Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] Welcome to the planning and zoning work session of Monday, July 14th, 2025. Did anyone sign up to speak on any item listed on the work session agenda?

There does not appear to be anybody signed up to speak. Yes. If they did, they're hiding somewhere. All right. Thank you. All right, then we will move on to the next item. Item number three, Senate Bill 840 update, the city's regulatory response.

Now I'm on. Here you go. Thank you. All right. Good evening, commission. Thank you guys for taking the time out and coming here for our called meeting. Um, I don't know if some of y'all have been watching the council presentations, kind of get an idea for what this presentation is and what this is about. We wanted to make sure that PNZ because you do have a role in the unified development code, the zoning requirements, make sure that you um have a work session first before they're presented to you for um consideration and also give you a little bit of an idea of some of the other things the city is working through. hear from some other departments and be able to answer any questions or ask any questions um so that you kind of see how the city is approaching u this new Senate Bill 840. Excuse me. So the Senate Bill 840 um is a requirement of course that was uh passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, will be effective on September 1. Um it requires that cities accept multif family and mixed use uh residential mixeduse development in most um the non-residential districts. So that includes commercial districts and most of the industrial districts. The only one that does not include is heavy industrial cities cannot require any type of discretionary approval. So we're used to um having site plan zoning, you know, variances through the site plan process. Uh we now have conditional use permits. Uh in order to do multif family, you have to reszone in order to even allow the use. We have the future land use considerations. Um we can no longer require any type of process in order for someone to do the use of either multif family or mixed use that has a residential component to it. So this of course, Senate Bill 840 was

intended to um reduce the barriers uh that cities theoretically had been putting up for residential developments. This is all about increasing the ability for people to build residential uh developments. So, many of the zoning regulations are preempted. Um, and we'll go through some of those uh in a minute, but the it everything has to go straight to building permit. So, again, there there's no authorization process. Um, everything has to they either have to meet the regulations of the building permit or it can't be constructed because again there is no discretionary process. There is no further action by the governing body as the ordinance says or as the statute says. Um, and then there are also additional preemptions on top of what would be prompted for a new building for conversions. So, if you have an office building converting to a a multif family building, there are different studies, especially traffic, uh, different fees. There's things that we cannot impose on a conversion that can maybe be uh required for a new construction. So just a summary of some of the actions that we'll talk about today. Uh the first one is to amend the zoning or the development standards which is m for us majority is chapter 3.13 which is our multif family concept plan. So y'all have seen plenty of those. You've seen the regulations of chapter 3.13 which are very detailed. Get into the open space and the density and the parking. Everything about what would be in a multif family development is in chapter 3.13. So we've gone through and and we're looking at chapter 3.13 to see what we um can enhance um things that we can do in order to create a better quality multif family development um that we are not preempted from doing. We're also looking at amending the building codes

to promote energy efficiency and sustainable construction. So we'll go through through a few of those today. Um Wayne Snell who's our inspections director is here and so he will be here to let you know what he's looking at and also answer any questions. We are looking to amend the land development code to create an adequate public facilities ordinance. I should have put the word public in here. Adequate public facilities ordinance to clarify the procedures and the requirements uh for utility infrastructure. So the the the biggest impact that we see will that will probably be coming forward is on our water and sewer systems because you know y'all especially Debbie you you and Ricky are on the impact fee committee which we're going to get together again tomorrow. Um and we just went through this impact study. We just went through and used our future land use plan and FZA Nichols took that and determined okay this is how much an office uses. This is how much industrial uses. This is how much residential uses. This is how much that our system can handle today. And that is what we plan for. That's what we built for. That's what we funded. And if we don't know where multif family is going, we don't know how to plan for that. We don't know how to build for that. So what this facilities ordinance is going to do is require that um developers have to study and make sure that they can prove and document that we either have the capacity or what they would need to build in order to create that capacity within our system. But the adequate public facilities ordinance is going to be a kind of an umbrella like a coordinating ordinance to say what the developer needs to do and then what codes are going to apply um to their project. And then finally, uh the other departments are going to different departments are going to look at their infrastructure codes to see if there's any amendments we may need to do. and uh whether we do that before September 1st

or not, there may be some tweaks that they might work through and amend some of their codes. So, first off, I'll start with our zoning and development standards. Excuse me. Um you're going to see some references to chapter 218. The Senate Bill 840 is what created these requirements. Of course, everything has to go through a the bill process through each of the legislative sessions, but they're amending a chapter in the local government code. So, we'll refer to 840 for a little while, but it's actually chapter 218 where this is going to live. So, um I want to start using the reference of chapter 218 so we're all familiar with that. So we intend to revise the definitions and add definition of mixed use just to be clear about what a mix what mixeduse is and what is intended when we say the word mixed use and the type of pattern that we uh want to see when we get a mixeduse development. Um mixeduse residential is a term that is in Senate Bill 840 that the state has defined and also heavy industrial use is defined in 840 chapter 218. Also, we would allow we would add mixed uses and allowed use of non-residential land use chart. Uh, still kind of working on how that would fit in because it's not something again that we can regulate through a district. We want to make sure that we acknowledge mixed use and uh the ability to do mixed use. we would establish or create an application process to where the applicant so if someone comes in and submits for building permit they would have a form that they would have to fill out that says I've been through I've done all my adequate public facilities studies I've determined what I would need to um either build or complete or whatever it may need to be I've already gone through all of my processes in order to ensure that the city uh can accommodate my project that I am

proposing So that's just kind of putting a form together and uh having that being part of the building permit process. Um we had been working with uh Fzen Nichols who does our water and our uh facilities studies and uh they recommended this that to be uh create kind of a a proactive emer community engagement process. I thought was a great idea because we can't through the zoning process we send notices to people within 300 feet. We send notices to the neighbor associations. Uh, excuse me. But, um, we I've got a Coke here. Um, we can't require that with this process because there is no formal public input process. Thank you. I appreciate that. So, at least we think that through the building permit process, it would be prudent to let people know when they see something happening where they thought maybe there used to be an office and the office is going to be demolished. They see construction happening and they're like, I wasn't noticed. I didn't know what was going on. There was no sign out front. Um, at least we can let people know what's happening and why it's happening. So, it helps to educate everybody, but also it will um just reduce some of the the unsuredness and then the fear of the unknown and at least let them know why things are are going and what's going to be built. We can give them a a plan of what's going to be built. And finally, uh we would amend our fees, our consolidated fee schedule to make sure that the fees that uh the developers would need to pay for those studies for the review of those studies uh would be able to be accommodated. Um whether we do it in-house or whether we do it with the consultant, we want to make sure that um the fees are are acknowledged. So we'll work through that. So on section 3.13, again, this is the multif family concept plan. We're

creating an applicability section to make sure that it's very clear that it applies to all multif family in mixeduse buildings. That's something we hadn't had before. So, when we've had mixeduse developments, um we've had to go through and create those standards. Y'all seen that several times in just the last couple years, we'd create the standards for mixed use because we we had nothing. We we allowed in the 161 overlay, we allowed mixed use as a as a as a use, but we didn't have any standards. So, this at least applies some of the standards consistent with multif family and mixed use. We do have a good section in um 3.13. It's called review criteria, but it it just gives some nice guidelines as to how things could look and should look. Uh it just it just it's not a requirement section as much as a you know, just giving some good ideas about form. Um so, we're changing that to recommendations and guidelines. We don't want to lose it completely. We think it's got good information. So, we'll be moving that up and renaming it. We have in the multif family concept plan process, we have concept plans and detailed plans. The concept plans are the ones that are discretionary. So, the one those are the ones that go through notice and the mail outs go through P&Z. Uh may have to go to council depending on on whether it has to be reszoned. Um those are discretionary. The detail plan standards are what are imposed or reviewed at the time of building permit. So what I've done is I've compared those two and whatever was in concept plan and not in detail plan, I brought those down. So I kind of beefed up the detail plan section so that when we get to building permit, it'll be very clear um what's discretionary and what's going to be reviewed at the time of building permit. So, uh, those are we're still working through some details, but the the structure is already underway. And then just across the the the

section, we're looking at setting some increased standards for the quality of the resident building experiences. So, we're looking at open space. We're looking at some of the parking. Um, you know, I've got another slide here. um and just just ways to uh make sure that the the quality of the building they're living in is what they expect. So, some of the standards we've been looking at is setting a um minimum height. So, we can't set a maximum height per Senate Bill 840. Um but it doesn't say we can't set a minimum height. So, we've gotten some direction from council to set a minimum height of 10 stories. Here we have something about a 500 foot buffer from single family districts. We're we're relooking at that and maybe instead setting a a transitional height plane uh setting kind of a 45 degree height plane because if we set this 500 foot um then outside of that 500 foot has to be 10 stories but inside wouldn't have to be. And so we want to make sure that we are being more consistent across the city while protecting the residential properties. For open space, we currently have a 30% requirement for uh open space across the gross area of the site and 25% of the call it usable open space. We're relooking at that uh how we may calculate the 30%. Right now, you can count if you have strips along sidewalks or the landscaping along the building, you can count all that toward your open space. But that's not really usable. Your kids can't go out and play in the bushes. So, we're looking at ways to recalculate what open space is and then um determine the percentage of that that would be programmed open space, if that's the word that we use, uh for for the ball courts and playgrounds and things like that. So just kind of reooking at the numbers of the requirements for open space.

