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Minutes January 23, 2006 CITY OF DENTON CITY COUNCIL MINUTES January 23, 2006 After determining that a quorum was present, the City Council convened in a Special Called Meeting on Monday, January 23, 2006 at 11 :30 a.m. in the Council Work Session Room. PRESENT: Mayor Brock; Mayor Pro Tem McNeill; Council Members Heggins, Kamp, Montgomery, and Mulroy. ABSENT: Council Member Thomson 1. The Council received a briefing, held a discussion and gave staff direction on a process and review criteria for multi-family tax credit projects. Kelly Carpenter, Director of Planning and Development, stated that at the January 10th council meeting, staff had been asked to add criteria concerning preferences for new construction commensurate with demolition and for rehabilitation. In the Multi-family Tax Credit Process Proposal two sentences were added to the definition portion of the proposal. Those statements indicated that a project should include a demolition, replacement and/or rehabilitation component. New construction without commensurate demolition would not be allowed. Section C dealing with "information to be submitted" would include three new bullet points indicating "number of units to be demolished, number of replacement units to be constructed and number of units to be rehabilitated". Section D, Review Criteria and Standards, would be revised to include "preference would be given to projects that demolished at least 100 multi-family units and preference would be given to projects that demolished multi-family units and replaced them with duplexes or single family units". Council discussion included: . Statements were in the proposal indicating a development must follow the Development Code - be clear that even with a special use permit a development must still follow all other aspects of Development Code. . The proposal was included as a zoning case but the first step should be to determine the criteria for these types of projects and then go into the zoning aspects. . This would be a first step and there might be a need to separate the two procedures. . Legally have to be careful with passage of an approval resolution for a project. Have to do initial steps first, then grant approval. . This was not a zoning issue or a development issue-the issue was that the city had more multi-family tax credit projects than the state average of units per capita supported by the programs. . An initial process would be to layout the project even before starting the development process. The City had the ability to approve a project based on state law and conditions of the project could be enforced through the specific use permit process. . An outline of a proposal could be brought to council and council determine whether or not to approve the project and then work through the development process. The initial step would be to outline the proposal to council. Council would either give approval to proceed or indicate that they did not want the project. . The second step would be to start the specific use permit process and put the requirements above the standard development code. City of Denton City Council Minutes January 23, 2006 Page 2 . A procedure needed to be determined on how to treat offsite demolition. . Determine a minimum number of units to be demolished in the first step for consideration -consider a minimum of 50% - for everyone unit going up, a half unit would have to be demolished. Consensus of the Council was to proceed with the recommended changes and return to Council for approval. Item #4 was considered. 4. The Council held a discussion and gave staff direction regarding the structure of Council meetings. Mayor Brock indicated that she had asked for this item to be placed on the agenda. She was concerned based on emails she had received, that there might not be adequate time for citizen participation during work sessions. She felt that Council deliberations might not be as good as they could be as citizens had limited ways to express concerns. Council Member Mulroy indicated that public hearings were held for adoption of certain ordinances. He was concerned about allowing citizens to speak in work sessions, as there might be an overload of citizen speakers that would hinder good council deliberation. Mayor Brock indicated that neighborhood groups had valuable input for council. Mayor Pro Tem McNeill suggested that rather than change council procedures, perhaps the board/committee structure needed to be changed. Perhaps there needed to be better publicizing when a committee or the council was working on an issue. Many citizens had email to respond to concerns, which would not overwhelm a meeting with many people speaking on the same issue with the same ideas at a meeting. Council Member Heggins stated that she agreed with the need for public input. However, she did not feel that committees were the best representation and that often boards did not bring information into the community. She felt it was easier to speak in an informal setting such as a work session rather than a formal setting at a regular meeting. Council Member Mulroy indicated that the committee level was more informal and flexible for discussion. The committee could bring forward citizen comments from those meeting. If the issue was a sensitive issue, there might be a need to hold a workshop with public meetings out in city and receive citizen input on the issue. The meaningful discussion of the council might be distracted with large public input during work sessions. Mayor Brock suggested scheduling a series of meetings in the community for public input such as code enforcement issues. Consensus of the Council was to schedule several neighborhood meetings this spring regarding code enforcement. Tentatively plan for sectional meetings on code enforcement and to continue to look at the meeting structure. Staff would continue to work with neighborhood groups to strengthen contacts. City of Denton City Council Minutes January 23, 2006 Page 3 Item #2 was considered. 2. The Council received a briefing, held a discussion and gave staff direction on proposed amendments to the Development Code related to infill development regulations. Kelly Carpenter, Director of Planning and Development, stated that an Infill and Redevelopment Zone was proposed. The purpose of the zone would be to provide standards for the development of infill lots in existing neighborhoods. The proposed regulations in this zone would apply to areas no greater than two acres in size. Boundaries for an Infill and Redevelopment Zone were proposed. Council discussion: . The section on impact fees indicated that fees might be discounted. The Utility Department should not offer a discount but it should be available for General Government to offer, if desired. . Regarding park fees - a park could not be placed in an existing neighborhood so park fees would be used for new parks outside neighborhood. . Check the boundaries of the district as some areas were excluded. . If compatibility with existing neighborhoods was stress too much there was a chance that infill development might not happen. . A common denominator needed to be raised but it should not be too high so as to not allow for infill development. Consensus of the Council was to proceed with the adjustments as noted. 3. The Council held a discussion and gave staff direction regarding Council procedures. Mayor Pro Tem McNeill stated that the City Charter determined how council was elected, how it met and how it got things done. He questioned the section relative to plat approval as to whether the Planning and Zoning Commission or the council approved plats. Was there a conflict with Section Q and Section 2.1 O? City Attorney Snyder indicated that there was no conflict. Mayor Pro Tem McNeill stated that Council had an arrangement with the former city manager that if they had a question; they could go directly to the Assistant City Manager for an answer with a copy to the City Manager. In recognizing the provisions of the Charter that did not allow council to be involved with the daily operations of the city, he questioned how the Interim City Manager wanted to operate. Interim City Manager Martin stated that when there was more staff, there was no problem going directly to an assistant city manager to deal with an issue. However, as it stood today, that would be hard to do, as there was only one assistant city manager. He felt it would be acceptable for the council to contact employees on the director level and above for assistance as long as the assistant city manager and he were copied with the questions, etc. City of Denton City Council Minutes January 23, 2006 Page 4 Council Member Mulroy left the meeting. Council discussed the sections of the Rules of Procedure dealing with placement of items on the agenda and suspension of the rules. Consensus of the Council was to draft revisions to these sections for easier placement of items on the agenda and clearer wording for suspension of the rul e s. With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 1 :25 p.m. EULINE BROCK MAYOR CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS JENNIFER W AL TERS CITY SECRETARY CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS