City Council - Regular Meeting

Just give me one second to pull up the computer. OK. Welcome, everybody. Thank you all for being here. It's nice to see a lot of faces in the room. First, we will start the meeting at 612 and roll call.

Mayor Turney?

April Arand?

Here. Jane Ridgway? Here. Alex Gasqueville?

Here.

Dr. Pam Sardo? Here. Gary Chappell? Patrick Cusick?

Here.

Chelsea O'Young?

Here.

Tony Lowe?

Here.

Doug Thomas? Here. Michelle Bukowski?

Here.

Michael Chappell?

Here.

OK, thank you, Patty. Normally, we just start right into new business, but I would just like to take a little moment and say the Pledge of Allegiance, if you all don't mind.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you for that. Okay, this is a joint work session between the City Council and Planning and Zoning and I'm so delighted to have time with all of you today. We will open the Unified Development Code public hearing and joint work session and first we will conduct a public hearing to consider testimony and receive public input on the draft Unified Development Code and Then there will be a joint workshop session to present with a presentation by Kimley Horne and feedback discussion. So for the public hearing, is there anyone who would like to make any comments? Okay. We need to start the public hearing at 6.13, so for protocol I'll ask again, sorry for the duplication, if there's any public comment regarding the public hearing, now is a wonderful time to speak up about the draft. Okay. With no comments coming forward at the time, we will close the public hearing at 6.14 p.m. and we will have the joint work session with Kimley Horne presenting to start. Thank you for being here. It's all yours.

Okay. Okay, but I don't do it. Are you ready?

Okay, it's good to see everyone again tonight. Let's go to the second slide. Great. So Adolfo and I are really happy to be here with you guys. I feel like we just were here, but a lot has been done since we were here the last time. So this has been a long time coming. We're finally at a draft stage where there's something for us to talk about. Next slide. So what we're going to do, for those who weren't with us last time, we'll do a brief recap of where we ended, what we covered and where we ended the last time all of us were together. We've already gone through some of the comments. We're still in comment period, but we want to do a little bit more about project background to make sure that we're all on the same page on that. We'll talk about project scope, the intent of the project and what we were tasked to do, go over comments, and then talk next steps. Okay. So we've been working on this for a minute. I think I don't was anyone in the room working on this a year ago, a year and a half ago when we first started back in in, say, 20. Would that be 2024? Yeah. Okay. So we've got a group of people here trying to pull together this unified development code project. There was a lot of code construction work that went on before March. Around March is when we all got together and started regrouping. And so we had this joint meeting in march and after that got marching orders went back compiled the draft which has gone out almost a month ago we had two community open house events and then we here we are in june so our rough timeline puts us with the target of a September adoption, which we talked about before. So if you look up at the top there, where online community input is still open, we are in the public comment period now, which is the yellow box. After that closes, we will go into legal review with the city attorney. And then based on that feedback into final edits, nothing is final until you take action. So it will be coming back to each group here separately for discussion at a later date. So this is not your only pass at this document for sure. So that's kind of our overall process. As a recap, we have an online community survey so far. It's still open. There's been 269 participants in that survey. Some of them are incomplete, but we do have 196 complete surveys. Since our last meeting together, there's only been five new ones, and those were incomplete. So there haven't been any completed surveys since the last time we met. We had, as we discussed, we had a two-night, a two-part community open house meeting. Open house number one was on May 12th, and we had one participant in that. Open house number two on May 14th, we didn't have any participants in that, but we were here for everyone. Public comment period is still open, as I said. until June 7th, so there's still time for people to submit comments. And we made sure that those open house events were held during that comment period in case anyone had any questions, they could come and ask those. And we have received some responses, so that's good. We received three sets of comments so far, which with a technical document like this is not hugely surprising, so it's good that we've gotten some feedback. Yes. Okay, next slide. A little bit about the project so unified development code there the development regulations of your community and it's really how you implement your comprehensive plan so in 2023 the city adopted the comprehensive plan. And that plan was developed through a lot of public engagement and the public vision goals for the Community what everybody wants to see happening it's a comprehensive plan for growth. And that sets a 20-year kind of roadmap for how Josephine wants to grow and what the community wants to see in the next 20 years. Input was gathered from residents and landowners and business owners. So that's kind of the part one of what we're doing here now. We were not involved in that. Once the city does a comprehensive plan, you have to implement that plan. And one of the first steps to implement that plan is by changing the city's development regulations. OK, next slide. And so what we're doing with the unified development code is just aligning the city's regulations with that comprehensive plan and also aligning it with state law. So this is not a rewriting of anything. This is an alignment of your regulations with what the community expressed in the comprehensive plan and statutory requirements according to the state. So a UDC is a unified development code. It's because you're uniting different chapters and different, different laws and powers that you are enabled to have through the state, which is over zoning and over subdivision. So in its very simplest form, a unified development code unifies or brings together zoning and subdivision law. Sometimes cities put other things in there, but our scope for this and instructions were zoning and subdivision, which is the basic, and that's fine. It implements the comprehensive plan. as I said earlier. So that's what a UDC is and what it does. So it's not based on you already got input from the comp plan, this is okay, we've gotten input, we've got marching orders from the comp plan, so now how do our development regulations line up with that? And that's what you do here. It's bringing all that stuff together to make it more easy to access in one single place so you don't have duplications, everything just travels together and is aligned. Next slide. And so because we're talking about zoning and subdivision, Chapter 211 enables the city to regulate zoning. Chapter 212 enables the city to regulate subdivision. So that's the only two chapters of the Local Government Code we're dealing with, 211 and 212, because we're dealing with zoning subdivisions and the reason all of that's really important is because right now Josephine is a general law city a general law town you're not home rule yet and the difference is a general law town can only regulate only has those authorities explicitly granted to it under the Texas local government code a home rule city is allowed to regulate anything not expressly prohibited And so if you're a home rule city, you have a lot more flexibility in what you can and cannot regulate as a city. General law, you go by whatever the state says you can. What the powers have been granted to you by the state is what you enforce. And so again, because we're talking about zoning and subdivision, that's 211 and 212. Yes, thank you. I'm so glad you said that. So the way you change from one to the other. So if you do not have 5,000 people in your town, you cannot be a home rule city. Once you hit 5,000, you are allowed to petition the state and request home rule status. So the state grants home rule status, but you can't have that conversation until you hit 5,000. A lot of cities, as they approach that number, start kind of planning for that, because there's a process you have to go through to get recognized as a home rule city. Then you have to do a charter. Everybody's got to vote on it. It becomes a big rigmarole. It's an important step in the life of the city. So a lot of times, as you get closer to 5,000, that's a conversation you need to have. Do we want to be home rule or not? There's different types of general law. Your city attorney can walk you through that. But that 5,000 is the trigger for that. Very good question. Anyone else have any questions?

Just moving forward, how does that impact this UDC and what type of transition would we need to make for this UDC to go to the other?

Well, it wouldn't really, it's not one or the other. It's just you can do more once you become homeroom. You would add some stuff to this, probably.

So is it a regular framework, but it doesn't impact our...

Correct. Yes, it's more about... As you grow, this UDC we're creating is a baseline document. As you grow, you're going to add things to it. You're going to change things in it. This is like creating the format. And then as you grow and want to regulate more things and do more things on, let's say, charging different fees or adding different sets of regulations, you just add those in. So this is a framework for that. Okay, and so that's kind of the legal context behind all of this. So the scope, what we were hired to do, resolve conflicts and gaps in current regulation, make your ordinances more user-friendly by putting it all in one document, and create a more business-friendly development process, eliminate existing conflicts in city ordinances, and comply with 211 and 212. So we were told no new regulations, no new regulations, this is just compiling and making it more organized, make it align with state law, make it align with comp plan, make it easier to read and access. And so because no new regulations, we landed at our last meeting together, we talked about creating a parking lot where everything that is beyond that scope will live so that the city can decide how they want to tackle that stuff. So that's where we are. So put the document together, clean it up, make it easier to follow, align it with state law, new ones that have been passed, align it with comp plan, and then make it to where you can build an add-on to it as you grow and change and want to do different things. Okay, next slide. So this was not a revision project. This was a reorganization project. So the Unified Development Code, because remember, zoning and subdivision is the main part of it. The challenge, the reason why cities, why this is the direction cities are going now, instead of keeping all their regulations separate at separate chapters, you get separate definitions and you get procedures that aren't consistent and you get notice requirements that aren't consistent and then who administers what and suddenly PNZ has like outline of your powers or in four different places in your code ordinances. So this is intended to bring everything together into one place to avoid conflicts and duplications and kind of the vagueness that that can create, especially in the world of procedures. So this is the chapter structure of the UDC as it was written, everything related to general provisions like how definitions are handled and what the short name of the document is, all these kinds of kind of legalese stuff. That goes in general provisions. Administration talks about the different powers granted to the different people that deal with permits and applications related to development. Excuse me. And then all procedures for whenever an application is filed or something has to be paid or a permit is filed, any type of application, that would be in the procedures chapter. And then all of the standards for zoning are in chapter four. All the standards for site design are in chapter five. And that's like landscaping, parking, things like that. Chapter six is everything about subdivision design. So your blocks, your lots, things like that. And then seven is infrastructure design. Eight is environmental design. And then we have some appendices at the end. So that's the kind of overall structure. Along with your draft document, there's a code comparison table. Remember earlier where I said this was not a reinvention, this is just an organizational exercise. So this table is really what needs to be checked more than anything else. because this table shows where something was in your current regulations and then where it is in the new regulations. So the major task was to make sure everything in the old makes it into the new. And so this code comparison table is the working document that shows you, okay, this is where it is in our current ordinances, This is where it ended up in the newly structured UDC. And this is going to help in the future. Like, staff is going to be able to use this. Like, after this gets adopted and you start doing this way, and somebody had filed a plat two years ago and they come back in, and I can't find any of this. You can say, okay, here's the table. Go to Chapter 3, Section 5. And that's where everything is. This is kind of like not just a table of contents, but it also shows where those things used to be in your old stuff. And so these kinds of tables become really helpful over time. as you have people coming in to build in your city at different stages. Next. Okay, before we move on, any questions at this point?

So is this replacing the current ordinance? Is that what this is going to do? Yes. Okay.

Yes. And so it's legally yes, but it's not replacing anything new. We're going to do a repeal and replace, meaning that Right now, if you go online and look at the ordinances, they're grouped as zoning and in subdivision. So now we will go in there and it'll be like the Unified Development Code. So the content is not being replaced, but the organizational structure is. Like when you go online to look at the ordinances of the city, it will say Unified Development Code instead of those individual chapters or those chapters with references. So this is taking your existing stuff and just reorganizing it. It's like moving into a house and putting all your stuff into a new closet is basically what it is.

But it'll be a different document than what we read. No, it's going to. Will there be links in that document then to go out to the zoning document?

No, the zoning document is this. This is that. Your zoning document is this, and your subdivision code is this. This isn't a link to it. This is your zoning document. This is your subdivision document.

Yeah, that's...

And that's fine if you want to do it that way.

But that's what I thought we were. First, I thought there was supposed to be just one document with everything. And then I looked at some other document or some other cities documents and they had like a UDC, but they had it separated into like the zoning and then into the subdivisions, even though it was in the UDC. Yes. But I thought this was.

this was like just taking pieces the pieces that were kind of duplicate in each one of those and putting it into this document here and then we'd still have to go through that other stuff no this is that so instead of having those separate things this becomes one unified code this is one unified code for everything related to development you'll still have other chapters of like your city still regulates businesses and nuisances, you know, there's a bunch of stuff you're still going to regulate.

So when you go on to the sign ordinances and all that, yeah, all that other stuff.

But this is going to be your zoning and subdivision regulations. And so you won't go anywhere else for that is this. And that's why that code comparison table becomes important. This is just check to make sure that all of the old stuff is in the new stuff and then where it is in there. So when you go and look at your current zoning You know, article two, section five, this table will tell you where that ended up in the new code. And so this will replace your old way of organizing. Same content, different organization system. So the planning document on the website will go away? Or the zoning document that's on? In that code, on your online code, yes. Yes, this would replace that. And so those are the only two chapters that come together for this, though. In the future, like I said, some cities we're working with now, they're gradually pulling. Some of the stuff in your building code can be, it's up to you where it lives. So you could decide in the future, we want all the sign standards in there or the floodplain standards or whatever.

