Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. I'd like to welcome everybody to the city of Allen planning and zoning commission, regular meeting Tuesday, July the 7th, 2026 announced that we do have a quorum present and I'll call the meeting to order. Everyone will please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. Okay, the first item on the agenda is a consent agenda, which is approved by a single majority vote. Any item can be removed from this agenda at the request of any commissioner for separate discussion. If nobody wishes to discuss an item separately, may I please have a motion?

I make a motion to approve the consent agenda as written.

Commissioner Galetti to make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second?

I second it.

Commissioner Walker with a second. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. And this motion carries unanimously. Next item on the agenda is to conduct a public hearing and consider a request to establish a planned development with a base zoning of townhome, regulating the development and use of 5.882 plus or minus acres of land in the W.J. Jackson survey, abstract number 484, generally located east of Central Expressway and southwest of Allen Drive, also known as townhomes of Allen Uptown. Here to present for staff is Ms. Yockey.

Good evening, Chairman and members of the Commission. The agenda item that was just read in the public record and represented by the red star is generally located east of Central Expressway and west of Allen Drive, just a little bit south of the roundabouts and north of McDermott. A little bit about the site itself, the subject property outlined in red on this aerial is zoned shopping center. Properties to the north and the east are zoned single family R3. Properties to the south are zoned single family R5. The three properties immediately to the west are zoned shopping center. And then across Central Expressway, it's PD 108 with a base zoning of mixed use. While we're on this slide, I just want to be able to point out the unique shape of this lot and for us to look at the frontage. Most of the frontage on this lot is on Allen Drive as opposed to Central Expressway, which is important for developers of commercial or residential. Commercial, we all know they want to be right on the highway. Residential developers don't care so much about that. So it is important when we start talking about the comprehensive plan. Just to reiterate, the applicant is requesting to rezone the 5.882 acre site to a planned development with a base zoning of townhomes. When we started evaluating this request, we look at a lot of things. We look at the future land use plan map, which was adapted as part of the 2045 comprehensive plan. We look at the comprehensive plan text as a whole. We looked at surrounding land uses, which to the northeast and south are all residential in nature. And then we also look at the proposed regulations that pertain to the actual development of the site that they're requesting. The future land use plan map shows us as regional commercial. Regional commercial is intended to utilize regional roadways to provide specialized retail, entertainment, and office and commercial services. So you're looking at your big boxes, your movie theaters, and larger offices and restaurants of that sort. Again, the comprehensive plan of future land use map shows us as regional commercial. Clearly they're not requesting a commercial development. It is residential in nature. This site, as well as the three properties immediately to the west, comprise of the regional commercial area that is shown. Together, they make up about seven acres in total. So it's not very big, it's got a unique shape, and all of its frontage is mainly on Allen Drive. So not to say that it would never go to commercial, but it's not very conducive to market as a commercial property. So then we looked at the comprehensive plan, and in that, there are some goals that the City of Allen residents have identified as priorities. And two specifically is goal land use one, which is to encourage the development of varying housing types to meet community needs, and then goal housing needs two, Three, which is to support the diversification of housing types. So this area to the north, east, and south is all single-family residential. Introducing townhomes, which is also a single-family product, really, into the mix is adding some diversification. So we felt that with all that taken into account, context that was appropriate to bring this development forward. So as far as the conceptual plan itself, I'd like to apologize. The memo says 42 units. I don't know why I keep having that in my head, but it's 41 units total. They are rear-loaded so the units along Allen Drive will all face Allen Drive to have that residential feel so that the folks on the east side of Allen Drive aren't looking into rear yards. It's fronts to front. And then the rest of the units, all their fronting is on open space. So it's a private network of an alley that will service and the driveways will be on. There's two access points off of Allen Drive, one further to the north, one further to the south. There are 19 parallel parking spaces on Allen Drive for the general public to use. And even though this isn't part of the downtown, the downtown plan does have those type of nice streets with parallel parking, the nice sidewalks, the street trees. So it does fit into that plan. They also are going to be required to provide a 10-foot-wide trail on Allen Drive that will eventually connect to our trail system. There will be interior sidewalks of 6 feet wide. And then I do want to bring up that as far as the density of this proposal, the townhome maximum allowable density is 10.8, and that's dwelling units per acre. This particular plan is at 6.9. So it's well below the maximum allowable density. As far as the conceptual landscape plan, it's almost one and a half acres of total open space with a 5,000 square foot fenced in dog park. They'll have benches and refuse containers throughout the open spaces. And then the red line here, which is kind of hard to see here, is the masonry wall and then there'll be some landscape screening along the wall parts along Central Expressway. But the landscaping will be on the inside to give the residents more of a neighborhood feel as opposed to looking at the wall and then people on Central Expressway looking at the landscaping. So as far as the development regulations, you can see the townhome regulations for minimums are in the middle of this chart. And their proposed regulations are on the right side. Overall, they're not asking for a lot of deviation from them. The deviations do include a lot of area, width, depth, front yard setback. And then I do want to point out that their rear yard setback, they're going to require 20 feet instead of the 10 feet. So to accommodate for the driveways and other amenities in residents' backyards. So their proposed regulations are not too far out of line with what minimum requirements found in the ALDC are. The continuous dwelling units, the ALDC does require a maximum of six units per building. They are requesting seven. So that's one other deviation. Some other development regulations in the ordinance identifies the base zoning as townhomes. The property should be developed in general conformance with the conceptual site plan. It allows those deviations from the chart, requires 1.49 acres of open space with the 5,000 square foot dog park and amenities. And just kind of as a recap that even though this proposal does not comply with the land use plan, it does, advanced goals in the comprehensive plan. So again, as far as that goes, staff feels that it does have merit. The Technical Review Committee has reviewed this, and as is presented today. And again, we have not dived into engineering or full detail landscape plans at this time. But there's no objection from that committee at this time. And as a result, staff does recommend approval. I'm here to answer questions. The applicant does not have a presentation, but they're going to do a brief introduction of themselves.

Okay. Thank you, Kim. Okay. Are there any questions from commissioners of staff?

I do have a question. Could you go back to the slide, the site plan that shows the 41 town homes? Yes, right there. And did you say the parking, the parallel parking on the Allen Drive is 19? How many spots did you say? There's 19. 19. And those are for visitors? Those are extra parking. Extra parking.

Yeah, they were not, that's not counted for the required on-site parking.

Okay. Are there any other visitor parkings inside? Yes. Can you please identify those? Right here? and right here okay how many did you say are there additional visitor parking i believe there's 21 or 24. okay thank you that's it any other questions from commissioners

If not, I will open the public hearing. If you haven't already turned in a card, a blue card to speak, if you wish to speak, there are blue cards on the back table. Please fill them out and bring them forward. Staff will let me have them. We do have two letters of support that were, excuse me, presented to the city prior to this meeting and one in opposition. They will all be entered into the public record. If you are here to speak, please limit your comments to three minutes. Please understand that any questions or comments cannot be answered directly by the commissioners. If there is an answer that the staff can answer after the public hearing, they will certainly provide those answers to the questions. And no questions directed to the applicant as well. okay um with that said uh the first name is mason zach i wish to speak in favor of this item and when you come up please enter or please uh let us know your name and address sure uh my name is mason zach i'm at 606 north allen drive immediately opposing these townhomes directly across

My wife and I and our three kids live right across from there. It's a very busy street, as I'm sure you know if you've been through there, but I do believe that these town homes are a good fit for this scenario. As was mentioned by staff, there's single-family housing to the east, single-family housing to the south, and as someone whose front windows will look immediately upon whatever's put there, I think townhomes would fit much better than Uh, shopping center, any retail shopping center is going to have led lights in their parking lot that are going to shine directly in all of those front windows of our houses. And I think there's going to be significantly more traffic if there's any shopping center. So I think townhome is a good fit for this scenario. The homes and trees there I think will help with the highway noise that we get. That section, as you all know, doesn't have a screening wall because of those businesses. That'll be beneficial for us and all the residents behind us. I spoke with the staff at a meeting with the engineers, and I thought their elevations and landscaping was well laid out. They shared a lot of good details with us and answered all of our questions. um the trail to downtown we think that's a good idea because it's uh very difficult to get down that street to downtown right now there is no sidewalk on either side so i think that'll be beneficial um the parking strips with the bump outs with the trees that are going to be there or at least in the landscaping plan i think will also help slow down traffic on that road because it's currently very wide open right now so I think that'll help. We support this project personally, living directly across the street, and I hope you all approve it. Thank you.

And I'm going to apologize in advance for mispronouncing some names. Jeremy Weatherby? Weatherall. Okay. I wish to speak in favor of this item with modification.

Yeah, Jeremy Weatherall. I live at 214 Knob Hill Place here in Allen. Just some of the concerns of the other residents. I know there's going to be other people that's going to speak. But, you know, having the increase in traffic is definitely a concern for us, especially with that roundabout. It is a very busy roundabout. I understand why you guys put it in. But there are a lot of accidents that are happening just right there. It's not very clear as to when you move up to that roundabout where you're to go and those kinds of things. As a resident of the neighborhood, we're just concerned about the increased traffic in that area. We definitely think that you guys should look at that roundabout, maybe put some additional signage or something like that just to help direct the traffic. So just take that into consideration. We have concerns about the drive outs, the parking spaces that you're putting on Allen Drive. Because it's already busy, we're just concerned it's just gonna be a lot more congestion. uh one of the suggestions that we have was maybe reducing the speed limit in that area down to maybe 20 miles an hour that's going to be a concern for us i think it's 30 or 35 right now and then one of the other biggest concerns is if we're going to be putting families there we have the nice park that was built as you guys approved a couple of years ago and for those families to get to that park is not safe So we need to make sure that there is some good sidewalks, well-lit, and figure out a way to slow that traffic down in that area just to make it safe for the other residents.

So that's really all I have. Thank you.

Next is Ann, and I can't read the last name, Melton Campy?

Melton Campbell.

Okay.

So, hello. My name's Ann Mellon-Campbell. Okay. I'm on Wisenet 205. I've lived in this neighborhood for 25 years. And as mentioned before, love the idea of townhomes, especially when you compare to what we've seen as possibilities in the past as motels, three-story condos, gas stations. Townhomes are preferably accessible. better suited to our neighborhood. And just as a point of reference, if any of you haven't been through that area recently, I would ask that you, you know, come on down, park on Allen Street and watch the traffic patterns because it is a little scary. We've got cars coming off the 75 and they don't know What's going on? And they are screaming through that roundabout coming down Allen Drive. They're going through, you know, it's pushing traffic onto Linge. We also have the exit from the freeway also. So we've got two impacts in this neighborhood. So our concern really is the safety. and the traffic that this will be added so looking at the numbers that kim presented so the total area regulation is 2160 their proposal is 1874 and i would ask to let's keep it at what the regulation is that would pretty much take six town homes out of that area and keep the town homes to their square footage the current score footage of the proposal is 1,210 feet. When you Google and look or go to Zillow and look for townhomes in the area, soon to be open in September, the closest square footage is 1586 TBD. So this is significantly smaller than what's going to be in the rest of the city. So I would ask that that please get looked at so that this area is really on par. And then our ex-mayor, Ken Falk, he deemed this corridor as the gateway to the city of Allen. So I would ask how this is going to look compared to the downtown area as well. So fundamentally, the intent is good, and we approve the townhomes. But I would ask you to take a serious look at how many homes and families that we're going to put there and what that means to the traffic patterns along Allen Drive, Ola, Wisenet, and all the streets surrounding. And I do think that perhaps a modification of speed limit would help. And then as well as a dog park, that will also bring additional traffic. And we should also have a water fountain there. The bark yard has a water fountain. And the heat that we get here in Texas, why would we not put a water fountain? So thank you.

