It is two o'clock.

Let's call the uh August uh 13th, 2025 Planning Commission meeting to order.

Would staff please do a roll call.

Commissioner Sanchez.

Present.

Commissioner Garcia.

Present.

Commissioner Lopez.

Present.

Commissioner Ulett.

Here.

Commissioner Orion.

Here.

Commissioner Bustamante.

Present.

Commissioner Siegel.

Here.

Commissioner Profit.

Present.

Chair Peck.

Here.

A quorum is present.

All right.

Okay.

Next on the agenda is citizens to be heard.

If you've signed up for an item, you can choose to speak now or wait till your item is uh heard and speak at that time.

Does anybody wish to speak to the commission before we begin hearing items?

Okay, seeing none, we'll move on.

Today we'll have two agendas.

We have the consent agenda.

Um everything on the consent agenda will be heard in one uniform motion.

Items on the consent agenda are cases where no one in the audience is signed up to speak.

Um staff um has no issues and uh no commissioner wants to pull the item.

Every other item will be on individual uh the individual hearing agenda, and right now I have items 12 and 18 on individual.

I know we have people signed up to speak on item 13.

We will uh hear you speak before taking uh motion on that item.

And I did forget the Spanish English interpreter.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Buenas tardes.

Las personas que prefieren escuchar esta junta in espanhol.

Pass it for favor a la cav cabina de la parte derecha atrás para que les demos un dispositivo de interpretación.

Muchas gracias.

Thank you so much.

Great, thank you.

Sorry to forget you.

All right.

Um I have to recuse from the combined hearing agenda, so I will step out of the room and uh Commissioner Bustamante also has to recuse, so it is 202, and Commissioner Peck and Bustamante are leaving the room.

All right, we'll move forward with the consent.

Um we do have a a number of people signed up to speak on item 13.

Um you'll have three minutes.

If you can please state your name and address for the record.

Sorry.

Do you wish to speak?

No.

Actually, you want to you want to cede your time?

To have time to just okay.

Okay.

Uh Pamela Ball.

Scott Day.

Do you wish to speak?

Good afternoon.

Uh good afternoon, Scott Day.

Uh address is 1919 North Florida Street.

Um, I'm the managing partner for GRLS Partners.

We own the property to the south of the tower.

Uh to me it's unclear why we need to take this action.

Uh the zoning that's there matches the zoning with the land use that's there presently.

Um speaking with some of the neighbors around there.

We're perplexed as to what's driving this.

Uh I understand mixed use development.

Uh there are certainly appropriate areas for it.

If you look at the adjacent areas, the land use is it's all low density, medium density, residential.

Uh our primary urban commercial street is San Pedro, which is two blocks away.

It seems that that would be a much more appropriate area for uh the zoning uh overlay.

So thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Maria Alvarado.

Okay, my name is Maria Alvarado.

My name is Maria Alvarado, and I live at 131 Hickman.

And I'm actually on case the whatever they want to do there.

Because there's a lot of crime going on.

There's a lot of homeless, and there's a lot of traffic.

So I'm not really.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We only think we have one voicemail on item 13.

This is Madeline Schumart, owner of 1814 North Tamal Street, located within 200 feet of the 114 Hitman Street.

I'm calling to express my opposition to the proposed land use amendment request for the mid-town area regional centered plan.

Um I believe the current zoning should remain in place at this time.

Uh when there's a concrete proposal for a new development in the future, that would be an appropriate time to revisit the zoning uh discussion.

Um thank you for your consideration.

All right, I think that includes uh public comments.

Uh do any commissioners wish to pull any items from the consent agenda?

Is there any uh further discussion related to the consent agenda?

Hearing none, I just want to remind on the motion that we have uh an amendment to the minutes, so if we can just make sure that we approve it with the amendment.

I'll take a motion.

I move that we approve the consent agenda with the minutes as amended.

I second motion to approve uh as amended by Commissioner Siegel, second by Commissioner Sanchez Commissioner Siegel, yes, Commissioner Sanchez, yes, Commissioner Garcia.

Yes, Commissioner Lopez.

Yes, Commissioner Ulett.

Yes, Commissioner Orion.

Yes.

Commissioner Profit.

Yes.

Motion passes for approval as amended.

Thank you.

All right.

Um if we can ask Commissioner Bustamani and Chair Peck to come back.

The time is 207.

Commissioner Bustamani and Chair Peck have re-entered the meeting.

And I'll turn the meeting back over to Chair Peck.

All right.

There were 16 notices mailed, two in favor, zero opposed within 200 feet, no registered neighborhood association with 200 feet, or response from outside the 200 feet.

The proposed plan amendment from medium density residential to regional commercial is requested to in order to rezone the property to C3 General Commercial District.

The proposed regional commercial land use is not consistent with the surrounding properties.

The requested regional commercial is out of character with the surrounding land use designations and uses.

The reason why we are asking for the C tree and not just for the C D is because we have intentions in the future to perhaps have other uses such as maybe contractors or some automotive, just as the ones on the on the street.

Bulberda road already has um plenty of uh I want to show them the the zoning map if possible.

I have one somewhere there.

It's previous.

I'm sorry, that right there, yes.

Well, one of the reasons we felt confident to to uh request this change is due to the fact as you can see that most of the street already has a C tree on it, and we have enough distance from uh the residential area, which is par me.

Which is which is up in this direction.

Or although this is currently R6, we have spoken with the owner of this property.

Uh we have a letter of consent from him.

Uh he pretends to eventually uh turn this area also into some commercial use, and of course, try to leave some kind of buffer with with the with the back area that butts to the to the residential.

We've also spoke with this uh neighbors.

The they're also pretending to have uh commercial use.

Actually, as we speak, this one is being offered as a commercial uh property already, and and and with this neighbor as well, that we got a letter of of approval from them.

Um they are also pretending to have uh a commercial.

So again, the fact that we are not uh so close to the residential area, and we somehow are more in contact with uh an area that already not only has C3 but also has industrial right across the street, makes us feel comfortable that it's not something that will affect the surroundings.

And also thinking of the future, uh like I mentioned, if by any chance this tends to have a different use, uh we we don't have to come in again rezone every time for a for a special CD.

That's that's basically the reason why.

And then like I like mentioned already a week ago, uh we went to the zoning commission and they found it uh positive.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Uh no one signed up to speak on this item, so we'll move on to Commissioner questions.

We'll start on the right with Commissioner Siegel.

I don't have any questions, thank you.

Commissioner Prophet?

Uh just to clarify that the zoning commission approved C3.

Um the recommendation, alternate recommendation is for neighborhood commercial.

Um I'm sorry, community commercial, uh of which C3 is not permitted in that land use.

Correct.

So the zoning commission did recommend approval for the C3, but again, that would not align with the um staff's recommendation of community commercial.

Yeah, I I support the alternate recommendations.

Uh your regional centers is too big of a too dense of a use and it doesn't meet the the land use standard.

So um I'm good with the alternate recommendation.

Okay, Commissioner Willett?

No.

Commissioner?

Yes, uh so uh uh the the church that's right behind this, they own that entire swath of property that zoned R6.

Not the entire swath, but the larger parcel, I believe.

Yeah, I just I didn't know if there was any future planning or anything going on there, but it is all owned by the church.

Again, the larger area.

I do know that the area that shows medium density residential is owned by somebody else, and I believe they attempted to rezone as well.

Um I want to say over a year ago, but just because of issues with um access through a resident uh single family residentially zoned property, it kind of failed.

Um I was just looking at there was any potential for a true R6 use directly abutting this uh subject application, that's all.

All right, thank you.

No questions.

Commissioner Garcia.

I had a question for stab.

This doesn't involve the ACUs for the airport.

Um it is under it is within the airport hazard overlay district, but um so I don't believe the aviation department was made was sent notification on this.

We notify folks typically if they're within a radius of the uh airports.

Was that what you were asking about?

Okay.

Commissioner Lopez.

And Commissioner Boostamani.

No questions.

And I'm sorry, I just aviation department was notified of that they were sent this application, so they did get a chance to review it.

No, they did get a chance to review it, and any comments that we've received, we typically put in the staff reports.

