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Minutes June 22, 2000CITY OF DENTON CITY COUNCIL MINUTES June 22, 2000 The City of Denton City Council held a joint meeting with the Development Code Committee on Thursday, June 22, 2000 at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Work Session Room. PRESENT: Mayor Brock; Mayor Pro Tem Beasley; Council Members Cochran, and Kristoferson. ABSENT: Council Members Burroughs, Durrance, and Young 1. The Council discussed, determined and gave staff direction about potential revisions to the Development Code process and the schedule for completion of the Development Code Rewrite. Mayor Brock presented a history of the process and a review of the duties of the Committee. She felt there was a need to clarify the process from this point forward. She asked if the th Committee could hold two intensive sessions on July 24th and August 11 in order to finalize the review. Only a draft code was needed at that point in time and not a finished product. Council felt that there should be no public review process until after the start of the public school year. Council also thought of reducing the quorum of the Committee from 8 to 6. The Council and Committee discussed reducing the quorum of the Committee from eight to six members. Comments from the Council and Committee included what was the scope of work for the committee, whether the committee had authority to make recommendations or just rubber stamp what the consultant was developing, and expectations of the committee on its scope of work. Council Member Durrance arrived at the meeting. Comments/Concerns of the Committee included: Frustration on the way the meetings were conducted with too many presentations and not enough time spent on reviewing the document The consultant was not open to suggestions by the Committee The Committee’s perception of the plan was more urban/metro rather than suburban – not reflective of a Texas city To date, the Committee had not received the revised document to review Questions regarding the make-up of the document were left unanswered City Manager Jez felt that the sequence of events were that the City adopted the Denton Plan and following that adoption, entered into a contract with the consultant to write a code that captured the spirit of that plan. Following that contract, a citizen committee was formed to review the technical work done by the consultant and staff. It was his understanding of the charge to the Committee was to not review the code line by line and vote on that work the technicians did but advise the consultant where the committee was in agreement with the technicians and staff or City of Denton City Council Minutes June 22, 2000 Page 2 point out areas to the technicians and staff that were inconsistent with the values of the community. At that point the code with comments and critiques of the Committee would go through the Planning and Zoning Commission and citizens and the Council would finalize the document. He had heard that the Committee wanted authority to direct the technician to change the plan that was different from that the charge to the Committee as stated in the ordinance. Bob Shelton felt that the Committee was trying to micromanage a document written by an expert and that was not what the Committee should be doing. Council Member Durrance felt that there needed to be a reasonable timetable to complete the process in order to have it for public input. The Committee felt that the comments it made were not noted anywhere in the document. City Manager Jez felt that there were three issues the Council needed to address: clarify the charge of committee for a better understanding of what was expected of the Committee, clarify what would be the expected product of the Committee (majority/minority opinion or something different), and an agreement on a schedule in terms of delivery. The Council and Committee finalized the issues: 1. The charge of the Committee was to review the technical work of the consultant and provide Council with feedback/recommendations on the technical work. 2. The consultant would listen to the Committee’s comments about the document and if valid, in the technical judgment of the consultant, incorporate those comments into the document. If the consultant felt the comments were invalid per his technical expertise, the Committee would have an opportunity to provide separate feedback on the issue. Comments would be noted from the Committee on where they disagreed with what the consultant had written. 3. The Council would proceed with the changing of the number of Committee members needed for a quorum. 4. The Committee would determine a time line for completion of its work in order to have adequate time to review the remaining portions of the document. With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m. _____________________ _________________________ JENNIFER WALTERS EULINE BROCK, MAYOR CITY SECRETARY CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS