Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Come and [singing] you [singing] never make me happy. [singing] [singing] going to bring me down.

You We didn't have a lot of winds here today, did we? Oh, yes, we did. Oh, did we? Oh, yes. Lions was so It was really bad here today. Recording in progress. Good evening and welcome to the Lewisville. Good [snorts] evening and welcome to the Lewisville Planning Commission meeting for Thursday, March 12th, 2026 with a roll call, please. Chair Brownise here. Uh, Vice Chair Basket, come here. Commissioner Richie, present. Commissioner Choy, here. Commissioner Bangs, here. Commissioner Hunt, here. Thank you. Uh motion to approve this evening's agenda. I'll move approval of the agenda and

I would like to make one change to that. Uh we're going to move off of our consent agenda the approval of minutes and move that to discussion at the end of the meeting. Uh all in favor I I

opposed hearing none. Motion carries. Thank you. We now open it up if anybody wanted to speak uh using kind of a free speech time for three minutes. They would have the opportunity to speak for items that are not on this evening's agenda. Um seeing nobody online and nobody raising their hands in the room, we'll move into our first item of regular business. And I will uh I will now open the public hearing on a request for a uh recommendation to city council for an amendment to the Lewisville Municipal Code Title 17 to remove the property at 811 Walnut Street from the Overtown O overlay and include it in the downtown Lewisville district. The purpose of the of the hearing is receive evidence regarding the application materials and provide a public forum for all interested parties who wish to comment on this request before the planning commission. The procedure for the public hearing will be as follows. First, there will be presentation and testimony by city staff followed by questions from the planning commission to staff. Next, we will have a presentation and testimony by the applicant followed by questions from the planning commission to the applicant. After these two presentations, members of the public who have joined this meeting in person, by computer, or telephone may speak regarding the application. Anyone who'd like to speak in person is asked to complete a speaker card. Use the raise hand function if participating by computer or star9 if calling in by telephone. Please limit your comments to three minutes per person. Two people present at the meeting may pull their minutes to allow one person to speak for up to a total of six minutes. The purpose of public comment is to encourage to receive public testimony and not a forum for debate or dialogue. Commenters are encouraged to raise pertinent issues and may ask questions for clarity. However, these questions will not be directly answered during the public comment period. The applicant and staff will then be allowed to make a closing statement. I will then close the

public hearing and no further testimony or other evidence will be received unless the commission decides to reopen the hearing. The planning commission will discuss the matter and may approve, approve with conditions, deny, table, or continue to a specific future meeting. Public hearings are recorded for the public record. All testimony must be presented after stating your full name and city of residence. Does anyone participating in this hearing object to the procedure I've described? Seeing no objections, do we have notification? Yes. Thank you. Do any planning commission members have any disclosures? Seeing none, take it away.

Right. Good evening, commissioners. This is Emily Klein Gibson, planner 2 with the staff presentation. This is for resolution 5, series 2026, recommending approval of an ordinance to remove 811 Walnut Street from the Oldtown Overlay and include it in downtown Lewisville. To provide some background, the subject property at 811 Walnut Street is located in lot one, block three of the Jefferson Place subdivision. It was constructed in the 1950s and has historically been used commercially, but was also historically located in residential zones. This changed in October of 2025 when a reszone from its residential zone district to the commercial community zone district was approved. [clears throat] The reszone request was only for the underlying zoning and did not modify any overlays on the property. The property has been part of the Oldtown Overlay since its establishment and is not incorporated in the boundaries of downtown Lewisville. This means that it's currently not subject to the standards in the design handbook for downtown Lewisville. So, the proposal tonight is to amend the definitions of downtown Lewisville and the westerly portion of downtown Lewisville to incorporate 811 Walnut Street in the boundaries of both. The proposed language is bolded and underlined uh and is intended to simply include the lot within the descriptions of both of these downtown uh definitions. Also proposed is to remove the property from the old town overlay. The proposed language to remove the subject property from the legal description can be found in the draft ordinance. There are also a few amendments uh to some maps that are proposed. The two maps on the left can be found in the design handbook. The far left map shows the core area and transition areas of downtown. And staff is proposing to include 811 Walnut Street in the transition area, which is shaded uh with

the red shading and would make it subject to those specific design standards for transition areas in the downtown handbook. And the map to the right uh just shows the general boundaries of downtown Lewisville. The blue arrow points to the subject property for both of those images. And then the map to the very right shows the boundaries of Oldtown overlay. The blue arrow again just points to the subject property showing that it will be removed from this overlay. Staff finds the proposal to be consistent with adopted policies and allows the commercial building in the commercial downtown zone district to be held to the same design standards as all other commercial buildings in downtown. The Oldtown Overlay provides basic zoning standards such as setbacks and lot coverages for primarily residential structures and the design handbook for downtown provides specific design guidelines such as architectural design and parking lot layout uh for those historic commercial downtown properties. Staff also find that incorporating the subject property into the westerly portion of downtown does not have a significant impact on the total total maximum floor areas that are established for this portion of downtown. So with all of this staff recommend approval of resolution 5 series 2026. This concludes the staff presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions for staff at this time? Seeing none, does the applicant do you want to present or the uh there's no applicant pres this is uh yeah the only presentation tonight. All right. Um well, did did anybody want to make public comment?