Thank you.

All right.

Um thank you.

And this thing is less than an acre, correct?

Don't land.

The property, yeah, it's 0.992 acres.

I'll echo uh Commissioner Prophet's uh statement about being in favor of the alternate recommendation of community commercial.

The location and the size don't seem to fit regional commercial to me.

Uh any further commissioner questions.

Not my entertainer roll call or a motion.

Motion to approve uh the alternate recommendation of community commercial We have a motion by Commissioner Prophet for the approval of staff's alternate recommendation of community commercial seconds.

Second by Commissioner Sanchez.

Staff, please do a roll call vote.

Commissioner Prophet.

Yes.

Commissioner Sanchez.

Yes.

Commissioner Garcia.

Yes.

Commissioner Lopez.

Commissioner Ulett?

Yes.

Commissioner Orion?

Yes.

Commissioner Bustamante.

No.

Commissioner Siegel.

Yes.

Chair Peck.

Yes.

Motion passes for approval with alternate recommendation.

Thank you.

All right.

We will move on to item 18, UDC amendments.

Never thought I'd say those words until 2027.

Say it three times.

All right.

We'll make it work.

Can we do the PowerPoint?

Yeah, we're going to load the PowerPoint for the UDC amendments unless we really want to go line by line on 11 pages.

Yeah, board briefing.

Perfect.

Thank you.

All right.

So I have a real quick five, 10-minute presentation to give you all today.

I know that we have in work sessions previously had a chance to kind of introduce some of these UDC amendments.

We've been working very closely with our city attorney's office and interpreting the laws, figuring out how to apply them.

Before I get started in this presentation, I do want to say once again that the purpose of the 2025 UDC amendment program is merely to update the UDC to account for mandates down from the 89th Texas legislative session.

So there's nothing in here that's submitted from other departments, other agencies from DSD.

This is merely to account for changes in state law.

This relates to a county exemption from building permits.

So there is a caveat there.

So right now, for many years, the city has had interlocal agreements with Bear County.

We work with the fire marshal's office.

This deals more with the zoning process than anything the planning commission would see.

The first kind of major change this bill calls for is it simply says that the big yellow rezoning sign that's posted on property has to be bigger.

So right now it's two by three, it's now got to be two by four.

So I know we're working with the print shop to try to get special signs made to uh comply with that.

The law goes on to say that if it is a owner-initiated change of zoning, you know, the sign has to be placed on the property.

If it's a city initiated large area rezoning that's allowed to be placed in the right-of-way, or what they describe as the general boundary of the large area rezoning project, which is typically what we would do anyway.

So not much of a change in process.

That was the subject of a lawsuit up in Austin.

They had adopted a new unified development code.

I think they called it Code Next.

Some people didn't like it.

They sued and it was struck down because they said you didn't mail every property owner in Austin that the code was changing.

So the law does clarify that that is not required, what they call kind of a comprehensive zoning change.

And then most importantly, it dramatically changes the process by which city council approves changes of zoning when nearby property owners protest the change.

So today, if we mail uh notices to property owners within 200 feet, and 20% of the owners, the land area within 200 feet writes back to the city and says I'm opposed, city council has to approve that by a supermajority rather than a simple majority.

This law, it's a little confusing the way it's written.

The way it's written literally says we're going to change that 20 to 60, and oh, by the way, even if you hit 60, it's still a simple majority.

In effect, it basically says that if your rezoning property that results in more housing units, the supermajority rule does not apply.

So it would always be locked in as a simple majority.

Again, it's written kind of confusing, but that's what it boils down to.

So the idea there is it makes uh it's less of a burden to get a change of zoning approved that if the change of zoning results in more housing units.

House Bill 2464 has some slight tweaks to the supplemental use regulations in Article 3 zoning as it relates to home occupations.

The biggest difference is that our code today prohibits a home occupation from having employees on site or direct on-site sales.

This would, we would no longer be able to restrict, you know, if you were a tax preparer and you had an employee that came to your house and helped you prepare taxes, that would be allowed.

Um but there are still several really critical limitations that the city can apply.

Um specifically, the law says that if your home occupation generates one on street parking, you know, one car parked on the street, that is illegal.

It has to be on your property.

We can still apply our noise ordinance, and we can still require that it match the character of the community in which that home occupation is located.

So, you know, you you can't be a mechanic with 10 cars that you're waiting to fix in the lawn.

We still have opportunity to intervene to ensure that our neighborhoods and character thereof is protected.

Um this slide and the next are certainly the two most impactful bills.

Uh SB 15 deals with small lot development.

So it is a it's really a two-part bill.

Part one of the bill is provided you qualify, meaning your tract is at least five acres, has no recorded plat, and uh is zoned any type of single family.

The city cannot require that you subdivide those lots to be greater than 3,000 square feet.

You can voluntarily subdivide them whatever size greater than that you would like.

You know, if you're R6 and you want to do 10,000 square foot lots, that's fine, but I can't require you to be greater than 3,000.

Part two of the bill says that if you elect to subdivide lots that are 4,000 square feet or smaller, that is now in the state law definition, that is called a small lot, and you are given additionally uh kind of flexible development standards.

So we cannot apply a front setback that is greater than 15 feet, a rear setback that is greater than 10, the five-foot side setback doesn't really change.

That's pretty consistent with our current development code.

Another relatively big difference there is a lot of our single family districts today limit building height to two and a half stories, and we have you may recall from the last UDC amendment rendition, we adopted a definition of what a half story is.

This would supersede that.

So just three full stories, each can be 10 feet in height.

Um there are some limitations.

Uh, you cannot take advantage of this provision if you are within 3,000 feet of a military base or an airport, nor can you take advantage of this provision if you are within 15,000 feet of a military base with a designated clear zone.

Locally, that means Randolph and Lackland.

So not within 15,000 feet of those two military bases.

So we'll certainly be working with the staff to kind of train the team, make sure everyone's aware of this and come up with processes to make sure these applicability standards are reviewed in advance of a project getting underground.

But uh that's definitely one that is gonna be uh quite a change from a lot of what we've done historically.

And lastly, we have Senate Bill 840.

Uh, this deals with multifamily and mixed use multifamily development.

Another two-part bill, uh, it does apply to, I should say part one of this applies to any tract of land that is zoned commercial, office, light industrial, or any special district that authorizes those same uses.

So you might have a MPCD and phase three calls for office.

Uh you would be allowed to develop multifamily in phase three.

Um you might have to amend the underlying, you know, MDP or MPCD plan to account for the increase in units, but uh that would be allowed.

Um if you're going to develop mixed use, the law does say that at least 65% of your floor area has to be residential in nature.

So kind of again the emphasis on residential development.

And the law says that the city has to allow the density for those projects to be developed at the greater of 36 units per acre or the highest multifamily density that the city offers.

Locally, that is 65 units per acre.

So that is high-rise multifamily density.

Um part two of this bill, uh, in addition to having a track that is zoned that way, if you have a track that is zoned that way and has a building on it, and that building has been there for at least five years, you are allowed to convert that building into multifamily or mixed use, and the city cannot require you to do a traffic impact analysis or study.

We can't require payment for construction improvements.

We cannot require uh utility upsizing beyond the needs of that particular project.

So no downstream improvements and anticipation of future growth nearby.

Um, and we cannot require that it comply with any design standard except for those, and I'll just I'll quote the law directly, except for areas of historic or cultural significance.

So things like historic districts would still be going through OHP and the design review process.

So a couple uh kind of stipulations on that one, similar to the previous bill, you can't do this within 3,000 feet of a military base or an airport.

You cannot do it in heavy industrial districts or within 1,000 feet of a heavy industrial use.

So again, some limitations, we don't want high density residential development near heavy industrial uses, um, but another uh really uh critical change to how development is permitted and what is permitted by right as far as the zoning rules are concerned.

So kind of our plan to implement these.

Uh I'm obviously here today giving you all a briefing.

Uh we will be to the zoning commission on September 2nd for briefing and action.

Uh and then we will take this suite of amendments to the city council on September 4th, um, just a little bit behind the effective date of these laws.

