Planning & Zoning Commission - workshop

🎵 🎵 ¶¶ ¶¶ so Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you.

I'd like to call the meeting to order. It is now 5.30 p.m. Welcome to Planning and Zoning Commission work session of Monday, July 6, 2026. The purpose of our work session is to prepare commissioners on cases we have to take action on in the public hearing. You're welcome to provide comments during the work session, but we also encourage you to speak at the public hearing for the case itself. Claudia, did anyone sign up to speak on any item listed on the work session agenda?

Madam Chair, I'm waiting on the sign-in sheet. Give me one moment.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, there are no speakers. Please proceed.

Thank you very much. Do we have a report on the City Council meeting decisions of June 1st? Actually, you have the report in your package. Does anybody have any questions about the previous Council votes? Okay, no. All right, we'll move on to the review of the public hearing items. The first item this evening, Jocelyn, do you want to go through the consent agenda for approval and conditional approval and disapproval?

We do have two cases from the consent disapproval that will be moved to consent approval, and those item numbers are number five and number six.

Does anyone have any questions on any of the conditional... Approval or disapproval items? Okay, no. We'll move on to the individual items. Zoning Case 2025-224-ZC, located at 1612 Brentwood. Who's up for that tonight? Hi, Gina. Hi, Gina.

Are we working? Yes, there we go. Good evening. Gina Costanza-Grant with the Planning Department. The first case is ZCE 2025-224-ZC at 1612 Brentwood Drive. They are requesting to rezone from SP2 for RTH. It's a generalized site plan for townhouse uses with storage units to the same category. However, they are requesting a variance for their particular lot to have a required rear yard setback encroachment. The staff finding is no unnecessary hardship. The public comment forms that we did not receive any in support or opposition. This is the aerial map in red. You'll see the property under consideration. Future land use map. It is in conformance. Property owner notification. Surrounding zoning map. And this is their site plan. The applicant has an existing patio cover that was attached to the home, to the best of our knowledge. And from aerial maps, we can see that it's been there for quite some time. They are seeking a permit to replace that patio. patio cover in its exact condition. We could not find any evidence of a permit for the original structure. However, they are looking to replace it in its exact configuration. It does encroach into the rear yard setback, so they are requesting a variance to have it encroach into the rear yard setback. leaving an eight-foot space between the edge of the top of the patio cover and the rear property line. So it's a 12-foot encroachment. This particular site plan had established some variances for the rear yards. One of those was in this particular area, a 20-yard setback. And all of those original conditions and requirements have been carried over from the original site plan to this one. This is an elevation of the structure that is in their approved building permit plan. Should this variance get approved, this is what it would look like. So the one on the left is a side view. So if you're looking at it from the side yard, this is the top and this is the back. And this would be the distance from the back of the patio to the property line. And then if you were at the rear property line looking towards the house, this is what it would look like from that direction. This is the subject property. And looking to the south, to the north, the west. And back on the site plan, I am happy to answer any questions you all have.

Do you know how long they've owned the home and was it there before they bought it or did they put it up or what?

We don't know. So the applicant should be here tonight and hopefully they'll be able to answer those questions for you.

And my second question is for fire. We ran across this before about everything being too close. What is y'all's opinion on this?

Are you talking about the case with the awning? Could you go up to the mic, please?

All right.

So for a fire department standpoint, as long as access isn't impeded and we can still access that side, then we would be okay with it.

Okay. That's it. In the notes, it also noted that it would need to be fire rated, and that would be handled during the permitting process.

That's going to be because of the separation from the side. There's a requirement there. Anything within, I believe it's 10 feet of the property line would have to be fire rated. So that's what that is. It has nothing to do with the rear setback.

Do we have a sense of how far back the old awning has been there?

The owner had stated that it was an exact replacement,

No, like how long had the old one been there?

Jocelyn was just looking up in DCAD ownership records. It looks like there's a new, the current property owner is recent. And so they probably bought it with the patio existing. And so I'm not sure they would know how long it has been there. We were not able to find anything in our old building permit records.

It looks like something... is on the aerial back to 2003, 2007. So it's been there for a little while. Okay.

Yeah, that's what I knew. Thanks.

Are you Mr. Davis? Hi. Did you sign up to speak for the public hearing? No, I was just trying to answer the question about when I bought the house. We'll do it in public hearing. But do see the receptionist and sign up so you can be called down. Thank you, sir. Any other questions, y'all? Okay, moving on to both items 11 and 12, 2026-155-CP and zoning case 2026120-ZC. Haley, I guess you can do both these together.

All righty. Haley Rick with planning. So like Debbie was saying, this is 2026, 155 CP. This is located at 215 East Airport Freeway. Currently, the future land uses regional commercial and the applicants proposing to change this to mid density residential. After staff review, we recommend approval. terms of public comments there was none in support but they were to an opposition and I'll get into that probably most likely the zoning case part of this this case was requested post moment last PNZ just because we got updated information kind of last minute there's some concerns from fire but that seems to be addressed so I'll go ahead and move on subject property again that future land use so it's that regional commercial currently The property owners are notified and then surrounding zoning and subject property. This is off of the access road of 183. Okay, and then for the zoning case, currently the zoning is SP2 for CC. This is a generalized site plan, so this is kind of an interesting one. It has the base zoning of community commercial, but it also added the uses of senior independent living facility, assisted living, nursing home uses, and then the 183 overlay. Now they're wanting to, based on their proposal, are rezoning to the still an SP2 generalized site plan for the multifamily residential one. They're wanting to do low density multifamily uses. and the State Highway 183 overlay and has variances to the multifamily development standards. After staff review, we recommend approval. In terms of public comment, again, it's the same as the comp plan, none in support and two in opposition. subject property, future land use, property owners. And so we had two letters of opposition, like I mentioned before. One was outside the 200 foot boundary. Their concerns, they said they had issues with, they had concern about the traffic and congestion between the access road and Wingren. It is kind of a quick turnaround to get around to Wingren. I'll show the concept plan shortly, but it looks like the entrance and exits are going to be along Wingren, so not on here. In terms of zoning, so above is apartments that have existed there for a long time. To the east, it's interesting. It's like commercial but also had really old apartments in the back. To the west, it is single-family homes. And then up this corner, it is city-owned property, kind of undevelopable land, has electrical wires going through it. All right, and then this is their site plan. So since it is more than two acres, it is SP2. And since it's multifamily, they do have a concept plan that is enforceable. And I can go over some of that stuff. It's about a five-acre site. In 2018, they did rezone with all those uses that I did on the first page, talking about the assisted living facility, senior living, all that kind of stuff. It seems like between the zoning case that happened then to now, what they're wanting to do is more of a... Housing, low density, kind of most of them are duplexes, it looks like. He wants to do them for sale. Condo ownership, so it's all in one lot. They just know what's inside the building. And obviously would have homeowner association fees. Let's see. They are proposing about 56 villas. Most are going to be three bedrooms. And there's a few amenities. So there's a dog park, clubhouse, playground, a stage, kind of an open stage area, a gym, and a Oh, a doctor exam room. So I'll just go to the next one. So this is our concept plan. So it's kind of, this is north on like the left side of the screen. So this is the highway access road and then Wingwood. So this is their main entrance. So here is their dog park, their clubhouse. This is their lawn area. And then they're putting a playground here and then a volleyball court and then landscape plan. And so now this is illustrative, so this isn't enforceable, but this is what the applicant provided to us. So the first floor of the clubhouse, you have a few things. You kind of have a non-veg kitchen, storage, a kitchen, kind of reception, and they have this multi-purpose hall or room. And they provided two different elevations for the floor plans for the second floor. It depends on what type of roof they're doing. So they have a pitch roof. Most of the things still apply. It's just a slightly different layout. So they had the gym. They do have a doctor's room. And then they have reception waiting, the business center, which is one of the requirements, and bathrooms. Again, this isn't necessary, but they did provide two layouts. This is one unit layout. Like I said, they're all three bedrooms. And then part of the new multifamily standards process, we kind of need to know what's around it in terms of amenities. So kind of grocery stores, fire station, hospitals. So you can kind of see what's around here. Looks like there's some parks nearby. You have to go a little bit down 183 to get to the nearest grocery store, it looks like. And then to talk about the variances. Since they're wanting to do kind of duplex style, you know, in our standards or maybe lean more towards, you know, more dense projects, they did have to ask for a little bit more variances. So the first one being building height, we've seen this before. We had that Pleasant Run case earlier this year, kind of doing the same concept. They're wanting to do two stories or the 20 feet instead of the eight. Dwelling unit size and mix, usually we only allow for them to have 50% max of one unit type of like how many bedrooms they can have. So instead of having like 50 or yeah, 50, one bedroom, 10, two, and then, you know, the 40 of like, you know, the other bedrooms, they're willing to do all three bedrooms. And a lot of these have to do with landscaping. We kind of went off what they had on their landscape plan. They didn't really provide us hard numbers or percentages on some things. So if you have any specific questions, this is in your memo. So if you want to address these a little bit later, more in detail, I'm happy to do that. Bicycle storage, usually we require bicycle rooms for every so many buildings. But again, since this is supposed to be more a residential type, we're okay with them having space in the garages. Required amenities, they're meeting all those. Elective amenities, they have to do two other ones. One is the outdoor stage and one is the doctor exam room. see and then for the required amenities they are not providing a pool in terms of walking trails they on their concept plan do have sidewalks that is going throughout the community um and then the dog park like i mentioned too but they haven't cleared if it's going to be fenced in or not Subject property, this is along 183. Subject property around Wingren, so this is where the entrance and exits are going to be. East of subject property and west, so again, this is kind of this undevelopable land because it has the big power lines. And then to the south, so the Highway 183. I'm open to any comments or questions about this case.

The previous plan, how many units were they planning on having?

It's the same. I mean, from like the last time I was at P&Z? Yeah, it's the same.

Okay, so that hasn't changed. No. A lot of the variances it listed, it wasn't clear to me what the variance was specifically that we were being asked to grant. So I wasn't quite sure how we're voting on variances if we don't know what they are.

Do you want to? MS. We worked through that when we were trying to analyze this. And there are some things that the applicant just didn't give us numbers for, about, you know, the number of trees or square footages. So we tied it to the concept plan that shows where those are going to be and how they're going to lay that out. But because we didn't have a number, we just assumed that there needed to be a variance. So normally, yes, we can say they're supposed to have 100 trees. They're only providing 90. We didn't have those numbers. So we wanted to make sure that we were covered. If y'all are comfortable and the council's comfortable with the concept plan as proposed, it's just this is a very different product. And so trying to fit this product into the form of 3.13 was just kind of a circle and square type of thing.

Okay, but effectively they would be required to comply insofar as it's evident in the concept plan. Correct, correct. So that's kind of the variance. We're giving a variance then to do what's in the concept plan.

Yeah, to do what's on the concept plan. We just didn't have those numbers to be able to be very clear about what the variance is. Okay, thanks.

So they're wanting a variance to the 840. Basically our requirements we put into place?

No, 840 was a state bill that created Chapter 218. Ours is 3.13. Ours are the multifamily development standards. So that's what these variances are requesting.

I guess, Jocelyn, if we require variances or every other applicant to show what the variances are, why wouldn't we do that here?

If you want hard numbers, that's your prerogative. If you want to postpone it and ask them to give us more of the counts...

I guess why they didn't do that, we postponed last month, so why wasn't the information provided?

We worked through and got as much as we were able to get. So we just... The way we kind of landed is the way the concept plan is, the way they have their trees distributed and their amounts distributed. If y'all in council are okay with that, then that's the way it could be approved. They would just have to build to that concept plan and plant to that concept plan. But if you want harder numbers, then that's a direction that you could give the applicant, and we can continue to work on this.

One of the issues I have with this is the amount of guest parking. There are 10 spots. What's going to happen whenever, I don't know, two families decide to have a gathering? Where are they going to park the rest of the guests?

