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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFebruary 6, 2012 Agenda AGENDA CITY OF DENTON CITY COUNCIL February 6, 2012 After determining that a quorum is present, the City Council of the City of Denton, Texas will convene in a Special Called Work Session on Monday, February 6, 2012 at 11:30 a.m. in the Council Work Session Room, 215 E. McKinney Street, Denton, Texas at which the following item will be considered: NOTE: A Work Session is used to explore matters of interest to one or more City Council Members or the City Manager for the purpose of giving staff direction into whether or not such matters should be placed on a future regular or special meeting of the Council for citizen input, City Council deliberation and formal City action. At a Work Session, the City Council generally receives informal and preliminary reports and information from City staff, officials, members of City committees, and the individual or organization proposing council action, if invited by City Council or City Manager to participate in the session. Participation by individuals and members of organizations invited to speak ceases when the Mayor announces the session is being closed to public input. Although Work Sessions are public meetings, and citizens have a legal right to attend, they are not public hearings, so citizens are not allowed to participate in the session unless invited to do so by the Mayor. Any citizen may supply to the City Council, prior to the beginning of the session, a written report regarding the citizen’s opinion on the matter being explored. Should the Council direct the matter be placed on a regular meeting agenda, the staff will generally prepare a final report defining the proposed action, which will be made available to all citizens prior to the regular meeting at which citizen input is sought. The purpose of this procedure is to allow citizens attending the regular meeting the opportunity to hear the views of their fellow citizens without having to attend two meetings. 1.Receive a report and hold a discussion with Library staff regarding, but not limited to Library programs, services and project updates. 2.Receive an update, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding supplemental street funding. 3.Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding a Street Improvement Bond Program. C E R T I F I C A T E I certify that the above notice of meeting was posted on the bulletin board at the City Hall of the City of Denton, Texas, on the ________day of ___________________, 2012 at ________o'clock (a.m.) (p.m.) ____________________________________ CITY SECRETARY NOTE: THE CITY OF DENTON COUNCIL WORK SESSION ROOM IS ACCESSIBLE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT. THE CITY WILL PROVIDE SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETERS FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED IF REQUESTED AT LEAST 48 HOURS IN ADVANCE OF THE SCHEDULED MEETING. PLEASE CALL THE CITY SECRETARY'S OFFICE AT 349-8309 OR USE TELECOMMUNICATIONS DEVICES FOR THE DEAF (TDD) BY CALLING 1-800- RELAY-TX SO THAT A SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETER CAN BE SCHEDULED THROUGH THE CITY SECRETARY’S OFFICE. AGENDA INFORMATION SHEET AGENDA DATE: February 6, 2012Questions concerning this report may be directed DEPARTMENT: Library Services to Eva Poole at 349-8750 ACM: Fred Greene SUBJECT Receive a report and hold a discussion with Library staff regarding, but not limited to Library programs, services and project updates. BACKGROUND In December 2011, City Council approved funding for the purchase of a 3M Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) Project for the Denton Public Library. This project will be discussed, as well as several new programs and services, including e-books and e-readers, the Library FISCAL INFORMATION There is no fiscal impact related to this subject. EXHIBITS Exhibit 1: PowerPoint Presentation on Library Programs and Services Prepared by: Eva Poole Director of Library Services Respectfully submitted: Fred Greene Assistant City Manager AGENDA INFORMATION SHEET AGENDA DATE: February 6, 2012 DEPARTMENT: City Manager-Administration ACM: Howard Martin, 349-8232 ______________________________________________________________________________ SUBJECT Receive an update, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding supplemental street funding. BACKGROUND Staff presented a report to the Council on supplemental street funding options on December 5, 2011. During discussions several questions and clarification issues were raised by the Council. Staff has prepared a response to each of the items and these are discussed below. In addition, staff did an analysis of all new permits going back three fiscal years. Based on the type of permit issued, staff calculated an equivalent road impact fee for each permit, using $1,500 as a Single Family Equivalent (SFE) road impact fee. The results of this analysis are included in Exhibit 1. The analysis results show that the City could have collected approximately $4.4 million more for road improvements than was assessed using the current Denton Development Code (DDC) exactions with the assumed impact fee of $1,500 per SFE. For a $2,000 per SFE road impact fee the difference amounts to $6.8 million. Staff will discuss this in more detail during the presentation. The following discusses the clarification items from the last Council meeting; (1) Infill / Redevelopment / Downtown Area This seems to be the most significant issue raised by the Council. Through the adopted impact fee ordinance, Council will have the ability to control this via policy. There are three possible options as below (and can be many more) that can be used to achieve the Council’s directive: a. Create ‘No fee/Reduced fee’ Service Areas – So long as we can support it via a policy statement we can carve out a roadway service area for downtown or infill areas where no/minimal capacity improvement projects are identified within the road impact fee CIP. The resulting