They do take effect on September 1st, uh, but certainly here at DSD will be geared up and ready to go on 9-1 to get those projects rolling because we've already got people that have expressed interest.

So, perhaps unsurprisingly.

Any questions?

Okay, any questions?

Yes, I have uh so I've got just a handful of questions.

Number one, where it were the on the five-acre part where the land is platted, if someone does a vacate plat.

Nope.

So that that was actually one of the first questions we were asked.

So even if you vacate a plant, that plant might not be effective, but it is still recorded.

Okay.

So and then uh does RM4 count as a single family use.

I think that we would have to allow it in RM4 because RM4 starts off life as a single family district, and then you get you get bonuses if you want to develop quadruplex, triplex, or duplex.

There's no way is in the in the UDC definitions, it implies that it's over four to be considered multiple.

Multi.

I know if someone was putting in a quadplex, whether that would I'm just waiting for that to come up, obviously, because there's a lot of RM4 around.

Uh so that's that uh the third question I have is um about the home occupations and about increasing all street parking.

Does that also apply on a private street or an irrevocable ingress egress easement street?

The law does not differentiate.

It says if it generates any on street parking, it is illegal.

Okay.

And then my last question uh has to do with um the um the oversize utility extend upgrade or oversize utility facility is necessary.

I mean, I'm glad that you have it in the UDC.

Have you communicated this with SAWs?

Because they love to make people do stuff.

Yeah, so I've presented this presentation a couple times, including to groups with you know SAWS CPS folks.

So they're they're aware the the law started off life as just a blanket no matter what, you cannot require any utility upsizing.

It's like, well, if you're converting a 1,000 square foot office building into a five-story hundred unit multifamily development, we're gonna need to be able to request this.

I bring it up, there's a lot of six inch mains downtown, so somebody does a convert, so might, or if there's a dead end main, they may want you to loop it, connect it, extend it.

And I did I just wanted to make sure they're in the loop on that.

They are in the loop.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Um Commissioner, I don't think your microphone is on.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um U to C section 35.04, I don't remember which bill this was in relation to, I don't remember the bill number.

But if no permit is required for these county facilities, the requirement is that they must be supervised by a licensed building professional engineer or architect, and that they have to comply with local building codes.

What what kind of oversight is permitted by this bill if not permitting an inspections by the local municipality?

Yeah, it's it's not permitting and it's not inspections.

It's really on the uh the kind of the seal, the license of the person certifying that it complies.

Um I think that this bill is a very uh simplified boiled down version of uh House Bill 23.

It's the um I know I presented kind of an update to the planning commission as we went through the session, but there was uh this overarching idea that development should be allowed to bypass the city entirely in lieu of the private sector.

Um I will tell you that House Bill 23 had the support to pass.

It failed because they ran out of time.

Uh I think that this is kind of the very closely related to that that idea.

Um at least in House Bill 23, we were able to get some language added that said you can certify it, but I still have the right to do a final inspection before I issue a C of O.

That language was not included in this bill.

So it's gonna be interesting as this one gets implemented.

I again I will say that we have for many years had an ILA with Bear County where we have a process worked out to do this.

I don't know that we're gonna see real changes, meaningful changes to the process that we have.

Again, this bill was targeted to another county.

I think it was up in Dallas.

Um but yeah, we've effectively don't have recourse.

We have to accept the results of that third party, uh whether it's the engineer or the architect, so long as they're licensed.

Okay, so that's a that's a follow-up question.

So the let's say there's a registered design professional in responsible charge, right?

And they write a letter and they put their stamp on it and they say, to the best of my knowledge, understanding and belief, this building and this construction complies with applicable codes and standards of the municipality, then where does that letter go?

Do they frame it and put it on the wall?

Does it get tossed in the round file?

Yeah, so we we would request a copy of it.

So it's a little complicated because it's not like we can upload it and attach it to a permit record, which we would typically do something like that for.

But we we can at least intervene if we're aware of the development and request that, you know, I need something in writing from the design team that says it meets our building codes and our standards, but I have no way to go in there and verify if that's accurate.

The I will also say the um the similar bill, House Bill 23 that failed.

It did not fail again, they ran out of time.

It hadn't support, and I anticipate we will see it in two years' time.