And so you can ask me later. Let's see, let me get this straight. We're not going to have Ordinance 10 with subdivision and we're not going to have Ordinance 14 with the zoning. Correct. Correct. It's all in there.

What's it going to be? Yeah. Well, that's a good question, too. That's a good question. So that's up to your code publisher. So what's going to happen with this? Can we go back to that timeline slide? Yeah. So where it says legal review and final edits, around July, August, we're going to have a meeting with your city secretary because your city secretary is the one who works with your code publisher to get all this stuff into that point. And so part of our prepping all of this is that. It depends on the contract you have with your code publisher. A lot of times they'll update quarterly. And so it just depends on their update schedule and then how each code publisher also has a different way of organizing this stuff. So they might want it to be chapter 15. They might say, put this as an appendix. So we'll help your city secretary to figure that out. And your city secretary will let you know, whatever the code publisher says.

Let's go, Patty.

But those are all good questions. And that's kind of the, this is a very much an organizational task more than anything else. It's an organizational task.

So anything that we knew in the planning and zoning document that might not have been really the way we wanted it, it's still going to be in here, not the way we want it. Correct. Because we were told no change. So yeah.

And so. So we're going to do it again. Well, no, you're just, this is the, the way these codes work is they are constantly going to be, There's always stuff to fix. And one of the exercises, that's why we're going to do this parking lot exercise at the end. The challenge is how to prioritize those things. And we're here to help with that, too. But stand true to the charge of, you know, let's just get it built first. And then we can work on some of that stuff that needs to be worked on. Now, the exception to that, like I said, is we did make some revisions to, like we just provided you some, there's some basic provisions that all these codes and ordinances should have that weren't in there. So we added some of that for you. And then some of the essential things to comply with some of the new state laws, we added that in too. So our focus was on compliance more than anything else, but we didn't go in and do any substantive change. And that was all procedural stuff. Little things, like they require now that if there's a property for a zoning application, like the size of the signs, the state tells you how big those signs have to be. So we revised your standard for how big those signs are too. That's an example. But nothing past that. That's where those really big signs came in. And they're not even a conventional print size.

They're just bigger. Yeah, two by four is not as big.

No. And so it's such a, and they don't tell you where. You could now put it at the very back of your property where nobody could see it. Like, it's just, they're doing their personal best. So, but there are little things like that that have changed that we did catch.

Six millimeters. You got to bring out the gauges out there to check the signs.

Yeah, so a lot of that kind of stuff. Any other questions about structure, purpose, any of that kind of stuff? Are we all good? Okay, so comments, so again, no change. This is about organization and structure, building a platform or foundation that you can grow on as you grow over time. Okay, so we got comments back on the first round of draft. We still have not closed public comment window yet, so if more comments come in after tonight, that's totally fine. We want to give you an update on where we are with this and how we're going to handle these.

Question.

Yes.

The items that were incomplete can you still see the data that the people tried to put in? Oh, that's, I don't know. And my question is because a lot of, yeah, because a lot of times, like I'll be down on a webpage like this computer, for instance, it's like, well, where is it? You know, and usually you have to like scroll forever to try to get to submit, and sometimes things don't get submitted. And like if you could just still see the data, that, I thought that would be good.

So we can, so we still get the data, yes. Okay, thank you. Okay, comments received, next slide. So there's main, again, no change, just compliance and cleanup. So anything about corrections, like if something is the number seven and it's supposed to be the number four, or if the outline number's off, or a title of an office, sometimes, again, because we're combining two different chapters, sometimes how offices are referred to can be different across those different chapters. So if that's caught, obviously we're going to clean that up. So any inconsistency in references to an officer title, corrections to cross references, anything that is a conflict with 211 or 212, an omission, like if it is something that's in your existing regulations that you find is not in the new regulations, that's a correction and clarification. We did talk about some of the minor content modifications that are consistent with the scope. Like for example, one of the comments we received was to provide a definition for a few of the new terms. So if it's an introduced terminology, of course we need to provide a definition. So those are the types of things that we would consider cleanup. But because we're not changing, we're just structuring anything beyond that cleanup organization compliance type work is gonna go to the parking lot. And we talked about that last meeting. Okay, next slide. So I just wanted to go through a list because we've gotten a lot of comments, which is awesome because when I get nothing back, I never know. I'm like, I don't know what to do because I know there's probably something. So we appreciate very much getting comments. We want them. So I wanted to just take some time to give y'all examples of of the types of things that we're looking at as cleanup items. Like some of the comments we got on chapter one, that districts is not defined, minor amendment is not defined. So we'll work with you guys on definitions. Some of these might be a little difficult. We're gonna start with probably working with your city attorney on that. So that's why the legal review happens before we come back to you again. But we'll do that. Clarify comprehensive plans the city's adopted. I don't know what that second one means. There we go. Clarify the UDC will establish zoning districts and parameters to develop permitted uses. So those are the types of language things for clarification that we can add in. Anything related to clarification on the control, approval, or denying zoning subdivision plots. So you see anything where we were requested to clarify something about definitions. anything we mean on intent so anything that's a clarification of intent or of a definition easy to fix we can do that but we will be working like I said with your city attorney and with staff on those definitions because that is they can definitions can come back to bite you and so we just want to need to be really really careful with those chop the next slide The identification of offices, so that's up to this town. We're not going to tell you what to call your different offices. That's up to Josephine to say what Josephine offices are. You just tell us what you want. We'll make them all consistent across. So every city has different org chart. Every city has different titles. Just the fact that some are cities and some are towns, you know, like y'all have alderwomen, aldermen instead of council member, you know. Yeah, so it's just the names are significant, but there's no right or wrong answer. And so we just need you to tell us what they're going to be. So some of that cleanup stuff is just tell us what you want. Separating out building official and building inspector, we're going to also defer a lot to staff to communicate with you guys on what those final things are going to be. And you just tell us. Excuse me. There is like publishing public notices. There are certain statutory requirements. Um, so we'll, we'll make sure that you're aligned with that. Um, more definitions, city manager, city administrator, things like that. Those are the types of cleanup fixes for chapter three. Next slide. Spell checks, yes, thank you. Yes, we will correct spelling. And yes to computer disk, I love that. Yes, good catch. And then who approves and files final plots? Anything that's procedural like that, we're gonna defer to staff again because we're not changing your process at all. We just needed you to tell us what your process is. Because, as I said, we just took exactly what was in your current standards and so if you need clarification of that, then that probably would be a parking lot item, but if it's something super simple that staff can just say, change it to this, then we can. And then anything else that needs to be added is clarification. So that's kind of how we're going through each of these chapters. So if it's an issue of clarification or correction, we're happy to make that. If it's something that is a title type change that you can just tell us what you want it to be, that's fine. Past that, in our last meeting, we talked through a bunch of things that you guys felt you probably would eventually like to see changed, commercial design standards for the city, Cost of improvements, incorporating that industrial district. There were a lot of questions around that. The process for updating the comprehensive plan. These are all kind of things that need to be deliberated and need to be discussed. So as your consultant, we can't just go in and write that for you because you need to decide that, not us. So there are certain things on here that would probably fall into the parking lot. Special exceptions. We would need to work closely with your city attorney to weigh in on that, and you're going to need to work closely with your city attorney to weigh in on special exceptions. So that kind of needs some deliberation. And then on the left is just a snapshot of our flip chart from last time. We talked about infrastructure bonds, and we talked about TIAs, Traffic Impact Assessments, on new developments. and other impact mitigation requirements for new developers who are building new residential in town. Talked about dark sky community. And so these are all things that are awesome. And we do that a lot, but again, beyond scope of this project. So yes, thumbs up. Those would all be great things. But again, doing everything becomes a huge task. So how do you prioritize which of those parking lot items you feel is most important? Next slide. And these are some other things that kind of came up either through comments or through our conversations, like subdivision design standards, modifications to approve master site plans, how those need to be handled. Disannexation triggers, meaning what can cause someone to be disannexed or when can someone petition for disannexation. We call those triggers. It's like what has to happen for that to happen. that's that's a whole thing in and of itself and honestly i think that's you should wait on that anyways because this with the legislature about to be in session next year there might be additional things coming out of the legislation about annexation and extraterritorial jurisdiction so if i were you i'd hold off on anything related to annexation you don't have to you can do whatever you want but if i were you i would not touch that until finished with next session Just because you might go through this whole process and get that and then the state says this is how it's going to happen and you just did all that for nothing. Then how conservation is handled, that's another thing that's a whole thing. TIA triggers as we discussed. Administrative approvals, I think that that is probably something that you are going to want to have a conversation about and work through on what staff approves, what staff analyzes and gives you what you recommend and what that process is. I think that's going to be beyond the scope of this project. It's something really important, but it's going to require its own kind of, it's a thing that needs some deliberation and some work through. Usually we would do work, like little workshops on stuff like that. Anything process related, we usually meet with city leadership, including elected appointed officials and staff and just talk through all of that. And then we get our marching orders and move. But that does take a separate, Lift to figure procedural changes out next slide Other parking lot items we've discussed is impact fees Updating the city's fee schedule that takes actually some work because you have to look at Your fee schedule is an arbitrary it recovers its cost recovery and so you have to look at how many of a certain type of application are coming in and What is the actual labor cost to deal with those applications and those approvals? And that's how you adjust your fee schedules. So again, it's not super simple. We're happy to just plug something in, but to actually develop an updated fee schedule is gonna take some time. And then anything that's design related also, since we're not changing anything, master use table edits, short-term rentals, these types of things. Super important, but again, beyond scope of this project. And there's probably other things that you guys have thought of that you really wanted to see your regulations address. So we understand that there's probably other things that are on your mind other than what we have here as examples.

