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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: