Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Infill development shall be controlling. So, I don't know. It seems like design manuals can be done to do whatever you want and not have to revise the subdivision ordinance or discuss with this body. I'm concerned about the way that's written.

The idea is that we're trying to adopt something that allows us to move development quickly and in an attempt to try and keep the development on a continuous linear path and not having to go this way and then that way and then this way and that way, and be able to move through the process quickly and expeditiously. In order to do that, the development director has been, is being able to make the statement that if there's a conflict that arises from the strict enforcement of the design manuals, just take Tom's example for instance, Our easement says it has to be XY. Well, in this instance, as opposed to having to go through a whole bunch of waivers and extra meetings and everything else, the development director can step in on behalf of the developer and say, nope, infill trumps that, and you all need to work together to come up with a solution so that this development can continue to move forward and doesn't have to jump through all those unnecessary hoops. That's what that is for. to help keep these developments on that path, moving towards building permit, as opposed to then having to try and figure out a way to take what has traditionally been done and adhered it to infill, as opposed to taking infill and having everything else adhered to it. So that's what the purpose of this is.

I had a quick question. Out of essence of time, can we reconvene this discussion?

Yes, that's exactly where I was going. Thank you, CJ. We need to start the regular meeting. This is on the agenda for today. If you guys can stand by, we're going to get through these cases. And we can have another discussion when this comes up for consideration. and figure out what we want to do with that. Tom, are you available? Okay.

Sounds good. Do we want to do a one-minute break, or you just go ahead and get started in the... Somebody need a break?

No.

All right.

I'll go ahead, if you don't mind, and I'll do the- We'll call the meeting to order.

All right, good afternoon, and welcome to the November 7th, 2025 in-person meeting of the City of Fort Worth City Plan Commission. The commission meets monthly in open session to conduct public hearings on advertised cases. Specific rules and procedures governing these hearings include the city's subdivision ordinance, city plan commission rules, regulations and bylaws, and related provisions of the Texas state law. The commission's primary responsibilities are to review and act upon subdivision plans and plats, streets and alley right-of-way vacations, enclosures, annexations, comprehensive planning, and other land development issues affecting the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction area. The commission is made up of 11 Fort Worth citizens, each of whom is appointed by the city council. A quorum of six members of the 11 members must be present in order to conduct the commission's business. 10 members are present today, therefore the hearing may proceed. Seated at the center of the table, is Mr. Jim Tidwell, the chair of the City Planning Commission. Other commission members present today are Commissioner Kranz, Andrew Bearden, Commissioner Tidwell, Commissioner Johnson, Commissioner Henderson, Commissioner Sims, Commissioner Reicher, Commissioner Farta, Commissioner Reed, and Commissioner Gillette.

Thank you. Almost finished, sorry.

It's a three pager. Staff present today are Alex Parks, Paul Rodriguez, Alex Johnson, Michelle Pena, Barbara Soltero, I don't see Leo here and Stephanie, Scott Sims is not here as well. My name is Steven Murray, Interim Planning Manager and Facilitator of today's meeting. Copies of the meeting agenda and staff reports are included in the commission's docket. and are available on the city's website. The staff reports have been compiled by the city's development review committee to inform commission and applicants of the city code requirements and technical issues associated with the cases to be heard. Today's public hearings are being documented by cable television and streamed on the internet. To achieve an orderly and timely hearing, we request that you observe the following rules and procedures. All cases are called, applicants and the others in support of the case will be asked to present Their testimony first for a total of five minutes. Opposing testimony will follow and be given a total of seven minutes. The applicant will be allowed two minutes for rebuttal. Each side will be allowed a collective total of seven minutes for initial presentations. We have Barbara Saltero keeping time today, or Alex, you can keep time too. Clearly state your name and city prior to addressing the commission. All dialogue will occur between the speaker and the commission. Upon the... Chairman's initial closure of the case, the Commission will remain in open session to discuss and vote upon a case. No further public testimony or commentary will be allowed. Be advised that the Commission's decision on plotting matters is final. Action on other document items constitutes a recommendation to the City Council. If you need additional information about a particular case, please call the Development Services Department at 817-392-8027. Thank you for your attention, Mr. Chairman. Commissioners, the first order of business is the approval of the minutes for your October 29th meeting.

I think everyone has a copy of the minutes. Are there corrections? Is there a motion?

Move to approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Unanimous. Opposed? None. Unanimous. So the first case is VA-25002.

First case, VA-25-002, vacation of a portion of Windermere Street and a portion of South Edgewood Terrace, Council District 5. General location is north of East Rosedale Street, south of Union Pacific Railroad and east of South Edgewood Terrace. Applicant is Hodong Vipsana Bhavak Center, Incorporated.

I move to approve VA-25- Sorry.

Is there a... Is the applicant present?

No, if you'd like to say something, come on.

Good afternoon, Commissioner. It's Travis Clegg with Westwood Professional Services. We're the consulting engineer and planner on this project that we've been working on for five or six years. It's an odd little deal we're trying to get rid of. This case and the next case are two different vacations of existing public right-of-way. This is a huge complex for a Buddhist campus, if you will, that we recently went through zoning last year. There are some living quarters on the site. There's gonna be a huge stupa on the site. It's gonna stand 170 feet tall. It's gonna be a pretty amazing program. We've worked with the past councilwoman, Gina Bivens,

years and years, and city staff obviously has been a huge help, but they want to control the campus.

This road kind of goes into the campus and stops and doesn't go anywhere. We're trying to vacate that roadway, keep the water, keep the sewer, keep all the utilities and easements, but really because the road kind of gets on the campus, we want to end that and get rid of that right-of-way, public right-of-way. Not only for this case, but the next one too, which kind of extends a little further west. So that's the.

Thank you. Are there questions for the applicant?

Actually, I just had one. What's the surrounding zoning? Has that already been taken care of?

Yes, so the entire thing's been zoned in a plan development specific with site plans and tree ordinances. I mean, we went into the finding details on this thing. So, yes, it's a plan development.

All right. I was hoping PD was the answer. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions?

Do you have a picture of it?

I think you want to see it. Do you want me to give it to you directly, or I don't think there's a picture?

Are there any other speakers in favor? Any opposed? Hearing none, I'll close the public hearing and ask for a motion.

I move that we approve VA-25002, vacation of a portion of Windermere Street. I'll second.

That's a recommendation to council, I think. So we have a motion and a second. Is there a discussion? Would you call the vote, please?

Commissioner Kranz, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Bearden, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Henderson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Johnson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Sims, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reiser, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Farta, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Gillette, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reed, how do you vote? Yes. That vote passes.

Yes. Next case, VA-25003, Vacation of a Portion of Windermere Street, Council District 5. General location, north of East Rosedale Street, south of Union Pacific Railroad and west of South Edgewood Terrace. Applicant is the Vispano-Bavaro Center Incorporated.

Again, Travis Clegg with Westwood Professional Services. This is the extension of that same right-of-way abandonment or vacation. We had to split it up into two because of the north-south right-of-way that bisects it. So again, it's the same program as the last one. And now that you've seen the picture, any questions that you may have, happy to answer.

Any questions for the applicant? Are there any other speakers in favor? Any opposed? Hearing none, I'll close the public hearing and ask for a motion. Mr. Johnson.

I move that we approve VA 25-003, Vacation of Windermere Street and a portion of South Edgewood Terrace. I'll second.

We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, please call the vote.

Commissioner Krantz, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Bearden, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Anderson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Johnson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Simms, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reicher, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Farta, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Gillette, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reed, how do you vote? Yes. Chair Betidwell, how do you vote?

Yes.

That vote passes.

Next case, please.

VA 25020, vacation of an alley between West Humboldt Street and Worth Street, Council District 9. The general location is north of Worth Street, south of West Humboldt Street, west of 8th Avenue, and west of 9th Avenue. The applicant is Brian Seely.

Is the applicant present? I don't see an applicant. Is there anyone to speak in favor of this vacation? Anyone opposed? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing. I'm gonna need a motion from someone here today because Mr. Singletary is not present.

Can I get the language up on screen? I'd like to make a motion to approve VA-25020, a recommendation to council for approval of alley vacation between lots 13R and 45R of the Dissel Tracks, addition north of 4th Street, south of Humboldt, west of 8th Avenue, east of 9th Avenue.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve as recommended. If there's not any discussion, please call the vote.

Commissioner Krantz, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Bearden, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Henderson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Johnson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Sims, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reicher, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Farta, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Gillette, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reed, how do you vote? Yes. Chair Tidwell, how do you vote? Yes. That vote passes.

Next case, VA 25022, Vacation of a Portion of Anderson Boulevard, Council District 5, General Location, north of East Freeway, south of John T. White Road, west of Morrison Drive, and east of Sandy Lane. Applicant is Celebration Baptist Church of Fort Worth.

Is the applicant present? Is there anyone else to speak in favor of this? Anyone here to speak in opposition? Seeing none, we will close the public hearing and ask for a motion, please.

I move that we approve VA 25-022, vacation of a portion of Anderson Boulevard. Second.