And then we do have requirements today for uh children's areas play be it playgrounds or ball fields or something. But we want to also add a requirement for a dog park because a lot of people obviously whether you have kids or not do have dogs and you don't want dogs in the children's area especially people don't clean up after themselves. Um and just make sure that the dog park can be separate from some of the other open space areas in parking. Um the Senate Bill 840 only allows cities to um you know they they have with cities have to allow one space per unit no matter the number of bedrooms. So while we can't regulate the parking count uh we're looking to require that 50% of those parking spaces be covered. So, we can't require a parking garage, the structured parking, and we can't require I I would assume that also means just individual parking garages. Um, but we can require covered parking, and that also adds to the quality of the developments. The the residents in the in the types of developments that we want to have are going to expect to have covered parking. We also in the ordinance uh we allow a 10% maximum of compact spaces. Um we are not going to allow compact spaces in multif family if we're only um if we only potentially have one space per unit. We want all of those spaces to function. So often the compact spaces people will fit into those even though they're not supposed to be a normal space. It's a 9 by 18. Um a compact space is 8 feet by 16 I believe. Um and and it's hard to fit a truck in one of those. So even though they'll try, believe me. And then shared parking. Um in the elsewhere in the ordinance, uh we also allow shared parking within if there's a property within 300 feet. So say you have a church that has excess parking, maybe

they need 30, but they have 50, so they have 20 extra. Um they could fill out a form that allows the the adjacent, you know, be at a restaurant or whatever to to share that parking. they would have to uh notoriize that and then record at the courthouse because it's now it's tied to that property that is using that excess parking because their CL requires that parking. Um we are not allowing that for multif family uses. So again, we already have one space per unit. Uh we want to make sure that that one space per unit is provided on site. If there's excess parking, that's something private they can do. um but it would not be permitted in multif family uses. And then um something else we're considering is the ordinance or the statute does allow for or does define a mixeduse residential property to be at least 65% residential. So alternately we are considering requiring that then it therefore be 35% commercial. So, if you're in a mixeduse building, you have to have at least 35% commercial. So, we're still taking a look at that, but that is something we're considering. So, here I'm going to turn over to Wing. All right. Good evening, commissioners and guests. I'm Wayne Snell, director of inspections. And uh as Jocelyn's mentioned, in building inspections, we're looking at uh putting in some building code standards, a new set of performance standards uh for multifamily and residential mixeduse developments here in the city of Irving. Uh these standards are designed to help our city grow responsibly, protect the infrastructure we have, and create a healthier, more efficient place

to live. The purpose uh multifamily and residential mixeduse developments can have a significant impact on our city's infrastructure, including our utilities, drainage, and transportation. So these proposed standards that we're putting in are aimed to proactively address these impacts by promoting sustainable high-performance building practices that benefit both the residents and the city systems. Uh this uh ordinance that we're proposing or have proposed would apply to all new multifamily residential and mixeduse developments, projects that convert existing buildings to residential use and major reconstruction of existing multifamily and residential mixeduse developments. However, it's important to note that staff's proposal includes a five-year exemption for projects that have already been approved and entitled by the city council and such as those with an improved site plan zoning, multifamily concept plan, to concept plan or detail plan. And that's provided those entitlements were granted prior to the ordinance effective date of August 30th. Routine maintenance, interior remodels, and minor repairs would not trigger these requirements. Some of the key focus areas that uh are in this uh proposed ordinance are saving for are focused on saving energy, creating healthier indoor environments, conserving water, improving roofing and storm water performance, cutting down on construction waste and

pollution, and making it easier to get around and stay safe doing so. And each of these is supported by best practices and national code references with the goal of minimizing impact and maximizing livability. Uh in closing, these standards aren't just about the rules. Uh they're about outcomes. So, they help protect our city's infrastructure, reduce long-term cost, and improve health and safety for residents and support a greener future. And by adopting these performance standards, Irving shows that it's ready to grow with intention, care, and sustainability. Back to you, Jocelyn. So, this expands on what I was discussing earlier about an adequate public facilities ordinance. Most cities put these in their subdivision regulations. Um, we expect that most of the properties that are going to uh that that these new regulations are going to apply to are probably older offices um already on a platted lot and probably will not need to replplat if they're going to develop into multif family. Therefore, the subdivision ordinance wouldn't apply. So, we're looking at uh creating a new chapter in the land development code. That's where all the building codes are and the fencing codes and and all those um so that it would apply to any any uh development that's going to go to building permit. So, would it apply to all new developments and changes of use? So, including multif family and residential. Uh but the water department, it was important to them to make sure that we understood that it needed to apply to data centers because of all of the the water um usage there. Um you know, just basically any type of development. So this is not just a

multif family or a mixeduse amendment. Um it would identify the developer responsibilities. There's a whole list of things that that they would need to do. This is not just a city developer is expected to fulfill their their responsibilities and their requirements as part of this process. It would refer to the health and safety code. So the water code, the traffic code, the storm drainage code and it will clarify that studies have to be completed in order to identify those minimum uh capacity requirements. And then those studies would also identify any improvements that needed to be completed um by the developer in order to expand the system to where it can accommodate their development. Um and then there's again we had mentioned before that there are some studies in mitigation that uh any building conversions cannot we cannot require for those uh those types of uses. So a building conversion like y'all just saw one it was the north oak the OK Conor Ridge property. Uh they were converting proposing to convert a three-story office building to multif family. Um we couldn't require a study. We can't require fees. um we can't require anything more any more parking. So whatever parking was required for the offices is the same parking that would be provided for the multif family. So here I'm going to turn it over to Ashley from water. Good evening. I'm Ashley Weights. I'm engineering manager in the water department. Um so some of the things that um are we're already regulated by TCQ and in chapter 290 of the local government code there's some different requirements up there things about minimum pressure amount of storage pumping capacity all that's defined in TCQ and these developments would have to um come in and be able to meet these requirements with the proposed developments as well.

um some things like our wastewater system. Um there it's just making sure that the wastewater stays within the system. That's the main point and that's under chapter 217. But we have different codes that our stuff falls under. Um the main point of this uh capacity analysis will be to make sure that the requirements verify that this new development is not going to cause impacts on the water or wastewater system um and have detrimental effects downstream. Um, we have water and wastewater master plans. Currently, Frieza Nichols did our last studies for both water and wastewater. And those are very intricate models that take into account every elevated storage tank, ground storage tank, pumping pipes. There's a whole bunch of pieces that come together and work together to build up our system. and it's a model that they're able to put in and model how our system works and what kind of storage capacity we need, um any improvements that are needed. And so all of that comes into account. Um for example, we're building a new ERS elevated storage tank that was approved in the last council meeting. That's a new 2 and a half million gallon tank that's replacing an old one and a half million gallon tank. That capacity was something that was identified in our uh studies that we do and we're building our capital improvements based on these studies. So overall we have to look at what the land use was in our imagine Irving plan and in the planning documents that are current and that's how we have to base our studies. So the land use has very significant impacts on the utilities because something like uh multif family or a data center has much higher water demands than just a regular office building where they've got a couple of bathrooms and toilets. So all of that comes into play. Um we currently have hydraulic models for both water and wastewater um and have master plans for

both of those. So just kind of walk through the capacity evaluation process. Um the trigger of this would be anytime that there is a specific development and it's a change in density. So if the plan that was in place when we did our master plans said it was supposed to be um you know regular office type of uh use. If they come in and propose a data center or something with higher use, then it's definitely going to trigger this and they need to do the study to prove that the density change isn't going to have impacts downstream. And then there's parts of calculations done um for the water and wastewater loads. Like I said, this is a real intricate system where all the pieces have to fit together. It's not a real simple just piece of paper calculation. It's a very involved process to be able to update and truly say whether or not a development has an impact or not. Um some of the things we'll look at is evaluation in each pressure zone. So we have four different pressure zones within the city. They have different needs and different storage and they can all come into play. Um things like the number of gallons per capita day that we expect for each um residential unit. Um and then flows from our existing models. On the wastewater side, some of the things we're looking at is uh peaking factors with wet weather. All of that has to come in and be fed into this model. Um from there, it would go to a study with our consultant um that did our water and wastewater master plans to plug in and to see what the differences are and analyze all of those different pieces to make sure what what the impacts are. Um and then from that they may come back and tell us that there's um capacity that exists for that development or they may come back and say there's some downstream improvements that need to happen in order for that to

come be useful in the city and the developer would then be responsible for any of those downstream impacts. So, if they're triggering a need to for an 8 inch line that they're falling into to go to a 10-inch line, it would be on the developer to um replace that 8 inch line with a 10-inch line to provide that capacity as part of their development. Some of the other things we have to consider is our treated water um from Dallas Water Utilities and our wastewater that's treated by TRA. Those are all contracts that have maximum values of how much can we can get from Dallas and how much we can send to TRA. So part of this analysis will also be seeing if these new developments come in, if they're taking a significant amount of water, like we've had data centers that might potentially come in and the amount of water they're talking about could cause us to have to go back to Dallas and buy more more wholesale water. At that point, it has contractual um obligations and we end up having to go to a higher tier and more cost. That's what we would be looking at to verify that those aren't going to have impacts and financial impacts on the city. Um from there uh Frieza nickels if they were doing the study they would compile all that into a technical memorandum and provide that to the city um along with a recommendation for any downstream improvements um or impacts that this development would have and I'll hand it off to Dan. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, PNZ staff, residents. Dan Vidrol, traffic and transportation director. I have one super flashy slide here. Um, things that have guided us in traffic and transportation and things that have kind of helped us to where we are today in Irving. Uh, back in the 80s is when the first master thoroughfare plan got adopted. It's gone through multiple

revisions. The key to that is it establishes rightaways necessary for development. A theafare plan is a sub plan of a city's master plan of all their zoning, how everything's going to uh go out. So, the road system was built assuming certain land systems were in going to be in place at some point in the future and we're pretty much there today. We do have an access management plan that's been adopted, street lighting and our design manual. Why are these important? The thing is, you're going to introduce, or at least Austin's going to force the inclusion of a spec specific land use, that was never ever envisioned. So, if you're going to change an office building and new residential with it, if you're in Los Kolus, you're not going to have sidewalks. So, now they're going to come to the council and say, "I want sidewalks. I want a bike path. I want this. I want that." So the whole structure of how your government's set up, the whole structure of what needs libraries, other city services are envisioned differently. Uh I I think it's really going to be interesting. Uh they're going to certainly if you only have to have one space per unit regardless of the amount of bedrooms, uh on street parking, we don't have to allow that. So it's going to be real interesting when these developments come in there. So, if everyone wants to come over for the Saturday or Sunday football game or baseball game, whatever is important to you, I don't know where your friends are going to park. So, I know earlier Jos talked about off-site parking within 300 ft and all that. I can see that becoming very interesting. Uh certainly, it's going to place uh a huge burden on the traffic department for wanting to walk across streets to go get parking. They may only have to provide one, but that doesn't mean that's what's needed. So, that'll be interesting there. So, um the fair plan and all of our different

access, it's going to be interesting. Um, a lot of it will be set up, it's if it's set up for commercial as opposed to residential. There's other things to think about. You have deliveries. Businesses have deliveries, too. It's not always UPS or, you know, you're you're going to have box trucks. You're going to have bigger things. and other people are going to be immersed in a neighborhood with heavy trucks, heavy industry there. So, the standard of living is going to be really something different. So, we'll manage it the best we can on the traffic side of life. Uh, but certainly the amenities that you all get to enjoy in your neighborhood or your complex that you live in, they certainly have thought about this accessibility and certain just life things that you know, quality of life issues. Someone can be immersed in a neighborhood and and they're not going to have any of that. So I foresee them coming to this group and to the city council asking for relief on that. So there's just very little options would be afforded to staff. It's unfortunate, but certainly you got to have the water and sewer. We're going to have to have the roads. There's going to be different utilities too are going to be necessary. So all of our stuff is online ready to be utilized by these individuals willing to develop these uh developments. But it's it's going to certainly change the way business is done in the city and services needed and wanted to be provided by a city. So that's all I have. pretty short and sweet. Thank you.

Thank you.

Evening commissioners. My name is Walt Thomas. I'm the city engineer and I was going to just go through some of the points here on the storm drainage. Uh currently just overall we are underway with a drainage master plan for the whole city. Uh that's a we've been doing it for uh a year and we we're trying to wrap that up uh in this next coming year. And with that storm uh drainage master plan, we also are creating a storm criteria uh design criteria for uh storms. So we're going to have that available. We're creating that with this master plan. So, right now we have a a drainage ordinance and we're break taking that drainage ordinance and putting into a manual and we'll have that online uh soon and that uh the developers can uh draw on uh to go through the bullet points here. Uh the the storm the city's storm water criteria uh as as I said is defined. We we do have a drainage ordinance now. Uh and what we you go through that ordinance. There's a study to see if there's the adequate drainage uh structure and then um establish uh any mitigation that's required. So that's the drain improvements or on-site detention. Uh just just out of uh just for your reference uh the uh the area up north in the uh Los Kolinus area, those are uh all designed to a fully developed

uh drainage system. So that's why there's uh very few if any uh detention up in uh in that area. So that was a pre-master plan where we're going to have some of the most of the problems are here in the south part of the city with on onsite detention required because we just don't have the adequate uh storm system down here. Uh the uh bullet point number two clarify uh the downstream assessment. So when uh the developer comes in and and a certain uh they're looking at a certain area, what we are what we ask is that they define or they assess what the drainage uh will be. So um there's the the preconstruction post construction runoff. So if they're increasing the imperous area that will increase the runoff. So, that will determine if there's going to be an on-site detention or not. Uh, bullet point number three there, uh, revise the ordinance and procedures or adopt a new, uh, drain, uh, grading permit. So, right now, a lot of our review is based on when it come, we look at that drainage. We see if there's a a drainage easement or any of those hundredyear drainage areas uh flood plane areas. Uh but if uh they're coming in and don't have to plat, we need a trigger to require review by the by the city. And that's why we're talking about maybe adopting a new grading permit that's required to

trigger our review of um this development or any developments such as the mixed use. And then uh also considering um adding low impact design requirements in in the design uh such as lands uh landscape islands and within parking lots, sidewalks for storm water quality. So our again our drainage ordinance is based on Icewim which is a a pretty good uh program that the uh netcog uh has and uh part of that our ordinance requires a water quality uh assessment. So, there's there's quite a few things that we have in place, but we're we're we're going to be adding more uh to um our review and also adding more online for the developers to um to use and uh for our for the staff to review. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Jocelyn.

All right. Okay. So, just in closing, we wanted to show you the timeline and of course we'll turn it over to you for questions and everybody is here uh available to answer your questions. So, last Thursday on July 10th, uh we did this presentation at city council. There was also a public hearing posted for the building code amendments. Uh the building code amendments uh public hearing was held this afternoon. So, that has been completed. We're of course now at PNZ work session this uh Saturday. The notice will be published in the Rambler for the unified development code amendments. That has to be done significantly far ahead because of the Rambler schedule. On July 31st, city council uh will consider and hopefully adopt the building code amendments. Uh you will see the unified development code amendments on August 4th. So that's our regular um PNZ meeting. Then August 28th um is the main uh meeting in August. The only other meeting in August is a budget meeting for the city council. And they'll adopt the unified development code amendments, the adequate public facilities ordinance, and potentially any other codes as necessary. Uh August 30th is the potential or the effective date of the building codes. There's a 30-day time limit for that. So, um that's why it was so important for them to get the building codes moving forward because of that time window. And of course, the statute takes effect on September 1st. So this is a very abbreviated schedule. So with that, I will turn it over to the chair and open it up to y'all for questions.

Great. Thank you. All right. It's a chance to ask questions. Commissioner, so uh just uh one uh specific question. So for example, you mentioned the um Okconor example where there's a building conversion. Um I I recall that was within a pud district and so one of the challenges there was also I think that we'd already reached the limit of multif family that was uh permitted in that pud. So do pud restrictions on multif family affect this or or those be like overridden or preempted?

So the easy answer to that is no. PUD restrictions will not apply because pud is zoning. Um, the Lost Cleaners Association of course is a private organization just like Valley Ranch. Those are all private deed restrictions. However, they have their own allowances and some of their supplemental declar declarations may allow multif family and they may not. If they don't allow multif family, LCA has their process be it uh whether the declarant can allow it just you know administratively they have an election process. So they have a process that they would go through anyway in order to allow that use. So there there is a different level of scrutiny when it comes to LCA um that may or may not affect any of these projects. Um, but to answer your question, PUD is a zoning district and that would not change uh whether we could allow or disallow these.

Mr. Mayas, will you expand a bit on the like parking regulations you mentioned uh with similarly that it would they would not be required. Would you just touch on that a little bit? Well, the bill Senate Bill 840 only allows us to we can't require any more than one space per unit. That's for new construction or for for new construction. Yeah. For for conversions, we can't require any more than what's on the site. So, if they parked for office and that is not one space per unit, we cannot require any more spaces. So um no more than what would have been required for the commercial use. Correct.

Okay. So I mean like that particular they had already torn down their parking. So I would presume they no longer have enough parking for commercial even. I would expect for that one that we would have looked at what they had for the commercial. I mean te having to tear down a a crumbling parking garage was kind of an extenduating circumstance. No. But whatever they had on site for that office is likely what we would have applied to any type of conversion. But no more. No more. Oh wow.

So then touching back on Sorry, April. Um touching on to traffic in that sense say they would need to start I mean they would just kind of be like if it was approved kind of thing park in the street like how you had mentioned. Can can I just make one comment here? General questions we can probably answer. I think we're still reviewing this statute as it comes along. When it turns to applicability and a specific applicability and there may be a legal analysis that we have to continue to go through. Um we we probably don't want to get ahead of our skis on some of that stuff. like Okconor Ridge and whether or not, you know, the parking would be met with or without the garage. I I think it's an interesting question, but I I would want to reserve our ability to consult with our city attorney's office because this is all new.

