Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting at the Denton City Council.

Today is uh Tuesday, August 19th, 2025.

It is 2 p.m.

Call, and we do have a quorum, so I'll call the meeting to order.

First thing is citizen comments on the consent and consent agenda.

Seeing none, that takes us to request for clarification of agenda items on the agenda for public hearing or individual consideration.

Any uh requests for clarification on agenda items on the agenda or for public hearing or individual consideration.

Seeing none, uh, that'll take us to uh but before I call our first work session item.

I want to say item please note item F has been pulled for a separate vote from the consent.

Uh we'll take that up then.

And I think that's F.

Is that right?

Yep, thanks.

And then I'll also ask we we do have quite a bit to get through today, so I would ask that we we keep our questions succinct.

Um need to explain the question unless there's confusion, but otherwise, uh please just try to hit the question head on and kind of process that information on the fly best we can so that we can get through everything on time.

We do have quite a bit.

So I'm gonna be um watching that closely to make sure we can get to the chambers at 6 30.

That said, first item 3A, ID 25, 1439, receive report whole discussion regarding an update from the Denton County Transit Authority.

Good afternoon.

Uh thank you, Mayor Hudsteth and members of council.

It's very good to be with you.

My name is Paul Christina.

I'm the chief executive officer of the Denton County Transportation Authority.

I'm joined by Mr.

Pat Smith, our board member alternate representing the city of Denton and Miss Jackie Bronson, who's our vice president of engagement and administration.

Um's going on with the agency, but to the mayor's point, we'll move briskly.

I did get some questions before the meeting that I'll uh weave into my overall presentation, and so we'll step off from there.

First, uh we we have formed our approach at DCTA around results related to safety service and ridership.

So here you see a slide capturing our safety performance year to date on our three major modes: the go zone service, the bus operation service, and then the A train.

We measure these things, incident frequency ratio is measured in incidents per 100,000 vehicle miles.

And so where you see 0.27 on go zone and 0.77 on bus, that means 0.77 incidents per 100,000 miles.

These could be an incident, could be anything reportable to the FTA, Federal Transit Administration, like a traffic accident, or it could be something like a driver with a negative interaction with a passenger, what the industry is now calling um operator assault, although that word may not accurately reflect the the um severity of whatever that incident is.

So in the bottom, we show you how we performed last year because we're always trying to improve.

We're just about flat a little bit better on the go zone service.

Had a had a rougher start to the bus operation at this uh beginning of the year.

However, we've been trending in the right direction, and then so far, if you're a baseball fan, we're pitching a perfect game on the A-Train zeros across the board is exactly what we want to see, and uh we're hopeful for that outcome to continue and have put the things in place so that it can.

On the service performance side, again, looking at mainly the access service, the bus operation, and go zone.

On access, this is our elderly disabled paratransit service.

We're running 99% on time uh for the entire year.

Great um great outcomes driven primarily by um dispatchers who are really dialed in, and we have this great software platform that allows us to most efficiently dispatch the trips so that we can get as many people moved as efficiently as possible.

On the on-time performance front, in the upper right on fixed route, what you see is we started the fiscal year um in the six 70 to 80 percent range, and we've steadily marched our way up.

And there was a question that says, is that normal?

What should we expect in the future?

Uh I will remind you all that uh last summer we did the transition from NTMC to DCTA with all of our bus operators and directly hiring uh those bus operators.

Last summer, our on-time performance was even lower than that.

So basically the the in sourcing of that operation and the hiring of a lot of new operators, a lot of new supervisors, a lot of great teamwork has allowed us to make that kind of progress that I'm really proud of.

UNT the UNT service for the main semester started yesterday.

We were above 90% on time.

I we're expecting that to continue.

We also appreciate the work that we've done with your staff on road construction.

A lot of the roads that we operate over have been under construction, and so lots of core excuse me, coordination happens between our dispatchers and our drivers and your staff to make sure that we've got buses on detour where they need to be.

On the go zone front on the two bottom bars, what you see is seat unavailability and then wait time.

On seat unavailability, our standard is 17.5% of people who try to get a ride.

We we need them to be able to get that proposal or have less than 17 and a half percent of the people say they cannot get a ride.

We are far exceeding our goals on seat unavailability and at wait time, our standard is 24 minutes, and we're right there.

And so we're we're really pleased with that.

I could expect that number to fluctuate somewhat because it always does in the fall when people come back to school, and then it settles out as the semester goes on.

So last component of our uh measurables for success is ridership.

And I'll show you in the middle of the slide.

Overall, we're down about 9.5% year over year.

However, if you remember last year, we broke an all-time ridership record at DCTA with nearly 3.3 million trips across the whole system and all of our modes.

And then last summer we made a step to optimize the system by taking some go zone capacity out of the city of Denton and moving that to Highland Village in Lewisville.

While we also said if you're trying to get a go zone ride anywhere inside of that blue polygon in the lower right where the connect system is running, the app is going to tell you to go and take the bus.

Um the board of directors made the decision to make those buses run on a 20 minute frequency from 7 a.m.

to 9 p.m.

And the results of that effort have been outstanding.

Our bus ridership on Connect is up 60% year over year, and so that tells us that we know that on this network, moving people by bus is the most cost effective way because that's what justified the decision for the investment.

And then what we know is if the bus is running frequently and on time, that people will use it.

And so we expect to build on that into the future, and we'll talk more about that.

In the upper right, you're just looking at the connect ridership year over year by route.

You see the huge increase in Route 3, the huge increase in ridership in Route 7.

And so, again, that sets a foundation for where we're headed in the future.

We DCTA had a vision, the city had a vision for data-driven decision making and business based decisions.

That's what we did last year, and we're seeing the results of that, so we're we're really pleased with it.

When we talk about other major things that are happening at the agency, the the headliner is the A Train Enhancement Program.

The A Train is one of 33 commuter rail properties in the entire country.

It's a it's really the backbone of our network.

It's it's a point of pride for our community, and we want to make it better.

We've been working for the last three years really to set the foundation to start doing to move some move some dirt and get some real work going.

And we're gonna do this in three different phases.

Number one is on curve and speed improvements, and I'll talk more about that here in a second.

The second is we're gonna begin design on the downtown Carrollton extension.

If we can extend the train two miles from where it terminates now at the Trinity Mills station into downtown Carrollton, then a person could get on the A-Train at the downtown Denton Transit Center and have a two-seat commuter rail ride to the north end of DFW airport, roll their bag off the Dart Silver Line and make their way into the terminal for a cost of a regional pass.

You're not driving to the airport, you're not paying the park, you're not riding a parking shuttle from remote.

We think it's going to be a game changer.

And then the last thing is uh building out the infrastructure so that we could run the train at a peak 15 minute frequency.

What I said about the buses is also true about the train.

Uh, when it runs frequently and it runs on time, people want to ride it, and so we want to make it so that during the peak hours, people have the the under ability to go to the platform and not check a schedule because they know that before they can really get their phone out to look at when the next train's coming, it's going to be pulling into the station.

When we talk about curve and speed improvements in phase one of this initiative, um, this graph is showing you a picture of the speed of the A train between or speed limit of the A train between Trinity Mills and the downtown Denton Transit Center.

What we're trying to do is make the red lines where speed dips for various reasons in the on the train, we're making trying to make all of those speed limits go up as high as possible to where the blue line is.

And so what you see is many places where we're running at 40, 45, 50 miles an hour that we'll be able to run at 60 miles an hour.

That allows us to shave maybe four minutes off the runtime, depending on conditions in the field, and so it makes the train more competitive with alternative modes.

You might ask, well, how do you do that?

It's going to look like a heavy maintenance project really.

The um if you're if you know the term super elevation, if you've watched a race uh a race on NASCAR and you see the highly banked curves, that allows cars to stick to the track when they go at high speed around a corner.

Well, you can do that with a railroad.

It's in inches, not in feet, it's very minor, but we're gonna do some of that super elevating on a few of our curves, and we're also gonna change the degree of curvature in a few places so that you can take the train can take those curves at a higher speed.

Again, the idea is improving our overall runtime on the infrastructure we have.

Then, while we're doing that, and the board could have could vote to approve that contract there here this month, we're going to begin design on the downtown Carrollton extension and this infrastructure required to build to the 15-minute frequency.

This is a different kind of graph showing you all the way in the upper right, the track profile from the downtown Denton Transit Center, and then it goes back to the end over there.

You run through Highland Village Lewisville Lake, you run through the rail maintenance facility in Lewisville, and then you end at the Trinity Mills station.

Then the red line right there is showing you new railroad or I'm sorry, the upgrade of an existing railroad that's really only used for freight movement at very slow speeds, we have to upgrade that so that can run at 60 miles an hour as well.

So we're going to start the design work on this on this initiative so that by this time next summer we've got a really good cost on what it takes to get to downtown Carrollton and can start that work in earnest to build that infrastructure.

I'm gonna go back to modal optimization, business-based decisions, and what the results of the board's action last summer to increase frequency on the bus and reallocate go zone capacity has been.

These three graphs are showing you go zone ridership in Denton Highland Village and Lewisville, month over month from last year to this year.

The blue bars are fiscal year 2024, the orange bars are fiscal year 2025.

What you should see in this graph is that in Denton, the orange bars are shorter than the blue bars, which means that go zone ridership in Denton has decreased.

While at the same time in Lewisville and Highland Village, the orange bars are taller than the blue bars, so it increased there.

The net result of all of that work is that your connect system in Denton gained 91,800 riders this year.

You lost 47,500 GOZONE riders, so that means you netted about 45,000 additional trips on transit in the city of Denton.

That is exactly the kind of outcome that we're looking for.

How do we move as many people as cost effectively as possible?

Is our MO.

As we have transformed the agency in the last three years to generate these kinds of results, we're now going to move from transformation to optimization and figure out how we can do this more and more.

This is a 1% improvement and incremental step forward, and that's how we become great over time.

Where might that happen?

This is a map showing you, and two of the same kind of map, fiscal 24 and fiscal 25, showing you that 3, 6 and 7 bus network, and then to the south and west, you see some routes that right now are labeled as UNT.

You see a route that goes along what is university drive, and then you see a route that goes from where university hits the loop on the east side down to the Med Park station.

If what happened on Connect 3, 6 and 7 happened on this network that was running on the same schedule on a year-round basis, that's almost 45% of all the GoZone trips in the city of Denton could be accommodated by this network.

So we know that it worked for 3, 6 and 7.

Now we're gonna be doing the math to show you in our board how many passengers this network moves, what's the cost of running those buses, and we know where the inflection point is where this system becomes more cost effective on fixed route than go zone.

That's the kind of work that we're gonna do this year in hopes to take a step forward again in this optimization role or path next summer.

One of the other things we're really focused on across the network, obviously, is safety, and one of the major pieces of feedback we've heard about the GoZone services.

Hey, the vehicles seem to stop in inopportune places to let people on and off, and we really would like that to stop.

So we've done a couple of things.

Number one, every vehicle now on the back of it, you should see an alphanumeric designator like L47.

You should see a sticker that says caution, vehicle makes frequent stops.

That way, when people see this behavior, they can call it in, and we know it's L47 on this street at this time and figure out who the offending driver was.

This is showing you the network of 14,000, what are called virtual stops that the GoZone algorithm uses to dispatch rides.

These are not stops with a sign on the side of the road, but rather that's where the algorithm says this is where you drop people off.

We are working with VIA to audit every one of those stops to figure out if this is what we call a high-risk stop, like a high risk of something bad happening, or a lower risk stop of something bad happening.

And the results have been through the first tranche of these stops, about 2,500 of those, these are frequently used stops, what we'd call, or others that have just come up in conversation, like, hey, this really would be a it'd be better to do something different here.

Um those 2500, about a thousand of them were either adjusted or relocated completely.

One of the questions that we were asked about was how were bike lanes treated in this analysis?

And I'll refer to my notes here.

If the bike lane is in a high traffic area where there's not another place to move over, that stop was relocated or removed.

If the bike lane was in a lower density residential area where there was little little chance or lower chance of interaction with bicycles, the stop was remained.

And so it is a risk-based assessment that we're using to try to make things better.

But as always, if the public sees things that they have questions about, those things can be called into our customer service center and we can we can address them as they come up.

Here's two examples of a stop that was retained in Denton, a stop that was removed.

You see in the upper left, a light traffic street, no room to pull over.

Um and they it has an adjacent sidewalk, so that's one that we would want to keep.

The other the other one is still a residential area but narrower road, only sidewalk on one side.

So if the stop is on the right hand side of the road, we want to figure out how to get them to a place where they can get onto a sidewalk.

We're balancing that risk assessment with the accessibility of the system because then if people have to walk more than a third of a mile to get to a gozone stop, they're not likely to use the system.

So we really have to balance all of those competing priorities.

Again, on the safety front, uh, we are appreciative to our board of directors who've made a major investment in upgrading safety systems on our network.

We've been working through this over the last couple of over the last year or so on facilities with access control.

We've stood up a security or we've built out a security operations center that's based in our rail building, and that will be fed by a number of cameras that are being installed in all of our buses, all of our trains, and on all of our train platforms.

You see in this picture what those installations look like.

Uh on the train platforms, you can also expect video screens that will tell you here's when the next train is going to arrive.

We'll also have the ability to put out public safety messages through those screens, and then another question that came up.

We will have the ability through a PA system to speak to people on train platforms through this system to either advise them of something or warn them of something.

And so we're really um excited about providing that capability.

Want to want to talk about something happening just just down the railroad from here, but that has a lot of a lot of uh alignment with things that you all are focused on.

We're working with the city of Louisville to build out a transit-oriented development right near our old town station.

Uh, like in Denton, we own some property next to the old town station, and the the city of Louisville has had a vision for the redevelopment of their downtown.

They've done a great job over the course of many decades, and now it's time for that development to move across the tracks.

What's envisioned is a mixed-use retail uh sort of development.

You see kind of a central building that uh will be providing class A office space, retail space, public meeting space, uh DCTA administrative headquarters will have a small footprint there.

You see a hotel conference center envisioned on the site.

Uh, you see other buildings for retail, things like that.

The we're gonna be putting out an RFQ to the developer community to see if there are people who out there who have the same vision that we do, and so we'll see how that project tapes shape.

But it it causes us to now turn our attention to the downtown Denton Transit Center and the property that we own there and all the activity that's going around and say we are prepared to partner with you to figure out what what works for the city of Denton so that we can make the downtown Denton Transit Center um all that it could be.

And so we look forward to that.

And then the last thing is we just wanted to highlight our great partnership on the transportation reinvestment program where we've obligated about um 21 million dollars towards really um great transit supportive projects that have been priorities for the city of Denton.

We work closely with your staff on this on a regular basis and appreciate that partnership and look forward to the things that are gonna come of it.

Uh things like the Union Pacific Quiet Zone, things like the rail trail connection on the north side through the new overpass, those sorts of things.

But again, a great um great opportunity for us to work together and we appreciate that.

So, with that, that's the end of my prepared comments, but I'm happy to um answer any questions or or go back to something that I might have missed.

Thank you very much.

Uh questions for the present presenter, representative from district four.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Nice nice report.

Thank you.

Um slide six.

Is there a Corinth station that I have not been paying attention to?

No, sir.

There is not a Corinth station.

Okay.

However, that you're right.

The bullet says there's a potential scope ad that the city of Corinth has expressed an interest in exploring what would it take to establish a station at Corinth.

And so we're having that conversation with them at a staff level.

We did we were asked to present to their city council last month.

The DCTA board approved a new member and contracted services policy just earlier this year that allows us to engage in those conversations in a way that protects member city resources, but also allows us to think creatively about how we bring new people, new cities onto the system.

Good.

I'm glad to hear that.

That's long overdue.

Are law enforcement still riding the A train?

Yes, sir.

We have a contract with the Denton County Sheriff's Office, uh, and that contract has uh an officer assigned to us full time.

It's gonna be actually on our consent agenda this month for renewal.

Um the officer spends uh their time at the DDTC, spends the time riding the train periodically, uh, and in any other place where um DCTA has need.

Okay, okay.

And lastly, uh I have heard rumor of the University of North Texas creating their own bus service.

Can you comment about that?

Do you know anything about that?

Um yes, what I what I I think is factual and most clear to say is we're in in having conversations with the University of North Texas about um how we continue to develop our relationship and and move forward.

We have great partners at the University of North Texas.

I I believe that um there is a future in which their bus network needs and our bus network needs work really closely together in a way that is fair for them and fair for the member cities of the of the DCTA.

When I go back to this map here, the ability to move as many people as cost effectively on pot as possible on fixed route service.

Some of that stuff is done on places where the we're we're running routes that are called University of North Texas routes.

So what we're doing is having conversation with them about how do we take a step forward in a cohesive transportation plan again that meets all the needs while also protecting the resources and interests of our member cities.

Very good.

Thank you so much.

Yep.

Representative from District Two.

Hey, Paul, uh, thank you for the presentation.

I really appreciate it.

Um a couple of quick questions.

Uh you talked about the um the uh old town Louisville, um, and I guess it's an example of sort of a um transitory and a design on steroids because you're doing a big project, but in the area, but you mentioned you also mentioned transitory and design in a in a couple other ways.

Um, and I know in the past you've talked about um incentivizing certain developments to be cohesive with your real your your bus system your or your go zone, depending on the location.

Um you got any advancements in in that area where getting folks on board that would I don't know, sponsor a route or in other ways help fund the process so that their their development, their residential development um has uh that kind of access?

I think the where the place that I would point to that the most progress has been made is just maybe more of um not on specific properties but more conversation in the region as a whole on the idea that uh transit can be most compatible and most effective in certain types of development patterns, and how do we how do we figure out how to get that sort of development in the vicinity of our corridors?

Um obviously we're serving on our fixed route system multifamily units that may or may not have relationships with other entities that are um housing students or whatever it might be, and so those are conversations where we make we make lists and then we go figure out okay, let's go talk to these folks and understand what's really happening because every one of the cases is unique and we want to build, want to build on the success that we that we already have.

Okay, I I appreciate that.

Um and then uh I I love and this is a good slide to have for my second question.

Um, clearly you're you're doing you know destination and ridership mapping and analysis, and and I love that.

Um big sucker for data.

Um one of the things that we regularly hear about is is um sort of destination mapping to uh you know employment and opportunity areas, and and still in this because there is no routes out to it like our West Park tour tours.

I mean, obviously downtown is covered by those existing routes, but right um is there any forward thought to some of these uh employment destinations and adding them into the mix?

So great question.

I think there's two two things that come to mind when you when you ask that.

Number one, I think we and this also came up in other conversation.

Do can do a better job of identifying where those things exist on the current network so that people understand that how it can be useful to them.

But what this but in the last three years, what we've been trying to do is just build a solid foundation of a fixed route network because we know that at a certain density fixed route is the most cost effective.

In order to serve new areas, we need to be able, we I think the agency would say um let's let's figure out how to get microtransit in that area and establish the real-time origin destination demand, like the factual stuff, and then figure out how to fit fixed route to that in the future.

For instance, we have a long-range service plan opportunity uh in this coming year to do that kind of exercise in Lewisville, where you know that fixed route uh was removed back in 2022.

We've got a really a robust data set of go zone in Lewisville, and we're gonna take some time to look at how we can fit origin destination.

So again, back to why this map and this cohes this idea of a cohesive fixed route network is important.

This is the sort of thing that allows us to take another chunk of go zone capacity and and let the board figure out what they want to do with it.

Do they want to put it over on the airport zone?

Do they want to put it in ropes and ranch?

They want to put it in some other place that doesn't have coverage today.

And and so we serve up these alternatives, they get to and say here's the opportunity, they get to debate and and make those decisions.

Well, I'll uh just continue to put in you know uh a desire to get get folks to their to their job sites.

Uh and then I think uh this this may have been addressed in the comments to staff uh were that we we sent to you.

But one of the questions that that I loved was um, and I don't know what the answer was, so I'll just I'll just be redundant and ask it again.

Um you talked about the cameras for security reasons, but what the one of the questions was head counts.

Thank you.

Uh did we can we do head counts with the cameras?

Actually, yes, thank you for that reminder.

Um the cameras do not count heads, but however, we did last December um have certified automatic passenger counters on our buses.

So today when you walk on the bus, um there is a small sensor above the door that counts boardings and alightings at a stop level.

So we uh now have that certified through the our submission to the national transit database, and so we've automated what used to be a very manual collection process.

Great.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for the reminder.

Any other questions?

Representative from District Three.

Thank you, Councilmember uh Beck for asking that.

I remember a few years back that y'all were talking about the NS.

I was curious because it's the case.

Um I just want to say thanks, you know, for presenting.

I appreciate DCTA and the DCTA board for using data to kind of optimize the cost versus passenger trip.

Um, because not every place is good for GoZone and not every place is good for fixed route and they need to work together.

Um this is putting you on the spot a bit.

Do you know right now what the typical cost per passenger trip is for GoZone?

I know it's usually in the 12 to 15.

About 12 dollars.

It's about 12 dollars right now.

Um as of last year.

Okay, great.

Uh and then I appreciate the work to try to speed up the A-train.

I mean, it certainly needs to be competitive with I-35 to a large degree.

If it's not competitive enough, people aren't gonna write it.

Um one of my understandings is that the train used to be a little faster from end to end, and when it slowed down, it was partly because of the positive train control, and I guess which product we purchased is that.

That's correct.

Um, are there any plans or opportunities to sort of speed it up in that regard in the future?

So one of the things we're doing with the curve and speed improvements is um re reworking some of the code that controls braking distances and things like that, so that we can try to get some of that time back.

Gotcha.

Um I think that's all I have.

Thank you so much.

Yes, ma'am.

Representative district one.

Thank you so much for being here.

Um with you speaking on these things, I do feel like you've really heard us.

Uh I know that we were loud and proud.

Um so thank you so much for doing a deep dive and and allowing us to be proud of Route 3 coming back.

Those my constituents talked about ROC 3 quite a bit.

So thank you again.

Um For some reason I wrote vision um zero for the city, and I believe that whatever you see it prompted me to write that.

And I see far a hot butt here.

Uh so the question is how is this fitting into our zero vision um plan for us?

And and when you talk about vision zero, you're talking about whether it is a safety incidents.

Yes.

So our our goal is zero incidence on the system, and so I think we are um of like mind in that.

And the way that we're doing that is by having stood up a couple of years ago a safety function inside the agency.

We've still got a lot of work to do, but we built a good foundation to understand to try to understand what's happening, why it's happening, and how we fix those things.

And then as we talk with your staff about uh where bus stops need to be located, and uh it's we got to talk about where's what's important for a ridership perspective, and then also what's important from a safety perspective.

I can give you really quick example.

When we launched the 18 new bus stops that it took last summer to get the results that we just did, uh we ran that um we ran that through our bus operators actually.

We set up boards in the break in the in the ready room and said, what do you think?

And so and the bus driver said, Hey, this stop is not gonna work because it requires me to cross three lanes of traffic.

The stop is on the right, and then I've got to make a left-hand turn and a block and a half, and I'm never gonna be able to get a 40 a 35 foot bus across those lanes.

We said great.

And so we got to be able to change it.

And so it's those kinds of conversations just incrementally over time and a commitment to that.

You have to have a culture for that.

Systems are part of it, but culture is the other, and we're really trying to drive that.

Thank you very much.

Um, do you all have a plan for uh uh a plan to set up these stops?

Um, you know, where they have a continuity type vibe.

Is it some have shelter, some don't?

You know, how does that work?

Yes, ma'am, great question.

Um so the first thing that I did when I got in the seat was take an inventory of where all of our stops were.

And we haven't now we have a list.

We understand what the amenities are.

We just completed or are wrapping up this year a bus stop standards document that says this is how DCTA does bus stops.

There's probably four or five different types of bus stops from a basic stop all the way to a transfer center.

And the type of stop is based on what's the volume of passengers that go through it, and that drives what amenities are in place.

And so we with that standards document.

Now we're going to start looking at what are the highest, what are the highest use stops and how do we improve the those first?

And and that's where we get the opportunity to engage with the community and say this is what we're thinking, what do you think, and and figure out how to weave that into the fabric of what you all have here in Denton?

Uh with the advent of us obviously having more uh multifamily coming up.

Do you all uh try to get in front of that or do you all are kind of waiting on you know to see what happens?

In our in our presentation to the board, I don't know if it's it was in June or in May.

We talked about what we see along University Drive and what we see along Route Three and what we see along the corridor from along the loop to the Colorado Express route and the Med Park station.

We highlighted all the multifamily that's in development or that is coming out of the ground again.

Great relationship with your development services staff who's giving us that data, and then that that helps justify and kind of flesh out our core network, and then we can use that same data set to figure out where we go from from there.

Well, again, I certainly do uh appreciate you all just hearing us and and thank you for your good work.

Yes, ma'am, thank you.

Any other questions?

Representative for district six.

Um I just want to echo some of the sentiments already.

Um the presentation has been very impressive, the progress has been uh uh wonderful.

Um, and then you know where the information is coming from, how it's being utilized and seeing the effect.

I I do believe it's been transformational, and I look forward to the next era of optimizing.

Um as we know, a lot of people in Denton either come here to work from other places or live here and then go to work other places.

Um, we we're looking more and more at how the region moves around and the population coming up in uh 2050.

Yes, ma'am.

Um what level are the conversations happening as far as connecting uh what we have to the other regions?

Is that something that the board looks at?

Is that a staff level and uh how how does that work within DCTA?

So practically it's I think it starts with the relationships that exist between our board members and their counterparts at DART and Trinity Metro, and then also the relationships that that I have with my counterparts at those agencies.

It's those kinds of conversations that have led us to the path we're on for the downtown Carrollton extension on the A-Train, and then as we observe the conversation between Trinity Metro and the regional council of governments about an express bus service up I-35W from downtown Fort Worth to Alliance, and and then we get to think about how do we connect on that corridor as well.

So the the regional transit conversation to your point is gaining some momentum, and I think it's gonna create the forum for that, and we're prepared to engage and and spend whatever time we need to in order to make that make that work.

A couple of other questions, Mayor.

Thank you.

Um I uh I know it goes without saying, but I assume there are lots of preparations uh on their way for the World Cup as that's something that's on everyone's mind as far as how are we going to move people around.

Um I I assume there are preparations as far as increased times or increased security or uh we we have not received a specific ask from the region.

Uh we we have been um listening to the conversation.

Obviously, it's primarily between Dart and Trinity Metro and Arlington and others, but we know that there's gonna be some activity center in the city of Frisco and other places again, have not received a specific ask, but are are ready to to listen if anything comes up to fulfill our role.

Great, wonderful.

And I forgot my last question, so uh lucky you.

I will let you go.

Your day.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Representative District One.

Um we still have a representative for the city.

Am I have I missed something?

Oh, and Pat Smith is here as the ultimate.

Yes, sir.

Just had to have my uh memories to serve.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Any other questions?

Thank you for helping me.

Um so thank you for the presentation for your your work.

I I am excited about the opportunity to get to the airport that those things.

That's that's a really big big opportunity.

And um so uh other than that though, I I would ask because we are as much as we're aligned, we are two separate entities.

Right, and so I I've always found where I'm going with this is I think it's important to note those distinctions and also your accessibility and your your board's accessibility and those sort of things.

And so I would encourage those here.

If you have questions, uh reach out.

I I don't know what the best process is for that, so I'll I'll ask for your direction on kind of how best to reach out to whomever or how you prefer those to be funneled.

But I I just I I want to have I've experienced just kind of the open communication dialogue, and so that to me is better than sitting in a bunch of meetings and having you know three minutes of talk.

It's better to sit down, grab coffee and be uninterrupted.

And so I want to uh tee that up.

Your thoughts and and what's the best way if if a council member wants to uh have ongoing discussions versus you know an environment where you may feel like you can't air it out.

Yeah, I as a as a person I'm always open for a conversation.

Obviously, we serve three different city councils and many members and all that sort of stuff, but I'd say let's talk.

You know, my my uh Sarah knows how to get a hold of me and can uh make that make that happen, but glad to grab coffee and help people understand whatever they like or answer whatever questions they have.

Um we ultimately the dialogue and the relationship is what helps us get things done, and so um I'm I'm happy to facilitate that however I can.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Great presentation, yes, sir.

Thank you, uh Pat and Jackie.

Appreciate y'all.

Okay.

That takes us to item B, which is ID 2426, 20 receiver report, whole discussion, give staff direction regarding the uh preliminary FY 2025-26 city managers proposed budget and scheduled fees.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Cassie Ogden, Deputy City Manager.

Um, I'm filling in for Christine Taylor while she's out.

So I'm a little rusty on the budget, but so bear with me, we will get through this.

But um we wanted to provide an update of some of the fee fees that we are proposing to change uh beginning October 1.

So some of these you have already seen before, including special event fees.

Um, but wanted to give you a comprehensive view of the fees.

We will also talk about the uh enterprise funds.

The only one you have not seen yet is the airport fund.

Um then we'll talk about the total expected bill impact and any follow-up items from our August 9th budget workshop.

So just a little bit of background.

We did talk about some of the fees um dur throughout the last fiscal year.

Uh police towing fees were updated in November, development services fees were updated in May, and then animal services fees were updated in June.

Uh you had a discussion at a work session in June about special event fees.

Uh, we've included them in this presentation.

They will be adopted as part of the overall um fee and budget adoption in September.

So just wanted to briefly highlight these.

You've you saw these on June 3rd and gave your direction to proceed.

We we have updated the special event rates really based on personnel increases.

Um based on police and fire um increases in each of the proposed rates.

So police officer rates changes, um, and then you see the the fire special event rates anywhere from firefighter, EMS, um, and fire marshal all changing due to the just the cost of the personnel per hour.

The um special event fee applications uh we added tiers to distinguish between the different types and sizes of events that goes to the complexity of the review and staff time associated with that review.

So you can see the proposed changes anywhere from a ten dollar increase, five dollar increase up to a hundred and ninety dollars.

Um and then we've added some late fees associated with that because of the timelines that we need to review those and make um you know changes to traffic patterns, police and fire adjustments.

So um we need all the time that we can get to review those those special events.

Um moving on to EMS fees.

The last time we brought forward an EMS fee update was in 2015.

Uh we had a fee study completed by um matrix consulting in June of 2022 as a result of an internal audit recommendation, um, just due to some staff changes and uh we did not bring those fee changes forward during that uh fiscal year.

However, we're bringing them forward now.

We have some um updates just due to our costs.

So these are all um different types of calls that um EMS responds to.

So basic life life support, advanced life support, and then the advanced life support too, and I should mention the directors are here if you have specific questions regarding um the individual fees that I cannot answer.

Um so again, these have not been updated in a while, but it was a result of an internal audit recommendation that we review these fees and and update them accordingly.

So again, the the EMS fees, these are our medical service fees.

So really the cost our cost of acquiring the supplies, medication has increased since the last time we've uh changed the fee, so we're increasing it due to our cost.

And then again on the proposed fees, the um emergency standby, really related again to um some special events, fire prevention fees, a lot of these are clarification um language that we'll bring forward in the ordinance and the red lines, um, and then follow-up reinspection fees are increasing or proposing to increase.

And we did get a question ahead of time about the annual inspection, these are based on an annual inspection and based on the square footage of the property that they are inspecting.

So moving on, the um the temporary membrane structures and tents.

There was an error in the presentation that was posted.

Um this is already a fee, so that we're not proposing to change that fee amount.

It's already $35.

Um, just wanted to clarify that, so it's incorrect in the backup.

Um, and then you can see our training facility fee updates based on the rental type and what the activity is that they're using the facility for.

And then proposing to change some of our um additional fees, so apparatuses, um, and then just some clarifying language in the overall descriptions as well as increasing the fees based on our our cost to provide these.

The um the gas leak fees are new this year.

This is a new um proposal.

We haven't previously had these fees, um, but we are finding we're spending a lot of time on these types of calls, and so um based on our current costs and then also kind of industry best practices and what some other cities are doing.

Uh the fire is proposing to um add these to the fee schedule this year.

And um Chief Hedges is here if you have more if you have some questions about these.

So, mayor, I'm gonna pause there if you have questions on fire EMS before I move on to the next section.

Okay, thank you.

Representative from district uh four, three, and then two.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tell me the difference between live support and live support too.

Um I will have to ask Chief Hedges, he's in the um the council chamber, so he should it'll take him a minute to get here.

Okay.

I believe it's the type of um what they're doing on the call.

Here he is.

That was fast response time.

That was fast.

I was just thinking that.

Five minute response.

Forget 911.

Uh I was already heading this way, okay?

So Kent Hedges fire chief.

I'm sorry, I didn't hear the questions.

I was walking out of the council chambers heading this way.

Thank you, Chief.

I was asking the difference between life support and life support too.

Uh yes, real simple.

So advanced life supports anything we do, IV, EKG interpretation.

When we move to ALS two, that is when we administer three or more medications.

So those don't happen as often.

So if we uh administer like lidocaine, epinephrine, and then one other, then it qualifies an ALS to all this is kind of laid out through the insurance and how they reimbursed as well.

Is an IV a I know that's a fluid.

Is that a fluid?

No, that's just a lance advanced life support function, performing IV and the salines included in that.

So that's not considered as one medication.

Okay.

It's truly medications.

I got it.

Thank you.

Representative from district three.

Louis Chief Hedges.

Um, so for the personnel costs, is the rate based on the budgeted salaries or overtime or sort of a mix?

Which um, so I think uh somewhere broken down by which person was there.

Is it the special that?

Yes.

Trying to think, I think that is calculated on yep, I don't think we did benefits.

That's just base salary.

I think what we did per currently process is we just took an average of that rank.

So for instance, firefighters are six steps.

So we took all six steps and took an average of that.

So certain times based on who is hired.

If we had special event, for instance, I'll use UNT football games.

We had to hire eight different personnel to staff that we may get anywhere from a battalion chief to work, always to a firefighter, and then we just kind of had to do an average of this now will actually give us a range and all the steps, and we can bill accordingly on the invoice as well.

Okay, thank you.

Representative from district two.

Thank you.

Um a lot of the fees, especially uh on the some of the responses that we we've not really addressed in the past, but we're adding in now, especially those that are adjusted by who responds.

Um, are these uh are these typically paid?

I mean, and you may not know the answer because these are what you're charging because of their your costs, but are they typically paid by the end user, the insurance, some sort of provider?

Do you know who who typically can you be specific on the fees we have listed here?

So I have a yeah, I I I I just it's a it's sort of a generic question for especially for um uh you know, like I know ambulances typically covered by insurance if you have insurance, but um, some of these others like lift assist that was came up in the questions and and I'm sort of just sort of trying to lump it all into to one in the general sense of are these um generally absorbed by the end user or are they generally absorbed by some sort of coverage for the end user?

Uh let me kind of call out the lift assists.

This is is a new this is actually something we're implementing this next year if approved by city council.

The issue we're having, did you see that my responses on the question?

So we have an issue where we are called a non-emergent basis to nursing facilities and assisted living centers in which a resident just falls, no injuries whatsoever.

Their staff refuses per corporate, usually to lift that patient.

Instead, that risk is transferred for the fire department.

We respond to the engine, three personnel go out there, they lift the person back up, put them in their wheelchair or their bed, and that's done.

So that takes you now to service.

So we started looking kind of across the industry, and there's a few fire departments that have started implementing these fees.

One was $500 as well.

They ran a 12-month program as a department out of Illinois.

Big thing is it deincentivized these facilities to call the fire department.

So their lift assists decreased by 60% in six months.

It really wasn't about the fee itself, other than the fact that now the facility is having to pay it.

That fee will be assessed to the facility and not the resident.

They can do whatever they want to.

So on the lift assist, if we go to a facility and we lift somebody that does not have any type of injury, we will build that facility directly.

And we plan to educate all these facilities prior to this implementation of this fee.

So that one I can be very specific about.

And okay.

I think kind of what you're blending is the fact that future implementation of squad units in which they'll run instead of the fire truck running with a million and a half dollar vehicle on a lower emergent call with the ambulance is using a smaller vehicle.

What we do have function as today is categorizing our medical emergencies and injured person calls to a top one priority one party two.

Priority one is you get both an engine and AMS because it is obviously based on the call taker is something significant.

A party two is less emergent.

Right now we are just sending our ambulances.

So we're already kind of implementing which we've had discussions about as well.

So it's really triaging from the very bit instance whenever the call receives at 911, and then a tiered response is what we're looking at.

So we have two different call types.

We envision rolling out further, but we're really kind of doing some data review to make sure it's hitting our goals, and it is.

I can tell you two months ago, um, I think June, our engine calls were down by 30 percent compared to June of last year, just because they're not going every medical call now.

We're able to preserve them and actually add link to the vehicle.

No, I I appreciate that.

I I'm I'm not trying to get in front of the discussion.

I just was wondering if it had been baked into some of the fees yet or not.

And and it sounds like the answer is you're still in the process of rolling it.

Yeah, and that's kind of more operational.

There's really not gonna be no fees assessed on that.

That's just kind of operational readiness, what we're seeing on send as far as our capability as far as you know, different units based on the true type of emergency.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Chief.

Okay, any other questions, representative fire prevention fire prevention there.

Yes, ma'am.

Uh I'm noticing that it says it first to the language and then update language second follow-up.

So initial follow-up as a fire prevention.

Is this the the inspections on like brand new houses or brand new structures or what is that?

We do not inspect just single family dwellings, multifamily commercial, yes.

The first inspection is just an annual um compliance inspection that is free.

Okay.

So what they're saying here is the first reinspection.

So if the biology is found, the inspector notifies the owner, um, provides a piece of documentation, what needs to be corrected and gives them a date in which they'll return.

Right.

So that is the reason why it's called first, and then below is the second time.

But they have to come back after a second respection, which technically would be the third time they're on the site.

Right.

That is the reason why those fees are increasing.

Okay.

And I'd see the free fees increasing for anything over.

Uh the second follow-up fee looks like the only one that's actually increasing.

Correct.

The first ones really, I think they were just left on here because we're changing language from reinspection to first reinspection and then second reinspection for language clarification.

And so these um they have anything to do with any kind of structure that's had a fire?

No, just the percentage part.

New construction, the way we have it tiered is what we deem an high hazard to either loss of life or property.

That is actually inspect on the annual basis, and it's uh the intermediate is two years, then low hazard, um some type of small gift shop with very small square footage that would probably be deemed a low hazard.

It's inspected one time every three years.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

Any other questions?

So none, thank you, Chief.

Thanks.

Okay, moving into police fee changes.

Um we are increasing our course tuition for the training academy.

Um proposing to for next year, 1250, excuse me, to 2300.

Um, firearms range increasing um those those costs of renting the the range.

Um there was also um a question about the escort and chauffeur license fees, those are not being proposed to change.

Uh those are already uh in place, and we are not proposing to change the fee.

Um records management, several changes from the backup.

We already have um all of these fees.

We are proposing to increase several of the fees.

Um I wanted to point out some of the like the solicitor permit is increasing by ten dollars, the alarm permit increasing by forty-five dollars.

Um, some of the just general records fees are increasing, um, and then some of the reporting fees.

Any questions on police?

Questions for staff on policing representative from district six.

Um council person just.

We certainly appreciate you taking over the presentation and you're doing a great job.

One thing that I didn't catch before, so I apologize.

Is there any concern or uh the chief is on board with this basic peace officer course tuition?

The large increase.

You know, my my initial thought is does it discourage applicants since we're currently not at our um wishful uh number of officers uh and staff?

So I just wanted to ask that question.

I'm gonna let Chief Roblato answer that.

Excellent.

She's asking about the increase.

Oh, absolutely.

Is this gonna discuss?

Jessica Roblato, police chief.

Uh Dent Police Department.

I missed the question.

Uh was it about the increase on the academy?

I just wanted to, and thank you so much for being here, by the way.

Um what I wanted was your feedback regarding do we have any kind of concern that this is going to decrease the number of applicants to the police department, knowing that we are not fully staffed right now, and and it just seems like a large increase, which I certainly understand with everything going up, but what I don't want to do is discourage uh people that might be excellent in this these positions that we need here in time.

Very good question.

Very good question.

Uh absolutely um where I come from in central Texas, it's actually three thousand dollars.

So we're still on the low end.

Okay.

And no, this is not um affecting outer agencies joining our academy.

Okay, so this has nothing to do with our internal candidates.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Again, appreciate you being here.

Yeah, the questions for police.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Uh we have a few changes to, or we're proposing a few increases.

So loss DVD or music CD, damage of the RFID tag, and lost or damaged discovery kit, those increases, and then our 3D printing fees just based on our our cost of service for those materials are being proposed to increase.

And I'm happy to take any questions before we move on to parks.

Question on library fees.

Okay, thank you.

Moving on to our proposed park fee changes.

Um rec pass changes are being proposed to increase depending on the tier and the type.

So again, based on the cost recovery model that council adopted in March of 2020.

And these all of these proposed fees have been reviewed and uh recommended for approval by the parks rec and beautification board.

So changes to the memorial bench.

Uh this is based on how much it it costs us to acquire the bench, uh, increases to plots for the cemetery, increases for room rentals at the senior center and rec centers.

Um you can see those as well as athletic facility rental, uh, five dollar increases, and then increases for the tournament fees per field per day, um, and then pavilion rentals, and then some court rental increases.

Um, and we do have one reduction is the the mountain bike trail rental.

Sorry, and then we are proposing increases to the aquatic rentals for the narratorium and the the water park.

Uh, you can see um the current year and then the change, so water park 25 dollar increase for the first hour, and then the nadatorium admissions and memberships, so anywhere from 10 to $1 increase for those membership rates.

And Gary is here if you have questions about these when we get to the end of this uh section.

Um admissions for season passes for the water parks, so anywhere from five to one dollar increases for daily admission.

Um, the cooler pass, we are proposing an increase of $15 for the season pass associated with bringing the cooler in to the water park, and then an all access pass, so increases to our overall uh aquatic membership uh for the public and residents.

Civic center pool rate increases anywhere from five dollars for season pass um and then dollar increases for those specific day days, and then special event fees again increasing based on the total attendance or guest attendance, I should say.

Oops, I went backwards.

And then the different types of guest attendance all outlined anywhere from 50 to 15 dollars, depending on the number of guests.

And happy to stand for any questions on the park fees, and Gary is here.

Representative from uh district three and two.

I could really ask this of any director, um, but I was curious just broadly what the process is to determine what an appropriate fee is in some cases, and you can choose any example you want, but for some of them it I'm just curious what the very broad process is for determining how much this service costs and how should we price it correctly?

So uh a few years ago we went through a fees and charges analysis and we came up with a continuum, and it it kind of puts on that continuum where we should fall in certain areas on that chart regards to cost recovery.

So that's part of it.

Uh we look at other organizations, so we go out and research you know what other tennis centers are charging for fees, so we use all that information, and then we also do an analysis every year, and we're usually 18 months in the rears by the time we get the closing of the the year's data and go back to identify what our costs are for that program and allocate all of our expenses to all of our programs to kind of give us an idea where we're at in cost recovery and where that sits on the continue continuum itself.

Okay, what since I wasn't here when this was adopted, what is our cost recovery right now that we aim for?

It it varies based on the program.

Okay, yeah, and we can definitely have a follow-up and share that with you since obviously you weren't here when that should happen.

All right, thank you.

Representative from district two.

Thank you.

Hey, uh Gary, um one of the things that uh you know, I think most of the these things um are you know somewhat nominal, you know, sort of inflation cost of you know doing business, and and I assume that's the the case with all of the the fee structures, but it comes up every year, at least every year I've been on council, especially for the pools, um, because this this is one of the ones that you know, unlike the rec centers, unlike the tennis courts and everything else, where there's sort of very demographic based and and uh the pools in Texas are sort of fundamental to who we are, and they they have a dramatic impact, especially on um folks in lower economic strata, and and a feedback that we constantly get for the pools is um you know why why are municipal pools versus other regional offerings?

And and so I get one thing that confused me is can you talk we real briefly because I'm trying to follow the the mayor's guidance on this.

Can you talk real briefly on the removal of gold and sort of the relationship of silver and platinum to this whole fee structure?

The the gold was removed because nobody was using it.

Oh, we was getting gold.

So yeah, so that that's the sole reason there.

Uh what we tried to do is package the the silver based off of what was involved in that.

So we a couple years ago we went back and added things to it.

So if you get a silver membership, you get different benefits within that.

And it's like buying up at at your pass on your pass, your annual pass.

So we then we compare ourselves to Hawaiian Falls, Little Alm, some of the other entities, and what they have in regards to costs to try to stay within that cost recovery goal.

And do you I mean, I guess are we are we essentially matching the the median of those other regional offerings or I mean because and I I'm trying to put in context the feedback that I get from the community on these things?

Um so I'm I'm trying to ask you because you know you did the analysis.

So uh Hawaiian Falls from uh a resident fee, they don't have a resident fee.

We're cheaper than Hawaiian Falls from Little Elm is kind of our next closest comparison.

They have a monthly fee, but you have to pay for 12 months at one time, and then you can go month to month, and we're still really close in the same price.

So we are right in the ballpark with those two other entities that have similar facilities.

And and for the the uh you you talked about dropping the gold the gold membership because people weren't weren't purchasing that.

And and for the the uh you you talked about dropping the gold the gold membership because people weren't weren't purchasing that do is is it that silvers and platinums are the most purchased, or is it just the summer seasonal, or or what what what is our sweet spot in terms of what's the most purchased?

Is it daily?

What what what how do people so there we we try to have a balance between daily admissions and seasonal?

Obviously, if you buy a season pass and you use it every single day, you're taking the full advantage of that.

Yeah, if you buy and use it twice, you may not be achieving a benefit of buying a pass.

You may be better off going monthly, or if you just want to go daily.

So we try to have a percentage there.

I want to say it's like 6040 or 5545 is that breakdown and how we want to have that kind of fall out at the end of the year.

And we were we've been really close to following that format.

Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna do what I do every year, and that is urge us to keep that on uh on as late least cost recovery as we possibly can because the our pools have the the biggest impact on vulnerable populations.

Um and uh you know I noticed that you you had implemented some of that of the Tory waterworks versus the civic center.

The civic centers obviously much much much cheaper and a better bargain for that region.

So I I applaud that sort of tiering and and to the extent possible I'm gonna continue to push on that because those are those are really tightly controlled resources for I mean we're we're really focused on cost recovery and trying to balance our revenues and expenses, especially as our staff salaries have gone up over the past couple years coming out of COVID.

We were we were we made ourselves very competitive in that market to a point where we've been hiring and rehiring staff at a much easier pace than we had in the past.

So the pros and cons of that is the rates are higher per hour for our employees.

So that's gone up since COVID, and we're trying to balance that and make sure we're covering our costs as much as we can to take the burden off the general fund.

All right, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Any other questions for parts?

All right, thank you.

And now we're gonna shift to looking at our enterprise funds.

Again, these are funds that operate more like a business, so revenues coming in should match expenses going out.

Um they're self-supporting, and they're each each collect um rates to support their operations.

So the airport is the only fund in this group that you have not seen yet.

Um I am happy to report that we are um we're making a lot of good strides in our airport fund.

So you can see that we have um about a 3.1 million dollar proposed beginning fund balance for next year in our airport fund.

Currently, this fund does not have a fund balance target, but um we do we have been trying to work towards lessening the airport's impact on the general fund, and so we've made um significant strides in that area.

Uh Ryan and his team have done a fantastic job of looking at um this and making sure that we are we're being more sustainable in this fund.

Um we do have revenue funding built in for vehicle replacement in this fund, which has not been historically the case.

So that that is good news.

Um and then we do anticipate some purchases from Text Dot in future years that we do have programmed in the in the budget, so you'll see kind of an increase in our in our um fund balance.

Again, that's in a future year, so if that changes, our projections will change.

Um but I wanted to um also mention that the airport advisory board did review these fees or this proposal last week and recommended approval to council um for this budget.

So happy to answer any specific questions about the um the performer.

Okay, uh city manager.

I I don't know who was here.

I know um council member, I think Beck was here, maybe Councilmember Byrd, the mayor, I know was if you recall a couple of budget years ago, maybe three.

This fund was in trouble.

Uh we were using general fund money to help balance the airport budget.

And so I I I always like to take a second to thank Ryan because Ryan has pulled us out of the pits and really turned this around.

We are not dipping into the general fund to help balance the budget at the airport.

And so I I want to give big kudos to him because this was not the case for many years.

And so he is doing a tremendous job out there, and just wanted to recognize Ryan Very good.

Yeah, I agree.

Thank you.

Uh questions for staff on Airport Performer.

See that?

Um moving on.

We have just a five-year capital improvement.

You you should have seen this in the capital improvement discussion, I believe in July.

Um, but just wanted to point out we are planning on some matches for some of the grants that we have received for next year.

So um no more debt funding, these are revenue funds um that we've budgeted, but wanted to to mention um the infrastructure investment jobs act grant match and then just some maintenance type activities for fencing gates, cameras, those types of things that are programmed for next year.

Okay.

So moving on to the electric fund.

Um wanted to start out by saying we're not proposing a base rate increase in electric.

Uh we had previously been projecting an increase for this year.

We are projecting a zero percent.

However, you can see in the future years, so 27 through 30, we are projecting higher um base rate increases.

Um you can see we are estimating to end the year at a loss in this fund.

Um obviously the weather has not cooperated with us this year.

We've had a lot of rain and cooler summer.

Um, so we're continuing to refine this performa and our estimates.

Um, but we are um we are going to end the year better than we did in 2024.

You can see we we ended with an 18 million dollar loss, but we're projecting around 1.7 million dollar loss in the current year, and then obviously proposing a balanced budget next year um and with our revenues matching our expenses.

Um any questions on electric.

Questions on electric representative from district two.

Thank you.

Um so I I know that that we're we're trying to get dig out from the hole, and you can see that.

And I know that that um DME has is proposing doing the IRP, and it it you know that's gonna end up impacting the rate structures and whatnot.

And and I uh wondered where we are.

You said we're still doing refinement.

Uh if you or Tony could could talk about where we are on um whether we're going to implement something like uh you know, what water that we'll see in a second has six or seven different rate tiers.

Uh is that gonna be incorporated and what year do we anticipate that being incorporated?

Obviously, probably not next year or you know, this coming budget proposal, but i i if you could provide a little clarity, Tony or or Cassie, that would be great.

Sure.

I'll I'll let Tony answer that question.

Tony pointed the Amy General Manager.

So I think I think what you're referring to is the cost of service study.

Um we uh we're anticipating to complete that at the end of the year and then trying to get that schedule to come back to the council and have the discussion about just overall rate design, um, what we may need to restructure.

Um certainly, you know, we we've gotten your feedback, you know, as we're looking at at uh the various rate designs that are out there and what may what may be best for DME as a as far as a a recommendation both a consultant and certainly from staff, and then we can have a robust conversation with the council if there's needs to be a change on how we've historically designed those rates for DME.

As far as the um integrated resource plan, I mean we do anticipate that's gonna be an 18 to 20 more 24 month process.

Um any rate design changes likely would go into effect a year from now as well.

We would anticipate we would roll that into the next budget cycle.

Um the IRP, you know, depending on where um ultimately the council gives a recommendation on, then we will then either uh continue as as we've been doing or we will um uh roll in uh additional uh procurement of whatever various resources uh and resource mix um the council would uh would entertain.

But just to follow up briefly on that, uh the none of the projections seen in this performer, that's all the current rate structure, it's none of the anticipated potential changes.

It is just what we're doing now uh proposed forward, correct?

Correct.

And then so any of these uh rate increases that that we have.

Well, traditionally we just apply them across all the rate classes, potentially we could apply them differently, uh depending on ultimately what that rate is it looks like.

Okay, that's what I wanted.

Thank you, Tony.

I appreciate it.

Any other questions?

Is this where we talk about the mix of power purchase agreements and the 100% renewable, all those things?

Um we're we're working on that policy.

We'll have that discussion when we talk about that in a future work session.

I think we have six months is what we had said we were gonna bring it back for discussion.

Okay.

So feedback then I just I would rather have some sort of asterisk or something by there, right?

Or something by those out years that say, hey, this could be affected, or we I just to put it out there.

If if the layperson's looking at the backup or tracking along, it just says, hey, my my utility rates are gonna go up uh you know 6.5% next year, and I'm gonna fire off an email.

I I'd rather it say, hey, come talk to us and be heard on options.

This isn't this doesn't have to be the case.

We can save money.

Obviously, I'm slanted, but just there needs to be some sort of some indication looking at this chart that there's future discussions about how we can affect that number and avoid that.

Sure.

That I mean, we look at says we look at this annually, we look at this all year long.

Um we did have a projected rate increase this year that we we forego, uh we went we looked at it, we felt like we didn't need to have a rate increase this year based on some of the things that we're talking about in the utility.

And so, yes, I will make sure that we have a note about that.

This is subject to change.

Um, our goal is always to bring give you worst case scenario, and then hopefully things end up in a better place, and we're able to reduce that overall rate impact because we want to be sensitive to our customers, um, and we want to stay competitive.

So yes, no, I agree, but especially in this instance because we have something ongoing that could affect this, like immediately transpiring right now.

I think that's different than in the some future date we may have discussions or things may ebb and flow.

We certainly have something going on right now that could affect those uh numbers significantly.

Understood.

Okay, thank you.

Um moving on to solid waste again, no proposed rate increases for this fund for the next fiscal year.

Uh we do have some moderate rate increases, so two and a half percent and then proposed in 27 and 28, really to just maintain that fund balance in that fund.

Um, but we are proposing not rate increases, but just um some clarification and define changing some definitions in the rate schedule itself.

So we will bring that forward for adoption in September, but wanted to make you aware of that.

Um so no changes to the actual cost, but some clarification in the in the schedule itself.

And then we're gonna go ahead.

Sorry, it's happy to stand for any questions for solid waste and Brenda is here if you have specifics.

Questions on solid waste.

Do we capture in this what level of put a pay agreements we have?

Because that affects things, my understanding.

The wholesale agreements, is that what you're referring to?

Yes.

Um, yeah, the the wholesale agreements are noted in that revenue line.

So we're proposing five point five million dollars of revenue from those agreements for net next fiscal year.

Okay.

Um yeah, I I just wonder if there's a way again to call that out.

Just be obviously you would have that conversation if there's put a pay agreements that people would say you know, it would come forward then, but just on the out years, but I I think it speaks to itself.

It's like if all these numbers hold, that's the number.

So I don't think there's anything to change.

I just um I'll think through that a little more.

All right.

Okay.

Thank you.

So moving on to water, we are proposing a three percent rate increase for water rates.

Um, based on the performer, you can see that we're we're um proposing to dip into our fund balance slightly for next year.

Um, and so really needing to maintain that debt service coverage ratio for our existing and future debt needs while maintaining our fund balance targets.

Um, and so three percent is proposed for residential and commercial customers in the water fund.

And so we're I have the proposed rates by the by each class that I'll go through.

Um so you can see kind of the individual volume charges, and these are three percent increase just across the board.

Um and so changes vary from between 11 cents to 37 cents per per gallon per depending on the tier.

Um same for outside the corporate limits, residential and commercial services, it's three percent increase for from the existing uh rates.

Sorry.

And then residential irrigation and commercial rates increasing outside corporate limit irrigation and commercial tier rate increases, and then some of our other types of fees, so um fire hydrant meter deposit not changing, however, the volume volume uh charge is being proposed to change as well as the facility charge.

So that's the monthly charge for um using that hydrant meter, um, as well as our wholesale water agreement.

Um the wholesale water to upper Trinity that we provide is based on 85% of Dallas's wholesale water rate.

I believe that's published soon, and so we will have that in the actual schedule of fees that you adopt.

Um, but it that is per the agreement, and then we have a wholesale um water that's a pass-through increasing um slightly, and that is based on CPI adjustments in the agreement that are noted.

And then our upper Trinity wholesale treated water is proposing to be increased from a dollar twenty-five to four dollars and ninety-six cents.

So a substantial change, but this is really a result of our cost of service for serving that um that treated water to upper Trinity.

And then increasing our meter fees, so these are new meters, um, and then meter relocations when we have to go out and move a meter and fire hydrant installations, these are all uh just a three percent increase across the board.

So happy to answer any questions regarding water performa or fee proposals.

Okay, questions on water representative from district two.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Um so um one of the questions to staff was was uh uh defining irrigation meters versus um regular meters and the but it prompts a question for me um and that is um there's there any difference in the water that's fed to those different meters, and if if it's all just potable treated water, or you know, we don't have raw water meters if for their our large agricultural uh purposes, I I think that's accurate, but that's really more of a question.

And if if it's all our own potable water and most of our costs are the cost of treating and creating it turning raw into potable, why do our irrigation rates why are they less than our potable water rates?

That's a great question that I'm gonna defer to Steven.

And and I'll add some context to Stephen walks up, and that is um so much of what Steven and Development Services have been proposing for has been targeted at conservation, turf buybacks and all kinds of things where we're trying to be great stewards of water, and we made it cheaper to irrigate.

Uh Stephen Gay, General Manager of Water Utilities and Street Operations.

That's a great question.

Uh I can tell you that from the last cost of service study, though those were the rates that were identified, and we're reevaluating that during the next cost of service study, which is ongoing right now.

So it's a it's a great point, and and it's not consistent with our direction moving forward.

So there's um the conservation is is foundational to what we're moving.

But it maybe that earlier question, there's there's it's the same water.

Same water, yes, sir.

We don't have uh we do have some of the purple pipes, the reused water.

We do have some reuse customers like Oakmont and uh the Spencer Power Plant, but those are large volumes of water, and it's not it's not traditional.

And when we did when we did our um our uh our comprehensive uh water supply plan when we looked at that, we looked at extending the reuse system uh as a part of it, and so that's part that's that's included in our capital plans.

So in your cost of service study, again, it's sort of similar to Tony's question.

We're not gonna see it because we're just carrying forward models from the past into this budget cycle, but for both of you, there's going to be those potential adjustments going into next year's budget.

Is that what I'm hearing?

That is correct.

Okay.

Yes.

Well, I mean, you know, to the to the extent that I'm we we can.

I I I would love to true those up earlier rather than later because to today water is always cheaper than tomorrow water.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

Any other questions on water?

Okay, thank you.

All right, moving on to wastewater.

Um, again, you've seen this performer before, but wanted to note we are proposing an 11% rate increase for wastewater.

Um again, it goes back to our fund balance targets and debt service coverage ratio, and uh we have quite a bit of capital needs in the wastewater fund.

And so um increasing those rates to be able to meet our capital capital needs in this fund.

Again, the um proposed rate changes.

I'm not gonna go through each category, but they are 11% across the board for each um different tier.

So facility volume, all of those are increasing, being proposed to increase by 11%.

Um as well as our commercial um, the chemical toilet disposal, restaurant food, our um, and then our sale of treated effluent is increasing um based on the 11%, our wholesale agreements are our per individual agreement.

Um, and then our actual dyno dirt products are increasing based on the 11%.

We didn't include every single item, but those will be in the schedule of fees for adoption in September.

And then just in summary, I did want to note um we are working through a utilities financial strategies policy for council consideration.

Um we're hoping to bring that either at the end of this fiscal year, the beginning of next next fiscal year, kind of outlining some of those goals that we talked about when we were talking about our capital improvement program and revenue funded targets.

So that will come back to you later on this year or the beginning of next year.

So just to in summary, our utility bill rate change.

Um you can see our average residential customer bill versus a commercial average um bill.

So the commercial is um contemplating a small general electric customer.

Um again, no changes for solid waste and electric, but water wastewater, you can see the water increasing three percent wastewater proposal is increasing by 11 percent.

So overall, about six dollars and twelve cents on the residential bill versus nine dollars and forty-three cents on a small general commercial customer bill.

And just a reminder, um, you've seen this slide a couple of times, but we think it's important when we're talking about those, especially those large rate increases like we're seeing in wastewater.

Um, raise rates or we do not raise rates over a period of time, it is um it does have a compounding effect on those on those funds, and so um we have we have seen the need for rate increases over the last several fiscal years, um, and we continue to see those as the city grows, and we see infrastructure that needs to be replaced in these funds.

So um just wanted to remind you of the history of uh some of our water and or our utility rates.

We uh we still try to remain competitive, however, we are seeing increased costs for all of our utilities, and then just a final follow-up.

Um we provided an ISR um to respond to all the questions we received from the budget workshop.

Um so you should have seen that on Friday, August 15th.

Happy to respond to any questions.

Um moving forward, we will be back on September 9th at your next meeting to talk about the budget and the tax rate, and then also have the public hearing on the the tax rate, and then we are scheduled for adoption of the budget and tax rate on September 16th.

Um tonight you will see the max tax rate proposal, so it's about one cent over what we are proposing to set the tax rate at.

It's a little bit higher to allow for uh calcul any calculation errors that occur, but we will have that during the IC uh discussion tonight.

But happy to answer any questions that you have.

Uh representative from district four four or three.

Yeah, that's it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh Cassie, so um, can you go back to the slide that had sort of the summary of the yes, the oh this?

Yes.

So you talked about um sort of compounding effects that can happen when these aren't raised over time.

Are you able to give some examples of either what has happened, you know, when we haven't adequately kept up or things that could happen, and maybe Steven can answer, maybe you um I think just in general, we we don't want to see deferred maintenance, especially in our utilities.

Um, and so when we when we look at our rate increases, we really need to be able to um not only the city obviously is growing, but we also have older infrastructure, especially you know, near the the center of town, and so those those projects are substantial, they come with really high price tags, and uh a wastewater fund is one of our smaller funds and not able to um sustain that without rate increases.

Um it's also a balance of making sure that we're we're delivering those projects, so we don't want to raise rates and then not deliver the projects.

So that's some of why um why you're seeing the the ebb and flow get it?

That's all I had for the moment.

Okay, representative from district two.

Thank you.

As the budget cycle has come in.

I mean, this isn't the first time you've presented this table.

I bet I think this table is like nine months old at this point.

Um, but as I've talked with constituents, one of the the and while I love the table, one of the the a feedback I'm giving to you from discussions with constituents is that they're they're seeing you know 11 versus three versus half and and treating those as the the raw comparison values when it isn't really what their household would will experience, which is why council always asks you what is the what's the monthly change, and you put that on the six dollar change and the nine dollar change.

And so if there is a way to present the table on 41 as sort of um I I know that's all average rate changes and the and the previous one 40 was was sort of your you know your your average utility, your average house, your average this, and so it it's a little bit obscure because there is no such thing as the average house in all of Denton.

Um if if we could somehow relate it to uh those those changes to those numbers so that you can see, okay, you know, I'm not getting blitzkrieged with a change in water, even though that looks like a huge change.

It's not it's not the it was you know, it's three or four dollars, whatever it was, I forget the number now.

Um and so uh there, thank you.

Um, you know, water itself is a buck and a half.

Uh so if if there was a way to sort of make the more apples to apples comparison from of the other tables so that we understood that, and I don't know if you if that's a percentage of AMI or something else.

I don't I don't know what I'll leave that to you to come up with a creative interpretation how you do it, but uh definitely our our our citizens are getting confused by those relative percentages is is my experience.

And I'm trying to talk them through the budget.

Right, and and it goes back to again to how we apply those cost of service studies and recommendations.

So for this year, for example, water and wastewater both, we're applying it across the board.

So 11% increases in wastewater applied to your facility charge as well as your volume charge.

Same for for water, it's three percent for facility and volume.

There are some years that based on cost of service, we recognize there's a need to increase maybe one higher, and that's where you get a lot more confusion about what are you doing with the rates, but this year it is across the board uh 3% and 11% in water and wastewater.

Um, I did want to mention though, too, part of what we're reviewing is that utility financial strategies is to help alleviate some of this rate shock that we're seeing now, because if we had done small incremental rate increases over time, we wouldn't see the 11% in wastewater that we need now.

So we'd like to have that conversation with council about how do we look maybe longer term instead of just one year at a time for future rate increases.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Yeah, go right ahead.

Uh I mean Cassie's right.

I'll just look at you just look at solid waste.

That's 29% 29% reduction.

Uh for 19, 20, 21, electric was three and a half, water was two and twenty-one, and then wastewater was five percent.

Now, picture that though, but there wasn't there was nothing increasing until 24.

So it not only did we reduce, but we didn't raise any rates.

So literally we are we are behind the eight ball when it comes to incrementally increasing, like Cassie says, not because we want to, but because it's fiscally responsible so that we can maintain what's below the ground and what's above the ground.

And so it's really it is a very uh Rubik Cube type of thing to figure out, but it it people can absorb more smaller increments than they can like an 11%.

And I s I get it.

That's that's a hard one to swallow, especially two years in a row.

But if we would have gone not a negative and then gone, you know, three percent, three percent, three percent, that it would have been a lot easier to to swallow, but we didn't.

Okay, any other questions.

Uh my only question, and it ties to the next item, and I I meant to submit it and somehow it fell off.

Um, and so whoever needs to be here for that when we get there because uh I think it ties into the wastewater, I do believe.

I want some clarification on the drainage fees and how that ties to wastewater, and if we're miscalculating wastewater, how does that then factor into our impact fees that would are going forward?

I again I I I don't mind paying for what we need to pay for, but if we've made a mistake over a prolonged period of time, I don't expect to roll that up or we need to be transparent and saying, hey, this would not be that bad but for poor decisions or bad actions or mismanagement or miscalculations that led to that, and not say that it's all 100% uh you know the facilities we need to add.

I understand that to be the case.

I just want to be transparent in that.

So whoever needs to be here to speak to that, and it's on uh page 39 of Madison's report, uh, but I need some clarification as to how that affects our calculations on wastewater, that this is and and if we're going to pull that out from that reporting standpoint, because that was called out as well.

So I just I have a lot of questions as it relates to wastewater as it relates to impact fees as it relates to this audit.

So whoever needs to be here to make sure they can make that easy for me to explain, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Okay.

Representative from District One.

You know, as I look at that, um go back one more.

Um right there.

Um, just generally looking at that, uh, I am looking at those years, and those were some very trying years for us.

And I remember sitting in on some of those discussions, and we were um we were very mindful of all of us struggling uh to pay bills and getting back on our feet and all of that.

And so that's where you can see where we uh made decisions to just hold off.

Now that could create some some consternation down the road because we've now found out that that level of compassion, like you said, we probably could have incrementally done it.

We saw that in our utilities as well.

Um so you know, just putting all that together and just looking at it as a whole, uh, it just brings up to the fact that now we gotta get caught up.

And I'm really hoping that our community can really understand of that part.

We're and we're still some of us we're I don't even want to get started.

So um, but that's that's what I'm just observing right there.

Thank you for giving me that time.

Okay.

Anything else?

Any other questions?

Great.

That takes us to item D, ID 251059 receiver report, whole discussion, give staff direction regarding updates to Hickory Street back.

No, no, no, I'm sorry, got to go to C.

ID 2538, receive report whole discussion, give staff direction regarding audit project 045 public works maintenance streets and drainage.

Um good afternoon, Mayor, council, obviously not Madison.

I'm Cassie Ogden, deputy city manager.

Um Madison has allowed me to kick off the discussion because this audit uh as you're about to see is not pretty.

Um, but I wanted to set the stage for you.

Um I asked specifically for this audit to be included in Madison's work plan because being over this area, I understood we had some challenges.

And what Madison found will help us move forward.

We are committed to improving our operations and making sure that we are using taxpayers' dollars resources efficiently and effectively.

We have made some organizational changes that I believe will help this operation and sustain more efficient operations in the future.