The parking lot item, these are procedural things that as a town are going to address separately. The exercise you're providing for us is one of semantics to

organization yes not procedural well these aren't just procedural these are something that would require a change to the existing right right we're not changing your design standards we're not changing what a person can do on their property so this is for our yeah so this is kind of these are this is kind of the wish list of things that eventually the city would also like to separate from yes so this would be additional things the city at some point in the future would like to see cleaned up or changed so if the instruction is reorganize restructure make this easier to read more approachable that's the task all of these other things have since come up so we're putting that in the parking lot so we can have a separate conversation about this yeah okay next slide that brings us to what we would like to do today with everybody to get some discussion started so if we have this laundry list of parking lot items um the challenge okay so everybody's in budget season now this is budget season um and so staff needs direction and you guys have ideas and so the challenge is to your it's like how do you prioritize all of these things and which of those items that are considered parking lot items are the true priorities of this council, this P&Z, and this community. So we're gonna look at some of that real quick. So we've got a ranking thing we need everybody to fill out. And again, because this is about city budget and stewardship of city funds and based on city need and priorities. Thank you. So everybody's gonna get one of these up here, like P&Z and council. This is not for us. This is for you. So we're just going to do a prioritization ranking exercise. Everybody's going to get it. Everyone's just going to X their top five. Like what you think are the top five most important things. If we totally missed it and there's more that you want to put under other, you can add things to others. Okay, but it's going to take a while because you need to read through the list and think about it and you need to think and see if we've missed anything that you think is really important. If we missed something you think is important, write it in at the bottom in other. After you do that, go through and just put an X next to what you think is your top five that you think are the most important thing on this list for us, excuse me, for the city to get done. And then we're going to. Look at that as a group. So everybody's looking at the top five they think is the most important on this parking lot list for the city to get that. You're not committing to do any of it. This is just to help you guys dialogue about your own priorities. I think probably about 10 minutes.

No, I'm sorry. How does that apply to the adoption of the new piece?

It doesn't. So these are all parking lot items. So these are beyond this.

I'm sorry. I have other folks to do.

That's fine.

I want to stay here. I'm just not sure how this relates.

Well, this is an exercise for PNC and council.

Yeah, I'm on the PNC. Oh, you are? Sorry. No, it's fine. It's fine. I just wasn't sure if this was on the agenda or if this was.

