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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPlanning and Zoning Commission-Minutes-8/27/2001 Planning & Zoning Commission Minutes - August 27,2001 Page 1 of 8- Approve on September 10, 2001 Chairman Hart called the regular meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission to order at 7:00 P.M. on August 27, 2001. Roll Call: Present: Absent: Staff: Tom Hart, Jo Ann Gasper, Mark Hollis Jeff Wall Luann Edwards, Earl Swift, Bryan Hill Barry LeBaron, Clayton Husband, and Jan Levy Invocation: Commissioner Gasper Approval of Minutes: August 13, 2001 Commissioner Gasper moved to approve the minutes as submitted. Commissioner Wall seconded the motion. The vote being: Ayes: Gasper, Hollis, Hart Noes: None Abstained: Wall 1. A Minor Plat of the Blankenship Addition requested by JDJR Engineers, 4.561 acres located on the north side of Glade Road at 116 Glade Road. Case P-01-023 Clayton Husband presented the case to the Commissioners and reviewed the staff briefing. Commissioner Gasper moved to approve the plat. Commissioner Wall seconded the motion. The vote being: Ayes: Gasper, Hollis, Wall Hart Noes: None 2. PUBLIC HEARING - A Replat of Lot 1, Block A, Monterra requested by Christopher Tye, 4.598 acres located on the northwest side of Tennison Parkway and Colleyville Boulevard. Case P-01-025 Clayton Husband presented the case to the commissioners and reviewed the staff briefing. Chairman Hart opened the public hearing. Those present wishing to speak were: Jim Dewey, JDJR Engineering, said they have contacts on the two lots, one being a dental office and the other is an interior design group that will sell furniture retail. He said that they plan on utilizing the existing fire lane and will have cross access on the lots. Mr. Dewes said that there will be a main entrance on Tennison. There being no one else present wishing to speak, the public hearing was closed. Commissioner Wall moved to approve the replat. Commissioner Gasper seconded the motion. The vote being: Planning & Zoning Commission Minutes - August 27,2001 Page 2 of 8- Approve on September 10, 2001 Ayes: Gasper, Hollis, Wall, Hart Noes: None 3. A Minor Plat of the Nolan Addition requested by Mark Nolan, 1.55 acres located at 5105 Oak Timbers Court. Case P-01-026 Clayton Husband presented the case to the Commissioners and reviewed the staff briefing. Commissioner Gasper moved to approve the minor plat. Commissioner Wall seconded the motion. The vote being: Ayes: Gasper, Hollis, Wall, Hart Noes: None 4. TABLED ITEM - Consideration of amendments to Chapter 9 of the Land Development Code relating to Perimeter Street Improvement Requirements. Case Z-01-022 Barry LeBaron said he had told the Commissioners that he would provide them with a copy of the two policies that have been in existence in Colleyville. He said there is the one prior to the Land Development Code that has been in place since 1988 and the language that was changed in the Land Development Code that is currently being used. He said both policies are in the packet for informational purposes and staff will be happy to discuss them with the Commission. Mr. LeBaron said the plat case they discussed earlier was a classic example of roadway improvement fee regulations, and the applicant will probably come forward and ask for a waiver of the fees and it is probably a $50,000 to $55,000 issue. He said they may want to wait until there is a full compliment of the Commission present to make any changes to the regulations. Commissioner Gasper said that she would like to remove the case from the table so that they could discuss it, but they need to wait to take action until everyone is present. Commissioner Gasper moved to remove the case from the table. Commissioner Wall seconded the motion. The motion passed by unanimous acclimation. Commissioner Gasper said the City has a Parkland Dedication Policy that seems to be similar to the perimeter street issue. She asked if the policies could be similar. Barry LeBaron said that there is a provision for a waiver from the parkland dedication policy, but they have not been waiving the fees. He said that the parkland dedication fee is based upon the City's future need for parkland. Mr. LeBaron said that the City came up with the amount of acres of parkland that would be needed for the community in the future. He said that they deducted the amount of parkland that currently exists and based on the number of houses they thought would be built, they arrived at a dollar figure that is accessed to each lot as it is platted. He said there is one flat fee of $1,802 per lot and commercial lots are based on $800 per acre. He said that there have not been waivers of any parkland dedication fees. He said that the fees are based on the demand that each lot will be adding to the park needs of the community. Chairman Hart said that Mr. LeBaron said that the applicant of an earlier case would probably be asking for a waiver of perimeter street fees and he asked if there would be a good reason for the Planning & Zoning Commission Minutes - August 27,2001 Page 3 of 8- Approve on September 10, 2001 Council to waive the fee. Mr. LeBaron said that the issue is that the house has been in the city for a long time and the owner is dividing the property into two lots so he can build a house on the other portion of the property. He said that since 1988 and possibly before that time, the Council would consider a waiver in that situation, and the waivers have been generally automatic. Chairman Hart asked what the amount would be from waiving the fees versus collecting the fees. Mr. LeBaron said they calculated the fees to be approximately $55,000 for their share of the frontage. He told the Commissioners that the applicant is through with platting the property, because it is a minor plat and only requires approval by the Commission. He said the Land Development Code requires the subdivider to build his half of the road because it doesn't meet the current requirements, or take the request to the Council and ask for a waiver of the requirements. The waivers go directly to the Council and the Commission does not consider them. Commissioner Gasper said from the discussion at the last meeting, there are areas they are in agreement on. She said there was discussion that it is appropriate to require homeowners to dedicate the right-of-way so that the City can have the streets and sidewalks. She said they all agree that the party who is creating the impact needs to pay for the impact and whatever the cost is, it needs to be fairly and consistently applied. She said under the current development, when they have a small tract like the example given, it can cause an undue burden upon the property owner to pay for their part of the street. She said since those are the areas that they have agreement on, she was thinking through it, and it seemed like there are several different situations which could arise. Commissioner Gasper offered the following categories for establishing a flat fee: A parcel of 5 acres or less that is being divided and does not have a house on it; A small parcel that does have a house on it; A small parcel that is being platted which could cause the road fees to come into play and when there is construction, there is no change as to the size and use of the structure; and Construction and platting where there is a change in the size or a change in the use or both. She gave the example of the Romanian church on Glade Road where they had a fire and the payment of road fees amounted to approximately $70,000 and they just wanted to rebuild their church. She said that to her way of thinking it is unreasonable for the City to require $70,000 in road fees when someone torched a church and they want to rebuild it. She said it is a different matter if they want to rebuild the church and make it larger. Commissioner Gasper said she found the information on the parkland fees interesting because it seems to her that they probably need to get a certain figure that they apply to tracts of property where a fee would come into place. She said that she does not know what that figure should be and how large of a parcel of property that should apply to. She said that there currently is an incentive to divide a piece of property into many pieces because the cost of street fees gets divided over a greater number of houses. She said if they do a flat fee per lot, then there will not be an incentive on to the homeowner/developer to create small lots and thusly maintain the larger lots with a country feel in Colleyville. She said she does not know what the magic number is, but is trying to develop a flat fee with the regulations clearly stating what the cut-off is for size of Planning & Zoning Commission Minutes - August 27, 2001 Page 4 of 8- Approve on September 10, 2001 property that is being divided. She said that once someone reaches the limit for the small lot category, they will do business as the City is currently doing and a different set of rules would apply. She said the way that the small tract is treated is not according to who owns the property, but how the property is going to be subdivided. Commissioner Gasper requested that staff provide them with the medium fee per lot for the actual construction cost of a roadway. She said that she means what is the cost that the developer is passing on to the homeowner. Barry LeBaron said the engineering department keeps current with what the actual construction cost is for streets and they arrived at the cost of $138.00 per linear foot. He said the current fee is used when someone asks for a waiver from the regulations to determine the amount they are waiving. Chairman Hart said Commissioner Gasper put a lot of thought into this. He said item one on the agenda was a parcel of property that was 4.561 acres and is a long strip of land with little frontage and would pay less money than the 1.55 acre minor plat because of the difference in street frontage. Barry LeBaron said the Commissioners considered two cases where one was a deep lot with narrow frontage and one that had less depth and a lot of frontage. He said Commissioner Gasper said she did not mind passing the cost on to the developer, and yet the developer passes the cost onto the consumer. Commissioner Gasper said she didn't think it would be as big of a problem for the developer because he has more units. Chairman Hart said he understood that, but an individual may not know what they are getting themselves into and the cost of their land just went up while they had no idea. Commissioner Wall said that by the extent that these fees are waived, they were looking at having waived fees in the amount close to $1,000,000. He said that $138.00 per linear foot buys a lot of street development and if those fees are waived, the city taxpayers as a whole have to foot the cost when those streets are finally built. He said that they want to be fair to the person who bought a five acre lot twenty years ago and now wants to split the property into two lots and not overly burden them. He said that the City needs to be looking out for the interest of all citizens because someone needs to bear the cost of the $1,000,000 that was waived. He said the policy needs to be put into the public spotlight so that the public is aware that those fees are being waived and the rational behind them. Commissioner Wall said he agreed with Commissioner Gasper because you can't charge an individual $56,000 for street fees for just dividing their property into two lots. He said that isn't fair, but there has to be some equitable solution. Commissioner Hollis said that as they have seen tonight, there can be a four or five to one ratio even in a small lot of potential frontage that would need the improvement. Commissioner Gasper said that if they have a flat fee, the owner of a parcel of property will know up-front what it will cost them to develop or subdivide their property. She said that they are not going to get hit with a $55,000 roadway bill. Chairman Hart said another thing that they have seen over the years is that there is a lot of odd shaped pieces of land left to develop. He said the one that comes to mind is Shalimar where there is a big long strip of land. He asked if the developer would have a leg up on that type of development with less frontage and is able to net more money or pass the savings on to the homeowners. Commissioner Gasper said they saw that with Riverwalk because of the narrow frontage on Glade Road and the issue was brought up about paying for the roads and the developer responded that he did not own the frontage. Planning & Zoning Commission Minutes - August 27, 2001 Page 5 of 8- Approve on September 10, 2001 Barry LeBaron said for example on the flat fee approach, if they had a $10,000 flat fee, then the Council would be considering a waiver of $45,000 instead of $55,000. Commissioner Gasper said it wouldn't be a waiver because what they would be telling the subdivider is what the established flat fee is and that is what the subdivider will pay. She said they would not have an option to go to Council, because if they have a small tract of property and they subdivide it, it will be a certain amount per unoccupied lot. She said if the person is a resident, they will not have to pay for already being there, because they are not having any additional impact. Ms. Gasper said that if there is a situation where there is building that is going to be taking place, like the church or a commercial type of property, and no change to what is currently occupying the property, there will be no additional fee charged for the street. She said if someone is changing the use, or changing the size of the structure by a certain amount, then they should pay, because they are changing the amount of impact on the roadways. Chairman Hart asked Mr. LeBaron, if a $55,000 burden was placed on the property on Oak Timbers Court to build the roadway, what happens to the other side of the street. He asked if the other side of the street would have to contribute to the construction fee or is it taken from the taxpayers. Mr. LeBaron said that nothing would be done until that property on the other side of the street was platted. He said if they never plat, it would be up to whenever the City decides to improve the street and then a decision would have to be made whether they want to do an assessment program. Chairman Hart wanted to know if there was a vehicle in place to facilitate assessing homeowners for street improvements, rather than having to pay a certain amount of money for perimeter street fees. He wanted to know if there could be an understanding that if and when these streets are ever improved, the property owner will be assessed at that time. Mr. LeBaron said that they had discussed at a prior meeting to have someone sign a covenant, which is what Chairman Hart described. He said that is an agreement that would be filed in the courthouse and lets them not have to pay the fees immediately, but they agree to be assessed in the future. Commissioner Gasper said that assessment is another alternative. She said she would think it would be cleaner to have a flat fee, because the person doing the development will know exactly what the costs are, they will be paid then, and the roads will be built whenever they need to be built. She said if they do a covenant, it is easy to envision some second or third owner of the property being hit with a large assessment. She said it would be like playing Russian roulette with your house. Commissioner Gasper said that she prefers situations where they are up-front, on the table, and they are not looking to some future time, maybe 5 years or 25 years or 500 years if someone would have to payor not. Commissioner Wall asked how the City would upgrade White Road as it transitions across the railroad track as it goes from Bransford to Whites Chapel. He asked if it would be curb and gutter to tie into McDonwell School Road and become a larger street. He asked if the way the City would upgrade the road is not by assessing the homeowners along there, but by simply finding the money in the City coffers. Mr. LeBaron responded that it could be either one, but the City has not had an assessment program that he is aware of. He said that an assessment program would be one option. Commissioner Wall said that there wouldn't be a City Council person that would last more than ten minutes if they tried to do that in his personal opinion. He said that when Planning & Zoning Commission Minutes - August 27, 2001 Page 6 of 8- Approve on September 10, 2001 someone moves into a home, they don't think that the City will come along and assess them for roadway improvements. Mr. LeBaron said that generally you don't find that the City runs out and Willie Nilley improves the streets. What they usually do is have a policy that whereby if a certain percentage of the property owners along a street petition the City to improve the street, then the City would do an assessment program at that point. He said there would at least be some input from the property owners. He said the way the City would more than likely improve the street as Commissioner Wall described is to pay for improvements out of impact fees, because it is on the Master Thoroughfare Plan. He said that as they collect roadway impact fees as properties are platted and building permits are issued, the fund increases. Commissioner Gasper said she suspects that at some point the City is going to run out of property to collect impact fees from and will still need to improve the roadways. She said she considers this police of perimeter street improvement requirements very important because they will be seeing more in-fill situations where the roadway frontage issue will come into play. The Commissioners discussed what would happen if the person subdividing the property on Oak Timbers Court knew that he had to pay $55,000. They said he probably would have divided the property into three lots rather than two lots so that he could be compensated by two potential buyers. Barry