But I just wanted to set the stage and say that this is not pretty.

So I appreciate your time.

And I'm going to hand it over to Madison.

Thanks, Cassie.

I'm Madison Rorshaw, Denton City Auditor.

I'm going to present our findings from the audit of the city's public works maintenance processes for its streets and drainage infrastructure.

So just to begin, generally, public works encompass a variety of infrastructure projects built for community use.

Governments are typically responsible for maintaining these assets to ensure the community continues to benefit from the infrastructure as long as possible.

Because public works are community assets, taxes or user fees are generally levied from the community to build and maintain this infrastructure.

The maintenance process generally includes four steps.

So first, identify needed maintenance activities, which usually requires a complete inventory of assets with regular standardized condition assessments.

Two, prioritize needed maintenance based on service level goals, which usually requires formally adopting those goals and determining the most cost effective method of meeting them through long-range planning.

Three, plan maintenance projects based on available resources, which requires an understanding of time, labor, equipment, and material costs by project type and size compared to available resources such as staff equipment and money to optimize usage in the short term.

And four, perform maintenance activities, which requires documentation of who, what, when, how, uh, and where, how and why the work was performed, typically through a work order system, uh, and appropriate oversight to ensure quality and timeliness standards were met.

This audit focused on the maintenance of two types of public works in the city, uh, streets and drainage, and evaluated asset condition monitoring, prioritizing planning and funding of maintenance projects, and ensuring maintenance project quality.

Our assessment of the effectiveness of these processes is based on documentation from fiscal year 2023 and 2024, as well as observations that occurred during the second quarter of fiscal year 2025.

So I'll begin by discussing the city's street maintenance identification and prioritization processes.

A street consists of three layers, which must be built and maintained correctly to ensure it continues to be useful for as long as possible.

This time is generally referred to as a useful life.

To be cost effective, best best practices recommend that certain maintenance techniques only be applied to a roadway when it's at a certain condition phase.

Otherwise, the benefits of the maintenance may not be completely realized.

There are generally four condition phases over a street's useful life during which different maintenance techniques are most cost-effective, uh, which include new preventative, corrective, and rehabilitative.

A streets division has established a process to regularly assess and predict asset condition through a pavement management system that's also used to identify maintenance needs.

However, some critical data on street assets continues to be missing or incorrect.

Specifically, about 25% of install dates or replacement dates are missing in the system, many of which are likely for newer roads based on the OCI score, and almost 8% of street segments are missing a pavement type, which is a pretty critical piece of information.

While service level goals have not been formally adopted, progress has been made towards the informal goals that are shown at the top of the table at the top of the slide.

And streets reported that these goals are being used for the first time to plan the fiscal year 2026 workload.

While previous workload planning was not clearly tied to service level goals, the streets division generally appears to apply cost-effective maintenance techniques based primarily on the assets uh current condition as suggested by best practices.

However, documentation could be improved for maintenance techniques applied to roads outside the appropriate condition level.

Specifically, about 92% of techniques applied to roads outside the appropriate preventative maintenance techniques, about 92% of preventative maintenance techniques and 65% of corrective maintenance techniques applied to streets applied by the streets division were clearly appropriate or likely appropriate based on the estimated OCI.

Further, based on discussion with streets management, the higher risk corrective maintenance techniques applied were likely appropriate due to unexpected maintenance needs or efficiencies gained by adding higher condition roads to nearby projects.

Staff did indicate concerns about the accuracy of estimated OCI scores by the asset system based on their observed conditions of the field.

However, and they reported that they completed a field verification form when they had those issues when they those issues came up.

However, based on a review of 100 concrete and 100 asphat work orders, we did not identify any field verification forms, making it difficult to evaluate this issue.

Further, no concrete joint ceiling work orders were identified despite best practices recommending that joint ceiling begin at the preventative maintenance preventative condition level.

Though we did identify some invoices where it seemed like we had paid for joint ceiling, so it is possible that that is being done, just not documented clearly.

Based on these findings, we recommended that public works improve street asset condition monitoring by ensuring asset data is consistently updated and updating condition scores when a utility street cut is made.

Staff agreed to develop a process to incorporate utility cut degradation impacts into the street condition score and to update asset street asset data as time allows.

So next I'll cover street maintenance planning and work performance.

While applied maintenance techniques generally appear to be cost effective, streets management has not historically established annual project work plans that tie workload targets to available funding and resources.

Instead, projects are identified using OCI-based candidate lists as resources become available.

Still, the division has developed a rolling quarterly schedule to assign projects to crew leaders and track completion.

This issue is due in part to the division's funding structure, which is based on a variable revenue source that streets receives inconsistently, making it difficult for the division to predict its available resources at any given time.

In addition, streets management has not established baseline costs for all project types that they typically perform, such as staffing level options, equipment requirement, time budgets, or material needs.

So without an understanding of these baseline project costs, it's difficult to optimize resource usage as the division has a limited understanding of how long or how many staff are needed for different projects.

Further, the streets division uses the pavement management system to assign and document work performed.

However, work order documentation methods are inconsistent.

Limiting the usefulness of this data, specifically formal guidance on what information should be included in a work order has not been established, and work is not formally prioritized, even for repair work including potholes and patches.

Further timeliness goals for repairs have not been formally established.

And based on a review of a sample of 80 street repairs work orders, critical details such as material costs related invoices and quality assurance pictures were not consistently available as detailed in the table.

Based on these findings, we recommended that the streets division develop systematic street maintenance work planning tools, including improved work order documentation, baseline project cost estimate tools, and an annual work plan based on service level goals, available funding, and estimated project cost information.

Streets generally agreed with these recommendations and will develop baseline project cost estimates and formalize ongoing work order and annual planning processes to ensure consistency.

Next, I'll discuss the funding structure for streets maintenance.

So over the last 20 years, City of Denton voters approved the issuance of almost 309 million dollars to be invested in street and transportation improvements as part of five different bond programs.

This investment has improved the overall condition of the city's roadway network from an average OCI of 63.5 to 69.5 from 2019 to 2025 by segment.

Still, over this time, the percentage of lane miles in the rehabilitative condition has remained similar, as shown in the top figure on the slide.

This illustrates the need for additional preventative maintenance as the city is not able to reconstruct streets fast enough to outpace natural pavement degradation without that maintenance.

Specifically, about 50% of the city's existing lane miles remained at the same condition level from 2019 to 2025, and 23% decreased at least one level, while 27% increased in condition as reconstructions begin to slow down.

Fewer lane miles will increase in condition level, making it more critical for lane miles to remain in their current condition as long as possible through maintenance, which cannot be legally funded through debt.

So we have to source that some somewhere else.

Further, street maintenance is almost completely funded currently by revenue from the city's franchise utilities.

While these funding mechanisms are being used based on council direction, they hinder street maintenance budgeting and do not clearly align with government um funding fairness principles.

In particular, franchise fees are payments made by a utility for using the city's rights of way to operate, like paying rent.

Uh utility use uh utilities use the right of utility use of the right-of-way is illustrated in the image on the slide.

While utilities do operate in the right-of-way, they do not necessarily use the city's streets infrastructure more than other residents unless they make a utility cut, uh, which is why maintenance is typically funded through property or sales taxes in other municipalities.

Further, franchise fee revenues are highly variable due to being based on a utility's gross revenue earned within the municipality, making it more difficult to predict actual revenue.

So, like Cassie mentioned earlier, our electric revenue is down from what we predicted because the weather is different.

That's kind of how it works.

In addition, the city currently issues debt for its utilities as certificates of obligation instead of the typical revenue bonds to take advantage of lower interest costs.

This estimated difference is then transferred from the city's utilities to fund street maintenance annually.

This funding mechanism results in several things.

One, the city's utilities and so its utility customers do not actually benefit from this bond sale savings because the full cost of the debt is still paid by them.

Two, seven percent of funding for street maintenance, about 1.2 million dollars annually, is uh dependent on the city continuing to issue debt.

And three, uh, the city's debt burden is increased for all residents, even though the debt only benefits utility customers.

This practice raises issues of fairness as the city's utility customers are thus subsidizing street maintenance for non-city utility customers, and some revenue is tied to debt issuance, which has a longer payback period than the benefit period of most asset maintenance.

While additional revenue is needed to ensure streets are effectively and economically maintained, the streets division has not historically established an annual work plan or developed basic project cost planning tools, as we mentioned earlier, which limits longer term planning and project prioritization.

So, for example, revenue dedicated to street maintenance unexpectedly increased in fiscal year 2022 due to franchise fee increases, while expenditures remain the same, resulting in revenue exceeding expenses by about $8 million annually over three fiscal years.

Almost all of this revenue was ultimately transferred to uh the capital improvement fund to supplement roadway reconstruction costs instead of being used for preventative or corrective maintenance.

Uh this illustrates the challenges of funding maintenance activities with such a variable funding source, as well as the streets division's current planning limitations.

So, based on these findings, my office is recommending that the city consider budgeting a set amount of property or sales tax revenue for street maintenance annually instead of a portion of franchise fees, uh, that the city explore options for establishing utility cut fees based on estimated impact to a street's useful life, and that the city re-evaluate implementing a roadway maintenance fee.

Uh staff has agreed with all three of these recommendations.

However, the decisions on this will ultimately be made by the city council.

So do you want to stop here to talk about questions for streets or do you want to move into drainage, Mayor?

Uh let's take up streets.

Great great point.

Questions on streets are thus far.

Any questions for staff?

Oh, I ask uh a question for Councilmember Holland by proxy.

Uh did you did you evaluate asphalt versus cement?

As far as where degradation of the streets and those sort of things.

Um in general, asphalt requires more maintenance.

As far as did we evaluate like the actual OCI degradation of asphalt versus concrete, we didn't do that as part of this audit.

Um of that is due to it's really because of some of the work order issues, it's difficult to know exactly what maintenance was done on every street.

And so we'd have to account for that as part of doing that degradation analysis.

Um does that make sense in that?

Yes, no.

Makes it a little complicated.

Are you planning to do a follow-up?

And maybe there's some not that you could get a full kind of scope, but maybe if you could have some data around that or a segment to kind of extrapolate out.

Yeah, we'll certainly do a follow-up on this, and we can look at, and I think that they're going to begin doing um visual inspections more often.

So they've been doing them about every five years or so.

And I think they're gonna move to doing them two every two or three years, and so that will make it easier for us to do that assessment because we'll be getting eyes on the ground condition reviews instead of just the estimated the curves in the system.

It is thank you very much.

Uh represent the real council member Holland.

And then representative from district two and I and I appreciate that.

I I am convinced without any scientific evidence that concrete lasts longer.

Oh, it does.

No, it does last longer.

So let's adjourn less maintenance, it's just more expensive up front.

So that's funny how that works.

Yeah.

The last three things you mentioned, the three funding types.

Would you go over those again, please?

Uh so the there are three kind of well, there's really two funding sources for streets.

There's franchise fees, um, which a portion of the revenue that the city receives in franchise fees is transferred into the streets improvement account every so often.

Um and then there's also the they call it bond sale savings, but it's essentially a an interfund transfer from each utility to the streets revenue um account based on the estimated amount that the city thinks it's saving by issuing debt for its utilities as certificates of obligation instead of revenue bonds.

I know that sounds really complicated.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

Um it is, and in the issues that I noted with it, if that's what you were asking for, is that it's not really saving the utility customers money because they're still paying the complete value of the debt that we would have issued as ref revenue bonds.

Um because instead that's saving they're still paying that full amount, but the amount that we're saving is going to streets.

Does that make sense?

Uh uh hopefully, hopefully.

Okay.

Uh and then it's tying about seven percent of the revenue that's going for street maintenance to debt, right?

Which is an issue because maintenance shouldn't be funded by people who are not receiving the benefit from it.

So because essentially they're paying essentially we're having people in the future pay for the maintenance that we're doing now, which for debt uh sorry, for construction makes sense.

You're trying to spread the cost of the new thing over the useful life of the asset, but for maintenance doesn't make it doesn't make sense.

That's why it's illegal to use debt um to fund maintenance.

We're not actually doing that because we're we're doing it with this savings thing, right?

So we're not using debt, but we're tying debt issuance to the maintenance revenue.

Okay.

I know it's I know it's confusing.

I might I might have to have stick figures or or something here to uh illustrate that.

Yeah.

Okay, and was there and was there a tax component in there?

So um, and then we also talked about the the city's debt burden is increasing by doing this basically, so uh by issuing the CO's instead of the revenue ball.

Okay, so there were two funding sources, not three.

I misunderstood.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Representative.

Thank you.

Um some of us have been here for a number of years, and as we've done these uh very street budgeting over the last, you know, I'll I'll just pick on counselor bird, myself, and the mayor.

Uh as we've if we we've we've heard about you know the needs of the the street department over years, and you know, we we were much heartened to hear about you know real more reliance on OCI and everything, and so I guess without um how did how did we get to the to the circumstance where we were uh where we find ourselves in your audit.

Do did your audit reveal any um that we we got to the current condition, and is that reflected in your recommendations for future um direction?

Um I'm not I'm not like interested in talking about individual staff or or philosoph, but more general public administration philosophy.

Okay without going into much detail, we got here because we had the wrong people doing it.

And um uh just to be real clear, Stephen only took this over about six months ago, and Cassie wasn't over it much before that.

Uh the person that was over this is no longer here, and so uh Cassie recognized some serious issues and asked for an audit.

And so basically this was poor management, poor oversight, and now we are recognizing we have a problem, and we've asked Madison to do an audit, which she's done a great job of.

And Cassie, uh we've had a meeting with uh Stephen and we're headed to take every one of these suggestions just like we did with animal services, put a plan to it and get it fixed.

But as you heard Cassie say, this was a mess, this was a mess.

It was a mess.

Uh I'm not sure any of the data that you received prior uh was completely accurate, if you want to know the truth.

I don't know that any of us could say that.

And so um we saw a problem and now we've got to fix it.

And so that it bad administration.

I I don't know how else to say it.

Well, ask her how far it goes back.

Yeah, can you tell us how far it goes back?

Well, it goes back from uh it it the person that was over this area is no longer here.

I'm not gonna throw the blame on anybody other than uh when you when you're doing things not completely the right way and you keep doing them that way, it always becomes that way.

If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.

What we were saying on OCI and everything's correct about looking at uh the OCI roads and then putting them in a system and having them priorized and all that.

I'm not sure that they were monitoring the data, they weren't staying on top of it.

The financial part of it wasn't being managed appropriately, the procurement wasn't being handled appropriately, so every aspect there were balls being dropped.

And so Cassie recognized it when it came under her, and uh, and Stephen has had it for six months, so no one really in this room is to blame.

But some changes had to be made.

We had to ask Madison to come in and give us a true audit.

It's not pretty, but we know now what we need to fix, how we need to find the people who need to do the right thing about the budgeting part of it, the procurement part of it.

It was not being handled right, period.

And it's been going on probably for three to four years.

Would you say that's right, Cassie?

Maybe longer.

Yeah, and and I think some of the issue, obviously, the management issue is part of the problem because they're not able to make the cases well for why they need more resources, right?

Because you should be able to say, well, you want us to have a 70 OCI, we can look at all of our data and say, well, to do that, we need this much more money to fund maintenance.

When you don't have those planning tools to understand what those projects will cost, you it's really difficult to make that case, right?

And when you're not procuring things correctly or uh handling the financial part of it right, uh, how do you say you need money when you can't when you're not showing how you're handling it?

And it's it's a it's a it was it's just like I said, it's ugly picture.

What Cassie says is absolutely true, and and we're gonna fix it just like we've done some other areas, but uh uh it needed to be exposed, and we like I said Cassie asked for this to be done, so you can see that we recognize there was a problem.

Right, but it's not unlike some other things that we've had to bring forward to you and just tell you the truth.

Yeah, and then and the long term when you're underfunding maintenance, it requires these larger investments and and um construction and reconstruction, right?

And that just costs way much a lot more money.

And so one of the issues, right, as you can see, we have all of these roads in the new and preventative, they're gonna start degrading, right?

And if we don't do maintenance, that we're gonna have to redo all of these roads in 20, 15 to 20 years with debt.

And that will be extremely challenging.

So that's one of the reasons we need to do more maintenance now, but we need to have the people in place to can actually do it and and accomplish it economically.

No, I I I appreciate that.

I think I think you've heard from a lot of us that we're and I'm only gonna speak for myself, but I I think there's a general trend across uh this council and and previous and probably next councils that we would like to see a shift from INS to MO for these kinds of maintenance activities.

And um I I the mayor and counselor Holland's point about concrete versus asphalt.

I I do think it's very uh important to bring in.

My understanding from past discussions from staff is that the annualized cost is cheaper with asphalt compared to concrete, so it's whether you you want to pay a lot forever, you know, kind of thing, or do you want to pay l medium amount annually?

And but I would I I strongly encourage staff to bring that forward and and you know throw some numbers at it so that that feel philosophically we can put that to bed.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Representative of district four.

Thank you.

Um my intention is not to offend anybody with this question.

But it seems to me that water, wastewater, that's big job.

That's a big big job.

And now you plug into that streets.

Is that too much of a lift?

Well, and Cassie can probably ask answer more, but there's a lot of economies of scale there when you're looking at drainage streets, water wastewater because of the utilities and running the lines and how you plan.

There was there is a person that's under, uh there was a person that was under Stephen that was supposed to have those expertise and things like that.

Um wasn't because that person was supposed to be ultimately responsible for this area.

Um that's something you're gonna have to answer, and Steven's gonna have to answer.

I think I think there's economies of scale here, and I think when you're looking at streets, particularly maintenance, not capital projects on the renewal of streets, you're looking at repairing of streets, you're gonna get into drainage.

You don't do anything with streets without looking at the drainage, don't do anything drainage without doing anything with streets.

That makes sense.

And so, but then you gotta figure out water wastewater, where water goes, how it's captured, how it goes out into the and drainage, uh the drainage of water when it rains or all the off the street and things like that.

So it does a lot of this is is economies of scale.

Now, is it too much?

I think that's where we're gonna have to address the issues of what we do uh to hire someone in a place that can specifically focus on streets and drainage.

Well, and if I if I may, um we really I saw an opportunity because we were lacking in coordination between the street drainage and then the water and wastewater crews.

So there was an opportunity to combine those and make sure that those crews were coordinated.

Um we were standardizing the entire process.

Um and Steven has done a fabulous job of elevating our water and wastewater operations, and I believe he's the right person to do that for streets and drainage.

Um if you recall, we did add an assistant general manager for water and wastewater.

So Dennis is here and helping on the water and wastewater side now with Steven.

And so we're trying to build that secession planning into the water and wastewater side while also addressing the streets uh and drainage uh issues.

Okay, okay.

That that makes sense, and as as I say, uh it just it's just two big big areas that well, and I think to just piggyback off what Cassie said a little bit, right?

You can see the right-of-way, water and and wastewater sewer, right, are all exactly where drainage is under the road.

And so that coordination piece, that's what everybody complains about, right?

Is well, why did you come tear up my road, put it back, and then come six months later and tear it up?

It's because all of those different drain, all those pipes under the road are were being managed by different people, and so I think that it should help with the coordination that it's all under one on one, but it is a big job, you're right for sure.

Thank you for the clarification.

Okay.

All right, drainage now.

Please.

All right.

All right.

Uh stormwater drainage systems are built to carry rainfall runoff and other drainage through underground pipes or ground level channels into local streams, rivers, and other surface water bodies to prevent flooding.

Stormwater consists of surface waters derived from rain and snowbelt.

And when land is undeveloped, most stormwater soaks into the soil and is naturally infiltrated before uh reaching streams and rivers.

However, land development creates impervious surfaces such as parking lots or roofs that cannot readily absorb stormwater that create and that creates a high volume of runoff that can cause flooding.

In addition uh to controlling stormwater flow, drainage systems are designed to capture water pollutants to prevent entrance into natural ecosystems, making the drainage system critical for public health and safety.

The city of Dent's drainage division is generally responsible for the maintenance of drainage system assets, including inlets, pipes, outlets, and channels.

However, basin assets are maintained by the watershed division of the of environmental services and the park main and the and the parks maintenance division of parks and recreation.

While an asset management system has been implemented for drainage, the system does not have a complete inventory uh of drainage assets and a systematic process to identify uh and add missing assets to the system has not been developed.

Further, while drainage management indicated that the division routinely inspects four asset types, only one 2024 inspection was identified for 400 randomly selected assets.

Further, uh only about 17% of those sampled assets showed any record of inspection since the system was implemented in 2019, as outlined in the table on the slide.

Additionally, until uh 2024, pipe assets had never been inspected due to resource limitations uh since February of 2024.

The city has inspected almost 230,000 linear feet of pipe, which is automatically rated using an industry standard coding system to assess a likely to fail score based on the observed defects.

As of the end of June of 2025, about 61% of those pipes were scored as likely to fail, as shown in the figure on the slide.

Though it should be noted that a significant portion of pipe, like 85% have not yet been inspected.

This issue is further complicated by 17% of new or preventative conditioned street lane miles having drainage pipes with high or critical risk of failure within 50 feet of them because cutting into the road, as we kind of discussed earlier will uh degrade that asset that we've just put down.

The city has formally adopted some drainage service level goals due to regulatory requirements.

In particular, Denton has developed a stormwater management plan as required by the state of Texas, which outlines the goals, strategies, and programs used to improve water quality, address existing and future conflicts with flooding and development, and preserve and enhance valuable natural resources.

While some current permit requirements are met, some are not clearly met.

So, for example, while street sweeping is performed as required by the permit, city-owned drainage infrastructure does not appear to be routinely expect uh inspected as previously discussed.

Based on these findings, we recommended that the drainage division systematically inventory and monitor drainage assets and develop service level goals to inform maintenance prioritization, planning, and funding.

The division agreed with these recommendations and is working to formalize needed SOPs, capital improvement plan, and service level goals.

So, next I'll cover drainage maintenance planning and work performance.

Due to incomplete asset information and limited inspections, the drainage division uh does not develop an annual work plan that ties available funding to workload targets.

Instead, work is primarily reactive, with the exception of street sweeping, hindering the division's ability to optimize resource usage and increasing the risk of flooding.

The division has developed a street sweeping program, but no standard operating procedures, policies, expectations, or other performance metrics have been established.

While regular street sweeping routes have been created, they're not proactively adjusted based on network additions, seasons, or debris amounts as recommended by best practices.

In addition, uh storm checks are an emergency preparedness activity that involves uh visually inspecting high-risk drainage assets to identify and remove debris before storms to help prevent flooding.

The drainage division does perform storm checks, and a storm response plan exists.

However, uh review found that the plan was outdated and staff reported that it's not currently being followed.

As illustrated in the figure, storm checks are generally performed during rainier periods, but about 50% of storm checks occurred during months with zero high-risk flood days, indicating a more formalized approach would better optimize resource usage.

Based on these findings, we recommended that the division develop performance standards for drainage asset inspections, cleanings, repairs, and storm checks.

Based on their responses, the division will implement standard operating procedures for these activities and that so and then next I'll discuss drainage maintenance funding structure.

So in 2002, the city council created a drainage user fee that is charged to utility customers monthly based on the impervious surface area of each land parcel, unless they do not use the drainage system.

This structure is generally fair as it aligns with uh it aligns the charge with a customer's impact on the drainage system.

However, revenues from this fee are accounted for in the city's wastewater fund, but are used by the drainage division of the public works department and the watershed protection division of environmental services.

Accounting for drainage infrastructure in the wastewater fund limits visibility of revenues and expenses, increasing the risk that funding is insufficient and hinders the city's ability to intentionally save money for drainage infrastructure needs by tying available funding to the wastewater department's fund balance.

In addition to these structural issues, drainage fee rates have not been updated since they were created over 20 years ago, despite cost increases and additional service needs required by regulatory changes.

Best practices suggest that fees should be updated every three to five years for reference.

Due to inadequate rate changes, it is likely that revenues are not adequate to meet service level goals, though it should be noted that relevant service level goals have not been completely formally established to definitively make that determination.

Still, for comparison, the city spends over double the amount of money on similar wastewater collection system maintenance and repairs.

It should be noted that in uh 2025, the city did begin a cost of service study for public works that includes drainage maintenance and the drainage fee.

Lastly, the city of Denton charges uh a drainage fee to about 40,000 utility accounts.

However, there are about 7600 accounts that are not currently being charged a fee.

No guidance for how to determine if a drainage fee should be charged or how it should be calculated exists for customer service staff, uh complicating the billing process.

Based on review, uh only 570 of those uh 7600 accounts with the fee were clearly exempt by state law or city ordinance.

Further, about 2200 accounts were determined to be at high risk of being charged of not being charged inappropriately, and so should be reviewed as soon as possible to determine if a fee should be applied.

In addition, about a hundred of the accounts with no drainage fee were associated with Denton County, DCTA, and DISD, which are not exempt from the fee by state law or city ordinance.

Uh, while these accounts likely should be charged for drainage services and have a significant impact on the drainage system.

In 2003, um, those entities were refunded over 200,000 by the city.

Based on these findings, we recommended uh that public works improve drainage fund transparency and increase revenue by establishing an independent drainage utility uh and accounting for revenue and an independent fund, updating the drainage fee to ensure needs are met based on service level goals, establishing guidance for calculating the drainage fee and reviewing the accounts that are not currently being billed uh based on risk.

Staff has agreed with these recommendations, however, fund structured rate decisions are ultimately made by the city council.

And then uh in addition, quick couple of things.

We found that contractor management practices for both streets and drainage division uh should be revised to ensure the city is only paying for quality services, uh quality services at the agreed upon rates, and that additional details about public works projects could be provided to the public.

There are additional details about these issues available in the report, but I was trying to be short.

So, in summary, we issued 25 recommendations, all of which the departments uh either agreed or partially agreed with.

And based on that response, we believe the identified risks will be appropriately addressed and plan to perform an initial follow-up review in fiscal year 2027, unless council would like us to perform one sooner.

Okay, thank you.

Drainage free fee questions and and again if we can dive straight into questions.

Representative uh our mayor pro tip.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just want to give really brief love to drainage.

We don't think about it until it's in our face and it's unpleasant.

Um, so I asked uh sort of what happens when this drainage fails.

So it's everything we've looked at so far, 61% are likely to fail.

Um so I asked what does that look like?

And it can cause faster roadway deterioration, so that increased costs and poor quality roads.

It can increase the cost of flooding.

We don't think about it until all of our you know, vehicles have been flooded and now they're we have to replace the vehicles, our homes have flooded, you know, that's a high expense for us.

Um, and then it impacts the stability of other ground utility lines.

So just want to verbally make sure that we've um covered that.

And then I just want to say thank you for doing the audit.

Thanks for those who requested the audit.

Um, it might not be pretty, but that's how we make things better.

Um, so I appreciate that transparency.

I think the community is going to appreciate that transparency and the commitment to work on it and make things better.

Um page 14 item six of the audit, one of the recommendations was to formalize an annual work plan based on street service level goals, an estimated project cost information.

Uh, the service level goes goals should be formalized or reaffirmed at least annually in the work plan.

Um, on that, I would just request that we include the cost associated with each server service level option.

So it's really clear to the average taxpayer how much it's going to cost to do those different service levels.

Um, I'd like to see us try to work on being really clear when we say we're going to provide the service or provide the service at this level.

This is what it's going to cost you.

So later on, if there is a fee increase or some sort of increase, we can point back to that and say, hey, this is why that happened.

We, as you know, as a city, you know, we said it was going to cost us much, so here it is.

Or if we choose a lower cost, you know, when the street starts failing, or what's wrong with our streets.

Well, we that was what we decided to do.

You know, we didn't want to pay that higher cost.

So I think creating more transparency and just clarity, I think, for taxpayers to understand, hey, this is what we were willing to pay for, this is what we get, or this is what we wanted, and this so we have to pay for it now.

And just making that a very, very clear line.

Um I think I just have one more thing.

Um, and also as we're sort of looking at some of these things, I would really like to see us, you know, look at and consider and discuss what the options are to generate more funding without you know to make more efficient use of the existing infrastructure.

So, you know, we're basically getting help paying for it.

It's not just increases to existing residents and businesses, but we're making better use of the existing infrastructure without necessarily adding a whole bunch more that now we have to pay to maintain.

Um, so I'd like to that be to be part of the discussion as we move forward as well.

Thank you again for all your work and for the clarity, and I'm just very grateful that we have a city auditor so we can you know really dig into the details like this.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Representative from District 2.

Thank you.

And I'm gonna I'm gonna jump right on that.

That's uh the I I am so thankful that we have uh I mean I know a lot of cities have auditors, but um our auditor in particular Madison is is really identified a number of of issues in my time in council that will ultimately end up um making the city cheaper and more transparent.

So I I really uh thankful that and to Cassie for asking for that.

Um and to also fall on for Mayor Pro Tem, uh and I don't know if this is a ma Madison question or or Steven question or Cassie question, but um as we are as we've identified that we don't have we have inadequate master plans for drainage and streets, and that the recommendation was to create those with appropriate funding mechanisms and appropriate cost structures.

Um as we do that one of your comments earlier was well, we're we're giving 200,000 back to some of the other government agencies in terms of like re-re refunding finances, and that's an example of a missed opportunity cost.

So I would love to see it if we could and I um what failure to implement some of these things will result on.

I think that's a similar sort of sentiment as Mayor Pro Tem's.

Um, what are these long-term costs and and what does it cost us in terms of you know economic development impact, you know, resource uh lifetimes, that sort of thing.

And so that that's just a request for that sort of budgeting level.

And I guess my question is it's similar to my other question, the other utilities is the budget that we're seeing for streets includes the old estimates for with the way we were doing it before before your recommendations, but this seems like it's particularly urgent.

Um items are verging on egregious, and so how are we adjusting the budget for the 2526 in light of these more urgent priorities?

And that's probably it doesn't sound like it's a Madison question, but I I do know that um for streets, they are they are starting to try to budget um based on the service level goals that was set by council the 70 based on a consultant report that was provided a few years ago.

Um so they're they are starting to do that for drainage.

I think Cassie might want to talk about it, but I think they're they didn't want to change the rates this year because they wanted to finish the cost of services.

Yeah, but do you want to add anything?

Okay.

No, I I anticipate that, but it it sounds like from your preliminary findings, there's going to be some low-hanging fruit.

And I guess I will make the same sort of comment that I did earlier is to the extent that we can right size this earlier rather than waiting a year because again, today dollars are cheaper than tomorrow dollars.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions?

Um other questions?

Okay, uh, let's see.

So in the earlier portion, I wanted to ask when you when you come back in that evaluation.

Another thing I'd love to see is um accounting for streets that are conveyed to us.

So they come online, they're new, so we don't build them, but the maintenance and do we prioritize those no, just kind of what your thoughts are on how to maintain those.

Uh but then also maybe, and this is for staff more than auditor, maybe a graphic that are just uh bullets, how to how do streets come online because we can developer can build them, we then they're conveyed over, we build them, just all the different ways that those can come into our network would be interesting to see.

Um, but more on this on obviously I had my other question.

I don't want to belabor the point here.

Uh we have a vote tonight uh on the wastewater impact fees.

So I just want to narrow it down to say does this affect that, right?

Does the number does the cost of whatever management dollars here affect how much we have in wastewater fund, and does that affect the impact fees or no?

That's my my understanding is that because we had a consultant come in and look at the cost of service, they should have taken out the cost of drainage, even though they are intermingled in that fund.

So they should not, but it does make it less right.

It shouldn't, they should not be.

But it it should improve visibility to have them separated out and make it less confusing in the future.

Okay.

So I I I take your point there, but so for example, using your example that you found, the 270,000.

Put a pin in that I would love to know those amounts and how they were given back because uh anything that was given back that's of some number should come to us.

And maybe it did, maybe it didn't, but just I want to I want to understand the refund mechanism, checks and balances on that, what comes to council, what doesn't.

That's separate and apart from this conversation, but I want to know that's something to follow up on.

Uh I don't want someone just independently firing off checks.

Yeah, I I don't believe that that came to council, but I it might have been because they went to separate entities, so that that's the total number.

Yes.

So but I agree with you.

Yeah, so I just want to know what that number is, because if it depends on the number of entities by math, it gets above like whatever the city managers authorized, like 50,000, okay.

That should go both ways.

Yeah.

Like she can authorize a reef refund or 50,000, but above that's got to come to count something.

There needs to be some kind of clear I agree.

Yeah.

So but the but but before so the two the 270K, let's use that.

Okay.

Where would that go if it wasn't refunded?

What which fund would they go to?

It would be in wastewater accounted for under drainage fees.

Okay.

So that's not eligible to be considered when we weigh how much money we have for projects for that would be associated with impact fees.

Am I tracking right?

Correct.

Yeah, it's not, it's two separate things.

It's two separate things.

Perfect.

Okay.

That answered my question.

Um the other um other question I'd have for you when you follow up is your guidance and insight on areas around like campus, like TWU, UNT.

Obviously, we're not gonna have a lot of sales tax around there.

Any new growth is not gonna be taxed.

How do we maintain those streets?

Uh obviously we have brand new streets going in around UNT.

Uh, and so it's how do we best practices on those areas that aren't going to have a if they're gonna have growth, it's not gonna contribute to the budget as far as that line, it contributes to the budget certainly, but not directly in in property tax.

And and we're not gonna have a lot of new development in those areas that are gonna be on the tax rolls, how guidance on how do we um you know make sure we have a good mix of funding understanding those areas may be shorter, other areas maybe have surpluses.

What's a good mix?

So uh I just take some direction there.

Okay.

All right.

Uh okay.

So sorry, yes, please.

So so how it happened, don't know, but it did that those refunds came to council for approval.

Council approved it, but we shouldn't have brought it to you.

So that's the crux is we should never have brought it to you for for reimbursement because it shouldn't have been it shouldn't have been reimbursed, but that's how it happened, but shouldn't happen.

Yeah, so uh but my my follow-up question is that so there is a policy already on the books that says if a refund is coming forward, okay.

Yeah, especially if it's above my level.

Right.

Okay, good.

Um other questions?

Great.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Uh that takes us to our last work session before closed, and that's ID 251059 receive a report hold discussion, give staff direction regarding updates to Hickory Street backend parking.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council members.

Uh for Hanbutt, Deputy Director of Transportation Services Division.

I'm here to present uh audit uh findings uh for East Hickory Street back in parking.

Uh the audit initiated um uh in response to council member Holland's uh two-minute pitch um that uh aimed to explore the options of converting East Tree back in parking to traditional front-end parking.

Back in parking along Hickory Street, uh was a part of uh the Hickory Grand Street uh Capital Project, a part of uh the 2012 bond uh program that spanned from downtown to Luca Street, uh uh downtown A train station to Locust Street.

Uh the project uh cost was uh the budget was uh about uh uh 3.2 million dollars.

And back then the staff presented to the council with the benefits of different options of back end parking on Hickory Street and then other traffic operational benefits and elements that were included in this project.

Some of the advantages of back-end parking includes the drivers that they have an eye to eye line of sight with the approaching road users.

And then also the drivers can pull directly into the travel lane rather than backing out.

Some of the disadvantages include uncommonness and unfamiliarity with the format with the format of this type of parking and also difficulty in backing up into a space if the car behind follows too closely.

Both ISRs recommended continuing enhancing enforcement of backend parking on Hickory Street.

Staff also looked at uh 10 years crash data.

The source of this crash data was crash, you know, this crash reporting information system from uh Text Tot.

And uh the data essentially uh uh provided uh some context on how the minor injuries and uh uh serious injury uh crash records are.

And uh when it comes to serious injuries, the crash there were no uh crash records, basically zero serious injury accidents from starting from 2019 to 2024.

And on minor injury as well, the curve was flat and it did not uh there was no increase or decrease.

Actually, you know, there were minimal number of minor injury accidents as well in last three years.

Given the audit findings and uh and looking at the crash data, uh staff presented three uh potential solutions.

Um the first solution hinges on uh enhancing the uh parking back end parking enforcement, and that that way we can curb the parking violations.

There are three elements to that.

Uh first is that we could improve additional, we could provide some additional signs and striping enhancements, and that could be covered in the existing budget and funding is available.

And then we could also uh look into enhanced parking enforcement, but that is tied to budget limitations uh because we would need additional resources.

Police department would need additional reforcement uh resources when it comes to enforcement.

And um staff also recommends as part of this solution that we look into recommendations and findings of uh the city ongoing citywide parking study uh for further actions.

The second solution looks into converting the back end parking into conventional traditional uh front end parking, uh, but that the estimated cost for that would exceed 3.5 million dollars, and staff has provided exhibit three as part of the material that provides information on takeoffs and estimates.

The third uh solution uh looks into converting uh East Hickory Street into a one-way couplet where uh East Hickory uh would uh join the uh East Oak and then uh complete the couplet that could go in east or west direction.

But for that reconfiguration, the cost could exceed five million dollars, and then of course we'll have to do staff will have to do corridor impact assessment and and uh public engagement process to ensure that uh businesses in this area are um are uh in alignment.

The ISRs were also the ISR was also reviewed by the mobility committee, and uh after the discussion um uh the you know it resulted in two in a vote of three to two with the recommendation three recommendations.

Uh first was to consider converting Hickory Street back in parking to front-end parking, and also send this recommendation to council uh for further consideration.

And uh also if we align with the uh this uh reconfiguration or or converting the back-end parking to front-end, that should align with 2027 budget uh and in light of staff recommendations.

Parking enforcement uh when we talk about that, it is clear based on our audit and also based on the existing situation that it would require additional staff resources, and then we may also look into technology deployment uh for enforcement purposes, but that we are waiting on uh citywide parking recommendations uh and and we can further expand on that.

Capital improvements would require infrastructure implementations, and that is part of the cost estimates that have been provided in in um solution number two.

Staff recommends maintaining the existing parking configuration while we are well while awaiting the recommendations for the of the citywide parking study.

Okay, questions for Sarah.

Mayor Portel.

One of their biggest reasons for being in favor of it was um the back-end parking option provided at least 21, maybe 30 through up to 33 more spaces than the front end.

And I think um it seemed like everybody was very eager to add as many uh parking spaces as possible.

Um, but then also the safety component.

Uh did you look at um whether going front end, but you said perpendicular.

Did you mean like front-end angled?

Perpendicular is front end.

Okay.

Just slanting.

They won't be angled, it will be just perpendicular parking.

And there's room for that?

We'll have to reconfigure and hence 3.2 million dollars estimate.

Um so that may I so that's unclear that'll impact to the total number of spaces.

Did you all look at the phone?

It will, it may.

And uh and uh that's correct.

We the previous ISR and uh previous information that staff uh researched uh also provided the information that it was looked at.

This uh back-end parking was looked at as a uh complete street solution, which uh from a conventional street which emphasizes on um uh reducing the travel time of autos, complete streets typically look at all modes and service all modes of travel, including pedestrian, bicyclist, and uh micro mobility users and others.

So this back-end parking was um designed to be a part of complete street solution.

Right.

Um so on the the options that we have, um you know, I any time that we're making an investment this large, I I would want to see some sort of anticipated increase in tax revenue, sales tax revenue, you know, property tax or safety, you know, some some sort of added benefit that's maybe not there already.

Um I'm concerned about the idea of I I think when we built this the first time it was the businesses were under a lot of strain during the construction.

Um I heard about how some of that went.

Um a little concerned about uh adding construction to the businesses, probably for months is how long that would take.

Um for what's unclear to be a financial or safety benefit, so it'll probably reduce some confusion and some frustration.

I I would say it probably would.

Um but in terms of economic or or safety benefits, um I'm I'm not seeing a clear uh benefit in that regard to do this.

Um or it doesn't it doesn't really help the pedestrian environment and those are the folks that are going in and spending the money at the businesses.

Um I think there's a lot of streets where this amount of money could actually increase investment in that area, so maybe the other part of Hickory Street, something like that.

Um I did have another thought.

Um and I I'm definitely not for the one-way, it just it especially for visitors, it makes it really hard to navigate.

Oh, and then I think my final thought was um, you know, there are a lot of spaces nearby that are not back end that are along Hickory Street.

And my experience has been when those lots are full, so are all of the hickory spots as well.

Um so I'm if anything, it'll either be the I guess the same number of parking spots, maybe fewer.

We're I guess we're not even sure if we're losing parking spots by changing this.

We are not sure before we do some feasibility study.

Yeah.

But uh we may retain the same number of spots.

Yeah.

But uh added safety there um as the data shows, crash data shows, um, there would not be significant safety advantages.

Uh but when it comes to enforcement, staff is waiting on citywide parking study outcome.

And if we enhance enforcement uh with the use of technology in phases, we don't have to do it overnight, but we can do it in phases, uh, starting from downtown as a and and and uh in and uh add some improvements to signages and striping, uh we could uh resolve uh most of the issues there.

Right.

Um so I mean at I think at this point in time, like I think if the sh the street was ready to be reconstructed, that would be a good time to maybe look at changing it up.

Um unfortunately, concrete lasts longer than asphalt.

So it's gonna be a while, but um, you know, when when there's time for like a larger project to happen, that might be a good time to consider kind of moving it at this time.

I I don't feel comfortable spending that much money um for what doesn't appear to be economic benefit um uh or safety benefit.

It's either neutral or maybe slightly less safe.

We really don't know, but there's just no no big change there.

So I would I would be inclined to see if we can find a way to enforce it a little bit better.

Thank you.

Okay, anyone else?

Representative district two thank you.

Yeah, so I'm I'm hearing if I summarize that there's there's m modest uh to no improvements in safety, uh maybe maybe possibly disimprovements, maybe possibly loss in spots.

Um so uh to a to a price tag of 3.5 million dollars.

And and one of the uh arguments could be made that um front-end parking might improve economic development, but and I'll ask this in the form of a question.

But my my experience has been that the economic uh vitality of that segment of hickory has improved.

I know it's not really your area, your is transportation, but uh have we experienced any loss of uh uh economic development in in these segments?

Staff is not sure about this.

Uh we could we'll have to circle back to economic development department, but from the standpoint of business activity, uh yes, if we start a construction project there, it will impact businesses.

And then um versus uh if we have uh front-end or back end parking, um, how significant uh the impact would be yet to be seen after conversion, we could only define that.

But uh uh staff um assumes that you know once we have uh uh uh uh findings from citywide parking, then we'll have a uh rather clear picture on what improvements could be done and in phases and maybe some economic development side of it as well.

So uh no, I I appreciate that.

I I I guess in in light of you know that that's sort of um uh you know unclear to again, you know, um not negative.

I know those are double negatives.

Uh I'm I'm gonna recommend uh staff's recommendation of uh don't change the configuration okay.

Anyone else?

Representative from district four.

The uh technology department at District 4 has spared every expense on this chart.

Um we talked just a minute before before the meeting.

Would you would you tell me that this this needs to be a pair of triangle instead of a square or a recto uh what is that shape?

Rectangular.

Right uh in a way, if you complete that so rapozoid, is that right?

Yeah, is that right?

Is that right here?

It needs the third dimension above.

Okay, so it ought to be that way.

Okay.

Why couldn't why couldn't all of this angle be made this way and all of these spots because this area right in here doesn't need to change.

And and this this angle goes this way.

It's the same space.

We just cut off the cut off the ends.

The center, the center seems to me doesn't affect it.

Yeah, so then restriping is another question because it's right now head angle.

And then there are other steps that would come up if you had an opportunity to look at the takeoffs and estimates that staff provided.

We'll have to look at signages, we'll have to look at any CIP related capital uh improvement related um uh costs.

Uh all of those in a way are unknown until we hit and see that there's some utility lines or there's some other other things that we'll have to uh be careful about.

I've got I've got a couple of other thoughts uh about this.

Um that we're doing here is justifying a bad idea.

It's just a bad idea, and and we're gonna come up with all these reasons that this is not such a bad idea, but ultimately it's simply a bad idea.

Uh there's been zero demand around town.

Let's have some more back end parking.

Not one person has said that.

Not one person.

And I've done a very, very unscientific study around East Hickory Street asking merchants and pedestrians and and motorists about the back end parking.

Not one person told me they like it.

Gosh, we wish you'd change that.

Uh it confuses the drivers.

That's the that's the first point you made.

And and all of this, the genesis of all this was an experience that I had on St.

Patrick's Day in front of Wells Fargo Bank.

And and the young man that was upset with me because I was gonna back in, he didn't understand.

And he got right on my bumper and I couldn't back up, so I stopped.

Anyway, we hadn't we had an unpleasant exchange, and I'm okay with that.

But but if my if my mom or my grandmother had been there and and they would have had that that exchange, I'd have been very, very upset about that.

And that creates tension, and and and we demonstrated just recently that we don't need any more tension around there.

Um the police will not enforce this.

They will not.

We've demonstrated that.

They know where it is, they know the problems, they will not enforce it.

And if you drive by there any time, day or night, I'd I will bet you 50 percent of the cars are parked incorrectly.

Um as far as the crash data, we're dealing with slow speeds, so there's gonna be very, very little chance of of people getting hurt.

Um, and back to my first point, it's it's a bad idea.

