Planning and Zoning Meeting - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the City of Farmers Branch Planning and Zoning Commission study session meeting. It is presently 6:30 p.m. Monday, 8th of December, 2025. Up first in our study session, I'd well firstly like to thank the commissioners for their service. Uh and then we will discuss regular agenda items. Item A1, which takes us to item C1, consider approval of the November 10th, 2025 planning and zoning commission meeting minutes and take appropriate action. Commissioners, any typos, errors, omissions, corrections. It was pretty comprehensive for what we discussed.

I think it accurately covered. Yes. All right. That brings us to item C2. Consider request for a final plat approval of SWBC Mercer crossing phase 1 block A lot 1 located at 21000 LBJ freeway and take appropriate action. Thank you Brad.

All right. Good evening commission. Uh my name is Brett Mangum, lead planner with the planning department here, City Farmers Branch. Uh this is the only case on tonight's agenda. Uh, I'll keep my powder dry for the public hearing at 7:00, but if any of you have any questions as you're going over your packets, uh, now would be a great time to ask those and if I get you the answer, I might know it off top of my head. If not, we have a little bit of time to research in between now and then.

Great questions, commissioners. Just clarify, this action in essence finalizes a preliminary preliminary approved previously and the material seem to indicate the owner is complying within the other PD that they're sitting under. So my take was everything looks like it's happening like it's supposed to and the action being asked for tonight is to finalize that plat that had already been through the process. That is a uh really good summary of everything. Uh tonight we're asking for an approval of this final plat. It is uh in compliance with both preliminary plat as well as the uh comprehensive zoning ordinance for this particular site. uh this has been reviewed for compliance by not only our department but all the other city departments as well and there were no uh comments or corrections to be made. So with it being compliant that is what led to the staff recommendation of approval.

And Brett if you would just for the benefit since we do have some new commissioners just talk about the difference for plats being administerial as opposed to discretionary.

Yeah that's a a very good point. Um, this is one of the first plats we've seen in I think the last one was maybe first or second quarter of last year. So, they're not something that we see very frequently, but uh, state law is written in a way that plats are what we call ministerial. Um, the obligation is on the board to approve them. The only time that we can do something other than approval would be if there's a defect in the plat, but usually those don't it won't get to this phase. If there are any defects, we'll we'll get them corrected before they get to you. Um, another thing to point out is we've had some changes in the last couple of years to state law where we have what's called the shot clock bill and that basically says once somebody files for a plat from the date of approval, they have 30 days that the city has to act upon it. So, um, if for some reason there wasn't a quorum of PNZ, we weren't able to have a meeting, it would automatically be approved after 30 days, and that would include if there were any defects or issues. So, that's why when we have these plats, we do want to get it before you to have everybody put their eyes on it and then get your stamp of approval just to be very clear that there's no procedural defects or anything that might cause issues down the road.

Thanks. Thank you. always appreciate that. Any other questions for our study session? Thank you again. Oh, Pat does, but thank you.

Always questions. Um, prior to the meeting, I had sent Brian a uh email questioning the same thing about the ministerial versus discretionary question. and his reply made sense, but he he said one, the reason it's coming to us is because it's being subdivided and the original approval for that was done like a year ago by the city council and by this commission was for that as one lot, but we did see this a year ago. But Brian also said that the other reason apart from the subdivision was that there is a considerable amount of civil work that will be required in dedication of all necessary easements. I'm not sure I know what that means, but if there was a considerable amount of civil work, then my follow on question is what does it mean? And also, is that a developer expense or is that a a city expense or who where who who who bears that burden?

All great questions. So, we'll kind of go through these from the top. Uh I did see the email that you had sent to Brian. He had forwarded it to me as well. So, I've got kind of an idea of of what the discussion was. Uh but for those of you who may not have been involved in that, um nobody was because am I supposed to copy everybody?

Exactly. So you're following the the right protocols and we thank you for that. Uh this uh was pre uh preliminary platted. That's a lot. PP uh preliminary plat. U typically what we see with a preliminary plat is where it's more of a placeholder. It's just basically the delineation of the lot or lots. There's no dedication of easements or easement language on those preliminary plats and they are not recorded. So they're really just a placeholder. So, with these final putts that actually do make it uh to this level where it gets the public hearing at PNZ uh versus just administrative staff approval, uh the distinction is where they're dedicating a significant number of easements. So, on this particular plat, I don't know if I can zoom in on the PowerPoint, but um if you look, there is a waterline loop from LBJ freeway, which is the north, that's the street frontage of the property. There's a waterline easement that's being dedicated uh for a public uh waterline access. That's um pretty standard in development. Uh this loop will go around and follow the property line uh the common property lot line up here back to the frontage road. So that easement is being dedicated. It wasn't there before. And then also, it's a little bit difficult to see, but this uh this property boundary down here fronts on a lake uh which the development to the west is called the boardwalk. So, they are dedicating a public access easement along this uh water frontage for a continuation of the boardwalk essentially. So, that's the distinction. There's those two easements that are being added that weren't there previously. So,