So I'm going to interject a little bit here. Thank you for your great presentation and review. First of all, I have a lot of questions for the attorney, for the rest of the group. for items that I don't want to be parking lot. I want to be taken care of now or in the present versus revision two in two years. So some of these things that are parking lot, I don't think they should be parking lot at all. I think it's a public safety issue for several of these. And so how do we handle that and how do we handle the suggestions for changes that we still have? Okay, what? Please help me here.

Just to clarify, so you don't want to deal with this, you don't want to do this exercise, you want to talk about something else?

Parking lot, according to you, and your discussion with staff, I'm guessing, means the future. I don't, this version two, okay? I'm concerned about things in the first version that is supposed to be implemented in September.

Can you give me an example of something?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, let's go over that.

no not at all no no no this is not us this is basically you gave this is these are substantive changes beyond our scope this is uh we would love to help you have these conversations we're out what you choose to do with this is your business right but we wouldn't have to do all this your city attorney could do this your staff you could do this so if we wanted you to help us address these we have to expand your scope because this is not in your scope

Correct.

One time, and what y'all may not know, but years ago, when we redid the planning and zoning document, actually planning and zoning did it themselves. I know because I was there. And Lloyd and I read a lot.

So are we doing this tonight, or are we doing what's in the original scope, and maybe we have another meeting to address the parking lot? I don't know. It's that or...

If y'all don't want, we don't have to, okay, so we just need to be clear on, like, this was for your benefit, just because I know you're in budget season, and you guys probably are going to want to decide which of these you want to tackle. So we are solely doing this to help you. This has nothing to do with what we're doing right now. So if you don't want to do this, we don't have to do this.

Okay, and I'm only one person, so I respect Michelle's opinion. You could vote against me, and we could, we can't vote tonight. We can't vote tonight.

Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly, me either. So you asked me for an example. I would like the attorney's opinion why Chapter 216, 242, and 245 are not included because Chapter 211 only mentions the word uniform twice.

Well, it's not uniform.

Well, okay, I'm asking the attorney why. There's three chapters that I think are related to development that aren't in there. There's also the issue of, we talked about districts not being defined and whether a comprehensive plan is the comprehensive plan of the present or the future, that needs to be clarified. My concern is, this is gonna be mandatory for every single person, and if it's mandatory, I wanna make sure that we do it right. And it's taken multiple cities, including Lubbock, two plus years to do theirs with 800 revisions. You're concerned about being sensitive to the budget time. I agree with that. This is not a building that if we don't put it up in 16 days, it's going to flop over and disappear into wonderland. I understand there's some issues here, but there's also a lot of subjective things. The words, page six, item J, line four, endangered and threatened. Have the city staff spoken to game wardens, EPA, and other experts? Page seven, item I, records are missing and inconsistent regarding long-time resident homeowners, whether they're in or outside city limits. regarding public-private policy and action, page seven, item R. The wording could be perceived as dictatorial.

Oh, so you're not reading, that's what my question was, there's nothing on here.

No, I'm concerned about this.

But you said there were some parking lot items that shouldn't be on parking lots, so I'm trying to figure out which of these shouldn't be on there.

I have questions that, getting together with this group is rare. It's like a diamond, it's rare. So what I want to do is address this, not a parking lot for version 2 in 2028. That's my opinion. All of you could decide otherwise. But I think if there's truly an urgency to get this going, we need to take care of it and take care of it right. And I'm only one person. But, you know, there's things about emergency preparation, page 7 item N and O. There's questions about that. City design manuals. I've never seen one. It's in here, page seven, item S, line three. I would like to have the city design manuals ready for council and citizen viewing. I don't know what it looks like.

Well, you're going to get responses to all your comments, but the public comment period is still open. And we've received 30 pages from you guys so far, which is great. And you'll get responses to all your comments when we sit down with the C attorney.

I didn't know that. I'm just trying to figure out. I had no idea that was the process. So thank you for sharing.

We would have talked about that when we got to the end.

