in time, the developer represented that would not be touched at all, 100% left preserved. And so I just wanted him to speak to that. That was early on when you were when we were talking about that first slide, I think it was actually the first slide. Yes, sir, I know Councilmember Briggs mentioned that to me at the break. I'm not, we've done a lot of presentations. I know you spoke, Councilmember, to the animation, the fly through, and that certainly did contemplate kind of legal encroachments per se into those ESA. So what you saw leftover from the animation was kind of really after some form of reclamation or impact within the confines of our agreement as it stands today, kind of 2008, that was intended to show that encroachments. Whatever was left over was the remaining, whatever it was, 56, 55% preservation. I just don't know which presentation we're talking about. I candidly and honestly have no recollection nor intent of saying we'll never touch pilot knob, which I don't know if that's what you all were saying or referring to. But I'm happy to go back and check notes. But I know it's never been our intent to say because we've always understood the 2008 regulations around it. Currently, as it says right now, we can I think we're required to preserve 75 or 76 percent or maybe off a percent or two. But the intent was majority preservation of pilot knob, which is absolutely still the intent. The only reason that 55 percent came up again was just a notion from staff at some point came up of why don't we just make it in a blended average of 55. We're ready to go either way. I do candidly think the best thing is an over preservation as we're talking about for pilot knob, because I think it's the highest value upland habitat. And that's what I was reacting to. I just don't want I just don't want a record out there that says, hey, you move you move the I appreciate that the line again. And so it's important if that's true, then we let's document that and say, hey, at this meeting, that's when it happened. But if it's not true, let's let's have a line in saying it says, hey, that's not the case. And so that's really what I wanted to try to nail down. And I don't I because I don't recall it, but I you know, I've slept since then as well. But I mean, I just don't know how it functions. There's no development where you can just say carte blanche. This remains untouched, you know, in my experience. Yes, sir. And just to be clear, any any interpretation of moving the goal line, as you say, would only be that variation between 76 percent of pilot knob and 55 percent trying to really respond to what we thought was a staff recommendation. So yes, ma'am. Yeah. So I asked you to go back and look through your presentations because it was a it was a presentation that you had added on. It wasn't, you know, the really nice, fancy ones like I mentioned to you. And I took a screenshot of it. I've changed my computer, so I don't have it. But I did find in the notes where it says that staff has specifically discussed pilot knob area with Hillwood and they indicated that it was planned to be left alone in its natural state. So I think that was what the slide basically said. And so if that's left into interpretation, natural state left alone, that may be where my definition of natural state and your definition of natural state differ as I committed to kind of during the break. I'll go back and look at the slides. I'm trying to really honestly make sure you understand the intent of any comment. I know you're reading from notes. I don't know who took the notes, but we can absolutely we'll commit to going back and looking at this public record. So it's out there somewhere. So it's Tuesday, February 5th. Responses to cut council questions exhibit three I.D. 19 0 2 7. You saved me a lot of homework. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Well, and I guess I mean, you're absolutely right. That that statement, I don't even know when you talk a pilot knob, it could be how much of that, you know, is it all the way down to the foothills that come all the way out to thirty five? So I don't know what that refers to. So, I mean, I think you're right. That statement could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Mayor, I'd just like to comment that that is probably important to understand. There's a technical definition, right? Pilot knob and then there is pilot knob. You could be driving and really close to open pasture and you wouldn't know it, but you may be in technical pilot knob by ESA when you get into the trees, which is and there's a definition within your ordinance about what's classified as upland habitat. And obviously, we'll go through the process or feel verifying all that and honor all the obligations that we have, you know, and then some and it's hard to communicate. But in some ways, you'll have to trust that pilot knob is actually more important to us than it is the city. Obviously, we will have that in documentation. There will be rules around making sure that comes true. But I just want to communicate that we've owned the ranch for a long time. It is probably the most precious comparable maybe to our property we own in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But the pilot knob in that area is as important of a resource that we have and as important as anything we have. So and we'll we'll back it up with the documentation. Any other questions? All right. Let's we're going to let's take another five minute break. Then we'll move on to our agenda. Item number three B. Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, December the 17th, 2019. It is two fifty eight p.m. Moving on to our work session. Item three B. Receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the 2019-20 audit plan. Good afternoon, mayor and city council members. I had presented a proposed annual audit plan for FY 2020 to the city council on October 8, 2019 for approval. The proposed plan included utility easement and fleet services audits, amongst other audits. The city attorney had agreed to provide certain litigation information pertaining to utility easement, which he has provided. Also on November 5, 2019, administration proposed and the city council approved a contract with Matrix Consulting to conduct an audit of fleet services. Now, since this audit is also on our audit plan, it doesn't make sense to duplicate these efforts. So I will propose that we change this audit and select something else. We request city council to provide guidance in modifying proposed plan and approve the modified plan. And I have presented the proposed plan and the options in subsequent slides. But before I go to that, I was asked to include a slide to discuss basis of selecting audits. As you can recall, in 2018, I presented risk analysis conducted with significant efforts by getting input from stakeholders, review pertinent documents and using available knowledge and resources. We identified over 200 opportunities and with varying risks. We ranked the audit opportunities in accordance with those risks and selected the highest risk for review. We selected some last year and we are going to be selecting some in the proposed plan. The objective was to manage risk faced by the city and keep them within the tolerance level. Now, this is the proposed plan, and all I've done is I've added details about what the impact would be on the city. So basically, if city council decides to replace any of the two audits, we have presented four options. My recommendation would be to prioritize HR compliance with law and DMA rate study due to high impact on the city operations and citizens. So these are the options that we have selected and we would ask for your approval. >> Who's up? Go ahead, Council Member, I'm on my turn. >> I mean, these are all really important, and we have room for one, right, because one has moved out. For me, the DME rate study, I hear a lot from my constituents about DME rates. And I have had a number of questions about, you know, big picture budget issues. So that is one, and again, they're all important, but because we're being asked to choose one, that is the one that I choose. >> Council Member. >> Is it possible for you to go into just a little bit of detail about the rate study and then the compliance, the two recommendation ones that you had, just so I can kind of get a little better idea of what it encompasses, because in my mind, what a rate study is might not be what it actually, the audit is. >> Well, basically, let me take rate study first. >> Okay. >> There are certain laws apply and certain methodology apply, how we are supposed to charge our customers. Actually, a city is supposed to recoup its cost of services, and again, whatever the regulations are, we're going to look at those regulations and look for compliance for those rates. And whether verify, whether the rates are calculated in accordance with regulations. And as far as laws are concerned, HR laws are concerned, basically, this apply to every part of the organization. And if there is non-compliance, there is some significant repercussions for that. And again, I mean, this is looking at the city's risk. And say, if there's a non-compliance, what can we do to bring it in compliance? >> Okay, and so any of these could be possibly put on the audit plan for the next year, right, if they're not added to this one. So I would be in favor of the rate study as well. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Anybody else? Councilmember Ruff. >> Didn't we recently have a rate study done by an outside source, about a year ago? [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Councilmember, yes, we did resolve, who's done that rate study for a number of years for us, did that. And we are scheduled to present that to the PB to the council this coming year. >> Okay, with that understanding, I would probably prefer the HR compliance. It makes more sense to me, it's a different type of risk and a different type of cost. >> Sure, I would concur with that. [BLANK_AUDIO] Yes, Councilmember, I mean, Mayor Pro Tem, that's better. >> No, understanding that dynamic, yes, so HR compliance. I think we have new staff in that area too, so it would be a good timing to kind of get some process procedures or a look at what we're doing. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Would there be anything, knowing that we have a consultant and ultimately a presentation, and we do that on a pretty regular basis with DME. Is there anything that would be different about your audit that would kind of be an added value over what we get from the outside consultant? Or is it kind of like the fleet study, that if an outside consultant's doing a soup to nuts audit or study, do we need to duplicate efforts? What do you think? >> Well, I don't know what the outside consultant is going to present. But if they are going into the mechanics of calculating rate study, then our audit will evaluate whether we are complying with the laws. So that is a difference, and I don't know whether they are going to look at that or not. >> Yes. >> So I think my direction would be also the HR compliance. And that doesn't, at some future date, there may be another item that rotates off the annual plan or gets superseded by something. Doesn't mean we can't come back to DME rate study and then even have more to compare against if we're complying with what our own consultants are recommending or not. >> Council Member, I'll return. >> Yeah, so a question for Tony, sorry, I'm going to make you get up again. So to your knowledge, does the DME rate study that occurred took into account, were they looking at compliance? My understanding was that that wasn't their focus. If you could speak, are you able to speak to that? >> Well, if by compliance you mean, were the rates calculated correctly on what is being charged to customers, if that's what you're talking about compliance, then the answer is no. If the rates that came out of that rate study enough to recover the cost of the utility, then the answer is yes, they did do that. >> So they looked at like the big picture, but not at the micro level. >> Correct, for the individual customer. >> For the individual customer, yes, and that was my understanding, so that's why, in my sense that it's not redundant. But I mean, the HR study is really important too, so I'm not arguing against it, but I just wanted to confirm that. What I will tell you is that we do have an internal group that does look at a quality control processes for metering to billing. And so we do that, and we monitor all of our key accounts. And so that is a process that we have internally within Demuze School Electric, and really that we do across all the utilities. >> Yeah, absolutely, yeah, so it's not that there's no oversight, but it's a different way of looking at individual billing, thank you. >> Councilmember Briggs. >> Yeah, so I was just going to say that when those results come in and the studies are presented, my hope would be that if something looked off or that you thought you could add to that, you would let council know that there was something missing. I'm okay with the HR compliance, because that is equally important, and that was also second on your request. So, but when that study comes back, I mean, I'm sure, I would just like to make sure that the race study option doesn't fall off. And that if the outside consultant that we've used for years is doing a great job, then that's fine. Then we don't even have to worry about bringing this up again on the next audit plan. But so just have a look, a look-see. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> So, let me understand the direction here. >> Sure. >> You all talked about only one audit, but so am I to take that I'm conducting a utility easement audit? Because there are two audits, utility easement and fleet services, if you so choose, should roll off. >> Okay, I stepped out so I might have missed part of the conversation. >> Okay, I'm sorry. >> No, no, you're good. So you're saying that you have two audits, that what? >> Okay, so last time when I came here, we talked about utility easement audit. The city council was deciding whether to conduct that audit or not, or should it be part of this plan or not. But meanwhile, what happened was city administration proposed and city council approved a consultant study basically will be similar to audit of fleet services. So it doesn't make sense to us conducting the same audit as the consultant conducting the audit. >> No, I did catch that, yes. >> So now we're talking about two audits. So which one should I replace or should we choose two audits to replace two audits? >> Okay, did you get direction to perform the utility easement audit the last time you met? >> No. >> Okay, so to me, I'm not sure why that's in the equation yet. What I heard you say was that you did have an audit for fleet services, I think it was, that is in your audit plan. >> Sure. >> And so there's no sense duplicating that. So we're looking at taking from what I understand from the consensus the HR compliance with laws. And putting that audit into where the fleet services audit was. >> Okay, I got that. >> Yeah, that's to me the direction. >> That's not, okay. >> Okay, all right. Yes, council member, I'll return. >> Yeah, so just to be clear, so you have room for two audits. >> No, that's not what he said. >> No, that's not what he said. >> Okay, now I'm back to my original understanding. I just wanted to be sure, got it. Okay, yeah, substitute that one for the fleet services. >> Okay, thank you. >> Is that it? Okay, wonderful. All right, thank you very much, you managed, appreciate it. All right, we'll move on to agenda item 3C, receive a porthole discussion and give staff direction regarding proposed revisions to the ethics policy for all city of Denton employees. >> Good afternoon, mayor, council. I'm Cassie Ogden, Director of Procurement and Compliance, here to talk about the proposed revisions to the employee ethics policy. So a little bit of background, as you may remember, while council was drafting the ethics ordinance, last year staff was at the same time drafting an ethics policy for all city employees. Council adopted that employee ethics policy in April 2018 and then in May adopted the ethics ordinance for council. So why are we bringing this back to you now? So there's a couple of goals that we have with this policy revision. We want to ensure that we're being straightforward with our employees and responding to their feedback regarding the current policy. Since the policy was adopted in 2018, we have held several employee round tables, hosted employee forums, and training classes where we received feedback about gifts, meals, events, and other items in the policy. We've worked with police and fire to ensure that their feedback are incorporated into the revisions as well. Our goal with the revisions is to clear up some misconceptions about the policy, especially the confusion over gifts. Additionally, we want to be able to quickly respond to our employees when unforeseen circumstances occur that were not contemplated directly in the policy. So I've outlined the major revisions to the policy. As you can see, the current language is included as well as the proposed. The major changes are underlined. So one of the major changes includes the gifts, meals, and entertainment section. We're really trying to make a clear distinction between gifts from vendors that are really meant to influence employees' decisions and are prohibited versus gifts from the public just expressing appreciation to our employees. During the last year and a half, we've had examples where interactions with our citizens were restricted to the interpretation of the policy. So for example, we had an item come up where employees thought they couldn't accept water bottles from citizens. We've specifically outlined that exception in the policy now in the proposed revisions. So we've also added the definition of nominal value to be items $50 or less. So just some examples, again, nominal value is defined as an item of $50 value or less. And the distinction added regarding acceptance of awards, plaques, trophies, and flowers given in recognition of performance was specifically added to address employee feedback that we received over the last year and a half. Several departments participate in rodeo events. I know parks, solid waste, electric also. We all participate in some type of rodeo event where they receive gifts of nominal value. So they ask to include that as an exception to the policy. So a gift is still prohibited if it has a monetary gain or advantage, is reasonably regarded as influence official conduct, and directed to a specific employer or small group of employees. So gift cards, gift certificates, or cash of any value are still prohibited because that's under state law. And then gifts from vendors are still prohibited. Another major change was to the board's commissions and association membership section. So we've just simply added language to clarify that recusal is required when employees are making decisions regarding city business while they're sitting on those boards, commissions, and associations. We really want to maintain objectivity and eliminate, as much as possible, the perception of conflict of interest between the city and any boards that we do, we have financial or contractual ties with. Just for your, so we have some examples listed, Keep It in Beautiful, United Way, and the 100 Club. We currently have 22 employees serving in various capacities on boards or associations that have business with the city. Other major revisions includes allowing for future exceptions to be made that are not specifically outlined in the policy. So rather than identify those each specific event or item, because obviously things can change in the future, we've added language that grants the city manager's office, allows them to grant exceptions and then report those exceptions back to council. So we, I've identified some examples on the screen for you. The Emergency Medical Services Week is food that's provided by local medical facilities who are fire and EMS employees just as appreciation for what they do every day. Public Safety Day is a similar event. 100 Club Banquet is an annual dinner and award ceremony for our police department. And then various equipment donations from 100 Club and Angel Armor to our police department. Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association also provides food to our police department during the month of December. So, and I included in your backup a memo from the police chief and the fire chief of some examples of items that they specifically would be exceptions under the policy. And then next steps, so depending on your direction today, we will bring back a resolution for your adoption at a future meeting. We'll continue to facilitate ethics training classes for all of our employees, and then we do notify vendors of our gift restrictions. And that is all, if you have any questions. >> That's my monitor. >> So two questions, one about how do samples count? And I don't know which of our departments receive samples, if Parks gets little sample pesticides. But I'm thinking of the kind of ethical situation that a lot of doctors or medical offices are in where you have big pharma vendors come in and they give samples and then they. >> So if it's, we try to steer away from anything that's meant to be kind of an advertising type component where it looks like we're promoting one business over the other. But I know when we go to conferences, there's a lot of things that are included in your swag bag that are from vendors. And as long as it's available to everyone at the conference, that's acceptable. And that's actually already outlined in the policy as it's acceptable and allowed to take and we include that in our training for employees. >> Excellent, okay, great. So just to repeat, so if someone goes to a conference and there's a swag bag with a bunch of stuff in it, that's okay. That makes sense to me. But if, say, getting a visit from, or something in the mail coming from a specific vendor that has to be returned. >> Right, and if it's cost prohibitive to return, we will then make a determination whether we can use it for the department or if we need to donate it to local charities, something like that. And I did want to mention, over the last 18 months, we have donated over $2,000 worth of items to local charities. Just based on the gifts that city employees have received and then donated. >> Awesome, awesome. And I'm really pleased now that it's clear about the cookies and water bottles too, because I know. And it's always just sweet little old ladies and girl scouts that want to give to our first responders. And most of all, it's really heartbreaking for the adults who want to eat those cookies. But, and then my second question was about the boarding commission. So I was reading the language in the ordinance, and I just want to be sure that I understand exactly how it affects employees serving as members of boards. So when it comes to, so for instance, United Way, so a lot of what, because a lot of what goes on around are all kinds of initiatives for helping with homelessness and housing happen to be kind of through United Way. How would that affect? I'm trying to understand, how would that affect people who are on staff, who are involved in any of those, is that? >> So if they are making decisions that could influence their department, or the money that they're managing as far as their budgets, they would be required to recuse themselves from that decision. But if it's as a city, as a whole, United Way is wanting to give money to whatever initiative in the city is part of that, then that's okay. But when the employee is directly in line of oversight of something, then they're required to recuse. >> Okay, and they're required to recuse on that board? >> Correct, for that item, for that, just like you all do when you have a conflict of interest, recuse from voting on that particular item and then move forward. >> Okay, and the language in the ordinance, it says, it talks about kind of prior to serving on a board. And then an employee who is serving on the board at the time, and who intends to continue serving, must also obtain approval. That means at the time of the passage of this- >> Yes, so we did go through an approval process for all of the employees that serve on boards that have contractual or financial ties to the city. And so that is a requirement that it's disclosed already, that was under the initial policy. Now we're just asking for them to make a recusal and have it documented in the meeting minutes. >> Okay, yeah, so I guess I would, and I can just figure that out later, and thanks for explaining that to me. I'm just trying to figure out how, again, in the case of United Way, if it puts a city employee in a situation where they basically end up being kind of ineffective, either on that board or so held back in what they can do in the city, I'm not sure. >> We've only had one instance of someone not being approved to serve on a board or just because of their department and their role. So I would say 99% of the time, it's not an issue, but we're just making sure that we're protecting our employees from those, maybe possibly unintended consequences of serving on that board and just don't want to create any conflicts for them. >> Got it. Okay, thank you. >> Any other questions? >> I just want to say thank you for looking at this. I know some of this was community confusion, but also just plain language reading was sometimes creating more confusion than necessary. So I really appreciate you doing this. A lot of people are going to really appreciate the work you've put into it. >> Contracts and ordinances are scar tissue. How you wind up with things that you just didn't recognize and you get it fixed. >> Thank you, I appreciate those sentiments because I agree with anything new like this, you have things that crop up that you can't fully anticipate. So I appreciate everybody working hard to fix some of those items. Any other questions, comments? >> Okay, well, I'll bring a resolution back for your consideration in January. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right, next item on the agenda is agenda item 3D. Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding the 2020 Denton Mobility Plan update. >> Hello, council, I am Pam Alamutl. I am a traffic engineer with the city of Denton and I will be presenting along with Mark Oliphant on the mobility plan. So we are here to introduce the mobility plan project to the council and provide an overview of the major milestones accomplished to date and provide a path forward. So this is going to be the first of four work sessions. Today we're merely introducing the project to you. So this is our agenda. I will be covering the mobility plan background, the project stakeholders, the project schedule. And then Mark will come up and present on the existing condition statistics, some guiding principles, citizen feedback results, and where we're headed. So what is a mobility plan? A mobility plan is a strategic plan focused on combined multimodal improvements in the city with a focus on implementation. So this update 2020, we are going to be combining three plans, the thoroughfare plan, the bicycle plan, and the pedestrian plan. So we're going to dive into each and what they entail. So a thoroughfare plan, it determines future roadway alignment and classifications. And then based on the alignment, we preserve the right of way for that future road. We also provide recommendations for design standards and typical cross sections. The bicycle plan, it identifies existing bicycle facilities, it determines future bicycle corridors. It prioritizes the implementation of these facilities that are recommended. And again, we provide design standards for these bicycle facilities. A pedestrian plan identifies gaps in the sidewalk network. Prioritizes new facilities based on the proximity to schools, transit stops, and downtown. We again recommend design standards for the facilities. And it helps us better position the city for funding opportunities. Along with all of this, we are also working on an ADA transition plan, which is focused on the existing facilities and maintaining those facilities. And we are planning to bring that on a separate, on top of these work sessions. So in summary, a mobility plan, it determines alignment, it preserves the right of way, it positions the city for external funding, it recommends design criteria, and it prioritizes infrastructure needs. So why now? We need to develop a strategic plan. We are growing. We are anticipated to double by 2040, if this is probably not the first time you've heard this. And right now the plans, there's separate documents we want to combine and provide a comprehensive infrastructure network. The latest thoroughfare plan was adopted in 2015. We have a 2012 update to the pedestrian and bicycle linkage component. The map itself was amended back in March, 2014. So this is a list of all the technical stakeholders that have involved since the beginning of the project, key internal stakeholders, departments at the city, and we have our external stakeholders here at the city of Denton. So here's the schedule and what we've done to date. So we kicked off the project in May of this year. In June, we had an internal department work session. In July, we held our first technical committee meeting. In July, August, we held three public meetings at the city. We had 82 participants in these meetings. In September, we held our second technical committee meeting. We presented to the committee on persons with disabilities to receive their input on the plan. And September, we had a separate, more specific meeting for the bicycle group and discuss their opinions on the plans and where are the needs. And in that entire time from July to October, we had a survey online, we pushed it. And in those months, we were able to receive 384 responses for the online survey. We were also providing the mobility committee a monthly update on the project. So they've received all this information we're about to present to you today. And here we are today on December 17th, our first of four work sessions for the mobility plan. So we're here today, we're coming back, we're on the agenda for January 7th, the 14th. We have two days dedicated just to discuss more in detail the thoroughfare plan. January 28th, we will go into more detail on the bicycle plan and the pedestrian plan. >> Question. >> Amaterd, do you have a question? >> So it's a question that is from a resident, and it was sent to all of council, so everyone has it. And I will just read this question, it's one I happen to agree with, I think is a good question. Is bike plans in other cities include context sensitive standards to determine what kind of bicycle accommodations should be built on a given street, depending on traffic volume, traffic speed, curb activity, and road type. And this person provides a number of examples from other cities, kind of a flow chart. This ensures that each bicycle facility provides enough comfort and safety that most people will feel comfortable enough to use it. Will our bike plan update add context sensitive guidance on the type of bicycle accommodation we build for each planned street? If that isn't currently planned, how can we get that included, and where would that guidance be added? And I support weaving that in. >> Definitely, and we completely agree that those factors are everything we're considering. And we, at the next session, work session for the thoroughfare, we will be discussing and going into more detailed cross sections we're recommending. And then the last, on January 28th, when we go and take a dive into the bicycle plan, we will be talking about what factors do we consider, and all of those are factors based on speed, volume. We heard from citizens that that does factor into how safe they feel being on the road versus being off the road, so we are definitely, the answer is yes. >> Wonderful, excellent, and it was interesting to me to see, again, just going with the examples of three cities provided by this resident. I didn't ask them for these three cities, but it's interesting to me to see the differences in what they measure. There seems to be a kind of a minimum, and then you can include any number of factors. >> Right, there are a lot of factors. >> So anyway, I'm thrilled to know that, thank you. >> No problem. And the last slide I will be presenting is the schedule for the future. So January, we have the remainder of the work sessions. In February, we will go back to our technical committee. We will be going to each district to provide updated information based on council's input to the public. In March, we will be presenting to, we plan to present to the committee on persons with disabilities and then also developing a draft report and sharing that with council for a hopeful adoption of April 2020. And at a point where this gets adopted, we will go to, we want to make sure we present and provide this information to all the departments at the city to make sure that we're all on the same page and we're all planning according to what gets adopted. >> Council Member Riggs. >> Yes, so thank you for this and thank you for asking that question. I know that we all got the email. So we just gave consensus for vision zero to develop goals and to get started with that program. How will this plan integrate with that decision? Will it or are they just going to run parallel or? >> It's parallel. It's definitely, we have a slide and Mark will come up and present, but it's parallel. It's a factor that we're very conscious of and we want, it's a guiding, we label it as a guiding principle. So we are aware of the concept and the goal of it. So it'll be parallel. >> Okay, thank you. >> Mark Oliphant, Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator. So I'm just going to go into a little bit about what the existing conditions are here in Denton that we're dealing with currently. What we're looking at into the future, we know we're going to be growing a tremendous amount. This is a very unique opportunity to position ourselves so that we're ready for that growth and that we can grow in the right way, the way we want to go. So these are some infographics that we shared at our public meetings, just some general information about what's going on. So for instance, currently here in Denton, you have an average 24 minute commute. That's actually pretty close to the national average, which is about 27 minutes. So we're right with them. We have a net gain loss of about zero in commuting. We have about 16,000 people commuting in, or I'm sorry, 36,000 commuting in and 36,000 commuting out. It's a wash. Just some information about traffic safety and so forth. Right now, according to the Council of Governments, we have 130 lane miles that are congested. And in 20 years time, we will have another 100 miles of congested lane miles. And that's under current conditions. It can be changed. Safety, most of our collisions occur on our primary roads, which are higher speed, higher volume, fatalities. We've had 65 between 2014 and 2018 and 60% of those occurred on those primary roadways. So these are all kinds of factors that we're looking at as we formulate recommendations and so forth. Here's a little bit about what's going on with bicycles in town. 1,400 people, according to the census, are commuting by bicycle on a regular basis. We have around 50 miles of varying types of cycling infrastructure, 24 of that is dedicated trails. And then we have other shared roadways, bike lanes, different types of facilities. As far as safety, in that same four year period, 2014 to 2018, there were 130 bicycle related crashes. If you look at the bottom right there, there's just sort of a heat map of where these incidences tend to occur. It is in the downtown area. I think that's more because that is where the most volume is rather than the most unsafe conditions. Although you can read it in different ways. As far as pedestrians, about double the number of cyclists are commuting as a way to walk to work. I think it's heavily influenced by our universities in town. And the walkable areas that we have in downtown and between downtown and the universities. 450 miles of sidewalks in place currently. They are in various conditions, but we do at least have sidewalks in place there. The trails as mentioned before, a few more pedestrian accidents, 160 in that same period. And similar issues as far as collisions with pedestrians that are reported through the police database. They tend to be in that same general downtown area. >> Yeah, do we have any data on the time of day when these accidents have occurred? Do the accidents tend to occur more at night than in the day or? >> That data is collected. I don't have it on me now, and we can bring that up when I come back. >> Yeah, I'd just be curious to know, and also about to the extent that this is tested and we can know when it's not hit and runs, if intoxication is how much that has been a factor in any of these, just out of curiosity. >> Sure, yeah, we can reach out to the police department and get them. >> Thanks. >> Yeah, a couple of things. I'd like to understand accidents, I'd like to try to create a kind of a knowledge base to understand. So for example, the last unfortunate, that I'm aware of, fatality was a cyclist crossing loop 288 at a cross that was not a through cross. So those instances where, I don't know how to categorize that, other than to say that it was traffic laws existing were not, in theory, being followed or, I just want to understand, because I think it's fair to say if we need to be better about educating. I know we do a great job, but I'm saying if we need to focus on educating to say that there is infrastructure there, which was not utilized, and maybe that's an opportunity to redirect people. Or if it's cyclists on the curb that then come off the curb into the street versus being in the street, those type things. So I don't know what's gathered in those reports, but I would like to parse out those that says, someone's in the cyclist lane and a car veered into the lane and hit them, versus someone crossed mid-block and there was an accident. And I think those are two very different things. And so the accident data I accept, but I'd like to then dig deeper into that to understand some of those catalysts the best we can. >> Okay, great. Yeah, so continuing, and we will look into more granular information about those collisions and so forth. Vision zero, that did just come up, I know you just considered that. In our mobility plan, we are incorporating these principles, both vision zero and complete streets, which is essentially making sure that streets can serve all different users, not just motorists, that we have sidewalk infrastructure that serves the complete population. And so these, I just want to assure you we are looking into these. And now that this has been updated, it will be included. >> Yeah, so I wanted to respond to what Mayor Potem said in terms of the vision zero. And just to mention that one of my takeaways from vision zero that really resonated with me was when the presenter said that we should try to focus, and this is the vision zero approach, right? That we should not so much try to focus on educating people into new habits, but kind of working with the habits that people have, not talking about drinking and driving in that case. But, and again, each of us is entitled to our own view on that. But I happen to agree that, so if there's an accident where someone on a bicycle, sorry, I shouldn't say accident, I should be saying collision. I need to retrain myself, so apologies, because it is preventable. If there's a collision when someone on a bike has tried to cross a big street, then we need to be looking at that and saying, what's the distance between the legally possible street crossings? And what can we do to minimize that? Should there be a crossing here? So I just wanted to comment on that and say I love that approach, how the vision zero perspective helps us solve these problems in new kinds of ways, instead of trying to constantly educate people out of habits where people might be accommodating for problems in our, or TechStats, design. >> Yeah, okay, I want to just tell you a little bit about what we heard. We've done a number of different public meetings and outreach, and this is just what kinds of information has come back to us. So connectivity from east to west, north to south, safety over congestion reduction, improving pedestrian safety at crossings, both roads and railroads, considering bicycle and pedestrian access during all project phases. I think that has to do with detours when construction occurs that we make sure we cover vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles. They can all get around it, and just wider sidewalks. We went and spoke to the Committee on Persons with Disabilities. Here were some of the highlights of their feedback. University drive sidewalks were a big priority, feeling safer and having ADA access. Key destinations that people access on a daily basis, grocery stores, city facilities, medical services, bus stops, widening sidewalks, making them fully ADA accessible. And also Razor Ranch, getting to and from Razor Ranch, and within Razor Ranch, and connecting it to University Drive. >> Mayor Proctor and I actually had a question. >> Yeah, just, can we go back to that last slide, please? When we come back, I know you're gathering that information. But what would be helpful for me, because it triggers immediately, and again, I know you're putting the information together. But when you say here needs to feel safer, there's obviously some specificity that goes in there. There's some kind of bulleted something that says University Drive feels safer. Is that speed, is that wider sidewalks, is that barriers on the sidewalk? I mean, because that's really what we're getting to, right? Because safer is going to be nebulous and it varies depending on who you ask. And so I really want to try to drill down to what actionable things can we start implementing. And so if there's a priority list to say, barriers make people feel safest. No barrier than speed, or kind of if we can have a priority list. So then if we're looking and we're looking at the budget and we say it's going to be X amount to put in barriers, then let's look at that and have that conversation, because that then gives people the most comfort. So I'd like to, anytime those larger words are there, I'd really appreciate, where possible, some kind of bulleted, actionable, prioritized steps that accomplish that. Yes, Councilmember Hicks. So I'm curious on the University Drive sidewalks, is it the north side or is it just that specific area at Alice? Because I know that's a real big point of contention and it doesn't make any sense. And so, I mean, is that, were they focusing on the Denton Center area where there's absolutely no sidewalks? That is an area of focus and it absolutely comes up a lot. But no, there are other locations along the University, I would say the north side does have- All on the north side, okay. And we can get into, you know, more depth on that, more detail. Bicycle Plan Focus Group, we did this specifically about cycling, had a very great turnout. So major roadways getting complete walkways and safe bicycle routes. So instead of diverting cyclists away from these major thoroughfares, finding ways to incorporate their needs into it, utilizing drainage easements and existing utility easements for off-street trails, this is an interesting thing. Combining often on-street facilities, we've been working very closely with the Parks Department about this. Because we oversee streets, they oversee parks, but someone moving in a non-motorized method doesn't care who owns what they're using. And so if we can connect our facilities with theirs, we really set ourselves up for success. More connections downtown, the Universities to other major nodes, places like Razor Ranch, north of University, south of Interstate 35, and then intersections that were problematic. So basically Carol is of great concern to the cycling community in town. Just some very general information that we got from public, oh, yes. >> Council Member [INAUDIBLE] >> Yeah, so can you switch back to the slide? >> Yeah, sure. >> This is about off-street trails. A comment, somebody commented to me. >> We got a little critter. >> Yeah, we've got. That was neat, we just heard squirrels or raccoons or something. >> As long as it doesn't come crashing down through the tile, that's good. >> Anyway. >> Reindeer. >> Reindeer, yeah. >> Yeah, well. >> Yeah. >> It's not time. >> John Parks' Reindeer. >> They're about two weeks, a week and a half late. >> So anyway, but off-street trails, somebody mentioned to me, it's a trail off of Bonnie Bray that was, and he mentioned that it's in such poor condition that he prefers to ride in the street there. But he was saying, but he was mentioning this, not to say the city needs to fix up that trail. But to, and this was in a public forum, I don't know if other people saw this. But that his point was that I don't need the trail. I like the street, so I'm just wondering, you don't have to answer that here, but that would be something to keep in mind, not for all trails in general, but just to see which trail, and you're probably five steps ahead of me at least, but which trails do bikers value and which do they feel like, no, I really would rather be on the street. Especially if it's about biking to get from point A to point B as opposed to an excursion through nature. >> So this is some feedback. It's kind of obvious things that you would expect where there's a very strong preference for off-street trails, separated bike lanes, side paths, buffered bike lanes, and less of a preference for intermingling bicycles with your regular motor vehicle traffic. Destinations, do keep in mind, this is a non-scientific, it's just the people who showed up gave us feedback. But parks rated very highly, restaurants, bars, some entertainment, libraries, community centers, and things like that. Although I would really say, I think in many ways, based on the other feedback, all of the above are preferred destinations. So it's, you have to keep that in mind when deciding where to put your priorities. >> Councilmember Riggs has a question. >> Yeah, just on the last slide, real quick question. So the shared lane markings, we heard even before the study that people didn't feel safe with them. But as we're going forward and we're designing bike facilities, are we going to take this data into consideration? >> Yes, yes. Under the old plan, I would say the old plan was aspirational in thinking that mixing bicycles and vehicles, we're going away from that. We're going toward more protected infrastructure. I mean, I think it was a good start seven years ago. But the overwhelming feedback, the industry, where it's all going is separating them, right? So we're going away from that. >> I like that we're applying the data that we have. Thank you. >> So we've also conducted a survey. Pam mentioned this, had about 400 responses. This is just sort of a breakdown. About half came from that center part of town, which that's also the densest areas. But we had decent representation from different areas of town. As far as responses in the south side, we probably would have liked to get a little more. Just some takeaways from that survey. High priority on options. Just provide us with more options, safe options, improvements to road design. Maintaining and improving existing infrastructure before we create or expand on the current infrastructure. People are making their commuting decisions based on fastest route and ease of parking. Well, ease of parking tells you what mode they're using. Impediments to cycling, lack of dedicated, protected bikeways, and just general safety concerns. Then, walking impediments, gaps in the sidewalk network, and long distances between destinations, which could be called sprawling. So that's kind of a quick overview of what we have heard so far. This is what the citizens have told us. And so we're going to be coming back in the next month to hear from you, to discuss all of these findings, to discuss our recommendations, and work through this. So just a couple of dates that we want to put in front of you on the 7th and the 14th. We will be back. We'll be going over, oh. >> No, I'm sorry. Council Member Davis had a question. >> Chair, just real quick on the, on the survey. >> Mm-hm. >> Can you go back two slides? I just want to make sure one of those sensitive to one is just crushing it. >> Crushing it on the survey responses? >> Take your mic on. >> It is now, it's on now. So 76201, crushing on survey responses, honorable mention to 76209. But that's a lot, that says a lot about folks that are responding to the kind of issues that we heard in the, in the slides just before that. Those are users. Those are people who are biking and walking to work. But on your next, on the takeaways, can you tell us how those, the people who participated in those surveys and those public meetings and all that kind of thing. How does that interact with what the engineers are doing? With the kind of pencil and things out on a map? You know, when we say things like, commuting decisions are based on X. That's different from saying that our economic decisions, where we shop and where we eat and where we play. How did the, how does the plan overall integrate what the citizen feedback has been? >> Well, I will talk to that some, but also invite Pam if she wants to, if she wants to weigh in. So we are getting, you do have to be careful with public feedback because you want to hear about patterns. You want to hear about desires. You want to hear about preferences. But at the end of the day, engineers do have the data planners. They work with data. They have science behind them, studies, and things like that. And so you are marrying the two, the two groups of people, I think. And you need to work out something between the two that is mutually agreeable. We bring science. We bring tools, traffic modeling software, data that we get from all kinds of different sources. From TextDOT, from Census Bureau, and we use that to inform our recommendations and decisions. But ultimately, it does need to serve this public. I think, too, we have to keep in mind that a lot of our participation is self-selected. And so people who are interested and do have strong opinions are who we are hearing from. But that there are lots of other people within the community that it's more difficult to reach. And so we have to do our best to represent the needs of all people in the community. I think my colleague doesn't, I've said enough, does that satisfy your? >> Yeah, I just want to make sure that the public kind of knows the way that you use the information and the way that you bring it together. Sometimes I know there's a feeling that there's a disconnect between designing so the map looks good and designing so that the cross-sections look good and the cars can move quickly. As opposed to kind of what we see from the survey takeaway, which is not a lot of folks concerned about moving the cars quickly. A lot of people concerned about quality of life and the kind of things that affect them daily and not so much getting across the center of town real fast. >> Councilmember Arbiter. >> Yeah, I concur with that too, and I also really like your answer about the marriage of the two worlds. And that ideally we find is a common ground. My question and final question has to do with bus transportation. You mentioned that DCTA, one of the stakeholders, and I know that the focus is car and bike and pedestrian. And specifically, this is what I would like to see, and I know that, at least as I recall from the survey, I don't remember asking so much about that, and that's fine. But it's something that I would like to know about now is what people think about how the, forget the industry term for it, but the direct service, the call to service, custom service, bus service is opposed to fixed scheduled routes. And I'll mention without going on about it too much that, because when I first had heard that we were moving to a mixed model, that kind of sounded neat to me, and since then, kind of between hearing complaints about regular bus routes, not stopping, or sorry, bus routes no longer existing, and/or the need for more bus routes. And then the most recent issue of Shelter Force Magazine, which is the kind of the community development magazine, it was, the focus is transportation, and there's really good feature article in there about why this on demand, I think it may be called on demand, doesn't make good economic sense for cities because you're basically moving fewer people around in a less regular way. And that the people who are primarily serviced in most cities, and these are the people who I hear complaints from most, by fixed bus routes are people who take the bus for work, right? So they need a, I take this line to get to here every day as opposed to I feel like taking an excursion and calling up. So I would be curious to know, and maybe it hasn't been long enough because we're just starting to kind of roll that out. But after a certain amount of time to see, assess how that's going for us as a city, for the people who use the bus. And to really, instead of assuming that this is the right way to go, being able to come back and reassess that. So anyway, thank you for letting me go on about that. >> Yeah, yeah, thank you. Just a couple responses, and maybe my boss wants to say something about that too. So we are working with DCTA. Their route planning is autonomous. I mean, we do work with them. I think maybe we've had more input just about general road locations. Where are they having issues getting their buses through, or stops and things like that. So like the specifics of the service, at this point we haven't gotten down into that. But Brian, do you want to? >> Good afternoon, Brian Yon, traffic engineer. So my response is that, exactly what Mark said, we are working very closely with DCTA. They are one of our technical external stakeholders. And it's really, it's our goal to provide a network that works for them. I'm going to let them develop their on demand, or if they want to do transit as a service, or mobility as a service. Their model has to work for them. And what we're trying to do is provide a network, an infrastructure that takes away roadblocks for whatever mode they want to do. If they want to do fixed route, then we're trying to be receptive to that and plan for that. If they want to do on demand, or right now they're even looking at using for that first mile, last mile. They're looking at using Uber and Lyft, and how do we facilitate those decisions. That's really where we're, that's what this mobility plan is about, is incorporating transit as that fourth leg. Albeit that we do not control their master plan. We try and work with their choices and maybe their choices guide some of our choices. So that's really, that's where we are. And again, we're working very closely with DCTA, not only in the mobility plan, but just on a day to day basis. Trying to take down roadblocks and enable their system to work better with our system, to provide everything they need. >> And thank you, so just to follow up, and that makes perfect sense from an engineering department perspective. Because you're talking about the stuff that the engineering department deals with from a city wide perspective. People who live in city of Denton take the bus in city of Denton. Or people who work in city of Denton might take the train in, and the city also. Again, this is outside of, totally outside of engineering, but it has representation on DCTA. So I understand why it's not within what the engineering department does. But I would like to see, maybe I'm looking at city manager now, some sort of how we can, or maybe Mr. Mayor, since you're our city representative to DCTA. I don't know if you feel comfortable kind of speaking to that now, or if DCTA has plans to assess after a certain period how the on demand is working in city of Denton specifically. >> You're talking about on demand that is performed by DCTA? >> Mm-hm. >> Well, first of all, DCTA, to my knowledge, doesn't have a whole lot of on demand services. They have zone services, so I will certainly take that to them. But that's one thing that they're looking at under mobility as a service. But right now, we only have zone services, and I think one of them was out at the airport, which is slated to be discontinued in February because of ridership. >> Okay, because the ridership is low. >> Right. >> Okay, and so I was conflating the on demand and zone, but zone means where there's a certain area. >> You call and have them come into that area. Yeah, and I would expect that it would be low, probably turn out to be low there too. And I would hope that DCTA would consider re-energizing fixed routes, going back to the fixed routes model. Just mentioning that, because it's on the topic of mobility, again, I understand, not part of engineering. We're going to adjust the mobility plan just to keep us on the post. >> Yeah, yeah. >> We're deviating wildly from what a mobility plan is. DCTA, as far as their business model and what business models they choose to operate, we are bringing in and building into the mobility plan options. So you look at the technologies that Brian and his team are bringing in, in the way of giving preference to a bus as it moves through an intersection. The way it communicates to a signal, those are all factors that we build into the mobility plan as we look at routes. Not just for the public transportation, but also for emergency services, for high volume traffic. We feel like what we're coming up with is a very malleable plan that takes into account all of those issues. And then, of course, we do this five year update to make sure that as those needs change and they tweak, then we can accommodate that. >> Yeah, and that is awesome. That makes perfect sense to me. Just saying, since looking at more transportation options, I know when people take a survey, they're not thinking about, just like when they think about driving around city streets, they're not thinking necessarily, this is textile, this is city. That's how they get around in the city. >> To address a point I heard earlier, I think Council Member Davis brought it up, talking about some of the surveys and what they actually address, and these multiple components. I get that we're engineers, so we do like numbers and facts. The mobility plan in general is trying to marry two things. This is what, really, I heard everybody up here really trying to get to you is, we want to understand, and the understanding of complete streets and context-sensitive design. So where does that design really need to be applied, and in what way, and in what fashion? When I'm in the urban core, or I'm in a residential neighborhood setting, I have very different needs, and we hear that from the public. But the other part that the public doesn't put into play there is that commuter traffic that does move in and around and through the city. They're impacted by that. So if we, this is where really the engineers really, that engineering brain kind of shines a little bit. As I'm looking about how do I move vehicles and people around the city, I'm looking at those major arterial roadways. So yes, that is an area where traffic engineers historically have focused. But it's because you're also trying to provide that safest localized attention. So I can provide those amenities that we're hearing that are requested, and still allow that same conveyance from a regional perspective. Because City of Denton is very connected with the county, the cog in general. We have a major interstate system and a lot of highways running through here. It's all those things that play together. We're marrying those into one plan. That is exactly what we're doing here, is taking that public component for those individualized pieces and overlaying them with those regional, more connected needs. >> Council Member Riggs. >> Right, well, I had a question later on for the slides, but it was the mobility priorities. And we've been talking about transportation options, and I just want to call attention to one of the highest priorities in the survey was accommodating transit service along the roadway. And so I think this is a really important discussion and conversation. And we may not be able to get DCDA to do what they need to do. But as we're going through updating our mobility plan, making sure that access is there is really going to be important. >> It's absolute. >> Yeah, so thank you. >> I have a quick question. Was that the end of the slide presentation, or there's more slides? Okay, yeah, if you just want to run through those, then I'll ask my question after that. >> Yes, sir. Two quick slides, and this is just like literally what to look for in the next couple of weeks. We will be coming back to you on the 7th and the 14th. And we are going to put background information into this coming Friday report, so an ISR there. And then I'll be back in a little over a month's time to discuss the bicycle and pedestrian plan. And likewise, we will have background information beforehand. >> Okay, on the mobility plan update, because obviously since the last one we did, we had a 2030 plan that was drafted. And the 2030 plan was based upon a snapshot of the mobility plan at that time. Obviously, we've had a tremendous amount of infrastructure improvements. We've had Mayhill, Monte Bray. We've got other large roads that have been widened. We've got McKinney Street. How are you going to, I don't know if reconcile is the right word, but combine, I'll say reconcile. The 2030 plan from 10 years ago with updates in the mobility of our city and those future land use classifications. I mean, is that something that just will be taken on an ad hoc basis as projects come forward? Or are you going to look at, like Mayhill Road was a two lane road, and now it's going to be four lanes. Based upon the future land use map or the 2030 plan, it might have been one thing, but now it's more conducive for something. When does all that get taken into consideration? Now. So the current land use projections that we get in working with the planning and development group actually absolutely gets overlaid into this. So we're looking at the zoning as it is today and not what it was five years ago. Which is why most cities will update the master thoroughfare plan, their mobility plan every three to five years. Development really dictates where this moving target goes. But I think it could also happen the other way, and that is, I mean, you take Mayhill, it's going to be much more conducive for development with four lane divided road. And the accompanying traffic signals and things such as that pedestrian than what it would be. So I guess it can work both ways. Development will help define what the roads would be. The roads will help also define what the development will be. Correct. Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Any other questions? Fantastic. Thank you all so much. Appreciate it. Good job. Oh, and I think Pam, was this your first presentation? Congratulations. Thank you. Did a great job. Yes. All right. We'll move on to it looks like our last agenda item before our closed session, which is three E receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction on pending City Council requests. City Council requests. Walked up here without my paper. Yeah. Good afternoon. Mayor and council members. I'm Rachel ball through it. Mendosa, the new assistant to the city manager. I'll be presenting your current and pending requests for information. I'm just a refresher for everyone that may be watching or here today. We will introduce each request and the elected official that made the request will have up to one minute to describe and justify the request. The remaining officials will then have one minute to provide feedback and indicate their support. Oh, sure. Top right. Thank you. We'll respond to all requests once consensus account was established. The first and only today is the resolution of support for businesses near you and T brought by Councilmember Briggs. So I go, you're on. So first, I'd like to say hi to Angela from the student government. She is here today and I we are all familiar with this story and bringing this to you today because I have been tired of saying we are the city. There isn't anything we can do, but there is. And after receiving the resolution from you and to student government, I am now here asking for council to pass a resolution in favor of longstanding small businesses in our community. I have seen so many community members stand up together with close to 30,000 signatures for us as council and other representatives. So if there was ever time to be representatives for the city of Denton and to protect our business community, it is now. OK, Councilmember Armitage. I'm really glad for this request. I strongly support a work session on this. I've been very public in my opposition to this eminent domain and the effect on local businesses and the residents in the area quality of life. I think it's important as a city to take a stand on any issue that affects the city and I myself am one of the petition signers as well. Anybody else? Councilmember Davis. So I'm a little hesitant to speak on this, but I think it's important that people know kind of where I can't come down on this issue for me. I don't think to borrow a phrase, I don't think it's a good look for an entity that uses eminent domain on a pretty regular basis to insert ourselves into what are right at this point. Ongoing negotiations between a private landowner and another governmental body. I understand the sentiment. I have no quarrel whatsoever with the sentiment or the reasoning and bringing it before the council. However, if we're going to turn around to use eminent domain or do what the university has done at this point, which is start the process and say at the beginning before negotiation that you have the option to use eminent domain. If we're going to continue to do that ourselves, I don't think it's appropriate for us to then call out another entity for doing the same thing, regardless of how we define public purpose or how they choose to do that. That's a matter for litigation and their negotiations. Anybody else? >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Yeah, no, I absolutely, Councilmember Davis said it best, but I'll try to at least stipulate that I am a big fan of all the businesses affected there. Big fan of small businesses, but I do think it is incumbent upon us to focus on what the city does well and also understanding. We have, there's, UNT's a major employer and so to that end there's people here that make decisions and can advocate and can have greater level of connectivity than most of us and I support that. I support those businesses, but at the same time the city is, we just passed a resolution on a piece of property to do the exact same thing. And so it is kind of contradictory to say, hey, this other entity, we're going to look over your fence and say, you can't do it, and then we do the same thing. >> Anybody else? Okay, all right, thank you. All right, that concludes our work session reports. I've got a sheet around here somewhere. No, there was a consensus on that, yeah. All right, well, we will now convene in closed session at 417 and we will go into closed session pursuant to consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071 and I believe that's the only one that we have. All right. Welcome, everybody, to this meeting of the Dent City Council on today's December the 17th, 2019, it is 631. Our first items on the agenda are Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. and Texas flag. Please stand if you're able. >> Pledge of 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. >> Pledge of 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. >> Our next item on the agenda is a presentation from members of the public, 2A is a review of procedures for addressing the City Council, if we could roll that tape, please. The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure including a code of conduct that applies to citizens as well as council members. These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum. Here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizen reports. Citizens will have four minutes to give a scheduled citizen report and four minutes to give an open mic report. There will be an electronic bell when time has expired. If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the citizen will be asked to stop speaking. If the citizen does not cease and a second request is made, the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the council chamber. Citizens are asked not to approach the dais. If a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to the council, please let the city secretary know in advance. For scheduled citizen reports, the council may initiate discussion or questions following each citizen report. For non-scheduled open mic citizen reports, the council may listen to citizens speak. However, because no notice of the subject of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance, the Texas Open Meetings Act limits any deliberation or decision by the council to a proposal to place the item on a future agenda, a statement of factual policy, or a recitation of existing policy. Citizens are asked to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member. Please refrain from making abusive, personal, impertinent, profane, or slanderous remarks. Anyone who violates this council rule of procedure may be immediately removed from the council chamber. Thank you in advance. Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary. Excuse me, still fighting the cold. All right, our first speaker for a regularly scheduled report is agenda item 2B8, Mr. Willie Hutsmith, regarding homelessness and statement about Confederate statue on the square. Here in the council, my name is Willie Hutsmith. I live at 623 Newton. I want to talk a little bit about the homeless situation. And the people who are behind my house, I've been trying to help. But there's a problem, and I want to talk a little bit about that. One of the things that I'm going to correct myself personally about these individuals, they have told me, several of them said, we're not homeless. We live under the sky. So and we like to be in the forest area. It's my home. So I'm going to stop calling them homeless. I'm going to give you a definition. Here's what I'm going to say. First, let me give these definitions that I've created myself from dealing with. One, there are three groups that I've noticed that are in the woods behind my house. They're those who have been-- their situations, they are on hard times right now. There's just something happened. They lost their job. They had a death, and they didn't know what to do. They were put out of the house, and they're just on hard times. And they are working trying to get from-- to change their situation. The second group are those who just like no responsibility, and they like just-- they call that freedom. They just don't want any responsibility. They like it. And then the last one are the ones that nobody seems to know what to do with or how to deal with them. It's the mentally-- the people who have mental issues. Then I ran into-- behind my house, there were 28 people living there at that particular time. And there were eight of them that fit in that category. And you would be able to recognize them quickly. If you went over there and tried to talk to them, you would see right away there's something going on here that I-- that someone needs to help this person. So my situation is that, though, they're messing up the place. They're just trashing it out. And I mean, it's the trash that they got from a dumpster. And they put it out there in the area. So I talked to you about that before. And you moved quickly. And now you've cleaned up the area, and it's better for me. But they're going to go somewhere else. So what I'm proposing is to look into finding a job for those people that want to work. And then the others that don't want to work, quit enabling them. Quit giving them food. They call that getting food from us as they live around when the food is going to be given. They travel around it. So I think we need to change that behavior. Now let me talk a little bit about the Confederate statute. In the history of Denton, this council has never made a statement. For the life of me, I don't know why you won't make the statement. And I fight the thought that the reason you won't make the statement is you agree with it. You agree with that statute being there. I've determined, found out, that the Klu Klux Klan is behind erecting that thing associated with what they did with the people at Quaker Town and moved them out of their homes there. Why in the world wouldn't a city council say as a group, now I've talked to you individually, and I know individually where you stand, but I'm asking you to speak as a council. We, something, you just say what you believe, but quit being quiet like you have been for all these years, and say nothing. Say something. Thank you. >> Councilmember Armitage. >> So thank you for speaking, Willie. I want to ask about the, if you don't mind coming up, I've got a question for you. Because we're allowed to ask questions at this part, the scheduled citizen comments. Did you know, were you aware that I had brought forward to council one of the earliest things I did when I got on council a work session request on a city council statement against the confederate monument that was not successful, and I brought it forward again, and because like you, I know that it takes repeated asking, and second time, still did not have the numbers to even bring it forward for a discussion. I was wondering if you had been aware of that? >> No, I didn't know that. I thought that since I hadn't heard anything, none of you had a thought about it. Now, we do talk about it at the supper table with one of you, and I used to like him, but that's nothing from any of you, the former councils, councils that I've been, no one. So I'm just wondering why is that? >> Well, and thank you, and I'm wondering why, too, but just wanted you to know that it has been out there, and so I would encourage anyone watching, ask the same questions, why? It's in our city, and again, as you know, the county owns it, but there's nothing stopping us from speaking out, of course, we can speak out individually, but as a body, and I just want to mention as for the people, and my heart goes out to you, it is not the job of individual private citizens to take care of other people who just happen to be living on your property. You pay taxes, we all pay taxes, and for me, anyway, I know I expect, would hope that we would as a body take care of them, and there are some things we've done, but I'm hoping that we will be able to have a way to, until we can have Midsenior King open, which will be happening soon, by the way, seven nights a week, in January, I believe. >> Is there a question? >> Yeah, so I was just asking, I don't know if you're aware that that's going to happen, in January, Midsenior King, which is now only open a few nights a week, it's going to be open seven nights a week, but I don't know if you know that we've got this big gap in daytime shelter, you know, and people need someplace to keep their stuff during the day, so anyway, just wanted to know if you were aware of that, but I hear what you're saying, and thank you for speaking out. >> Thank you. >> Okay, all right, that's all the scheduled speakers that we have. We do have an open mic, we'll go on agenda item 2C, additional citizen comments, one is Queen Janetta Montgomery, if you'll come down and state your name, the time will begin. >> Queen Janetta Montgomery, good evening, I was coming to you all because I have some concerns, I'm going to be reading from a notebook and also from notes that I have here, but this is in regards to the, I'm hearing that there's an oversight committee that has started or trying to start, and the selection of people that have been chosen for this, I'm not understanding why the same people that were chosen prior to, for oversight, bond oversight committees are consecutively being asked again over three times. And my concern is that according to the charter and according to you all's, your charter and according to the state statutes, the city of Denton is in violation of section 8.33, I would say 8 through, I mean 8 through D, and D, I will read aloud, and I'm sure you all should know this, but rather if it's intentional or unintentional, I still need to go ahead and address it, in effort to ensure maximum citizen participation, city council members will continue the general practice of nominating new citizens to replace board members who have served three consecutive terms on the same board, per the provisions of Denton code of ordinances, section 2 through 65, and the rule procedures for that, under those appointments, that would be section .3 for the appointments that really stood out to me because there's not enough diversity in what you guys are trying to do, and it's not representing the city of Denton properly, and the laws on there should not be broken, and then on top of that, I didn't see any notices posted about it, I didn't get any type of outreach from any of the individuals, a lot of the elected city council members also did not know from my understanding about the decisions for certain members from the committee that I served on have been chosen without their knowledge, and that's also considered closed meetings, and that would be against the open meetings act, those things need to be addressed properly and effectively executing that quickly as a change, and I've heard that you guys, when you were about to vote on certain members, that you thought that most of the members should be the same ones that served during the committee this past election, so thank you very much, and if I don't see a change within a certain amount of time, I will have to go ahead and address those issues, thank you. >> Thank you. All right, moving on to our next agenda item, which is the consent agenda, Council Member Briggs. >> I approve the consent agenda except for item O, which we will be pulling for an individual vote. >> Okay, all right. Council Member Ryan. >> Second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second for the consent agenda, except for item O, which will be pulled and be presented as an item for individual consideration, so let's vote on the board, please. A motion carries 6-0. Moving on to agenda item O, and we do have a recusal, Council Member Davis has filed the proper paperwork for recusal, consider approval of a resolution of the City of Denton authorizing the city manager or his designee to amend the memorandum of understanding with the Denton Independent School District for reimbursement to the city and the increased estimate amount of $610,456 for compensation benefits of student resource officers. Council Member Ryan. >> Move approval of item 3-0. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second for agenda item 3-0. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 5-0, I guess, with one abstentia, 5-0, yeah. We're moving on now to our agenda for items for individual consideration. Agenda item 4-A is consider approval of a resolution of the City of Denton accepting the donation of public art, and Council Member Husspeth will be recusing himself from agenda item 4-A, accepting the donation of public art from the Husspeth family in the form of a mural painted on property located at 178 North Bonnie Bray Street by artist Dan Black. >> Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, Jessica Rogers, Director of Economic Development. I have a very brief presentation for you. So just so everyone is familiar with the mural in question, this is the mural that's painted on 178 North Bonnie Bray Street along a fence line. It actually includes five separate individual pieces that are murals of significant members of our Denton community. And so it was painted by local artist Dan Black. The donation is being made by the Husspeth family, the city was reached out to as the mural is going to be coming down and asked if the city could preserve it and possibly relocate it. We have obtained a quote from a professional art moving service, it would cost somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 to remove it and mitigate and preserve the piece. And when we discussed that with the Public Art Committee, we didn't decide or recommend a siding location because we're not sure exactly how many pieces will be taken and removed and what would be the best location based on that. So at this point, we were just seeking approval for the donation itself and can come back and report back on any type of siding in the future. - Council Member Briggs. - So thank you for this. Mural is absolutely beautiful. And so the building is coming down and this is a way to preserve. - The fence that the mural is located on. - Oh, okay, the fence is coming down and so it's a way to preserve the mural. - Yes. - And do we have a place to store it? - Yes. - Okay, so that's not an issue. - Yes. - Okay, thank you. - Council Member Davis, thanks for signing up for, Council Member Armitage. - So very much in favor of preserving this in one way or another, when we talk about the cost associated, do we know how much, for instance, recreating the mural would be or reproducing the mural in another more permanent material or something like that would be just as a cost comparison? I assume it would be more, but have we looked into that? - We did not ask the artist, we did reach out to the artist to ask if he would be willing to help us if there was any type of repair work that needed to be done and he was amenable to that, but we don't know what that work might need to be, so we didn't obtain a quote for that. - Okay. Do we, if we're already talking with somebody who's gonna help us, we believe would be able to help us preserve it and move it, do we know kind of what those techniques are gonna be? I mean, sometimes you'll go to a museum and you'll see something that is on even more ephemeral material than this that is well-preserved and can be, but I'm getting a lot of questions about the material that it's painted on, its longevity, all those kind of things, so is there a way you can provide us with more information once we engage this person? - Yes, I can absolutely provide additional information. My understanding was that that was the cost to preserve it, whatever material they needed to stabilize it and take it down in pieces, that that was all-inclusive of the cost, so I'm not sure on the technical details, I'm not an art removal expert, unfortunately, but I can get that for you. - Okay, thank you. - Yes. - Councilmember Armitage. - Yeah, so I just wanted to underscore, and for anyone who's watching and to see, for you to confirm that the public arts, hot funds, excuse me, money, is only to be used on public arts, right, so that is what it is, money that is specifically for this purpose. - This would be an eligible expenditure of those funds. - Yeah, and one thing I like about, and I understand the question, I think it's a good question about what about replicating it. I like this not only because of what it represents, of who it represents and what, as in history, in this city of women who have contributed so much, but I also like it as a memory of, even though kind of short-lived, it had only been up there, it still feels like the new mural, a new-ish mural, to me, a memory of that part of Bonnie Bray and as our city changes, it is specifically that fence, and I like the idea of the original work of art in that fence being preserved. So I like that idea, and I too would be curious to know what kind of preservation methods would be done, what kind of paints are used, et cetera, the wood, I assume the paint preserves the wood, but anyway, none of that affects how I'm going to vote, I've seconded. I see no other questions, any other comments from staff? All right, let's vote on the board, please, for agenda item. She didn't say that she moved, and I didn't say that she moved. Oh, sorry. Okay, Council Member Riggs. So I move approval and thank Mr. Husband for the donation. Council Member Armitage. And I second, and oh yes, thank you for the donation. All right, let's vote on the board, please, for agenda item 4A. Motion carries 5-0. Agenda item 4B, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton authorizing the city manager or his designee to convey an underground gas line easement to the University of North Texas containing approximately 900 square feet. Please note that Council Member Armitage has recused herself. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Laura Morales, real estate program manager, and the item tonight is the UNT underground gas line easement at Mulberry Street. The easement location is in the City of Denton. This ordinance authorizes the city manager or his designee to convey an underground gas line easement to the University of North Texas containing approximately 900 square feet. This is on a track of land located west on West Mulberry Street. The City of, a little background and information is the City of Denton received a request from UNT for an easement to be used for the installation and extension of an underground gas line and a pertinence under a public street located at 1504 West Mulberry near Avenue B and C to provide gas services to the newly constructed UNT greenhouse laboratory facility. The desire to install the underground gas line prior to a potential consistent hard winter freeze is in the best interest of the project. UNT will obtain all applicable permits before disrupting traffic or conducting construction activities within the existing roadway. Real estate has secured the notarized signature on the easement document from UNT. This ordinance authorizes the city manager or his designee to convey the easement interest and become effective immediately upon city council approval. And that's what I had. Okay. That concludes that presentation. Any questions for staff? Councilmember Briggs? Yeah, so this is new for me. I'm trying to understand. So the easement once it's, once UNT installs the gas line, does that easement come back into the city or is that UNT is to maintain or the gas line belongs to UNT or Atmos or how does that work? Once the installation is complete? The gas line, the easement will be conveyed directly to UNT and they will maintain. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Seeing no more questions. Councilmember Ryan? Motion. Do we have a second? Councilmember Davis? Second. See I hit the button, it didn't do anything, I had to second it. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Okay. Councilmember Briggs. Thank you. Let's vote on the board, please. Resolution carries five zero. Agenda item four C, if somebody could instruct councilmember Armitage, she can return to the council chambers. Agenda item four C, consider approval of a resolution creating and appointing members to a special seven member oversight committee to monitor, evaluate and report on progress of the six-year capital improvement program. Good evening, mayor, members of council, David Gaines, director of finance. This item is a resolution forming the 2019 bond oversight committee to review the project status of the 2019 bond program as well as the closure of the previous bond programs that are still active. We have had the past two work sessions on December 3 and December 10, had discussions with city council about the bond oversight committee and received direction on the formation of the committee and the seven members to comprise the committee. This resolution reflects that direction with the seven members listed here and in the resolution. So that can answer any questions regarding the resolution. Councilmember Briggs. We had a speaker earlier that spoke about some of the members or a section in our ordinance and the city attorney may want to speak to that. My question is of the individuals listed, were any of them on the 2012 committee and do term limits also apply to these committees or are they under separate rules from our other boards and commissions? City attorney addressed that. The answer to the question, I was trying to track the actual ordinance or charter and there's nothing in the charter regarding that and I can't find the ordinance that she's referring to because I'm not aware of that specific requirement that the city imposed upon itself via ordinance. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I haven't been able to find it in our code of ordinances as well as the charter. I can defer if David knows any of such provision. I guess one of her questions was, because I know for boards and commissions, PNZ and the others, there are those three term term limits or something to that effect. Are these type of committees subject to those rules or are these ad hoc committees that aren't subject to those? Yes, typically the ad hoc committees by both the ordinance and also the handbooked boards and commissions do not serve similar to your full-time city boards and commissions. They're basically special purpose and limited just for a specific function. Any other questions for staff? Thank you very much. The chair would entertain a motion on this item. Councilmember Davis? Move adoption of the resolution as presented. Councilmember Ryan? I second. We have a motion and a second. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 4-2. Agenda item 4-D. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton authorizing the city manager or is it designee to execute a contract of sale between the city of Denton as buyer and 612 East McKinney LLC as seller. Good evening, Mayor and Council, I'm Deanna Cody, deputy director of capital projects and real estate division. Today I'm here to bring before you the police department renovation project land acquisition specifically located at 612 East McKinney Street. In preparation for the proposed improvements to the police department central operations facility, council directed staff to pursue acquisition of a 1.22 acre tract of land at 612 East McKinney Street immediately adjacent to the police facility. Acquisition of the subject property will allow for increased security, vehicular circulation, improved access to the jail for visitors and prisoners, additional parking, and will provide a staging area during construction. In accordance with direction received from the city council in October, a settlement agreement was presented to the owner who has agreed to the negotiated purchase price of $1.7 million and has executed the contract. Upon a favorable motion and approval of this item, the city manager or his designee will be authorized to execute the contract and complete the purchase. Any questions for staff? Councilmember Armitage? Yes, something that surprised me and don't worry if you can't answer this question because it's not a real estate question, it's more of a police question, but I was surprised when I saw about the visitors to the jail because it was my understanding that I know that now at the city jail that you can't have visitors if that's the kind of visitors that are meant, people visiting people in jail because of the short period of time people are there and I'm fine with, in fact, I love the idea of people being able to visit people in the city jail, but I was just curious about why it was up there. I don't know if anyone can speak to that and what that meant. Could you put the slide back up or the presentation slide that indicates that? I saw Chief Dixon here a moment ago. He's not here. Is your question whether we're going to maintain access for folks to visit the jail if they need to? It's a question that wouldn't have, so right now people can't visit the jail. You can't make a visit, if you could go to the slide that mentioned visiting, yeah, it's the second bullet point, improve access to the jail for visitors and prisoners. I was just wondering what was meant by visitors because you can't. I'm not sure we can answer that question right now. We can certainly ask Chief Dixon to put something together in terms of what the plan would be moving forward in a Friday report. I'm happy to do that if that helps. Yeah, that would be good to know. Okay. All right. Mayor Pro Tem? I move approval. Council Member Ryan? Second. We have a motion and a second for agenda item 4E, or no, I'm sorry, 4D. Let's vote on the board please. Motion. I think that's 5-0. Yes, 5-0. Oh, and Council Member Briggs recused herself. I'm sorry. I forgot to state that. I didn't see her step off the dais. Agenda item 4E, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton authorizing the city manager as designated to execute and deliver an advanced funding agreement for highway safety improvement off system projects between the City of Denton and Texas Department of Transportation. Good afternoon, Council. Pamela Alamutul, traffic engineer for the city. So through the highway safety improvement program, the City of Denton was awarded $1.26 million to upgrade six intersections at the city and this agreement is needed for along McKinney for the two intersections for Woodrow and Mockingbird because these two intersections are off system. This is a breakdown of the expected construction costs. These are estimates. We are estimating the upgrades will be about $330,000. The city contribution would be close to $50,000 and TechStat is contributing the majority of the anticipated construction fees which is anticipated to be $283,000. Questions? I move to approve. Councilmember Davis? Second. We have a motion to second for agenda item 4E, let's vote please. Motion carries. 6-0. Agenda item 4F, consider nominations, appointments, city boards and commissions. Any questions on that? Councilmember Davis? Second. I have adoption of the nominations. Mayor Pro Tem? I'll second. We have a motion to second for agenda item 4F, let's vote on the board please. Motion carries. 5-0. Now we're in our public hearing portion of our agenda. 6-0. Public hearing 5A has been withdrawn by staff. So if I hear anything different I'm going to say that we're moving on from agenda item public hearing 5A. And on 5B and C we've got to switch the order of these because of just the nature of the request. We have to do the specific use permit first and then I believe have the zoning, is that correct? Oh, zoning and then specific use. It's item C and D that need to be reversed. C and D? Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I heard the wrong thing. I apologize. All right. So item B, 5B, hold a public hearing. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city that didn't reach regarding a change in the zoning district and use classification for residential R2 on 34.31 acres and residential R3 on 2.34 acres to plan development. Sorry about that. Got a little confused. Not a problem. It's not hard to do. All right. Good evening. Haley Zagorski with the planning department. The request before you is for rezoning from residential 2 district on 34 acres of land and residential 3 district on just over 2 acres to plan development or PD district. The total property is just over 36 acres. You can see it outlined in yellow on the map. These maps are just to indicate what the city zoning map would look like, where this change should be approved. So you can see the change from R2 and bright yellow and R3 and the darker yellow to PD. I wanted to give a little bit of a background on this project to show you what the timeline has looked like. This application originally came in at the end of August. In September there was a neighborhood meeting held that had just over 20 people in attendance at that time. The developer presented a request at that time that was for NR4 and NR6 district under the 2002 Denton Development Code, and then in October, if you remember, we had our new code go into effect, so those districts went away. So their request was changed from an NR4 and NR6 combination to plan development at that time. So in October they had a subsequent neighborhood meeting to follow up, explain the change that was going to be reflected on those notices when they went out, and to clarify for the neighbors some of their points of concern that had been raised at the first meeting. In November we entered the public hearing phase. This was originally noticed to go to P&Z at the end of November on November 20th. Those notices were sent at the beginning of the month, the property was posted. At that time there was an error on those notifications, so that public hearing was withdrawn by staff. Notices were re-sent and the public hearing was held just last week at P&Z, and I'll go into a little more detail about that. This is the original site layout that was included in your backup. It's what was discussed at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting and what's been shown at the neighborhood meetings to date. This reflects 154 residential lots, five HOA lots. There is a plugged gas well on the property that's located roughly here, would be within an HOA lot. This plan also reflects connectivity to Monte Carlo Lane at both the north and south side of the property, Mizzen Lane on the east side, and then Ryan Road here on the southern leg of the property. As I mentioned, at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting just last week there were quite a few individuals in attendance. We had 12 individuals that spoke at the meeting, 13 provided comment cards. The vast majority of those were in opposition to this case. Some of the primary concerns, I would say the chief concern of those residents was the connectivity of Monte Carlo Lane through the subdivision. Specifically, some points that they raised were with regard to the slope of the proposed street, because there is, to my understanding, approximately a 60-foot drop from the north to south side of the property, so it would be potentially a fairly steep roadway that could lead to high travel speeds. There were concerns raised about safety, particularly for children within the Ridgemont neighborhood on the south side, though there were concerns about increased traffic volume due to cut-through traffic, and then there was a concern about loss of privacy due to that increased traffic volume. Other concerns included the density being added to the area, because there is a lot of other construction going on on Ryan Road right now, as you're aware, with some of the subdivisions on the south side of the road. Drainage was a concern, because the property again slopes towards the Ridgemont subdivision, and then there were concerns raised about potential increases in crime due to increased traffic and people in the area. The P&Z ultimately did recommend approval, but it was after a significant amount of deliberation on their part. I would say all of the members of P&Z indicated that they were in favor of the plan potentially being redesigned to at least eliminate the straight connectivity of Monte Carlo from north to south, but in the end their recommendation was for approval with no changes to the plan. However, the developer did hear those concerns and has provided a revised layout. I printed that and provided it to all of you at the work session, and we'll look at that now. So this maintains the same lot count, 154 residential lots. There is an additional HOA lot that is here roughly in the middle of the property. I believe that would be for utilities to still maintain that connectivity directly to the south. But the road, as you can see, has been realigned, so it would come in from Monte Carlo on the south. It would make a 90-degree turn, and then there would be two cross streets here that could ultimately get you back to Monte Carlo on the north side to connect through to Teasley Trails. All of the other site features are generally the same, and it does maintain the same connectivity that's required by the code. So the second piece to a plan development, aside from that site layout or the development plan map, are the standards that would apply to that subdivision. So we'll look at this in two components, the first being the uses that would be permitted within the PD. So they based this PD off of a base zoning of R4, so this comparison shows you permitted uses in R4 versus what they've proposed. The only primary use they're proposing is for single-family detached dwellings. And then they're proposing to maintain the same permissions for accessory and temporary uses that are within the R4 district today in case anyone needed to have a home or desired to have a home occupation or there needed to be a temporary construction office or something of that nature while the subdivision is being developed. Looking at their development standards, what you have here are the standards. The column outlined in yellow is what's proposed by the PD. This is the R4 district standards here in the middle. And then I broke down the difference and tried to color code that to make it a little easier to see where there are increases and decreases. Some of the highlights or the bigger changes, I would say, would be with the minimum lot size. R4 does require 7,000 square feet. They've proposed that at most 10 of the lots could be as small as 5,000 square feet. All others would have a minimum size of 5,750 square feet. So that is a bit of a decrease from R7, either 1250 or 2,000, depending on which lot. The lot dimensions are roughly the same, but they are proposing a larger lot depth of 100 feet as opposed to 80 feet would be their minimum. Some of the other chief changes, side yards for corner lots would be proposed to be decreased 10 feet to allow for a 10-foot side yard on a corner as opposed to a 20-foot. Rear yards, they're proposing a slight increase. In coverage, they're proposing to be at 60% as opposed to 50%, and then the other significant changes come with regards to trees and landscaping. In terms of tree preservation, based on when this development originally came into staff over the summer, they did fall under the 2002 code at that time. In addition to their zoning, they originally submitted for a general development plan, which is a step in the platting process, so that did grant them vesting under the local government code for tree preservation. There's a whole list of things in the local government code that you can invest in. The only one of those that they've claimed that they wanted the right to reserve would be the tree preservation. All of their standards, they are proposing to comply with the 2019 DDC. Here where you see tree preservation, I couldn't provide a direct comparison because they haven't done that full analysis yet of what's on site, but they would be at 2002 standards with 20% of quality trees and 10% of secondary trees as opposed to the 30% of heritage and quality in the 2019 code. With regards to landscaping, they're proposing a significant increase from what the 2019 code requires. The minimum yards that are required would not differ. They're proposing to follow all of those standards. The DDC requires one either front or rear yard tree, it doesn't specify which, per single family home. They're proposing a minimum of one front and one rear yard tree, so two trees for interior lots. Then each corner lot, they're proposing an additional two trees in the side yard. - Council Member Armitage, do you have a question? - Just to clarify, so the 20% means 20% preserved, right, and then the 20% of the quality for trees and 10% of secondary trees. - Correct. - So 80%, up to 80% of tree removal. - Correct. Those would be the minimums. They are proposing, just to give you an idea of where those would be, the green areas that they are proposing as open space lots would be largely for tree preservation. They have a significant amount of canopy on the east side. We did specifically ask them to try to align some of their open space with that so that it connects with the open space preservation within Teasley Trails to provide for a larger conservation of habitat there. So it could be possible that they preserve more, but those are the minimums that they would have to meet. - And so, as you mentioned, it was the applicant who requested that they be held to the 2002 standard as opposed to, yeah, and the applicant's here, right, so we'll have an opportunity to ask about their plans. - Correct. Their attendance. - Okay. Thank you. - I've got a question. You said that that was the only deviation from the 2019 DDC was the tree preservation. As far as... But with the PD, basically curious, what's the difference in the number of lots based upon the PD of 5,000? I'm struggling with the density as far as the small lots. So what's the difference between if it was a 7,000 square foot lot for an R4 district and what they're proposing? Do you know what the difference is in the number of lots? If not, I'll ask that again. - Well, without seeing a design, I tried to run that just based on rough acreage and it comes out to relatively the same, but Thomas may be able to make more of that. - Okay, sure. That'd be wonderful. Okay. All right. Okay. Go ahead. - All right. So there are two sets of criteria for approval in the Denton Development Code. The first are the general criteria that apply to all applications. I outlined each of those in detail in your backup, so I'll just summarize them here. Generally we found it to be consistent with all DDC and comprehensive plan requirements except for those specific deviations requested as part of the PD. There were no prior approvals or other agreements that we needed to analyze as part of this request. We're not proposing any phasing, so those particular criteria don't apply. It's not expected to generate any adverse environmental or fiscal impacts. We found it to generally be compatible with surrounding developments, and a lot of these we'll look at in more detail as part of the PD criteria for approval. So there are six criteria specific to a PD, and I'll walk through each one of these in turn. The first criteria is the comprehensive plan, so the Denton Plan 2030 contains our future land use map. That map designates this entire area along Ryan Road and the general Ryan Teasley area as low residential. Specifically that calls for one to four dwelling units per acre. It has some other criteria that are encouraged as part of low residential such as encouraging development contiguous to other existing developments, so infill rather than sprawl on the outer edges of the city if you will. It calls for new development in established areas to respond to the existing development pattern and design. We found that these lot sizes are generally consistent with the newer subdivisions going in, specifically with the newer phases of Teasley trails, it's very consistent in terms of lot size and density. They come in at just over four dwelling units per acre, 4.23, so that is slightly above the four units per acre goal of low residential. However, when you look at the pattern of development in this area, as you go down Ryan Road from west to east, you see that the lot sizes get smaller, the density increases as we get close to this corner that's been designated as a community mixed use center. Whereas we have 1.5 dwelling units per acre in Montecito, Ridgemont is at 3.7, some of the older phases of Teasley trails were at 3.1 units per acre largely because they had a lot of open space in ESA to help offset some of that, but then the newer phases of Teasley trails come in at almost four and a half units per acre. Then finally here at the corner, we have new multifamily approved in this area that would be at 20 units per acre. This is consistent with that general trend and would be part of that transition going from low density in the west side of Ryan Road to more moderate density towards the corner with Teasley. Some of the other items we looked at in the comprehensive plan were our preferred growth concept. Again, it's specified that as we see residential development occurring, that we should encourage it to be compact. It should be within the city center before we start going outwards to the edges. So this does meet those general goals of the comprehensive plan, specifically the goal for infill within residential areas that vacant properties be encouraged to develop in ways that are consistent with the character of the area and be utilized to encourage compact and more affordable housing. Looking at the second criteria, again, this is the same table that we saw before, whether it complies with the DDC. They're proposing compliance with all DDC standards for the 2019 code except for what's expressly outlined here in the table, either in red or green. There are three specific provisions within a plan development that you're not allowed to deviate from, those being environmentally sensitive area standards, which there are none that would be affected by this development, gas well standards, again, that well was plugged over the summer, so they are in compliance with everything that would be required there, and then finally tree preservation. And again, they won't be proposing or they're not proposing compliance with the 2019 standard. They're proposing compliance with the 2002 standard as they're allowed to do due to state law regulations regarding vesting with the time of their initial application. The third criteria is rather the proposed development would provide for greater building design, greater amenities, and greater connectivity. With regard to building design, they're not proposing any deviations from the architectural standards or the homogeneity rules within the code. They would follow all of those standards. They did indicate at their neighborhood meeting that they intend to impose a 40% minimum masonry standard via deed restrictions on this, that is not a part of the PD language before you because it would not be enforceable by staff due to the recent change in state legislation under House Bill 2439, but that is something that they've proposed to voluntarily do that they spoke to at their neighborhood meetings and a lot of the neighbors expressed an interest in them doing so. With regards to amenities, they're proposing a minimum of 15% open space throughout the subdivision that would be in those green areas we saw on the map earlier, that would be used for tree preservation to buffer between the single-family lots in this subdivision and those that it abuts. The code does not require buffering between single-family subdivisions as those are seen to be compatible uses, so you'll typically have lot line to lot line development, so they would be providing some additional space and buffering there. Those would be available for community use, this PD standard reference trails and benches being located throughout that. The minimum standard within the 2019 code is 5% open space for single-family development. With regards to connectivity, this development would improve auto and pedestrian connectivity in the area between subdivisions. They are proposing to meet the code requirement of continuing all existing streets that stub to the property, that being Monte Carlo to the north and south and Misson Lane to the east. The revised layout that they provided still meets that requirement and it does help alleviate the neighborhood concern regarding a straight downhill roadway from north to south. Pedestrian connectivity would be improved due to the continuation of sidewalks between this development. Residents from Teasley Trails could walk south through this development through Ridgemont to get down to Ryan Road if they needed to do so or vice versa. It provides that cross connectivity. There was a question raised about the condition of sidewalks along Ryan Road. The dashed red lines that you see on the map are where we do have sidewalks today on Ryan. It is very intermittent. As part of their development of this property, if the timing of Ryan Road improvements are such that it makes sense for them to do their improvements, they would make that connection on their property. If not, that would be part of the Ryan Road improvements. It's my understanding that sidewalks will be provided on both the north and south side of Ryan with the improvements that were approved as part of the bond election. And similarly, sidewalks along Teasley will be provided by TxDOT once that construction is complete. I wanted to discuss some other aspects of connectivity that came up at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. Connectivity is required to all of these streets by the Denton Development Code. There's a specific standard in the code that says that when a street stubs to the property, they have to connect to it and they have to continue it through their property. The goals of providing that connectivity include helping to distribute traffic by providing multiple options for connections between common destinations such as parks, schools, shopping centers, by providing ample opportunities for access for emergency vehicles, police, fire, and EMS to get through these subdivisions if one way is blocked. And then, again, providing those options for ingress and egress from the neighborhood in the event that there's an emergency and a large number of people need to evacuate or if there's traffic congestion and people just need to find another way out. There are only four circumstances in the code where the city staff, specifically the city engineer, is allowed to authorize a development to not extend or connect an existing street. That would be whether the required connection would cross a significant physical barrier or ESA. In this case, there's no ESA on the property. There's no significant barriers that were found. There is a slope, but the city has standards for the slope of roadways that the engineer indicated could be met. Rather the extension or connection would be to an existing development that's designed in such a way that connectivity from the other property is not likely to occur. That would not be the case here given that the connections were provided to this property for them to tie into. Rather it would access a governmental property or a public utility where access is restricted. That's not the case since this is all privately owned. And then finally, rather the connection would be to a property that's developed or zoned for a use whose level or type of traffic would be incompatible with the proposed development. So for example, if this site were being asked to tie into an industrial property where there would be heavy truck traffic, that criteria could come into play. It was not found to meet any of these circumstances, so it wouldn't meet the criteria for staff to be able to approve a deviation from this requirement. The only option in this case would be for the developer to request to go to the Board of Adjustment and try to prove a hardship, which isn't likely based on our initial analysis of this. There's no identified hardship here. And just to provide a little history of the connections that are there, P&Z had inquired about the conditions and what it looks like on the ground today. So Teasley Trails, the phase directly to the north, was platted in 2016. There is a cul-de-sac on the ground today. There's a screenshot of the plat here. You can see this was platted as a temporary public access easement, actually on the property that's being requested for rezoning tonight. So that access easement was always intended to be temporary and would go away at such time when the road is connected. With regards to Ridgemont, their plat provided this as a dead end into the property, which at the time was owned by the White family. There was a note on the plat regarding this lot saying that it could not be built upon until the street was extended northward as a public street to serve the land owned by Jimmy White or a temporary cul-de-sac could be provided. Digging through the history on this, they were never able to provide that cul-de-sac. So in 2003, a variance was granted by the P&Z to allow that lot to be built upon without the cul-de-sac being provided. But there is a requirement in the 02 code that they had to meet that a sign be placed there at the barricade saying that the street would be extended when the property develops. That sign is not in place today. I'm not sure what may have happened in the intervening 16 years since that time. But that's just a little bit of history to provide you context there and answer some of those questions that came up at P&Z. The fourth criteria is whether for residential uses, they're compatible in terms of building use and character of the area. This being single family, it is compatible with the surrounding uses in the area. As we looked at earlier, it's consistent with the densities that have been recently plotted and approved in this area as well. Their plans and standards do have that additional buffer that they're proposing there that would provide some increased compatibility and provide that extra space between the fences of the residential lots to give that extra buffer there with preserving trees in those spaces as they indicate on their plan. The fifth criteria does not apply as there are no non-residential uses proposed. And the sixth criteria has several components, so I broke those down one by one. With regard to schools, I reached out to Denton ISD. They indicated that their student generation would be expected to be about 57 elementary students, 26 middle school students and 28 high school students. Currently, this property would be in the attendance zone for Ryan Elementary, McMath Middle School and Denton High School. McMath Middle School and Denton High School both have adequate capacity to support this development. Ryan Elementary, they indicated, currently does not have capacity, but they saw no issue with rezoning this into Sam Houston Elementary's attendance zone because that school has adequate capacity and they don't have any other developments that are slated to go there currently. So they didn't see that as a problem. And just for reference, Ryan Elementary being here to the west, Sam Houston to the north. With regards to fire and police, this is within the eight minute or less response time boundary that is the standard for the fire department. The nearest station is fire station six up here to the north along Teasley. I reached out to Denton PD and they indicated that they didn't see where this development would have a significant or negative increase on their response time. They didn't identify any particular crime problems in this area or a high frequency of calls for what they would consider nuisance or higher intensity crimes and they didn't expect to see an increase due to the addition of single family homes. With regard to utilities, both water and wastewater services are available. As you can see with the red and blue lines on the map, those were stubbed out at all of the street connections and those will be continued through this neighborhood to provide the loop system that's desired for those utilities. And again, with street connectivity, they are proposing to connect at both Monte Carlo Lane on the north and south side, Mizzen to the east, which is required by code. The revised layout maintains the same connectivity. Staff had no opposition to the revised layout that they provided. And again, it does alleviate that neighborhood concern about the straight downhill road coming into the neighborhood. And then, of course, they would also have a connection to Ryan Road, as I mentioned earlier. Ryan is slated to be improved to a three-lane road per the November bond election that came through. That construction would be expected to begin in 2023. They did do a preliminary traffic assessment for this subdivision. They found that in the vicinity of this neighborhood, Ryan Road is currently operating at a level of Service C, which is within the city's acceptable level of service. The proposed development wasn't expected to provide any increase. And just to clarify, when they looked at this, they not only looked at what's existing on the ground today, but also all of the proposed developments or developments that are under construction that staff has identified along Ryan Road, including Creekside further to the west, Parkview just to the south, the multifamily that was recently approved here at the corner, as well as some new commercial development in front of Wal-Mart. So all of that was taken into account within the background traffic, and this was not found to have a decrease to the level of service. Once Ryan is constructed to those three lanes that it's proposed to be, that level of service is expected to increase to a level A or B. Okay. Councilmember Mammol, do you have a question? Yeah, so are you aware of when construction on the, so I think when you say construction expected to begin 2023, that means city construction on Ryan. Is that right? Yes, that's the information I received. And are you aware when the developer plans to begin their construction, or at least when they plan to have homes, I should say, ready to move into? I know they have that data and they could speak to that. Okay. But that is crucial for me, that the road be fixed. And by the way, in the 2023 date, that's for both the road repair and the sidewalks? Yes, the sidewalks will be part of the improvement. Okay. Yeah, I believe I've heard them reference a four-year ultimate build-out, but I would prefer to let them speak to that more specifically as to what their timeline would be. Okay. I have a question just on the last, I guess, two slides previous, the, sorry, the one where you're talking about the school that they're going to go to, Sam Houston? Yes. Right there? Okay, yeah. So the kids, so they'll, so we'll have kids, if people are, kids are walking to school, they'll have to be crossing Teasley. Am I right? Is it on the other side of, I'll have to get a satellite map? My understanding is, as best I could trace the sidewalk path, they would be able to cut through Teasley trails and go out, and I believe this is Moonsail just to the north here, and then there will be sidewalks on both sides of Teasley as part of TxDOT's improvements there once it's complete, and those would go up Teasley, and then they could cut in just north of the, I believe that's the library and fire station here. Okay, great. Without crossing Teasley. I believe so. It looked like there would be sidewalks the whole way once Teasley is complete. Since it was brought up, as far as schools go, why did the school district not consider L.A. Nelson, and that's more of just putting it out there, but to me that is, that's less than a quarter mile to L.A. Nelson that the others are a mile drive. I'm not sure what their reasoning was that they indicated there was more than adequate capacity at Sam Houston, so that would be where they'd be likely to send the students to. Okay, thank you. All right, the final component of criteria six is whether there is the park facilities. The city standard is a 10-minute walk to a park. Just measuring from closest point to point, it's only about 500 feet, so these homes would fall within that 10-minute walk to a park goal. Of course, this development would be responsible for park dedication and development fees at the time of platting and permitting. With regard to public outreach, the latest round of ads went out in November for this. The property has been posted with signs since November 8th. We did send 135 notices within the 200-foot radius, 428 within the 500-foot. As of this afternoon, I had received 45 written oppositions. There were some that were duplicates from households, but 45 individual properties have provided those responses, currently that puts us at 15.45% opposition within that 200-foot buffer. 14 of those responses were outside the buffer. Three responses have been provided in favor, so that's about 16.5% in favor, and again, they did hold two neighborhood meetings, one in September and one in October, to cover the revisions to the plan that they had made at that time. The Planning and Zoning Commission did recommend approval four to three of the requested rezoning, and staff is also recommending approval as we found it to meet our criteria. I'm happy to stand for any questions at this time. I just have one. On your slide, it was talking about comparing the future land use plan is like low residential one to four units per acre, but our 2019 DDC gets away from density descriptions of it per acre. I think we need to figure out how we begin to make those, because we got moved away from it, I guess, for a reason, but in our current 2019 DDC, with R4 requiring 7,000 square foot lot minimums, is how I interpreted that, which zoning classification provides for 6,000 or less square feet maximum square foot lots? Do you remember off the top here? R6 would be 6,000 square foot, and then R7 would be anything smaller than that. All right. Thanks. Okay. Any other questions for staff? All right. Thank you. Before we start the public hearing, let's go ahead and take about a five or 10 minute break, because we'll probably be going at this for a little bit. Welcome back to this meeting of the Dent City Council on December 17th, 2019 at 7.43 PM. We are in our public hearing portion of our agenda. We are on agenda item 5B, and we've had staff presentation, and questions for staff will now open the public hearing. We've got cards. We also have two cards from the applicant. Is there any particular order that you all want to speak? Okay. First speaker will be Jim Strange. If you'll come down, state your name and address, your time will begin. And the second one for the applicant will be Mr. Thomas Fletcher. And just for clarification, the applicant gets how much time? Is it 10 minutes? Okay. Sure. Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. Jim Strange, 3613 Falcon Court here in Denton. I've got 30 plus years of building and development here in the City of Denton, both private experience, and I've had pleasure serving six years publicly for the Building and Standards Board and six years on planning and zoning. During my time both as public and private, I've learned a lot of different things, a lot of different techniques, and I think the subdivision, we've worked really hard to bring all those different experiences together to try to deal as best we can with the existing neighborhood and take into account that we are the last infill parcel in this area. And really this project in particular began back in December of '18. Had to make a decision earlier this year in January, it had an existing gas well that was producing. It was not a dead well. It also had an on-site compressor on it, and the on-site compressor was burning between 25 to 50 percent of the gas that was produced out of the well. So instead of just moving forward with the R2 zoning and the 250-foot setback that was in place, made the business decision to buy out the gas well and just eliminate that concern. I know it has been a hot topic, and I just decided to be proactive and take that item off the table, and we were able to come to consensus with the operator and then all the parties involved with that in the spring, and unfortunately it took at least six months to be able to get that gas well capped, and I believe it was in August, and then in September we got our letter from the Railroad Commission that everything was clear and the paperwork was all in order. To back up a little bit, originally we didn't have this southern parcel in contract. I was able to, once we got the gas well put together and the arrangement to buy it out, we then approached the property owner one final time to the south, and then they did agree to go ahead and allow us to move forward with the parcel to the south. Is that that little kind of, or could you, where, what is that? I don't know if that pointer works, Thomas may need a little help. Right here is the dividing line between the parcels. Correct. So that's the parcel. Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. And so if we hadn't been able to acquire that property as well, our only access points would have been Monte Carlo and Misson, I knew this would be a tough subdivision because it was an infill, and so it worked really hard to be able to get that parcel and bring it into this development to be able to provide a dedicated access to the subdivision, both as ingress people coming in and egress people going out. I believe Thomas will give you some specifics, but because we were able to do that, I believe our preliminary traffic analysis says about 50% of the traffic is going to be using our dedicated entranceway there now. So we've taken a lot of the traffic out of the subdivision and through our site and on directly out onto Ryan. I know some of the comments and questions were about lot size. We had our pre-development meeting back in, I believe in late July, met with staff, went over how we were going to move forward. As a result of our first neighborhood meeting, there was a lot of concern about the existing trees. Unfortunately, for a lot of the neighbors around us, the trees were on our property and not on their property. And so in that meeting, we made the decision to modify our plan and basically put a buffer around the whole entire subdivision. We originally had our lots, were deep lots, and what's typical as you see in this overhead, it's very typical on a residential subdivision for lots to back up to lots, property line to property line. And an idea that it came up with was to shallow the lots, to give up the possibility of any lot premiums for those being oversized or deeper lots and to put those in essentially a conservation easement. So those lots are now shallower, i.e. smaller, than what they could have been if we would have went property line to property line. And then that also allowed us to really take those trees that people enjoyed but weren't on their property but were on our property and permanently put them in a conservation easement so they didn't have to be concerned that maybe their neighbor behind them bought the lot and was going to put a swimming pool and take the trees out. So as you look, we basically have a buffer around the whole entire subdivision except for up at the very top, there's, I think, five or six lots that back up to Teasley Trails. Those are our smaller lots. We did that to be able to have some of the open space contiguous to the existing tree preserve area that's there at Teasley Trail to our east and you'll see that where it says open space tree preservation. So that was an idea that we had trying to do somewhat of a trade-off to preserve as many of the trees as possible. Also one of the issues that came up in our neighborhood meeting was we had originally done straight zoning in our four and in our six. There were concerns from neighbors about what uses could go in six which allows for duplexes in townhomes and so prior to doing our second neighborhood meeting, we made the decision to change to a PD and specifically right in there that it was a single family residential. It could not be a duplex or townhomes. Some of the state codes had passed so that the building materials couldn't be regulated anymore. We've put that in. We will do that through a deed restriction and take care of that. We also then came in and even though this is a zoning case we wrote it into our PD to assure both planning and zoning and city council that we were going to have enhanced tree plantings. So in the areas where we've made the lot smaller we've also increased all the tree plantings. I believe Thomas can give you some greater specifics but essentially because of the extra trees that we've added and the size of the trees and in other places where we put them in our detention ponds and then over on our west side against some areas that are buffered but they don't have as many trees against the bill we've actually got a line of trees that we're planting on the west side. We're about 150 percent over what is the required plantings in here. We worked really hard to try to be as good a neighbor as possible even though we passed the planning and zoning commission. We got feedback and concern about traffic concerns with the cut through of Monte Carlo and so after that meeting I immediately asked Thomas and his team to get to work that evening and come in early Friday morning and we've made this adjustment to make it less convenient for people to cut through and encourage as many people as we can to use our main and dedicated entrance way. Then on Friday afternoon I took a copy of the new concept plan and a cover letter as to what we were doing and why and put it in the mailbox of every single resident there in Ridgemont so they would be up to speed with what we were doing and the letter basically said if they had questions they could reach out to the city planning department or Thomas if they had engineering questions to try to do as best we can to be a good neighbor and provide as least impact as possible to the existing neighborhood. With that I'm going to call on Thomas to come forward and give some more specifics. I'll sit up here at the front and be ready for questions after our presentation or if there's a question now I'm happy to answer it at this time. Good evening Mayor and City Council. My name is Thomas Fletcher with Kimley Horne 6160 Warren Parkway, Frisco, Texas. I appreciate the opportunity to present to you tonight. I'm going to try and adapt my presentation to the items that were some of the questions and concerns addressed by the or questions posed by the council and the staff presentation and then also concerns by the neighbors. Just to kind of go through, Jim's kind of walked you through the layout and the plan. I know one of the questions that came up during the staff presentation was if this was straight R4 zoning with 7,000 square foot lots, approximately what would be the density? So I did a quick calculation. So we've got 36.6 acres of land total with this proposed zoning change. Out of that we've got 6.8 acres that's proposed right away dedication. We've got about 2.4 acres that's floodplain open space up in the northwest area that wouldn't be developable for lots. So that leaves you 27.5 acres with a 5% open space requirement under the current DDC. Are you subtracting out your right of way, are you using your right of way dedication as part of that acreage? I'm taking the right of way out of it, right. So because the question came up earlier today, I actually went through and looked at what our exact right of way dedication would be with this development. So that gives you 27.5 acres. If you took out 5% for the minimum open space requirement, that gives you 26 acres. If you take that and divide by 7,000, that gives you 162 lots. Now the reality is that when you do a development, your site is not going to be the most efficient. You're going to have square footage loss on corner lots. So when you go through, if you did a layout, the reality is that we would probably end up pretty similar to what we're proposing with 154 lots. So the straight calculation is 162, which is 8 greater than what we have, but if you back out corner lots and other inefficiencies, we're probably somewhere in that 150 to 154 range is what we're-- So question on that. Okay. And this is what I brought up with staff as far as comparing the low density residential in the future land use plan of one to four units per acre. Right. I think what was said was it was coming out to 4.23 units per acre. So help me with my math. And we'll stop your time so that this isn't included in that. So if you're saying you've got 27.5 acres once you back out the floodplain, you could add back for density when density was the paradigm. So even if you had 30 acres, I mean, I'm just going to say 30 acres, at four units per acre, that's 120 lots. So there is a little bit when we're comparing how we used to measure it with the future land use plan and that's how they define it because R4 really isn't defined on units per acre. It's whatever you can get on there based upon the standards, you can get it on there. That's correct. So on any tract that has an R4 zoning request, it's possible based on efficiencies that the density would be greater than four units whereas under the old NR4, it would be capped at four. So the 7,000 square foot minimum could potentially allow for more lots or a little bit higher density under the new code versus the old code. Right. So if you're using the acreage and the number of homes, if you've got 154 homes and even if we put it back to 30 acres, if you added back the floodplain, that's basically five units per acre in essence, 150 homes, 30 acres, five. So okay. Correct. And if you add all the floodplain in, because we're just under 37 acres total, if you look at that under a four, you're closer to 146. Right. Okay. But I didn't want to go through, you asked a question, I went through the calculation. So I wanted to kind of go through the math with you and kind of... Sure. Well, I appreciate that because I mean, if in the presentation we're going to have it compared to densities moving, because honestly, that's my biggest hurdle and I think with some of these things that I've heard that's helpful with the conservation easement and all that. Right. The three units per acre to the north or 3.7, 3.1 in the south or whichever it's reversed, if we converted this to the same paradigm that was used, it would be probably closer to four and a half to five is what I'm thinking. Correct. Okay. Okay. Sorry for interrupting you. Thank you. That was helpful though. I appreciate that. You're welcome. So just kind of going over the land plan. In the PD, we do call for a minimum of 15% open space. With what we've got currently shown, we're really actually closer between 18 to 20% open space, but we put the 15% as a minimum because when we go through and do final design and all that just gives us a little bit more flexibility. Again, we looked at the previous land plan, the changes we made, that was really to accommodate the residents. The open space between the two knuckles there, that is, as Haley mentioned, that is to accommodate utilities. There would be drainage and sanitary sewer that would go through that open space. We did make that an HOA lot 20 foot wide so that there's adequate space and it's not ending up in someone's residential lot. The topography in two of the neighborhood meetings or both neighborhood meetings, there was a concern about drainage. The site has a lot of elevation to it. It falls from north to south and somewhat to the southwest as well. Currently a lot of that runoff goes through the existing homes on Ridgemont addition. There were several neighbors that voiced concerns about that. We did discuss how when the residential development would develop, we would do type A drainage, which means that we would take the developed lots, convey the water to the street into the inlet into an underground storm sewer system. It would go into our detention pond and then tie into the city's public system. So a lot of the drainage issues that a few of the residents are currently experiencing, that would be resolved with the development and I think that's important for those homeowners. In addition to the open space and the buffer, we did agree Montecito del Sur is a larger lot community. They had some concerns. This particular portion of the site doesn't have many existing mature trees, so we did agree to add trees on 50-foot centers to help buffer those homes. We also agreed to a minimum of a 6-foot privacy fence, which is written into the PD regulations. This gives some pictures of the street connection on Ryan. This is the existing tree preservation area with Teasley Trails and we are providing contiguous tree preservation with this so that we can increase the habitat. I did go through and do some calculations on what we're proposing with the PD and our tree plantings. So under the proposed plan development with the additional tree plantings in the yards in the corner lots, we are actually proposing approximately 930 caliper inches more than what's required under the current 2019 Denton Development Code. So there's a couple things there. The current code requires a minimum of a 2-inch tree. We're proposing 3-inch trees, so the trees that we are planning are going to be larger and more mature, so they're going to provide better canopy quicker. We're adding a tree to the rear yards of all lots and then we're adding two additional trees to the corner yards. So if you went through and calculated based on the current requirements how many trees and caliper inches you would come up with 582 caliper inches. With our proposed development as it's written in the PD, when developed there would be over 1,626 caliper inches, so that's 930 additional caliper inches. So the reason there was a question about the 2002 Denton Development Code for tree preservation versus the current code, well the challenge on this side is the topography and the location of the trees. We've gotten the buffer to provide the tree preservation around the perimeter. What we've found with a lot of these native trees, especially when you get into excavation to build the subdivision, is that the trees are very sensitive. So while we are going to try and attempt to meet the 30% or as much as greater percentage of preservation as we can, the reality is that when we go to build the subdivision and we excavate for the streets, when we develop the lots, there will be trees that could be impacted by that, so the point of adding the additional trees in the plan development regulations is to kind of account for that and provide greater tree preservation or greater tree canopy as the neighborhood matures. This are just some images of the gas well. Jim mentioned that earlier this year the gas well was in operation, the picture on the left is from March of this year, then you've got the middle picture where they're capping the well, and then the picture on the right where the well is removed. We did put minimum building materials, one of the concerns at the neighborhood meeting was the value of the houses and how it would impact their adjacent values, and because of that and because of development costs and other considerations we've agreed to put regulations either by deed restriction or in the code covenants and restrictions in order to establish minimum standards for that. We, you know, talking with the city, our initial proposal had that included in the PD, city said that, you know, notified us that they couldn't, that that couldn't be included within the PD, but the developer still intends to keep that promise to the adjacent neighbors. So community benefits, the plan development standards establishes those minimum standards, the capping of the gas well, which helped facilitate the development, the neighborhood meetings and all the adjustments to the land plan to help try and facilitate and resolve the problems and the concerns, the proposed development won't detract from the existing home values and it creates a minimum building standard work work, you know, we're, we're basically stating that we're going to provide a minimum of 15% open space. So the city standard is 5% we're going three times that minimum, and that will be the open space buffers, the detention pond areas, the tree preservation areas, provide additional tree plantings for the for the lots, the tree preservation is contiguous with existing habitat, which is, which is beneficial to the environment, and then visual harmony with the building materials. So, you know, really the biggest concern that was voiced at the planning and zoning commission and from the residents was the connectivity of Monte Carlo. Since the meeting last week, we've made that change. We've kind of looked at the traffic impact analysis, I've talked to my traffic engineers, they felt like the, you know, before the traffic memo showed that about 60% of the traffic would route through Ridgemont they feel like that would be reduced by 50%. If you look at the layout now. Most people want to find the quickest straightforward route, adding those two knuckles adds significant movements within the development so it kind of discourages the traffic through Ridgemont and encourages it over to street E directly to Ryan road. We're also still showing that we would propose street calming or any other measures that might be needed or warranted to help slow that traffic down as it goes through Ridgemont. With that I will stand for any questions. Councilmember rates. So I have a list of questions here, some you may have kind of touched on but. So on the conservation easement so here's the things that I like about it, I like that there's a conservation easement that it's single family that it's infill that you plugged a well that there's a buffer and but here's my questions. So on the conservation easement, what types of trees are being preserved there. So the tree survey a lot of the trees that are along the perimeter are mostly oak trees so there would be large native oaks. We haven't so basically what we've done is our arborist has gone out our surveyors gone out and kind of done they've tied individual trees but then basically they went in and did a canopy survey for the large canopy areas and they've tied the various trees and checked size and species but if you look at kind of along the buffer most of the trees that are located along the buffer are your larger oak trees. So that goes to my next question is the reason you didn't use the new code is because of the types of trees and species that are on the property. Well I wouldn't say that it's because of the type so a lot of so right here you have a big hill that's located here and when you go through and you do your design when you look at the minimum lot grading you've got subdivision design guidelines that that dictate maximum street slope so some of these areas in here you have slopes in excess of 10% so you know there's minimum I think the maximum street slope in a residential subdivision is 8% so when we start and you've got to have 2% through intersections so when you start going through and you doing you design your construction plans you're going to have cut slopes in these areas so the reality is is a tree could be 10 or 15 feet away and you're you may not be disturbing the tree or having equipment placed on the tree but just because of the construction activities that could cause that tree to to go into shock or what have you so we've we were basically trying to make adjustments knowing that some of these trees could potentially not survive the construction process and so what is the size of the the buffer around so the the buffer if if you look here on the eastern property line the when you measure fence to fence the the average width is about 45 to 47 feet the buffer here on that same section is a minimum of 25 feet up through here the buffer is is is closer to 100 feet and above along the northern property line the buffers roughly 30-35 feet along the western boundary the minimum is 20 and then we we jump out to 25 and then along the southern on the north side of the Ridgemont addition it's it's varies from about 16 to 20 feet okay and so what is the total size of the habitat area when it's connected to Teasley trails do you know if I'm not mistaken I believe that open space lot on Teasley trails was about two acres the open space on our project in that area is around two acres so I think the total would be somewhere in the four acre neighborhood okay so my last question is I have all those are the things that I like I also have some real concerns but so my last question before I let other council members talk is so on the utilities you said that the conservation easement I think what I heard you say would be dedicated for utilities and drainage no there's a HOA lot so the the conservation area there's no utilities that would be located over on in these areas all the utilities would be located in the streets in the right away there is one location where the utilities would have to cross the HOA lot but that HOA lot that's located here does not have any trees or tree preservation located within it so that wouldn't affect the preservation of trees and that would just be a green space and HOA green space okay thank you okay council member yeah so there are three major categories of issues that I have concerns about that are primarily been expressed by by residents and comments and emails and that is traffic and this is in no particular order traffic and trees and a gas well the cap and I'm glad that the gas well is capped which is better than active gas well I'm also curious about the compressor station and if I can't get all these questions in now that that's fine but so first about the trees so these the trees that are going to preserve in the buffer are there they're mature trees and as you mentioned and Bo and I appreciate your you know realism in acknowledging that roots at least that's how I put it you know root systems get affected right and you know and you don't always know how much you know what the impact is going to be so I'm I'm my concern is and I understand that you're that you're proposing to adhere to these guidelines but it can you do you have a sense of have you kind of assessed what exactly the route you know how entangled all the roots are here in terms of also with trees that are being taken down connected to the roots of trees that are already that you're planning on preserving or is it just kind of going on or like statistics or so what we what we do is one of the things about the disturbance that we did is the bulk of this disturbance to the trees is going to be out in the streets that's where the utilities will go in the street so we purposely have put the buffers at the backs so that minimizes the potential for disturbance of construction so most of those will be back people's backyards there are no water no sewer no storm no street so that was a purpose purpose of the design of putting it already around the back to try to maximize the survivability of the existing trees the ones that we can that's why we've exceeded the plantings and that's why we've put it in a pd so we're not standing up here promising you something in a zoning case that's not binding on the straight zoning but in a pd it's written into our zoning that there's a guarantee that those trees will go on those lots the way we cite the way we say and the size of them as well so it's something i've worked on a long time makes presentations and participated in some of the discussions and some of the things that i've shared is exactly what i'm proposing to do here is the way i think to base preserve and expand the tree canopy put it in areas that we don't have any tree canopy and then provide some diverse species there then they'll all come off of the approved tree planting lists of the city of denton thank you um so and then the the cap gas well and they old compressor station can you can can you speak to um so and it it's on the corner of the lot so the compressors all the all the facilities are gone so the tank battery is gone that's all been cleaned up environmentally cleaned up uh the report everything the capping report it's all been through the railroad commission it's all been accepted and improved so from an environmental standpoint there's no longer a compressor there's no longer a tank battery the well itself my understanding of how that's capped uh it is filled with bentonite which is a clay material that doesn't allow water or other fluids to travel through it they'll do bentonite concrete cap bentonite concrete cap uh because we worked with the gas well operator when they capped the well we made sure because typically i think by the railroad commission standards it has to be capped five foot below the ground surface when we were looking at this not knowing exactly what our design was going to be i believe they capped at 12 feet or more below the existing ground so it's capped deeper than what is required but all those facilities they're gone the only thing that's left there is the capped casing pipe from the well yeah and so that's and that's on the surface but the gas is still right under there it's everything everything is still underground geology right whatever the geology is below the ground yeah geology is still there it hasn't it hasn't been changed yeah yeah so and and again i i understand that that that you know that tcq and the railroad commission um that they that those are their specifications you know i myself i'm still concerned about the again capped gas well is safer than an than an active uncapped one um or or an inactive uncapped one um but i'm still concerned about the safety issues of having gas under the ground but anyway i appreciate you talking about this yeah and the bentonite if you think of like a dam reservoir where you're holding water back and when they have to build a dam they have to ensure that the water from the from the upstream source doesn't go through that that liner it's the same thing with these gas wells that clay when they put it in there it it you know it doesn't allow the liquid to travel through it it's a very um non-porous material thank you it's kept i think in either five or six different places so it starts at the city has a copy of the log so i want to say it's at five or six thousand feet the first plug and there's four or five more caps until it gets up to where it's 12 15 feet below below the ground so just according to the multiple regulations yes correct thank you council member ryan thank you mayor your site map that you had on your display there's a piece on the rezoning that's on the northwest corner that goes up north which is probably too narrow to put lights on is that part of your conservation area as well that's correct there is a little bit of floodplain up in that area but that would be our conservation area and if there were any additional required tree plantings that would also be a location where we could provide additional plantings but that's that would be in the conservation area okay thank you so question clarification i thought i heard you say on that southern portion that y'all bought secondarily after that that buffer on the right side that green area you're saying that's 45 feet wide correct between the back of fences so there's a there is a very narrow hoa lot on teasley trails the hoa lot on teasley trails is about eight foot wide so our our area through here is about 30 39 to 40 feet wide okay but fence to fence because we had we had several residents ask where will the fence be for the adjacent home and we we went through and looked at it it'd be a minimum of about 47 feet okay and as far as um the conservation easement is that an easement that's given to the city hoa to the hoa so that is in is that created at the time of the pd or is it created at the time of assuming i'm going through platting here you or no you haven't gone through play when is the conservation easement uh created and then when's it created at what stage it would be an easement to the hoa it would be created with the plat and then all the regulations of what's allowed within that easement would be created through the the the hoa documents so the hoa would have control of that buffer and everything in that buffer that's correct but but any stipulation regarding tree removal my understanding is that under city code an hoa cannot just go out and remove trees a tree removal permit would have to be applied for and really the only way that a tree removal permit would be allowed within an hoa lot is if it was a hazard a safety or hazard issue or a dead a dead tree so i want to make sure i thought i heard you say that if you would do this according to the 7 000 square foot lots that you would have how many lots if you take so if you take 26 acres times 43 560 for the square footage in an acre and divided by 7 000 it comes out to 162 but the reality is is because of inefficiencies corner lots your corner lots are going to be larger i'm saying that you're probably if you take out eight lots eight times seven that's about 56 000 square feet divide that over the rest of the lots you're really probably pretty close to what we've got proposed yeah i mean i i'm really struggling with the density i'm telling you it's hard because you're backing up to montecito del sur with those are those are what acre lots acre and a half lots or how big are those half acre lots and then above and below you've got bigger lots and the the only thing that's really helping me and i'm i've still got to figure out how much it's helping me is the conservation buffer that's why i want to understand who controls it what is it when's it created because um so once you once you because an hoa technically correct me if i'm wrong if it's the hoa's conservation easement could the hoa at some point decide we don't want to we don't want to have a conservation easement anymore i mean i don't understand the nature of conservation easements maybe they can't do that right it would be platted anytime an hoa my understanding of how hoa's are set up if there's an hoa lot and something let's say the hoa wanted to dissolve or get rid of the hoa line my understanding is a it has to conform to the city's codes and ordinances so this wouldn't because it's in a plan development so they couldn't they couldn't get rid of it to begin with because we've got it within the plan development and then two they would have to have 75 percent of all the residents within the hoa to agree to that which is and i don't i know how my hoa is it's hard to get consensus or that much consensus on anything now one comment back to your density these lots are the same size just slightly different than what's in teasley trails so when you look at teasley trails which one is teasley trails to the north right so to the north teasley trails is um because it's nr3 or it was developed under nr3 but at the time there was so much floodplain right the lots were smaller but it didn't exceed the density of the zoning classification because the didn't development code at that time stated that it's over two acres there weren't really lot regulations so if you look at all the lots of teasley trails they're 52 foot wide by 115 foot deep typical now there's of course in the open spaces around the open space correct there's some that are a little bit a little bit larger but these are these are really comparable we're 50 foot wide 115 foot deep some of the ones on the outside are still are still 120 even with the buffer so we do have some lots that are comparable or even larger than the ones in teasley trails the the builders typically build off what we call the pad the pad size for this development would be the same pad size so it would accommodate the same type of house size house that's what's in teasley trails so very compatible with with that neighborhood okay all right councilmember breaks yeah so i want to get to the public comment but i do why the why they're speaking want staff to look into the mayor's question because that is concerning and i had also a question lined up about the conservation easement and how that's protected so what if 75 of the residents wanted to play structure on there and they wanted to get rid of a large majority of the trees if staff could look that up and see if there's a way we could and we will commit to put that into the the codes covenants and restrictions that the the preservation areas are there in perpetuity so that they can't so that's something you know that's something that we can write into the regulations and we're happy to write that into the regulations i don't know if that can be added to the plan development but we're also happy to add language in the the plan development document to to ensure that so that some so the hoa doesn't vote to clear the trees and put up a plan i don't think they would be able to because then it would break the tree code but so i don't think i think it's kind of a moot point but we're happy to we're happy to write additional language in there to make sure that that doesn't happen at some point in the future councilmember curvature uh quick question can you speak to the range of cost of the homes i think we'll be starting at a minimum of 325 000 and probably i would guess the top of the market will be about 400 so that not afford i'm not sure what the real estate terms would be but not affordable housing starter homes that might be what i'd call like a move up home may protest uh forgive me if i missed it the the hoa maintains the fence is that is that accurate yes okay thank you then they maintain the buffer as well that okay um what size of the home is going to be ranges square footage wise 2000 i don't think they'll be larger than that yeah i don't have uh we don't have a builder on board yet but okay all right good um and and i appreciate councilmember briggs your your question about getting the public comments i do i do want to explain i think the reason why we asked you a lot of questions here is because we've got some new policies uh rules and procedures that are coming for us that allow the public to have a rebuttal in case we ask you back but i think we wanted to get as many much of the information out as possible so when the public responds they'll be able to do that with as much information as possible so i appreciate your patience and your indulgence towards that endeavor thank you very much we're happy to answer any additional questions all right so this is a public hearing we'll go ahead and start with the uh public comment i do have one question for staff though because i have these and i'm not sure what to do with them i have these response forms that are different than uh what i'm used to seeing so are these um are these people wishing to speak or not or is this just for the record of just their opposition or their support those are just new responses that were emailed to me today that i wanted to provide for you all okay fantastic all right thank you very much just wanted to make sure so that would be part of our backup normally all right thank you okay first uh speaker is uh stephen flowers if you'll come and down state your name and address well yeah if you'll state your name and address uh yeah you've got you got four minutes yeah okay stephen flowers 3811 montecarlo lane can you bring that up yeah if we'll wait to start his time until they get that up thank you very much is there a certain slide this opposition side yes thank you so um one of the things i i guess i wanted to point out i am in opposition to this uh i'm one of the residents on montecarlo lane if you'll notice most of montecarlo is showing red at least 80 percent of us uh against this with the percentages we didn't exceed the 20 required for the three quarters vote and i think a lot of that is due to a lot of the green acre green areas you see is the same home landowner that's selling the land and the total square footage is what's required there are not the number of homeowners i wanted to point out the 45 homes are homeowners in opposition that's 45 families represented uh and ask that for your consideration also wanted to point out um just what the the three way of of an existing neighborhood of 20 years uh becoming now an access point for a uh i as mr watts described as a um a compact subdivision i equivalent it to like an r4 providing an access point to an r6 type neighborhood um and it doesn't seem to match that the one of my other main considerations is what's happening on teasley today with the i know there's proposals to get teasley completed completed teasley and ryan both however with the all of the existing neighborhoods i know they're proposing that you know will be a c class at least a c class or better for the traffic however with the large amount of current development within ryan road i don't know how accurate that can be of course we don't you know those are always guestimations but uh just the additional traffic in the neighborhood and but but more importantly to me was the you know the large impact it'll have to the existing neighborhood of ridgemont thank you very much a lot of us bought homes there expecting that to be a closed neighborhood a lot of children run through the area and even though we do we we do highly appreciate the the curve that they've put in to slow those people down however we still want to acknowledge that it would still be an access point for most of the homes in that neighborhood so thank you councilman briggs i think has a question do you have a question for the speaker yeah i do i'm just i'm just curious did you ever see a sign posted that said the street will be a through street no uh no when we actually just closed on the home in march yeah and there was no and we understood there was one homeowner behind us and he wasn't planning on selling and this was that south area they talked about and uh and we had heard at the time and it was probably a true story at the time he wasn't planning on selling so we thought oh we're going to have all these great green belt behind us and that's why we bought so thank you thank you jacob scott is the next speaker come down state your name and address your time will begin hi uh jacob scott 1400 san marino lane among the corner of the cross street and the ridgemont development um so kind of similar to him we're relatively new to the neighborhood we moved in in may me and my wife were actually not even actively looking for a home we used to go to open door to properties for fun to kind of kill some time and found this house we fell in love with and one of the major features this is the fact that it was a cul-de-sac neighborhood we do have two toddlers right now that like to ride their bicycles around the neighborhood and go on walks and there isn't a lot of traffic going through the neighborhood and there was no signage posted about this eventually becoming a through street talking with several of the residents in neighborhood i'm sure you'll hear about shortly this has been a cul-de-sac street for 20 years and so there should be some kind of consideration to that from y'all and in the pnz meeting last week it did seem there was a lot of concerns about safety for children and residents overall in general and i think the four to three vote kind of shows that and to hayley's point there's not a lot in the city it seems could be done with it but i still think it should be considered just because there isn't a rule i think you all do have the jurisdiction to make changes to that and i would just like to see ideally there would be no development but with the infill that's proposed for denton and seek for denton it makes sense obviously and i definitely commend the builder or the developer and engineer for putting it in a 90 degree turn and i'd request that that be the only version of this presentation that you consider and don't even think the straight thought straight shot through the neighborhood is something to think about and i think that's all thank you all right thank you appreciate it next speaker is beverly steinel steinel state your name and address your time will begin good evening my name is beverly hoek steinel my address is 3819 montecarlo lane i'm one of those 10 along montecarlo i see a lot of encouragement and i also um thank the developer for putting in the 90 degree turn and for the trees and the habitat one issue that was not addressed in our public hearings was what the the purpose of montecarlo lane will be during the construction phase and um i actually talked with mr fletcher today he was kind enough to call me and he wasn't able to address it during his time but he did assure me that the primary construction route would be through this street street e or ryan way or whatever this other parallel street to montecarlo would be i don't know if he's able to really assure that but he also told me that the barrier that exists on montecarlo lane would be kept intact through most of the construction period so that the um large construction vehicles would not be tearing up montecarlo lane the street behind my house is going to be the new street so um i can hardly imagine a construction happening on both sides of our home um so while all of theirs uh they've been good neighbors so far but um when i'm looking at the map it seems to me that mizzen could be extended through there with they would probably lose lose two or three lots but um so i'm speaking now in opposition to opening up montecarlo at all because i think that they would be able to find the three egresses to the property and being able to reach those homes that are adjacent to um to the ridge mount property i can um see a uh walkway a pedestrian um um area through that would connect the areas with sidewalks and so that the dog walkers could easily get to the park without having to worry about large traffic vehicular traffic coming um through the extension of montecarlo lane um so for these things i um am in opposition to extending montecarlo lane i understand and appreciate infill and um i know that that is a reality but um i would hope that you could reconsider these um various reasons why um montecarlo lane has to be um extended through thank you very much council member armature so question for question for you um yes and you can say no it's kind of a favor but um i i would like if if you could just jot down and send to council or city secretary or me whichever um those assurances that the developer made to you so that if you have a way of doing that you know on your phone so that can try to try to get those into an email this afternoon which i was able to disseminate to a few of you i didn't have everyone's email address but um i contacted mr fletcher by telephone there was not an email and he was very kind to telephone me this afternoon with assurances no we're going to only use that new road and uh we'll keep the barrier intact during construction but that's word of mouth and i yeah i hope i can trust that but i don't know how they can really assure that that those 10 cement trucks won't just park in front of my house and just um every morning you know so yeah thank you thank you and so we did um thank you we did get your um have your your email printed for us uh but it didn't have the you know the information at the subsequent exactly so yeah it would be if you could get that to us in writing and then i can request of course it's up to council to decide but whether or not you know to make that a part of the condition but it could theoretically be written in there and uh because just like you said an oral promise is uh um it's so anyway thank you thank you thank you very much next speaker is matt winthold if you come down state your name and address your time will begin matt winthold 1405 san marino lane since the time is short i'll go as quickly also we were all here less than a week ago and at christmas time it's very difficult to get people back the ridgemont addition residents oppose making montecarlo lane a three street this would cause our neighborhood to lose its quality of life amenity of being a cul-de-sac at this time we ask each of you tonight to vote against this zoning change it is the stated goal of our city to preserve and protect existing legacy neighborhoods there is no common sense reason to connect our neighborhood with the new proposed housing addition the new addition already has three access points in three different cardinal directions without connecting montecarlo lane one of these access roads is beside montecarlo lane and would be a side-by-side parallel street going to the same place you don't need two parallel access roads 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 the landowner for his own reasons did not participate in prior development now at this time we should not be called upon to accommodate him he shouldn't get a free shot at us the infill should not receive a precedence over the existing the city planning staff has a captain ahab type obsession with connecting obscure points of road that might have been casually envisioned a long time ago before drivers were distracted by looking at their phones and gps technology diverted rush hour traffic through residential neighborhoods the city staff's first plan was to make montecarlo lane a steeply downhill drag strip when it was pointed out to them how dangerous this is to children they basically said and i'm paraphrasing we don't care our neighborhood is on a hillside and the changing grade is very steep because the city staff is insisting on a 20 year old or older traffic plan and that montecarlo lane should be made a connected through street then by the same thought rationale we should maintain the old zoning plan of r2 and r3 on this land and a neighbor who couldn't be here he gave me some more notes we bought homes in an established neighborhood size character borders that should continue they will use montecarlo to ryan probably half of the new homes no other planned development in denton county is set up where people neighborhoods don't have their own access to the major roads each neighborhood should be distinct and have its own access to e and egress its own connection noticeable increases in traffic for houses along montecarlo lane big impact on people living there teesley trails 131 homes connected to ryan via montecarlo lanes probably 70 will use montecarlo lane this would add about 95 homes to the montecarlo lane traffic to montecarlo lane exclusively then also why have a zoning board of adjustment if hayley sikorsky can just dictate what what they can review and how they can how they can judge so please vote no on this zoning change and let the land owner developer and city staff work with the neighborhood to come up with a plan that respects the interests of our neighborhood this is almost like a president lincoln case early in his career that said do the people who crossed the mississippi river have the same rights as people who go up and down the mississippi river and have several people wishing to speak and i presume they're going to want to ask questions mr winthal council member armature yeah so first of all i just got to say real quick i'm an english professor so i love you know any email that quotes herman melville or refers to refers to melville i also like lincoln quotes but and anyway so i i appreciate that because i think in in those kind of metaphors too um i was wondering what you thought about the idea mentioned by the previous speaker about having pedestrian connectivity that through on montecarlo instead of you know for for cars to go through some place where where where kids and whoever could could walk through the neighborhoods but cars couldn't go yeah a pedestrian access would be rational and beneficial the dog park across the street across ryan is popular and well used and then both by dog owners and then also people just taking a brisk healthy walk so that would be just fine well thank you council member davis a couple quick questions so you you live on montecarlo yes and your zoning there is r4 is that correct yes okay and uh your your request is that we leave this r2 of course that doesn't prevent it from developing with homes right if we left it as r2 it with r2 it'd be much less density and so then it would be much less traffic so wouldn't you think though with larger lots there'd be fewer streets and still the requirement that montecarlo would connect through so you'd still have the same problem wouldn't you that montecarlo would have to connect through but now there's no incentive for a builder to do the dog leg around that they would have more incentive than to do big lots on either side maybe a couple side cul-de-sacs in a straight shot down montecarlo well as a practical matter if they don't get this zoning change they're not going to build anything so these developers but uh you know they could build by right now that gas well is capped someone could come in and build build and sell those lots and if there's someone the little lots at the the home price you heard earlier what makes you think someone would not be able to to build on r2 lots well they could i mean that's the status yeah that's the status quo yeah i until that gas well was capped you know being from oklahoma oil and gas in the neighborhood is i'm used to it okay tell that to the rest of denton uh man put him thank you yeah uh first i i gotta stand up for for staff because that's important to me hayley just presents and she's tied to the facts and and her and the city manager and staff have to deal with us seven and that is a that's a daunting task so i cut she's just she has a look at it and make a recommendation and she can't get outside of those barriers she doesn't have that flexibility that we have and she has and the city manager has to manage all seven different personalities so i have to say that just to keep a clear record she does a great job and and i'll defend them every time uh just because it's it's a tough gig now that being said um i will i did want to discuss with you um and more so you because if it comes up more i've heard the conversation about the pedestrian traffic pedestrian walkway but the concern is the traffic so you're asking for a walkway to get to the more active traffic patterns which you're trying to avoid so it's a little inconsistent for me just just trying to be transparent for those that would come after you i i do want to understand that you're saying you want to walk to a neighborhood that's busier for streets so that your kids can walk through i don't i may be missing it but that's a that's where i'm going but then also uh i think the the question i have for you that that you touched on is how do you if i if i take your point that people that have lived there 20 years become accustomed to it even though it's planted that it's going through that road was going through how do you reconcile that from from our position uh for someone that's new to the neighborhood so they don't have that vested kind of time in they're just saying they're newer to the neighborhood and saying you know how do you reconcile those two no no no hidden um question i just curious i'm new to the my wife and i are new to the neighborhood also we just moved here in may so i i take the broader view uh we're retired our grandson visits sometimes but there's also fan new families in the neighborhood the neighborhood is is turned over this year there's been a lot of new people come so just as a practical matter we don't want to drag strip through the neighborhood then also as a practical matter for 20 years that's been there that's the status quo you know at some point in real estate there's terminology of adverse possession or notorious possession where if something has sat still long enough or some condition has existed long enough then that is the new permanent reality even the new border what have you that's where we're at so if when the development first came the landowner for his own reasons i don't know him did not participate so participating after the fact does not give you precedence over the residents that are there you don't get to trash in neighborhood because now for some reason you want to sell your land so that homes can be built so we don't oppose homes being built really in a sense we oppose one thing making montecarlo lane a through street it's not needed we don't need two through street two through streets side by side together so and if that's the case the pointed question is your frustration is with the city of denton right because the city of denton mandates that yes okay so it's not the developer it's the the city that that's the that that's where you should focus yes that consternation right yes that's the cap that's the captain ahab in the room perfect got it thank you okay thank you see no more questions appreciate it thank you last well not the last speaker ray maury you'll come down state your name and address your time will begin hello my name is ray maury i'm not really great public speaking so just give me a little bit of time here um and what's your address uh 3800 richmont lane okay thank you and um my husband and i we we um i found that lot in september of 1998 and we started building that fall and we moved in um april 5th in 1999 so we've been residents there for 20 years and we have watched that whole community come in the first five years that we were there we had over 300 trigger treaters because everyone was so excited about our neighborhood because they could literally the sidewalks would be packed with trigger treaters so they could walk in the streets and it was safe and the moms didn't have to really worry too much yes they still were the helicopters and they were out there watching them with vigilance but um we've had as um past speakers spoke that we have had a little some turnover in our community a lot of retirees moving closer to their families and we've had some younger families move in and so now their kids are you know in the street and they're playing with the other kids other kids are now using that cul-de-sac like they did years past when that it was it was phase one was our area then it was phase two and then phase three with the the older um inner cul-de-sacs so my husband and i we did experience the growing pains of building and having to deal with construction trucks and not following the signs of where they're supposed to be going that kind of thing so it was very stressful in our community for about three years four years when they were building and um we all kind of limped through it we you know kind of thing but um my husband and i we have a third of an acre lot that bids up to Seville and um a lot of those homes back in there do have the larger lots they have the larger homes um attire property values uh on their comps um the one thing i'm really really concerned about is that in our neighborhood we are 90 percent brick and you're welcome to drop through our community i really welcome it so you can see how we are active there's people that are runners we have moms out there with strollers we have some moms right now that are pregnant and they're going to be having children in the next you know six months so i'm kind of concerned about homes that are going to be smaller smaller lots it's going to affect our comp values for for sales and when homes do go for sale in our community they purposely buy in our community because it is closed we have two ways in and out and homes sell very quickly we have three car garages large enough for a pickup truck to fit inside there so we don't have a lot of cars on the street we don't we have long driveways where cars don't block the sidewalk so people can you know kind of walk around some but kids still get out in the street you know running down the driveway your moms try to run out there your balls go out in the road dogs run out you know when you know the kids don't always latch the gates so you always have those unexpected things and when people are driving through neighborhoods they are not paying attention everybody knows you're driving around denton and you're seeing this every single day and so we're concerned about our community and with children being in the streets and things you know it's a quality life in this you know in the warmer months you know everybody starts coming out and communing and they're standing you know on this on the curved side talking watching their kids playing the streets and you know they're playing basketball and when we have an extra we have a hundred and fifty six hundred fifty four homes that's going to go back there which i welcome growth we do that's just part of denton and it's nothing against the developer and hailey has done an amazing job by answering all of our questions and and giving us insight and things like that but that hundred and fifty four houses that's going to be 300 cars one time a day coming through the neighborhoods and they're going to be making two and three trips so you're looking at a thousand cars is that my warning it no that's the time oh okay yeah that's the time um okay any questions for the speaker council member brian thank you you said you're on the corner there of ridgemont in the cul-de-sac yes sir that was phase one was phase two when montecarlo uh phase two was san marino and then when san marino went in that was phase one excuse me phase two and then phase three went in uh the the last street there mona video uh monic uh monacristo the other second street uh where they're going to tap into monacristo yeah no monacarlo monacarlo and when they when that was phase three there was never a sign that said open to future growth there was never a sign there and even on ridgemont lane on top of our street sign it said dead end up until probably three years ago because it was phase one and when phase one went through it was a dead end until the second street came through san marino san marino but when that blew open and then the third phase opened up they never took the dead end off so our community has had the mindset of being a closed community the dead end sign was there up until at least three years ago so this is kind of a shell shock for us because we were just so accustomed to being amongst ourselves and even with the fire department it goes up to good samaritans on a very regular basis unfortunately and that's only like 1.8 miles and they're they're at least within 10 minutes of rollout so it's not like it's a it's an imposition for them to get to our community because fire trucks can get there in under 10 minutes rollout council member did you get your question answered well where i was heading on it is uh montevideo and montecristo both have cul-de-sacs on there there where you're at there's i don't know if you'd really call it a cul-de-sac but it's the corner and it's rounded it's a bubble yeah but yet montecarlo when i look at the map is just it just dead ends there so it was obviously intended to do something else in the future but it never said that it was going to blow out to future growth there was never ever a sign there okay thank you very much appreciate it thank you those are all the cards that i have but this is a public hearing so you don't have to have a card to speak so anybody else wishing to speak just come on down state your name and address and your time will begin and we'll take a couple speakers uh she's coming in you'll be we'll take a couple speakers then we'll take a break name and address please my name is donna d spain and i'm 1409 montecristo court and i'm one of the original owners and i was told by the builder there was going to be a park behind us and more subdivisions to the south of us which actually was the opposite of what really happened so i i know why people are confused that's all i have to say okay thank you yes sir my name is claude dre and i live in the teasley trailside 3520 montecarlo basically where that uh where that um temporary cul-de-sac is i just have one uh one thing to say i don't know if you can do the other camera yeah you'll put it right there where the yeah that's square if we just get the overhead camera please and it'll show up here just a second right way it's just a picture so there you go okay so you can we can we zoom in on that too as well billy so you can see where the temporary cul-de-sac is right here and where the where the property this is where montecarlo is going to go through from the this is heading south on montecarlo this will go into the new development and the developers put in some put in