Um we were able to get a fair amount of language added to say you are required to turn over your your inspection notes.

You know, what did you inspect?

How did you find that it complied with our codes?

We could require that with that kind of similar bill, but again, none of that language made its way to this one.

Okay, thank you.

Um then um you sort of touched on this um small lot development.

Um I remember um some of the deliberations regarding those um design limitations for smaller lots, um, particularly those that are in center city neighborhoods.

And um I was wondering about how those amendments will be impacted by this new law.

Are they struck?

Or are we going to be threading a needle or how is this?

I think that SB 15 will have very limited impact on kind of established neighborhoods.

Kind of the closer to downtown, the less likely is this bill will apply because it's got to be a five-acre tract with no recorded plat.

Okay, so this this is sort of like an initial development.

Yeah, this is a greenfield development bill.

This is out the further out you get, the more likely this is to apply.

Or it could be a property redevelopment of a large tract of land, like an abandoned strip mall or not likely because a strip mall probably has a plat.

So one of the all those first three bullets, all three of those have to be true.

It has to be five acres, and it has to have no recorded plat, and it has to be zoned single family.

So I mean, there's just not a lot of five acre, never ever been platted tracks, you know, even residential estate is a one-acre minimum lot size.

So it again, I'm not saying I'm sure there's some out there.

I just don't think it's going to be very common in like really well established neighborhoods.

And then ag parcels are not um zoned single family, are they?

Some of them are.

So we have a resource protection district, we have a farm and ranch district, um farm and ranch district.

We're talking about farm and ranch and resource protection.

We're probably talking far south side, you know, in between 1604 and 410.

I can see this applying there.

But I don't I don't think this is going to be applicable anywhere in Beacon Hill or Mankey Park.

There's just not that many undeveloped you know, acres.

Thank you.

Uh question, just clarification on the county uh county owned facilities.

So what about the public financing court like the county when they do like a s like a uh affordable housing project?

That's a ground lease, so it's it's owned by somebody else, but that that's I might have to it might be a case by case review with the city attorney's office on that one.

I think from experience, I'm not the city attorney for the record.

Sorry, Matthew.

Um but from experience when we've had situation like this with uh the courthouse if and um the federal government if they are if they own the property and someone else is leasing it, the leasee has to comply with our permit activity, is what I can recall.

This won't change that.

Correct.

Yeah, I I think that it's that's probably a a good example to use.

This this idea is not totally new to the city.

You know, if the federal government comes in and wants to open a military base, we don't get to require building permits.

We don't even get to require that it be certified by an architect or an engineer.

So it's kind of expanding the number of government agencies that don't have to run through us, so it's it's not totally totally new.

And there may be other contractual or like ILA voluntary regulations that may be imposed based on the specific uh building itself.

Yeah, you kind of see where I'm going though if somebody wants to build a 400 unit multifamily development on prop land that's owned by maybe a county-owned corporation, you know.

Yeah, I I think the the use of the word facility probably becomes pretty important.

County owned facility, not county-owned land.

Yeah, that's what my question was.

Uh another question occurs to me is how will this impact um the necessity to review plans and inspect facilities for um a registered accessibility specialist?

I'm gonna have to look into that one and get back to you there.

I don't know.

So I'm a RAS and we do a lot of that stuff.

That's a state level permit, not a city level permit.

And count counties aren't exempt, only federal agencies.

So they have to turn every political subdivision in Texas has to submit those things.

And I would agree with Commissioner Orion's statement.

And on top of you know the other inspection questions you're asking, the county fire marshal is still involved.

So they will be we had a meeting with Bear County, and I don't know if it was last couple Fridays ago.

And they were kind of saying this wasn't gonna be that big of a deal because they're still gonna have their county fire marshal out there doing what he does.

So there will be inspections happening.

Just not from the city.

Okay.

Any other questions for Logan?

Appreciate your time, everyone.

All right.

Thank you.

And we don't have to take action on that, correct?

That's just a briefing.

Just a briefing.

Awesome.

Is there any other staff updates?

Not today.

Great.

Then hearing nothing else, it is 240 and we are adjourned.