Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the uh delay.

We're we uh just left a work session upstairs.

We're gonna carry on down here, but uh I'm gonna call this uh meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission of the City of Arlington to order.

Uh the date is July the 23rd, 2025.

And at this time I will ask uh before we do that, it's not written into the agenda, but let's see, who shall I call on?

Commissioner Finley, would you please lead us on the uh with the Pledge of Allegiance and if the audience will stand the flag United States of America or say indivisible liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, thank you.

Yeah, I just know that I had to turn around.

With that, I'll now ask our administrator to please read the speaker guidelines and a general order decorum for tonight's meeting.

We ask of the citizens and other visitors in attendance, assist in persevering the order and decorum of this meeting and to provide for attendance and participation in the meeting without the fear of intimidation, threats, or hostility.

Any person making personal profane hostile slanders or threatening remarks who uses vulgar or obscene language who engages in any other actions that disturb or a calculated to disturb the meeting or who become disruptive while addressing the planning and zoning commissioners or while attending the planning and zoning meeting may be removed from the council chambers.

All speakers shall address the commissioners and all the audience or city staff and shall not call out individually, named members of city staff or the public.

For speakers tonight, when your name is called, please come to the microphone at the at the podium and state your name and city of residence for the record.

The applicant will be asked to speak first and will be given ten minutes to make a presentation.

Speakers in support or opposition of the item will be given five minutes each to make their statements.

If there are many speakers for an item, each speaker will be given three minutes to make their statements.

The applicant will then be given five minutes to make any rebuttal.

If multiple speakers plan to provide the same or similar comments, those speakers may, if they so desire, designate one or more individuals to provide public comment on behalf of the group.

A bell will signal the end of each speaker's time.

In consideration of other speakers, please conclude your comments promptly when you hear the bell.

We ask that you address your comments to the planning and zoning commissioners.

Thank you very much.

With that, uh our first uh item on the agenda tonight are amendments and changes to the unified development code of the city of Arlington.

Therefore, I now ask uh staff to please come forward and present its report on the UDC update secondary to state legislature that was passed by the state of Texas in its last session, specifically House Bill, excuse me, State Bill 840 and State Bill 15.

Mr.

Chapman Range Planning Manager.

Uh before I get beginning I wanted to read a statement as to why we are here tonight.

Uh as the city amends its ordinances to comply with new state laws, it remains committed to preserving neighborhood compatibility wherever possible, ensuring that new developments are supported by adequate infrastructure and promoting high quality, well-constructed housing that offers a good quality of life for its residents.

And that was read from the staff report that was provided uh as part of tonight's meeting.

And I may have to hold a second.

Not sure where our presentation went.

There we go.

All right.

So tonight I will be handling the amendments related to Senate Bill 840 that was passed by the 89th state legislature.

Um Galen, would you like to kind of go over this at all?

Or do we need do we need to go over these slides?

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Just for the benefit of the public, uh the recent legislature uh passed uh uh State Bill, Senate Bill 840, which uh made one small amendment to uh uh chapter 21, uh which gives the authority to uh uh uh regulate uh zoning and determine zoning district boundaries and uh specifically pass this section, section 211.0011, which uh makes that uh authority specifically related to zoning regulations and the determination of zoning district boundaries in connection with mixed-use residential use and development and multifamily residential use and development, subject to a new chapter, chapter 218.

And both of those uh new statutes are effective September 1st uh of this year.

It's important to note that the new chapter 218 starts with section 218101A, which mandates that a city must allow multifamily and mixed use residential use and development in any zoning district that allows office commercial, retail, warehouse, and mixed use use or development as an allowed use.

And it may not require this, it may it prohibits the city from requiring a change of zoning district or land use classification or regulation or an approval of any amendment exception or variance to a zoning district prior to the allowing of said multifamily or mixed use residential use and development in that zoning classification.

So in essence, uh the legislature has mandated in Arlington that all of our commercial districts, so all of our non-residential districts and our light industrial district will allow by right these uh multifamily and mixed use uh use and developments.

Uh so just what I said right there, September 1st, it allows it in the non-residential zoning districts, uh, and it does uh mandate that we are preempted from uh applying more stringent regulations.

And so the city is intending to come into compliance uh today with uh a set of regulations that will hopefully uh change some of those more stringent height restrictions and uh set some of those commercial standards uh to comply with uh Senate Bill 840.

Uh and we uh are going to go into all of this in detail, but uh it's important to note that that will uh that will allow uh all of those standards to be changed.

And there are some exceptions, and in Arlington, the exceptions specifically are uh going to be uh any zoning classification that requires uh allows a heavy industrial use.

Uh so that would be our uh intense manufacturing, uh, and that would also be uh within a any any within a thousand feet of any existing heavy industrial use.

Uh so in Arlington that'll be within any gas well drilling sites uh or with uh within a thousand feet of any SUPs for high impact use, and a thousand a three thousand foot buffer from any airport, and in Arlington, of course, that will be our municipal airport.

Uh and we are going we are here because we are going to be able to regulate uh in ways that the legislature has said that we can regulate, uh, and we are going to change our rules so that it will be clear and transparent to any developers who want to develop, and we will see that uh in the proposals that uh John is going to go through with in just a moment.

All right.

Thank you, Galen.

Thank you.

So, what can Arlington regulate as part of Senate Bill 840?

We can regulate parking location and parking landscaping standards, landscaping and tree preservation standards, open space and amenity requirements, sidewalk and trails, streetscapes and street segments, uh, balconies, fencing requirements, commercial ready ground floor requirements for mixed-use residential, fire lane and other safety elements, items that we cannot regulate, and this is when an adaptive reuse or conversion takes place within a five uh five-year-old or older uh office development.

We cannot regulate lot coverage, living area, design requirements, glazing or window percentage requirements, uh, improvements to the site, any uh utility facilities such as um extensions of uh infrastructure or upgrades and replacements or oversizing, uh impact analysis, traffic impact analysis, or uh calculate impact fees and collect those fees.

And then as Galen mentioned, there are three areas in which this would not apply as part of a uh multifamily residential development or mixed-use residential development, looking to go within a non-residential zoning district within any of these buffers or zoning districts as shown on the map.

Many of the smaller circular looking areas are going to be our gas well uh pad sites with a 1,000-foot buffer.

You can see in the southeast quadrant of Arlington where the municipal airport is with a 3,000 square foot buffer.

You can see in the light gray areas, that is the city's uh industrial manufacturing uh zoning districts, uh generally around the airport, in the south central area of Arlington, uh, up to the uh mid-northeast, and then up near where the um the uh Arlington dump is.

Uh the Arlington dump as well as another site contained within the Great Southwest Industrial District have are the only active uh specific use permits containing uh high impact uses.