some zigzags in his development but this temporary cul-de-sac um hayley said it was on on all on on his property and a portion of it is not so this little uh quarter right here is actually part of teasley trails my house is right there uh this is a common area here so this is a green area i want to make sure that when this is all finished out that all of this is taken care of this common area is totally restored the sidewalk comes through if it does if they do come through with a with a if montecarlo does go all the way through that is not land that the developer owns but it's land that will be disturbed as a part of this development and that's that common area there is they they had to plan a bunch of trees in there i think there's 20 or 30 trees in there now they would have to add additional trees to make that look symmetrical that's the other piece of it i really do appreciate that the builder did add uh make it so that it isn't a straight through on montecarlo and that again that if that was what was approved it's better than what we had initially where it was just a straight through shot that's all i got council member ryan did you have a question okay i'm sorry okay oh i just wanted to say one more thing too because bump outs were mentioned before bump outs to slow down traffic and that's a bump out in teesley trails where that car is parked that's kind of what happens with these bump outs because the bump outs take the parking space in front of a lot when you have higher density small garages small driveways there's no place else to park the street so a lot of parking if you go in and out of teesley trails there's a lot of parking on the street and when you take a bump out and put it in front of a house you've just taken their street parking away this is what ends up happening on the bump outs they really don't slow down traffic i've heard that they are a method to do that they really don't slow down traffic people get to learn where the bump out is they know that they swing to the middle of the street and head on down it doesn't really slow down the traffic council member armature i'm sorry yeah yeah so so you mentioned that you know you you appreciate that the new the revised plan that it's not going kind of straight through correct what do you think about the um that pedestrian way going through that would not impact me yeah so uh so um i mean that would probably be great for them but if you've got a dead end street and going to turn that into a pedestrian path and that doesn't doesn't affect us at all so not kind of good bad just kind of indifferent yeah just uh i mean i i would understand why they would like that so thanks anything else thank you appreciate it thank you so much uh this is public hearing anybody else wishing to speak and no i'm sorry i'm sorry you can't thank you thank you though appreciate it sure um you can always email council some of some of us read our emails well the meetings that's yeah anybody else wishing to speak one more time all right we're going to close the public hearing and we'll take a five minute break we'll come back and have staff i mean council deliberation welcome back to this meeting of the dent city council on tuesday december 17 2019 we're on agenda item 5b it is 905 we have concluded our public hearing portion the public comment portion we've closed the public hearing and now we'll have staff deliberation uh council member davis i think council member armature's request is just a holdover so uh council member davis so i want to thank um the neighborhood especially for coming out we had a chance to talk just a second ago but i've been where y'all are i've been in a home backed up to a field that i didn't own and didn't develop the way that i would have chosen i've been in a home adjacent to a beautiful blue bonnet field that the same thing happened so i i understand what you're going through um the thing that seems to be the big sticking point here regardless of the density and regardless of uh the way that the zoning case goes is uh monicarlo and i have to say just like we talked about a second ago the way that this developer has chosen to address your neighborhood issue is not typical uh this is they've kind of gone above and beyond what they needed to do even after they went through the planning and zoning it was a tight vote in planning and zoning thanks to y'all showing up and and they responded to y'all's concerns so i really appreciate the developer doing that and responding to neighborhood concerns that that key sticking point monicarlo connecting through like we discussed is a it's a crucial design feature of our development code it's important for all of our subdivisions to connect to adjacent areas it's extremely rare that you find a subdivision in denton that does not connect to adjacent properties if you don't have a creek or a you know big major thoroughfare like a carol boulevard or university going through it so we also talked a lot about density today and the lot sizes that are proposed in the pd are quite a bit smaller than we would expect to see in an r4 but the ultimate density is very similar to an r4 they would only have to drop out a few lots really to get down to the same density that they have in the surrounding area for me it's very transitional from the r2 that we have to the west all the way to the much denser area that we have to the east and as we sometimes find when we do zoning cases this may be the best we can hope for this may be the very best developer who will ever be interested in this piece of property so to uh to kind of look the gift horse in the mouth and uh laying from the bulldozers really isn't the thing to do here the best thing we can do in a zoning case is shape the direction of the neighborhood going forward and i think they've done a good job doing that so at this point i i would move adoption and approval of the pd okay uh council member breaks so i have a couple of questions for staff um mostly probably our city engineer sit oh yeah just procedural uh point council member davis you made a motion i do not see a second but i'm not going to kill the motion for lack of a second at least at this point because we had some people uh queued up to speak and according to our our practices we're going to take people as they as they sign up so just wanted to let everybody know that all right i'm sorry council member breaks yeah so um could you help me understand the going through of montecarlo is that a fire requirement or is that a mobility plan requirement because i've heard both it's not a mobility plan requirement but it does become a uh a concern for the ems both ambulances fire trucks it also becomes an issue for uh solid waste under the current configuration so it provides better access all the way around okay and so it's not on our mobility plan or it is residential streets are not on our mobility plan none are okay all right mobility plan primarily focuses on collectors and arterials so that's helpful so it's for fire and solid waste mostly is the reason we're doing it's for getting people to where they need to go as efficiently as possible especially when it comes to police and fire okay all right thank you uh mayor putin yeah so uh question for developer if that's okay sure yeah if i could borrow you please and uh todd don't go far sorry if you could pull up the the layout that you presented please and thank you excellent thank you my question is what is your pain threshold for the southern portion the green space there that butts up to um yes there yes what is your pain threshold for um modifying that green space i don't know what that counts towards but my question is what is your pain threshold for modifying that um green space to give radius for for turns that then is monda manta cristo no pardon montecarlo lane is connected but the separated with a emergency gate that gives fire police access but doesn't give general public access the increased turn gives trash and people in the new neighborhood here's my rationale and here's where because i do get hung up on on that connectivity but i don't and this is probably wrong but just how i see it the development to the north is newer right and so connectivity there doesn't give me as much heartburn as as to the south if my if i'm oriented right but that's and that's absolutely on the fly so i don't expect um an immediate answer but that's just as we deliberate that's that's that's a question i'd ask you to consider and i and and let me stipulate for those i know that it's a city requirement and you talked to staff about that already so credit giving credit what credits do i know you're entertained that and again goes back to my other comment staff has a really difficult job and so i can see that you've been here before that may seem like hey we talked about that and that's frustrating and i apologize but you know that's that's how the sausage is made it's ugly but uh i i appreciate your patience appreciate all you've done already just a question yeah absolutely so i'm actually going to look at this on both the land plan you're looking at here and then also the one that was presented to pnz because if we go and add a you know we could certainly add a cul-de-sac here and then some type of access with a crash gate that physically can be done it would be a question for city staff because now what we what we would create is an over length cul-de-sac street so the city's subdivision guidelines stipulate that a cul-de-sac shall not exceed 600 feet i believe that's still accurate i know there's been adoptions and changes so in this configuration if you follow the mouse from this intersection here down to this location where the cul-de-sac would go in that would be well over 600 feet so then generally that would require a variance i think that variance could be approved through the the pd but i would i would want to defer to staff as well because i can physically design that the the developer could potentially agree to that but it's still something that i would say staff may want to have a an opinion too the other option would be going back to this layout doing the temporary cul-de-sac there with the crash gate there for access and then you don't have the overlink cul-de-sac i mean from a from a an ability standpoint we can design that layout we can provide a solution with the crash gate i would defer to to todd because i think that would be something that the city's engineering department would probably want to i don't know i don't want to speak for you if only yes todd sorry to put you on the spot so as far as providing that emergency access that would still meet the needs and the requirements we'll be looking for from our primary concern and either configuration as far as the overlinks uh cul-de-sac one of the primary reasons you have that 600 foot delineation is that in a vast majority of cases when there's a water line there's a water line on the primary streets and then you have a stub out for a water line that comes down the cul-de-sac and the maximum dead end length that we prefer to have is no more than 600 feet that's just to keep the water as as potable as possible we prevent other issues that occur within that line by keeping that requirement down to 600 feet no longer than that there are other instances where that may occur but you end up having to have things on the end of the line to make that work so in this case i don't think you would have that issue because the water line does loop all the way through got it so thank you so that would be my question for the movement to if i'm is that in order or do i need to uh let me look uh well um yeah you got the floor okay so i would ask the movement if he would accept that friendly amendment that we go back to the straight through design but there would be a emergency access only gate for fire police uh no i don't think i could accept that as a friendly amendment i can i can give rationale or i can wait on that no that's fine thank you uh council member ryan thank you very uh this will be for city engineer i guess most likely uh right now as i understand it ranchman boulevard it's easily supposed to end up with a light currently yes currently are there any other points out of that uh mean sale are they supposed to get a light as well we're working on those locations with text dot some of the unknowns in this vicinity is what happens when 24 40 or 24 99 actually has all of its capability and draws traffic away from teasley as well as the traffic being able to move through the new lanes on 21 81 so text dot with that with teasley being a text dot facility they're willing to listen to that there are absolutely ways to coordinate multiple signals if we were to put it in there but you also run the risk of that being a potential future parking lot in between red lights so the state's absolutely going to be a lot more conservative in that approach and wanting to see what it looks like once the roadway is actually built out to its capacity before they consider any future signal wards okay all right i ask that because as i see people in this development are most likely going to gravitate to worry stoplight's going to let you out when i go up to hobson i'm going to turn down towards teasley and not try and fight the mess over at country globe road and that makes a big difference on on what traffic flow patterns do so and i guess this is probably more for city attorney on a previous zoning issues we have put other stipulations on the zoning is it possible to put on there that montecarlo would stay closed until the first co on home so that all the road construction would be done before they would open that up you talking about for a pd yeah you want to answer that before he responds or when he responds yeah let's hear what he has to say i was going to say and i apologize miss Beverly for not told her i would discuss that but basically until the subdivision is final accepted the developer controls the access for construction traffic so basically what we what i conveyed to her is that what we would do is keep a barricade in place during the construction of all the infrastructure so the construction of the water the sewer the storm the roads the lots once it's final accepted by the city that's when it's open to the public and that's also when the builders would start pulling their building permits so i don't think it would be unless there was a stipulation added it's really at the time of the first building permit per se instead of the first co okay and another question while you're back up here another stipulation we put on a zoning case recently was that in a in the next door neighborhood that they install traffic calming devices they put some speed bumps in for the neighborhood is that something that would be amenable just because i see you've already got one on your plan in your property would you be willing to put one a little further down Monte Carlo as well yeah i think we're open to that i know the city of Denton as a whole in the past did not like stop signs within residential subdivisions it's my understanding on some other projects that i'm currently working on that the that that thought is changing and that stop signs are going to be desired and required within residential subdivisions so it's it's certainly possible we could either look at traffic calming or if there's a concern we could also add stop signs so that you're actually creating the requirement for a stop at the intersection so that you're slowing that traffic down and they don't have a longer length to get up to speed within the subdivision but we're absolutely open to that councilman barmiter oh you go ahead you're going back to the question yes council member ryan you could add that as a condition of the pd either at the time the first building permit is issued as thomas fletcher has has suggested or the time of the first we don't issue co's for houses we issued like a final inspection so on the completion of the final inspection of the first home built either one councilman barmiter yeah so several things one so i agree on that traffic calming devices are necessary and i know that that's something that developer and staff have already been talking about you know hearing the residents talk about cul-de-sacs and how much they value the cul-de-sac that is making me think about how cul-de-sacs themselves are a kind of traffic calming device as a pedestrian and as a kid i when i was a kid i loved cul-de-sacs as a driver i see them completely differently they're there to thwart me you know and i turn into oh but it slows me down so i i value them for that reason question so for the for the developer and then for for staff the the homes that are pressed up against the i should say the lots the lots that are right up against the exterior streets you know how i should name the streets you've got see well what is this little one right here street a where street a comes out you know you've got this this open space and then you've got a lot right open space to the left and slot to the right um is the home's going to be back far enough on those lots so that visibility won't be an issue correct yes the setbacks as we mentioned in the pd the setback for the structure is 20 feet and within the current code for the garage there's not um stipulated setbacks there's just driveway approach requirements so yes the there the in all intersections the visibility triangle has to be met for traffic so all those um concerns would be uh the design would alleviate those concerns and then there's this um those trees there and don't get me wrong i'd love that you know any trees that can be saved i love them but uh is it is a visibility concern is there um how much space is going to be between the you know those those trees right along that other side of of uh street a and right so your your ride away is 55 feet wide your pavement is 31 foot back to back the right away will have to be cleared there will also be an electric easement that's generally eight foot wide for dme so from the edge of the pavement to the right away which is is usually cleared for development you've got about 20 feet so there's plenty there's sufficient room for site visibility so it does not it does not create any type of hazard from from driving and and being able to see the roadway and see you know pedestrians other cars appropriate site distance at intersections so all of that would be accounted for in the design and would not be a safety issue and did you think it all about i mean obviously it's not what is in the plan i'm just curious about having just kind of picking out those each of those lots and just leaving it wide wide open and i i understand the 20 feet is that's nothing to sneeze at i'm just curious and when you're talking about the lots along here yeah the lots along the corner right here yeah the one that's kind of on the other side of street a oh right here right here oh yeah and and that that um i believe that buffer right there is about 30 feet wide and there's some nice we made that one a little bit wider because there's some nice trees within that area that we were intentionally trying to preserve so it would create a nice wide open space between that existing lot and then the the first house that would be constructed okay okay thanks and then um i have a question for uh for for staff so thank you for answering that uh i should say for traffic engineering staff um and then it will uh parking be permitted on both sides of the street throughout this new development or it's going to depend on the roadway with i don't what was the anticipated roadway so yes it would be allowed on both sides of the street it meets our requirements for a mountable curb while allowing it you have it on both sides of the street and still allows a 20 foot clear space for a fire truck and and there's going to be sidewalk all through the i know that's more of a developer question but okay thank you and and then um i wanted to to see if the mover will take a friendly amendment uh to number one uh to hold off on on uh opening the the homes for uh people to inhabit them until the construction of ryan road both the road and the sidewalks are done and there i can mention a couple others but i was going to respond to that one on that one i i really appreciate the sentiment i'm not going to hold any property owner to completion of a dent in the street so it's a that's an event certain that no one can really predict okay uh well and i mean for me for me that one's a deal breaker but um but i think thank you for answering that and then um the in addition to that the the one speaker uh mentioned that in the corner uh that area where part of it is um not the not on the development and part of it is i forget the percentages but he was concerned about um that area kind of being restored after the construction you can could get that in there yeah if you if you want to yeah so when we go through and when that road was constructed it was left with a pavement header the temporary pavement would be removed it would be backfilled with topsoil we would have to extend the sidewalks we would have to fix the irrigation system and we'd have to do plannings consistent with that area so all of that would be addressed through construction it would be included in our construction plans so we wouldn't we wouldn't leave that area unrestored we would go in and restore that area within that sliver that's in the teesley trails hoa lot excellent thank you yeah and i just want to be sure i'm not exactly sure what it would take to make sure that that is you know something that we've got in that that we can and we're happy for a friendly amendment to have that written into the pd that we would restore that area i think we already proposed to put that in our pd the issue that we got back from staff is that hoa lot is not part of our property so i don't think that we can include it in our pd but we will take care of it until we've already initiated trying to do that and that was a reason it wasn't included okay okay so so that makes sense so uh so i guess so then that would be something that's that is something that the city can talk about but not as part of this pd is that is that correct that can be an amendment to the pd that's going to be no it's going to be a private agreement yeah okay okay okay so that's uh okay and that makes sense just from a legal point of view but i mean it's remaining concern of mine um council member do you have much more because we got a couple other council members yeah yeah so yeah i had i had a final one and that was these are just responding to things that residents brought up um and the final one is that the that would you accept a friendly amendment to uh the resident who spoke about the kind of assurances she was made by the developer about about where the uh routes are going to be for the you know construction vehicles where they're going to go through if we could write that into the pd and hold them to that again legally i don't know if we can do that that i don't see why not but i would want to make sure that that's that's in there i'd be fine with that if it's legally appropriate or if staff feels that it's appropriate um i'm not sure it might be just i'm not sure the pd is exactly the place to include that but but i agree with the sentiment surely okay yes just briefly as part of any construction the private developer will have to identify where their construction entrances are there are requirements for that as part of their stormwater pollution prevention plan and erosion controls that have to be put in place for any development so regardless of what the developer does you'll have to identify where that location is and it will be part of that overarching review for the entire development if it is if construction traffic does deviate from the planned route then we do have the wherewithal and the ability to stop construction until that's corrected and i know you will be out there on a saturday saturday morning because anyway thank you thank you for your dedication i've seen him you know not seen her doing that so thank you councilmember briggs so um i want to thank everyone for coming out and speaking and writing and being here and i also want to thank the developer for working with the neighborhood doing the best you can with what you have um unfortunately that's a a requirement that we have put upon ourselves that i just i just don't understand and i can't get past um i feel like there's not a reason that that should be open and there was a um a solution mentioned about a gate and i didn't gain traction um so and unfortunately i'm not i'm not right there yet because i feel like there's still a solution out there where a little bit um there's um i guess everybody could be a little bit more happy i know that not everybody's is going to get 100 but um i do like how um all the things that i liked earlier about the development taking your time work with the neighborhood i appreciate that um it's just that the montecarlo going all the way through especially to the neighborhood that's been there and established for 20 years without the sign being posted like it was supposed to be and all of these things are the city's fault right city requirements the city failed the city didn't do this stuff and so i'm i'm very sorry that i'm not going to be able to vote for the project okay good um all right got a couple questions could somebody put up what the new alignment of montecarlo would be this is the zoning plan okay so i haven't spoken much during this so i'm going to take some liberty and some time and we're going to let this be the last word unless there's something really crazy that comes up because we do have a motion on the table um help me understand um that's my understanding that's what we have i want to make sure i understand how many ingresses ingresses we have here we have one down here off of ryan road is that a is that an entrance into the subdivision okay we have one up here along that long road what is this what's that road right there right there street e yeah but what's the one rot jutting off into this other subdivision lane okay because i just can't read it and then we got one up here at the top montecarlo and so then um so right now montecarlo is on both places i mean there's one on each side that's correct and then we've got the montecarlo coming down here so i'm just good first of all thank everybody for coming out thanks for the emails i'm going to be truthful and honest sometimes referring to staff in a sort of disparaging way or calling council names or referring to the city that's not helpful sometimes so i just ask that i appreciate everybody being respectful and i appreciate you passionately arguing for what what you want my concern is i'm not only here representing you all i'm also representing the neighborhoods in the area so what i'm understanding is we close that off and we're now forcing traffic in through all these other neighborhoods who are adjacent and i don't really put much stock in well we were here first as far as the sign being posted at the stub out on montecarlo that this could be a through street i don't think there's any code requirement in the city that requires that it's probably on the plat that i mean i'm looking at this and if i see a straight shot up into an empty lot with a stub out concrete or asphalt stub out i think probably that means at some point something's going to be there or that would have been curbed off so my concern is that if i'm making a decision here and plus this is a straight shot down to to ryan road making making this closed off then pushes all of that into the other neighborhoods which is fine because they're already going to have traffic they're already going to have traffic coming through their neighborhoods and some of it's going to be a lot probably more securitas circular and it may be even more i've heard dangerous mentioned for this particular neighborhood because you might be traversing more of the lane miles within that subdivision that accompanies more houses so i'm not sure what the solution is i think first of all i appreciate the developer who really worked hard to not make this a straight shot down through there because i hadn't i mean i saw it on the backup but i hadn't really seen the the one the one prior so i'm just i hope we just really work on the facts here because there's no adverse possession just because this has been like this for 20 years doesn't mean that it's adverse possession that's a very strong legal term of art that has very clear elements and in this case it's it's not even applicable at all if it if that were the case we wouldn't be y'all's neighborhood probably wouldn't have been developed because somebody else might have said it was adverse possessed so i i don't i struggle more with the density but having heard what we're doing with the conservation districts which i'd like to think we could put that some kind of verbiage in the pd in that regard um the only reason i'm struggling with a crash gate is not because that could be a solution but because of the equity of the situation and that is for all the other surrounding neighborhoods that's my only concern and i think if i read in the backup somewhere that if we had two montecarlo's that something about fire the addressing and that somebody would have to change the street name or is that it am i right in refreshing my memory on that um that if you really wanted to if you didn't cut it off or hey they could probably address a better nightclub but it does because it presents an issue for fire and police when they're responding when you have multiple segments because they don't know exactly where to go first before this subdivision you have multiple segments correct correct and um i did we followed up with the fire department more extensively afterwards there's actually nothing in the fire code that would prohibit there being multiple streets with the same name they strongly prefer that not be the case in this case if if the this design on the screen went through we would have three montecarlo's in perpetuity if this design on the screen were approved we would have three segments of montecarlo actually because there's one further north as well within further within teasley trails um so the straight shot would have limited that to two montecarlo's we would have three the fire department acknowledged that they can work around that but it's never the preferred option all right so then so we've got montecarlo coming in from the top as it you know with the straight shot you take the straight shot out so montecarlo comes in and it changes names when it makes this first curve correct all right so then you come back around and then it curves back around to montecarlo with those two lots or three or four lots there in the cul-de-sac are all those are the numbering that the addressing sequential i mean when you say there's is is the issue an addressing issue well the issue is just more when when they're dispatched in the street is montecarlo if they respond to the wrong montecarlo and they can't get to the right one then yeah that would create delays in response time okay but the addressing is an issue that that can be handled pretty easily all right um so if i were in your neighborhood i'd say the exact same things that you're saying absolutely uh and feel very strongly about it and looking at this whole thing i'm being asked to say we just don't want it in our neighborhood because we've been there forever okay well there's a lot of places like that in town that have had to be developed and i'll say again i know that that whole issue about a sign not being up i just need to ask that is there a sign required to be at the end of a stub out over a certain amount of period of years saying that this could be a developed piece of lot in the back i mean i don't know is there the the 2002 ddc was adopted with language in there that that required that um there's i know i've seen that sign um on winzer in a couple of places so it was enforced at the time um what i referenced was in 2003 when the variance was approved for that last lot on montecarlo to be built that was part of that variance approval but obviously in 16 years the sign some things happened who's responsible for that i believe the developer at that time was responsible the developer of the subdivision on montecarlo um in that case it was the that was the last lot i think everything else was built so it was that builder that was going to happen with the sign out but someone a lot within this neighborhood that we're talking about right now correct okay all right um so i mean it's it's a struggle i don't even know exactly how i'm going to make this decision i think i'm okay with the density i think that the uh the developer has done yeoman's work uh in in this so i don't think i really quite heard it if um so what i'm hearing is you have to have this street configuration for this little stub out of montecarlo and all those for that lot configuration it's just a matter of do you want to have four ingresses ingresses or do you want to have three extending that one down to ryan road um you got to have the road in there somewhere unless you stubbed it out um at the at the cul-de-sac there um okay well we'll just have to sort of see how it uh we've got a motion on the table we've had a friendly amendment that has not been proposed but has not been accepted and i struggle with that again because it pushes everything out into the other areas construction traffic if we close it off there where are they going to come in and i'm not saying that's where they should come in i'm saying where are they going to come in because the road here that's parallel is not built yet is that is that i mean so if if somebody could help me understand from the construction perspective how is this right so when we go through and do the design plans as as uh todd mentioned we will have a construction entrance that will be down here located off ryan road so the there's currently a barricade uh it's metal beam guard fence on posts that are in the ground so all our construction traffic will come in here access the site to do all the internal work once everything is is completed within the subdivision and we're ready to so the barrier there would be removed when the pavement connection is made now we could change that barrier from a permanent barrier to type three barricades on skids during the the construction process but once the typically once the subdivision is final accepted all those traffic control measures are removed and then the streets are open to public so we can control all the construction traffic for the internal infrastructure coming off of ryan road and that would be our intent anyway we don't want to send traffic construction vehicles through the existing subdivisions we want to get them from the main collection road into the subdivision sure yeah you don't want to wind through a neighborhood no absolutely not okay okay um i guess i don't have any other comments or questions in that regard yes i did want to provide a couple of um clarifications on some of the things that were shown um so the the pd language as it stands today does not contain the conservation easement so that would need to be made as an amendment um staff would recommend that that be phrased such as the conservation easement for tree preservation areas be provided at the time of platting um and then there were trees shown um on the plan for the western buffer at a rate of one per 50 linear feet i wanted to clarify that those are not specifically written into the pd today so we would recommend adding those in as well um to make sure that what was shown here tonight on the record gets incorporated into the pd i think it was inadvertently left out okay and the city attorney has it i just wanted to make sure i understood about the conservation easement uh condition that you want to add that's just for them to show you that they have done it as before they file their preliminary plot is that what you're saying um i would probably say with final plate because if it's done through hoa that's when we would see hoa documents okay that it's just that and it's okay language okay that's fine so you're saying to have some of that language in the pd document or later on um i would i would just recommend that it be incorporated into the pd okay um and maybe make it some language saying consistent with uh the presentation i mean because we could say incorporate in the pd but we have to figure out what's it referring to and it could be this diagram right here um yes it could be as shown on the diagram or we could reference the specific section within the pd that okay um just want to make sure that what's referenced is just giving everybody an opportunity to see pictorially what has been represented correct as the buffer not saying somebody's going to try to change it but it just makes it for ease of understanding and the correct location within the pd text would be in section five landscaping and tree preservation go ahead i have no problem with those two uh requests those are our intent and have no problem adding them to the pd okay the concern i had was to make sure that because it's been presented during the presentation that the conservation easement was going to be maintained by the hoa that there wasn't anything put in there that the city would somehow uh be obligated or would assume control of an of the conservation easement that that's why i asked for a clarification and we wouldn't see council wouldn't see the final plat correct where this would really be represented that is correct pnz would see it yes but only as a ministerial function if it conformed with all the uh requirements of the final plan is that correct it's sort of a consent agenda or something my understanding and the reason that we proactively hit the ground running uh last week when this got approved was that the concept plan that is approved is what drives us how our preliminary planet has to match okay that was the language i was looking for consistent with the concept plan if i'm incorrect about that please correct me but that was my understanding why we so quickly made these changes so we could present a concept plan that we would be bound to when we came in for plotting i'm going to defer to hailey on that correct as part of a pd zoning there has to be a site layout or a pd development plan so this this map becomes part of the ordinance for the pd and staff would have to require compliance with that plan at the time of plotting in order to recommend approval to the pnz okay so um council member davis do you have because we haven't had a second so if you wanted to at any point you could modify your motion without requiring a friendly amendment so um council member ryan do you have something that would be added on to the motion or modify the motion or do you have a i'm just yes mine was a friendly amendment to require that the construction ingress egress be off of ryan road all right okay so do you have at least would you like to make any modifications to your motion i guess is my question sure i would restate my motion as follows that i would move adoption of the draft ordinance as presented in our backup materials with the addition that construction entrance would be from ryan road i would substitute for exhibit d the development plan we are provided prior to the council meeting i think staff has that and i would also with staff's recommendation for section five including the conservation easements and the buffer trees on the southwestern corner and that's consistent with the concept plan as presented that's consistent with the concept plan that's been presented by the developer tonight right all right okay we have a we have that renewed motion council member ryan i just want to say that i understand the neighborhood's concerns i think the developer has worked very hard to try and slow down the traffic through there to do everything he can even though now that montecarlo does not go through which i'm good with it it doesn't really fit the way the city wants our streets designed but it's a good compromise between between the two and with that i will second the motion mayor pro tem yeah no great conversation i think we did it to ourselves the developers done great things but i'm not going to i don't think this is the best uh idea and that really is where i hang up it there's an option there get it that we don't like it we can we'll if it if it ties we'll just do it again next week i don't know what that does to your project and it pains me to do so i don't know the difference between uh two and really it bothers me that it's two parallel streets straight through i mean they're right next to each other no one ever does that you drive any for the most part you drive denton let's say it's bonnie bray and thomas there's a segment of houses between those two parallel streets there's rare in the city of denton where you have two roads right on the other side of two how it just doesn't happen uh so i don't under i don't understand the traffic use uh we're absolutely going to be working on ryan street and so those two streets uh at some point are going to be moot uh but yeah that's my hang up i think that a emergency gate does the trick and it is the it's optimal to meet the uh neighborhoods concern it rewards the um developer because that's what they they thought of in the first place so that's where that's where i hang up it's we have a better option and so uh unless yeah that's i i just think there's a better option yeah council member armature i'm so trying to take too long because some of my concerns have already been expressed in probably in my questions but i'm going to be voting no no to this uh for reasons i've made clear and as for the reasons that i haven't spoken so much about um i i'm really sad to think about all of the old trees that are that are going out uh i realize it's permissible under our tree ordinance but you know i've also made it clear i think our current tree ordinance though a big improvement on what came before is still you know woefully insufficient and i i believe that new uh small trees even ones that are an inch bigger than uh the the uh ordinance requires are still just no substitute for those old trees which which do so much they're beautiful but not only that their infrastructure um and they clean the air and we really need it because we've got rated air here uh and you know i'll also mention about infill uh i love i love infill and density but i don't just like any any infill um and we desperately need housing in this city but we need housing for uh for people uh who who live here who can't afford to live here and so and in you know these are the kind of home and so if there's affordable housing i can forgive a lot even cutting down you know more trees than i would like because there's a real need for that um and and i say you know a range of affordable including starting level uh you know reasonable homes um and so i'm not saying this is a terrible development but it's just for for all these reasons the number of factors i'm going to be be voting no um and but there there are a number of things as i made clear that um could have been done that could have made me more amenable to voting to voting yes i have a question um for i guess staff engineering maybe um so let's just say for discussion purposes right just hear me out on this where you've got the stub out for montecarlo or the little 90 degree turn and then you you have this other stub out over here was it ranch hand or what's it called uh well i missed that one all totally didn't i if somehow that road was and you know take a couple of lots but if that road was connected to that little stub out all right does that still present a problem with ingress egress for the fire department i don't think it does i mean the reality is from a purely engineering standpoint the ingress and egress points are met from three points this fourth at montecarlo is not really you could even turn it 90 degrees north and plug it in and it would still work it's purely a code driven issue that it has to tie into those points which which which is stuff out at montecarlo and over there on that mezzanine side you're saying it's a code issue but if you have a stub out it's got a and so that's code so staff really doesn't have any choice but to recommend that you can't say oh we can change that unilaterally it's this council that can change that correct all right um so i don't want to have to do this again i don't want these people these good people to have to come out here and go through all this again because i i i see the situation with the two parallel roads so i just want to ask the developer just a question of preference would you prefer the crash gate there as compared to maybe just taking that out all together and somehow tying that cross coming across there and tying that road in would you just prefer it like this with the crash gate eliminate the stub to the south to montecarlo and just go straight to mizzen that's what i was thinking yes somehow yeah i'm fine with that we've we've been put in a terrible spot we have to meet the code and so we're trying to meet the code and i understand council doesn't like the code neighborhood not code i don't particularly like the code but we are bound to meet it and so i'm kind of in a spot of you know meet the code but nobody likes the code so if you all want to say forget the stub to the south there we have the tension and it continues and you can figure out how to get your lots i mean you might lose a couple but you might gain a couple you might net out to your point to not come back and do this again we've worked so hard on this and so many compromises we'd like to have the opportunity to move forward tonight and so i'm more than happy to ask thomas to get with city staff tomorrow we'll mark it up tonight we'll agree to it initial it and we'll reconfigure it okay whatever the fourth however many times we've now done it we'll spend the money to do it again sir okay um yes that's in lieu of the crash point yeah you're saying take out that stub out of montecarlo and bring it straight across and you'll figure out how to configure all that so yeah we will said we have the overhead please billy stop this right here and it will continue on over here to miss and we'll get rid of this stuff okay okay okay well um so i guess i would like to make a friendly amendment uh what do i hear okay let's take a five minute break let's take a five minute break and let's talk about this and see if we can't come up with a with the configuration all right welcome back everybody to this meeting of the dent city council it's december 17 2019 it is 956 and we are still on item 5b okay so we've got some clarification of what i was talking about and what the developer talked about with staff so we may get some clarification on whether we can or cannot do that or what is the process which may be something that might not be preferential for the for the developer as far as timing goes it's more of a process issue as i mentioned in the presentation the code only grants four options where staff can approve a deviation from the connectivity requirement and the code specifies in the item that i have circled there that any modification that is not considered impractical as listed above shall follow the variance procedures established in subsection 2.8.1 variance so they would have to go to zba and request that variance prior to council being able to approve a plan without that connectivity go to who for a variance zba okay so they'd get a variance from zba and then he'd come back to council or correct council wouldn't have the authority it's my understanding to approve a plan that that varies from this code without zba granting that variance first all right all right question for the developer i'm assuming that you wouldn't want to necessarily take that route or or if we could work it out uh i mean what just what are your thoughts we want to be practical um if if zba can guarantee it will pass and come back here and pass i'm happy to do that but we explored this before and the answer was the likelihood that zba would pass it was close to zero because it doesn't meet the four criteria as a hardship so this has been something that's been discussed earlier okay all right thank you i appreciate that one thing that i'll add is i believe that if we did the crash gate that wouldn't require zba approval because technically you're still connecting yep yep yep is that correct so the crash gate would not require zba council could consider that tonight if that's if they so choose to do that all right councilmen oh councilman if if the crash gate there's a couple questions i need to ask there's a legal issue out there that i just want to make sure um we're not going into the into or creating a claim against the city in that event so i'm thinking about a takings claim i just need to ask a couple questions of staff or or the city engineer about the actual roadway and the crash gate the crash gate would be built entirely on the subdivision that that's part of the pd is that correct hailey or a time it from my understanding it would be on the part the new development side and that road that leads up there to montecarlo that's that's a city street that has been dedicated to us okay my my concerns yes i'm satisfied council member so i'm going back to the earlier conversation when it um i think hailey said there's um certain people or certain reasons why there could be a variance to our code and one of them i thought was the city engineer could provide that variance if there was a barrier in the way is that because i see two really big beautiful trees that are right in the path of that um montecarlo passing through would that be considered a barrier um i believe it specifically says a physical barrier such as an environmentally sensitive area it specifically lists watercourses floodplains riparian buffers steep slopes or wildlife hazard areas i i don't know that that it would meet that criteria it's a lovely group of trees okay i just thought i would i would ask if that qualified as a as a variance thank you so uh i i'm going to say that based upon the conversation and at least exploring all options um i'm okay with the crash gate option so if the motion stays as it stands i will unfortunately be unable to support now i will say understanding that if the council can put in a crash gate future councils can take out a crash gate i just want people to understand that that this isn't a guaranteed permanent fix because that's happened in our city before so i feel it necessary to say that okay councilmember davis i think you had a request to speak so when the crash gate concept first came up i mentioned that i had some rationale so i live over in the area where emory street is and if you don't know where emory street is it ties into bonnie bray for a period of 40 50 years it did not tie into bonnie bray and then eventually when they resurfaced emory street they ran it all the way up to bonnie bray with about five feet of grass in a barricade it took less than 10 years for that barricade to go away and that's because when we do goofy things like build two streets that dead into each other and put a gate between them it does not take long and i don't think it takes a city council to take that barrier down i think city engineering could take that barrier down i don't think um and when i said earlier that the connectivity between the streets is a critical part of our development code this zba thing that we're talking about that's exactly what i was referring to it is baked into everything we do in the development code so i have big problems with the equity of this developer and the folks who live on the north part of this of this development they have now a barrier between their neighborhood and ryan of the south that they've got to make the dog leg and they go all the way around and all that kind of stuff whereas because the neighbors did exactly what i would have done and came out and complained about it and had issues with it whereas other developments that we've approved we have not put a gate across our streets we have not uh cordoned off a sub a a cul-de-sac because the folks who bought homes there in the last little while were convinced that they were buying on a cul-de-sac so i'm if you hear a little frustration in my voice it's because we have in front of us a developer who bought out a gas well bought it out plugged it they did exactly the math that we want denton to do and recognize that land value is better than gas value and they did exactly what we've been begging them to do for years and then we have a developer that bends over backwards changing the site plan after a lot a lot of dialogue with the neighborhood and the solution that we've come up with is instead of following our code that's on the books that we're going to put a crash gate across a road a perfectly good road but that ends into itself and i just i'm really having trouble saying that one neighborhood in the city can make the developer and the entire rest of the city ignore good engineering ignore good code and put up a barrier across a perfectly good road um i i'd like to hear before i accept that amendment i'd like to hear some response from my colleagues to to my comments there and the equity of the concerns that i've expressed uh mayor pro tem and then i have a comment i think she's i think did you did you re-request her well i i do have a um okay so this isn't an this isn't an old request because sometimes these aren't rolling off okay go ahead um i'll just wait i was going to make a motion to postpone until the next council when we have a full council um just in case but uh i'll just i'll hear what that that's going to be my response mayor to answer to answer your question directly the the city doesn't give away free water but we found ourselves in the position to give away free water for one individual neighborhood because an emergency arose so yes there are hard and fast rules are in place for specific reason everything you said is true but there's been precious few instances where we've not made modifications in times i bet you know it happens uh i don't want to over exaggerate so it happens periodically but to to simply answer your question to get out of the way for me we don't give away free water but we gave away free water because it was the right thing to do i think this is the right thing to do understanding the pattern understanding the the delay of the land so that's how i get there um i don't know that that satisfy i think your point's valid i think the the the neighbors do need to be on alert that hey future councils can absolutely roll that back or do whatever and it's it's not in perpetuity but i think at least you have you you've been forewarned so just to um first of all appreciate your sentiments um and i can think of an example where we've done exactly this same thing and it was probably about a couple years ago two or three years ago it was the i don't want to say the village of piney woods but i don't think that's it it's the small development right behind the uh the mall behind office depot and all that it's garden homes the streets weren't you know up to code except for the one street and it had a stub out and that land fronted colorado boulevard excuse me and we had a meeting just like this where we had the developer who was you know wanting to design some things and then we had uh the the neighborhood who were saying that hey this is i mean they only had one way into their neighborhood quite frankly and so um part of the reason to have the connectivity was for fire but then what happened was we did have a a gate or proposed uh crack i don't know why they call them crash gates i don't think people will crash into them but uh an emergency now that property's never been developed as it was proposed i mean it's still vacant but that is one time where we did do that um and so there is i don't say precedent but there is an example out there where where we were where we were able to do that uh and and i don't disagree with your assessment that you know in a certain amount of time especially when you get 154 homes in there who are saying wait a minute why don't we keep going around here they might could come and bring their own advocacy to having that gate removed and if they do that that's the process so i totally respect you respecting the process and i appreciate that because being you know sort of the guy that really likes the process um i also know that we have done that in the past so that's why i don't have as much i'm torn either way i mean i i could say let's just go with it the way it is the way it's proposed um but i also can go with if we have that in there so okay council member davis i appreciate the responses i appreciate being heard on the issue the the thing for me i don't want to postpone i don't know that things change in a week's time or two weeks time or three weeks time the idea doesn't get any better to me in a couple three weeks time um i do want to through this process acknowledge the concessions that developers made and most of all acknowledge that buyout of that gas well that they went through i can accept a friendly amendment that the uh in i'm not sure what section the pd but that after after building montecarlo street they will then erect a barricade across montecarlo street at the southern edge of the property i'll make i'll make such a friendly amendment um if you'll accept that yeah and i and i really appreciate you pointing out because i i think the developer's probably indifferent to the barricade to the emergency entrance but i really do appreciate you pointing out um and i think that's one reason why the developer has been developing in denton for so long is that this is his and his family's home as well and he's really worked hard to do the things that will not only make his development successful but also provide as much uh compatibility and uh collaboration and cooperation with not only the development he's creating through the buying out of the gas well but also with those neighbors around so uh big uh thank you to everybody involved both the developer and the neighborhood for uh listening and for attending the neighborhood meetings and giving feedback and for staff who does a great job in advocating for what their job is and that is to present uh to the council the code the code requirements and staff's recommendations so uh mr city engineer i i sure hope you don't have any other rent you're going to throw up here and hit me in the head with it's a point of clarification okay so if i understand the friendly amendment that's being considered i need to make sure that the point of clarification is is that you are you contemplating a permanent barrier i'm saying i don't know about that but it's whatever barriers we use so that fire and police can have access to that yeah not a permanent barrier where people can't get through it no fire and police need to have whatever apparatus or locking mechanism or electronic thing that they use okay that's the friendly amendment as i understand it yes sir yeah as i understood it it's a movable barrier that hasn't an improved street a finished out street below it yeah okay council member ryan do you accept that friendly amendment i accept that friendly amendment all right and and of course it goes along with all the other conditions that were placed in that original motion correct all right okay we have a motion and i'm not going to try to recall all of the conditions i trust that our legal staff unless somebody hasn't really summarized and maybe we need to do that um we're going to do it that's what i'm trained to do we need to summarize to make sure there's no confusion so this is the motion with the subsequent conditions that were made by the movement yeah so i have the draft ordinance as provided in the backup with the following amendments the first being the construction entrance be designated off of ryan road the second being the subdivision layout be as provided with the revised copy given to you all tonight the third being that section five of the pd be amended to provide for the conservation easement for tree preservation and the buffer trees on the southwest side of the property and then fourth the amendment for the gate at montecarlo for emergency access only in my understanding was that the conservation easement would be as depicted in the concept plan yeah all right all right that is that does anybody not believe that those were the conditions that were placed and that's the motion that we were voting on council member breaks sorry i want to clarify the um the road um with the crash gate was it switched back to straight or is it still going to be um zigzag could i answer that yes on my motion this is what what we were provided before is what i substituted for exhibit d so it's got the dog leg in it all right thank you so i want to make sure uh may put him i i think um the issue with the with the cul-de-sac been too long was it was an issue but i i take council member davis's point i want to be respectful of his his concern that future councils will open that up and what i don't want to do to the neighborhood is say here's a straight shot that people can't get to and then all of a sudden a future council rolls that back and it's a straight shot that people can get through worst case happens you still got a zigzag through there and that that mitigates traffic and i know there's a mitigation on our end and a headache with the extending over 600 feet uh but but that's that's the calculated risk in in my mind uh when i'm doing the math okay uh i council member davis are you had a request to speak very very briefly the part of the reason why i specified an improved street is that means that utilities can continue that way so that we don't have the issue with the 600 foot long cul-de-sac and all that that goes that goes away under doing it this way because the road is still there you can still build that right away through the hoa lot north of there north of the gate is still there that's why i stuck with the dogleg and instead of the straight shot just as you said and why i asked for an improved finished street below the barricade so that we have right away and we have utilities that go as planned the only difference is we've got a gate across it okay councilman ryan i saw you queued up did you withdraw that was the same point i was going to make okay it was continuous utilities okay so it is the it is the dog leg as presented it's not the p and z one it's the one that we saw here today okay um we have a motion and we have a second with the corresponding summary of the amendments let's vote on the board please motion carries uh five to one okay next agenda item is this is where we switch them yeah okay uh thank you all for coming out appreciate it thank you so much all right so um i'm sorry switch them oh i can do that yeah i'll do that yeah yeah i'll do that okay okay yeah i'll read them i'll read the captions together all right so we're going to go ahead and read the captions for both c and d well that's items for consider where am i oh public hearing agenda item agenda item 5c is hold a public hearing considered option of an ordinance of the city of dentin approving a specific use permit to allow an electric substation on approximately 3.27 acres of land if we could i'm sorry if we could take the conversation out council member armature could you please either take the conversation away from the doorway or come back in and join us please thank you thank you uh agenda item 5d which is hold a public hearing considered option of an ordinance of the city of dentin approving a change in the zoning district and use classification from rural residential zoning district to mixed use neighborhood so we've read those captions together the presentation is going to be together however when we vote we're going to need to take them out of order in the in the vote and vote for agenda item 5d and agenda item 5c at order all right yep okay thank you as noted i'm combining the presentations for z190009 and s190011 into one because they involve the same site the z190009 i will uh speak to first this is a request to rezone approximately 2.430 acres from rural residential to mixed use neighborhood and to rezone approximately 3 0.838 acres from residential r6 to mixed use neighborhood you can see this location of the site it is right here on the north side of blag road it's approximately 430 feet east of gisling which runs through this area right here this is the current zoning map you can see the site it has a split zoning as i noted and if this is approved the zoning map will look like this with the mn zoning we have 12 general criteria uh for approval of all applications in section 2.4.5e as i noted in your backup this uh application these two app this application meets this these requirements we also have zoning criteria for approval in section 2.7.2d i'm going to go into these a little bit um a little bit more uh there are uh seven criteria the first one is with regards to um the zoning the future land use designation of the site the site is designated as moderate density uh residential is intended for residential neighborhoods with a density of between 4 and 12 dwelling units per acre and it applies to transition areas between established single-family neighborhoods and mixed use or commercial areas or adjacent corridors and as you can see this is blag road here and then we've got university highway 380 to the north and um this would serve as a uh it meets that requirement for serving as a transition area criteria two is it's consistent with relevant small area plans however there are no small area plans for this location criteria three is it's consistent with the purpose statement of the proposed zoning district the purpose of the mn district as stated in the zoning code is to provide compatibility between high intensity mixed use areas and adjacent residential areas the mn district in this location satisfies the locational requirement as it will be located between the lower intensity rr zoning district to the south and the us 380 corridor to the north the proposed substation is a permitted use in the mn zoning district upon approval of a specific use permit as required by the use specific standards in section 537a criteria four is there have been or will be significant changes to the area that will warrant a zoning change now there haven't been any significant changes in the area there is a residential preliminary plat for the site located to the northwest and west of the subject site um this was actually on the planning and zoning commission's agenda the night this this was heard by the planning and zoning commission subject site is zoned rr and r6 electrical substations are permitted use in this district but not permitted it is not permitted use in the r6 zoning district the purpose of this request is to rezone the site to the least intensive zoning district that permits electrical substations with the approval of an sup and that is the mn district criteria five the intensity of new development permitted by the requested zoning district is not expected to create significantly adverse impacts with regards to streets this substation will have very little impact on the infrastructure in the area employees will visit only the site only a few times per month to perform maintenance and or security checks black road is designated as a two-lane collector street with a right-of-way width of 65 feet if this site is developed attorney a total of 32.5 feet of right-of-way will be dedicated when the site is plotted with regards to water and wastewater this there is no water and wastewater available to this site however this particular use does not require water or wastewater to support the development and the same with regards to parks this is an uninhabited development proximity to parks is not applicable to this use schools again because this is a non-habitable electric substation it will not generate a student population fire stations the subject property is approximately 3.2 miles from fire station number two at 110 mockingbird lane this is within the eight minute or less response time boundary we did put out notifications for the site the newspaper ad was put out october 20th and again we sent it out for the council meeting property was posted with notification signs on october 26 we sent out seven public notices via certified mail and five notices via courtesy mail excuse me five courtesy notices via regular mail we received six responses to the request one of those responses was located in the etj a few of those responses were actually from the same address the land area represented by those in opposition it equates to 17.77 percent of the land area within the 200 foot buffer planning and zoning commission recommend approval of this request with this vote of six to zero now i'm going to move on to the special use permit s 1911 or the request for a specific use permit to permit an electrical substation as noted the site is on the north side of blag there are use specific criteria with regards to electrical substations in the mn district excuse me in table 5a and section 537a of the denton development code if the following criteria are not satisfied an approved specific use permit is required for the substation all of these criteria involve the um electrical substation being part of a city council approved cip plan or a council approved master plan that had a public hearing with appropriate notices and a neighborhood meeting this is not part of the city's cip plan it's not a dme project it is actually an encore project and so therefore it requires a specific use permit again we've got general approval criteria for all applications which i noted in your backup this uh complies with this is a concept plan that was that is presented for the uh electrical substation as you can see here's blag road right here and there is this is the site the 20 foot required landscape buffer is all around it and it is also surrounded by a perimeter masonry wall here is the landscape plan for the site and the landscaping complies with all requirements for an electrical substation in section i've got i'm sorry i wrote it 7 13 7 of the denton development code the sup criteria for approval in section 2.5.2 d the specific use as proposed is compatible with the surrounding area the site is actually compatible with the area given there are already electrical substations in the area there is a city electrical substation to the northwest and there is actually an electrical substation directly adjacent to it to the west however this substation has been it's called delectrified or decommissioned and it's no longer in use the specific use proposed it has minimal impacts on future development property to the north what east and east of the site is undeveloped and is expected to develop as a single-family residential subdivision a preliminary plat was approved for that site uh per the preliminary plat the area that is located adjacent to the substation is actually a designated hoa lot and there will be no residential located in this area for the design standards for the electrical substations and masonry screening wall with a 20-foot clearance zone is required around substations as i noted when showing you the concept plan the specific use from as proposed meets all other standards of the ddc and all applicable city codes and it it does any impacts associated with access traffic emergency utilities parking and so on have been adequately mitigated as i noted this will have very little impact in the infrastructure on the area the site does not require water wastewater or solid waste there's no noise or odor associated with this use the use is in conformance with the comprehensive plan and any other adopted plans the subject site has a future land use designation of moderate density residential as i explained previously in my presentation the area serves as a tradition transition between rural and residential areas to the south and the us 380 corridor and which is in compliance with the future land use designation the use adversely affects the health safety and welfare of inhabitants of the area and the city of denton the use complies with all applicable requirements and consequently will not adversely affect the residents this was an issue that was brought up during the planning and zoning commission meeting we had four speakers speak before the commission and their concerns were revolved around the impacts that this may have on their health and safety and welfare a lot of the issues that they complained about were with regards to the old station that has been de-electrified apparently when that station was active it made significant noise it vibrated so that the people could feel it inside their homes and there weren't fumes as far as i'm aware of however that's been deactivated and during the presentation the applicant explained that with the new technology today those issues won't won't occur with this new substation another thing that issue that was brought up was with regards to drainage and the applicant has explained that they've already been meeting with the city with regards to the drainage requirements for this area and that will be addressed during the planning stage of this process and we expect that there will be no adverse effects with regards to drainage on adjacent properties this was also notified we sent out seven public notices via certified mail and five notices within 500 feet we again received six responses equating to 17.77 percent of the land area within the 200 foot buffer and with one of those responses being from the etj the planning and zoning commission recommended approval of this request with a vote of six to zero and that concludes my presentation and the applicant is present if you have any questions Councilmember Briggs you were on did you withdraw i did withdraw all right council member can you show a satellite photo i was just just looking at one on my computer wondering if you could put one up can that zoom in i'm not sure i don't know if i can zoom into that yeah for me for me looking at the and i don't know how easily if you can do google go to google earth but um that shows a nice picture of what the area is like right now why she's doing that is there any other questions yeah yeah so um and what i wanted i'm sorry you make question from other people what yeah but i don't see any so yeah if we could yeah yeah so i guess i'll address my kind of concerns about that um you know what what you'll see is um what looks like a rural area with some resident a little bit of residential in it and then there's you can see the big substation there um i'm uh i respect the the arguments that that were uh the the presentation that was that was given and i understand the rationale for that it won't go to google earth oh sorry okay well thank you thank you for trying um i wish it's i wish people could see that you know people can just look at home but um so but it's again you've just got it does look like country you know so and part of my you know and i understand um that this is the way um that people talk about kind of future land uses um and it's it's the way the governments talk about it and and i guess i'm kind of an outsider and you know in this in this regard but i see it as when i look at it i see it the way it is now and so for me all the you know future planning is is hypothetical yeah yeah no i'm sorry sorry excuse me just a moment let me let me this is we haven't had the public hearing yet yeah it seems like most of your comments are okay talking about why you're going to either oppose or support it and yeah i'd like to be able to get to the public comment okay it was leading it was leading to was leading to a question um if you if you okay if you could speak to and actually i had several questions but i'll i'll hurry up um so health effects of radiation from um from the substations from substations so i understand you know that noise noise odor all that is minimized can you speak council member armature yeah would you please ask a question this is yeah can you speak to the health effects of of regarding the radiation because i was reading in the in the in the in the staff analysis and it mentioned as you said these other issues and not sure to the recreation i was wondering if you could talk about that and i actually i will defer to the applicant to to speak to that he's more knowledgeable than i am on that we've got a representative here from encore plus the applicant thank you thank you and then so about the future land use uh can can you speak to you know how do we know that um that this area is going to be developed in that way i mean how certain is that it's going to have residential there the preliminary plat has been approved already and um i believe they're working on the final plot now they are working on the final plot right now so it's all it is plotted um and then um can you speak to this uh what area the surrounding area does encore is served by encore versus dme or co-server or something again that that's something that the applicant could answer okay okay anyway thank you those are my questions okay apologies for my roundabout way of getting there thank you okay any other questions for staff you you were signed up that did you have a question for staff yeah are we we're talking about c or we're talking about them together and then we're going to just both of them are going to vote on them separately okay got it just wanted because whenever we get to after that okay got it just want to make sure okay um all right so council member armature you're still do you are you signed up to speak or have you not been taken off council member armature are you paying attention yes i'm i'm i'm done speaking okay all right we'll move on to the public hearing i will now open the public hearing uh this is a public hearing if the applicants here is certainly allowed to have some time to speak just state your name and address and your time will begin thank you mr mayor council uh my name is seth samson i'm a right away sighting specialist with encore and my address is 115 west seventh street fort worth texas i'm here to answer any questions that may may come okay council member bricks so on the um on the google earth image so i think that the dme site is a size and then the old one that's been decommissioned that's your old one no no uh we actually don't have facilities in this location it's an arco station and a dme station oh okay and so what would be the size of your of your of the station that you're proposing compared to the one that's already there for dme about the same size that dme station is it not it'll be a little bit yeah you'll need to oh sorry yes sir bron said today with half associates applicant of 3803 parkwood boulevard for scale the proposed encore station will be a little bit wider than the existing dme station that was decommissioned it will be footprint a little bit smaller than the arco station that's existing just based on the configuration of the equipment and what's recorded okay thank you okay all right any other questions for the applicant all right sena thank you very much gentlemen thank you all for sticking with us uh this is a public hearing anybody else wishing to speak please come down state your name and address your time will begin anybody else wishing to speak this is going to sound real odd but is that a cowboy hat i'm seeing back there that's sort of by itself over there somebody left a cowboy hat or something oh it's his oh it's your hat okay all right sorry about that boom all right okay anybody else wishing to speak all right we'll close the public hearing all right so what we're going to do is we'll have discussion but when we go to vote we have to vote on agenda item d first 5d and then 5c all right any questions for staff on either one of those mayor pro tem well i want to make the motion but this is only c is on our screen so can we yes if we could switch out well you're talking about on the motion screen on the voting screen yes there it is there's d right there excellent mayor pro tem move approval council member davidson will recognize council member armature second approval of item d all right council member armature so i'm i'm going to be voting no to no to this i i worry about when we've got one thing on the ground then we can say well there's already a substation there so we'll put another substation on and uh and by the way i don't fault the um encore for wanting to be there because that's what you're in the business but you know doing that and um electricity is a good thing but uh anyway i worry about using the existing use of the exist the existence of of one thing to justify future things and then justify and then using future things to justify more future things and the next thing we know an area that's residential that that is rural residential becomes something quite different and we've we've made it um kind of conceptually inevitable but it doesn't have to be that way so uh again i that's why i'm voting now can can i just explain the reason behind that well i mean there wasn't really a question so yeah i mean we we've got the we've got a motion in a second on for approval so she's just expressing her her opinion yeah appreciate that yep uh okay any other questions all right let's vote on the board please for agenda item five d uh motion carries four to two agenda item five c on the i guess that's the reason that's the specific use permit uh mayor pro tem move approval all right council member davis second all right any discussion council member armature okay i'll ask a question for that yeah but can i could tell you you what what uh can can you speak to who in the area is is served by encore i shouldn't say who you know what um portion of the area the area do you serve uh i mean in in this specific area i'm not sure where that boundary is as far as where where our territory starts and the um the other um territories begin but the reason for the substation via this location is actually because of the transmission line so we have to be in the vicinity of the transmission line so that's why we chose a specific area it's not really because of our our boundaries yeah and thank you and that makes sense to me about the way it works i've just wanted to make sure that because again it's mentioned in terms of the for the the reasoning um and that it um instead of adversely affecting the area you know it it benefits by you know providing electricity i just want to make clear and i'm not faulting i'm not saying that it mentioned in the staff report because it didn't say it specifically serves this area just want to make clear it's it's for the transmission line that sends oh no so i think i i think i understand so it's actually um as far as the need for the substation is because yeah it would they increase load in this region just um around den in general that's the reason around yeah yeah it's for the growth because the city's yeah but and you did understand it correctly the first time so okay thanks all right we have a motion to second for agenda item five ceilings vote please motion carries four to two agenda item five e thank you thank you very much gentlemen appreciate it thank you so much hold the public hearing consider adoption and ordinance of the city of dentin approving a specific use permit to allow for multi-family dwelling on approximately 12.33 acres of land good evening i'm julie wyatt senior planner with the city of denton and i'm presenting s193 oxford at sherman the request before you is to consider a specific use permit for multi-family dwellings the subject property is about 12 acres it's located situated in the northeast side of town between loop 288 and poinsettia boulevard it's currently undeveloped it's here outlined in yellow a little bit of zoning background on the property so in 2002 the property had a a zoning designation of cmg that was one of our zoning districts in the 2002 dentin development code in 2019 that uh zoning district transitioned to sc so as of october 1st of this year it transitioned to sc due to the project uh submittal timing it was reviewed under the 2002 dentin development code regulations however multi-family dwellings would require an sup in both the cmg district and the sc district the sup for criteria for approval is in sub chapter six of the 2002 dentin development code i won't read all of these to you but we'll just talk about them as as we discuss the project so the first thing we always look at is is the comprehensive plan dentin plan 2030 the subject property is in a future land use designation of community mixed use the intent of community mixed use is to promote a mix of uses um both commercial service as and also moderate to higher density residential uses this is um to encourage vibrancy within a district to um to increase economic viability create a sense of place and also encourage different mobility options multi-family development is consistent with this future land use designation first of all it provides that complementary use that the uses the the um the residents to support commercial and um and service uses um it's often found in mixed use districts and in this specific location um that future land use designation of community mixed use is kind of an overarching broad future land use designation but on this southern edge of the community mixed use designation it really is transitioning more to residential so mixed use in or multi-family in this location would continue that residential character um on the south and provide that transition from the residential to the south of the property to um to the higher density or higher commercial uses along loop 288 dent plan 2030 also talks about growth projections within the city the city is anticipated to grow by 2030 to about 200 000 residents as part of that new housing units would be required and multi-family is a piece of that multi-family developments in strategic locations like along loop 288 or or near arterials is important it it um there's uh provides access to shopping and employment for those residents and it also um contributes to a compact housing development pattern and and reduces sprawl so we'll take a look at the site plan and how that's compatible with the surrounding area so the subject property you can see here they are proposing eight three story buildings um there are three access points it is oriented toward loop 288 so the full in and out access will be a long loop 288 so that's sort of the front door of the development there is another access point to the south it would just be exit only and then also there is a proposed exit only to the future commercial development there's a 10 acre tract adjacent to the property and that would provide the most direct access to FM 428 Sherman they're also proposing a community pool with an amenity area that is in the center of the property to provide a little bit of separation from that that outdoor amenity to the nearby residential areas they're also proposing a dog park in this location fencing landscaping and one-story garages are proposed along poinsettia in this location the three story residential buildings are set back 101 feet from the property line in the south and then 49 feet from this eastern property boundary and it also does meet the parking regulations as part of their sup they also submitted a landscape plan they're proposing overall 163 new large canopy trees which would total about 200 000 square feet of canopy at maturity two areas i want to zoom in a little closer on one would be that southern edge because that's where we really look at that compatibility the southern edge and then and then the eastern edge they are proposing 47 large canopy trees and that would be in addition to the required 24 street trees along poinsettia in this location and they're also there's also an open space area with that buffer requirement in in this location and we'll we'll take it a little zoomed in look at those so here's that that buffer location on the eastern edge it's a it's a combination of existing more mature trees as well as new tree plantings and and shrubs on the southern edge we see the the the landscaping here along poinsettia they are proposing perimeter fencing a combination of a couple of materials ornamental metal and then that and then a board on board cedar they are proposing or as they proposed with their their submittal a board on board cedar fence along poinsettia with recesses to allow for planting areas in addition to those trees along poinsettia and while this these recesses in these plantings do create visual interest kind of breaks up the monotony of a long fence along that that right of way staff was concerned about the durability of that material as a perimeter fence so so we recommended condition that it would either be a masonry wall or a a wrought iron combined with a leafy evergreen hedge to make sure that there is that adequate screening i just talked with the applicant and they are here tonight to answer questions about the fencing they were proposing to do a wrought iron fence there with that green screen um here's a a view of their sample elevations there as i said they're proposing the three-story buildings with a neutral color palette balconies or patios on 100 of the units they're also proposing things like awnings decorative wall lighting and a variety of recesses and projections to provide changes in relief to kind of reduce the bulk of those buildings and then the appearance of the stairwells is also minimized from the exterior you can see in this in this location that that is their the the original proposed cedar fence in the um a long point setup um as as part of this development um if the sup was approved they would have to seek approval of an alternative development plan that was something that the 2002 dentin development code allowed for for minor deviations from the sub chapter 13 site design requirements two things that they would be um would be requesting as part of the alternative development plan was that projects greater than three acres have to have a public or private street system while while their their arrangement and their circulation does minimize the any large parking areas it really isn't designed with a public street or a street system through it so they're requesting that deviation and then another code requirement that garages couldn't be adjacent to poinsettia we feel like that's a critical design element because it does allow the those residential the taller buildings to be set back further from the existing neighborhoods so the the request does meet the criteria for approval in sub chapter 13 of the 2002 dentin development code we reviewed the infrastructure as part of the request they submitted a tia that was reviewed by our engineering group and approved um the the the proposed trip or the the estimated trips that would be generated from the proposed 248 dwelling units would be about 1800 trips in a 24-hour weekday that's 113 morning peak and then 133 evening peak a total build out of the property of this of this property along with the commercial 10 acres at the corner is estimated about 3600 trips per day the tia also analyzed area intersections and and they give letter grades for those intersections either a for or a to f depending on the um on the delays at those intersections so they looked at two in particular loop 288 and fm 428 um the ramps with the ramps that are exiting f or the loop and then um and then making left hand turn movements are the intersections that have the greatest delay so they can be up to four minutes there um the the intersection or the or the the movement where you're just going straight on fm 428 has has less delay um this intersection does meet the warrant for a signal and that signal is intended to be constructed in about the next six to eight months but it's an interim step because um that that that intersection doesn't doesn't function really well there are always stops that are that are going to be installed i talked to engineering before the meeting and they're they're going to be stop signs that have blinking red lights they're waiting for those stop signs to come in and once they come in they'll be installed they estimate some time in january the other intersection was looked at was fm 428 and poinsettia the west the westbound left turn movement is the most difficult movement to make in both the morning and the evening and you can imagine if you're on poinsettia and you're trying to turn left onto sherman that would that would be the most difficult movement um the tia uh indicates that the applicant will restripe that to provide that dedicated left-hand turn lane to provide somebody who's going to turn right onto sherman a little more ease of movement there is that is that intersection is anticipated as this area develops and builds out we'll meet the warrants for a signal sometime in the future they're also proposing perimeter street improvements as part of this development if it's approved they would actually construct a little spur off of the loop 288 entrance ramp in this location and it would connect down to poinsettia and so they they would construct that the beginning of the access road for loop 288 water and wastewater are available to the site they would have to extend an eight inch waterline along north loop 288 um there is the the waterworks park near the the property um it is it is about 3,500 linear feet from the subject site and as you can imagine that is a bit of a broken sidewalk so it's not a real um consistent pedestrian um doesn't have a consistent pedestrian facility so it really doesn't meet that 10 minute to a walk park um goal that the city has however the applicant is proposing on-site recreational facilities as we discussed including that pool and enclosed dog park and also some open space play areas park dedication and development fees would be required during development it is within the wilson elementary strickland middle and ryan high school attendance boundaries uh strickland middle and ryan high school could accommodate the students that would be generated wilson elementary would be a little stressed by this we talked to denton isd about what they do in those circumstances and they they express that with the with the tremendous growth that denton isd is is seeing that they're always looking at those attendance boundaries and they would have to adjust them based upon um based upon the need for any given area public outreach was done notifications were sent out we've received five in opposition um and then two in favor they did have a neighborhood meeting over the summer and based upon the criteria for approval staff or the plan staff does recommend approval with conditions and the planning and zoning commission also recommended approval with the with staff's conditions those can staff conditions are first that the landscaping in that landscape plan um it meets the intent to comply with the ddc requirements there may be some substitutions that would be required based upon nursery availability um but they would still have to generally meet the intent of that landscape plan and the denton development code requirements um parking area light fixtures could be determined at building permit but once again because this is kind of close to a residential area we want to make sure that there's not negative light impacts to adjacent residential so we're requesting that that light not those light poles not exceed 14 feet in the parking lot um once again we do have that require we do request that condition that um the fencing materials for the perimeter fencing be limited to either masonry or wrought iron with the with the um screening um hedge um they would have to come forward with that alternative development plan and go forward with pnz for those two deviations they requested and then they attached site plan and landscape plan would have to comply with the um with the the exhibits that were in your backup and shown tonight i won't read all of these but we just like to lay out in text form kind of what they're proposing often those site plans and landscape plans get very difficult to read as they're as they're reproduced for ordinances so to lay that out that they're proposing the eight three story buildings the amenity center with the accessory structures the mat the 248 dwelling units and then the 460 parking spaces as it's proposed the recommendation it would allow any increase in the amount of landscape area or um or a reduction in lot coverage but any increase in the number of dwelling units or lot coverage uh greater than five percent would require them to seek a new specific use permit and um the applicant is here and i'll stand for any questions um do we want to let the applicant see or can we just can we go ahead and ask our questions now say that one more time is it can we ask all our questions now fire away okay all right so i'm going to um what kind of material are they planning on using building materials um they are proposing some masonry but once again it's not something that we can um that we can uh i know we can regulate regulate or i'm just curious if they have said they there will be a mixture of materials there is some masonry and i believe they are here and i bet they can answer that that percentage for you well that's one question um so i have an issue with the fence i know the cedar fence was a no-go um now the raw iron is nicer but it doesn't give a privacy of the neighborhood or the separation and people can hop over it really easily i'm i'm sitting here thinking about all the work we did with palladium and all of the things that they did to um ease the neighborhood's concerns and part of that was um the mason with the stone or i forget cement whatever it is stamped concrete fence and they um they closed off what they had there to keep people from coming in and out of of the neighborhood so that's kind of where i'm working on um so i'm not in favor of the run-on fence i would prefer that they go with the other option p and z laid out so that's one and on the exit only like i understand um that they they have the exit only there on poinsettia on poinsettia but if anybody's going to leave that complex they're going to go to loop if they need to go right but if they need to go into town or they need to go they're going to come out that way constantly there's going to be individuals coming out there to go to sherman to make a left nobody's going to go to the back to turn right to get back on the loop so um the left turn is the most dangerous turn it's the most concerning um i get emails about it all the time near misses and the light at the um sherman 288 is supposed to help with that take care of it um but i guess my question is and i i think our traffic engineer has already left um is there potential for a light at point at poinsettia and sherman i confirmed with todd earlier that um it isn't anticipated to meet the warrants within the next few years there's there's actually a um if you look at this there's single family development that's going to be moving forward across um uh sherman so there's going to be a lot going on in that area and then um commercial development at this site so they're anticipating that a light would be warranted within the next couple of years okay yeah and just another quick comment um at woodrow wilson classes are over over 20 in in the classroom so i can i can see why dsd mentioned that they're at capacity there um okay so the um my concern is the is the fence mostly any other questions mayor protip thank you real quick the the signal at at uh sherman and luke twitty warranted now without this project or warranted now yes sir okay got it and then yeah i think i agree that the masonry fence works best so let me just um well well we got the public hearing yes yeah so i'll wait yeah all right any other questions for staff seeing none we will now open the public hearing uh anybody wishing to speak applicant come down state your name and address and your time will begin oh yeah hi my name is justin swartz my address is 8411 presson road dallas i just want to respond to the fence comment the reason we originally did the cedar board on board was to alleviate the concerns that you mentioned um it provides greater privacy and it's more difficult to climb over for lack of a better way of putting it um that was the reason we considered that okay all right um anything comments you'd like to add or any questions for the applicant at this time councilmember briggs yeah how do you guarantee that it's an exit only is it the the gate only operates when someone is from the inside going out correct okay all right anybody else okay all right thank you very much uh this is a public hearing anybody else wishing to speak on this matter okay all right we will go ahead and close the public hearing mayor pro tem uh i'll move approval with staff's recommendations and stipulating to the masonry fence uh councilmember amater and uh and i will second i think this is an example of a good good use of of infill so i'm sorry i stepped out but uh was the applicant as far as the masonry fence was the applicant okay with that uh so if i mean i'm surprised that question didn't get asked was is it go ahead staff or i mean i think they were saying they were going to do a wrought iron fence but now we've changed it to a masonry fence and so before we start adopting things i want to make sure that as we were reviewing the project we we actually asked them to do a masonry fence and that was something that they didn't feel comfortable with so that's kind of how we came to that um masonry or wrought iron to try to provide that flexibility because that was something that we had talked with them early on okay to do the masonry all right i just want to give the applicants an opportunity if they want to respond to what they're hearing if not that's okay too because the motion on the table is approval with staff's recommendations in addition to uh the fence requirement being of masonry material is that correct mayor project yes sir yeah and just to i'm not okay with wrought iron or wood okay all right okay all right council member barbara that's i mean the the material of the fence is that's your understanding material to me so okay all right okay all right we have a motion uh oh yes come on down do what i should just sit a little closer but anyhow um i just i just wanted to respond to that and ask the question about why the masonry is is so strong from from your standpoint um you know as you said that for me the cedar board on board was the most aesthetically pleasing it had the undulations it provided complete privacy to the neighbors it was from a security standpoint about as safe as you can get um i agreed with the wrought iron i thought you know the city proposed that as an alternative um but i still think the cedar board on board is and i i know you can see it in the rendering a little bit but um i think it checks all the boxes that is required so uh okay i do have a question for uh and we're going to there's people who've signed up for you to speak but i do have a question for the city attorney so if there's a motion made that uh i thought there was something if a motion is made it may just be on a rezoning the motion is made that an applicant doesn't agree with i thought there was some procedure where they could submit something in writing and required a super majority i remember that on one case a while back but this must not be the situation so in other words it's been it's been made a motion has been made second and if it gets approved even if they don't agree that they either do it as it was approved or they don't do it is that correct that is correct i'm trying to remember the instance that you're referring to i remember i remember specifically what it was but i don't remember as far as the facts i remember some guy came up put a maybe it was a rezoning or something i don't i don't remember but okay so we'll go ahead and councilman Briggs you want to respond to the question um well yeah i heard earlier i mentioned that um we had another complex come in and they worked with the neighborhood and that's my district and so i am very conscious of their concerns especially of a lot of people coming in in a higher use in a neighborhood in a single-family neighborhood area and so having that significant boundary there helps helps between the two between the two uses it eliminates people from parking on that street and hopping the fence or walking over that was one of their concerns and i'm sure that it's the same type project so i'm sure the same concerns are there well and can i respond to that sure okay um we had the neighborhood meeting and that certainly was one of the concerns and we showed them the renderings um and if you it's kind of difficult to see here but you can see the board on board um i mean there's there's no transparency through there's as much i mean if anyone can climb this they can climb a masonry wall in my opinion um they'd be the same height is my understanding per the per the code and the restrictions and the requirements um so you know i certainly appreciate the concern and the neighbors did bring it up but i'm just not sure how a masonry wall prevents any more issues than a cedar board on board would i i understand from a from a wrought iron fence standpoint because it's transparent and perhaps it's easier to climb i don't know i haven't climbed a fence in many many years but uh from the cedar board on board standpoint i believe that it does provide the same level of security and transparency as a masonry wall so so i'm going to try to i want to try to move this meeting along um it doesn't sound like you're okay with the stipulation that it's a masonry fence my preference would be to have the option to do wrought iron or cedar board on okay um all right so the motion has been made and seconded so if it if it passes then that's going to be the requirement i just hope that we have something in our code that defines what a masonry fence is because a masonry fence can be a lot of different things is so is it is it uh stipulate because what i don't want to do is have us have a lot of people sign up to tell you why they prefer a masonry fence if you're not willing to do a masonry fence i don't want to waste the time to have because we already know um and then you get a choice you know if it's been approved with that then you can move forward with the project with the masonry fence or you can do something different i guess is is my point um so i just want to understand that do they understand what uh real quickly because we're not going to spend i'm quite frankly i'm at the end of my rope for this meeting because we've been going since 12 o'clock and we've had a lot of time that i think has been just uh but not in this issue but in the prior issues so uh real quickly do do do we have enough code requirements that given predictability as to what the requirements are for masonry fence the 2002 code would allow a concrete panel fence okay all right with maybe brick columns or something like that or or just whatever either those materials yes okay all right uh so unless you got something else other than talking about why you want a fence why you can choose a masonry fence i'm just going to cut the conversation off right now councilmember armature actually yeah so i wanted to just address the fence issue because i as i mentioned so the reason why i second this is because it seems like a good development to me and it's a good use of infill okay councilmember armature you you no i'm gonna applicant here who's been i know you've been we've been here all day councilmember armature do you understand you've stated why you want a masonry fence no i didn't i said it doesn't matter to me that material offense does not matter to me well what i'm please please let me finish second councilmember armature i'm the chair i might want to draw my motion i want this apart these apartment complex to work that's i want it to happen that's the reason why i seconded if my second is going to prevent it from happening i will remove my second we'll see what we can do to make this work i think i asked that the the motion was made with a masonry fence you seconded the motion with the masonry fence is that correct yes okay so you're hearing that he doesn't prefer a masonry fence and i am going to withdraw possibly withdraw my motion i wanted to have a conversation about it but i feel like because the you know the the timekeeper is not allowing that might not allow that to happen i'm not sure what's going to happen what i don't want to happen councilmember armature is what's happened a lot tonight and that is you spent a lot of time talking about i mean one of these issues you said that you were going to vote against it and you spent a lot of time talking about it so if you want to ask the applicant a direct question that if he that if he has to put up a masonry fence that he will not do this project that's a fair question but i just don't want a whole lot of editorializing and commentary i want a question okay okay so first of all so please um i mean so sorry about that uh so i understand don't want to masonry fence i will i'm actually i actually want to address council i will you know withdraw my motion if i can if there is a solution where we can uh maybe say for instance if this is possible and again this is not so much a question for the applicant sorry but a question for staff could we say could we uh decide to vote on this and reserve the like wait on the fence material of the fence issue for another date i mean if it's we've got one missing council member um can we decide that later is there a reason why that all has to be decided now again for me the material of the fence doesn't matter i voted yes to it i mean i i seconded it because i can answer the question if you approve this action even as you say that if the council were to do that as you suggested then there is no there is no you know coming back on january 7th because when we have a full council it's an adopted ordinance then it'll be subject to motion for reconsideration or the applicant will then have to start going back with if they wanted to not have a masonry fence but there's some type of fence material they're going to have to restart the whole process of going before p and z and then going to council to have a fence material because we what you would have voted not to have a fence material okay yes okay so we can't vote to have the fence material decided at a later date we can't vote on everything except the fence material well without a fence material there's no fence i mean i i don't know if there's like a base yes we're okay proceeding with the masonry fence okay okay that was going to be my next question about well what do you think we should do okay i just wanted to okay cool okay so we've got a motion council member briggs all right we've got a motion and a second uh with staff recommendations p and z recommendations and i noticed that all the recommendations outside the masonry fence have been communicated to the applicant ahead of time so let's vote on the board please motion carries six zero let's go on to concluding items concluding items i've got a couple one i want to give a just make sure everybody understands that we've got two high schools going to the state championships ryan raiders and the guy are wildcats the ryan game is on friday and the guy our game is on saturday and my other concluding item is i attended the drug court graduation one is last thursday i guess or something like that and was uh struck by a particular business who participates in the drug court in providing jobs for some of those participants and what it made me think of is i'm going to ask staff to uh i don't know if i need to make this a requester but i'd like to uh i'll make a one-minute request to see if we can't form a coalition or some kind of program between the city the chamber and united way or something where we can have recognition for i guess you would call it like hometown heroes sort of to use somebody else's terminology uh because i think there's a lot of organizations that are doing great work in this city that are really promoting what this city council the values that the city council has and i would just like to be able to have an avenue for recognition and some kind of uh opportunity to do that so i'll make my one my request and we'll put that up for council vote council member armature actually sorry i'll i'll take my concluding comment off i'm sorry i'll take my concluding comment off oh okay all right uh anybody else all right thank you we will stand adjourned at 11 13