That's kind of something we pointed out because these are only 24 foot wide. They're basically just big enough to be fire lanes. So when we were building, especially if we were to consider this like a single family product, it would be two car garage and a driveway. Sorry, I was trying to zoom in. I believe they're, let me look at the unit type. Yeah, so they're only providing a two-car garage, which per state law, since we are considering this multifamily, they only require one space per unit. So we can't really enforce any more parking. I think it's something that's a legitimate concern. I agree with you on that. But that's all they provided.

Are guests allowed to park on Green Grand?

Sorry. Windbrin is a classified roadway, so there is no parking allowed on Windbrin.

So technically they wouldn't have any other place to park, I guess, because on the other side you have 183?

Well, we expect the internal driveways will also be fire lanes. So as long as they're bigger than 24 feet, which I don't think they will be, they could park outside of the 24 feet, but they wouldn't be able to park on the driveways if they're considered fire lanes.

So yeah, they definitely can't park on 183 yeah Then it wouldn't it be better for Instead of having the volleyball court that I mean, I don't know for a senior facility. It's in demand a playground yes to make that a extra parking wouldn't they be more useful and

I mean, they could revise their plan, but the thing is they do have to have a certain amount of amenities, and that's kind of one of them that they're banking. So if they lose that, they either need to find another amenity that they can provide, or they'll have to ask that as a variance in order to get more parking.

What's better?

Now, a question for you is, you said we had to have one parking space per unit, right? Guest parking?

No, just required parking. There's no distinction between guest parking and required. They're all together.

So it's just got to be, so there's driveways, there's 56 villas there. So the 10 spaces are...

Yeah, because they meet the required parking in the garages. So say there's 56 villas or units, so that means per state law they only need 56 parking spaces, which they provide. They double it technically because they have the garage, but yeah, in terms of gas parking, all the thing that's available is to the north of just those 10 spaces.

Okay. And I guess the other concern is that Wingren, you cannot park and that street can get really busy.

Mm-hmm.

with 183. So if people start parking there, that's the only option they're going to have. That's going to create a lot of traffic and issues.

No further questions? Okay, thanks, Haley. I'm not sure who's up for 2026-142-CC. Gina, thank you.

Abraham's not here today, so I'm going to present this for him. Yes, Gina again with Planning Department. This case is 2026-142ZC located at 300 West Las Colinas Boulevard. They are requesting to rezone from an SP1 RAB with Convention Center Retail Entertainment Hotel Restaurant and Related Uses, a.k.a. Toyota Music Factory. to the same with an amendment to their approved site plan to convert a few existing parking spaces to a permanent outdoor patio space. The staff is recommending approval. We did not receive any comment forms in opposition or support. This is the aerial photograph. Future land use. the notification map, surrounding zoning, and this is an overall view of the entire site plan and just a circle that shows the area of the proposed patio. We'll zoom in on that. And this is a more detailed inset of those spaces that they are looking to convert to patio area. And those missing spaces would still result in a surplus. They have revised their parking table and count to adjust for the converted parking spaces, but regardless they still do have a surplus when it's all said and done. and this is looking at the subject property. So you can see these spaces up in front here are the ones that they are looking at taking away and they're going to be making that sidewalk level, bringing it further out into the parking spaces and providing some enclosure space and patio cover. And that's also just looking to the side of the subject property, the adjacent spaces, looking to the east, Bar Louis, looking to the north and to the south. And this is the site plan, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

I love this one. Seems like such a nice addition to an area which by a professional operator, a proven operator that could really make a difference to traffic in that area. Will they close that street, Nathan, through traffic or will the traffic still be allowed in both directions there?

They are not proposing to close the road at all. You will still have vehicles. that will be backing out from the parking spaces that are just to the east. One of the things that, between traffic and the police department, we have been working with the applicant on trying to identify appropriate crash bollards to make sure that you're not having any kind of vehicle interfacing at all with the people they're trying to eat. But, no, that will still be open to traffic.

Okay, thanks. Any other questions? Looks like, thanks, Gina. Tanner, for 2026-171-DVP, this will be a final action item for us when we take our vote.

Hello, everyone. Tanner Bristol, Planning Department. Here looking at Development Plan 2026-171-DVP. This is located at 1211 Ranch Trail. It is DP 78 in PUD 5, Valley Ranch. Currently, the base zoning for it is R6, single-family residential 6. They are requesting to make a revision to the development plan to change the base zoning to PO, professional office. Staff recommends approval. And currently, we have no comments and support or opposition. Here we have the aerial view map. The future land use being business office, which does allow for professional office. The notification boundary. Surrounding zoning, most of it belonging to the PUD and being R7.5 as the base zoning up here. Here's the current, or here's the proposed development plan. The initial development plan was approved in June 2nd of 2008, allowing for R6 with day nurseries and kindergartens as allowable uses. And they constructed and operated a Montessori school. In May of last year, the property was replatted from one lot into two. The second half being down here and the subject property being rezoned is the northern portion right here. And with the future land use map allowing business office and with the property operating as non-residential for many years and PO operating as a low-intensity use, being compatible with the surrounding area, staff does recommend approval. Here we have the subject property from Ranchview Drive. And then across the other way as it is double fronted from ranch trail This is to the north which is mostly just a utility easements to the east To the south the that being the southern portion of the property that was plotted away and to the west Any questions No, thank you very much.

Oh

I did make a comment with this case that the fire hydrant is on the opposite, on the other lot now, and I have not been able to find an agreement for the fire hydrant to be used for this property. So I made that comment in the case and have not heard back.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Is that a zoning concern or more of just a development standard concern? It's a building permit concern.

They'll take care of that, a building permit.

Yeah. And I believe the applicant is aware and they are trying to reach out to you. Okay. Sorry, that connection hasn't been made, but yeah.

Good feedback. Thank you.

Any other comments?

No, sir. All right. Haley, for case 2026-200-CP, and it's also in conjunction with a second case, zoning 2026-173-ZC. All righty.