No. Okay. I I I do just have one question, not to belabor this, but and I remember when this came through, we talked about how this was a good fit for the conversion in the zoning because of the historic use as it's been kind of set as a precedent of a commercial building within technically the residential areas. Um, this is the only building that would kind of fit that description or that character within the general area, right? Like we we I I can't think of any other buildings of a a Are you saying any other historically commercial buildings in residential zone districts,

right, that are kind of on that on that boundary that are on the boundary? Um um

I you know I only asked the question just just thinking about the idea of this like setting a new president and other buildings and having it progressively you know year over year kind of seeing that boundary creep over but but I can't think of any other buildings that technically fit the criteria about why this ended up that way besides this one. There's this one right over here at the corner, this next block over at Jefferson across from Emory Square Park that has historically been used as commercial. Right. So, right kind of on this block here. So, I was thinking about the same thing, too. And I guess in my mind, I think when we look at the zoning code update and the design standard update, it might be worth looking at like allowances for neighborhood oriented commercial uses in our existing residential neighborhoods

just to try and understand where we do have these non-conformities to make it a little easier for them to stay or if we want to encourage them to go away. But that's the only other one I can think of, just this one right here. That's a good point. Yeah. just yeah that's a great example and just to um provide a little bit of differentiation I believe that one is surrounded completely by residential uh zoning whereas this one is more of a boundary commercial area so great yeah okay thanks any additional questions for staff no thanks

I guess that's your closing statement then also all right um I will now close the public hearing and Planning Commissioners will deliberate on the evidence presented. During deliberations, no further public comment or other testimony or evidence will be received. Any thoughts, concerns, reactions, other ideas? Support the request. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. All right. Um, do we have a motion? Yeah.

I'll move approval of Resolution number 5 series 2026 recommending approval of an ordinance removing the property at 811 Walnut Street from the Oldtown Overlay and including it in downtown Lewisville. Thank you, Commissioner Basket. We have a second. Second. Commissioner Banks. Thank you. And roll call, please. Um, Commissioner Hunt. Yes. Commissioner Banks, yes. Commissioner Choy, yes. Commissioner Brownise, yes. Commissioner Basket, yes. Commissioner Richie,

yes. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Um that's our only item of business this evening. So for our commissioner member comments, we'll just have a discussion a little bit. Uh for anybody who was able to look at the minutes. Um, so my thought ultimately though is it really is the direction of staff as instructed by staff and perhaps council as to where we should head with the formatting of them. Um, I could talk at length about, you know, pros and cons and whatever, but I don't know that it's really up to us to determine what our format could or should be.

Yeah, first off, apologies. is really an oversight on my part for just dropping a new a completely new format into the packet. So fully acknowledge that. But that being the case, it is an opportunity for input from planning commission and certainly uh don't need to vote on these tonight. We're actually relatively caught up. So for tonight, since this kind of slipped through, frankly, I think it's an opportunity if you all want to provide some input on if you think this is a good direction. I do think we have flexibility. Different boards and commissions do it differently. Some are really prescriptive. Um, some like council for example is is more of an action summary like what is in your packet. Um, that is sort of the the trend in terms of like best practice for how to do minutes is to cap capture more of an action summary versus a line by line. You said this, you said that. So, there's pros and cons. Um, the clerk did not direct us to do this. I think it was just us looking at ways to be more efficient. Um, but that being the case, it gives you something to react to for tonight and we can take the input and I think um we're happy to um redo the minutes certainly in the old format or find some sort of hybrid approach, check in with the clerk and confirm. I'm confident they'll be okay with generally what direction we go in. So, um it's kind of an opportunity for input and uh certainly by no means feel pressured to vote on them tonight. Again, apologies.

Sure, no worries. Um yeah, I had so I had a couple of different reactions. Um, one was that it kind of increased anonymity for us individually. Um, that could be a good thing. Sometimes, uh, that sometimes like when we make a statement, we want it noted that we said this because we were for this for this reason or we were against this for this reason. And so it does take that away for better, for worse, I don't know. Um, and so does that uh, but also noting that the older format kind of really predates um, having streaming video and being able to look back at actual meetings for the actual words that were spoken at the time, let alone having an AI do that for you. So, um, I think there may be room to move towards a more compact action item approach, but Commissioner Hunt.

