Planning & Zoning - Regular Meeting

Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Especially if I didn't see any.

That's what you said. Does that mean the city?

Oh, there's Mr. Bedford. Yes, thank you.

Notice of a public meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission of the City of Brownsville, pursuant to Chapter 551, Title V of the Texas Government Code, the Texas Open Meetings Act. Notice is hereby given that the Planning and Zoning Commission of the City of Brownsville, Texas, has scheduled a regular meeting on Thursday, July 9, 2026, at 5.30 p.m., In the commissioned chambers on the second floor of the Brownsville City Hall, Old Federal Building located at 1001 East Elizabeth Street, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas, 78520. Pledge of Allegiance.

Roll call.

David Betancourt.

Alia Benson. Eliza Vasquez. Aida Rodriguez.

Bob Torres. Approval of the minutes for the regular meeting on June 4th, 2026.

Make a motion to approve.

Second. We have a first and second motion to approve minutes. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.

Updates and comments. We'll have a presentation of the final draft of the Downtown Renaissance Master Plan.

Hi, good afternoon.

Planning and Signing Commission. We're here to present the final draft of the downtown master plan. It has been almost 12 months now of hard work. There's a lot of things to unpack, too much for this presentation, but you will also have the access to the final document. But this is with me today. We have Alan Garces, a downtown manager with City of Brownsville, and Caitlin Admire with Frisian Nichols online. Alan is going to start the first part of the presentation. Thank you, Daniel. Good afternoon, Planning and Zoning Commission.

Nice to be before you all again today. I will say that, as Daniel mentioned, this is the final public draft of the Downtown Renaissance Master Plan. We won't go through all 87 plus pages of this draft, but we just want to give you an idea of what's in the document itself. We also will be sharing the draft. It's already available online. As a matter of fact, those listening online and those who haven't been able to see that yet, the draft itself is already available at btxrenaissance.org. So they can they can check that out. And we will also have it at the end of the presentation in case you guys want to take a screenshot of that and and port it to anyone or look at the presentation yourself. So I just wanted to give a quick overview of what we have done this last couple of months, as Daniel mentioned. We started this back in August of 2025. You can believe that. We've done a whole year already. That included the initiation stage where we had a town hall meeting to kick off the project now to the point where we've had several different meetings with different stakeholders. We've met with the community members. And we're finally in the phase of where we're headed to the adoption period. This is actually just an update of what we've been doing for the most part. We're going to come back again officially on August 6th, I believe, to have the Planning and Zoning Commission recommend approval to City Commission for final adoption on August 18th. So the plan itself, think of it as a roadmap for downtown's future. Basically, what we're trying to do is think of historic preservation, the physical environment, anything that really has anything to do with downtown and guiding us to where we want it to be based on the community involvement efforts, based on this community-driven effort and initiative that we've been doing this last year. So the plan itself was basically... a roadmap to guide us on certain things, whether it's housing, whether it's historic preservation I just mentioned, to continue and develop on public and private investment. So as opposed to just having hodgepodge projects here and there, we want to build on the momentum that we have in downtown now. So this is why we wanted to update any other previous maps or any other previous plans that we had in the past to get to where we are now. So we wanted to go based off what the community wants, what they would be asking for. and have that guidance to how to move forward based on what the community has been telling us. Identify areas where we want shade, focus on a unified vision, focus on things, like I said, not only what staff wants to see, but what the community wants. Those who are invested in downtown, those who have property downtown, those who have businesses downtown, are nonprofits. UTRGV, TSC. So we had all these different meetings with different types of stakeholders that I mentioned throughout this past year. And this kind of gives you an overview of what we've been doing. So as a matter of fact, the downtown Renaissance boundary encompasses from south of the expressway to Palm Boulevard to downtown Mexico and at International. That entire boundary that we selected as a downtown area had over 3,100 property owners. And we sent out letters to every property owner informing them of this process when we were having town halls, what we were doing. We actually had over 730 responses to our online survey. The website itself also has an area of where you can leave comments like sticky notes or just general comments on what you want to see in this plan if you couldn't make it out to one of these sessions that we provided. So we had sessions at BCIC in downtown. We had them at Market Square. We've had them at the Convention and Business Bureau. So we had different opportunities for different types of stakeholders and property owners, business owners, et cetera, to participate. And of course, we have different topics here that we will go over, but just wanted to give you an overview of what we've been doing and what the community has been telling us. So here's kind of just a quick little picture lodge of what we've been doing. We had actually tabling events, even at Sombrero Fest. We also met with people throughout our community at the zoo. Of course, we did First Fridays, and we also met with our Youth Advisory Board Council as well, right? Because downtown is for everyone, right? So we met with different... Types of members of our community who are interested in downtown and they were able to fill out their surveys. We were able to get information on what they want to see, what are their priorities and how we were going to move forward through this downtown master plan process. So basically, one of the things that we've been hearing a lot, I kind of wanted to break down some of the reoccurring themes of what we've been hearing, of what people have been submitting in their surveys and their responses. So, of course, I'm happy to say that a lot of the submittals that we received are very proud of our culture, right, very proud of what's going on downtown. But, of course, there's always the back end of that where, again, We like what's going on, but we would like to see more of the cleanliness. We'd like to see more shade. We'd like to see more seating areas. We're also looking at more parking. So some of these things like walkability and connectivity, of course, parking was a very important factor in these responses. We kept hearing trolley and a shuttle and we need more ways to move around downtown. So that kind of is part of that walkability and connectivity. Yes, we have for Friday, but we need more events in the downtown area to pull people into the downtown area. But basically what we've seen a lot is we need for more housing. If we have more people living here, they can work, play and eat here as well. So those are the three themes that we tend to see more in the plan. And the plan goes a little bit more detailed into it. It's actually broken down into sections. And I encourage you guys to check that out. But ultimately, what we've been seeing a lot of is is we want to see the smaller wins first focus on fixing our sidewalks, focus on fixing our lights, focus on providing shade and focus on the cleanliness aspect of it. Right. Once we tackle that, we can focus on the bigger picture items. That's not to say we can't focus on it. But as this is a roadmap, of course, we want to tackle the smaller wins first. And then we can eventually start picture the bigger ticket items, which we also have included in. in our downtown plan to plan for the future using tourist funds, using the capital improvement program, using any type of help that we can from BCIC and GPIC as well. So we also have different types of implementation towards these items that we want to tackle as well. So at this point, I'm going to hand it over to Ms. Caitlin Ademeyer. I'd like to thank her and her team as well. She's with Friesen Nichols, who's going to continue the presentation from here on out with Daniel. And I just want to thank them for participating in this process. Caitlin?

Yeah, thanks, Alan. You can hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay, great. Thank you so much. All right.

Just let me know next slide.

Okay, yes. All right, Planning and Zoning Commission, nice to see you again, even though it's just virtually. So I'm going to start with, in addition to the things we heard from the community, there were some other things we discovered as well, just through exploration, through conversations with staff, local developers, things like that, and data. So I'm going to talk about a few of those things that we discovered through some of our other efforts. Next slide. First, this kind of builds on something Alan was already talking about, that there is a lot of momentum. There's a lot of current investment happening in the area, both public and private sector investment happening, but they're not all very coordinated efforts. So A lot of people are doing a lot of things maybe in silos and there's this recognition that we could all be doing things stronger together. And so if we're working towards a more focused direction and an aligned direction that we can see more progress. And this is especially important for the city to understand what people are already doing and maybe where the city needs to focus on or invest their time and their money to make everybody more successful. Next slide. Again, a lot going on, but we talked about kind of programmatically in the last slide, but also geographically. A lot of these things are very geographically distributed throughout a very large area. You have a very big downtown. And so how are we connecting these things? How are you making it easy for people to? experience a lot of these different things at one time without having to get in their car and drive and park in between them? We understand people don't like finding parking spots, so how do we make it easy for them to get around without having to do that? And then who's looking at the bigger picture about how all of these things connect and what the bigger picture of the downtown area is? Next slide. A lot of the data and the conversations we had with stakeholders talked about how there's pretty low activity in terms of new housing. There is obviously some things happening with El Jardin and things like that, but also that some of the supportive services like grocery have been leaving the area in the recent years. And so there is a realistic near-term target of around 100 or 150 new housing units in downtown. over the next like 10 years of the life of this plan. And so how are we making sure that is thoughtful and that is coordinated so that it is a successful use of some of the limited demand that we do see in downtown that were kind of the highest and best use of that housing demand. Next slide. Shade is not just beautification, it's infrastructure. So I think we heard probably more about shade than any other public realm element. So we had a lot of conversations about, we love trees. Trees aren't always the most applicable thing in an urban environment. So there are other ways to include shade, such as overhangs like you see in this picture. We did a lot of historical research and did historically all of the colonnades and the shade structures and overhangs that were on some of the historic buildings. and how shade can also be an economic development strategy because it keeps people in downtown longer. If they're not miserably hot, they will stick around longer, spend more money, spend more time. Next slide. And finally, there was a lot of conversations about the switch yards area. We know that the city has some land over there that's been talking about a rails to trails corridor. But what else could we imagine over there? We could imagine some trail oriented development, some new housing, restitching the grid back together, opportunity for some ground up new development that wouldn't have such an impact on the historic core of And so maybe this is that right area to have some of that new development come into the study area without having kind of so much impact on the historic structures that you have now. So those are kind of five big things. And so how are we delivering on what we heard from the community, what we've learned, what we discovered? This, I'm just going to kind of quickly run through what's in the document. The document is out there online. Hopefully you guys have seen it. Hopefully you've read it. And this is some of the stuff that we had been bringing to you throughout the last 12 months. So we have a section on three major transformational projects. So that includes Plaza Mayor. So this is would be a major downtown plaza that would be in partnership with the Catholic diocese and across the street from the cathedral there in downtown. You'll see this very traditional kind of urban plaza and a lot of cities in Latin America. So this could be a very cool kind of feature project for downtown Brownsville. The Adams Street Paseo, you've heard us talk about this one before. So we have Elizabeth and Washington, your primary commercial corridors. Adams Street is kind of the third leg of those three kind of main north-south corridors, but maybe it could be something a little different, have a be a destination in and of itself. And then again, the switch yards is kind of one of the major development opportunities for future development that I just talked about. So next slide. Then there is a whole chapter on housing strategies. This includes how do you incorporate small-scale housing into your historic core? So adaptive reuse, upper story activation, small lot compatible infill development, but also how do you bring in some additional housing variety and new development in places like the switch yards? Housing is very much driven mostly by the private sector, right? The city doesn't usually... build housing. And so this has a lot to do with partnerships and incentives and how do you model projects and kind of test cases to demonstrate the market in downtown. And then there's also regulations and some of that functional stuff that you would have to think about in order to promote the things you want to happen in downtown. Next slide. So then we have public realm strategies, but this is what I was talking about. Who's looking at the big picture? So this is the big picture. This is the overall framework. It looks at the different identity and character districts and how are we ensuring safety and comfort and amenities kind of across the board in this whole area? How are we connecting those destinations? How are people getting around? And it includes streetscape typologies. And so saying, you know, you don't you have a lot of linear feet of roadways in this area. You don't necessarily spend the same amount of dollars on every single one. So where do you spend more of your dollars on your primary corridors and where can you maybe just use smaller enhancements that don't take as much money but make an impact? Next slide. And then there's a lot of detail in the mobility, transportation, and parking recommendations chapter. So this is just a quick snippet. You'll see multiple maps that look like this that have details on parking garage locations, multimodal transportation, public transit, and then typical cross sections like this that give you a sample of what would be a better treatment for some of these priority corridors in downtown. especially, you know, maybe a utility project's happening and you build it back in a better way. And with that, I am going to turn it back over to Daniel to tell you what's next.

Yes, thank you. So the next chapter is about implementation, right? So this plan, like a comprehensive plan and some other plans are considered long-range plans. So the typical criticism against long-range plans is that they look like a pie in the sky, right? We dream all these things together, we are not bound by budgets, so we establish this amazing vision, but how we get there is when some of these plans fail. But hopefully not this one, we've spent a lot of time and effort in the implementation strategy for this plan. This is what, in my opinion, gives teeth to the project. So we have all these groups of strategies. I'm just going to pick the example of Downtown Living. And Downtown Living alone has a lot of other projects. And we've broken down those strategies into projects, like specific projects, like 3A, 3B, 3C, et cetera. Each of those projects have a description. They have identified what type of thing is it. Is it a plan? Is it a policy? Is it a program? Or is it a capital project? Capital project is public infrastructure. And then what's the time frame that we think is realistic to assign to each of them? It doesn't matter in the future if some of these projects spill over the next period, but at least we have a first good assessment of when they should be accomplished. And then, more importantly, who is the leading entity? Everybody agrees with everything. unless you say, no, now it's your job to get it done, right? So you have to assign a lead entity and then supporting entities, like in this case, planning and redevelopment, but also grants and community development is a supporting department. And then the cost range. We... We cannot put exact dollar amounts, but we have an approximate range, whether it's a low-hanging fruit or it has a medium type of cost or a high cost. So we have 63 actions in total about public realm, mobility, parking, housing, and catalytic projects. And again, those who are CIPs, those who are capital improvement projects, will roll into the city's capital improvement program, which is a five-year rolling program that gets divided into two-year periods, but it's a five-year cycle. So again, we divided all those spreads into three buckets. One is near-term, so from today, from day of adoption to the next two years. Then mid-term, five years. Long-term, 10 years. So even long-term, we're not talking about eternity. We're talking about trying to commit to a reasonable period of time. So for example, in near-term, we have things like lighting, improving lighting, shade, and furnishing, and signage in downtown. Developing a parking strategy, I like one of the stakeholders, Nick Mitchell, I hope he's okay me quoting, he said, Brownsville doesn't have a parking problem, it has an attitude problem towards parking. And it's true, we do have a lot of vacant parking, but it's underutilized, it's a little off your way, but if we improve transit and other measures, we can make all parking more available. So we've done that on top of the parking structure. The new parking structure could solve that problem, right? I'm not going to go over all of this, but midterm would be thinking of housing incentives and tier-supported public infrastructure. the rehabilitation of the historic depot at the switchyards. There's a long list, but those are the things that, you know, we need to think about them a little more and we need to plan them, but it's attainable in the midterm. And then long-term are things that really need more work, like the switchyards, for example, that will need like a planning and subdivision plan. And then, of course, working with the landowners. Part is owned by the city, but other part is owned by the county. Highway access improvements. We need to partner with TxDOT. And in general, larger infrastructure projects that do require more partnership and long-term planning. But picking two examples on how this works in implementation, these are two examples that are long enough to be multi-term. So Adams Street Paseo, that's turning Adams into a pedestrian street. You have near term. We want to pilot that with temporary barriers to see how that works. We're already doing that in first Fridays, some first Fridays. So kind of a tactical urbanism type of intervention. Then we have midterm, which is when we actually repave two or three blocks from 11th through 14th. I think it's, oh, yes. So we will be redesigning and repaving that block and see how it works, how the retail on the ground floor is spilling over that street, which is what we want. And if that works, we can turn that into long-term, which would be extending that from Washington Park to international, all those blocks. So that's a long term and requires much more investment, obviously. Similarly with the Plaza Mayor, near term would be continue to work on those partnerships. It's a complex project and it does require some land swipes or acquisitions, right? Then we have midterm, which would be paving some of the parts of it and bringing some shade and trees to it. And then long term would be the full blown out design of the plaza, which all of this is described graphically in the plan. So why is this important for the planning and zoning commission specifically? So this plan enables the right kind of development in downtown. So this is a good reference for you when you get to review future zoning cases in downtown. You can use this as a guide. Is this aligned with this vision or not? It removes barriers to reinvestment and it guides new development, so it strengthens the downtown character. So this is a public document, the same way you are going to use it as a guide, developers should use it as a guide. So we are all in agreement, the city is transparent, like we want this and we don't want anything other than this, right? So we are setting the expectations, so we hope to bring the right type of investment alongside with it. And finally, if you have any question or feedback, we're happy to hear that. And that QR code or that web page, you can download this document in full. And also rank it. There's a zero to five point ranking. You can rank the document. Thank you very much.