LeBaron said the applicant has an adequate amount of property to have three lots and then he would have one more lot to amortize the cost. He said that where the lot is situated on the street, there are no sidewalks and 400' of street is probably long enough for as flat as the area is, that it might be to the City's advantage to go ahead and build half of the street. Mr. LeBaron said that the disadvantage to that is where would the City take the drainage with the curb and gutter, because there are no other sewers on Oak Timbers Court. He said that it would look kind of foolish to have a nice half of a city street in the middle of the block segment with the chances of the rest of the street being built to match and finish out the drainage being unlikely. Commissioner Gasper said that something like improving the street, but not bringing it totally up to standards could be possible. Barry LeBaron told the Commission that when the Council has been waiving the street fees, they have also been waiving the sidewall( requirements as a part of it. He said that one of the questions that they may be asking is if they should at least get the sidewalk money out of the developer. Commissioner Gasper said that it would be a sidewalk to nowhere and you would still have the street frontage problem. She said the person who has 200' of frontage is still going to be paying a lot more than the person who has 100' frontage, and she recommends treating it like parkland and require a flat fee. Chairman Hart asked if the $1,000,000 plus that has been waived by Council over the years was for the one and two lot subdivisions or if it was for developers. Barry LeBaron said that it has generally been for two lot waivers in the last 3 Y2 years. Commissioner Gasper said that they are in agreement that something should be paid, but the question is what amount and how is it figured. Chairman Hart said that it has to be fair to the community. Barry LeBaron said that he will work up a couple of scenarios for the Commission to consider at their next meeting. Planning & Zoning Commission Minutes - August 27, 2001 Page 7 of 8- Approve on September 10, 2001 Commissioner Wall asked what it would take to put in place an assessment program, or if there was one in place already. Barry LeBaron said that he will research to see what existing ordinances are already in place to allow an assessment program. Chairman Hart said that he lives in Chelsea Park and Chelsea Park has new streets thanks to the City and the bond election that was passed in the early 1990's. He said at one point when it became apparent that the streets were going to be rebuilt, one of the options that was discussed was assessing. He said it never came forward, but if the Council at that time was considering it, there must be something in place that addresses it. Mr. LeBaron said that the thing that gets really complicated with assessment programs is that in order to make it work legally, you need to improve the value of the property by the amount that is being put into the streets. He said sometimes that is difficult to do, especially when there are already existing streets. Commissioner Gasper said it occurred to her that since the sidewalks and roads are a common good and used by all of the community, the taxpayers should bear the cost because the reason for taxation is to pay for services and infrastructure that serves the good of the whole community. She said it puts her in favor of doing a bond program to construct streets rather than an assessment. Commissioner Gasper asked if staff could give them some numbers reflecting what the developers are paying for impact fees. She said that when a developer develops a tract of property, they are assessed a certain amount of money for streets. Barry LeBaron told her that the developers put in the streets at their own cost. She asked if he would provide the costs for a couple of developments and calculate what the cost would be per lot. Mr. LeBaron said that he would have to ask the developers if they are willing to share that information with him. He said that the City knows what it would cost them to build a roadway and Commissioner Gasper said that figure would be fine. She said based on a subdivision layout, they will have different frontage and different number of lots for the same size acreage. She asked for some numbers on different subdivisions that reflect the amount of dollars and the amount of land. Commissioner Hollis said that no matter what they end up with, it is too complex of a situation to have an answer for everybody all of the time. He said they should have an appeal process for Council and leaving Council with the final word is a necessity. Commissioner Gasper said there is always an appeal process, but hopefully they will have a policy where an appeal or a problem is one in one million rather than one in one thousand or one in one hundred. Commissioner Gasper moved to table the item. Commissioner Wall seconded the motion. The motion passed by unanimous acclamation. 5. Citizens' comments regarding items not on the agenda: There were none. 6. Staff comments, reports and discussion items: Bill Lindley, City Manager, was introduced to the Commission and he spoke with them. Mayor Arp spoke about the selection process for choosing a city manager. Barry LeBaron told the Commission about the upcoming Highway 26 Task Force meeting on September 6. He discussed how they arrived to the point where they are. Commissioner Hollis Planning & Zoning Commission Minutes - August 27,2001 Page 8 of 8- Approve on September 10, 2001 said he would not be able to be at the meeting and requested that they tape it. 7. Commissioners' comments and reports: There were none. ADJOURNMENT: The Commission moved to adjourn the meeting at 8:55 p.m. The motion was seconded and passed by acclamation. Respectfully Submitted. Approved on: September 10,2001 as submitted. Note: As a matter of public record, an audio recording of the above Planning and Zoning Commission meeting is available upon request.