We have a motion and a second for approval. Any discussion? Please call the vote.

Commissioner Kranz, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Bearden, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Henderson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Johnson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Sims, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reicher, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Farda, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Gillette, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reed, how do you vote? Yes. Chair Tidwell, how do you vote? Yes. That vote passes.

Let's move on to other matters of business. I'm sorry. PP25004, Project Green, Platinum Change Request, Council District 10. General location is north of Hayters Parkway, south and west of Eagle Parkway, and east of Perot Field Alliance Airport. Appendix AIL Investment LP.

Is the applicant present? Nope. Anyone in support? Anyone in opposition? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing, and I need a motion on this because...

I'd like, I'll make a motion to approve a preliminary plat name change request from Project Green to Alliance Center Phase Two.

Thank you, Mr. Farno.

Second.

We have a motion and a second for approval. Any discussion? Please call the vote.

Commissioner Krantz, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Bearden, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Henderson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Johnson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Sims, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reicher, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Farda, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Gillette, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reed, how do you vote? Yes. Chair Tidwell, how do you vote?

Yes.

That vote passes.

All right, last item of business is TA-25001, Subdivision Ordinance Text Amendment, All-Council District. Council districts and the recommendation is the approval of a recommendation City Council to adopt a text amendment to the subdivision ordinance To adopt regulations governing infill developments and making updates to the subdivision ordinance So I think we have a couple of options one is to Continue the discussion from this morning And try to move this through today

If that's what the commission wants to do, then that's the direction we'll go. I think another option might be to ask for a work session where we have time to hear an in-depth briefing, ask questions. That kind of thing. Or there's some combination of the two that we could provide the feedback that we have today to staff and the consultants and get the responses and either vote on it or we can continue it until we have the answers we're looking for. Just as kind of a I'm not asking anyone to vote one way or the other but to give us a little bit of an idea about the direction you think this should go today.

Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure we don't have any folks that have signed up to speak on this. Give them the opportunity.

We don't.

Okay.

I also wanted to introduce the director, D.J. Harrell, to see if he had any comments related to the case.

Good afternoon, commissioners. I think, you know, Pretty much everything Tom was saying is the staff sentiment as well. I've been with the City of Fort Worth for 16 years now and for the entire time we've been working on trying to find ways to make it easier to develop in the inner city. City of Fort Worth being one of the fastest growing cities in the country, we're adding like 20,000 people a year. We know that growing on the fringes is just not smart. We have to figure out how to push that density and that development in the inner city. and we've been going through states of analysis paralysis for many, many years. And so to Tom's point, we may not have a perfect document, but we've worked with the water department, we've worked with the fire folks, We've worked with Transportation Public Works on something that we think we can promote forward. Will we maybe need to come back to you and make some additional changes in the future? Maybe, but we're just trying to bring Fort Worth into the area where we need to be with regard to developing in the inner city and doing smart growth.

Thank you, TJ, and I want to tell you, the people I've talked to around this table are completely and totally supportive of finding ways to facilitate infill development. I think that if there's a hesitancy, the hesitancy is because we got this three days ago. And while a lot of people have been involved, And it's the people who are in the trenches that are doing the work every day and really have the technical expertise and the practical expertise to weigh in and say, this is the way it should be done. We understand that. But at least speaking for myself, I have to get comfortable with all of that.

And frankly, we haven't been involved.

We haven't had briefings. We haven't had updates. until the ordinance landed.

And I think that's perfectly acceptable, right? As staff, we report to you all on this. I'm technically the Secretary for the Planning Commission, so what you instruct is what we'll do. And if I can make a recommendation, I would welcome your recommendations or your comments on the document And then we could come back and have a further dialogue to at least allow you an opportunity to know why we made certain decisions and what's led to those decisions and what staff recommendation is on moving forward.

I really think that's all that we're looking for is a comfort level and I don't think it's gonna take a long time to get there. The people I have spoken with around this table, I'm not sure we're gonna get there today. But you know what, we got another meeting in two weeks.

We'll be here.

This thing's been going on a long time. I don't think another two weeks is probably going to make much difference.

Are we going to be able to continue some of these questions and answers so we can give them feedback?

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I made a mistake about asking you. I didn't know anyone was here that wanted to speak on this from the public, but we do have someone, and I'd like to hear from him. Mr. Clegg.