All right, so this is located at 3915 Walnut Hill Lane. The current future land use is manufacturing warehouse. They're wanting to change it to local commercial. Staff recommendation is approval. In terms of public comments, there was none in opposition or support. The subject property, future land use, so that manufacturing warehouse, surrounding zoning, or notification map, sorry, surrounding zoning, Another aerial and then kind of going into the companion case. So that 2026 173 currently the zoning is SP two for commercial warehouse and the state highway 161 overlay. They're wanting to rezone to another site plan zoning for neighborhood commercial and the 161 overlay. They're wanting to allow medical office uses within 200 feet of residential properties and a variance to the parking between the building and Highway 161. After staff review, we recommend approval. In terms of public comments, there was none in support or in opposition for this case either. So the surrounding zoning, so what's kind of interesting about this case, it was in, find it, sorry. There was a case done. I'm so sorry. There's a case done recently. December. December. Yes, sorry. 2023.

Oh, I thought it was 2025.

Oh, it says ZC23. Oh, it probably didn't get, it was probably an older case. So it went through in 2025, but we have the case number is 23. Okay. Sorry. So it was initially kind of more of what they're requesting now. It was like more local commercial, but the, and I believe it's Jim Dewey who he was the, applicant for that case and this case, they're wanting to do warehouses. They were never built. Now, I don't know if it's a new property owner or they just changed their intent, but they're wanting to do more of a office. I can show the... So this is a site plan. So since it's more than two acres, it's a general site plan. They're proposing to have the buildings along here. They said they will meet the base district of the CN. It's just the 161 variances. So they wanna have most of their parking here. They have some on the side here, but since it is kind of a weird shaped side, it's a triangle. They're wanting to put most of their parking up on the side of the site, so the west side. And then also because of the use that they're doing, because it's in the sub-district, it has that requirement that it has to be 200 feet from residential. Well, property line to property line, they share property line, so that's another variance. So kind of what I showed here. So the parking, instead of having a 25% max, they're wanting to do an 80% max, so a 55% difference. And then, of course, they want it to be zero feet from property line. So this is subject property. So this is southwest. So this is still the subject property, and this is where the highway goes. And this is east, so that's where that zero lot line home development is. And this is south. So as you can see, it's not, it hasn't been developed, but it is actually zoned for mixed use. So we, as staff, after reviewing, we believe since it's a less intense use than the commercial warehouse, it's maybe a little bit more appropriate what's going on because you have the Hopefully mixed use to the south eventually you have the highway, but then we think it's a good buffer buffer between The highway and then the residential that's to the to the east I'm open to any comments or questions You said that it requires a variance because it'll be within 200 feet of residential because our medical use and Yeah, for the medical or dental offices. For some reason in the chart under the 161 overlay, it has that buffer.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering. What's the purpose of that buffer?

That might be more of a Dawson question, more context.

Yeah, no, I don't even have the context. Yeah, I don't know. I know that 161, the overlay was intended to be, you know, create more of an office environment, you know, like just literally a business office environment. So maybe having the medical and dental issues didn't provide for the taller office building. So I'm not quite, I'm just guessing. But maybe it was a little different than what they imagined for that area.

That's all I can assume. And for this, how tall could it get?

In CN, the CN base? I believe it's 45 feet, if I'm correct.

We can double check. I don't know if the overlay has any restrictions on building height. I'm sure it does, but...

It should just be a one-story, though, I imagine.

That's what they're proposing. It's just like a one-story, yeah. Okay, thanks.

All right. Thank you, Haley. Tanner, you have the last case this evening, 2026-175ZC.

Hello again. We are looking at 2026175ZC at 3009 West Pioneer Drive. They are looking to rezone from SP1 detailed site plan for veterinary hospital including overnight keeping of animals to just simple base zoning of CN neighborhood commercial. Staff recommends approval and we have one comment in opposition. Here we have the aerial map. We have the future land use map showing the area as business office, which does allow for CN with more business office to the east and south. Here we have the notification boundary and the one comment of opposition that came in didn't have any details attached to it, but it is property number one right here to the north. Here we have the surrounding zoning, CN to the east and south, R6 to the west and north, I believe. Subject property from the front to the east, to the west we have a cemetery here, and more commercial to the south. Let's go back there. The subject property, Previously, it was a veterinary clinic for several decades, and they're proposing to remodel it to operate a spa that provides non-medical beauty and personal care services. with the CN category fitting under business office in the future land use districts, as well as simply eliminating that very exclusive use of just veterinary office in that site plan to more flexible use of the property and it being a relatively low intensity use next to that residential, staff does recommend approval. Any comments?

Thank you. We'll move on to our last item, 2026-160 UDC for short-term rentals by conditional use permits. Yes.

So this is a request from the City Council earlier this year. We've been doing it in tandem with Code Compliance. So Shane Diller, who's our Code Compliance Director, is here. So most of these questions I'll be deferring to him. The CUP is the easy part. The registration is the hard part. So, Council had requested that part of the regulation of short-term rentals that we required them to be regulated or permitted by a conditional use permit. So, this again, they asked us in January to start looking at it and prepare those additional regulations. So currently the short-term rentals are allowed by right in residential units as long as they're registered with the city. The city does receive complaints sometimes, and Shane can explain what some of those are and the regulations he had created in order to try to address some of those. They did amendments in 22. He did a few more amendments in 25, and then he'll probably be scrubbing a few more amendments this year just to make the regulations for registration as tight as they need to be. So our proposed amendments through the Unified Development Code is to require short-term rentals as a conditional use permit in most residential districts. And I say most because they're allowed still by right in multifamily districts. So we'd be amending the residential use chart and all the individual residential districts to reflect the requirement that a short-term rental would be required by conditional use permit They would be allowed by right in multifamily units. And again, all of these have to be registered. And also amend the non-residential use chart and the individual districts for the CN and CC to show that they are allowed by right since they are essentially a lodging use. And they would also be adding the definition of short-term rental. And that definition will match what we, again, already have in the other codes. So if we have existing short-term rentals They'll be considered legal non-conforming as long as they were legal when they started and they were registered with the city So just because if somebody comes in and says well I've been operating this if they weren't registered with the city Then we wouldn't have known they were out there. We couldn't have started the understanding of being legal non-conforming Any of them that are legal would be able to continue indefinitely as long as there are no violations in their compliance with all the requirements and their registration remains current. Any short-term rentals that begin after the effective date of the ordinance or if they cease operations, either get their registration withdrawn or they choose to stop or somebody stops and somebody else picks it up, that will trigger the conditional use permit requirement. We show you this because every time we have to do something. This was actually a really big one. We had sent notices, and y'all should have all, if you're a property owner, should have all gotten a postcard. We sent about a little over 56,000. So it was a big haul for both my staff and for the mailroom. And so I'll acknowledge Claudia, who scrubbed all of these looking for duplicates, and it was many days' worth of work to get those rolls complete. Every one of those postcards, as y'all saw, we had to put this phrase below. We did have a couple people that were a little alarmed by that phrase, and our answer was, this is what State Law tells us we have to do. But it's intended to be alarming. Um, so the notification requirement, as we said, they're, they're currently allowed by right with registration, which meant that if we had single family uses, the single family homes that were operating the short term rentals, this would have made them, they are legal nonconforming as we just said a second ago. Um, so that's what the, what triggered the mail out. Um, so we sent them to all the business, all the property owners, any tenants and owners of business personal property. Um, we started emailing or mailing them around June 9th. It took a couple of weeks to get those out, but we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time. Um, as you saw, you had basic information, QR code, and, uh, we had a decent amount of hits. We had a lot of people in Euclid. I can very well tell you that her phone was ringing pretty much consistently once those postcards went out. So we're estimating, I had 900-something in your report, but as I was working with our web people, they said, no, no, the 1700 number is a little more accurate, which tells me that people are wanting to find the information. The web pages are really helpful where they can go do it themselves without having to pick up the phone. We just had the three emails and y'all have those at your places and I just got one shortly before the meeting today and about approximately 80 calls and visits either to our staff upstairs on the second floor or here downstairs at the main desk. Most people were questioning if they could get their property. And they said, I'm either doing a long-term rental or I've got family living with me or just in general, is this going to affect me? And we said, if you're not running a short-term rental or you don't plan to run a short-term rental, then it doesn't affect you. And we had a couple people say they are operating or intend to operate. We had one, I guess, just this morning that realized that she needed to register, so she went over and registered. And then we had just a couple, and one of those was your email, that said they were opposed to requiring the conditional use permit because that's their property rights and worries about devaluation. So these are things that we've been doing the last few months. Of course, today, getting the recommendation from P&Z, and then this will go to city council on July 30th. I'll be happy to answer your questions.

This will probably be a Shane question, but how many short-term rentals do we have that are registered now in the city?

Shane, you should have already been on your way up. I'm just going to turn it over to you.

Good evening. Shane Diller, Code Enforcement Director. As of today, we have 196 short-term rentals registered. The vast majority of those are in our single-family homes. We do have about six that are registered in apartments.

And by passing this ordinance and putting into effect, how many do you predict will register?

We work with a company called Lodging Revs that searches the internet. And we anticipate that through this ordinance here, we won't really have a change in registration per se. Through our other investigative efforts and things that we're putting in place now, we anticipate that there may be as many as 350 or so STRs operating the city. Most of those that are currently unknown and unregistered are in the apartment complexes.

Do the ones that are in single-family homes, are they sort of grouped in any particular part of the city?

No, not particularly. There's actually a fairly wide swath of them citywide, so there's not a particular area. It's one of the things when we were looking at regulations, we were trying to determine whether or not we had sort of a zone or an area that we could look to, and we don't really. They're fairly widespread.

But you said that in regards to the ones that are in multifamily, it sounded like you anticipate there's actually... most of them are really in multifamily even though they're not registered?

Yeah, what we're learning is that the ones that are not registered in multifamily, they're harder to pin down for the company that's involved because of the way they identify properties and for us because you don't have the information that's provided on the ad like you do for a single family home. They're easier to identify through various open records means that are on the internet. So the ones that have chosen not to register and that we're going to go pursue are the ones that are in the multifamily properties. The system that we work with, the company that we work with that has this system, has been very good about finding the ones in single-family homes. So we very rarely come across one there that is not either on our radars when we're pursuing or has not registered. So the unknown currently are in the multifamily. This CUP proposal wouldn't impact their ability to register.

Do the multifamily, do they tend to be located in particular geographical areas, or are they spread out as well?

They're also spread out fairly broadly.

How is this ordinance, if we pass it, going to help us with split pads or pad splits, whichever way you say it?

Yeah, so this ordinance here won't specifically impact the pad split business model as far as the website pad splits goes. If, in fact, any of the properties advertised on pad splits are offering their rental for less than 30 days, they're already required to register and already – in a mode where we're pursuing trying to identify those, which again are a little harder the way they advertise there. Also, we find that many that are advertised through that business model particularly are rented for longer than 30 days, meaning that they don't qualify as short-term rentals. They qualify as other properties that we have zoning regulations to address.

I have been through the internet and looked, and there's people renting out their couches for $40 a night.

Yes.

So, I mean, in all reality, how's this going to stop some of that? Are we going to get any, is it going to help? I mean, as far as dealing with the multifamily? That's where I'm seeing a lot of it because a lot of them are getting away with it in a multifamily type situation.

What we're talking about tonight won't impact the multifamily situation there. Some of the other things that we're coming online with with changes in Chapter 8 and with staffing tweaks that we're pursuing for later in the year will provide a greater investigative effort. to look into those and to chase those down and to work with the lodging rest company that does the online searching. This CUP requirement only applies to the single-family homes. We don't anticipate, we'll do much more than require people coming online in the future to have to go through the process with planning to seek specific approval and possible conditions related to their short-term rental before operating.

Do the STR... requirements require them to do any kind of background checks or anything on anybody to keep neighbors from having a sex offender or somebody on parole or Somebody on bond.

Right.

Running a halfway house, basically.