It's it's it's goofy.

You have to explain it to everybody.

It's just it's just unnatural.

And all of the advantages of backing of driving out of your parking, it's the same thing.

Oh, it's only backwards.

Now, having said that, and it's a bad idea, I can't spend three million dollars on it.

So I just shot myself in the foot.

Okay.

But may did I say it's a bad idea?

Did I did I mention it's a bad idea?

It's a it's a bad idea.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr.

Butt.

Anyone else?

Representative District One Um I am going to uh go with the staff's recommendation.

Uh I was one of the three that uh voted on the mobility committee.

Um, but I was really, really wanting to uh for us to have a deeper dive into this conversation, you know, at this level.

So uh, you know, yeah, it was a bad idea.

Uh and I certainly do appreciate you all coming back with us with some alternatives uh to that three million dollars.

I certainly do think that we can put it somewhere else, you know.

Probably more useful than that.

We'll just have to be careful.

Anyone represent from District 6?

Uh, just quickly, uh, Councilperson Jester.

Um I I think we have the direction, we have the majority of council, but um I wanted to say just a quick thank you to Councilperson Holland for bringing something to the table that you were hearing from our constituents and um you know had concerns, and I certainly appreciate all the time and effort that was put into putting together this very detailed uh uh packet of information for us to dig in and see what it would really cost.

Uh I'm I'm uh with the consensus that at this time it is not the time to spend uh this amount of money uh that also is has a component of the unknown uh before we actually bid out before we actually go and buy the new signs, things like that.

So um I just want to say thank you to everyone uh involved, and uh I I also will go with staff's recommendation and thank you for hunting.

Thanks.

Okay.

Then um just so I look like a person of the people, I'm gonna say I would recommend we spend the whole five million.

No, I'm just gonna I'm I'm willing to stand with the people.

That's just the type of guy I am.

No, no.

Uh no, um this technology is available to all of us.

It's available to all of them.

So no, I I I I do I too appreciate the conversation and staff's analysis of it.

Um I will say from memory, I wasn't on council, but I think the difference is when they originally looked at it, and the comparison was Austin.

When you travel Austin streets and have back end parking, they have the curb in the middle.

And we don't have the curb uh in the middle, and that's the difference.

And so I I think that was just a miss in their evaluation of it.

Uh, and I think we'll have the right development project at some point in the future that'll pay for it and and wipe out, wipe it all out on that at least on one side of the street where we have maybe we come up with a parking garage or there's some solution in the future that'll hopefully uh help fund wiping that out.

Uh and then, but in the in the short term, as that money is coming around for whatever development, I have two suggestions.

One, we take all down down all the signs that say no texting and driving because we don't enforce that, melt that metal and sell it for money.

Uh and then also the I would I would uh if Norman Roscoe and the Polito family are listening to me.

Let's create a shirt that says back end parking, but the parking the car is parked forward and it's and it's uh and it has denton taxes on it, and those funds can then be go to your favorite nonprofit or whatever.

But that's a free idea, but it would say back end parking, Denton Texas, and a car facing the wrong way.

Uh I think they'll that would sell.

Uh so um, yeah, uh, it's it's frustrating, no doubt, but yeah, the the the the ends don't mean justify the means.

Uh so thank you again for the data and those sort of things.

So thank you very much, great presentation.

Um that will so we're gonna take a break, but let's take in the closed session and then we'll set the room and come back for our two closed session items.

Uh so let's see, the city of Denton will now at 6.33 p.m.

re convene and close meeting to deliberate closed meeting items, set forth an agenda, which include the following item A, ID 25120 consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071, and B ID 251514 consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071.

And let's take uh 15-ish minutes to grab food, come back in here and we'll take those up uh while we said 6 30.

Did you mean 453?

Oh no, the timing, yeah, the time uh six minutes left on so thank you for the correction.

Yeah, so it's 453.

Thank you.

Hey, thank you.

Good evening.

And uh the council has now at 6 30 p.m.

reconvened from closed session, and no official action was taken.

And that takes us to our evening's agenda.

And it is now 6 30.

It's August the 19th, 2025.

We do have a quorum, so I'll call the meeting to order first thing on the agenda.

Uh pledges to the United States and Texas flag.

Please stand with me if you're able.

Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Honor the Texas flag.

I pledge allegiance to the Texas.

One state under God, one and indivisible.

Okay.

And we don't have any proclamations.

If we could play the video on the dressing council.

The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure, including a code of conduct that applies to the public as well as council members.

These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum.

Speakers will have four minutes to give a scheduled report and four minutes to give an open mic report.

A bell will ring when time has expired.

If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the speaker will be asked to stop speaking.

If the speaker does not cease and a second request is made, the mayor may request to have the speaker removed from the chamber.

Speakers should not approach the dais.

If a speaker has materials for the council, please notify the city secretary in advance.

For scheduled reports, the council may initiate discussion or ask questions.

For non-scheduled open mic reports, the council may listen.

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 prohibits discussion or decision by the council on non-scheduled items.

As a result, the council may only proceed as follows on non-scheduled items.

Propose to place the item on a future agenda.

Make a statement of factual policy or a recitation of existing policy.

Speakers 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 the council rules of procedure may be immediately removed from the chamber.

Thank you in advance.

Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary.

Thank you.

We have one speaker.

It is Mr.

Lee.

If you can come up and you can adjust the mic accordingly, and you can give your name and you'll have four minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Recently I had uh Mayor.

Oh, can you give me your name?

I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah.

If you can give your name first.

Oh, I'm I'm so sorry.

My name is Lee Enox.

I'm a resident of Denton and a graduate of UNT.

Gold Mean Green.

Okay.

All right.

Recently I had Mayor Hudsbith on my podcast for KT Radio.

And I want to thank you for coming on our show and for all your great work here in the city.

I just wanted to bring a couple things to your folks' attention uh regarding homeless here in Denton.

Recently, um, as a bicycle enthusiast, I'm a major bike rider.

I uh went to Princeton and rode 15,000 miles during my three years at Princeton.

Um and haven't rolled that much since I've been here, but I wrote a ride a lot.

And I'm on the Katie bike trail one uh twilight evening, and I almost hit a homeless person near Brinker Street, a person sleeping on a on a Katie bike trail, and they were sleeping with their pit bull.

And I noticed that there were during that trip several homeless little encampments, little sleeping in crevices and stuff, and and I've taken several trips up that way since and seen similar things.

And I want to bring that to your attention.

Um recently at uh the family dollar at um Maple Street, 100 Maple Street, a little homeless encampment has developed in the on the in front of that establishment when I went to speak to the this is two blocks from my house, speak to the manager, she said, yes, we're now allowing this homeless individual to live there.

And I asked her, so where are they going to use the uh the amenities uh, you know, the restroom?

She had no answer.

I just didn't think that was the proper place for a homeless person.

Now I has come to my attention that homeless people are um have their services been cut at our daily bread, and I would just bring that to your attention.

I don't know what the answer is, Mayor.

Um and my you know honorable uh council members, but little pockets of homelessness are rising, or encampments um are sprouting up in Denton.

Um I talked to Officer Hill about it.

I guess he's um really into what's going on with the homeless here in the city, and he did confirm what has been told to me by a couple different police officers that other cities are putting homeless people on train, on the train on the on the train that comes here to Denton and giving a one-way trip to here due to perceived um leniency of the city towards homeless.

I am not in any way disparaging the homeless, and I want them to get all the uh care that they can get, but I don't think allowing them to encamp in front of family dollar and other places is the answer.

And if it is true that there needs to be more money allocated towards the homeless here in Denton, I'll leave that to you uh to to address.

But I just wanted to bring this to your attention.

I've never done this before, but I felt compelled by conscience and probably inspired by the mayor coming on my podcast to do something to stand up.

My friend said, Don't do that.

They're not gonna listen to you.

But I felt like, you know what, maybe something could happen in uh and the homeless could be cared for in a city in a more um proper way, if that's if I can say that.

So that's all I want to say.

Yeah, no, and and I I will say just kind of thank you for your time.

And and so just so you know, the city of Denton does does have a you can't camp in in those areas, and and we're addressing those concerns where people are camping or laying in areas.

We we do uh have a prohibition on those things, and we have in many ways enhanced the shelter, the hours have changed, certainly, but we have everyone there gets wraparound services now.

Before we didn't have that capacity, so I think it's a round numbers 120 people are able to get wrap around services, and and that is our focus to make sure we get them the service they need to help them uh get back on their feet.

And then if you didn't know, we have a ready for work program where we're now putting people to work.

They go through a program, go through training, and we we have them working at the landfill at the animal shelter, and some in the auto mechanic shop.

So we're we're trying to do all things uh we can to help those that need a hand up, uh, get a hand up.

So uh, but as you see things, please.

The 311s, the the number for everything.

If you see issues, and thank you for bringing that to our attention.

We would address that.

Uh so please continue to help us hold us accountable to to make sure we do what we say we're gonna do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Um next speaker is Dan Berman.

Uh Burnham.

There we go.

If you can give your name, you'll have four minutes.

Thank you for having me here.

My name is Dan Burnham, uh, homeowner here in the city of Denton for about 35 years.

Uh I've come here to address, I've understand that ICE has come to our city and requesting discussions on 287 G.

Um, some people might want to discuss how this can affect local businesses.

Some people may want to discuss what portions of the program are unfunded or funded.

Uh I'm afraid I'm just here to express my moral outrage.

Uh, I believe that at least three of our council members have already spoken out against uh working with ICE on this.

I understand ICE is a government, official government agency, but I do not want to see my city, I do not want to see my police department cooperate with this organization in any form or fashion.

Um a year ago to compare ICE to uh Hitler's Gestapo, I would have thought was hyperbull, but after what we have seen in recent months on national TV, that's no longer the case.

And Germany, the people of Germany, the city governments, they just wanted to be in compliance with and cooperate with their government.

But we saw how that turned out.

Simple compliance is not always the best most high moral ground, nor even the most effective for taking care of your citizens.

ICE has nothing to do with protecting me or the other citizens of the city of Denton.

Unfortunately, they're not even totally about deportation.

We've got deportation centers stretched all across the country that are full, they're maxed out, they're overloaded, and the people are not even, they're not even having success in deporting these people.

God, every FBI, every agency cramming people in there, but we can't get them successfully deported.

Is that because of the incompetency of the administration?

Possibly so, but a great deal of it is because these detention centers are profit centers.

Okay, they make money on the heads of every single individual that is in there.

I don't know what is more uh it just outrages me.

I I don't want to see our city participating in that and those of you uh block walk for you several times, sir, and I thank you very much for speaking out against this issue.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Terry Nobles.

If you can come down and give your name, you have four minutes.

Good evening.

My name is Terry Nobles, and I'm a longtime volunteer in the city of Denton in various organizations, mostly art organizations.

I am a 19-year board member of the Denton Festival Foundation, which puts on the Denton Arts and Jazz Festival.

We have recently received information that the city has some budgetary difficulties and that their cooperation with us as they have been wonderful in the past.

We have built a fantastic festival that's known far and wide.

It's even been written up in the New York Times.

And we've been doing this for almost 40 years.

It is a quality of life issue here.

It is a tradition in our city.

And we certainly appreciate the city helping us build this festival.

But what's come to our attention this year is that we are potentially going to have to raise an additional 238,000 dollars to put on the festival, which normally this would have been assistance from the city.

Our budget that we raise every year, we are a not 501c3 nonprofit.

Our budget we raise every year is a half million dollars.

So to add almost half again, as much to that budget is a is an economic hardship.

So I'm mainly here to just promote the the city and all of our wonderful activities here.

I my kids are grown up going to the Denton Arts and Jazz Festival, and I just think it's something that we need to continue.

So all I'm asking for is just consideration in your budgetary meetings when it comes to this, and any assistance you can give us will be most appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Uh that concludes the public speakers.

Takes us to a consent agenda.

I'll take a motion for the consent agenda board but for item F.

Representative from District 2.

I move approval of the consent agenda accepting item F.

Representative from District 4.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any discussion?

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

Passes 7-0.

Takes us to item F.

Consider a nomination re uh and reappointment to the City City of Denton Planning and Zoning Commission.

And um I pull that if can staff help me put this on the I didn't get it to you in time.

So can you can you place that on the uh document camera, please and thank you.

And you may have to pan out a little bit.

I I just while it's doing it.

I just want to make a uh have it clearly understood.

I understand the seriousness of board service and the new initiative to make sure we uh allow people to serve and I take that very serious.

In this instance, though, this is a this is this is not the exhaustive list.

This is just what would what was provided since the last time we talked about this nominee who is the CEO of the housing authority, which is a separate government entity that we uh are in that we we we don't see the world the same always uh and there's a lot of crossover and inherent conflicts.

This is a list of multifamily units that they own.

That then this individual would sit on P and Z and has sat on P and Z and makes decisions based on basically their competition.

And and I think the number is a round number is about two million dollars in tax-free um incentives are are laid there.

And and so there's just there is just too much of a conflict between the interest of planning and zoning and the interest of the housing authority when you have projects that come before the city that I just think there's too much there that I can't get comfortable with that individual serving.

I've also talked to the housing authority in Washington, D.C.

I've talked to the housing authority locally to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding.

Obviously, there's a distinction between work and personal, but I just there's the conflicts and the crossover are rise to the level that I can't in good faith uh support uh this individual serving because those conflicts because of our ethics ordinance.

Uh I I think there's some some clear issues uh that arise when the two entities there's only a certain number of people that that will serve uh at this level.

There's only a certain number of of uh providers as far as uh developers, etc.

etc.

that work in this space with this number of units, and then also they take a number of units off the tax roll.

So there's a conflict point there.

So they've most recently bought square nine and 1600 McKinney.

Uh they bought those properties and took them off the tax roll, which affects us when someone comes and talks about arts and jazz.

I think the number staff provided uh on one four percent credit project was about about almost uh $50,000, but in this instance it's about three million total.

So for those reasons, I I I pull this separately.

I lay that bear just to say why and and understand that I don't take it lightly uh that that I have to uh vote no, but I have to uh in my to to be true to my convictions and my understanding my few fiduciary duties to the citizens and the taxpayers that are citizens uh in of Denton, and I believe this is the right thing to do, and I think we there's great people that are can be of service, but this magnitude of someone that's plugged in, I I just can't get there.

So I I just wanted to be clear and why I pulled it and why I'll be voting no.

I'd encourage others to do the same.

I think there's more people uh that are available to serve that don't have these conflicts, and I think you'll see uh uh and won't have to recuse as much uh and and conserve.

So that's my thoughts.

Representative from district two.

Um this is a seated uh member of the P and Z, so I'm happy to renominate them or or um motion uh for the item as as presented by staff.

Representative from district five.

Happily second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion?

Representative from district one a distinction between working personal.

This individual does work for the Denton Housing Authority, but this person is not a board member.

This did this individual does not make decisions.

This person is just like our own city manager, they go to work and take on the decisions of the board.

So I'm not real sure of how that particular conflict comes in uh with this person being on uh planning and zoning for our city.

Um we really should concentrate on is the level of competency uh that this vis this individual has.

Uh this is a professional individual in our city.

Uh she would know as much more than anyone else probably sitting on the planning and zoning, so that's her job.

Uh I don't understand where the consternation in in regards to uh competition.

Uh when we are hearing from our constituents literally every single day, know to us that we need more affordable housing, affordable housing, affordable housing, affordable housing.

This is what we hear.

Uh, and we're always been in support of affordable housing.

Just had a gentleman coming up here and talking about homelessness.

And us homing homeless homeless people, providing homes for people that are leaning into homelessness and also giving uh giving shelter to those where we can.

So I am not uh, you know, I'm not agreeing with the word in terms of us being in competition with each other.

We just need to do our very best overall.

Also, this person works for a group uh that actually the people that are on the board are appointed by the mayor.

So I'm not real sure how that plays out.

Um, but whatever the board is requesting for her to do, she does, uh, just like our city manager does.

So with her coming and uh sitting in the seat, I think that we should be in full support of her.

I think that the city should uh be and the community members should be very comfortable with her sitting here.

She knows how to recuse, and she does if she needs to.

So let's just be uh mindful of that and look at the practicality of why we want to have somebody like that on this board.

Um competition with what we have a the city has developed a PFC.

If are we obligated if they don't take it?

Do they is it is it obligated to come to the city's PFC?

That hasn't even really been established yet.

So uh, and if they go to somewhere else, are we upset because it didn't come to us?

The bottom line is providing housing, housing that's affordable.

This person is gonna help us get there.

We're gonna get there, we're all gonna get there as a community.

I don't want this to be something that's devastating to us.

We should appreciate the fact that she is seasoned in this area.

Thank you.

Do we have somebody who can answer questions about um procedures of recusal for planning and zoning?

Yes, I don't know.

Okay, I'll ask back.

Um is there a process when an individual, and you don't have to explain what the process is, but is there a process for individuals that have a conflict of interest on planning and zoning?

Yes.

Okay.

Um has Miss McDade been following that process.

You would probably don't know the answer to that.

I'm not as familiar with that, but I my understanding is that she has recused from at least one item.

Right.

I think I've actually seen her leave the room before.

Um and then is there a or is there a process if Miss McDade were to fail to follow this process of recusal?

Is there something that can be done if somebody finds that oh she had a conflict there, she did not recuse herself?

Is there a process that somebody could go through to sort of call that out or sure any number of processes, but I think the most obvious would be an ethics complaint with our board of ethics?

Right.

So there's sort of some guardrails in place.

All right.

All right, thank you.

Okay.

Uh that that's everything.

Representative from District 6.

Uh Councilmember Jester and I also have another uh kind of procedural question, uh, if someone could answer.

My question is, as multifamily uh developments come before P and Z, as far as when the Denton Housing Authority contracts with them to operate them, um, does this happen before or after it's built or is it up in the air?

My question being, are there multifamilies coming before uh this particular uh member of P and Z that then a few days later could then be hiring her entity that she uh manages um I'm trying to see what kind of benefit someone coming before her represents and will she know of a conflict ahead of time, or are all of these just potential um vendors.

Can anyone speak to that that's here, Mr.

Ken, I appreciate you coming forward and at least attempting to shed some light on when a conflict of interest might arise, if it's something that is hanging out there and unknown, or is this going to be known before a PNZ vote?

Uh good evening, Mayor Council Jessic and Director of Community Services.

Uh I'm gonna attempt to fill in just a little bit so that it's not as much with uh Scott out.

Um maybe he might come back in.

But I think it it really just depends on the project on the the timing.

You know, not every multifamily development that the housing authority is gonna take on necessarily needs to go to PNC, excuse me, it needs to go to P and Z.

Um as far as like what the timing of the deals are.

I don't know if the representative from the housing authority wants to speak on that on what that looks like, but uh I'm not entirely certain where in the process deals have to be cemented uh versus when they have to go through the land uh amending process.

If that's helpful.

But thank you.

I appreciate you.

Okay, uh anyone else.

The the the answer is it's it's after the effect.

Well, we have a motion in a second.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none, uh I I'll say this.

Um the answer is yes, it's absolutely after the fact.

Evidence by, and I can't get uh I can't get the appraisal website to load fast enough, but example is square nine.

Square nine was is built, it was held, it was on the tax rolls, and then it was removed from the tax rolls because it was purchased by the housing authority.

Uh and so you'll have buildings that are built that are then taken over so you could have someone voting on something that then ultimately will be targeted and purchased potentially again to uh Mayor Pro Tem's point, certainly you can file an ethics uh complaint, but if you've seen that process, come on up, Scott.

If you've seen that process, it's it's it's not good and it's it's pretty divisive, and the conflict that I'm speaking of is exactly I'll take the point that someone came up and talked about homelessness, noted.

Someone also came up and said we don't have as much money to give and we have budget constraints.

That's noted too.

Budget is taxes.

Taxes are three million plus dollars off the tax rolls that could go in to that's the conflict.

It's it's a balance and act, and I understand it to be delicate, but I'm just voting my conscience.

So are you prepared to answer council member Jester's question?

I'm sorry, I don't know that I should be the question.

I don't want to speak for it.

My apologies.

No, no.

Um and thank you so much for for coming back in the room.

Um my question is what I'm trying to figure out is um you know, we don't want even the appearance of um inequity when it comes to people's ability, especially on something as important as planning and zoning that represents a lot of strong feelings as well as money that's involved in dedicated.

So my question was as multifamily uh development proposals come before council.

I was I didn't know if when the Denton Housing Authority uh if that um agreement is something that's done ahead of time, and so this person would know to recuse, or are they built and then into interagrements with uh someone like a group like Denton Housing Authority so that everyone coming before this person is a potential client?

Um I guess is where I'm trying to uh figure out in the gray area uh where the ethics are.

So part of the question was when is that decision made uh when some kind of nonprofit corporation like the Denton Housing Authority enters into that transaction?

I I think that can vary.

I I don't know that there's a defined point.

Um I think an individual could get entitlements, um sell those entitlements.

Someone could um secure the entitlements as the agency that is is working through it.

So whether it's before P and Z on a you know, an SUP or a PD or some other plan, but um I I don't know that there's a defined path that one would find that okay.

Thank you.

It's just it's a it's a a difficult decision uh knowing this person and how much I think of them and how much knowledge they have.

However, also seeing the uh number um of clients coming forward that uh you know everyone could be a potential uh client is also it's um it's difficult.

So thank you for your input as we try to make this uh tough decision on what's in the best interest of the city.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh motion is to speak again or no, is this there before.

Uh yes, I would like to speak again if I'm allowed to be able to do that.

All right, representative from district one.

Now we also have to remember that this uh individual is a citizen of this community.

Citizen, this person lives here, and we're all always asking for citizens to please uh be of some assistance to us as a community by applying for boards and commissions.

And a lot of these boards and commissions are always asking people to apply in your interest and your field of knowledge, like our airport board, our historical commissions board, and we go out of our way to look for people like that.

They don't always just pop up.

We have to go in and and talk and look and listen for the people that are available.

And uh I don't want any citizen in this community to think that they don't have a right to sit on a board or commission, especially one that is based on their knowledge.

Uh we definitely want to work off that knowledge.

I was on the uh DCRC, that's a development uh that is that didn't you know what DCRC I can't think of.

Um but you know, the people that are sitting on there are you know familiar with uh those type of things.

So let's let's just be mindful of that, you all, as we're uh voting on that.

That we said we were gonna be committed uh to uh getting our citizens to be on the commissions.

Now I don't know how often um you know DH, you know, these DHA is going to come before and have competition with the city.

Uh it's probably not very often.

Um, but again, I'm sure that this professional will know that you know, and when it's time to recuse, they will do so.

