Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to welcome everybody to the City of Allen Planning and Zoning Commission regular meeting Tuesday, August 4th, 2026. Call the meeting to order and announce that we do have a quorum present. If everyone will please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, first item on the agenda is the consent agenda, which is approved by a single majority vote. Does anybody have any questions on the agenda, on the consent agenda? If not, may I please have a motion? I make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Commissioner Katheria with a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do we have a second?

I second it.

Commissioner Walker with a second. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please raise your right hand. And this motion carries unanimously. Next on the agenda is to consider a request for the approval of the 2027 to 2031 Capital Improvement Program. Here to present for the engineering portion of the presentation is Kevin Ferrer.

Good evening, Chair, Vice Chairs, and members of commissions. My name is Kevin Ferrer. I'm the Assistant Director of Engineering, Director of Parks and Rec. Kate Meacham and I will be giving an update of the Capital Improvement Program for 2027 to 2031. At the end of the presentation, staff is seeking for a favorable recommendation of approval. This is a roadmap of what we're going to be covering tonight. A reminder and a brief overview of what a capital improvement program is, how it is prepared. Next, I'll be going over the 2026 engineering accomplishments, followed by going over some upcoming fiscal year engineering objectives. Afterwards, we'll transition to Kate, who will be going over the parks CRPs projects. So this slide gives a high overview of what a capital program is. It's really a planning tool. It's a dynamic five-year outlook of our proposed project, and it's updated and adjusted yearly at the end of the fiscal year. It helps establish our project priorities, funding sources for the projects, and estimated project timelines. This is a collaboration effort in which a variety of inputs are considered, such as the city comprehensive plan, strategic plan, major and city council input, city staff assessments of current needs, water and sanitary sewer master plans, citizen inputs, and then last but not least, development trends. The type of projects that are in the program are typically within at least $50,000 and are tangible assets, such as facility projects, such as the new PDHQ that we're constructing, roadways, sidewalks, utility and drainage projects, park infrastructure, and then basically rehab of existing assets. The way we have projects prioritized in our program is dependent on the following six categories, as you can see on your screen. Desirable are really nice to have projects that are not critical and can be postponed based on other fiscal priorities. Essentials are really critical projects that are needed to meet service demands for citizens. Leverage are really partnership projects in which another entity participate in our projects. So for example, monetary participation. Mandate, these are projects that are based on federal laws and regulation in order for us to be in compliance. Maintenance is really upkeep of existing infrastructure to protect our city's investment and extend the assets life. And then lastly is obligated, which is basically contractual projects that we've committed to do, such as voter approved or partnership projects with another entity. So the following two slides are an overview of possible funding sources for our projects. Impact fees, fees collected from new developments, which is water, sanitary sewer, and transportation. 4A, 4B, sales tax revenue, which is CDC, Community Development Corporation, or EDC, Economic Development Corporation. Operation revenues, which is primarily from water and wastewater revenues. And then really the least utilized is the general fund, which is from sales tax and property tax revenue. Another funding source are geo bonds, general obligation bonds. The last one was in November 2023 for $155 million, which $17 million was allocated for the Fort Park improvement project. $8 million for the downtown, $47 million for streets and neighborhood improvements, and then $83 million for the police headquarters. Last but not least, on the right-hand side are some funding sources of intergovernmental partnerships examples. such as Collin County bonds, TxDOT partnerships, federal funds, traffic safety, and other grants. So some recent examples are the Green Ribbon Program or the Highway Safety Improvement Program. Next, I'll be going over our 2026 engineering accomplishments. Allen Heights. Heritage Sanitary Sewer Main Replacement. It's not fully completed. We're wrapping it up, though. We're, like, at punch list. It's a sanitary sewer main project in which we replaced three aerial crossings and roughly a mile worth of sanitary sewer pipe. City Hall front steps, as you guys recognize on the left, that's a view of the previous front steps, which had significant concrete cracking and failures, and the ADA was really indirect where you had to walk around the building. So on the right-hand side is the new improved design of the front steps, which has a more direct ADA route, which