Arlington City Council Special Meeting – November 19, 2024
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Arlington City Council Special Meeting – November 19, 2024
The Arlington City Council convened in a special session on November 19, 2024, at 1:02 p.m. in the Council Briefing Room. The meeting began with an executive session (adjourned at 1:26 p.m.) and reconvened in open session at 2:01 p.m. The afternoon session included a presentation on the Comprehensive Plan Update, the inaugural Economic Development Annual Report, several informal staff reports, committee reports, and discussions on the Tarrant Appraisal District Board appointment, charter amendments, and evening agenda items. The meeting adjourned at 4:38 p.m.
Consent Calendar
- Informal staff reports on the Summary of Real Property Transactions – FY2024, the Arlington Housing Authority Family Self-Sufficiency Program Annual Report, and the FY2025 City Council Priority – Champion Great Neighborhoods were received without discussion.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public comments or testimony were recorded during this session.
Discussion Items
- Comprehensive Plan Update (3.1): John Chapman (Planning Manager) and Jay Renkens (Principal, MIG, Inc.) presented the two-year update timeline, engagement strategies (steering committee, pop-up events, online questionnaires, a custom board game, youth outreach), and the innovative “place types” approach. Council members raised concerns about balancing community input with future-oriented thinking, the need for case studies, and ensuring feedback translates into action. Key positions: Councilmember Boxall asked about learning from other cities’ successes and identifying areas where the city is currently “upside down” on infrastructure. Councilmember Odom-Wesley emphasized the importance of explaining to the community why some ideas are not adopted. Councilmember Galante stressed embedding flexibility in the plan to adjust with metrics. Councilmember Gonzalez highlighted the need for diverse community engagement beyond the steering committee. Councilmember Piel noted that Arlington’s aging housing stock (1960s–1990s) must attract young families to fix up homes, and that the plan should capture the hope of younger residents. Mayor Ross listed Arlington’s biggest assets as its people, and called for the plan to be inclusive of all ethnicities, cultures, and groups. Councilmember Pham emphasized the importance of youth involvement and shared values. The consultant team acknowledged the input and will continue visioning with the steering committee.
- Inaugural Economic Development Annual Report (3.2): Marty Wieder (Executive Director, Arlington Economic Development Corporation) presented the report, highlighting awards, demographics, metrics, and featured projects (Weapons System Integration Lab, Town North Redevelopment, Icon Technologies, Axiona, Sport Tech Solutions, Founders Arena, Lowe’s Arlington Hotel & Convention Center, Great American Media, Caravan Court Hotel). Councilmember Galante asked about the return on the $103 million in performance agreements and the drop in business personal property valuation from $7 billion to $5 billion. Trey Yelverton explained the drop was due to one aviation-related account relocating to Arizona. Councilmember Gonzalez inquired about the benefit to businesses of filing business personal property reports; Wieder noted it is important for those seeking city assistance.
- Entertainment District Event Parking (4.4): Councilmember Hogg reported on the committee meeting, which discussed the history of special event parking lots, permits, and no-parking ordinances. The committee focused on safety, protecting residents and businesses, and managing the 22,500 existing spaces plus 7,000 entrepreneurial lots. Staff will review potential recommendations, including increasing special event parking permit fees (unchanged since inception).
- Tarrant Appraisal District Board Appointment for 2025 (4.7): Ethan Klos (City Treasurer) briefed the Council on the voting process. The city has 211 votes to split among 14 candidates. The top four taxing entities have voted; Tarrant County and Keller ISD have not. The election will occur at the December 10 meeting. A strategy of casting one vote for each candidate to preserve recall rights was discussed.
- Charter Amendments (4.8): City Attorney Molly Shortall updated the Council on five proposed charter amendments for the May election (runoff election dates, point of officers, polling places, incurring indebtedness, time warrants). Two additional items were discussed: (1) Gender-neutral references: After debate, Council voted (by show of hands, 3 in favor, majority opposed) to remove this from the list, citing political controversy and potential risk to a bond election. (2) Council compensation: A proposal to replace the fixed $200/month (council) and $250/month (mayor) amounts with a range set by ordinance was debated. Councilmember Odom-Wesley argued it is outdated and creates an economic barrier to service; Councilmember Boxall supported letting voters decide. Mayor Ross and others expressed concerns about fiscal tightness and negative voter perception. The Council decided not to pursue a compensation change at this time, preferring to revisit in a few years.
- Evening Agenda Items (4.9): Councilmembers discussed several evening items: (1) 7.2 – Food and beverage services at Esports Stadium: Councilmember Hogg expressed concerns about quality and pricing; the current vendor was selected via a competitive RFP and has a 30-day opt-out clause. City Manager Yelverton committed to bringing back a broader briefing on alternatives. (2) 7.30 – Housing for Heroes grant: The city will apply for the full $600,000 from the Texas Veterans Commission to supplement home rehabilitation for low-income veterans and surviving spouses. (3) 7.31 – Childhood obesity prevention grant: Parks and Recreation Director James Rolowski explained the grant will fund camp lunches for summer and year-round programs. (4) 10.2 – Cemetery rezoning: Councilmember Gonzalez raised concerns about tree removal. Planning Director Gincy Thoppil confirmed a 15-foot landscape buffer will be required and that tree removal permits are needed for any development. The applicant will present revised ordinance language at the evening session.
Key Outcomes
- Comprehensive Plan: Next steps include a naming survey (currently live) and the first Comprehensive Plan Committee meeting on November 21, 2024.
- Tarrant Appraisal District Board: Council will decide vote distribution by December 10, 2024.
- Charter Amendments: Five propositions will proceed to the May election; gender references and council compensation will not be included.
- Economic Development: Staff will provide further data on return on investment for performance agreements.
- Entertainment District Parking: Staff will develop recommendations for permit fee adjustments and lot management.
- Evening agenda items: The Council will receive a briefing on Esports Stadium food services within a month. Grant applications for Housing for Heroes and childhood obesity prevention will move forward. The cemetery rezoning will be considered with amended language protecting trees.
- No formal votes were taken during the afternoon session; all items were discussion and informational.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, we're gonna go ahead and call the afternoon session to order. We'll move on down to the 3.1. Ms. Lopel with the comprehensive plan update. Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Jin Ctopel, your director for Planning and Development Services. At the November 1st Council's full retreat, I provided you a progress report on where we are with the comprehensive plan update project, our public engagement efforts until now, the appointment of the steering committee, the consultant selection, and the anticipated process and timeline. We also started the discussion on what is your vision and what are the biggest opportunities for Arlington. Today, our consultant will facilitate that continuation of that discussion. But before that, I wanted to introduce our project manager, internal project manager for this project, which is our long-range planning manager, John Chapman. Though he's been here with us for a very few months, he's learned a lot in this time frame with the Arlington way. He's met with several of our residents for different projects. And it's not a full speed that he's moving forward. So without further ado, I would like to get John here, and he can introduce the consultant. Mayor and Council, John Chapman. Very happy to be here, very excited for this project. I think the next two years are going to be exciting. We're going to learn a lot about Arlington. So I'm going to keep myself brief. You'll hear a lot from me over the next two years. We have with us Jay Rankins from MIG, who is the principal in charge. So I'll make this brief, and I thank y'all for meeting up with us today. Great. Thanks, John. Thank you, Council and Mayor. Yeah, my name is Jay Rankins. I'm a principal with MIG. I'm also our chief practice officer. MIG is a planning and design firm. And I'll tell you a little bit more about that after I give you an overview of what we're going to talk about today. So the project team introductions. And then we want to talk a little bit about the scope of work. If you have more detail, it's pretty extensive as you can imagine with a comprehensive plan. So I believe you all reviewed that and are familiar through the contract approval process. But if there's any specific questions you have around that, happy to answer that today or at another time. And then I'll try to keep my portion as brief as possible. I'll take my time, but you know, not rush through it. But we also want to hear from you some more. But we want to keep that going. And then we'll finish with some next steps. We are a planning design firm. Actually, pretty familiar with Arlington. We completed the downtown plan for Arlington. That is the current guiding document for downtown. And we've done a lot of work around the Dallas Fort Worth metro area as well. Well, two areas actually, downtowns, uh, one and uh citywide comprehensive plans. Um it was an area of work that in the beginning of my career, which started in around 2003. Um didn't do a whole lot of citywide planning. Um, really wanted to focus more on sort of uh place specific uh kind of sub-area planning.
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