I mean, I just I just can't imagine one facing an ethics uh complaint or charge or what have you to do that.

Why would she do that?

So um let's let's just think about that as well.

Thank you.

Okay, anyone else?

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Let's vote on the screen that passes four to three.

Takes us to item our first public hearing, which is 4A Z25007B, hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding a change in zoning district and use classification from residential to R2 district to mixed-use neighborhood MN district on approximately 1.09 acres of land generally located on the north side of West University Drive between Willow Lane and Cotton Lane, Cottonwood Lane in the city of Denton.

Z250007B hold a public hearing and consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding a change in zoning district and use classification from residential two or two district to mixed-use neighborhood MN district or approximately 1.09 acres of land generally located on the north side of West University Drive between Willow Lane and Cotton Lane, Cottonwood Lane in the city of Denton.

Good evening, Julie Wyatt, and I'm presenting Z257 to you.

So the request before you is to rezone about one acre from R2 to MN district.

The purpose is to re-establish a commercial use that has operated at the location since the early 1970s, but ceased operations in 2023.

As I mentioned, the subject property is zoned R2.

R2 is one of our low density single-family residential zoning districts, and they are proposing MN district, and that is one of our mixed use districts.

As I mentioned, this uh commercial use has been at this location since the early 1970s, actually prior to annexation into the city.

Um it was annexed into the city in 74 and then subsequently rezoned to allow that commercial use to continue in a conforming way.

Um the uh the the property also got a couple of um COs for restaurant retail and bar uses in the 1990s.

Um in 2002, the city had a citywide rezoning, um, and the property was rezoned from general retail to um R2 to NR2.

Um, and um, and that is one of our single-family residential districts.

Uh the 2002 Denton Development Code had a a different provision in it, it was called a special exception.

And that special special exception essentially meant that nothing really became non-conforming, that any existing legally established use could continue in perpetuity and could even rebuild if if something happened to it or expand on the lot.

Um in 2019, that zoning transitioned to R2, and that special exception was removed from the Denton Development Code.

So the use was non-conforming now.

Instead of having that special uh exception uh protection, it is now it was now a non-conforming use.

Um in 2023, the retail and restaurant uses discontinued and the property was sold.

Um, and so that that um non-conforming use ceased operations and cannot be re-established under the current zoning.

So staff uh analyze the request uh under the criteria for approval in subchapter two of the Denton Development Code, and as determined it is it does meet the criteria for approval.

Um I'll talk about a couple of things uh related to that.

So, first of all, consistency with the comprehensive plan.

The future land use does uh designation for the property is moderate residential.

Um, but this category also includes land uses that support residential neighborhoods, often um that small-scale commercial that that uh provides that necessary shopping and day-to-day um services for for neighborhoods.

Um, it also moderate residential talks about providing transition areas between high traffic and um commercial areas and residential neighborhoods, so it allows that um that buffer between neighborhoods and streets like West University.

Um the property is also um our preferred uh land preservation plan because there's floodplain that runs along the center spine of of this neighborhood.

However, due to existing development, it's unlikely that this um area can contribute to a connected wildlife corridor.

That it's fully developed.

However, any expansions or redevelopment of the site would have to comply with our ESA regulations.

Um, and we also looked at the impacts that the rezoning would uh could potentially create for that residential neighborhood to the north.

Um in district is one of those districts that we often find next to next to neighborhoods.

It limits auto-oriented uses, so things like uh drive-through restaurants or automotive fuel sales, those need um specific use permits.

That way we can look at the compatibility of those uses adjacent to residential neighborhoods.

Um tree canopy provide those protections for neighborhoods.

Um, the property size, it's only one acre, um, and that floodplain really limit the potential of the the development of the property.

And if it's approved, that commercial use and building they can be renovated, they can be activated, and potentially prevent deterioration of the building.

As because right now the use is not allowed because only single family residential uses are really allowed.

And then the property uses well and septic system right now.

However, there is it is developing on the west side of town.

If if you've driven out there or seen all the development, so we anticipate there will be availability at some point for this property to tie on to public systems.

Notification was sent out, and we uh had uh two properties in um uh speak in opposition to the request at the planning and zoning commission, which resulted in a 4.88 percent opposition, which does not trigger a supermajority.

Um the applicant also held two virtual neighborhood meetings for for the request.

The planning and zoning commission recommended approval of the request six to zero, and staff recommends approval as the propile proposal does meet the criteria for approval.

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

And the applicant is here and does have a short presentation, I believe.

Okay, thank you.

Questions for staff?

Mayor Proton.

Thank you, Julie.

Um, I so when the when we did the 2019 rezoning, I know there were provisions in there to keep at least residential conform or single family homes conforming if let's say they were in a commercial zoning or something like that.

Was that did we not do that in reverse, or did this parcel just end up a little different somehow?

So you are correct.

The the 2019 Denton Development Code essentially said no single family uses would be non-conforming by the adoption of the code.

So, for instance, if it was the inverse and there was a single family home, say an LI Light Industrial District, that home would not be considered non-conforming and could continue enjoying those conforming rights.

The inverse doesn't apply.

So in this instance, because the the um the zoning is a is a residential zoning district and it's a commercial use.

If if that if that use ceases, then the the um non-conforming rights cease, and it would have to conform to the zoning, which is why they're they're coming in to to rezone to a commercial district.

Okay.

Um I did watch that planning and zoning meeting, and I I remember some of the residents talking about um I I think the parking lot is used as a school bus pickup, and I think maybe the developer was going to or the applicant was going to talk to them.

What like do you know if anything was arranged or figured out with that?

Um the applicant I think will be able to speak to that.

I also talked to the crumb ISD transportation department.

Um it put them in contact with the property owner.

Um it's a it's a challenging situation.

And um, and I I know everybody wants to find a resolution, a safe a safe place for kids to get on the bus and for crumb isd to be able to pick up kids and have an appropriate turnaround.

Um it's it's it's a challenging problem, and I I don't I don't know of a solution at this point.

Okay, but but based on it being partially in a floodplain, only part of it could be like if they want to expand the building, they can only do so much before like part of it's not going to be developed, it might be parking lot at most.

You are correct.

It it will be challenging to ever redevelop this property because of that substantial floodplain on the on the site.

All right, thanks, Julie.

You bet.

Representative from district two.

Thank you.

Julie, you you put it in the I think in your presentation, but it slid past me.

How long has this been a commercial use?

It was established prior to 1974.

Yes, sir.

So I was five.

Okay.

Um the other the other question I have is um Mayor Pro Tem uh alluded to the fact that it's in a floodplain and there'll be limited development potential.

To our knowledge, has this property flooded in the floodplains?

And and and it it goes to the question of yes, it's an unfur and fortune a little bit of unfortunate disturbed ESA, but it was disturbed in 1974.

Right.

So do we have any history of this property since then in terms of flood management or insurance or anything like that?

So we had quite a few conversations with the subject matter experts on this, and I am no by no means an expert on floodplain.

But the the information I was provided is that staff is not aware of any recent or historical flooding claims in the area.

However, they would anticipate that flooding issues are likely given given the drainage channel that runs through the center of the property.

So while we're not aware of any, it will there is a floodplain there.

So all right, I appreciate that.

Thank you, Julie.

Sure.

Okay.

Uh seeing no questions.

Uh we have one card that's the applicant.

You have uh 10 minutes, Amy Basset.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Give me just a moment to pull up slides.

Um, Amy Bissett 109 North Elm, Denton 76201.

Um, I want to start by sharing that um for those of you who have seen me up here before, my slide looks different tonight, and I just want to share why my little consulting firm located on the square has been acquired by McAdams, a national uh planning and engineering firm.

But we're keeping our our office space on the square, not going anywhere.

You'll continue to see us frequently as you do now, but uh just didn't want there to be some lingering questions about why the the slides look different for the first time in a number of years.

So I do uh want a couple of I want to put some context on this zoning change from my perspective.

So um this property right now sits vacant and it sits partially demolished, and it cannot be rebuilt under any circumstances under the existing zoning, because the only thing that can go there is a single family home.

So I just I want to share that context to start with that you're looking at a partially demolished or or started of renovation of a building that um sits vacant today and is in is unsecured.

Um so I want you to have that context as we move forward.

Um just a additional context, I want to share how I got involved with this zoning change.

So um my client is uh their their family.

Um they bought this property in 2023 with the intention of uh renovating it, making it prettier.

I'll show you a couple pictures of that in a moment, and um reopening uh to continue the use as it was since 1974 or or prior to that.

Um they're not developers, they're not zoning experts.

They got a zoning verification letter from um the city before they closed, and it said, yes, this use can continue, but it's legal and non-conforming.

Um they did not realize at the time that that meant that they couldn't renovate it without um having the likely potential of triggering an expansion, the definition of an expansion.

And they unfortunately also um hired a contractor who didn't follow proper procedures and pull a building permit.

So what happened instead is they started the the remodel and the city noticed that they didn't have a permit, stopped the work, and began to look at the options.

So my client came and met with the city to talk about the options.

Um the amount of money that they're in on this already left them with very few decisions.

It was too late at that point to put it back the way it was and reopen it because the year had passed and the non-conforming status was lost.

And so, really, their only opportunity here to gain any monetary value from the investment that they've made is to get this remodeled and open.

Um it's not gonna sell as an R2 property for somebody to build a single family home, you know, facing highway 380.

So I just want to share that context because I took this case because of my concern for their their investment, and the fact that I've truly believe they have no other options.

Um I'm not gonna rehash the zoning that that Julia already went through because what I do want to talk about really is the neighbors.

Um I know that while planning and zoning uh recommended approval, and we held neighborhood meetings.

Um the concerns we heard for the neighbors.

Here are a couple of just images of what they were trying to do when all of this stopped.

So they really want to do something nice.

But what we heard from the from the neighbors was concerns about their neighborhood as a whole, right?

So they're concerned because their kids are are being picked up at a bus stop behind an abandoned liquor store.

You know, that's a big concern.

They're concerned about the that they're on water wells and that their water supply isn't always um reliable.

They're concerned because the bus um route stopped picking the kids up in front of their homes because their roads were too dilapidated to drive the bus down.

And so while none of those, frankly, are relative to this zoning case.

They're concerning for for me and they're concerning for my client.

So we have done some research just to try to look at and examine options to help the neighbors.

I do not have any solutions tonight, but I want to share with you what we've done so far.

Regarding the bus stop relocation, um, we have requested to meet with the crumb ISD transportation director on site to look at the possibility of relocate relocating it from Willow behind the store to Cottonwood on the other side of the property.

It's still the same owner and the same client.

We also met with the city to determine the feasibility of doing that, considering it's in the floodplain and with limited grading and um development activity, essentially just putting in some gravel that would be permitted within the floodplain, and we could potentially relocate that bus stop.

We don't know yet whether crumb is D is going to be receptive to that, but it does at least locate it on a street on a on the frontage, and it's at a median opening, which might be a little bit easier for the bus to actually maneuver getting into in the mornings.

Remember, this is crumb ISD.

Um the street conditions are really a challenge that is not there's just not an easy solution for that.

This was platted in the 1960s, and um the streets were never dedicated to the county at that point in time.

They don't meet any street standards, they're privately owned, and um it's gonna require funding to bring them up to standards.

Regarding the feasibility of getting this neighborhood on city water, um Mick Adams, which I'm now part of, our engineers are researching um the feasibility and costs to get them connected, looking at timing capacity, and funding options.

Um we've discussed with public works extensively what um what that might look like.

There's concerns that there's just not capacity out there today, but that some point in the future with some grant funds, they could receive improvements to both the street and their water supply.

That is all I have, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Any questions for the applicant?

Seeing none.

Oh representative from district four.

Thank you.

Where are the kids being picked up now?

Bus kids.

They're being picked up on uh on this aerial in the yellow circle, which is right behind the store that's vacant today.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Um and it says uh public hearing.

Uh if you care to speak, you can you just fill out a card afterwards.

Um suddenly closed the public hearing.

And representative from district five.

What is gravel look like?

I uh we haven't gotten that far in exploring it.

Something that's pervious so that it doesn't affect the floodplain and drainage, but that can hold the weight of a bus.

Okay.

Thanks.

Uh any other questions.

Representative from district six.

Um first I just want to say thank you.

Uh what you go above and beyond to care about the entire community, not just that parcel and your clients.

Um sincere thank you on behalf of the community, and uh, I move approval for all of the reasons stated.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor Proteo.

And I also recognize the the applicant.

I mean, the what this has been used for for so long, it it makes sense to allow it to continue, and I appreciate you work talking to the neighbors and trying to work with them to find some solutions for some of their problems, which you know don't seem related to this, but they're still very real problems that we do need to be looking into.

So I also appreciate you sharing that, and I would like to second.

Okay.

We have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion?

Um I'll just say uh I know the the seller and and know about the Lasco round.

Um and so I appreciate this solution coming forward.

And uh I will say congratulations, I think, on the on the just think it's great uh for uh the city, right?

That that visibility.

So thank you very much for and congratulation on your hard work that that leads to to that uh joining a bigger team.

So uh with that we have a motion and second.

Let's vote on the screen.

know about the last go round um and so I appreciate this solution coming forward and uh I will say congratulations I think on the on the just think it's great uh for uh the city right that that visibility so thank you very much for and congratulation on your hard work that that leads to the to that uh joining a bigger team so uh with that we have a motion and second let's vote on the screen pass a 70 takes us to item B which is S250004A hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton Texas approving a special use permit to allow for boarding house use on approximately 0.403 acres of land generally located at the southwest corner of the intersection of West Oak Street and Fry Street in the city of Denton good evening city council Matt Bodine's assistant planner here to present the uh 1305 oak boarding house case so this is a request for a specific use permit uh to allow for the boarding house use on an approximately 0.4 acre lot located at the corner of Fry and Oak Street here in the city of Denton this law is fully developed with building parking landscaping ties to sewer and water existing uh their current zoning is mixed use neighborhood within the Fresh Street overlay and it is surrounded by uh commercial uses as well as multifamily dwellings uh this request was reviewed against our criteria for approval for specific use permit and general applications regarding the boarding house use so this is defined as non-transient lodging for more than four but fewer than 20 persons uh and they provide meals uh provided cooking is done in a central kitchen uh in the MN zoning a boarding house does require uh specific use permit hence the applicant here today and this one is coming with the following conditions that there be no more than nine bedrooms no less than 10 parking spaces and no substantial changes from the site plan this is to ensure uh consistency with the existing site as well as compliance with our dent and development code um it should be noted that this time the applicant is not proposing really any site changes uh merely a change in the use of the property uh staff found this to be consistent with our comprehensive plan the future land use designation is neighborhood university compatibility area and which uh those compatible form and land uses that can serve the university and the arounding neighborhood are can encouraged uh we also found it to advance the land use goal to grow compactly as this is an example of sound and sustainable growth uh the public was notified uh according to city and state uh law uh staff did not receive any responses in opposition or support uh staff is recommending approval of the requested SCP as it complies with the criteria also planning and zoning commission recommended approval for oh at the July 23rd meeting um here to answer any questions applicant is also here to answer questions as well okay thank you very much I'll open the public hearing and we have a uh representative from district four thank you um are there any boarding houses in Denton by this definition boarding houses in Denton currently um can't say for sure it is a fairly I guess archaic land use so I don't see it very often um it's one that was essential style long time ago but it's gone out of use so I'm familiar with the Bailey boarding house it's a wonderful life but I I can't I can't think of a boarding house in Denton.

If there are other they're fairly rare I'd say okay is there a kitchen on site currently um the applicant could best there is one yes okay okay and and what's it being used for now today uh so the church uh uses it for events um for for their their patrons um I believe it's the applicant probably best ask the applicant if you would like to know more uh beyond that okay uh representative from district six um I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation as well as the the materials um it already was you know previously used as a fraternity house as far as what's next to it normally I think you know you do hear boarding house and you get concerned for lots of additional traffic potentially you know um you know people that are are not going to be living there and not keeping uh the property up etc however uh with the uses with the I believe it's the Lutheran church and the the fact that it's a place for uh people to come and learn more about college ministry and the teachings and um the the uh agreement as far as how many bedrooms and parking etc uh it just makes sense for that property and so um I'm I'm happy to uh move approval and uh thank you for all the good information and we sure appreciate our uh fellow community members and what they're doing okay with that

However, uh, with the uses with the I believe it's the Lutheran church and the fact that it's a place for uh people to come and learn more about college ministry and the teachings and uh the the uh agreement as far as how many bedrooms and parking, etc.

Uh it just makes sense for that property, and so um I'm I'm happy to uh move approval and uh thank you for all the good information and we sure appreciate our uh fellow community members and what they're doing.

Okay, with that, uh I'll I'll take a second first.

Uh representative from district five second representative from district one.

Um has it been established as to how long a person would stay in this particular boarding house?

Uh is this something that people are gonna be able to go in and out of?

Is this weekly, monthly?

How would something like that work in this particular um boarding house?

We do we know that uh so the the city has no requirements on how long someone stays as part of the use definition.

Um as any restrictions would really be up to the owner.

Is this kind of like on the same lines of a Airbnb where it would have to be registered or in a in a way in a particular kind of way?

Uh the there is no boarding house permit like there is for like uh a short-term rental.

Um so it is different in that regard, and there's no limit, I guess, on the number in the city.

So for someone that is trying to come out of homelessness with this with with this group, um, you know, I guess maybe I don't want to use the word ban, but um would this be group be more pervious?

Is that a good word to put here?

Um to who can stay here?

Do they have to meet would they have to meet some kind of certain requirements or something?

Let me let me do this.

Let me there's a lot of confusion.

There shouldn't be apparently I'm confused about something.

It shouldn't be.

Here you have do you have access to the project narrative that would explain all that?

It's on it's uh I it's it's in the backup.

It's project narrative.

It's um exhibit four.

Do you have that by chance?

Um not on the moment.

So all right.

Well uh then just uh who's yeah, please come on.

Yeah, can you could you set I mean for those that didn't can't see it, let's let's save some time.

Thank you all very much.

Yeah, if you can just give the cliff notes version of it.

I mean, because I again you did the it's here, but please.

Yes, my name is Brandon Bell, and I serve as the campus minister for the Christian campus community, and our buildings owned by Singing Oaks Church, and we operate a campus ministry from our building uh for students at UNT, Texas Women's and NCTC.

Basically, the idea is to have a training residency program for those that want to do what I do.

Campus ministers don't have a lot of options for ongoing education in that in that field, and so it's kind of a hands-on experience, and so we would like for our ministry to kind of be a hub for future campus ministers.

So some of those will come from our students, uh, some will be from from the outside.

And we we will be uh working in partnership with the three partners to provide training.

And so the idea is that these are people that want to do what I do as a campus minister.

Uh they would come in for we're looking at a single semester time frame for their residency, um up to a year.

Uh, there may be some that need longer, but we're looking at it like a school year semester.

And um that's that's the idea.

Does that help clarify and paint a picture enough?

Yeah, I I think so.

Yes you you this may uh represent from district one, you have the floor.

Yes, I I certainly appreciate the uh the detail.

Um I'm always in an educational learning mode, so just having you come up here in kind of detail for the public uh what this is gonna be about.

We do have that information, and I do know that information, but I wanted to uh to bring that to the rest of the community, so I do uh appreciate you coming through.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

God bless.

Yes, sir.

Um this is a public hearing, it's open.

Anyone care to speak, you can come down and speak, fill out a card afterwards.

Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing.

We have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

Pass the 7-0.

Takes us to our next public hearing, which is item C, which is Z25004A, hold a public hearing, consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton.

Denton Texas regarding a change in zoning district and use classification from rural residential RR to district to heavy industrial district on approximately 21.80 acres of land, generally located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Springside Road and Corbin Road in the city of Denton.

Good evening, City Council.

Matt Budin again, assistant planner.

Um here to present the Springside Industrial Case.

This case does require a a super majority vote for approval as uh more than 20% of residents within 200 feet of the property have indicated opposition.

Um so just want to make sure we're clear on that.

But I'll get into the presentation now.

So this is a request to rezone approximately 22 acres at the corner of Springside Road and Corbin Road from the rural residential or RR zoning district to the heavy industrial or HI zoning district.

Um is currently undeveloped uh land and is adjacent to other HI and RI zone property as well as properties in the ETJ.

In this area, there were there has been recent mobility plan amendments to account for uh the mix of traffic that exists and is expected to be coming to this area.

So this request was reviewed against our general and zoning criteria for approval.

And the proposed HI zoning district.

Uh so applicant is proposing to zone to this district from the RR, which is a placeholder that is in that has been here since its annexation to the city.

Uh this zoning district is intended for the development of industrial distribution and manufacturing uses, uh, particularly in the area between I-35 West and the Denton Enterprise Airport.

Uh taking this into consideration and the location of this property, uh felt that this request is consistent with the purpose statement for the HI zoning district, um, as well as this uh proposed zoning does border other HI zoned properties.

Uh this request was found to be consistent with the comprehensive plan.

The future land use designation is industrial commerce.

So in this area, the city uh has been determined that we want to see mainly light and heavy industrial uses between once again I-35 and Denton Airport.

Uh staff also finds this request to advance uh economic goals of the city to ensure adequate land for future growth.

Uh another category or consideration for approval is a significant growth or change in the area.

Uh, there's been quite a lot of industrial development over the last decade in this part of the city.

Uh that does extend up today, and this area continues to grow.

Additionally, just south of this request is the Cloranch and Landmark Master Plan communities, which are under development.

Um, and include zoning in them that will allow for a transition from the industrial to other uh more appropriate zoning types in other areas of the city.

Uh so this request was notified to the public according to the state and city law.

Um staff did receive four responses in opposition to those within city limits.

Uh those two respond two responses represent approximately 30% of property uh in city limits within two origin feet, uh hence the need for a uh supermajority approval for this zoning to go into effect.

Uh staff is recommending approval of the requested zoning change.

In addition, planning and zoning commission recommended approval of 3-1 at the July 23rd, 2025 meeting.

Um here to answer any questions.

The applicant is also here and has a presentation as well.

Okay, thank you very much.

Any questions for staff?

Representative from District 2.

Thank you.

Um Matt, did um I know you showed the the uh the comprehensive comp plan and and the whole area is HI, and I think it's really clear that you know this area, whether we're in the West Park tours or not, is I mean that's that's what where it's going.

But um you showed the the comp plan uses for the whole region, but then we're not we're not showing the the ETJ and non-ex non-an I can't even say that word today.

Non-annexation surrounding parcels, uh those are what use?

I think I think the backup said residential.

Uh correct.

Yes, correct.

They're um restricted to what was on the property at the time of signing their non-accession agreements.

So those those non-annexation and ETJ properties are residential at the moment.

And can you remind me how how what the the length of time on the terms are?

The the term is about 20 20 years.

Um, and if they want to develop more than just single family uh residential, they would have to be annexed into the city.

Okay, okay.

And did I um did I read in the backup that um um took questions about the mobility of spring Corbyn that that um and I think we had this come up in in previous items that Corbin Road that that that section of Corbin Road in Spring that's gonna have to get developed because it's it's being redesignated to um I was it down to collector or up to secondary arterial?

What's which direction?

So um does sorry, um it was classified reclassify as a collector on the uh what is that the east side of the property uh for Corbin?

Um that happened uh I believe a couple months ago.

Yeah, and and but that that road is uh kind of a dead end abandoned dirt road at the moment.

Is that correct?

Uh currently the the mobility plan does call for it to extend uh to connect through, but yes.

Okay, all right.

No, uh that's that's my questions.

Thank you.

Representative from District 4.

Thank you.

Hey, the industrial, what are they proposing putting in there?

Um industrial uses, uh, anything more specific.

Um I would turn to the applicant to ask.

Okay.

I'm asking.

Okay.

Uh so it is only a zoning case, and so that's uh the answer may be nothing planned yet, but who uh let's see who the applicant is.

So I'm just giving you a fair warning that that and and the applicant, you know.

Um you can come down and and speak and everything you say can and will be held against you.

Uh who is the applicant?

I don't see one here that says the applicant.

Me, sir.

Oh man.

Uh Mr.

Greg Johnson, if you can come down and uh state your name.

Uh before you come to clarify, I guess at the time of this rezoning, um there is a multitude of industrial as light and heavy that they're available allowed to do.

Don't necessarily need space.

I I thought it was a very simple question.

I just want to know what they're gonna what they propose putting in there.

Mr.

Johnson, answer the simple question.

Come on up.

I'll cover that.

I don't have a card.

Do you have a card?

You know the rules.

Did you fill out one?

I kind of have a card.

Yes.

Can I fill out?

Come on, man.

It's been a while.

Security.

Uh so I applicant.

So just yeah, no worries.

You have 10 minutes, is or is there a couple of you?

No, no, go right ahead.

Just me.

I just okay.

I just I need to pull up my presentation.

Got it.

Okay.

Well, we'll wait.

Thank you, Matt.

There we go.

Can I just down arrow here?

You've come a long way.

You should just use post-it notes.

I know.

I had to get somebody to do this for me.

Uh, thank you, Mayor Council.

As always, thank you for your service.

Appreciate you very much.

My name's Greg Johnson.

Address is 3192.

Um, so about this property.

Sometimes history is beneficial when making decisions.

So in 2010, the city leadership initiated an initiative to for a designated industrial area and the creation of a shovel ready sites to attract jobs at Avalorm tax.

So at the time we were missing out on large employers, large abilum taxpayers, because we didn't have any sites that were zoned and ready for somebody to come in, get their application and get moving.

And so we were missing out on these economic development opportunities to other cities.

Um so that initiative was put in place.

The West Park Tours was created.

And if you look on the map there, you'll see 2015, what it looked like in this area, and then 2025 what it looks like now.

It worked.

The economic impact is huge.

Um and the city, I think did a great job of designating an area where we want all of our industrial uses to be, rather than just letting it happen willy-nilly and be spread out all over and not have residences close.

So that was an initiative put in place, and that continues today.

If you notice, the main area where it all started, Western Boulevard, between Airport Road and 380, there's no sites left.

You saw Matt's presentation earlier.

We literally have very few, if any, sites yet available.

I would direct your attention to this site.

Right.

Oh, I got the wrong map.

Hang with me.

So in 2010, the city annexed this property and all of those around it.

Why?

To have land available to accomplish this vision.

There's the exhibit from the annexation document, and you can see that our site sitting right in the middle at the top.

All these properties were annexed.

Some all of them got non-annexation agreements.

Some got extended, some got extended again, and some didn't.

Ours didn't get extended.

We're in the city.

The others are extended, but as Matt said, this is what they were annexed for.

The city future land use map shows it.

And at any time, if those properties cease to be their current use and intend to be developed into anything else, they're automatically annexed into the city.

Cities don't annex land to leave it in ag exempt pasture, right?

Why would you provide city services to someone and not receive any revenue in return?

So why did the city annex all this property?

Because the plan was for this industrial area to be the industrial area.

It has worked, the infrastructure got built, and now it's going to continue to the south.

The city's made a huge and huge investment in the underwood substation that's going in now.

Um and the infrastructure will continue to improve.

Every shopping center, neighborhood, warehouse, everything in our city at some point look like that.

So this is just part of the natural progression, and why the city likely did what they did back in 2010.

So why would we be asking for zoning before we have a project?

To your question, uh Councilman Howen.

Because this is what's worked, right?

You have these large users, there's site selectors, they're trying to decide which city are we going to go to.

They have multiple cities they're looking at, and part of it is what's my path to getting open.

So when we created shovel ready sites along Western Boulevard, zoned all that property appropriately for the industrial development uses.

Look what happened.

They came.

And now we're out of sites.

So the progression needs to continue.

And these are big projects, right?

So I'd like to say we get a zoning case done in Denton in six weeks.

But by the time you first start your conversations until you're standing here today, it's 12 months.

Then you've got to plan the project.

Well, these are big projects.

It's not a three-bedroom, two-bath house.

These things are monsters.

So it's going to take them about 12 months to get through the city planning process to get a permit.

That's two years from the time they decide this is the site I want.

And so what has happened worked.

We just want to continue the progression here.

Ultimately, and they had some meetings with the staff, ultimately they dropped it and located to another city.

To be fair, I wasn't part of it at the time, so I don't know why they decided to go to the other city.

So I'm not insinuating it wasn't zoned, so therefore they left.

That would be an unfair statement.

I don't know why it was, but it could be one because it's happened in the past.

Well, for those reasons, of course, but also to put the zoning in place that the city's already decided it should be.

RR is a placeholder zoning until you zone the property for the use that you intend it to be.

Well, the city annexed it, it's got the placeholder zoning on it.

The future land use map clearly calls.

I mean, we're sitting in the bullseye of HI.

So that's what we want the property to be.

Why wouldn't we zone it for what it can be so that a user coming in cannot have to wait 12 months to see is this the city that I can go to?

And lastly, obviously, this is the next area to develop.

You saw the map.

Everything to the north is done.

You have the landmark project happening around the curve to the west.

They've got great buffers as you see here.

This is our site.

Here's Underwood Road, which the changes to the mobility plan made a ton of sense.

And so now you're gonna have Underwood, North South, and I might add this property to our north, which is a pretty big tract, the last available tract between uh uh Western Boulevard and our tract is in contract, they're going through the city process, and to your point earlier, Councilmember Beck, they will be required to build Corbin Road all the way north to south down to the corner of our property.

So that would provide access for anything that developed here to go to the north.

Um so you know, buffering for the the future residential over here is already in place.

You can see the the heavy industrial as a part of Hillwood's project is pretty substantial, um, which makes sense, and then you've got light industrial over here as it transitions.

Um as I mentioned earlier, DME is building a massive substation there.

Hillwoods industrial coming to the west, 35W improvements coming to the east.

We're simply asking it to be zoned so that it can be put to its appropriate use, and that we can attract a quality buyer for this land.

We did not intend to develop the land, we own it.

Um but our goal is to not get tied up for somebody for 12 months wondering if they're gonna get the zoning, right?

And so you want to have shovel ready sites, but but I think it's important to note this is just a zoning case.

So anybody that seeks to develop this property is gonna have to go through the city process.

If there are road improvements required based on the traffic they will generate, they'll have to do those improvements.

If there are other infrastructure requirements that have to be put in place, the city would require them to do those things.

So this is strictly about zoning.

And my last point is is there's nothing about the request that doesn't meet with the plan from 2010 that's been executed up to this point.

Um, and this is just a natural progression.

Uh, this is not a neighborhood.

These are if you looked at the map from 2015, all this property out by the airport look like this.

This is the last little piece left, and the trend and the trans transition just needs to continue.

So we would ask that you vote in favor, and I'll stand for any questions.

Uh representative from district four, you have the floor still.

That was a very exhaustive answer to a very simple question.

Thank you.

Now my presentation's done, so you don't have to hear it.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Uh representative from district five.

Thanks for the presentation.

Um you can probably answer, or this might be better suited to staff.

I know that as a result of this, this track and the the last track that's available to the north, I believe.

We're gonna have to finish Corbin Road, right?

So will water wastewater improvements come to your tract as a result of the Corbin Road construction.

I don't know what the city is requiring in the way of water wastewater of the track to the north, but obviously for our track to develop, regardless of where they had to go get it in order to be able to use it.

Whatever water wastewater was required, either it already would have been put in place or they would have to go put it in place.

So it's not there yet, right?

Because the backup said the backup said it's coming to the northeast of the property.

I'm just a little confused on on that, that's all.

Um so water and wastewater would uh have to be extended to the site.

The developer would be responsible for extending it to their site.

Uh, with regards to I guess exact location of where it is now.

Okay, that's what you're interested in knowing.

Yeah.

All site development will require that they provide the infrastructure.

If they need to extend the main, then that's their their requirement to extend the main.

So at that present location, there is not utilities available.

Um it would it would progress down from I believe from um western to the track to the north to this track.

Okay, it's responsible to do everything along their perimeter.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you very much.

Uh okay.

So uh I have two, yeah.

I'll get so I have one card not wishing to speak, but is in support.

I have two other cards.

Again, this is a public hearing.

Feel free to speak after these next two speakers.

You just need to fill out a card.

Kelly Holtzclaw.

You can come down and give your name.

And you'll have four minutes.

Alrighty.

I'm Kelly Holt's Claw.

I live at 2161 Underwood Road.

I have lived in that particular area my entire life.

Born and raised in Denton Flow Hospital.

My grandfather owned all of that land that is out there that we're talking about.

He had a dairy farm.

It's just a rural residential neighborhood.

It's not houses stacked on houses.

We all have well water out there.

Don't want to have a heavy industrial anything out there contaminating my water or any of my neighbors.

I've been reading in the papers about how Denton is running short on water.

So if we don't put an industrial anything out there, then hey, we're saving y'all water.

We'll just take our well water and we're good.

Um I've been to a lot of these meetings.

This is the most formal one so far.

Well, with all of you big guys and ladies.

You know, since it's just us neighbors.

And then Corbin, I I was not aware that Corbyn is gonna get reopened.

It's been closed for a very long time since one of my best friends that's a firefighter here in Denton.

Him and his dad tried to save the lady that drowned there on Corbin, so there would have to be a better bridge built there, I guess, because of the flooding that goes on there.

It just seems like it would cost a whole lot of money to make that industrial and the people that have lived there, they're well, me my entire life, and my kids that I'm raising that have gone to Denton High School and all that.

Um my neighbors that had been out there for years and years and years.

We just want our little slice of heaven kind of left alone.

I know that we're getting sucked in by all those warehouses, and the traffic is absolutely crazy out there with all of the warehouses that have been built out there.

I mean, it's horrible trying to even get out of my driveway some days.

So I just would hope that you guys would not be in favor of it because there are no there's no water, no sewer, no roads basically to get to where they're wanting to have this heavy industrial.

Um, and then the section above that everybody was talking about that has a hickory creek that runs through it, and the planning and zoning said that they could not run western all the way down to Underwood and have Underwood kind of hit airport road because a bridge that would cost millions of dollars to build.

That was not gonna work out, and then it would interrupt the wildlife that is there as well.

So I that's my two cents.

Hopefully, that's makes a lot of sense, and you know, I'm just trying to protect my home and what my grandfather started out back in the 60s.

So thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

And then the next speaker is Barbara Whitworth.

Yes.

Thank you.

If you can give your name, you'll have four minutes.

Thank you.

Someone bring that picture back up of Corbin Road.

My name is Barbara Whitworth.

I live at 4085 Corbin Road, and my property butts up to the property that is uh they're wanting to change the zoning for the red one'll work too.

Do the red one.

The one next up.

See the solid red one.

Okay.

Not sure if you can see it, but yeah, what that spot right there, that corner right there, is where my house is.

Bigger square, the bigger square is all of my property.

And like I said, it butts up to their property.

And I've been there 30 years.

It's quiet out there, it's peaceful out there.

Now Corbin Road has been closed from the creek all the way uh up to see the creek, all the way up to the corner there, right there.

And as it curves, it goes under 35.

That's closed down there too.

So when we go to leave, we have to go up from our property all the way up Springside, go all the way up to Airport Road and cut back.

We're okay with that because it's quiet out there.

We don't have all the the traffic that used to be.

People would come out there and throw garbage out there, drop their animals out there, and we don't have that anymore.

It is that peaceful and quiet.

And right now we can look up and see stars and and it's quiet.

If there is something massive built in front of us, what is it gonna is it gonna cause air pollution?

Uh you know, the air pollution, any kind of pollution is gonna cause, and like I said, I've been there 30 years, and the people who bought the property bought it at the end of December.

That's how long they've owned it.

So they have nothing put you know put into the property out there.

You know, it means nothing to them but dollars is all it means to them.

To us, it's home, and we'll be until you know we're gone, I guess.

But I would appreciate it very much if you would oppose the zoning change.

Thank you very much.

Have a good evening.

Okay, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

It says a public hearing.

You could uh speak and then fill out a card after the fact if there's anyone that cares to seeing nothing, no one moving.

I will close the public hearing and and just in case.

So it's it was open, now it's closed, and I'll take um I I just can Matt, can you can you speak to what is this?

Springside Drive, or just I I guess I need to understand what projects are out there, what's currently you know, obviously Google Maps is behind, so could you give me a feel for what's in process?

Let's listen let's narrow that a bit.

Let's say Springdale, was that Spring Springside, pardon me?

And um to Corbin.

I I've heard someone talk about Corbin being improved.

Is that what I heard someone's developing out there?

Has anyone talked about uh Springside?

Maybe this will so uh on this map is a little out of date, but uh the pink stars generally indicate projects and active development.

Uh this large square here.

Um there is someone in discussion with with staff about developing that area on the north side of Springside, and so as part of their development, they would be responsible for improving half of Springside on their side of the property.

And so it's one lane each way now.

What is half improvement look like?

So that would mean improving or dedicated up to 32 and a half feet from the center line of Springside.

Um adding in uh pavement, uh curb and gutter, sidewalk along to our collector street standard details.

Got it.

So and pardon me.

Adding a lane, is that what you you you gave me the footage, but the I'd have to say I believe there's four lanes, I'm pretty sure.

Four, yes, so four lanes for a collector.

Right.

So they would have add have to add half of that, you said so.

They do two lanes?

Yes.

How does that work?

And forgive me for not knowing.

They if they're only responsible for half, will we do the whole thing at once, or would we only improve half the road?

So if they're paying for it.

Um as the case with any development in the city, they're responsible for improvements to the streets along their property frontage, um, perimeter improvements, and so they're responsible as the city.

We can ask for up to improvements up to half of that road of what we would want the full build out to be.

Uh so in this case, the two lanes, uh, sidewalk street trees, curb and gutter at the time of their development.

Uh the any property on the other side at the time they want to develop if the road on their side isn't improved, they would be responsible for improvements to their half.

That's the minimum based on traffic analysis.

Properties may be responsible for other improvements off-site, I guess, beyond uh just half improvement.

Right.

Let me but I'm trying to understand.

Uh Mayor Scott McDowell, Director of Development Services.

Um, so any property that develops in Denton is responsible for their half of the improvements.

So if the property to the north develops, they'll build half of it.

The property to the south would build the other half of it.

Um the timing on that, I think is your question.

And the timing on that would be dependent upon who's there first, or if there's a coordination, or if we have any capital project plan.

For this particular area, we do not have any capital projects planned, so they would build half the roadway and likely on their property, and then we would like where you may see in some areas of town will have a portion of a road built, as you see with like Bonnie Bray or Vintage, where we build portions of that road, and then we just continue as we go forward.

If that helps to answer that.

Um we have had dialogue on Springside on Underwood and on Corbin Road for improvements to all three of those roadways.

Corbin would be improved in that area.

Corbin would not go beyond I-35.

So any of that conversation that that was a discussion about it continuing through 35, it would not.

Um, but that segment of Corbin Road where this project site is at, as well as the project to the north of that would be making those improvements for Springside, Corbin, and Underwood.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Um and thank you, Matt.

Uh Mayor Protoum.

This may be Scott again, unless Matt wants to try it.

Um, Corbin Road.

So you said that it will not, it at least in this case, it will not be going past I-35W.

Um, are there still plans to do that, or we've totally nixed it, or just that it's not gonna happen anytime soon?

Like I know it can always be added back to a plan potentially, but in terms of us here today, no intent to add it back.

We have zero intent to to continue Corbin from east to west on 35.

Um, Corbin Wood Road will be improved on both sides and connect to a future service road, and that will be the extent of it.

Um the the bridge going underneath will be used for maybe pedestrian use or whatnot, but there will be no changes or no no vehicular traffic.

So, as of today, there are still plans to connect Corbin Road on both sides of 35 to those future access roads they're working on.

That is correct.

Okay, thank you.

Representative from District Five Mayor, one more for the applicant Von.

Yep.

Councilmember, in your experience, what's the timeline for a potential buyer for this property?

I understand that a lot of times they take longer than not, some are shorter than other.

Um obviously I know this is something that was taken into your calculations before you purchased the property and come and bring in the zoning change before us.

So kind of just fill out a timeline.

I just want to make sure that we understand that this probably isn't gonna happen tomorrow or not.

Sure.

Uh well, I mean, this is a long-term whole mentality for us.

Obviously, there's a lot that has to be done.

Um, we know that the property to the north is going through the process.

Whether or not that deal happens, we we don't know.

It's likely that our property wouldn't make sense to develop until everything to the north developed.

Just because of you think about a project this small, having to build Corbett all the way from basically from Western all the way down and connect past ours and all the utilities that would be likely too small of a project to be able to afford those sort of improvements.

And so the idea here is the property adjacent to us to the north is zoned.

We're just trying to zone it so that if the property to the north of ours goes, well, that's a lot of square footage, but they would have to do those improvements.

So it's hard to predict.

This is an assumed thing, right?

But frankly, what landowners don't want is to get tied up in a contract with somebody and sit around for 12 months wondering if they're gonna get their zoning or not, so that they then can decide whether they want to close on the property and go build something.

So the idea here is just like everything to the north is get it zoned so that you can then field the the comers and decide is this somebody that we think we should sell to or not.

I'd like to say we sell it in the next couple of years.

Don't know.

Um it's very hard to predict.

But this is not assumed thing.

It frankly, it's it's just having been a part of this community for the last 22 years from an economic development standpoint and seeing how this process worked and the impact that it had.

We just want to continue to do things the way that they were done in the past and they work by having sites that are zoned and being able to recruit the right kind of users to come.

Um but um I would be shocked if this thing sold in three or four or five years, it's hard to predict.

Um until somebody does the improvements to the north, it's gonna be hard to justify somebody developing this site.

Thank you, Councilmember Representative from District 2.

Thank you.

This is this is for Matter Scott or whoever um wants to, and I I think we might have heard the answer um from former counselor Johnson, and and that is it sounds like that all the discussion, you know, nothing's gonna go down to the south because of the the tech stop plans, um, and we're already kind of mapped out for the MPC to the south in terms of that development style.

So all of this is coming from the north.

Is I mean, can I summarize in that any any resources, any roads, any anything is coming through that ESA heavy parcel to the south?

So, far from being a foregone conclusion, that that's probably a challenging parcel to the north.

And I know this is about this parcel, so I want you to be careful not speculate on some other parcel, but in terms of the environment this parcel finds itself in, you know, is it correct that all the utility services roads, everything's gonna come down from the north?

It is correct that wastewater exists to the north, water exists to the north.

Um the roadway network will be from the north and the south.

So um underwood road will continue, will come up from 2449.

Um, that realignment of the underwood station, so all of that roadway network is is planned to be connected.

Um, and that was what the mobility plan amendments were for.

So north and the south, it is avoiding most of the ESA area.

That bridge isn't gonna be improved.

There's that alternative plan.

Um so yes, the the water, the wastewater will come from the north, the roadway network will come from the north and from the south.

Okay.

Um, I and let me say in the form of a question, because again, I'm trying to be mindful that we're talking about that red parcel and not the one to the north.

Um, in general, parcels with a lot of riparian and ESA are challenging to get off the ground and develop.

That is a correct statement.

Okay.

So I I mean, I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to keep us in our lane.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay, any any other questions?

Um I'm gonna move approval, but here's I I I want to I want to speak to the residents' concern, uh, because uh if nobody understands, I do because I I grew up on Bonnie Bray Street, which was one lane each way, and where the hospital is is where my friend's house was with their horses, and it looks very different today.

Uh and remember raise a ranch very well.

I still missed the longhorns and and all the things.

Um, so very sensitive to that, and and don't take it, I don't take it lightly.

But here's what guides my decision.

Uh Matt, can I borrow you?

Um the do you have a you do have a slide where there's zoning around the subject property?

So this one is a little bit more.

Yeah, that so the brown is ETJ.

Correct.

So anything can go there.

Um not quite.

So these particular ones do have non-annexation agreements on there, right?

Um, so if they want to develop anything, they would actually be annexed into the city.

Okay, and then it would get what what zoning would it get?

It would yeah, um Right until they come here for a rezoning, right?

Uh that once you once you come out, that's what's kind of placed there, right?

And so uh and then those areas also are protected, and that I think there's been some discussion when I looked at the map uh on the website because of the um ESA restrictions, all those things, right?

And so it's kind of protected around there generally, you know, but then also the the subject property has a street that's proposed through it.

Is that right?

Did I see that right?

The the the transportation plan.

Um so it was amended so that now the proposed streets follow the existing right-of-the-art.

Got it.

Okay.

So that's a former plan, right?

But but so then we had planned on a street running closer to uh the the neighbors, but we we've pushed that out, made some adjustments there.

Got it.

Uh so yeah, I struggle with it certainly.

It's it's helpful to know that there's a and here's my struggle, traffic, right?

Because I think that that's really critical to make sure we're mindful of that.

And and maybe that's something we start planning on now to get in front of uh because when I-35 is under construction and there's no money for the for these service roads, I understand it now.

But as they start talking about that, that is the I guess it's uh I'm gonna get my streets wrong, but underwood or what which is that the one that takes you to the to the highway?

You go to the north and then it cuts over and get you to the to 1171 or whatever.

Yeah, to the north is the airport.

Okay, right.

No, so yeah, so and then south, yes.

Yes, yeah.