Right, yeah. None of our ordinances require a property to do a background check for the guests or to confirm whether they're in a category like any of you mentioned. That's nothing that is in our ordinance currently. Our ordinance puts the onus on the property owner and the host companies, Airbnb, VRBO, PassFit, these companies that go through processes to try to check and screen and monitor their guests and their hosts.

My only concern is, I mean, I think it's a great idea. I just think we need a little more teeth to it because, I mean, if your house, for instance, where you're living, if the neighbor decides to do this, it's your house, and next thing you know, you've got sex offenders living next to you, kids are playing in your front yard, there's a problem. So I can understand the citizens' concerns with having the STR, but we need more teeth to it.

But I agree with you there. We're constantly looking at, and why we've updated this ordinance each year, we're constantly looking at things that will pass legal muster and that we'd be able to practically enforce to add to the ordinance. That's why we've added regulations in 23 and 25 and now in 26 to continue to strengthen that. That particular angle is not one that we found. It hasn't made it into any of our versions quite yet. It would be, though, if the conditional use permit requirement were adopted it would be something conceivably that provided it passed legal muster and was able to do that the council when approving a possible conditional use permit would be able to require of an operator Again, the conditional use permit allows the council to add specific regulations based on the circumstances involved there. And so it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility that it could be their condition that would be applied or even a standing condition as part of packages that would go before the council when something were considered.

Question for legal. Is council able to do that? put that requirement on using the conditional use permit?

That's something that we haven't looked at at this time. I mean, right now, we've got the Chapter 8 regulations that Shane is speaking about, whether that would be something that would be a zoning concern or more of the registration. We just have not looked at that, so it's not something that I can opine on at this point.

Okay.

How many single-family... SCRs, did you say you think there are in the city right now?

Right now, about 191.

That doesn't seem like very many. But what's then sort of the purpose of largely prohibiting any more?

Well, the... The council has expressed a concern that they do not want the neighborhoods filling up with short-term rentals or with other non-traditional residential uses. They want to keep the integrity and the character of the neighborhoods. So by placing a conditional use permit requirement in place, it would give the city greater discretion in allowing new ones to come online and to operate as to where they are. Currently, one of the... One of the requirements we adopted earlier in this year was a density restriction so that now you cannot obtain a registration from the department to operate a short-term rental if more than 10% of the homes on your block are already a short-term rental in order to, again, try to keep them at a minimum. So this is just an additional layer to ensure that the... The number of short-term rentals that we're encountering specifically in the single-family zoning doesn't balloon.

But at this point, we aren't seeing concentrations in any neighborhood. It sounded like you said they're pretty spread out throughout the city.

They're fairly spread out. There's only a handful of locations in the city where we have more than one in a block or more than are meeting that density request. I can tell you that since it was adopted, we have denied two requests for short-term rental registrations based on the density regulation. So the possibility of it occurring is certainly there.

So, Shane, is it also that you – what was the number again, 189?

Right now we have 196 total.

196 that have registered. That have registered. There's probably a lot more out there that's operating that have not registered.

Especially in the multifamily.

Yes, ma'am. You said, but not in the single family.

Not in the single family. We feel fairly confident that we have a handle on what's in the single family. It's rare that we run across one of those there that the company we work with has not been able to identify. The majority of the unknown or the known but unlocatable at this point are in the multifamily.

Which this ordinance isn't changing.

This ordinance would not require C.O.P. and the Mudlock family.

Yeah. So that market is still freely open would be with this change. And you'd still have the problems of the difficulties with enforcement.

Certainly, yes.

With that.

There is a map that Shane's department provided if you all want to pass it around the little red dots or the 196 that are around the city so you just pass it down and Send it down the side when you see it Gerald Yes, can you tell us I mean just a

Looking more at the data, to be able to make a better informed decision on this, can you tell us about how many complaints do you all get for short-term rentals? For example, maybe in the last two or three years, if you're able to tell us per year.

I can tell you in the last year, we've had 46 complaints at short-term rentals.

In the last year, you mean the last 12 months? The last 12 months, yes. 46? 46, yes.

And over the course of the program since 2022, we've run some large numbers. And those numbers are just with code enforcement. The police department's numbers for the last year I don't have specifically. But I know that in aggregate we've looked at this. And over the course of the program since October 2022, we received complaints either into the police department or code enforcement on about one-third of the short-term rental properties that we have in the city. Almost all of those were in the single-family short-term rentals. And about 21% of those received more than one complaint over the course of that time.

Now, going back, you said like the last 12 months about 46 complaints for short-term rentals. Yes. How many complaints did you all receive in general?

In the code enforcement? Yes. I'm ballparking because I don't have the specific number in front of me, but I remember my KPIs that I did here recently. And I think we had roughly about 8,000 code cases. The 85% or so of those. are proactive, meaning we work them. So I can't do math great in my head. I wouldn't have gone into public administration if I was good at math. And so I don't know what the difference is there. But the total number of cases the code enforcement department worked in the property standards section, which would be the single family home area like we're talking about, was roughly about 7,000 in that time. And 85% of those was proactive. So the remainder of that would be reactive. meeting complaints.

So this is just, I mean, just a fraction, just not even the, I don't know what number, actually, percentage-wise. Somebody know it. I mean, what's that? I mean, that's just even maybe a small percent.

Absolutely.

And we're addressing a policy based on a less than maybe, way less than actually 1%. of complaints. And so I'm trying to kind of determine if are we really trying to address a problem, is this really a land use problem or maybe a user and operator problem that a court enforcement can maybe address better than through planning and zoning and through a CUP. Sure. Now, what are the type the five top complaints that you receive in general.

In general? At short-term rentals or in general?

No, in general.

In general? The top five are high grass and weeds is always our number one. What is that? High grass and weeds. Weeds are grass in a yard over 10 inches. Trash out early. People placing the trash out in front of their home before the time's allowed by the code for trash collection. Junk motor vehicles, broken down vehicles in driveways. And then density, meaning too many people living in a home, is one of our top violations.

Okay. So that's probably more of the maybe long-term rentals.