fee is then $0 or very small in these areas. The City of Fort Worth handles their Central City area (Exhibit 2) in this manner – there are about 5-6 service areas roughly within Loop 820 that have no transportation impact fee. McKinney is exploring this option for their small Town Center (downtown) area as well. b. Create a clear policy for fee reductions in the impact fee ordinance – For projects that meet some certain set of criteria established via the road impact fee ordinance, the impact fee collection rate can be discounted. This approach allows Council to encourage a certain development type that meets a certain threshold for level of investment, type of development, number of jobs, etc. Many cities have policies like this. Flower Mound has a discount for economic development projects. New Braunfels wanted to encourage medical related land uses and charge $0 for these. Fort Worth calls it Extraordinary Investment Discount as shown below; “Extraordinary investment discount. The amount of transportation impact fees due under Schedule 2 shall be reduced 15% for any development that results in the following qualification, as jointly determined by the Departments of Transportation and Public Works, and the Department of Economic & Community Development: (1) $15 Million in capital investment; (2) creation of 100 new jobs; and (3) the projected salary of the new jobs is at least twice the current minimum wage, plus benefits, For each additional $15 Million in capital investment or additional 100 qualified new jobs, the impact fee amount due under Schedule 2 will be further reduced by an additional 5%, up to a maximum reduction of 50%. A development may receive this discount and have a period of up to three (3) years from the issuance of a building permit to qualify under the terms of this discount. Impact fees otherwise paid shall be refunded to the original payee at the time of issuance of the building permit to quality under the terms of this discount. Impact fees otherwise paid shall be refunded to the original payee at the time of issuance of the building permit. A development shall refund a pro rata share of this discount should the development not continue to maintain the number of new jobs for a period of at least ten (10) years from the date of building permit (or the date of qualification for this discount), equal to 10% per annum for each year that the number of jobs is not maintained. The terms related to this discount shall be incorporated within an agreement for credits pursuant to Section 1-16.” c. Create a hybrid approach – Council may want to have a combination of no fee areas and policies for fee reductions (2) Change of Use Permits/Redevelopment While state law allows for the assessment and collection of impact fees for change of use when there is an increase in the number of service units, these are somewhat challenging to implement. They take up some administrative time to calculate but create a lot of pushback from local developers who don’t understand the proportionality calculations. The City of Fort Worth is exploring a change where all change of use permits are exempt except where there is a major change in intensity (10x or more). We would need some support from the City Attorney on this as it creates some equal protection issues. (3) Minimum Impact Fee / Size of Development Question was asked if there is a minimum size of development to which a road impact fee is applied. Staff would recommend against having a minimum size for which a fee is due – it may create some equity issues. A small development would just have a much smaller impact fee, however, we can start getting into equal protection issues when we treat developments differently without a basis upon which to do so. The threshold for minimum size can be challenged as arbitrary. (4) ROW Dedication Issue / Credits During the workshop, there was a discussion about ROW dedication. With a roadway impact fee, and assuming we include ROW acquisition costs in the impact fee CIP, we would still require the dedication to occur (we need the ROW), but we would give credit to the developer against impact fees otherwise due to recognize the dedication. Frisco takes ROW costs out of their impact fee CIP to try and avoid this credit issue (they get ROW outside of the impact fee conversation), although they also then cannot use impact fee funds to pay for ROW acquisition. (5) Capacity versus Pavement Conditions It’s clear in the statute that the impact fee is to handle capacity issues only, not pavement condition issues. The costs for the roadways are based on the impact fee master plan and construction standards, so any additional design criteria to accommodate heavy vehicles gets figured into the fee in this manner. But we cannot charge more based on the type of vehicle traffic and weight via the impact fee – the Texas statute doesn’t allow this. (6) Credit for Internal Capture / TOD related land uses We can reduce the impact fee for developments that – via their design or their location – reduce the amount of vehicular traffic on the roadway network. There are a couple ways to handle this. We can include a specific fee reduction (like Fort Worth) to further account for and encourage developments that reduce trips thru walking, transit, or internal capture. The discount in Fort Worth is called the Land Use /Transportation Connection Discount. This discount is calculated based on traffic study. If the traffic study shows reduced traffic generation then the impact fee collection rate can be reduced in accordance with the reduction in trips (e.g. if there is 10% reduction in traffic, the impact fee collection rate drops 10%) with maximum discount of 15%.. The section from the Fort Worth ordinance is shown below; “Land use/transportation connection discount. The amount of transportation impact fees due under Schedule 2 shall be reduced up to 15% for any development where an accepted traffic study demonstrates that the development will reduce the vehicle trips from those contained in the adopted land use equivalency table, to one of the