kind of blends in through the middle of the screen, as you can see, and enhance it visually by adding some handrail lighting and some landscaping. Cotton Creek Bank Stabilization. This is a partnership project with North Texas Municipal Water District, which was to protect the sanitary sewer line as well as the undermining, potential undermining of a cottonwood trail. Timber Creek and Allenwood water main replacement. It was a project that replaced our aging water lines in the highlighted area. Due to the pavement condition in these two neighborhoods, we also replaced existing asphalt streets in Allenwood and made some concrete panel replacement in Timber Creek. is to give you guys an update on the current condition of the PDHQ. Budget-wise, we're currently projected within budget of $97.1 million. Schedule-wise, we're currently projected substantial completion by spring 2027. Some recent milestones to note are all five air handling units have been transported on the rooftop, and then the second elevator has arrived and it's currently being installed. Some upcoming items. In October, we're planning to seek council approval for FF&Es, which is furniture, fixture, and equipment contracts, the exercise equipment for PD, and then the required IT equipment for the building. On the following two slides, I'll be giving a high overview of some 2027 engineering objectives. I've broken it up into two categories. One is upcoming ongoing construction projects, and then followed by the conceptual design projects. So this slide shows upcoming ongoing construction projects. On the left, you can see the correlating locations of the project listed on the right. If it isn't shown, it signifies that there are multiple locations or citywide. Asphalt overlay, we're planning to do an overlay on Bethany between Greenville and Malone. Concrete street pavement replacement, this is a continuation of the program, which is addressing the pavement condition analysis that was performed by IMS in 2022. Maxwell and last week lift station, this is the rehab of existing equipment, meet latest TCQ requirements, improve order control and replace the backup system. Oak Hill water main and Jupiter sanitary sewer main replacement is to address aging water and wastewater infrastructure. It's roughly around one mile worth of water line pipes and roughly three-fourths of sanitary sewer line pipes. SCADA upgrades. The software that community services currently are utilizing is no longer supported, so this will improve the functionality and the graphic interface by upgrading to a new software. For the Stacy Custer pump station rehab, we're doing some yard piping, adding some additional pump turbines, replacing some age flow meters and generators. And also on the Stacy side, we'll be doing some modernizing the control room, adding an office room and a conference room for more efficient operation-wise for the community services team. Stacy Ridge, Summerside, and Carter Court lift station is similar to the previous lift station that I mentioned. It's to really rehab aging equipment, Meet the latest T-Secure requirement. Again, improve order control and the backup system. And then lastly, the US-75 Green Ribbon. This is landscape enhancement on some of our areas along US-75, along our major corridors, Stacy, McDermott, and Bethany. This slide shows upcoming conceptual design projects. First one is aerial crossing, Weissen Estates, Greenville sanitary sewer replacement. This project will look into three aerial crossing and replace the aging infrastructure in Weissen Estates and do some sanitary sewer main replacement along Greenville. Exchange Parkway from 121 to Alma Drive. This project will add the fifth and sixth lane on the Exchange Parkway. These improvements are also according with the Master Thrift Fair. So we'll be basically reducing the median by adding those two lanes. Main street streetscape, this is to improve the streetscape along Main Street and Butler Drive by adjusting the street and the parking to promote walkability. This is conceptual, we don't have any design yet, but that's the intent to kind of look deeper dive into it. Rockwich water main replacement is another water project that's to replace the aging water line. pipe system, which is currently in our ETJ. It is consolidated with our first project, but most likely for the construction, we'll be staggering it or separating it altogether. And then last but not least, Waters Road from State Highway 121 to Exchange. This is similar to the exchange. We're basically adding the fifth and sixth lane. This is also improvements that's according to the Master Thurford Plan. I'm here for questions before I transition to Kate in case there are some questions on the engineering portion.

Thank you.

Yeah, I have a couple of questions. We'll start with number five since that's where you ended up. So you're saying Waters Road is going to be widened one lane in each side, basically?

Yeah, we'll be adding one lane from east side, northbound, and southbound, yes, sir.

And this is still in the design phase?

Correct, design phase. Most likely for the construction, we're trying to have a design shuffle route. Shovel ready and then seek for some grand opportunities to help some participation for the construction portion So this is kind of get to get ahead of it.