This is all new landscape. This is an unprecedented preeemption. Um, in my 30 years of public service, the state's never done anything like this. this is kind of upending the whole concept of municipal authority as it comes to land use regulations in a pretty significant way. So when it comes to like a specific case specific what will the city allow we probably don't want to get too far ahead Carolyn if I'm getting the nod on that. Well, but general questions I think we can answer just the the case specific ones that we'd want to

but the the what I was trying to clarify was it's it's a question of what that type of commercial use would have been required to have in terms of parking as a large amount of legislation as I'm sure you can understand commissioner um it's a bit vague. Okay. And so, as um assistant city manager Sanders said, we are continuing to evaluate the bill. We're looking at the words on the page compared to possible legislative intent. We're looking at the facts of the particular development. So, I'm going to give you the lawyer's answer of it depends.

Okay. Uh I had a question. Commissioner. So Justin, back to back to uh the question that Josh had asked and you were saying that the associations in Valley Ranch and Los Kalenus, do they really have any say over this bill? Because the way I read it, it was like nobody can stop them from developing that commercial property. The bill doesn't I forgot what the language is exactly, doesn't apply to private deed restrictions. So that's where LCA would come in. They're not a governmental entity, right? So if they when you say private deed, if they own that property,

no, they all of LCA is a private deed restriction. Everybody when they buy and they pay a fee into LCA. Um so LCA has their own regulations that are separate from the city. So they LCA has the right to enforce their own regulations, but that's if every commercial property over there is a part of LCA. Whoever's part of LCA. Yeah. Yeah. But not as those who aren't. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. They wouldn't presumably wouldn't have authority over those who aren't.

Um I I was curious. Uh it looked to me like it it did allow for height restrictions in certain cases in the statute. So I I um that seemed to me. So it allows for the height of the district or 45 ft whichever is greater. Yeah.

So most I was looking at it this afternoon and most of our districts we have one I think it's like CW commercial warehouse that's two and a half stories. The rest of them are a half the distance to our an our district a residential district. So it would vary based on the property as to what the actual minimum height is, but the 45 feet is kind of what we're what we're it's kind of our our point that we're understanding that we can never go below 45 ft.

Okay. But uh do we I mean is that already in place then? Like I was I was it sounded like we were saying if you were 500 feet from a residential you had to build 10 stories or above. That that's we can't set a minimum and we can't set a maximum. We can set a minimum though. But we can set a maximum of 45 ft. No, that we can have a a maximum a height a building height restriction of not greater than 45 ft. I mean, Mr. Chairman,

yeah, you you can you can set a maximum height the greater of the district or 45 ft. Yes. What the proposal is is to set a minimum height. In other words, a build two height. The idea being that um taller structures are higher quality structures. Okay, that wasn't the way it had been presented in the presentation. The way it was described in the slide was that that we couldn't put a height restriction and that I wasn't understanding it.

You are you are barred from in in in certain cases from setting a maximum height. There's nothing that bars you from establishing a minimum height. And that's one of the proposals that we're looking at. But we can set a maximum height. We just would have to fit the requirements that are in 840

subject to 840. Yeah, 840 does allow maximum heights. It's just basically 45 feet is the maximum height requirement that we could put in put in place. I mean, so like you were talking about the the one the properties that are within 500 ft under the current draft on the slide, there's not any minimum requirement. But, you know, really I I'm more interested in the the height requ the height limit than the minimum requirement. I I get the point about it being taller and being a better quality structure, but even the thought of a 10story building 500 ft from my house, I can't say that is ideal. I'd be more interested in the 45 foot limit. uh that that the statute seems to allow for. So that that's why

yeah establishing a minimum height within some proximity of single family is one of the strategies that we're looking at because um multifamily structures of a certain height tend to be higher quality. The the standard of construction changes um and it's a higher quality multifamily product. So that's the thinking behind that something we're looking at. That's something council asked us to look at and it's certainly something we're reviewing to see where that would be appropriate.

So, does the bill today allow for that? Because it seemed like it was I mean I know it's pretty vague, but it's kind of like take the commercial property and build multif family. That's essentially what it says. But but it does allow us to have put a 45 foot height restriction. I mean, I can understand if they decide not to do that because they want to get a better quality product when it gets built, but but it does allow for 45 foot height restriction. It does allow for saying that it's not effectively going to be what more than that'd be about four stories. And if it's close to other residential, I I could see a real

and there are some So again, the height in most districts is a half the distance from residential. So it's it's the it's the height of the district or 45 ft, whichever is greater. So there may be some areas which are mostly industrial, mostly office that are significant distance from residential that essentially will have not much of a height limit. So, um, by setting the the minimum is we're making sure that it is at least that tall, but we we can't set a 45 ft maximum because that is going to be greater than the maximum of those districts.

You'd have to change those districts as well. Then if that's if that was Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you look at the freeway district, a lot of the offices that we have are in the freeway district, and those are completely appropriate there. So, yeah.

So, basically, what you're saying is we had uh one case, I don't see which one it was, big office building they wanted to take down, put Flex Warehouse there. They can now take that multi-story building and turn it into residential and leave its existing height. Yeah, I mean we Yeah, we we would look at the height of that property, which could be that existing height, but they would have to follow any regulations that we have in place at the time. Correct. But but we wouldn't have no say on the height since it's already pre-existing. And it's not that the building be pre-existing. We' just be looking at the height of the district.

Okay. So, oh, currently under like if you're building a a new commercial building and it was 500 feet, a new office tower, 500 ft from residential, how high could you build it? Just half the distance is the rule of again most of the district. So, half the distance from residential. So, if it's a 500 ft, it' be a 250 foot maximum. So, you could build it up over 20 stories. Yeah. And 10 stories is about 110 120 ft. Thanks. I don't know that I like that part.

I think I tend to think that should be harder to do. That goes considerably beyond E40. I realize that. I'm a little overwhelmed by all this, but I would like I'm guessing the reason the state developed this regulation is because there's so much growth that's taken place in Texas and they want to be able to accommodate growth. Is that correct? I mean, I I Why else would they take over this? It was a a factor of just the cost of housing and to provide more units in order to hopefully address the cost of Okay, if I could get on my soap box,

I wouldn't mind. Um the the it is baffling. Yeah.

Um why 840 was written the way it was and why it was applicable to only 19 cities. Um the the the concept was well this is an affordable housing issue and a housing supply issue. We just need to overcome local regulations so that we can get more housing production because we're growing so fast. The reality is where all the growth is occurring in Texas which is suburban communities and around large population centers are not affected by 840. They only affected cities over 150,000 and counties with over 300,000. So the areas and the cities where growth is occurring the most, where demand is greatest, were not affected by 840. So it's baffling why they why they did this. Uh I think there was very little thought given to the impacts that this would have on cities that master plan for years and decades and decades around a certain growth pattern. And then to throw that on its head, um, nobody ever came and talked to any cities about how this would affect there. There was very little interest in learning from municipalities how land use planning and infrastructure planning work. Um, it it was uh it was not well thought, but nevertheless, here it is.

Well, and I really appreciate it's clear from all the presentations that everybody really has spent a lot of time trying to understand all of this. um interpret and then how to dovetail into existing plans. So I do have a couple of questions. So I'm guessing um Wayne, I heard Chief Connley last week talk a great deal about EV garages and partitions around EV charging stations. Does that fall into your safety and security? And I was just going to ask three quick questions. One is is the question about the EV safety security as part of your plan. Ashley, I'm guessing waste water um and water in general. Um I know we live in Valley Ranch. Fahad and I both um recognize that in Valley Ranch, we've got an aging community where water has caused some degradation issues for our brick walls, for example. We can't hold developers accountable because they're long gone. So when you talk about detention ponds and um other kinds of factors that affect how do we hold these developers to um you know being responsible developers down the road and and is there a way to mitigate some of that problem that those problems that unintended consequences of this type of building that we may not even have thought of now. Is that a question? I think that's a question. So that's kind of a general statement because all three of you have presented really phenomenal plans about how this affects your areas.

I'll start by taking a stab at it. Uh to begin with, setting very high performance standards is definitely going to help in the event mitigate some of these issues. Okay. So we have our baseline which is a minimum code requirement. These standards are up here. Okay. For these reasons, because we're fixing to put a lot of impact on things that we don't have the infrastructure for. So, we're going to have to hold them to every bit of those minimum standards as well as these higher performance standards uh to help aliate some of that. So, I'll leave I'll I'll leave it like that.

Oh, yes. So on the EV, uh as far as uh what the uh fire department was proposing, that's more of where it's located on the property. While we have it worked in that they're required to have those things, those items are where they can have them. So uh it it is for their safety as well as the safety of the structures. the safety that we have in our uh building code has to do more with personal safety, lighting, and things of that nature.

Well, and I think your question really is probably better suited for Walt because he's storm water. Just talking about the drainage. Unless you want me to talk on your drainage, Walt. I don't know how to in the future with these developments other than hold to our standard and our criteria and and we're looking at at those criteria now and re-evaluating and and tightening those up. Uh the I if it has to do with um detention uh we we we've been really working with developers and what's what's the impact and but get their product in the ground. So we just need to have those uh laid out black and white and then hold them to that same standard across the board. And that's what we're we're looking at now. So that's that's where that's where we are. Uh we as you know we have a pretty robust drainage program right now with our a lot of our our channels where we're essentially creating or building the spine in our drainage throughout the city. So uh those areas that uh are been under served with drainage, we're we're we'll eventually have a way to get to those. And I'm I'm talking primarily in the south part of Irving. And again, up north, it's been pre-planned, master planned. So, that's that's taken care of up there. I'm not sure about the Valley Ranch, but the um uh Lost Kolus area, uh

that is uh been been planned for the 100red-year storm. So, a question I got for Phil. Um, how does this affect our fire and public safety, the Senate Bill 840? Cuz I know some of the developments we've had issues with as far as the height restrictions, putting outriggers on it, fires mentioned comments about that, sprinkler systems, you know, etc. that they could turn them off individually if they're sold as town homes. They're not necessarily obligated to keep them on. So, how does this bill affect any of that code?

The Senate bill does not preempt building codes or fire codes. Those are still in place. So, whatever requirements a builder would have to comply with to meet fire code, they're not preempted here. I understand. But if we take a pre-existing building and it's modified into a residential, it of course it creates more density to some point.

Um is it where fire will have the right to modify the plan through building inspections to accommodate the density and the uniqueness of how the building is developed or does it work off the pre-existing sprinkler size system and etc? No. If we're talking about a pre-existing office building that's converted to a an apartment multifamily, they have to bring that building up to those multifamily standards as well as the performance standards that uh uh we're we're proposing. So

it it they're practically making a new building and you know how that how that can work out converting from a use that wasn't meant for to a multifamily. Ashley, that water wastewater study that you mentioned, what kind of cost does that add to projects? What kind of a delay in development will this will this how how that will affect the development schedule for people? and are we going to get to be known as a city that has so much regulation now that nobody can develop anything?

So, one thing to note is this is not something that's new for us. We have been implementing these where we see significant changes in the use um across the board um for many years now. So, those studies, they're relatively inexpensive um for a developer um I've seen most of them being less than $5,000 for the most part.

Wow. Um, and some of them are very simple. Um, they can look at it pretty quickly. It's just if it gets very detailed, if there's a significant changes and it really depends on how much downstream impact there is because sometimes they're going to have to go into that model and change pipe sizes and make incremental changes to find what's the sweet spot to where we figure out what the impact really is and how much of an increase they need to have. So, it may be adding a pump at a pump station or adding more elevated storage or adding larger pipes. However that all plays in, if it's real complicated, especially like a data center for example, if they're coming in saying we need two million gallons a day of additional water, that's really significant. That's a large water tower to be able to handle that amount of water or a new ground storage tank, probably new pumps. So, they can have some very significant impacts. It just really depends on the how much of a an impact it is having. But for your just regular run-of-the-mill um we've seen people come in and take something um like at one point where Fry was uh they were looking at turning that into single family homes. We asked them to come in and take a look at the wastewater system and the water system to make sure if they converted it that there was capacity for the water and capacity for the wastewater for that development with 250 lots or whatever it was. and they were able to come back and prove that there was enough capacity for that particular development and there weren't downstream impacts but and it was a relatively short um normally it's a couple weeks and they got this stuff together

and that's a third party that does that or does the developer bring his own person in? What we've historically done is since Freeze and Nickels holds the models for our master plans and it's critical infrastructure. It's not something we can just turn over to anybody is protected under state law. Um and they've got the models that are um there's lots of moving pieces in those models and so we've had in the past they go to those to Frieza Nichols who holds the master plans and have them do the updates for them.

I think I think commissioner it's not it's not requiring something new that we don't already require. It's laying out a formalized process because typically these types of analyses occur when there's a development proposed and they're going through a regulatory process. What we're now faced with because of 840 is there is no regulatory process or approval, excuse me, a legislative approval that needs to happen. They we're specifically says if if they have this zoning, they can get a building permit. So now we're faced with a situation of making sure that after the platting has occurred, after everything that there are processes in place to make sure that the facilities and the public infrastructure is provided for. We have over over 55% of the residential units in Irving are already some form of multifamily. That's the highest in the region. Okay. So, we are very particular as new multif family comes on board. We look at what's the mix that we have, how much area do we have for for future residential growth, uh what's the highest and best use of the land involved. All those decisions are taken out of our hands. And so we have to think in terms of okay now that this is purely administrative process do we have the right administrative processes formalized in place to make sure that we're

protected that we're protected. Yeah.

I read a really good article um I'm sorry I maybe could have shared it with everybody. Dallas Business Journal had an article this past week on um Rock Wall County was being sued by Dr. Horton because now I'm not sure that this is this is not exactly the same. It's an unincorporated part of the county where they were planning on building and um they're suing the county because they felt their um development rights had been infringed upon because the county was requiring Dr. Horton to pay for some of those services which we are talking about tonight including police and other fire safety kinds of things. So um while that's an unincorporated area and we don't have that in Irving, do we anticipate getting sued over some of these things? I mean, it seems like such an open

any opportunity for a lawsuit on any any given I've heard you say anything. So, um, like so much else with this, it's it's too soon to tell. Um, and we'll just have to see how it all plays out in practice. And as staff has said, this is stuff on on the whole that we're already doing. Uh, it's really just a timing u issue as far as what triggers these different studies. You may recall some of the other cases. Um Ashley mentioned the single family development. Um the the condo development over by um the Ritz. You know, they did all kinds of water studies leading into their zoning. So I it's not unusual for the developers to already be doing this. It's really just formalizing that process to make sure it's triggered, not just by platting. Well, I know people in South Irving would definitely appreciate it on the wastewater and water side.

Thanks. I think there's a question for Joselyn. Um, sorry. Uh but uh it it seemed when I was looking at the slides and thinking about it that this was kind of a going back to the older hierarchical zoning style where you know you can the most restrictive area is the residential but then everything else is less restrictive and you can do whatever you want. You get down to industrial and you can pretty much use it for anything. Am I wrong? I mean that that seems like kind of what the legislature is doing here. Yeah. You're referring to cumulative zoning. Yeah. Um, now the legislaturator is doing a free-for-all. Um, but I mean it it's it's kind of that way. It just it just stops at multif family. It doesn't go down to the single family because usually the way humidity is is

you would have been able to do single family and industrial single family. Right. Exactly. Would want to, but yeah. And yeah, that's not the way this is. So, um, yeah, we're not looking at it that way as much as it's just uncontrolled. Do you think what they're really after is like, you know, I mean, downtown Dallas office buildings getting converted? I mean, like, what what what sort of is their what are they, you know, what do you what's your sense of what they're they're thinking is going to to be the big shift here?

I think the session was just to remove, as they say, regulatory burdens because part one of the bills that also was approved increased the it it changed the supermajority, you know, regulation. So where it used to be where y'all seen before and it doesn't affect you as much. If you we send notices out to within 200 ft, if the owners within uh that 200t area, if we get at least 20% opposition, that triggered the supermajority vote of city council for approval. So seven of nine had to vote for approval. If there is a case, which really is kind of irrelevant now that they're doing this, but that was that increased the residential density that upped that to 60% instead of 20% within 200 ft and required a majority approval. So essentially nullified it because a majority approval is required today anyway.

Yeah. So it went from 20% supermajority to 60% uh majority which is five of nine. So again, it really essentially there is no opposition threshold anymore for a project for a zoning change, which again is kind of irrelevant with 840, but um that increases the residential density. Going back to what Debbie was saying about the Dr. Horton, uh we don't have any ETJs around Irvingville, do we? We have none. How would you define mixed use?

So mixed use just generally without getting into the detail is where you have the commercial on the bottom. So it could be services uh you know restaurants, retail whatever it is and then another use on the top. Typically it is multif family. So that's why they include and they actually defined what residential mixeduse is because they see that also adding to the uh number of multif family units. So it's not just mixed use as a single use but they you know encourage it in a mixeduse format.

And in regards here to the multif family um I mean I do like what you're proposing there. I mean because otherwise how would you define multif family? Is it more than how many units? So multif family is three or more units and that's actually clarified in this bill. A triplex it's already a multif family. So this will what you're proposing will deny any proposal for triplexes or forplex?

No. No, I mean that this Senate Bill 840 requires that it it brings triplexes and quads under the same regulations as everything else as multif family in in one structure or multiple structures. So, Senate Bill 840 would require us to accept three or four individual units on one lot that can be built pretty much anywhere, any commercial or light industrial zoning district. But they would have to follow these regulations and that wouldn't of course be subject to the 10 story component because if it was next to a residential that's actually what

like if it was if it was you know at the end of a neighborhood. Yeah that's that's we're we're still kind of you're trying to figure out that component they talking about a sliding scale on that. That's actually where my question kind of is heading to. Yeah. And then that's the the threes and the the quads and the tries. Um, right. It doesn't we we need to keep looking at to what applies where and and what's what's applicable. But the the simple answer to your question is anything above three units is multif family period.

In regards to the detention, the water detention, I I was it was my understanding that you it was required after Hurricane Harvey. I think that um neighborhoods were supposed to any new neighborhood had to have a a water detention. Is that I don't know if it's that's that's not in our uh ordinance. Okay. The requirement. Um I I have that's first I've heard. Maybe it's in Dallas or something because I mean I have worked with a builder and then whenever they have build neighborhoods that that's what I've been told they have to have detention homes. It was required for them to have it. Okay.

I don't know. Yeah. Maybe I I I can uh do some research. Thank you. And then report back. That's right. Thank you. Um yeah, I think that that's all. The question I got is is that if we do multif family on top, commercial on bottom, say you're 35% like you're talking about, how does that affect our parking? Because we can only do one space for multif family, but are we able to regulate the commercial side of it or

Yeah, they they don't address that. So, we would apply our parking ratio to the commercial uses. Okay. It would just be based on the kind of use in the particular location. So the restaurant with the number of seats and so forth. Yeah. In any shell building, the developer makes an assumption about, you know, how many how much restaurant they're going to have and and they determine what they're going to provide. Okay.

No worries. Um, so I was just thinking, so the we've been talking a lot about highrises, uh, but there's some onestory commercial properties that's like vacant. So, a developer could take those one stories and say, "I'm going to make five units out of these one-story buildings." Yes. Okay. What [Music]

what this sounds like to me is um as like a Texas as a whole is leading more towards that pa pedestrian walking. This just a comment. Pedestrian walking and like living situation similarly to like the high major cities is what it sounds like because if we're having the restrictions of parking well what is that limit well parking spaces? So then to me it just is like the adaption of okay how can our public transportation systems further develop to be utilized and so

second question she brought it up um the singlestory buildings that can be converted into living quarters I know we were restricted this probably for Wayne we had that death star bill that restricted facades etc. Are we going to start seeing some of these class C metal buildings uh potentially being turned into that are warehouse now being turned into living spaces without facade changes or are we going to start trying to critique what has to be done?

I don't think anything's changed regarding facade. So that isn't something we regulate today due to that last legislation. But anything got inside, if they're building it for residential purposes, has to meet those building codes. So we could have metal building structures. You could hypothetically have metal building structures

as a mixed use. Could it be a hotel and retail downstairs? Absolutely. But it wouldn't Yeah. And that wouldn't apply to this. that that would just be a hotel is commercial. So, it's kind of mixed use. It would be the same form in terms of uh you know having the the strip the commercial on the on the ground floor and then something else above. It would just be a hotel above instead of residential. That would not this section all these regulations would not apply to that because a hotel would just be commercial. So it would look mixed use but in functionality it's truly just all commercial. Thank you.

So we would not have to worry about some of our local motel turning into apartments. That would seem like the other way around. Yeah. I mean they they're commercial, right? They could they could convert Yeah. to being

and they could also demo rebuild. Well, that's that's actually I mean that Dallas does that all the time with takes some of these old limited service hotels and turns them into senior living. Um I wanted to follow up on Alicia's comments because I'm not clear. I would I would think it would not be a walk, live, play kind of environment because you're building these place potentially turning them into what Dan was saying, you know, you're isolating the potentially isolating them from other city services, parks, walkways, grocery stores, and other kinds of things.

I I think that goes back to earlier question. I think Commissioner Skinner, you had mentioned the the intent behind this early in the legislative session. There was a lot of talk about allowing offices, high-rise offices to convert to residential and and this whole concept, well, we need to make it easier for that to happen. And and so as the leg as the session progressed, this bill that ultimately came 840 was kind of born in in the very throws of of the concluding days of the session. There's actually two bills that kind of do the same thing. 840 and then 2477 do the same thing and and they have to be merged and reconciled at some point. But it was this idea that we're going to make high-rise conversions easier. But that's not what they did. What they did was a massive preeemption that allows a retail strip center to be divided up into living units without any additional thought of, you know, are the is this the right place for multif family? Is this going to work? Is this good for the residents who are going to live here? No, no additional thought given to that type of thing. So now we're here on the back end trying to anticipate the negative effects, understanding that there's no legislative control now through zoning. So what are the administrative pieces we have to have in place to ensure some semblance of quality? If these conversions, if these new builds in commercial areas are going to happen, we're trying to make sure that there is a level of quality and sustainability to what is built. It's not going to be perfect. No matter what we come up with, there's going to be holes in it. There's going to be projects that are approved that people are going to look at and say, "How did the city allow that?" Well, thank our legislators and we'll give you their names and office addresses and telephone numbers. You can call and talk to them.

But that that's the frustrating piece about it. It was sold as doing one thing and in reality it did something very different. I wanted to expand on what Alicia said it too. If they all built in that form, if they all built in kind of a mixeduse walkable form and we're creating a, you know, a community and environment and and the whole energy that we would like to see, that would be great.

But by taking it out of the control of the city and taking it out of zoning, we can't zone for mixed use anymore. You know, the formbbased coding is is significantly weakened, if not gone. So if if we were able to say this is what we want and if everybody built with the same setbacks and the you know the parking in the rear and then everything that comes in that type of environment then that would be great. But what we've done is say

it's a free-for-all or not we the legislaturator's done and said it's a free-for-all. Hopefully, they'll build and give us a good product and give us something that creates some type of environment, but we can't be guaranteed what we're going to end up with anymore,

right? And then you would run into the non-conforming uh developments where it's just what out of place and then um I had a further thought and it kind of like it must have not been meant to be said because it completely just lost my train of thought. Um, NOLA hit just completely. Uh, oh, actually I I it just hit me. So, when it comes to this new uh bill that had just been passed or do developers still need to go through a building permit and then building permit side, are they able to is it like is it automatic or is there still some sort of approval denial system that they can operate on?

Yeah. So everything we talked about will go will be part of the building permit process where a lot of it was through the platting process or the zoning process. Now it's all going to be through building permit. Go ahead. Oh yeah. Which I think we've made it harder or they've made it harder for but there there's no there's no subjectivity in a building permit approval. Whereas a zoning case you can weigh intangibles to say this this doesn't feel right. this I don't think this is going to be a good project or vice versa. With a building permit, we have regulations. They're objectively measured. If they meet the requirements, we have to issue the building permit. No choice.

Oh, apologies. So, it auto it bypasses PNZ city council and it's a whole other subdivision. That's correct. Wow. Question I have is for Wayne. Um, are we going to be subject to any third-p partyy plan reviews and third party not on this inspections on this stuff? Not on this. No, not on this. The only third party uh I'm not even getting into that. I understand, but I didn't know when it comes to these buildings or buildings. No, we don't have any of those. I knew there was something about a timeline. If we couldn't get it done in a certain amount of timeline, they were able to do we're well within those

third party, etc. So, okay. Yeah, I think um they've made it really easy for them. Um I was I was reading up on it and they're trying to fulfill 320,000 uh houses that are in shortage right now and they wanted to shock the market with the pricing as well, trying to restrain the pricing. Does the city plan maybe a question for Carolyn, does the city plan on contesting for amendments uh with this legislation? I that's not really anything that uh concerns this board or you know I can't really speak to that at this point. That'd be a decision by council, right? Yeah.

There has been nothing filed. I will say that.

Any other questions? Thanks for all the hard work. Yeah, thank you. Oh, I have a comment because I was doing my was wanting to look at my own personal curiosity of the master plan in the city of Irving. I know that they website has changed, but none of the like PDFs are wanting to open. Is there plans to have that fixed anytime soon? They should be opening. We can I know Troy loaded everything up. It's a It gets the new This is There's no new site, nothing. And I'm like, well, guess I have to go to I don't know department. Yeah, I know we've loaded everything over. We'll have to see if there was a catch somewhere. Yes, we

I can vouch for that cuz I tried to look for some stuff on there also and it won't let you do it. Like if you click on PNZ and you click on board members, it just goes blank. I can't control board members. I'll tell CC about that one, but it it just redirects you to a new p like to the system has been changed. Find it elsewhere kind of. Well, email me what you're clicking on because they've g they've gone through and checked a lot of stuff, but sometimes if you click on something that it's dead, then it'll kick you to the main page or something. So, yeah, just send me the link to specifically what it was and I can get it to Angie. Sweet. Thank you. Thank you.

So, y'all will see this on the 4th. So, we wanted to make sure you had a heads up. It's not going to be exactly what you've seen. Um, we'll go through and tell you any changes. Again, we're still kind of figuring out where we're going to land, but we wanted to make sure y'all knew what we were thinking, why we were thinking it, and then again, we'll kind of go through the details of the final ordinance on the fourth, and then bull request for your recommendation. So,

so Jocelyn, one question. um the things that didn't pass like um isn't it the ADUs did not get passed so those will still people will still come before the board or do or at that point since it didn't pass is there a final decision from city council on how to handle those when they come?

No. So, there were several that y'all saw that were built that uh were under code compliance and a lot of those were kind of playing the long game trying to get through the legislative session. The bill didn't get passed and so code compliance is visiting them again. Um, if people want, we haven't seen as many ADUs as we had for a short time there. Um but yes, if people want ADUs, you're going to see them through the SP process because those are still in residential zones and this is really a matter of allowing multifamily in commercial and indust.