My only comment is that I see that you have several neighborhood parks. And personally, I love that idea, but it becomes sad when we don't keep up with that, that we're not maintaining those parks.

Right, so I think that's one of the comments that we received throughout this process is like, we need to upkeep our downtown, right? Maintain it. We do have a downtown dedicated crew to help us do our best that we can for the downtown area, but it's just a crew of three people and we do get assistance from EPW, but I think we want to see a little bit more of that, right? So I think that's not only something that staff is pushing for, but the community obviously wants to see that being done. But the plans that you, I'm sorry, the parks that you're referring to, manager persons, are which ones specifically?

I saw some parks in one of the, in a couple of the slides that you showed here.

I would say, yes, at some point it was a tempting idea to bring up a new park because that's always exciting, right? But we refrain from that throughout the process because we do have big parks like Washington Park and smaller parks, pocket parks that are underutilized already, maybe because of the lack of maintenance. And also another thing we heard is because of stray dogs, right? People don't necessarily feel totally safe in those places. The only new public space we're proposing is the Plaza Mayor and the Swiss Yards Trail, but the Swiss Yards Trail has always been there. This was a champion by Commissioner Gawain, and we respected that. We're only bringing development to it. So I think it's a balance. We cannot dictate what the parks department necessarily does. But yes, we have provided that feedback that we need to invest in maintenance first as a first accomplishment. And if we still have money, we can invest in expanding. Yeah.

Yeah, Daniel, if I may clarify, just a quick clarification, there are some noted neighborhood parks shown, yeah, there along the switch yards. And the intent there is that, you know, those would be parks that would come with, along with those like private developments, just like anytime you have a private development, they have some sort of like open space requirement, right? So they would kind of come in with that private development. So you would be getting that private investment, increase in tax base, all of that kind of thing that would come with those parks.

Any other questions, comments?

Thank you very much for your time. Like I said, I'm really proud to be leading this with Daniel and with Caitlin. This year's effort of meeting their community and getting to talk to them and having these town halls and seeing what their priorities are. Whether they are or not, they're the same as me. It's very heartwarming to see how they're so invested into downtown. As someone who's browser-born and raised, it means a lot to me to be part of this project. I'm very excited to move this to commission later on next month. But I encourage you guys if maybe you want to share this screen or I can email you after this so that you can share this with friends and family and they can go ahead and look at the document itself. And then Daniel said, rank it. Are you in support of this? Are you not in support of this? There's also a comment section that you can also leave their comments additionally for the mayor and commission to see next month as well. So again, we've been transparent throughout this process. We sent out letters. We've done multiple town halls. We've done several interviews with with different sources, news sources and outlets. So this is also still available online and it will be available up until July 23rd. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for all your hard work. We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Public hearing in action on ordinance number 235-2026-014-S. To request a specific use permit in a downtown edge zoning district to allow an event center for lots 13 and 14, block 120, Brownsville original town site, Cameron County, Texas, located at 1247 East Madison Street, Brownsville, Texas, 78520.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Sam Nunez, working at the planning department, planning redevelopment department. As mentioned, this is an event center being proposed at this existing downtown edged district property. It is currently fronting East Madison Street. It is indeed a corner lot. We did do our due diligence in sending out the notices required by state law shown on the screen. for the date and time of this meeting and the content of the request. We also comply with state law that stipulates that we should put a physical sign at the property. This is an aerial map showing the 200-foot buffer that we're required to send legal notices to those property owners. A total of 21 mail-outs were sent out. and zero were returned in opposition to city staff. This is our zoning map showing the overall zoning districts in this or around this location as shown there. The subject property is downtown edge. What surrounds it is also downtown general south of it and downtown core west of it. We also have a TN district for traditional neighborhood north and TNC for traditional neighborhood corridor north east of the property. This is another aerial map showing that this property is on the northwest corner of East Madison Street and East 13th Street. When we conducted our analysis research over this request, we did find it consistent with their existing comprehensive plan and future land use plan. Staff is recommending approval today of this specific use permit to allow the event center in the existing downtown edge district of however if it is approved it will be subject to some mitigation regulations.

To this property. Are they residents.

It is mostly surrounded by existing commercial uses. There are residential properties immediately east. Yes. They should have received legal notice of this request as well.

How big is that building?

I'm sorry?

How big is that building?

We do not have specifics on that in terms of the site plan. It did go to our Historical Preservation Commission for review since it's in the overlay. They took care of seeing that it was approved according to historical preservation requirements. And the applicant is also present for detail.

Any questions? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If anyone would like to address this topic, if you'll come forward at this time.

Good afternoon. My name is Dennis Sanchez. I'm here on behalf of the applicant 1247 East Madison LLC. The building is a historically, it's a federally approved historic building and it's 1700 square feet. And the building itself is located on one lot, which is right at the hard corner. The other lot is grass, and it's fully landscaped, a lot of bamboo, and we mitigate sound with a large plant in the bamboo. There is one residence next to that lot, and behind us is an abandoned apartment building, which I think looks like it's going to get torn down. And across the street from us is a commercial building. And that's about it. We want to engage in a small venue, for lack of a better word, for not probably not a whole lot of people. My wife has been in entertainment her whole life, so she knows a lot about sound mitigation. And I don't think we're going to have a problem with being too loud, so to speak.

What is your timeline for this restoration?

It's already done. Oh, okay. We finished it about eight months ago, but we decided to build some outdoor bathrooms in order to accommodate because there was too much building and not enough. There's one small bathroom for it. We felt it wouldn't work, so we spent the next six months building a male and female bathroom, and that's at the back of the lot. And so it's ready to go.

Thank you.

Any questions for the applicant?

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll make a motion to close public hearing.

We have a first and a second motion to close public hearing. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.

As per staff's recommendation, I move to approve. I second.

We have the first and the second motion to approve. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.

Public hearing in action on ordinance number 235-2026-015. to rezone from agriculture to residential single-family for an approximate 105.29 acres and commercial corridor for an approximate 14.67 acres to allow single-family residential development and commercial development on a tract containing 119.96 acres of land out of a 239.92 acre tract called the West 239.48 acres out of tract 40, but it is partitioned tract Subdivision E in Share 19 of the Espiritu Santo Grant, Cameron County, Texas, located at 1 West Buenos Aires Line Road, Brownsville, Texas, 78566.

Thank you. Good evening, Commissioners. Scott Loschera with the City's Planning and Redevelopment Services Department. This request is to rezone from agriculture to residential single-family and commercial corridor. The proposed use is for single-family residential development in the rear of the property. That's approximately 105.29 acres. and commercial development for the 14.67 acres that front Parades Line Road. As required by state law, we posted a notice of public hearing detailing the meeting events and details. We also posted a physical sign on the property. We sent out eight mail-outs to property owners within a 200-foot radius and received zero opposition to the request. This parcel is located at the very... northern boundary of the city limits bordering Los Fresnos. So if you look at the zoning districts, you know, to the north and to the west is outside the city limits. Everything surrounding it is agriculture. So to the south and to the west is agriculture. And the property in all directions is vacant. But others line road is a primary arterial with a 100 foot right of way. You know, again, you can see the aerial that areas predominantly are very vacant. So the future land use plan designates this areas within the water management district. Land uses in that district are intended to be predominantly community facilities with a small portion of residential land uses. The request is not consistent with the future land use map. However, previous residential developments at this scale have been approved in the area. And the department's opinion is that this request further expands housing options and provides neighborhood scale commercial use with the commercial component in this mostly undeveloped area of the city. So therefore, staff is recommending approval of this request.

There was another subdivision that was approved in this area, and they started moving dirt, or they ended up with a lot of fill. Where is that in regards to this? Is that on the north side or the south side?

Oh, okay. Geographically, it's to the south of that.

Correct. It's adjacent to this property?

Yes, ma'am. Yeah, it's adjacent.

Okay.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If there's anyone in the audience that would like to address this topic, if you'll come forward.

Make a motion to close public hearing.

Second. We have a first and second motion to close public hearing. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.

I'll make a motion to approve as per staff's recommendation.

Second. We have a first and second motion. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.

Public hearing in action on ordinance number 235-2026-016 to rezone from residential single family and traditional neighborhood corridor to traditional neighborhood corridor to allow multifamily development for two acres of land, more or less, comprised of tract one being 0.37 acres of land. and Track 2 being 1.63 acres of land. Both tracks of Block 4, El Jardin Subdivision, share 27 of the Espiritu Santo Grant, Cameron County, Texas, located at 970 South Central Avenue, Brownsville, Texas, 7521.

Thank you. So for this item, the request, again, you know, is to rezone to traditional neighborhood corridor, TNC, Currently, a larger portion of it is zoned residential single-family, while the other portion is zoned traditional neighborhood corridor. The proposed use will be for multifamily development, and the property is facing South Central Avenue and Waco Road. As required by state law, we sent out a notice of public hearing with the meeting details and if anybody had any questions or comments. We also posted a sign on the property. There is an existing house on there that will be removed when the whole development occurs. We sent out 24 mail outs to property owners within a 200 foot radius and we received zero opposition to the request. The surrounding zoning is a traditional neighborhood corridor to the south and then also to the east. Across Waco Road, there is an R3 zoning designation and there's also an R1 residential single family zoning designation immediately to the north and to the west. And if you can see on this map, again, the portion, which is approximately 0.37 acres that's facing South Central Avenue is already zoned TNC. And the larger 1.63 acre portion that's fronting Waco Road is zoned residential single family. The area, the large portion is currently vacant. Central Avenue is a collector road with an 80-foot right-of-way. There's a mix of single-family uses, some apartment complexes, and also commercial uses along Central Boulevard. Across the street to the north to Waco Road are some multifamily apartments. They're to the south directly. It's zoned, again, TNC, and there is a mobile home park. That's considered a non-conforming use. And then also to the north is residential single-family subdivision. It is worth noting that those properties face lease drive, and they all have wooden privacy fences that kind of separate that use from Waco Road. So if you go back to the zoning map, you know, this Kind of continues that trend that we see of TNC to the south and from the east. And then there's also consistent with the multifamily use to the northeast of the property. The future land use map actually identifies this property as with the transition east district, which calls for a little bit less density. However, despite that this is not consistent with the future land use map, this is consistent with the mix of multifamily uses in the area. and continues that TNC trend that I just mentioned from the south and to the east. The future development also addresses the need for mix of housing throughout the city, right? Because it provides more housing options on that property. Therefore, staff is recommending approval of the request to rezone to traditional neighborhood corridor. And the applicant is available if you have any questions.

Is the plan or what do they plan on building on this lot?

Currently, the property is unsubdivided, so they will be required to subdivide. My understanding, I believe he wants to subdivide into multiple lots. And then within the TNC district, you can build, you know, full on apartment complexes subject to spacing requirements, landscaping, as well as parking requirements.

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Cirilo Zuniga, and I own this property at 970 South Central Avenue. It is our intention to convert it into TNC to allow multifamily development. Of course, we're still in the process and we will be subdividing this property into four lots. On the rear portion, we're thinking about coming up with three lots, 80 by 240, more or less. And it is our goal to bring in at least two duplexes, four doors. Single story, of course. Right across Waco Road, it was, and I didn't bring those documents with me, but we do have water and electricity and sewer running along Waco Road, so we don't foresee any problems bringing those services over. Any questions?

So how many doors altogether do you think?

Well, you know, I am a small builder slash developer. So once everything's done and complete, we're thinking at least four doors per lot, 16 units, more or less. However, you know, we're going to start with the front portion of it, what's currently facing Central Avenue. By the time we complete that, I'm assuming, you know, by the time it's all said and done, maybe three, four years. We're going to take it a step at a time.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'll make a motion to close public hearing.

We have a first and second motion to close public hearing. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. What is the wish of the commission?

I move to approve. I'll second that.

We have a first and a second motion to approve. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Thank you.

I'll make a motion.

Did you have any questions? I'll make a motion to close to end the session. To adjourn the meeting. Sorry.

We have a first and a second motion to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. 615, meeting adjourned. Thank you, everyone, for attending.

Thank you. so