Yeah. Yeah. The one we just open open forum. Yeah. I would say that um I'm overall in favor of the more streamlined version um just because it is I think in other boards I've been involved when it is it is the becoming the best practices to be more action item oriented um and it's also easier for staff than having to take down all those those detailed um details but and since we do have as you point out we have the videos and we save the videos right like they're recorded and they're they're there certain number of years not forever but

I think if you wanted to if there was something we in particular wanted noted in in the minutes. We could say that. I wouldn't noted in the minutes that I said this and we could ask for that in the moment or later. Um, but I, you know, I am overall in favor of the of the new format. Thank you. Do we have the ability maybe this is how it was done before. I I think the the transcription so to speak where individuals were referenced was manually collected, right? Do we have the ability to transcribe the the recordings? I mean the reference to in in the age of AI it's pretty straightforward right somebody should be able to just that should be a printed for the entire meeting

transcript of of the meeting has that been done by any other groups I would suggest that shouldn't be minutes though no transcript agreed it's not minutes I'm all for actionoriented minutes and keeping it as concise as possible I'm just saying for those that want to reference who said what I think the challenge with that is that AI currently at least with consumer available AI I wouldn't be able to get our names. Yeah, we're just voices. Well, it it does it it does if our mics are turned on and we're logged in. Yeah, because we're part of a team's call through it doesn't through Zoom. Oh, because we're not on audio in Zoom. We're just on the microphone picking up. We're not quite there yet with the technology. But I mean, conceivably.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, it's I'm sure the capability is out there. Maybe not with what we're using, but it's out there, you know. So no other commission or board is is using that your knowledge using AI for you're using a transcription of the recording. Um by transcription you mean like they're manually entering who you know speaker you said right I haven't looked at all of them but there's at least one maybe two that does it the way you did before but the it's mixed. It's not being done by AI that's being done manually, right?

Yeah. The one I was just looking at one earlier today from the parks board and they're very manual name said this that said that and then I looked at the council minutes that just got approved and they're just like council had a discussion. Here were the key points. Here's who made a motion. Here was the vote that was made. So it's like they're very different but I think we open to a hybrid approach too or going back to the old way. Totally open. No, I I mean I don't I don't think we need to go back to the old way. It was for one thing ownorous for us to go back and read through and I always had the apprehension about approving minutes if I had missed a typo or something. I you know I didn't want to do that. So I kind of appreciate the brevity of of the format. I think to Commissioner Hunt's point, my only request would be when we want to specifically call out an item to be listed verbatim, you know, that that we still do that. That was my only thought. That was Commissioner Choy, by the way. [laughter]

Just in case someone's I appreciate the shorter minutes. Um, I think my only concern with the minutes from the um that were included in the packet were for the EV charging station discussion. It didn't pick up the minutes didn't include your direction to staff, Commissioner Hunt, that actually resulted in changing the ordinance. And I think for the purposes of like the public record and so that council knows when they read the minutes that you know because you had two like council made two questions or two comments and neither of which resulted in any change but it didn't pick up the ones that did result in change. So I think I like the does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.

I think I like the shorter ones for sure. I just think we probably have to be either like our will have to be more clear about like probably reflecting it in our comments that we'd like it included, but also I think being more targeted when you're listening to the meeting about what should be included. Yeah. Yeah. There's usually like the toward the point of a decision being made or a motion being made, there's usually a brief period of time where you really need to capture exactly like what what the condition was or whatever. So, I think there's a way to do that. Yeah. conditions and conditions and a you know changes are the things that need to be captured. Exactly.

So maybe if you can check running up the flag bowl to see whether this kind of hybrid, whether we can just declare it ourselves. We want this noted in perpetuity or whatever it might be. Uh and then we can revisit these minutes with these couple of changes also. Yeah. Yeah. We'll rework the ones that are in your packet to um for improvements and then um yeah.

All right. Anything else you want from us? And did you have any input on it? Sure. Anonymous. Okay. All right. Uh any other commission member comments? Any issues happening now? Seeing none. Staff staff report. It's our new agenda night name for it. What's the staff report this month? Yeah, the I just wanted to update planning commission that the development code update request for proposals is out. Um, and so we're starting to get interest already on that. The proposals are due I think April 24th. So there's a little bit of time for them to assemble their teams and all that. So we'll be keeping you updated on that.

Great. Thank you. Appreciate that update because we wouldn't want you to have a break between the comp plan. Yeah. It's just bang bang. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Nice. With that, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved and a second. Second. All in favor? Hi. Hi. [laughter] So, let's give casual carpool on US 36 a go and meet our contestants.