and the sidewalk and all that infrastructure is paid for by the builder. Yes. Okay. Those are all uh private costs. The city doesn't bear any of those. Okay. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Oh, thank you again. Further questions during study session? All right. Thank you again. Uh we will then move to item A2, discuss agenda items for future planning and zoning commission consideration. Commissioners, any items to bring forward? Okay. Well, with that, uh that concludes our study session meeting. We will uh hear the regular planning and zoning commission meeting at 7 pm. Thank you all.

Good evening and welcome to the City of Farmers Branch Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. It is presently 700 p.m. Monday, December 8th, 2025. I'd like to begin this evening by thanking the commissioners for their service. Up first is citizen comments. This agenda item provides an opportunity for citizens to address the planning and zoning commission on any matter that is not posted on the agenda. Anyone wishing to address the commission should complete a citizen's comments registration form and submit it to the chair prior to the start of the meeting. There is a three-minute time limit for each citizen to speak with a reasonable limitation on speakers on any one topic or item with a maximum of 15 total minutes on the same topic item. Anyone wishing to speak shall be courteous and cordial. The planning and city commission is not permitted to take action on any subject raised by a speaker during citizen comments. When called, please approach the podium and state your name and address prior to beginning your comment. Please direct all comments to the commission and not to the audience. And this evening, we have no one signed up for our citizen comments. So, we'll proceed to our regular agenda items. Item C1, consider approval of the November 10th, 2025 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting minutes and take appropriate action. Commissioners,

I move that we approve the minutes as documented. Thank you. Second.

Any further discussion on the topic? Seeing none, we'll move to a vote. All those in favor of approval and any abstensions. Okay. So with that we will have those approved and uh we will then move to item C2. Consider the request for a final plat approval of SWBC Mercer crossing phase 1 block A lot 1 located at 2110 LBJ freeway and take appropriate action. Thank you, Chairley and members of the planning and zoning commission. My name is Brett Mangum, lead planner with the planning department here at the city of Farmers Branch. We have one case on tonight's agenda. Uh this is 25PL-3, a final plat for the Royaltton multifamily development at 2100 LBJ Freeway in Farmers Branch. On the screen, you can see the subject site. Uh we are looking at a parcel of 4.99 acres altogether. The zoning on this parcel is PD99. That zoning was approved by the city council in December of 2024 which included a detailed site plan, building elevations and landscape plans. Uh the zoning is in place. Tonight's approval would just be for the plat which is the final step in the process. Uh the building permits have been reviewed but they are on hold until the plat gets filed. Once that is filed then the building uh permits can be finalized and the construction can begin. This will be a single lot subdivision uh lot one block A of SWBC Mercer crossing phase 1 edition. A copy of the plat is on your screen showing the uh site 4.990 acres. Uh this is part of a larger site. It's just

about 9 acres altogether. Uh the only portion that will be platted with this particular plat will be the western portion which you see outlined in the heavy black line. The remainder will just remain unplatted and will be will need to be platted at the time of development. Staff has reviewed this plat for conformance with the comprehensive zoning ordinance as well as the subdivision ordinance and found that it meets both of those documents as well as all uh state law requirements for final plat. As such, we are recommending approval of this plat as presented. I did also include a site plan. This is what was previously approved in December of last year. just showing the overall development of what will be uh fit on that lot. This is a multif family development of approximately 262 units. Uh it'll be a four-story single building with a integrated parking garage. And we do have the applicant here in case you have any questions for the applicant. But uh hopefully we covered everything in the staff presentation. Uh so that concludes my comments. With that, I will turn it back over to you, Chairley, for further discussion or if you have any questions.

Thanks again. Uh, commissioners, any questions for staff? Do we have any questions needed for our applicant? All right, seeing none, I I think we can uh move here. This um remind me, Brett, this is not technically a public hearing, right? So, do we need to or it is? It is not a public hearing. Uh and this is the final step in the approval process. So it will not go to city council which we typically see with zoning cases. So right, you are the final approving authority for all plats. Great. Thank you for that reminder. All right, commissioner. So we'll hear action on the item.

I would move to approve as presented. Thank you. Thank you. I will second. Seconded. Any further discussion on the item? All right. Seeing now we'll move to a vote. All those in favor of approval. All right, that's unanimous. So, thank you again. Thank you. And with that, we've reached the end of our agenda. We will adjourn at 7:05 p.m. Thank you all.