Thank you. Next is Jim Longley. I wish to speak in favor of this item.

My name is Jim Longley, I live, I don't work there. I live at 209 Exchange Place, and as has been mentioned by people previous to me, the main concern that I'm having about this, and I agree with And that we need to think in terms of reducing or increasing the number of square feet per townhome back to the specified amount, not what they're asking for. I think the additional traffic that this is going to put on Dante's Tenth Circle up there is going to be a real problem. accidents and near accidents on an almost daily basis up there i pass through that intersection two to four times a day going to work and coming home from work for lunch and that kind of stuff so i'm kind of in favor of it i think it needs to be rethought in terms of traffic patterns and that's pretty much it thank you thank you

Next is Patricia Dobson. I wish to speak in favor of this item.

Hello, my name is Patricia Dobson. I live at 211 Wisenet Drive, and I appreciate your vision for these townhomes. I'm in favor of it with a couple modifications. The first one I'd like to make a comment on, and I don't know if you want to pull the map up or whatever, but the trail, I don't think you had said it went all the way down to the public library. It just went in front of the townhomes. So what I would propose is because townhomes do attract younger families, small children, empty nesters, that we already see people walking down there. And from where I go, I have to go on the curb to walk to the skate park or the public library. And when I get to the roundabout, I get sidewalk. So I propose a sidewalk on the townhome side that can go in front of Ola all the way down. And it will be greeted with a... started sidewalk that's already there before the roundabout. So please consider that in the future if the townhomes do go in, that we do have a place to walk to get to the great that this is going to happen in that downtown area. The second thing I'd like to see happen, and I don't know if you have a map of the townhomes in front of you, but Street A ends in a cul-de-sac. I highly suggest that that cul-de-sac extend itself to that frontage road. Right at that frontage road, you're having two lanes merge into one, and there's an uprising and a curve before that ramp comes off, and then they're all headed to that roundabout. It's not going to interfere with the ramp, and it also puts down into one lane. Let me tell you a great advantage about having that cul-de-sac opened up to that fronted road is if people are coming from the south area into Allen after work or coming home from lunch, They can come into their neighborhood or their townhome community and never have to be part of that roundabout. The second advantage is that they also, in the morning or whenever they're leaving their little community, they have a third way to get out. Instead of going right out of the street A into OLA, where children are, school buses or garbage trucks, and having to come that way and then use the same route, they would have an exit themselves. And having three exits and entrances into that area It would also help the garbage pickup. It would help school bus delivery and pickup. It would help with people coming home or leaving in the morning and alleviate some of that traffic on Allen Drive. I also think that when you have that third exit, it just gives people more options and not as much congestion in a neighborhood itself. So I really appreciate you listening to my concern there, and I really do appreciate your vision. in Allen and adding these townhomes for our community and diversity of our population, but also to be open-minded that we do need to open it up on that one area to the frontage roads. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Carol Smithwick, I do not wish to speak, but please record my support. Ricky Petty, I do not wish to speak. Please record my support. Bobby Curtis, I wish to speak in opposition to this item.

When I say I wish to speak in opposition, that's probably a misstatement from that standpoint.

Sir, name and address, please, for the record. Okay.

My name is Bobby Curtis. I live at 204 Wildwood Place in Allen, Texas. Thank you. 75013. Thank you. I'm in support of the zoning policy. of the changing zoning to the townhouse. But I don't believe we need to vary away from what our minimum standards are. And also from the square footage of the units also, because it needs to correspond to what the rest of the city's doing at that point in time. I also have concerns, just like Ann brought up, about the traffic pattern and the traffic flow. I know we've talked about the roundabout, and I know that's not a part of this development, but it does affect this development at the same time when we look at it. And when you start bringing more traffic in to that area, and you've got your parallel parking, someone's trying to parallel park, it's coming down to Allen Drive at the same time, that's going to present a problem that needs to be addressed. And again, the square footage of the lots, I believe it needs to stay at what the minimum is, is or above and the square footage of the units need to be up there also again it's a better use than what it is commercial because if it was commercial all the development that's already there would be looking at the backs of buildings at that point in time so the townhouse would be a better application but bringing up to where our standards are don't vary from the standards thank you very much appreciate it thank you

Donald Rutledge, I wish to speak in opposition to this item. We're not in any hurry.

Donald relish two one, two nobile place, Allen, Texas seven five zero one three. I'm a retired military veteran of 22 years. Like I said, I'm disabled. Okay. Deal with chronic pain, hearing loss, all that crap. So I'm sorry. I'll watch my P's and Q's. I'm in opposition. I believe in my fellow residents here concerning about these townhouses and everything. We do need to open up the one area in our subdivision. for traffic because that roundabout's nothing but a disaster. Whoever thought of that should be fired for it. I'm in opposition to that thing, too. It's dangerous. Alley drive is dangerous, too, because I know I'm retired. I go up and down that road all the time. And like I said, I'm in opposition to this, and thank you.

Thank you. Have no additional blue cards if is there anybody else in attendance wishing to speak for or against this item Seeing no movement I will close a public hearing turn the item back over to the commissioners any questions or comments Could we see the standards again please I Just the one you're looking for?

Yes, thank you, Ken.

Did you have any questions? No?

No, I just wanted to refresh my memory. Okay.

Any other questions? Yeah, I got a couple. There's a lot of engineering requests from the people that we're listening to here, and I notice you've got 20 feet, 10 feet more on the rear setback, and you're giving up an extra five feet on the front. If we shift that around, you could get that sidewalk in. They're too small in general. When does the engineering get done? Are we going to approve that now, or does that have to go through you all?

Typically, this will... This will go to City Council after Planning and Zoning Commission makes a recommendation. Then they will do preliminary plat, which is administratively reviewed, and then they would submit their civils. And that is to the engineering department, and that typically takes could take anywhere, you know, four to ten weeks, depending on how many times they have to go back and forth. And then they would come back with final plat.

And they come back to you?

Administratively, yes. Okay.

And you've heard all these concerns, so you'll take those to heart.

Yes, and our engineering director is here. He's heard them. And so once the engineering is submitted, he'll look at that as well.

And then when it comes to voting, there's really two questions here, right? One is to change the ALDC so that this can be townhomes. But the second one is to make them smaller than what is currently acceptable. If we vote on that, are we voting to pass both as requested? Yes. Or we can't vote it down and then do them separately?

Can we do it separately?

No. No. We have to vote on what's presented to us.

Can we do modifications?

So I'll jump in really quickly. You would be able to make a recommendation with a modification. And there's typically two ways that we do this. You can make a formal recommendation that something on the plan itself be changed. Usually those are going to be small changes that can happen in that three-week period between now and city council. For more substantive changes, we would look towards either tabling or continuing the public hearing because the applicant needs to be sure they can address those changes. Some of the changes we've actually taken through without that formal recommendation and just tried to modify it before it goes to council and present it. Either way works for us. Formal is certainly the way to go if you want to be sure it's put into the record for what changes you all recommend as the technical body.

And you said small, Haley. Would 15% reduction in unit count be small or not?

Certainly not. And what I would say about that as well is part of what we look at when we're evaluating these standards is overall density. So sometimes we look at the boundary of the development and say, what is the impact outside? And so in this case, we are substantially below what our normal townhome standards at that 2160 would be. And that's why staff was comfortable with the reduction. If we were to give feedback to the applicant that something substantial like that needs to change, yes, we would need time to go back through and understand how that impacted the overall concept plan, which is being adopted as part of this ordinance.

Thank you. I have a couple of questions and probably way too many comments. First, you talked about the sidewalk at the street side. So if I remember, let me grab my notes. There's a 10-foot trail, but that trail, is that also the sidewalk simultaneously?

Well, there's the 10-foot trail that'll be along Allen Drive. And then interior, there's six-foot sidewalks. So they have a system here that, if you can see my mouse, kind of goes around on the interior.

Okay, so let's talk street level first, just at Allen Drive. So on Allen Drive, you have the road, the proposed parallel parking, and then a 10-foot trail.

Correct.

But that trail itself is also the sidewalk.

Correct.

Okay. All right, and so then... The proposal is for a 10-foot front yard setback. But of that 10 feet, four of it is a trail easement.

No, that trail is outside of there.

But according to the plat, there's a four-foot trail easement on there.

I believe that's a four-foot trail maintenance easement. So if Parks ever needs to get in there to do maintenance work, they want to have the authority and ability to go on the private property. But the trail itself starts at the right-of-way line. So the trail itself is off of private property.

The trail is off, but the easement is on. Correct. And that was my point, is that there's a four-foot maintenance easement of that 10 feet. So six feet of that 10 is off. the property owner and the four feet is a shared easement correct even though yeah and then so if we look at the back easement it's proposed to be 20 feet which is where the garage would go because typically garages are going to have a 20 feet easement 15 feet of that is a utility easement So you're only owning 5%. I mean, yes, you own the full 20, but 15 of that 20 is easement on both sides of the street. So street B is 24 feet wide plus a 15-foot easement on both sides. Correct. Okay. And the lot width, I'm sorry, the lot area, per regulation is 2160. The proposed of the lot area is 1870, but that includes all of the easements. Correct. So if you subtract the easements and the building lines and everything, that's roughly about 1320 square feet per livable space, including the garage. And that's just basic 85 minus 10 and 10 and things like that. So we haven't talked about, I know there's townhome regulations, and I'm sorry I didn't ask this earlier. I think it's two stories plus the garage. Is that what the townhome regulations are? Or can they go three stories if the garage counts as the first floor?

I'd have to look into that. And I apologize for that.

So as a minimum, they would have the garage floor and some space plus a second floor.

At a minimum.

Yeah. And this could go to a third depending on the regulation that I should have asked for this last week. So I apologize.

I'm happy to jump in just because I have a laptop and can look that up easily. So the maximum number of stories is two and a half, and the maximum building height in all cases is 35 feet. And with pitched roofs, we usually do that to the midline.

Okay, okay. So that would allow, if we just go, and a two and a half, does that count the garage as the half?

So usually the half is going to be that top floor is not fully finished out.

It's like a loft type.

Yeah, a portion of it typically.

Okay. Because I know there have been some concerns about the size of the properties, and so if you take 1320 plus even half of that, you're going to be close to 2,000 square feet. With the half, you'd go over 2,000. So we're talking potentially a 2,000 square foot townhome. Okay. I'm not a fan of this for a couple of reasons. One are the setbacks that I mentioned. But also, while I do appreciate the townhome being a buffer to the noise for the residents, i'm concerned about pulling more commercial property and turning it into residential because we've done that multiple times multiple places across allen and we're becoming even more of a bedroom community than we already are and so i'm a little concerned that we're just we just continue to do that over and over um also the uh the speed on allen drive had been mentioned um So I want to back up and ask a question. The current width of Allen Drive, if they go through and put the parallel parking, does that include what's existing, or does that parallel parking go into their property?

Parallel parking, without speaking out of turn, we have our director of engineering here. It would be inside the property because they're dedicating right away.

So if the road is, let's make up a number, 50 feet wide, I said it's making up a number. For an example, the road currently is 50 feet wide. A parking space is another 10 feet. So that 10-foot space would not encroach into that 50-foot road, or would it?

Great question, Commissioner. What's difficult to discern at this scale is that the parallel parking, the best way I know to describe it, is additional concrete.

Okay.

So the configuration of the road today virtually doesn't change. You're adding parallel parking now. essentially on both sides of the street it exists today on the east side but it's striped off with a white edge line on the west side with this proposed development as the developer is proposing in concert with our street standards is it would have essentially what we call bump out parking right an eight feet additional uh width of concrete because the parallel space is about eight feet wide eight feet by 22.

So we're not losing any of the current road. No. We're just adding 21 or so.

The existing travel way is not being impacted.

Okay. All right. And also for staff, there had been talk about the dog park. This is going to be an HOA. So the HOA is going to be private, correct? It would be private to the subdivision, yes. To the subdivision, okay. All right. That's all my comments. Thank you so much.

I have a few that I want to go through. First of all, I think the looking at it from a commercial versus homes um look it's such an awkward plot of land um that if you leave it as commercial i think it's very awkward for anyone to put it in with the current buildings that are that are there the rear entries of i mean the service stores in the back i drove by and parked in that parking area I think from a retail standpoint, it would be really difficult to put another retail behind this one without asking it to be facing Allen Drive. So I think if anyone's going to put a commercial there, they're going to probably put it with Allen Drive as your face. So I think as this is a gateway, I think as mentioned by one of the people here tonight, i do know that the council with the downtown development wanting to use allen drive as the gateway in i think the homes would be a much better welcome to into that area into what is hoping to be done along allen drive all the way into main street so i really do like the fact that it's going to residential opposed to the commercial i think commercial is just very awkward and i also think traffic is something that was brought up is that with homes the traffic is tend to be a morning and an evening going into and out of work whereas the commercial tends to be a very heavily used traffic pattern during the day when it's they're open for business so i think yeah you might see an increase if you have 41 homes two cars per homes you're looking at 80 you know 82 people who can potentially drive um That is a number of cars. That is something you have to keep an eye on. But it says 21 homes, right? How many homes? 41? 41. So that is, but I still think that those are going to be controlled with when in and out of access, whereas a commercial would be difficult. So having said all that, I do like the, I do have a question with Chris Flanagan, who's here. about the property. What overlay is this for the downtown? Is this the downtown? It's not the downtown, but do you know what overlay this is, Haley?

So the zoning and shopping center, you may be talking about the Master Thoroughfare Plan.

Yeah, I mean, it's like the whole with the downtown design development, bringing up the gateway. We're trying to, I know this is probably right outside of the downtown, but what is adjacent next to this? Is it?

at the roundabout or is it further up so the the downtown zoning begins much further south um outside of the residential neighborhoods closer to the public library and whatnot but we did evaluate the thoroughfare plan and mention this as a gateway okay so i guess my point is and i guess it was also brought up by a citizen here is that aesthetically um

I would like to see something that is more in line with what the hope is for the overlay heading into downtown. That way it's a little bit more homogenous coming in. You're not looking like you're Patch Wilk. I think we struggle with our downtown being on the Downtown Design Review Committee. We struggle with the downtown that's not overly established in number of buildings. And it's kind of all over the place in eras from 60s, 70s, 80s. So I think it would be I would welcome us having further conversations with the developer that the aesthetics of it really kind of helps bring it into what the downtown's trying to do for downtown area. It is the gateway into the thing. And then I guess the question from an engineering is that was brought up tonight about taking the roundabout as a third entrance off of frontage road and I don't know what the viability of that is with acceleration and deceleration coming with that ramp. So I was wondering if you could speak to that briefly since it was brought up.

Yeah, excellent. So I went back to the slide illustratively to kind of walk through. First of all, the applicant didn't, to the best of my knowledge, contemplate a connection out onto US-75 directly. So we haven't talked about that with the applicant. predict some of the possible challenges associated with that concept. One of which is US 75 is under the jurisdictional control of the Texas Department of Transportation. They have certain access management standards that we would have to comply with. And so, namely, at a glance, the distance in a future street connection as proposed would appear to be really close to an existing commercial driveway there, which would be prohibited. But we'd have to put a scale on it and measure the distance, compare it to what those standards are. the idea of actually making it a third connection that an immediate disadvantage that i can think of regarding that is that whereas it may be convenient as expressed earlier astutely that the residents could leave and enter in their neighborhood right off the 75 and not take the longer way around through the roundabout if you leave this access point available well now you have a straight shot connection through the neighborhood which could be a potential cut-through point so you know that's my immediate reaction to it the applicant hasn't requested this type of access city staff doesn't have you know too much concern with the access being primarily off of allen drive when you look at the actual numbers i appreciate your math in terms of two cars and 42 lots or 40 lots it's going to be 80 cars the reality is is the traffic engineers estimate From a statistical standpoint, the townhomes generate roughly about half a car in the a.m. and then the p.m. period. Specifically, it's 19 cars in the a.m. peak period and 20 cars in the p.m. peak period. Keep in mind that's not solely outbound. That's five cars inbound in the a.m., as you would expect. Fourteen cars are going outbound in the morning as people are leaving for work. Likewise, or in opposition, In the PM period, you have 11 cars that are inbound and nine that are outbound. And then likewise, you have to consider, are they going north or are they going south? So only a fraction of those are actually going or utilizing the interchange of concern with the roundabouts. So all that to say is that anticipating that traffic was going to be a concern tonight, we did take a look at traffic volumes on Allen Drive. and we estimated the capacity of the interchange. And in traffic engineer parlance, capacity and operation is graded essentially in an academic way, A being free flow, B being slight congestion, C being average congestion, D being approaching failure and for whatever reason there's no e level but there's an f meaning failure the interchange operates at an a level today with only two legs at a b level you conservatively add these traffic volumes from the proposed development and it doesn't even move the needle so the capacity of the interchange is more than abundant to handle this modest uh use okay especially as was astutely indicated earlier in the meeting would be quite different when compared to commercial because the traffic volumes are not only larger but far more dispersed throughout the day than it would be with residential yeah and thank you for that explanation because i know it was brought up and and i did have a concern of a third

entrance as being a shot through, trying to avoid the roundabout and going around that whole corner, just doing a quick run through the neighborhood to get onto Allen Drive. But I wanted to hear from an engineering point of view. And then I guess my last comment is back to I do like the residential here because I do know that as a city, we are striving for a diversity in housing. I know that we have a backlog of homes that are well established that people are not moving out of because there's not a lot of home stock that we can move into, that people can move into, and I think this gives us another opportunity especially if the downtown area starts to develop and take off with the new phase one at where the old fire station is, I think it's now going to be coming a little bit more desirable to be downtown and to have some diversity of homes other than the established single-story residential homes and well-established neighborhoods. I think this does add a lot to the city's capability to allow more people to come in and enjoy our city. So those were kind of my comments, and thanks, Mr. Flanagan, for helping us.

I have another question for the engineer. This is concerning Allen Drive. Are you going to widen Allen Drive? Are there going to be turn lanes going in and out of this entrance?

So another great question, when we talk about deceleration lanes or right-hand turn lanes where people are slowly moving out of traffic to turn in the neighborhood, you have to meet a certain threshold of traffic volumes to even legitimize those. And this is such a small neighborhood, those aren't, right-hand turn lanes are not contemplated with this project. And the roadway is not being widened. It is, the pavement is being widened by eight feet to create those parallel parking spaces. But the travel way as we experience it today will be unchanged. The centerline stripe will remain where it is today. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

In general, I agree with the theory that this is not conducive to a successful retail or commercial development due to the commercial in front of it and its adjacency to the residences to the east. My question for Chris, back to the engineering, my biggest concern is the street C. People come zipping around the roundabout, so it's the farthest to the north. So they come right around that roundabout and immediately have to slow down to turn into that neighborhood. How much discussion or consternation was there? To me it seems like a pretty short distance. Let me rephrase it another way or another idea. What about moving that entrance and have more of the townhomes shifted back to the north so that there's more of that so that Street C is more into the center of the development rather than right off the turn of the roundabout? And I know there's distance requirements for driveways into subdivisions, et cetera, but I don't know what these distances are here.

Yeah, and I don't have an immediate concern with the location of Street C in relationship to the roundabout, given the nature of the geometry of the roundabout, slowing traffic down, and even on departure of the interchange, if you were coming from, say, across the highway and navigating the traffic circle and then having to turn onto Allen Drive. And the site visibility is quite good. I don't see a need to move Street C, personally, from a professional point of view. Okay. Okay.

Again, I know the process of going through the TRC, so engineering, fire department, police department, school department, trash services all look at these things. Correct. Yes, sir. I know all these things have been vetted, but that was just a concern that I had about that. specific street c and i was going to doug sort of took my thunder by the asking about the cul-de-sac onto 75 because of the distance between what might be a driveway onto 75 service road versus the commercial driveway seems to me like there's a pretty short distance there as well yes sir In general, we all sat through the workshop comprehensive plan meetings with the city council and the whole discussion surrounding, I think what they called it, mid-housing, the difference between the apartments and bigger homes. So this seems to fit that certainly better than commercial does in this particular spot. Any other questions or comments?

I'd like to just add to what everyone is saying here as well. I Support the townhomes. I do see a concern with the traffic. I know Chris you have mentioned about the downside of adding the third Entry exit from 75 I would still say that if developer and staff can look into that option if there's a way to address that possibly if the If we can shift the Street A exit onto Allen Drive somewhere in the middle of the townhome, then there's an opportunity to not have that direct, quick exit out and shortcut. It would definitely help the residents going in and out of that area. I do recognize the traffic studies have been done, but in general, I do assume that every house would have two cars in the near future. 41 homes, 42 homes with 84 cars in and out. Yes, different times of the day. That's a lot of traffic. So the third entry exit would definitely help if we can make it happen. So that's what I would like to encourage the developer and the staff to further look into it, especially from 75, having a turn lane into the property.

Any other questions or comments?

They provide 24 visitor on-site parking, which exceeds the 21 that they're required to have.

I meant for two cars per house. So that would be 84 cars just for the residents. Oh, just for the residents, yes.

