Minutes August 06, 1997CITY OF DENTON CITY COUNCIL M1NUTES
August 6, 1997
The Council convened into a joint work session with the Planning and Zoning Commission on
Wednesday, August 6, 1997 at 5:30 p.m. in the Central Jury Room of the Denton Municipal
Complex.
PRESENT:
Mayor Miller; Mayor Pro Tem Brock; Council Members Beasley, Kristoferson,
Cochran, Durrance and Young.
AB SENT: Council Members Durrance and Young
1. The Council continued the review and discussion, schedule of topics, and gave staff
direction on Vision, policies, and the Comprehensive and Denton Development Plans.
Dave Hill, Director of Planning and Development, stated the scheduling of future meetings
appeared to have two parallel tracks that were recommended. One was for implementation and
the second was how to focus on the plan. Under implementation, the Council would be asked to
consider three items that included scenic corridors, park dedication and landscape regulations.
Scenic corridors would be considered at the Council meetings of September 23rd and October
7th. Park dedication would be considered at the Council meetings in December/January and the
landscape ordinance would go to Council in January 1998. The time frames were flexible with the
park dedication issue having the longest time frame. Other items such as development impact
fees, drainage policies and erosion and sedimentation control would wait for individual
consideration until the broader planning issues were addressed.
Council Member Young joined the meeting.
Hill continued that the plan had four different levels of efforts. The first effort was information
delivery in which three presentations were available to provide ideas for policy development
assistance. Three speakers were available for presentations to the joint group. A videotape
library was also available at the Planning Department for anyone who was interested in viewing
planning documents. The second effort was an existing conditions inventory. Staff had started
assembling a team to work with the DISD, UNT, NCTCOG and GIS databases to prepare a well-
organized information packet for City Council use. An outline of the data to be prepared would
be distributed to ensure that this effort was comprehensive. The third effort was
forecasts/projections. Staff was prepared to develop a request for proposal for the development
of several forecasts needed to plan effectively for Denton, should Council indicate support for
such a task. Demographic projections, land use, demand analyses, and fiscal support impact
analyses would be extremely helpful to provide insight into Denton's position in the Metroplex
market, and would enable consistent interdepartmental coordination on several planning levels. A
Development Policy Committee made up of a staff committee of department heads would be
assembled by the City Manager. The Development Policy Committee would be assigned the task
of staff-level policy coordination. The coordination of interrelated policies and the assessment of
the relationship between policy choices and technical operations was needed to allow the staff,
through the City Manager, to provide input at early stages in the planning process. The transition
from the DDP to the new "Denton Plan" would take time. A proper sequence of events must be
allowed to take place if a good plan with public support was expected.
Council Member Kristoferson asked where overlay districts were in the process.
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August 6, 1997
Page 2
Hill replied that it was really a question of the definition of overlay districts. It could be a tool
held in reserve to see if it was needed to serve some of the policy statements.
Council Member Kristoferson asked if it was no longer going to be discussed.
Hill stated that it had been put on hold until it could be determined the best place to address it.
Mayor Pro Tem Brock asked about scenic corridors.
Hill stated that scenic corridors dealt only with billboards.
Jim Engelbrecht asked if overlay districts would be included in aesthetics planning.
Hill stated that it was in the policy document that the Council would consider.
Council Member Cochran asked about being more specific regarding forecasts and projections.
He had some questions about the economic nature of the growth and trying to establish what type
of growth the community needed to sustain itself. He would like to address the discrepancies
between the business and residential tax base.
Mayor Miller suggested checking with the Council of Governments for some projections and
forecasts for employment growths.
Hill stated that staff had some ideas for a schedule of presentations and some implementation and
was trying to save some time to work on the actual planning process.
Mayor Miller asked for Council opinion on the schedule for track one. The second track dealt
with presentations.
Consensus of the Council was to proceed with track one for scheduling.
Mayor Miller stated that track two dealt with the schedule for presentations.
Hill stated that he had received five vision contributions. He would look for reoccurring themes
to put them together for a draft statement. He stated that the Vision and DDP documents were
merged and reorganized as per the recently suggested planning process. The document appeared
to be bottom heavy with most of the elements more appropriate at the comprehensive plan. There
was a lot of replication that could be eliminated. The existing conditions and forecasts phases
needed to be addressed as part of the plan if the desire to serve the public education need was to
be fulfilled. The policy phase might not be as comprehensive in scope as Council and the Planning
and Zoning Commission wanted. One policy item, land use, was not listed among the other
policy topics.
Council Member Beasley felt that the topics needed to be more general. She felt they were too
narrow for where they were in the process.
Mayor Pro Tem Brock stated that it would reassure the Council and the Planning and Zoning
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August 6, 1997
Page 3
Commission if a list of common ideas from the Vision process was included.
Hill stated that there was a need to find common links in the policy document. Those would be
subgroups to include with the major categories. He questioned if Council wanted to go through
some of those categories and list concerns/ways that Council would like to organize the policies.
He stated that there would be several types of transportation with a policy for each included in the
document.
Mayor Miller stated that the policy statements would look at congestion issues. The projections
would indicate how much worse conditions were going to be unless dollars were available to
correct the problems.
Hill stated that it could be looked at in terms of public investment strategies or in terms of how to
work towards private street dedications.
Mayor Miller felt that it needed to be related to projections and forecasts of growth.
Mayor Pro Tem Brock felt that there might be a problem going ahead as previously thought.
Mobility was more than just how many vehicles could be carried on a street.
Council Member Young left the meeting.
Mayor Miller felt that there was a need to think through on impact of development not only in
Denton but also in other areas.
Hill stated that another area to look at was the trend that there would be a higher number of trips
per capita in single-purpose zoning districts.
Council Member Cochran stated that an aspect to consider for the community was no long lines
to deal with at intersections and to be able to walk to certain areas.
Hill stated that there were ways to look at different levels of service internally within the city and
ways to get in and out of the city.
Engelbrecht stated that he would like to see a policy statement which would monitor roadways
both secondary and primary arterials for a level "C" activity.
Svehla stated that such a policy statement would be that the City was going to improve the
internal transportation of the city.
Hill suggested that too much time might be spent on certain issues. He suggested not using
August 15th as meeting date but rather take time to develop a document for Council to review.
Track one would remain on schedule.
Council Member Cochran suggested a park dedication policy that would allow smaller parcels to
be donated to the city.
Hill stated that that policy would be looked at from a new starting point. The public involvement
proposal would be more structured and would have all of the stakeholders identified and how to
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August 6, 1997
Page 4
involve them in the process.
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:00 p.m.
JACK MILLER, MAYOR
CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS
JENNIFER WALTERS
CITY SECRETARY
CITY OF DENTON