I'll wear a different hat here. So Travis Clegg with Westwood Professional Services. I'm the chairman of the Development Advisory Committee. And I'm also the chairman of the Real Estate Council of Fort Worth. And so I think a lot of the stuff that's been said today is true. We've spent years working on this. The genesis of this idea was actually a guy named Phillip Poole. And trying to find ways to make development easier in our center city where we already have the services for police and fire, water, sewer access and whatnot. There's not gonna be a perfect document. I mean, I know Tom's worked on this thing for years and years. DAC has seen this multiple times, so I understand your concern about not seeing it and seeing it for the first time in three days. It's taken us years to digest But the idea was to make things easier, more efficient in the center city. I think last time I was here I presented a case and I spoke about a multifamily deal. That was an Enfield deal. I think I set a record for 14 waivers on a multifamily deal because our ordinance is written years ago with the idea of single family subdivisions out in the outer outskirts of our city. So how do we promote development efficiently in the center city? Let's get back from Austin. and heard horror stories from the Texas Association of Builders about how long it takes to get things through Austin and Dallas because of the language that they have in their ordinance. So all we're trying to figure out is a way to make that more efficient. Somebody at Hillwood once told me expensive and late or time consuming is a bad business model. So we're trying to figure out a way to get our development, smart development in our city on the ground quicker and more efficiently than perhaps neighbors so we could be at a better economic development standpoint than our neighbors. So I understand your concerns. They're valid concerns. We've gone in circles and circles with some of this. What you see before you today is what we think we could get done now. There's 10 pages of documents of stuff that we want to get done in the future. that we just couldn't get to. But we keep working towards perfection and we're never gonna get there if we keep chasing our tails on this. So I'm up for the conversation. If you wanna have work sessions and invite DAC or Real Estate Council, obviously our consultant has the most experience in our city for this deal. I'm willing to help in any way to make you guys feel comfortable. So I just want you to know that the Real Estate Council and DAC are both fully supportive of the current document as is and will be supportive of any conversation going forward.

Thank you. I have a question. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, so if I'm understanding right, so are we going to vote on putting this off for two weeks or vote on passing this today? Are we gonna take a vote on that?

believe what we're about to do is hear some more information and then whatever motion that the individual wants to make, that's what we'll vote on. I'm not driving it one way or the other. But I do want to say, and I'm speaking to the development community that is most impacted, at least financially, from the barriers to infill development. The city is also impacted because we've got a lot of land out there that needs to be developed and sometimes these barriers, they kill deals. What I haven't heard today and what I think would be helpful, at least to me, is how these changes will impact our citizens, our neighborhoods. We pride ourselves in transparency that we're not making deals in the back room with developers to do things that are gonna harm somebody. It's never on purpose that people get harmed. It's those unintended consequences like you were talking about. When we move decision making from a public forum to a private conversation, there's a risk associated with that. And what I think we want to do is minimize that risk and be sure that the citizens and the neighborhoods that are existing out there don't suffer harm in the process. So with that, Alex, did you have a?

So you raise a really good point. The reason why we chose the things we chose to modify in the ordinance was based on the experiences that we've had with the City Planning Commission. In all the times that we've had these waivers come before the City Planning Commission, I can clearly say that 99.9% of them were approved. So we're asking to administratively waive things that y'all didn't on a consistent basis waive almost every time so we took that information that we had from what was what we saw as an unnecessary step in the development process for infill development and that's what we try to tackle so that we could eliminate what we saw as unnecessary steps and unnecessary challenges for these developments so that we could make that path through that development process more linear. And as opposed to having to go left and right and up and down and so forth. That's what the sole focus of this was. Because we noticed there are certain things that continue to be stumbling blocks. And in our opinion, our opinion, we're not here to try to convince you all In our opinion, we saw them as unnecessary. So in order to try and make them... Okay, go ahead. I apologize.

I was going to say, I think we're pretty much all on the same page here. I think we want to see smart growth in our city and the revenue come in as quickly as possible. Is it possible that we consider moving forward contingent upon you guys having some type of... bringing this back for quarterly review or biannual review to the CPC if something, just so that we can monitor it to see how things are going.

That definitely sounds like a reasonable task.

And if it's not going as planned, then at that point we can make the recommended changes.

Absolutely, that's a great idea. That would be a good way for us to keep tabs on how things are- This is never gonna be perfect. Correct, but that way we can then use y'all's expertise and knowledge along with our own to then try and formulate new changes to the ordinance to then move towards those perfect- We just need to see- Perfect ordinances.

Maybe quarterly, I recommend, but that's just my recommendation.

Duly noted, for sure. Yes, sir.

So- I mean, my questions are still piling up, and I think that, you know, staff, y'all have made the presentation that we need to speed up development. We need to, you know, if something's always getting approved, let's do it efficiently. So I think we all agree there. So I think the outstanding items are going to be really our questions. You know, like, for instance, I was asking if the way the ordinance is written, the development director can override water the water department, if they're saying we need a certain easement, the development director can override what the water department says.