Sorry, Commissioner. One more. Certainly, we'll visit with the developer and talk about the possibility of extension of the cul-de-sac, but just sitting here again looking at this plan, another complication has come to mind. You can kind of see the exit ramp illustrated here, and what we need to look at is also is there a positive barrier separating the exiting freeway traffic from from the front of drug traffic. What I mean by that, is there any kind of positive barrier that would prevent motors from leaving the highway and then making an evasive turn into the neighborhood? I know that that doesn't seem very plausible, but that is the standard which TxDOT implements. They will not allow a street or driveway connection if unless there's a positive barrier to prevent that maneuver clearly the existing commercial driveway was built probably well before that standard exists but again that's just another impediment to this concept but we'll explore it thoroughly okay thank you for clarifying any other questions or comments okay if not may i please have a motion

Chair, I'd like to make a motion to recommend approval of a request to establish a plan development with the base zoning of townhome and to adopt development regulations, a zoning exhibit, concept plan, and landscape plan regulated the development of the use of 5.882 plus or minus acres of land in the W.J. Jackson survey, abstract number 48.

Commissioner Galetti with a motion to recommend approval of this item. Do we have a second?

I second it.

Commissioner Cothurio with a second. All those in favor of recommending approval of this item, please raise your right hand. All those opposed? And we have five in favor, one in opposition. This motion is approved. This next goes to City Council on July the 28th.

Correct. Thank you.

All right, next item on the agenda is to conduct a public hearing, consider a request to amend the Allen Land Development Code, including the following. Section 4.08.19, Downtown District, to rectify Scribner's errors adopted in Ordinance Number 4068-2-24. Section 4.20.2, schedule of principal uses by amending regulations related to manufactured home uses. Section 6.04.1, temporary use permit applications by modifying regulations pertaining to temporary use permit requirements. Section 6.06.15, mobile food establishments. amending the regulatory requirements of mobile food establishments and Appendix A definitions by amending certain definitions related to manufactured homes. Also known as ALDC amendments. Here to present for staff is Ms. Ahmed.

Good evening Chair and members of the Commission. The ALDC is amended periodically to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the code. And tonight we will be discussing two amendments related to legislative bills. And one is a minor cleanup in the downtown ordinance. The first one is manufactured homes, which is Senate Bill 785. And this bill is for HUD-compliant homes only. And this requires municipalities to allow manufactured home HUD code use. It has to be allowed by right in a zoning district that allows single-family use. And we are also taking the opportunity to clean up some of the definitions in the manufactured home definitions, which includes manufactured housing unit, manufactured home HUD code, and manufactured home. Here's a table that's showing manufactured housing unit, which will be renamed to manufactured home HUD code. And we have chosen the agricultural open space district to allow the manufactured home HUD code use. Currently, single family dwelling detached use is allowed by right in the AO district as long as it meets the minimum one acre and the additional AO regulations. And as long as they meet the minimum one acre requirement, the manufactured home HUD code use would be allowed by right in the AO district. And staff feels that this is the most suitable district to satisfy this bill. Here are all the AO zone properties within the city. There's about 785 acres of AO zone properties. Majority of it is in the McDermott area. We have one parcel here that's along 121 and Stacy. There's floodplain, but there are some infill lots that are available that they would be able to have the manufactured home use. The next one is House Bill number 2844 for mobile food trucks. There are some things that cities can and cannot regulate. We cannot regulate health permit. The city cannot issue any health permits for mobile food trucks, as well as doing any inspections. Everything will be done by the state. We can also no longer require... any distance requirement between a restaurant and mobile food truck. We did have a 300-foot minimum distance requirement, but we have to remove that. And we can also no longer operate the hours. But we can regulate land use permission. So mobile food trucks cannot be located with any fire lanes, any easements, any required parking spaces. those can still be reviewed. We can also regulate by zoning district. We currently have a number of zoning districts where food truck site is allowed, and we intend to keep that that way. And we will also require the state permit as a part of the temporary use permit submittal. So we will have to make sure that those have been reviewed by the state and inspected. This bill did go into effect July of this year. We did wait a little while to just make sure that the state issued the the rules and the portal was released last month and everything looks good right now. We're also just removing those requirements that we can no longer regulate and then adding that state permit that will be reviewed as part of the temporary permit. We can also maintain where they can operate, which includes temporary events, food truck site, and food truck park. And the last one is in the downtown district. It's a Scrivener's error. There was a duplicate point in the parking alternative and there were some pictures that were swapped. It was unintentional and we just want to correct it at this time. Staff recommends approval of this request. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions from the commissioners of staff? not i'll open the public hearing i don't have anybody registered to speak if there's anybody in attendance wishing to speak for that or against this item please step forward see no movement i'll close the public hearing turn the item again back over the commissioners if there are no questions or comments may i please have a motion i'll make a motion to recommend approval of the request to amend the allen land development code Commissioner Cotheria with a motion to recommend approval of this item. Do we have a second? A second. Commissioner Voss with a second. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. And this motion carries unanimously. Next step is for City Council on July the 28th. Next item on the agenda is to discuss and review the development process and the roles, duties, laws, and ordinances related to the commission. Here to present for staff is Ms. Angel.