Okay, and then let's go jump up to number one the aerial crossing Could you maybe provide a little more detail into the location what that concept is?

Yes, so air crossings are typically for sedentary sewer lines when they're crossing the creek and So there are three troublesome hotspots that community services has identified. So these are the three that we would be investigating. Those are the number one dots that you can see on the southern west side on our city limits, and then the next one is kind of on the west side, and then the other one is the northern side.

So that's like improving and reinforcing those crossings for probably like Creek? crossings is where some of them are, I've seen.

Yeah, it'll depend on the design. So we may just relocate it altogether or we might reinforce it. So it really depends on the situation. So the design engineer will look into those sites and will take those into account on what's the best avenue to address those.

Great, thank you.

Back on number five, when you do the widening, is it going to go through the median rather than the sides?

Yes, ma'am. So we basically would reduce the median, improve the landscaping, and then add the lands there. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Next, Kate Meacham.

Good evening. As Kevin mentioned, I'm here to talk through all the Parks and Recreation CIP items for FY27. So here's a quick overview from both sales tax and some geo bond projects that we have going. But I will step you through each of those. So we're really excited to begin the design work. So you can see on here we'll be asking for $186,000 for the design work for Cottonwood Bend Park. So if you can see on the map there just to orient you where Cottonwood Bend is, Long Greenville just east and then north of Chaparral. um we are anticipating coming back for 1.6 for about a 1.8 million dollar redevelopment project that budget's very similar to what we spent with rolling hills rolling hills was a little bit more due to the drainage challenges we had in that area but a closer look at the actual park it's a Highly needed area. We have gone through with community enhancement and done some different projects in this neighborhood. So we're piggybacking off of the efforts that they have done to continue that effort in this neighborhood. So we are looking to do a lot of community engagement with this. The playground is one of our oldest neighborhood playgrounds that we have. And you can see we have a blank slate. out there so we're looking to really work with the community to see what is it that they want to see in their neighborhood park. So we'll be hopefully kicking off the community engagement as early as October of this year to get a jump start and then coming back for FY28 to ask for the construction dollars. aquatic amenities. We've packaged a couple different projects together with the aquatic amenities for $750,000. So you have heard me talk quite a bit about the Aquatic Center. We're almost there. We started gosh probably four to five years ago on some major infrastructure renovations to the facility we first started with a new roof for the building we did that we had to seal up the envelope of the aquatic environment it's a negative air pressure environment which poses a lot of challenges after we were able to get the new roof we also got new hvac systems that has dramatically increased the air quality, airflow throughout the building. This past year, we did all new plumbing for the pump room itself. So from the wall out that actually operates the pool, and then resurfaced both of the pools. So we have this nice, clean, tight envelope now. So the last couple of things that we're looking to do is because of the quality that the play structure has been in over the last 12 years, it's deteriorated quicker than we would hope. We would hope to get at least 15 to 18 years, but just being in that environment for so many years, it is definitely ready. this is an inspirational picture i should say this is not city managers like that looks great why do we need a new one this is what we want to get so but it's just like any of our other playground replacement having it on a plan this one happens to be in water so getting that replaced and then the rust abatement So our beams that run throughout the building, now that we have such good airflow, it's kicking up a lot of different things and causing some old rust spots to show. And so in order to protect the pool that's nice and shiny and new, we need to go in and do some rest abatement when we do that. So that's the 220. And then finally, we are looking to add shade over the water at a little bit of the water. So if you're familiar with Ford Pool, we have a little sun deck-ish by the slide that is a couple inches deep that a lot of kiddos like to jump off of, play off of, so we're looking to shade partial of that to give a little bit of relief from the sun and still enjoy the water. You've heard me talk quite a bit about security cameras. We're on year four, I believe, of our security camera. We had a formal study done to evaluate all of our facilities as well as our regional parks. So we're looking to execute the next phase. It's been going very well. We've been able to get coverage in most of our facilities done. We're now moving on to the last couple of the facilities and some of the regional parks. And then erosion. So the beautiful thing about our park system is we're along the Rowlett Creek and other creeks. Bad thing about some of our things is we're along the creek and dealing with the erosion. So the courses at Waters Creek Golf Course is experiencing some significant erosion issues, particularly in golfers, number 15. Don't step this way. It's getting really close. We actually are out there today. We have been working with the engineer department to try to figure out... This is a big dollar amount, yes. This is to... hopefully resolve number 15 but we are trying to take some steps not to have to spend a significant amount removing some trees trying to get the water to flow some different ways so if you're out there today or later this week we do have a crew out there trying to do some other mitigation. If that is successful, unfortunately, there's other erosion issues at the golf course. So that's why it is not identified as hole number 15 on this. That is what it's earmarked for. But should we be successful in some of these other lower cost remedies, we will shift to another area to take care of. Staying on the theme of erosion, Muddy Creek I didn't know it was called Muddy Creek until we got into this. I'm like, where's Muddy Creek? And our research guru in our department's like, well, that's Bethany Lakes. And I said, well, I learned something new today. I guess it's the official FEMA talk is that's the Muddy Creek area. But particularly at Bethany Lakes, we've been having erosion issues as well, particularly on the Cancer Walk area where we're starting. It's the area between the two ponds where we have bricks. There's some significant issues happening over there that we really want to try. We are experiencing some erosion and we'll continue to experience erosion. So we plan to do a design build process with this to learn and figure out a couple different methodologies that we can apply at some other locations. We've been successful so far in doing that. So this will become a test pilot of ours for some future erosion issues. And Celebration Playground and Splash Pad. We are so excited. I saw renderings today. It looks really, really good. We have three, I'll walk through kind of three major projects that are gonna be hitting construction. potentially all at the same time with three of our regional parks. And so we have decided to be a little bit more strategic in how we stagger some of these projects. Unfortunately, that does push Celebration out probably for one more season, just because I will not take our squash pad offline in the middle of the summer. I said that last year, we were hoping to be under construction by the end of this calendar year and just with lead times on manufacturing and everything happening in the world, it was starting to stack up like right at that summertime where we're just like, Let's pull forward Ford and Spirit Park, get those done, and we'll probably wait till the tail end of summer of next year to start on Celebration. But it will be started in FY27 for that. But it is all-inclusive playground. It looks wonderful. The kids are going to love it. Adults are going to love it. And the playground component, we started on first. And I would say that conceptual design, we're probably at 85 to 90% of that. We are on rendering one of splash pad. So that's kind of coming up on the tail end of that and try to coordinate those two efforts together. I think the community is going to be very excited in the next summer when we begin this and hopefully it'll be ready to go in time for summer of 28. The other much anticipated project is Rowlett Trail. This has been a long time in the coming. I've been talking about this for the six years I have been here. We most recently, you can see on the east side of Waters Trail was just completed. Yes, it goes nowhere, I know. That's because Rowlett Trail's coming. So we actually completed Waters. So where you see on the southern end where Molson Farm is, it goes under 75, connects to Plano's Bluebonnet. And then if you go north, the green is what the new trail will be built. And then as you go directly north with Waters Branch Trail, that now does connect all the way up to what will be Kalahari. so that is all the way complete we're very excited it looks wonderful and we put a big sign after we put up construction saying yes we know you're in trees now there will soon be another trail connecting just the timing of everything but actually a week from tonight i'll be going to council to award that contract for construction so we're hoping to be under construction here in the next 30 days And so still working with the new contractor to figure out timing of things, but I believe we will start with that southern section that does go from the courses at Waters Creek, Molson, up north. And then far up north, you can see the other green section, still part of Rowlett Trail, and that goes through the McDermott property. It will go under McDermott Road, and it will connect in right where Boland Park is. And then you see the proposed trailhead that will be coming as phase two. So construction for Rolla is expected to be right at one year. And then at the end of next year, we'll be coming forward with a large trailhead on the McDermott property. And we're currently in the middle of a public art project. So we generally do about one project a year. So this is with bond, the art bond money. So if you recall, the last public art bond did not pass, but there are still remaining funds from the previous one. We have about a million dollars left. You can see with this project we have teed up for next year $105,000 to $200,000 as a general cost. So we still have a few years as part of that. As part of our Parks Recreation Open Space Master Plan next year, we'll be including public art planning in that to find out what the future of public art holds on the City of Allen, what future funding sources could be, how important is it to our community, and kind of what's that way forward look like. The picture you see here is an inspirational picture. It's not an actual piece, but this was for Allen's 150th. The Public Art Committee has commissioned a local artist. So she is actually one of the co-owners of Chloe Mae Studio, who just recently got the bird mural on the side of it. That's a really neat story. One of the co-owners actually taught the artist at Allen High School. So we love that. But one of the other owners was awarded the 150th to be able to do this piece. So it will be a canvas piece that will be at the senior center. It will also be the inspirational wrap of a new art trailer that the art committee just purchased. The art trailer opens up, has glass, but we can take it, put it somewhere, and make art more accessible to the community. So the picture you see here, if you kind of see the abstract, but that is the depot and the train, and that's actually her dad and her son in that picture. So it was really great. Great story she told about it. We can't wait to see the actual painting. We're hoping, because it is with the 150th, we're hoping by Holly Jolly this year to have it done. Spirit Park. So this is also 2016 bond funding that we're finalizing spending. I wish there was something really fun to say about parking and netting, but there's not. That's the majority of this. I will say we had a sport court study that evaluated all of our sport courts throughout the community. basketball, volleyball, pickleball, tennis, inline hockey, all the things. And our biggest deficit that it came back based on our population and needs was basketball courts. And so the one fun thing that we're adding with this project was on the picture to the west and that space is expanding the fitness area and hopefully adding two covered basketball courts. So being an adult sport complex that will bring a new offering and ability to play out there. So we're excited. But everything inside the red dotted lines is a lot of new parking. We are severely under parked out there for the type of activities that we have. Additional netting on the two softball fields facing Ridgeview. And some other minor improvements towards the playground with the pavilion. And we're also going to be replacing the surfacing of that playground. We are on a mission to have at least one regional park in each of the quadrants of the city to be accessible while the wood fiber meets the ADA requirement to be accessible is not best of class. And so we want to be best of class and we have heard over and over from our community that they would like either poured in place or turf, the artificial turf. So we will be going in during this project as well and adding in turf to that playground. And then our biggest project that we've been tackling over the last year plus, as Kevin mentioned earlier, with the bond passing for $17 million. The dollar amount you see here is because we sold in two different tranches for the bond, but the total budget is $17 million for bond. We also received $750,000 through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Grant Program. So we're just shy of 18 million to bring all four areas of Ford together, north, south, east, and west. We're really excited. We're getting very close on the design side of things. We're hoping to start bidding this project out this fall. As I mentioned, we're trying to cadence out some of these projects so we don't have three regional parks down under construction all at the same time. Our goal is to get Spirit Park out the door first, first of the year. Ford would follow in the spring, and then Celebration would follow in that late summer timeframe. And then last, we have Molson Farm. And so with Molson Farm, we still have some bond dollars left. What you see here is the big picture master plan that we did back in 2022. What we're looking to do with $100,000 is for design services. In the far upper right hand, we kind of view Molson in different rooms or sections. There's kind of five different rooms. We have a pecan grove area, we have a homestead area, a crop area. But back in that far corner, right off Ridgemont, is where we currently have our parks department's tree farm and our horticulture greenhouses. And so with the funding, we're looking to redesign and update those two things, as well as look at a way to be able to pull from a community perspective. We may look at a community garden. community garden or something along those lines to be able to bring people out to educate on the tree farm and the gardens and everything else happening already out there. So this is simply for the design of that upper right where current operations are happening. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Kate. Any questions from commissioners?

Thank you very much.

Thank you. There are no other questions or comments. We're looking for a approval. Send this to the council on September the 8th. So do we have a motion?

I make a motion to accept the 2027 through 2031 capital improvement program as presented.

Commissioner Stoker with a motion to approve this item. Do we have a second?

I second it.

Commissioner Carthuria with a second. All those in favor of approving the 2027-2031 Capital Improvement Program, please raise your right hand. And this motion carries unanimously. Again, this goes to City Council for approval on September the 8th. With no further items on the agenda this meeting is adjourned