following: 5 to 9% Trip Capture: 5% Impact Fee Reduction 10 to 14% Trip Capture: 10% Impact Fee Reduction 15% or > Trip Capture: 15% Impact Fee Reduction” (7) Economic Development for Industrial Area If council wanted to do something with impact fees in the industrial area to encourage economic development, we would need to write a clear section in the road impact fee ordinance on how a development would qualify for a fee reduction. In Fort Worth, there is an ‘Extraordinary Investment Discount’ available to developments that meet criteria in terms of jobs and construction investment. (8) Assessment vs. Collection assessedcollected It is important to note that fees are at the time of final plat, but at the time of building permit. As such, we really do not start collecting revenue at a noticeable pace until more than 12 months after fee adoption (because we cannot collect on previously platted property).Essentially it gives in progress projects the opportunity to move forward. OPTIONS 1.Continue to implement the current DDC embedded transportation exactions 2.Direct staff to bring additional information on implementation of Road Impact Fees 3.Direct staff to proceed on implementation of Road Impact Fees RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends proceeding on implementation of Road Impact Fees PRIORAACTION/RREVIEW (CCouncil, Boaards, Commmissions) Decembeer 5, 2010: SStaff presenteed a report oon supplemenntal street fuunding optioons for discusssion and direcction from thhe Council. EXHIBIIT 1. Road IImpact Fee ccalculationsfor 3 Fiscal Years 2. Fort WWorth Zero RRoad Impact Fee Servicee Area 3. Powerr Point Preseentation Respeectfully submmitted, P. S. Arrora, P.E. DRC EEngineering AAdministratoor Assistaant Director WWastewater City of Fort Worth Road Impact Fee Service Area Map *ServiceAreasH,I,J,K,P, Q,R,andVarenofee areas Exhibit2 AGENDA INFORMATION SHEET AGENDA DATE: February 6, 2012 DEPARTMENT: Utility Administration ACM: Howard Martin, 349-8232 ______________________________________________________________________________ SUBJECT Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding a Street Improvement Bond Program. BACKGROUND As discussed during the development of the FY 2011-12 Budget and again at the City Council retreat on January 31, 2012, the improvement of our street infrastructure is a major initiative for the City. As a part of this initiative, the City increased street maintenance funding from $2.8 to $3.5 million in FY 2011-12. It is planned that his funding level will increase on an annual basis to $5.8 million by FY 2015-16. While this increase in funding is noteworthy, it is still significantly below the $10 million in annual funding that is needed for street maintenance. As a result, further enhancements to maintain funding will also need to be considered in future budget cycles as well. In addition to the street maintenance funding, the City also needs to provide a capital investment of approximately $4 million per year to reconstruct existing streets. As a result, staff is proposing the development of a $20 million street infrastructure bond program to address this need. The proposed bond program assumes no tax rate increase, and would be scheduled for voter consideration in the November 2012 election. Exhibit 1 provides a summary of the proposed bond program election schedule. At the recent City Council retreat, Council reviewed and discussed the merits of a proposed streets bond program based on the following criteria. 1.Targeted approximately $4.0 million per year in street improvements over the next 5 years beginning in FY 2012-13. 2.Funding is intended for reconstruction of existing streets only. 3.Street segments identified for the bond program were based on an overall condition index (OCI). 4.Street projects were coordinated with the Utility water and wastewater line replacement program and the proposed Bicycle Master Plan. 5.Project costs include engineering, complete pavement reconstruction, partial curb and gutter replacements (as needed based upon current condition), signage, pavement markings and bicycle lane markings (as shown on the Bicycle Lane Master Plan). 6.Project costs do not include costs for major drainage improvements, right of way acquisitions to facilitate street widening to accommodate new sidewalks, additional lanes, parking or bicycle lanes. The proposed street bond program was developed based on the technical criteria established by the most recent pavement management study and is intended to assist the appointed bond committee in their project selection. The draft of the street bond program projects is included in Exhibit 2. EXHIBITS 1.Proposed Calendar of Events 2. Proposed Street Capital Improvement Program (CIP) 3. Project Map Respectfully submitted: Howard Martin ACM/Utilities EXHIBIT1 2012 Bond Election Schedule January 31, 2012 City Council Retreat Discussion of Committee Structure and Bond Program Characteristics February 21 and March 5, 2012 Council appoints bond committee April 3, 2012 Council approves committee charge April 23, 2012 Kick-Off meeting of Citizens Advisory Committee April June 2012 Committee develops recommendations May 7, 2012 Meeting of Citizens Advisory Committee May 21, 2012 Meeting of Citizens Advisory Committee June 4, 2012 Meeting of Citizens Advisory Committee (if needed) June 6, 2012 Citizens Advisory Committee presents recommendation to the Planning and Zoning Commission June 19, 2012 Citizens Advisory Committee makes recommendation to City Council July 17, 2012 City Council holds additional discussion on bond election August 7, 2012 Council holds public hearing August November Committee educates public on bond program. August 14, 2012 * Council passes an ordinance calling for a bond election on November 6, 2012 (Election must be called no earlier than August 8 and no later than August 20) October 22, 2012 * Early voting begins November 2, 2012 * Early voting ends November 6, 2012 * Street Improvement Bond election held * Denotes legally required dates associated with a bond election. EXHIBIT3 2 1 3 4