Yes, thank you all once again. I'm Haley Angel, director of community development. When we met to speak about the board and commissions and provide feedback to council, one of the things that we did here was more opportunities for training just to kind of keep us all on our toes and make sure that we're looking at the full spectrum of what the development process entails. And so we've decided to bring a piece of that forward to you tonight. We will try to bring more pieces as we do have meetings. And I will do my best to be concise. But we are going to cover the comprehensive plan and its impacts on the Allen Land Development Code. We also want to cover the overall development process to help understand how those pieces work together. And then we do intend to dive into specifics on zoning, SUP, site plans, as well as our subdivision regulations to, again, get the whole picture. But tonight, we're just going to focus on the comprehensive plan and the ALDC itself. You've heard some of this tonight. So again, I'll do my best to be concise. I do want to review the role and development of a comprehensive plan. Should we choose to pursue any comprehensive plan amendments, which are fairly typical for cleanup items or just changes with times, those would all come to you all as well. So it would be within your purview. I want to look at that vision again that the residents set out of our development in 2045, refer back to the impacts on zoning and subdivision regulations and how we use it in our staff recommendations. So in general, the role of a comprehensive plan is to provide community input to make that vision, as well as a framework for what development will be in 20, 30 years, just depending on the plan. In our case, it was for 2045. So what do we want Allen to be in 2045? From that vision, it also gets into a little bit of implementation to help staff have some information for work plan and recommendations So that way we can set out on helping be sure that we're going to achieve that goal. That is the main point is a policy document to guide decisions about land use development and similar topics. And so again, guiding long-term growth, I really want to emphasize that it is community driven. Usually in planning we look at the spectrum of the development process and the point that you want the most community input is at the comprehensive plan. We want that vision to be representative of the city as a whole. And it is supposed to be visionary and not technical. Specifically, it is a policy document. It is not a regulating document. It doesn't set out zoning. It doesn't set out any specific requirements that we would be able to implement throughout the process. We do look for zoning conformance, so not necessarily strict compliance, but as we talked about earlier, that overall picture of the comprehensive plan and making sure it's conforming with that. And it is a living document. So you may see that there are times that we decide to come back and maybe take another look at that future land use plan. Probably not substantial changes. Sometimes those are clean up to marry with the zoning on the land. Sometimes it is maybe to clarify the implementation plan or add in other tools that we think would be a complement. Depending on the scale of those changes, we would expect some consumer public engagement to match that scale. In our Allen 2045 plan, we did set out a vision statement with the help of the community. Not only did we have an advisory committee, we had citywide events, communitywide surveys. You all know this as you were a part of it. And that was eventually adopted in April of 2025. And so I just want to focus in on that first sentence to ground us that Allen thrives as a vibrant, safe, and fiscally responsible city for residents and visitors alike. And so trying to make sure that our decisions come back to that ultimate vision. In addition to that overall vision, we have guiding principles, a future land use map, and goals and implementation. And I'm gonna dive in especially into some of the goals and implementation because I think it might inform some of what comes before you all in the future. Those guiding principles just help us again align to that overall vision. But specifically as we dig into some of those goals, you'll see it's section by section. And we have an overall goal that's a little bit usually broad and intentionally so, so encouraging a variety of housing types. We're gonna have the responsible groups for that as well as a timeline so we can prioritize what are the most important changes to happen sooner rather than later. And so you can see some examples here of some strategies, but as we dig further into the plan, we have more concrete actions. I think I am a planner at heart, so I love a good vision, and so talking about expanding access to open spaces is lovely, but at the end of the day, I've gotta have a policy and an ordinance and a program that I can put in place to make sure that happens. And so these individual actions are going to be things it we do share this with other departments, right? So of course parks is a critical part of this They've actually started to look at some of their master plans if you all haven't seen anything come out about that recently I know it's I think I saw a survey about the trail plan recently and so we want to give credit to those other departments who are contributing towards this ultimate vision and And some things revolve around the Allen Land Development Code. So at its core, the primary way to implement a comprehensive plan is to be able to update your zoning and subdivision regulations to make sure that that minimum standard you're requiring matches that vision. And so what you might see now is staff has this ultimate vision, and it will be some time for us to go through that implementation plan and probably point out the areas that It recommends changes to the zoning code or could be heavily influenced or impacted by changes to the zoning regulations or subdivision regulations. Of course, as you all know, because you also saw ALDC amendments today, so we kind of had a good mixture of things that fall back on the comprehensive plan. If we do propose changes to that, of course, you all would be involved in that process. If anything was a larger process that incorporated maybe more policy-driven discussions, It would be more than just a workshop before the meeting. There would be conversation leading up to that. When it comes to individual zoning requests, as Kim mentioned today, we're looking at the future land use map. But we're also looking at that land use category and the description of the development pattern. The future land use map isn't meant to solely describe the use. We don't just say retail. We really want to talk about that development pattern. A village at Allen is way different than your neighborhood corner store that maybe has your dry cleaner and your donuts, right? And intentionally so. And so we look at that for reference. And we also look at those goals and actions, as we did earlier today. So that was very brief because I had a lot of great examples before me in the meeting today and I don't want to belabor them. I'm really happy to answer any questions you all might have.

Thank you. Any questions, comments? Did you find this useful? What's the next one again?

So it depends on kind of the timing for meetings. If we have a smaller meeting but have to call you in, we might try to bulk the topics together so that way we're not doing 10 minutes each time. It sounds like we might have a shorter meeting for our next meeting, and so we're looking at how much we want to be able to present to you all. But now we'll dive into the actual development process. Now that we know where our regulations come from, how do all of our regulatory processes connect, and what do we look at in each step along the way?

Good. Hopefully our media people will be taking your presentation and creating a video for it.

I did choose the regular agenda on purpose. Our hope is that if we do ever have new commissioners come on board, of course we can help onboard them. But sometimes seeing both the training and kind of it in action helps put the pieces together a little bit. So we'll be able to refer this to them.

I think this is very helpful for us, but I also think it's helpful for the city itself because there's a lot of people who don't fully understand what the P&Z does, what we have and can and cannot do. So I think this helps pull back the curtain a little bit. So thanks for the staff and everybody for doing this. This is great.

Of course. Thank you.

Thanks, Haley.

Of course.

And with no further items on the agenda, this meeting is adjourned.