2019-048 Citizen Participation in the Draft Denton Development CodeDate: March 8, 2019 Report No. 2019-048
INFORMAL STAFF REPORT
TO MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
SUBJECT:
Information on Citizen Participation in the draft Denton Development Code.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Following a work session regarding citizen participation on Feb. 26, 2019, staff wanted to clarify
topics of discussion at that meeting. This informal staff report addresses the process, how
meetings are handled, notifications, staffing impacts and responsibilities. This information will
be brought back to City Council on March 19, 2019 for further discussion.
BACKGROUND:
The City of Denton has been working on the Denton Development Code (DDC) update since
summer 2017 and has held several meetings with various stakeholders including Planning and
Zoning Commission, and City Council throughout the process. Include in the draft DDC, are
regulations on the citizen participation process. City Council held a work session on citizen
participation on November 6, 2018. Following that work session, City Council requested that the
future development projects be encouraged to follow the future procedures and include these
regulations in the draft DDC. The citizen participation was discussed again during a DDC work
sessions on February 26, 2019.
DISCUSSION:
During the February 26, 2019 work session, there were several questions raised and staff has
provided the information below on the questions raised and solutions to be included in Section
2.4.3b of the draft DDC and department policies.
Citizen Participation Process
Citizen participation is anticipated to be recommended for specific use permits, replats,
watershed permits, comprehensive plan amendments, zoning changes, annexations, planned
developments, and alternative environmentally sensitive area plans. The process for citizen
participation is listed below:
Citizen Participation
Plan
Director Review 1st Neighborhood
Meeting
Meeting Report
Submitted
Project Review 2nd Neighborhood
Meeting, if needed
Public HearingsPre-Application
The DDC will outline generally the citizen participation process, but departmental policies will
provide the operational details and protocols for implementation. For example, the DDC will
require that citizen participation reports include certain items while departmental policies will
discuss the details of how to submit, format, etc. Staff will be drafting these policies to
accompany updates to the Development Administration Manual.
Date: March 8, 2019 Report No. 2019-048
In the draft DDC, the citizen participation procedures are strongly recommended but not
required. City Council initially discussed requiring neighborhood meetings during the November
2018 work session but was changed at the suggestion of the DDC legal consultant, who was
concerned with the legality of requiring this meeting, to strongly recommend applicants to
participate in the citizen participation process.
Citizens Comments
Staff wants to emphasize that the citizen participant will provide greater transparency for the
neighborhoods and an opportunity to provide input that could help guide the future development
in a way that may address neighborhood concerns but may give the neighborhood a false sense
of ability to prevent developments or the applicant make changes. The major change with this
process will be increase transparency and awareness, provide the ability for input, and a
consolidation of comments to be included in agenda materials.
Number of Meetings
While the draft DDC does recommend applicants to hold two public meetings during the
development process, there may be instances where this does not occur. The draft DDC does
have the flexibility to allow some discretion in this area. Staff will determine whether a second
meeting is needed to address concerns raised through the process. For projects that previously
received City Council approval but have not held a public meeting within 12 months, the
departmental policy will recommend developers hold an additional public meeting prior to
construction.
Location
Staff will include a requirement that neighborhood meetings be held within the city limits of
Denton at a location open to the general public. This change will be included in the next draft of
the DDC.
Notifications to Neighborhood Leaders
An area of discussion during the recent work session was how and who would be notifying
neighborhood leaders. Included in the draft DDC is an affected parties section which describes
that staff will provide applicants the names and mailing addresses of property owners within 200
feet of the subject property and residents within 500 feet of the subject. Additionally, staff will
provide to the applicant homeowners association contact or other known neighborhood contacts.
Staffing Impacts
Below is a summary of the Fiscal Year 2017-18 project counts for the projects that would be
required to hold neighborhood meetings. Based on this information staff expect an additional 480
total hours of meetings annually or 7.9 hours per week. This would be in addition to City
Council, P&Z and special projects like the DDC update, small area plans and others.
Date: March 8, 2019 Report No. 2019-048
While most of the time the assigned planner attends their projects neighborhood meetings, there
are instances where another staff member has needed to attend, or, on rare occasions, no staff
attended.
Following direction by City Council to pilot the citizen participation process, the City has seen
an increase in the number of neighborhood meetings and expect a significant increase following
adoption of the DDC. Currently, it is not an uncommon requirement that planners work after
hours three nights a week for City Council, P&Z, and other meetings. For example, Development
Services staff has five P&Z and City Council meetings plus an additional 9 public meetings in
the last four weeks. This is an estimated 150 staff hours for after-hours business.
Meeting Report Responsibility
Staff recommends that the citizen participation report be written by the developer on a form
provided by the City. Some considerations with requiring that City staff write a citizen
participation report are:
• A staff drafted report could have the perception of bias either for or against a
development. There will be a discussion of the comments received from the public in the
staff analysis.
• As discussed in the prior section, there may be instances where staff are unable to attend
a neighborhood meeting and therefore unable to write a report.
The developers would be more appropriate as the party responsible for the drafting of a report
because the neighborhood meetings are hosted by the developer, the developer would always be
in attendance and more knowledgeable about the planned changes in the project as a result of
input from those meetings. Included in the departmental policies would be a standard report
template to be used by the developer to clearly indicate the details of the meeting, comments
received from citizens and the plans to address those comments. Staff is also working to provide
a way for citizen to provide comments directly to the City regarding different development
projects.
Staff would be reviewing these documents for accuracy in conjunction with the project plans and
the citizen participation report will be included in the City Council and P&Z agenda materials.
Project Type FY17-18 Count Total Staff Hours1
ALTERNATIVE ESAs 2 12
ANNEXATIONS 3 18
COMP PLAN AMENDMENTS 1 6
PLANNED DEVELOPMENTS 10 60
REPLATS 20 120
SPECIFIC USE PERMITS 11 66
ZONING CHANGES 33 198
Grand Total 80 480
1. Staff hours based on future procedures and 3 hours per occurrence.
Date: March 8, 2019 Report No. 2019-048
ATTACHMENT(S):
Draft Citizen Participation Report Template
STAFF CONTACT:
Scott McDonald
Director of Development Services
(940) 349-8539
Scott.McDonald@cityofdenton.com
[Citizen Participation Report Example]
Citizen Participation Report for City of Denton
Case #Z19-0000
Report Date:
Overview: [Provide a brief overview of the project]
Applicant Contact:
Name
Address
Phone
Email
Neighborhood Meetings: Include Dates and locations of all meetings where citizens were invited to
discuss the applicant’s proposal [Please comments, sign in lists and other feedback are attached];
Correspondence: [Please include any correspondence that you’ve had with residents including mailings]
Results:
1. Summary of concerns, issues and problems:
2. How concerns issues and problems were addressed:
3. Concerns, issues and problems not addressed and why: