City Manager's Office 215 E. Mckinney St
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City Manager’s Office 215 E. McKinney St., Denton, TX 76201 (940) 349-8307 MEMORANDUM DATE: December 13, 2019 TO: The Honorable Mayor Watts and Council Members FROM: Todd Hileman, City Manager SUBJECT: Friday Staff Report I. Council Schedule A. Meetings 1. Zoning Board of Adjustment on Monday, December 16, 2019 at 5:30 p.m. in the City Hall Conference Room. 2. Work Session of the City Council on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 at 12:00 p.m. in the City Council Work Session Room followed by a Regular Meeting in the Council Chambers at 6:30 p.m. 3. Committee on Persons with Disabilities on Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 6:00 p.m. in the City Council Work Session Room. II. General Information & Status Update A. Pending Council Requests Work Session Topics – The following item will be discussed during the December 17 City Council work session. Each week, the topics that will be presented during the next week’s agenda will be included in the Friday Report the prior week. Staff contact: Stuart Birdseye, City Manager’s Office 1. Resolution of support for businesses near UNT • Requestor: Council Member Briggs • Council Member Request: Consider a Council Resolution of Support for the businesses on Avenue C to be acquired by the University of North Texas through the Eminent Domain process. Resolution will include that Denton supports small businesses and that eminent domain should be used only for a public purpose. • Information from Staff: On November 20, 2019, the Student Government Association (SGA) at the University of North Texas passed a Resolution of support for businesses located on Avenue C that the University is attempting to remove through the process of eminent domain. Key components of the Resolution include: OUR CORE VALUES Integrity Fiscal Responsibility Transparency Outstanding Customer Service o A petition garnering 27,000 signatures pertaining to the continuing operations of the businesses involved was circulated on change.org. o An Ad Hoc committee created within the SGA will determine appropriate questions for the creation and distribution of a student survey on the matter. o Upon collection of the survey’s data, the results will be presented to Denton City Council. • Date Requested: December 6, 2019 • Requested Format for Response: Resolution B. Green Tree Estates Meeting – On Thursday, December 19, the City of Denton will hold a meeting with residents of Green Tree Estates to review the City Council’s direction from the December 10 Work Session discussion, answer questions, and encourage voluntary courtesy inspections. In anticipation of this meeting, Staff has prepared a dual-language letter (attached) that summarizes the Council direction and outlines the various staff and resident responsibilities. This letter will be mailed to all residents and property owners, and delivered to all residences by City staff, and distributed to residents by LULAC. The Thursday, December 19 meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. at Denton City Hall. A possible quorum of the City Council will be posted for this meeting. Staff contact: Ryan Adams, Public Affairs C. 2019 Bond Program – As part of the 2019 Bond program that was approved by the citizens of Denton last month, there are several public infrastructure projects in various stages of planning and design. Below is a summary of the current status on several infrastructure improvement programs that were included in the 2019 bond package. • Sidewalks: The available 2019 bond funds will be divided into two parts; one part will be used to construct the sidewalk segments that were previously designed but not constructed from the approved 2014 bond package. Those sidewalk segments will begin construction in spring of 2020. The second part of the available bond funds will be used to design a new set of sidewalk segments that will be ready for construction next year (2021). This process (design one set, while constructing the previous set of sidewalks) helps reduce the timeline and improving the overall efficiency of delivering sidewalk projects. • Streets: Typically, the local/residential neighborhood streets have utilities (water, sewer, gas, etc.) under the pavement and any rehabilitation plan requires coordination with several departments and/or external entities. Before these neighborhood streets are rehabilitated/reconstructed, the underlying utilities need to be replaced, if they are in poor condition. In the past, the schedule for street rehabilitation projects have been severely impacted due to the delay in the completion of the Utility work. As such, staff is taking a proactive approach by coordinating with internal and external utilities and developing a plan for delivering the 2019 bond Street rehabilitation program. Staff will be selecting a design consultant early next year (2020) to begin the design of street segments for the first neighborhood. The street reconstruction design will include design for replacing aging utilities and the first streets bundle (2019 bond) will be bid for construction in (2021). 2 • Corridor Projects: The Bonnie Brae Phase 6 (from University Drive to US 77) and Hickory Creek Road (from Riverpass Drive to FM 1830) projects are currently under design and scheduled to wrap up design next (2020) summer. The design phase will be followed by the Right-of-way acquisition phase and will be ready for construction in fall of 2020. Staff is currently working on getting a design consultant on board to begin the design for Ryan Road (from Teasley Lane to FM 1830). Staff Contact: Pritam Deshmukh, Capital Projects D. Hunter and Cole Ranch Community Update – On December 11, the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) held a work session on the Master Planned Community amendment for Hunter and Cole Ranches. Representatives from Hillwood and Stratford and City staff provided a similar presentation to the one presented to City Council on December 3. There were a few questions and concerns raised by the P&Z regarding greenspace, encroachment into environmentally sensitive areas (ESA), gas wells, and height separation for residential districts. Below is a list of the questions raised during the presentation and the responses: • P&Z questioned the buffer distance for residential single-family from the future Loop 288 and I-35W. The presenter responded that there is an agreement being worked on to be included in the future amendment to be approved that would include a minimum setback of single-family residential from these roadways. • P&Z questioned if there was overlap between gas well setbacks and City parks. The presenter responded that no city park would be located within the proposed gas well setback distances. • P&Z questioned encroachment of development into ESA areas. The presenter responded that while the visuals presented may have seemed to encroach into ESA territory, they are proposing to retain 55% of the Upland ESA. • P&Z questioned City staff on whether there was a concern of having a separate area of the City for larger commercial office space, industrial, and retail away from the downtown district. City staff responded that this is consistent with the preferred growth concept cited in the Denton Plan 2030 and this area would also provide an area for development of a large corporate office park that is not currently available in the City. • There was a concern regarding the increase of height and the proximity to residential zoning district. City staff stated height regulation would be tiered as the distance from residential zoning increased. Staff explained the current height transition language and informed P&Z that additional standards would be added that would be more restrictive • P&Z questioned the exception for solar listed in the presentation. City staff stated this request would be for areas where solar is the primary use and would not be for rooftop solar. There would be a specific use permit required prior to development of this use. • P&Z questioned what the City was doing to encourage retention of trees rather than future replacement. City staff stated the tree code does allow for removal of tree with replacement or mitigation, but the mitigation rate for heritage trees is multiple tree replacements for every tree removed. The MPC amendment includes additional regulation of tree mitigation above the City’s 3 current standard including 35% preservation, an increase to 3:1 mitigation for heritage trees, and the installation of a minimum 3-inch tree rather than the City standard of a 2-inch tree. Another work session will be held with City Council regarding Hunter/Cole Ranch on December 17. Staff contact: Richard Cannone, Development Services E. I-35E Lighting Update – Staff from DME has been working with TxDOT to ensure that all of the lighting along the I-35E corridor is currently working as it should be. There are 82 total lights out from Loop 288 north to the I35W/E Split. Multiple circuits within this area of I-35 have been temporarily disabled along this stretch of highway due to the I-35 corridor project causing 55 of those outages. The contractor working with TxDOT will be repairing all the light circuits and turning on the lights as they proceed through construction, and all lights should be operating by mid-January. TxDOT will contact DME when they are ready to release the lights back to the City. Three poles were knocked down by vehicle accident and are currently damaged. Those poles and the remaining 24 individual lights are in the process of being repaired/replaced by a contractor and DME crews and should be fully lit by January 1. Staff contact: Tony Puente, DME F. Animal Services Partnership – Animal Services partnered with 29 Acres to pilot a new program that will assist individuals living with autism. The goal of the partnership is to allow the program participants to learn and equip themselves with life skills such as operating a time clock and performing assigned duties.