And it's not on the session for the special session, is it? Yeah, I didn't think so. Okay, Jocelyn. Uh, going to page 26. Does the city council support the impend, you know, the strategies identified in this presentation? No, we gave you a presentation before we edited, but yes, that was council's presentation. Yeah. Yes. The council Yes, they did.

Council gave us their consensus to proceed forward with these strategies last Thursday. Any other questions? All right. Okay. So, that took a while. Um, the only other thing we have on the agenda is the possible amendments to the commission rules of procedure. Do you all want to address that tonight or do you want to defer that to another time?

We're here. All right. Well, then let's go ahead and uh we Yeah, we have we have a couple of a couple of proposals that were there and we have redlinined um the one that Commissioner Denny had proposed and then um there was another one and I've lost. Thanks, Dan. Which one it is now? It looked like there was some just cleanup work that you did on it.

A little bit of cleanup work. So, uh, here on page one, I believe this was Ricky's comment, um, for suspending the rules. They, it was unanimous vote and the request is go to majority vote and, um, and then it was also added to make sure that the rule that was going to be suspended was clearly identified. So that again was on page one. Do you want our comments as you go along through this or do what? I'm sorry. Have I'm sorry I'm going to interrupt you. Have did you guys go through this at any other time because I know just that just the one meeting like a month ago. Okay. It's been on other agendas and just never

Okay. I didn't know if it was I missed it last week or not. No. Yeah, we didn't cover it. Okay. Because we had strong meeting. Yeah. And are do you want us to as you mentioned points give you our comments or you want to just So what I'm looking for today I'm showing y'all kind of the comments we got before and uh what I'd like to get from today if is there any other changes that you want us to make? We're losing three people. I can wait if you want to. Um I I'd say go ahead keep going. I think I Okay. Yeah.

Time's ticking, huh? Um yeah, that's what we're looking for today. this is what you told us before. If there give us any direction if there's anything else that you want to add to this before we send it to you to amend and adopt. So that's what we're looking for. Um so also any amendments to the rules of procedure would have to be by a majority vote. It wasn't even clear before how many. Some cleanup to clarify that it was just the director of planning. Uh this is the exparte communication language that Daniel gave us. So it was the complete uh switch out just to not be quite as specific in terms of what the disclosure requirement um is for exparte and also refer to the open meetings act and I believe the rest of it was just clean up for the director language. So I I did these in green because we did talk about those last time. So, I did that to kind of help y'all think through again if there's something else that you wanted to revise there. You can continue to think about it if you want. There's no hurry on that. And I think that was it. More cleanup. Clean up. That was it. So, any thoughts on the the revisions that are on this draft? Any concerns about them or changes to them?

Yeah, I do. I I think we were all kind of um on the unanimous versus uh majority in terms of changing uh the amount of time somebody could speak, the number of people speaking, etc. I'd like I guess I could go either way. I'd like to kind of go back to the unanimous. I feel like we need the we need a united front on those kinds of things because we've been so uh the last months have been so divisive in many ways. I think having us as a group agree to how we interact with our public speakers is an important thing. So I almost feel like we should go back to unanimous and not a majority.

Not not change that not change it. Yeah.

One vote. Actually, I I was thinking of making a comment on this. Um I I'm I'm not I right now I'm not in favor of the unanimous, but I was thinking majority I I kind of similar to what you're saying. I thought a supermajority like like say 2/3 which really the difference would be instead of having 54 you'd have 63. Um, but on uh on these kinds of rules, whether it's changing procedure or or amending the these bylaws, it strikes me a supermajority would make sense because otherwise we should want to live by these rules and not change them by a slim majority. So, I I'd be certainly open to like a supermajority like a twothirds um just with that spirit in mind. Will some will will you clarify what exactly unanimous is compared to what it is now?

Yes. All of us has to agree to make a change. It would be everybody present. But yeah, in order for it to be passed along if not we continue with a quorum was the discussion kind of. No. So the the proposal was to to allow us to be able to change our rules or change um the application of the rules at a particular meeting by a majority vote instead of requiring that such changes be unanimous. Okay. And in that case it's like everyone needs to be in approval in order to change it. Yes.

Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. Since I'm the one who presented the the yeah the 54 majority, I'm okay with a super vote. I'm supposed I I just don't seem like like you say sometimes we're all over the place. I don't see all of us agreeing to certain things. Uh sort of like the situation we had the last time. Everybody here had a sort of a different opinion on how things should be done. And mainly the changes on these rules would accommodate an issue like that as far as time frame of speakers as far as how things are being done etc. So I I'm okay with a supermajority side of it. I think it's a great

I like supermajority. What's legal think on it? So supermajority would be threequarters typically which is seven of nine. If you want 63, then it'd be twothirds if we want to be that specific. But well, say two/3s. I'm okay with that. So be twothirds of the members present. Yeah. Yeah. I like 2/3. I like it's a clear indication mostly, right? Yeah.

I'm also good with two/3s. I don't think we're going to be able to get everybody unanimous. I think it'll be difficult. So yeah, two/3s will be fine. All right. Any other thoughts on the the amendment of rules provision? Not then we go on to the exparte communications one I think is the the other substantive change that we've been talking about. So is it two/3s going to apply to the suspension of the rules like just the individual at individual meeting and the amendment of the rules of procedure? So 2/3 on both. That was my assumption is what we were yeah both F and G there. Okay. And this was the other major change. Yeah. The other non-cleanup change, right?

And I'm happy to if so anyone wants to hear why I was proposing this, I'm happy to explain it, but Yeah.

Yeah, I think you should. Yeah. So, so my thought on this was just the prior rule struck me as um over broad and and perhaps inviting unintended consequences in terms of um just how to handle communications with third parties and you know what staff's obligations might be with respect to that. So I I think to me the spirit of the rule was complying with the open meetings act which is we need to be careful about discussing agenda items whenever there's a quorum present and um but it it doesn't strictly restrict us from speaking with folks about business that we're going to see and um the and there's not a correlary to this under the city council rules which I thought was instructive. Um so this was really meant to um call our attention to the fact that we are bound by the Texas you know the open meetings act and that we but we should be encouraged if we have questions about communications we have with folks or we want to get sta input from staff we should be able to do that. Um, so that was the IDE, but the takeaway, the language that struck is is more of a um a requirement, you know, that any any and all communications with third parties, you know, be reported to staff and then staff needs to pass that along. And that just struck me as as um there was a better approach.

There you go, Carolyn. Now you can clarify a couple of things. Um, one of the things is as commissioners, we are often when we're looking at sites, we are often engaged with the owners of the property. So, this right here covers some of that, but what is the approach that the city staff wants to see out of commissioners? So, we make sure that is a covered event in here when we do have communication or that sounds like a question for city staff. It's not a legal issue.

The origination of this was because there were conversations being held outside what whatever you think, Ricky. Um and and there were there were things that were known through those conversations that the rest of the commission didn't know. And so what we were trying to do is encourage everybody to have the same information. So that that was the origination of that. Um it's not it doesn't seem to be particularly a concern as much anymore. So if if if somebody communicates with you, if you have a conversation with somebody and you think it's something that would be helpful for everybody else to know, please provide it to us and we will distribute it in the packet just as if we would anything else. And that was the that was the intention is just to make sure everybody had the same information.

Yeah.

Yeah. I I shared Commissioner Denny's concern that that it the old the the older language could have met gave the impression that a if we were making our own judgment about whether we thought something needed to be passed on that we could end up in violation of it give that impression um even though we're like well I really didn't learn anything substantive there's nothing really to add to the discussion you know I talked to somebody because I was hoping they would have some insight for me and they really didn't. But then then for then we have to pass it on to you and you pass it on to the whole commission. You know, commissioner so and so talked to this random person that nobody else knows and learned nothing. Uh obviously that wasn't what it was intended to deal with and that I liked the the revised language and helping to to clarify some of that. We certainly do want to have all the information, but we also don't want to make it appear like um we have an obligation to do something that doesn't make make very much sense.

Does this change still keep up with the spirit of what staff was wanting to accomplish with the original verbiage? Um, I think it's it's I don't know. This this does not direct the commission to inform us of those conversations. I think it's more just an appropriate action to share if if you get information that other people could use. Is there anything staff would want to add to it to ensure that we are still in compliance and following the rules?

I I don't think so. It hasn't been an issue. So, I don't want to create an issue out of something that isn't didn't particularly work. Yeah. Oh, my my only question my only question is because I see it says May and the other one was Shell which means that you don't have to share the information and I know that there's not a concern right now based on the commissioners now but that doesn't mean that that is going to stay the same that's here today. So does it make sense to make sure that the language protects regardless of

whether you got commissioners that you don't think there's an issue with or you have something that that there is.

The the main basis of the exparte communication is open meetings act is to make sure that you know you're not going to a party and hear something and then you call somebody and they call somebody else and eventually you end up with too many people. That that's the intent of exparte. So what what our intent was is just if you get information that can be useful, let us share it for you. So there there were kind of two different things that that the focus of this and I think the amendments are intended to address just making sure that the exparte is in compliance with the open meetings act that y'all are not communicating about a case outside of the hearing process. So what which again that's different than if you have something useful to share it with us. I don't know that we need to require that as much but it but again it's not a they're two different issues.