Those actually, with the exception of the junk motor vehicles, those all track with the short-term rentals as well. Those are also the complaints. The one that we get for the short-term rentals that we don't get for most homes is noise complaints. Noise complaints are one of the most common things that the police department gets related to short-term rentals, and it's not a complaint that we get at long-term rentals or owner-occupied properties.

Now, you mentioned there were 196 short-term rentals registered with the City of Irving. How many of those before the World Cup? How many did you all have before the World Cup?

We went into February with about 155. And then we had that increase come in after February, which we looked at possibly tying to people going online related to the World Cup. We stayed fairly steady at between 150 and 170 short-term rentals since the beginning of the program started in October 22. The spike that we've seen up to close to 200 has occurred just in this spring.

Since now that we have... more sort of rentals, the World Cup going on. How's been the complaints? Have there been any main issues, real issues going on? Since now you have a lot of international people coming, they don't care. I get arrested, hey, it's fine, nobody knows, back in home. What's been the issue?

The complaints have not increased or decreased. They've been about the same. I can also tell you that we have a staff of between three and five code enforcement officers out each day or night that there is a FIFA match to specifically look at the short-term rentals that we have and see if there are house parties, disturbances, those sorts of things. And we haven't found anything in the disturbance realm at all. We found a few cases here for, again, our top five stuff. Some of the properties have high grass and weeds or trashed out earlier.

Right. What about criminal activity?

You'd have to check with the police department specifically about criminal activity. That's not something that code enforcement gets too terribly deep into. And so I don't, I couldn't want to, I wouldn't want to speak off the cuff as to what they've experienced related to criminal activity.

Thank you. Probably for Jocelyn. And I don't know, I have never filed a CUP. What is that CUP-like process, I mean, for somebody who will be going through this? And I don't have any short-term rentals. I just want to make that clear. I'm just wondering what is that like for the regular citizen?

It's a zoning process. It's the exact same. So the deadlines will be the same as our zoning deadlines. They'll submit an application through our permit system. We will process it. We'll do the reporting. We'll do our notifications. It will go to you, go to the Planning and Zoning Commission for recommendation, and then we'll go to City Council a few weeks later for their consideration.

What's the cost? It should be probably about $850. What's the criteria we're going to have to follow here at Planning and Zoning to determine if a CUP for short term rentals is going to be accepted or denied?

We'll give you those criteria. Usually it's just the specific area. That's what a conditional use permit is for, is to determine whether that use is okay in that location. So we'll look at parking. There's a parking requirement in the registration process anyway, but we'll just You know, part of the public hearing process is understanding, are the neighbors okay with it? And so that will be definitely one of the considerations. You can consider time. You can, you know, consider, I mean, just there's a conditional use permit has all kinds of criteria that you can put on it, similar to an SP. It just has that aspect of time.

In regards to the cost associated with it, is it common for a CUP process for people to be hiring some sort of outside representative to assist them with that?

Not particularly.

Okay, so it's pretty normal for spenders to go through that on their own?

Yes, and we help them through. I mean, they don't have to hire somebody.

I'd just like to make something else I noticed on the ordinance. I mean, just, I don't know how I felt about it, It is in the best interest of the public and in support of the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the citizens that the zoning ordinance be amended. I mean, I don't believe this is a criminal activity going on, and it just sounds a little bit more, I don't know how I feel about that.

That's your call. I mean, that's definitely someone's opinion.

So if we pass this and move it to council, basically what we're doing is we're giving code enforcement more teeth, basically, to regulate and protect the quality of life of our citizens in neighborhoods and to restrict the density of these things coming in. Pretty much correct?

Yeah, this is an additional tool that would ensure that before one goes into a single family home, that it receives additional scrutiny, specifically from a land use perspective, and has the possibility of the council placing specific conditions or operating standards on it that are designed to meet whatever fact pattern is occurring in that application.

Or, and by doing the CEP, correct me if I'm wrong, Jocelyn, if they're doing something that's in violation repetitively, like you said, you keep getting complaints, 20% of them have gotten complaints, more than one, by doing that repetitively, Do we have a trigger point that we can go back? I know we can go back in front of council or you can and request that their permit be pulled for noncompliance.

Yes, noncompliance, there's not a specific trigger for in the CUP realm. The code itself has some language that I can revoke under the registration system. I can revoke a registration for a short-term rental if it has three violations that are substantiated within a year. the conditional use permit can be tighter than that so that either based on the conditions that are applied or just in a general situation where something seriously egregious has occurred, we could bring back a particular property for consideration of revoking the conditional use permit, which would also result in the revocation of the registration.

So by implementing this tool, we can actually tighten everything up a lot more than what we have now by our current ordinances?

Yes, sir.

Shane, I just have a few questions which we chatted about earlier, but I wanted everybody to hear the answers. The registration process covers quite a bit of the questions that I have, but I want to be sure everybody hears this. So can legally non-conforming status be sold when the houses change hands, when the owners change?

The conditional use permit can run with the property unless there's a condition placed on it that's separate from that. But the registration, our Chapter 8 requirements, require that the short-term rental operator, that that ends with the owner and that a new owner or a new operator of the short-term rental would need to apply for a fresh registration.

New registration and a CUP at that point. So it doesn't transfer.

At that point, yes. If there's a CUP that's required and there's new ownership registration required, those are tied together.

Okay. What constitutes when you stop this as a permitted use? So in other words, you know, does it stop the day the property is sold? Does it stop the day the registration ends and is not renewed? You know, what time period?

From a registration standpoint, the registration has an expiration date on it, and once it expires, it ceases that day. If a conditional use permit is granted additional time beyond that, but the registration expired, the STR has to stop until a new registration would be obtained. The CUP wouldn't give the registration any extension there. The registration would cease the day the registration permit, if you will, expires.

So you don't want to tie the date of the CUP expiration to the date of registration because of the expense and the effort to go back and get a CUP again?