They'll work together. They'll work together.

What does the office say?

Okay, I'll let the development director tell you what this means.

No, that's not the intent. And the water director, TPW director, development director, we've been in consultation about that. The goal is we all work for the city and we all understand we need what we need for our infrastructure, but not every plot needs a sewer line in the back of the lot, right? And so when we have such hard language in our ordinance, it says each time you develop in this way, you must give 60 feet or whatever that size limitation is between lots, but it may not even be relevant, right? And so that language is there to make the determinations And one other thing that I would like to say also about that is, you know, we're talking about the subdivision ordinance now. You know, the water specification documents are a different document, meaning the water department doesn't have to, still has the authority to not allow somebody to be served from a particular area of the city unless they meet those criteria. I hope I'm making sense. I'm trying to.

So my question is, can the development director override, based on this ordinance, what the water department's saying? Because it says if there's a conflict between one, that this ordinance prevails.

Right, and no, that's not the goal. And what it's talking about in the ordinance is when there's a conflict between the ordinance and the specification document, not between the two directors. So the specification document, because what we have sometimes is a conflict in practical application. And so that's intended to give us a little bit of administrative authority to work through that.

Questions?

I know Caroline probably has a bunch of questions written down too, so I don't want to take all of her time. But I do have a couple of ones that I'd like to get. So specific question, if you have a PD that's an infill, What applies? Because I see there's exceptions for UR, MU, and H, but I don't see PD mentioned.

Well, PDs are specialized zonings, and it would be based on whatever the base zoning is in there. But that zoning, this is platting, we're talking about two separate things.

Right, but I'm only asking because it has some zoning in here where it means it's not going to apply. So I'm just wondering.

No, no, what that's trying to exempt is smaller infill developments from having to adhere to block phase standards because at two acres in size, they would be less likely to be able to accommodate all the necessary things in order to adhere to the strict interpretations of those ordinances.

So I guess I'll rephrase my direct question. No, I'm not actually. Please don't, no. I want to make clear that it's not included. PD is not going to be termed infill necessarily if it's already been zoned PD.

So the zoning for the PD will be the zoning for that PD, and whenever the subdivision ordinance comes up, they will comply with whatever subdivision ordinance are related to their proposed zoning. So for example, if you have a base zoning of G, the development standards for zoning are G, but it still has to comply with the subdivision ordinance. So in PDs for those situations, they're kind of two separate things. Land use, and they'll comply with whatever specific land use that's within that PD. And for the subdivision ordinance, they'll still comply with whatever requirements are for the subdivision ordinance.

Most PDs won't qualify for infill unless they were plotted prior to January of 2000. Okay. Most likely they won't, so we probably won't have too many of those conflicts unless their base zoning is one of the zonings that's indicated or the property was plotted prior to 2000 and it's included within the infill boundary.

As long as y'all feel comfortable making the PD process upended by the infill application. It's not. Okay, great. I'm satisfied on that.

I'm going to jump over to 7C, and I may be misreading something, but I want some clarification on this, on public notices for certain applications. So this is talking about the notice for properties within 200 feet. But then the last sentence of that says, the notice shall not be deemed a condition precedent to the holding of any public hearing. or to any official action concerning the matter before the planned commission. Am I reading this correctly to understand that even though it's a requirement to make this notice, it's not a condition to holding a public hearing? 7C.

I'll answer it. So that should be our current subdivision ordinance language. And that does come up from time to time where we send notice out and there's some error with it. But for plotting, our subdivision ordinance says it doesn't matter. And if you'll remember, for plots that's kinda tied to the state law requirement now that really has been in effect for a long time. We have 30 days to act on that plot or it's deemed approved by operational law. So even if the notice is bad, By the time y'all get it, it's usually the 29th or 30th day. And even if you tried to continue it for notice issues against the applicant's objection, we would tell you that plot is going to be deemed approved by law. Gotcha. Okay. What's your next one?

Okay. This one caught me by surprise because it's a change to the single family. Let me get the right language up in front of me. the right-of-way radius of the property line changing from 20 to 25. I just want to ask where that came from because it's not infill.

That's not, that's an error. That needs to be 20.

Okay, so.

We talked about a few of these things yesterday after this document had been sent and realized some errors in some of the things.

Do we have a list of those errors so we don't?

Like two or three, it's not a bunch. That's one of them. Okay. So that's staying as 20, because that's what the standard curb return is for a residential driveway.

Great, okay.

Yes.

Good catch. I'm very much like this infill ordinance does do the effort of including work on alleyways and rear access. I do have one concern. I'm just gonna paint a little scenario. Developer wants to not have to do alleyways. 30% of a block at a time. I feel like this ordinance doesn't really consider that workaround the developer might do to save that money. What do y'all think about that?

You got to keep in mind, this is their option right here. They can do this. They can do this by right today. The current subdivision ordinance allows them to do this. For whatever reason, the only option they can think of is this. Historically, if you think of older neighborhoods, historically there was older neighborhoods that had the ribbon driveways that went down the middle of the two homes and then jade in the back. This is essentially a replication of that, just in a more dense form. So that's the option. Even if you have an alley at the back of your property, you don't have to do that. You can do this over here by right. Now, it might behoove them to try and figure out a way to design their property in such a way that if, for whatever reason, someone was to come back and pave the alley or provide access back there, that they could easily modify their property maybe to take access from back there and get rid of those long driveways if they so chose. So there could be that flexibility there. Because this could be an alternative interim condition as opposed to paving the alley. You can design your building so that they can function one way or the other, whether they take access off the back or they take access from the front.

I'll say that I really like that it's in here because I think it's going to create some expectations for what we expect our infill to look like when there's alleyways that are on the plots. So thank you, staff, for doing the work to get that one in this version of it. I had one other general question because I'm not sure, it's probably not addressed yet in subdivision ordinance changes for infill. I wanna take the scenario of where you have an established residential neighborhood, the lots are bigger than what we have in our standard 1920s, 1930s neighborhoods of 50 foot wide, 100 feet deep. Maybe they're 100 feet wide, 80 feet wide lots. Maybe they're on cul-de-sacs, they open up and they have parallelogram size. Is this infill allow a developer to come in and subdivide those lots without the process they'd have to do now and have a neighborhood not be able to come and say, hey, we don't want to change the character of our neighborhood. We're splitting up.

The only way that that would be permitted is if the zoning allowed it. They still have to plot the property according to the underlying zoning. Just because the property may qualify as an infill lot, that doesn't give it some special zoning requirement. the zoning still has, they still have to plat the property in accordance with the zoning. The purpose of this is to help facilitate some redevelopment. So if someone was to come in in an older part of town that isn't developed but is currently platted, and then they want to come in and rezone the property to one of these zoning categories so that they can then take advantage of the infill ordinance, then that would be their opportunity. But they would have to then They'd have to take that extra step to go from whatever the traditional zoning was to one of these other zoning types to then take advantage of this here. So there would already be the public process for the rezoning. That's where the public involvement would be.

I want to circle back to the connectivity index, sorry. There's some language in another section that I just want to point to as what I think we're talking about as maybe being the kind of language we would like to see in the connectivity index section. And that's in 17... That's 1713D, if I'm reading this correctly. It's talking about the... Requirement of a public alley. The language in that one is, it says the director may waive the requirement, in this case of a public alley, based upon prevailing site conditions, topography, anticipated traffic, and existing neighborhood character. And I think what we're kind of talking about on connectivity is that we'd like to see language similar to that to say that the connectivity index requirement may be waived administratively based upon the prevailing site conditions, geography, topography, things like that, as opposed to, as it's written here, just infill developments are exempt from meeting the connectivity index.

Am I speaking?

I would concur with that, it's fine. Director said it's fair.

Thank you.

So let me clarify that, because I still feel like I'm still stuck on the first bullet point from an hour ago, unfortunately. where we talked about that the only two criteria somebody has to have is inside the 820 and, you know, platted before 2000. For me, that's the fundamental flaw in the whole document because it allows – we definitely want to speed up, in my opinion. We definitely want to speed up approval and development, and if we can do it, do some administrative things. But to leave it just with those only two criteria, I still have a problem supporting that. You know, size would matter. You know, there needs to be almost a third of the interior there, in my opinion.

I don't disagree with you. But I think what was said earlier about you've got to draw the line somewhere. And if we start trying to redraw those lines, we're not gonna see this for another two or three years. I mean, it's really, it gets so complex when you're trying to do that. I'm not crazy about it. I think I made that pretty clear. But I don't know where the line should be and I don't know how to write it. And I think these folks are the I see two guys sitting out there that I have the utmost respect for in terms of development design engineer type folks. And to understand the number of people that have been involved in this, for that to come to us, again, my personal opinion is it's way too broad. But that's just my opinion. And I'm going to tend to lean on these guys. And if it's too broad, we'll know pretty quickly. And they'll need to come back.

The challenge we had, Commissioner Bearden, is that we had special interests from all over the city. And so in order to try and find a way to compromise with all the special interests and not have to try and appease everybody's individual special goals in some kind of ordinance that would never get written, In order to do that, that's why we came up with this boundary. Because there's people from all different parts of Fort Worth that have all the things that we're looking for within infill development that are defined within the definition. But they're not in one certain area. They're all over within that loop 820 area. And so in order to try and help to appease everyone, we created this large boundary so that everybody's special interests could then be encapsulated within the area. And over time, like you said, because we all agree this is a living document, we might be able to more acutely define the boundaries. But as Chairman Tidwell pointed out, that's what we can do right now. And having to come back on a quarterly basis, as Commissioner Johnson mentioned, that'll give you all that opportunity to say, hey, this is a little nuts. We need to put some boundaries on this. We need to establish these things. We need to modify this ordinance this way. We need to modify this this way. And that'll be helpful to hear from you guys so that we can then take that information and then we can pass it over to, to DAC and see what DAC has to say about it, and then brief the Real Estate Council on it as well. And then once we have all those inputs, we can then try and maybe update those ordinances as time goes on. And so maybe this isn't the map we see forever. Maybe it'll be different. But for now, we've got to have something, because we've had so many different special interests pushing on us This was the only way to really get them all to go, okay. And hearing that okay, man, was it great. Because as Chairman Tidwell said, this has been something we have been going after. It seemed like it was our white whale we'd never get to. And when we heard, okay, here we go, let's go. Let's take it to Planning Commission. Come on, let's get this thing approved. So I know that it seems like we're just ramrodding this through you guys, but we were so excited to finally get okay, that here we are. Here it is. Here's our shiny little new toy. We're ready to go with it. Can you help us make it happen?

Do you have any additional questions?

Yeah, I just have one comment. The more I'm listening, the more it seems like this whole effort is to not abandon oversight, but to shift oversight a little bit less on CPC and more onto staff. But there is going to be a safety net in place. It's not perfect, and I really am, the more I'm listening, the more I'm liking Commissioner Johnson's suggestion that we become more of an oversight commission on the overseers. that meets periodically and we can reevaluate things to kind of see how they're going. But I agree with what everybody's saying about if we sit here all day and try to come up with every exception that we can think of to the rules that have been presented, it could go on ad nauseum. We'll never get to the end. But I'm liking more and more this idea of being oversight for the overseers in this equation.

Absolutely, that's a great idea. Let me offer a... and one is we've identified some, I think, some specific language changes that everyone's pretty much agreed to, change the or to and and some of those kinds of things. We've identified some other language changes that at least some on the commission would like to see in terms of trying to have somebody justify a waiver before they just are automatically granted it. And then there's three mistakes, I think you said. They're probably minor, but the or and and is not minor. So this specific document I don't think is ready to move forward without those changes.

But can't we move to vote to approve based upon or contingent upon those changes?

I don't know what the changes are.

Like the connectivity languages that Commissioner Grants proposed?

We can sit here and we can write the ordinance, rewrite the ordinance with those changes. There'll be about a half a dozen to a dozen of them. Or we can, what I was gonna suggest is we let staff go back Let them write it instead of us trying to. I've tried to do this on the fly before. It's painful. And then have a one hour work session, have an hour set aside for this issue in two weeks. And if anybody today or tomorrow has issues that they want addressed in the work session, communicate those to staff. We can have that work session, get all the questions answered, get the language that's actually going to council, and then vote on it in two weeks.

I agree with that. I'd like to see the document. And I know there's work that needs to go into it, but if possible, if we can get it with maybe closer to a week in advance to give us some time to really digest it a little better, I think that'd be appreciated.

Can that be done?

I think so, and I think what else I might ask is that if you would email any of your questions prior to, maybe if we can get those questions by Tuesday. Since we've got a two week time frame, we wanna make sure we can get those questions answered. And then, revise the document accordingly. I think on the next meeting, is the next meeting or is it in December that we have a time constraint?

It's the... December meeting.

So we should be good on doing that work session, no problem. So yeah, if y'all can have all your questions to us by Tuesday, we'll promise to get you the ordinance at least a week in advance so you can look at it. And then maybe if you have additional questions, We'll try to have those ready for you by the next time we come to CPC.

So can we say, can you give us a time frame that you want those additional questions sent in so that you guys can get them added so that we won't have to keep going back and forth?

Yeah, I'll give you the date. So today is November 7th. If you can give us by November 11th.

So all questions by November 11th, 5 p.m.

So the only question I have remaining other than what we talked about is I'm kind of sensing a consensus around the table that we're supportive of Mr. Johnson's idea of some sort of quarterly update, feedback, that kind of thing. Does that need to be incorporated or is that...