On page uh on slide three your June 2nd comments discussion that last bullet item assisting public in understanding difference between work session and public hearing. Um, I'd like to maybe um amend that because the public and the applicant could be two different things. I guess the applicant knows what a work session is in a public hearing, but some of our if you're a commercial developer, you understand that, but as an individual resident, you may not understand the difference. So you may just want to we're talking about educating the public just distinguish between

this was just kind of trying to reflect back what we heard from that meeting. Yeah. So there wasn't really on that bullet point. There wasn't particularly an action item at this point for that. But it's just wanted to make sure that we were documenting everything that we heard from y'all.

Okay. I mean, if there'sn't something you recommend, we we haven't thought through what more to do because that was kind of a unique situation, too. Um, with that case that we had gone through, but um we we we try um and I don't know if how much confusion is out there unless you're in a a chaos, you know, chaotic soup bowl or fishbowl. Um but yes, we understand that they're different. Yeah. Anything else? Any other? Yeah, Commissioner Re.

We're not voting on anything today, are we? We're just discussing it. No, we can vote on it, right? Voting on it. Yeah, we can we can vote on this. Oh, we can. Yeah. So, um on um your table that compares our rules of procedure with the city council, um it says on the work session, which is the third row, um we don't take any action in work sessions.

No. So, I don't know if it makes sense to revise that or not. Again, this is just a comparison table. It's not really relevant, right? Yeah. And this was just pulled directly out of both rules of procedures, too. But it's Yeah. Neither of the work sessions take action. Like, if we ever need to take action, what we've done here before is we could stay in the same room, but we close work session, open up a hearing.

Okay. as a general rule. For instance, if you did choose to vote on your one rule of procedure tonight, that would be taking action on it. It's not on an item. It's not on a a case, but it is an action within your work session. So, it is I thought today was a public meeting. Well, they're all public meetings, but whether it's a work session or a public hearing is the distinction. I thought we were in a public hearing, not a work session, but you're right. And it does say work session up top there.

And today again, if if if y'all if there's any other changes, I mean, it's up to you as to what point we stop discussing the amendments or if there's anything else you want to put in here before we move it forward for adoption. Whatever. I I just um the only other comment I'd make is um on the decorum piece um I'd like for everybody when they get up to speak they need a complete address and we need to remind them to provide us a complete address. we say give us your address and a lot of times people will give us a street address and I noticed in the you know

that we were getting streets but maybe not actual cities and we were having speakers from outside of Irving I would like to have known that that speaker was outside of Irving so I think it's I don't know if you tighten that up a little bit in decorum and say full complete address city state zip or if we just make it known when we when someone's getting up to say city a lot Cities are actually converting over to not giving addresses just but you're having them register online which would require Right. Yeah. It would be in the record but in terms of being in the public speaking part of it is that for personal safety. Yeah.

Well I certainly I certainly appreciate that. Yeah. And but I think they then are are listing typically their city of residence. So they'd say, "I'm a resident of Irving or I'm a resident of Red Prairie or I'm Well, how would we do it? I would just like to know. I don't care if it's the street address or not, but I would like to know what city they're from." Yeah, we can start. Yeah. And And don't we have a Aren't we doing an online registration piece in front of the meetings now? So, but they're not required to register online ahead of time at the public hearings.

They have the ability to register through just a form online. It just makes life so much easier. If they don't do that, then they can do it in person here. Um, but when they come up to speak, you know, you you still put your your name in the your name and address in the record, but you just don't say it out loud. Yeah. Well, I mean, like during the public hearings, people aren't required to register ahead of time in order to speak uh at our public hearings. Um, so if they got up and then just said, you know, Josh Skinner and I'm a resident of Irving, I wouldn't have then given an address, but I wouldn't have filled out any paperwork either to indicate it somewhere else. So, I would think that we wouldn't end up with that if that is necessary for us to have. We wouldn't end up with that in that context. for the record. I mean, after the fact, if you didn't speak, hopefully staff would track you down and ask you to fill something out so that we had it on the record because it's all about keeping the record in the minutes for the case.

Okay. So, ideally, easier in most cases than Yeah. Yeah. It's it's just it's preferred and council sometimes, I mean, they they will let people speak, but it's it's it's up to the chair or up to the mayor as to who gets to speak, of course. Um, but council's a little more strict on if you don't register to speak, being able to speak. But the mayor usually, of course, lets people come down if they haven't. It's just a little bit more confusing when that happens. Yeah. I would recommend, my opinion, I would recommend putting it off to at least our next meeting or giving y'all some more time to go through it and think about it and really call through it before we make a decision.

Why put it off several times? We have, but Alicia was a little confused with it a while ago. Debbie, are you ready to vote, Alicia? I'm ready. I'm ready, Ricky. Yes, go for it. Well, I I do need to clarify. So, the the piece that you were in consensus on at the last meeting, which is what Commissioner Denny had introduced, and you are still in consensus on tonight, you can vote on that tonight. the consensus direction at the last meeting regarding the unanimous versus majority vote. Um that direction has changed tonight. So if that's the consensus direction now that does need to occur at your next meeting. Okay. We have to wait that that one's held in the public.

Okay. No, that that's actually based on one of your existing rules rules. Oh, it's the bottom of this page. to vote unanimously to suspend the rules. You are actually that is that is technically correct. Sir, well vote unan the rules and we can vote to pass both of these tonight. I mean if you think it would be better for us to wait until the next meeting. I I certainly don't have any problem with that. They're your rules. If you wish to take a vote and unanimously suspend the rules for this vote, you are free to do so. I agree. Let's just vote because Yeah, we consensus wise. So So what rule is it that we're suspending?

F. Well, you're you're suspending G. So F is is the unanimous and then you're suspending G. Suspending the requirement in G that we introduce at one meeting and not act on it till the next meeting. Okay. Sorry, a quick question and I don't know if it has to do with this. Um I was talking to another commissioner from another city and if PNC denies a case um unanimously uh does city council have to vote a super majority in order to approve it? No. So that cities are are a little bit different the way they do things. So the only time our supermajority triggers is that 20% rule

and now that doesn't even apply if it's residential anymore. that would require a change to um the city's unified development code. That's a practice within the actual ordinance rather than a rule of procedure. So, so most immediately we would be voting a motion, a second and voting to suspend what is that section 2G is a requirement that we have a rule introduced at one meeting and acted on to the next regular meeting. And that point we could move to approve. We would just be suspending that for purposes of tonight. And then we would be fi we would be doing a motion to approve what are three different sets of changes. The changes to section two subsections F and G as as indicated by the red lining. The changes to section three

3 H. and then the changes throughout that are the ones that clean up clear clean up the uh that it's the director of planning those sorts of changes. Okay. So, we'd be adopting all of the changes that are in this proposal assuming we unanimously do that. So, I'll make a motion to spin G for this meeting purposes. Okay, we have a motion. I'll second.

Have a second. Please raise your hand if you're in favor. All right. Looks like everybody's in favor, but anybody opposed? Not seeing anybody opposed. The motion passes unanimously. All right. Now, do we have a motion to make some or all of those three sets of amendments? I I'll make a motion that we amend our the planning and zoning commission bylaws to make those those three changes. Um, and I'll just summarize them. have to do with supermajority vote have to do with the open meetings act and the cleanup changes two3 two3 vote two not super majority the two/3s would be the

two/3s that's what I mean by super majority says two/3 vote and also any cleanup yes that was the third thing yeah yes I'll second all right we have a motion and a second please raise your hand if you're in favor looks like everybody's in favor but anybody opposed No, not seeing anybody opposed. The motion passes unanimously. All right. Okay. Then we have made those amendments. Uh is there any other amendments anybody wants to have the rules of procedure come back before us um for us to be able to think about or consider any further amendments at this time? Yes.

Yeah. It looks like I have to sign them too. Now, can we start talking about pay? Well, and can we make that make make that amendment uh you know by a two-thirds vote? No. Could we you may have already been planning this, but could could we get a a final and a red line attached to the minutes that we review for approval? Um

just so we know what we're final that Yeah, that would be great. All right. So those are all the issues that that we sort of had in the hopper to to get resolved at this point. Is there anybody any other issues anybody would like to present tonight or would you anybody like to request that the revisions process be put on the agenda for a future meeting or we think we for the time being that we we're kind of where where we need to be. I would think with this current P&Z commission, we probably should attentively maybe review these every six months to a year just to make sure that we're staying in compliance,

like have a little presentation by staff, you know, every anything it changes or the way the landscape changes. I would say just set have it sent to us. Yeah. Yeah. And exactly. Why can't you do it when you have new potentially new commissioners that come on board in December as the first one? Yes. Yeah. That's then we all have a chance to review it and I think once a year sufficient. Yep. Each December. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds great. Did we agree to five minutes for everything? We left that as five minutes. We didn't change that. That that wasn't that was something that we had we could with a twothirds majority.

Yes. with a two-thirds majority for an individual case or you know what not. We could do that or we could with a two-thirds majority change our rules altogether at some point if if down the road we decided that was um a good call and Josh is getting us $1,000 a month. H sounds good to me whenever the city council authorizes.

All right. Anything anything else on uh on this agenda item? No.

All right, then we are the work session is adjourned at 7:57 p.m. [Music]