I have not made a specific recommendation there one way or the other. I think that that's something that when you look at drafting conditions for conditional use permits, there may not be a specific recommendation. one-size-fits-all formula there. There may be some that based on their location or circumstances, a council wants to place a very tight restriction on, in which case they may condition it, I'm going to glance at my lawyer real quick, that it runs with the registration and cannot extend beyond registration. That may be a standard condition maybe that's applied to any of them that might be approved. or you could have one where it runs a longer period of time and the registration is what annually would need to be renewed with our department and refreshed.

My question is that, and this might be for Jocelyn or legal, I don't know which one, but why can't we have the CUP, they don't necessarily got to come back in front of us, but their CUP renews with the registration. And the registration, if they lose their registration or their registration is pulled at that point, because it don't make any sense if your registration is gone and you still have the CUP. They just bring in somebody else, put somebody else's name on it and move forward.

One of the reasons why we haven't gotten to the specifics with this discussion here is because the conditional use permit is designed to give the council the ability to draft the conditions. So anything specific that would be tied there would sort of be dictating to the council or tying the hands of the council in regards to what they would want to decide in regards to timing or in regards to the specific circumstances of that application. So it's entirely possible that what you're saying could be conditioned and that the council could decide that as they approve a CUP that they adopt such a condition that they're all locked together and tied together. But as far as hard-coding something into the draft amendment that you have before you, that presumes a number of things that the council would want to decide at the time they're actually looking at a CUP application. Okay.

I'm going to play the devil's advocate, for instance. So if you've got somebody who owns a piece of property, they have registration in the CUP. The CUP goes longer than the registration. They get in trouble. They lose their registration. You pull it. What keeps them from getting their brother to lease the property from them and come down and file a new registration since the CUP is already on the property? And we have the same owners operating even though it's been taken away. from the current owner.

Right. Well, we do have the ability to deny the new registration if we can find that in fact it's a front, if you will, for the current registrant. If in fact we revoke a registration and someone applies for a registration say, with a straw buyer, if you will, to use that term, and we can determine that, the department has the ability to deny the registration. They can appeal that, and it'll go to the Construction Board of Appeals, but that's the tact. If that occurred in our process today, and we have one registration that we have revoked, we have a second one that's on the cusp of it now, if either of those showed up within the year that the code requires they not operate in STR, and try to re-register it right away, and we can prove that there's a close relationship or we feel like it's a straw applicant, if you will, then we can deny that.

Question for Jocelyn. If they are denied registration underneath the CUP, would that automatically bring the CUP to the next council meeting for consideration to be revoked? Would that be a trigger, or how would that work?

We don't have a... There's a revocation process, so it wouldn't be a trigger per se. It's something that if we worked with legal staff and wanted to start that trigger process, we would. So it wouldn't be an automatic trigger. But we would work with legal to determine, is this the appropriate time to start that revocation? Because we didn't put anything... In the conditional use permit process for short-term rentals, unique to short-term rentals, it's just saying follow the short-term rental regulations. The guidelines. Yeah. So as Shane well said, is that if council wants to tie the conditional use permit to a registration, somehow we could. But the way the conditional use permit is set up is there's no automatic revocation, but it could definitely trigger the discussion.

I can tell you that in practice, our plan is that if we're moving forward with something serious enough to revoke a short-term rental and it has a conditional use permit for a short-term rental on it, we would both be revoking the register and we would be at least having discussions with planning and legal in regards to the revocation process and pursuing that. Again, whether or not it's actually revoked would be a call of the issuing body, the city council, but we would not... we would not hesitate to bring a revocation back or a CUP revocation back if in fact we were revoking the registration.

Commissioner, I will add that although we haven't looked at all possibilities of what types of restrictions you can put on it, one of them that you absolutely can put on, that council can put on as a limitation is that it would not be transferable to another business or person. That's straight out of the ordinance as something that they are expressly allowed to do. So if that was a concern on a particular property, as Shane has mentioned, then that would be something permissible.

Would we get a case in front of us? We get the CUP application, and then someone says, I'd like a variance for the density cap. So if you said that you can't have so many short-term rentals within this geographic I don't know. Remind me what you said. Yeah, we have a block face.

Yeah, it's no more than 10% on a block face. Okay. And so one of the things that we would do is code enforcement would screen that first. And we would not... You would not see a CUP application for one that violated the Section 8 density requirement there that we have because you would not be able to approve or recommend approval of a CUP that violated the other ordinance.

So you just stop it right there?

Yes, we would stop it at the initial review if it breached the density limitation.

The 10% rule is not in the Unified Development Code. Therefore, it's not under your jurisdiction. So you could not, just like granting a variance to traffic code, that is not under your jurisdiction. Yeah, it couldn't be a variance.

Okay, great. And then do we require in the registration that these have to be owner-occupied homes? They're not corporate-owned properties or anything of that sort? It has to be a residence requirement.

Yeah, we do not have a residential requirement. We have simply that the owner apply. We do have some that are corporately owned as opposed to individual owned. We do require that they have a local agent. There has to be a physical person within an hour's response time so that if we, the police department, the fire department, need somebody on site, they can respond. We don't have anything that would require it not to be corporate owned or that it be owner-occupied.

And then my final question is we had some feedback on one of the letters today where a resident has already submitted an application. Will she be allowed to proceed with her application without having to do a CEP because she's already in the system, already in the pipeline? Okay. So she would end up in the legally nonconforming system?

Status as long as she's met all the other if they meet all the requirements and they've submitted by now They would most certainly be approved by the time the council the the approval process is not that lengthy And they would be at their registration.

We have removed anybody whose registration is approved prior to the ordinance taking effect would be Would be legal non-conforming so someone from planning will get back to that particular homeowner to clarify all her questions because it's like a three-page letter and

That's the lady that was approved today, was it not? Yes.

Oh. Okay, so that's good. She's actually, yeah, she's working with Shane in code. So if she gets to the point where she needs a conditional use permit, then she'll be coming back to us.

Any other questions? Very good discussion. Any other questions, concerns about STRs? Thank you. Very good. Shane, we really appreciate your staying late to guide us through that. Any further questions on the agenda this evening? Any additions for next meeting? No? Okay, then we are adjourned at 6.50, and we'll see you out in the public hearing room.