I mean, y'all can incorporate it. I think from a staff perspective, we've heard what you're saying. I think if possible, maybe we can come up with maybe a rubric and present it to you. Hey, here's what we're gonna actually present to you, because I want to make sure we're giving y'all what you need. So give us time to think on that, and then I don't think we need to necessarily put it in the actual ordinance. I think I, Stephen Murray, promise to quarterly report to y'all based on the information you want to see.

Not only report to us, but we want to have the authority to make revisions or recommend revisions needed once you report those things. Okay.

I think that puts it on us, too, to we need to be specific in what we're asking for. Absolutely.

So I have a question. This is probably a rich question. I'm hoping the answer is going to be a good one that we want to hear, but get the lawyer in it, and this is where you know I did not go to law school because I'm asking this. Are we giving, if the city council passes this ordinance, do landowners have certain entitlements now because they're going to be considered a landfill, I mean not landfill, infill, that if the city council goes back later and decides they need to be more restrictive in what the definition of infill is and reduce those number of properties subject to it, or is there gonna be a problem we can't walk back legally? It's gonna be a takings thing of property rights if we then later roll it back.

That's a good question.

And you can consider that and give us an answer in two weeks.

That'd be great.

And one other one, this is just my curiosity. In this process, did staff or consultants look at other cities who had successfully revised to have infill division in their ordinance?

That was the purpose of bringing Lee Einswiller in. on board from Code Studios because of his expertise. I can't tell you how many consultants we've had prior to Lee bring in and make presentations based on comparisons to other cities and what they're doing. And we've benchmarked against other several cities. We have a group of nine cities that we tend to benchmark ourselves against on for things that we look at that are similarly in size throughout the United States. when we try and do these efforts. So we've done several benchmarking studies to make sure that we're trying to facilitate our development in a smart way.

I would enjoy knowing what other cities we looked at, but also, specifically, did you all review any other Texas cities of size that have successfully had an infill provision put into their subdivision ordinance?

Arvon, do you have the answer? You looked into the cities of San Antonio, Austin, Houston, how they have incorporated subdivision as an amendment to the subdivision ordinance. but hardly there is not explicit mention of infill development like have to the extent we have done right now in those cities. We are happy to share like the comparison table that we have come up with, what all the parameters that we had looked into in our next, before the next work session so that we can have a prudent discussion over that.

So would it be fair to say Fort Worth is leading if we're doing this? For other Texas cities?

On the screen right now, yes. I can see that.

cutting edge, not bleeding edge, hopefully.

A lot of the talk when we were doing this infill stuff centered around missing middle. And so when we were doing this, we were looking at other cities and how they were handling their quote unquote missing middle. I remember looking at Denver and Nashville and some other cities that have successfully had redevelopment in their central cities where we were struggling as everything was leaving the city and going out urban sprawl and so forth without having to develop growth boundaries like Seattle.

I want to say thanks to all of the staff, the consultants, everybody who's worked on this. I know it was more than tough. It was long and arduous. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Mr. Reid. I've been listening. I do a lot of listening and And these two gentlemen back there, right here, yes. I think they done explained this to where I don't think two weeks is gonna be any different than this week in voting on this. But I understand folks want answers, but I don't think too much gonna change. in two weeks for y'all to go ahead and get started on this today. I just really don't. And that's why I'm not going to vote to carry this on another two weeks.

If we're gonna vote on it today, we need to have the exact language that's gonna be in the ordinance. And if it's what's published, If it's what we got, we know there are mistakes. We know there are things in it. But it's up to the commission. I just wanted to say thanks to everybody and reiterate that we're really supportive of the infill development promotion and that kind of thing. And hopefully we can get this to the city council soon. So with that, I need a motion to either...

Can I make motion that we continue to the next meeting?

Yes. We have a motion and a second. Second, oh. Mr. Bearden had the second. Any discussion?

On that note, I would like to request at least two documents. One, this great deck that was the presentation be sent to the members of the commission. And also there's reference to a PowerPoint presentation, the staff notes that was presented to DAC Love to have that as well, just for more context. As quickly as possible, so maybe we can get that as part of a November length question deadline.

Thank you. All right, we have a motion and a second. Discussion? Please call the vote.

Who's second? Commissioner Kranz, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Bearden, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Henderson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Johnson, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Sims, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reicher, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Farta, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Gillette, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Reed, how do you vote?

No.

Chair Tidwell, how do you vote?

Yes.

That will pass us.

Thank you. That's the last item on the agenda. We stand adjourned.