Okay, so maybe out of line on this. So just we have a sense of direction for the sake of time and everybody's here. So we're obviously here. We're here for each other. Is there a specific direction that we can probably knock out tonight and have like a plan of attack? Obviously, you came here with your time and you gave us this, but let's focus on what's, is there something specific that we can work together on that you guys maybe had like, hey, let's talk to council about these specific items and we can work on that tonight? Is there?

Yes, but there's 30 pages of them. And if you go on that procedure, this was supposed to be the public comment period. And then you guys get their comments compared with attorney. And then you get to weigh that in. And I'm happy you gave them to us two or three months early. That's great. It gives us more time to work with them. But we had agreed on a timeline that was different. And so we're getting these two months before they were requested, which is fine. But we are still waiting for public comment period to close. And then we work with staff and city attorney to work through all those comments. So that's the process.

Some of these things are, you know, like you defined UBC.

It's certainly not going to...

Yeah, like the, well, this is serious. It's not a pizza. Yeah. I agree with Alex. Is there anything we can knock out tonight and be productive and enjoy each other's company and problem solve?

I will say these we can leave with you guys. This type of stuff is a really good exercise, especially to give staff direction on what they need to be handling in the next year or two. because coming out of this is all that other stuff. And so at some point this is something, you mentioned having both groups together. Again, that's why we thought to do this is because you do have both groups together right now and figuring out what your priorities are. It's helpful for your P&Z to hear from council and it's helpful to get to work on this stuff together.

And all these comments, I'm sorry, please define and clarify emergency preparation and training.

I mean, we can go through with, with staff on that. And, and again, because we're literally taking what was yours from before. So whenever we can find a way to enhance, we do like I added on, I mean, there's so much we added in for you, you know? And so if there's, if it's an obvious clean fix that I'll just grab, you know, in the statute from here, you know, do that. But if it's something where we would have to have this meeting again and we've got to do a whole work session to come up with it, yeah, that's where we would, yeah. So, but there's going to be, we have to respond to every one of the comments. And so you're gonna get, everybody who turned in comments will get a response back with responses back. And then the document you get will be a red line document that shows us where those changes are made as well. So you know how on this draft there was the code comparison table that accompanied the thing? On the next draft, you'll have that code comparison table, but you'll also have the red lines tracking where those comments were addressed in the document. Because also, the reason it just takes a little longer, too, is we have to keep track of those in line in the text. So we've got to take what you gave us and put it in the text. So we can't have all these separate stacks of comments in the universe. We've got to get everything into one document. And that just takes us time, too.

I have a question. How far are we away from population-wise to be a home rule city?

What is your population now? Three? Two? We're between four and five now.

Oh, OK. You're close. Two weeks. OK. So the work that we're putting in right now Is any of this going to be beneficial? Yes. How much is that going to change when we do switch over?

No, that doesn't change anything. What changes is you're going to charge them.

I don't want to be counterproductive and say we're making all this work and we're doing all this stuff. How long does it typically take for somebody to go into a home rule? How long does it usually take when we petition for it?

That's an eternal question.

If we ever do do that.

Oh, 100%. Yeah, none of it changes. None of this would change. It's just in your, the city would have a charter document and then you might want to add other things into this. Meaning like whole other chapters. You might want to add other things in. But this, your zoning and subdivision regulations stay. This is kind of the foundation of the house that you kind of build into and onto as you grow.

So I feel like maybe once we get a red line addressing me, this is great. It could have been a lot. Once it's addressed and a red line

Is that post comment?

I don't understand what that's supposed to be.

Is that post comment or once we close public comment?

Can we get the timeline back up again? Sorry. You're good. So normally public comment comes in and then public comment closes. And then it's actually great that we've gotten these early. Like I said, I'm grateful for any comments that come in. So now we do have a good stack to take. And so we can fly through them really fast. And we respond to every comment. But then some of them we flag that we need to discuss with city attorney. And she's going to do a review, especially the provisions and the procedures chapters. Those are the two that you really want to pay really close attention to from a legal. Because also a lot of this has to do with... the city's liability. I mean, you can be individually sued. Your staff can be individually sued. If you get outside of lines too much, it's not just the city that can be sued. You as a person can be sued. And so you want your city attorney to weigh in on some of this to make sure that everything's tightened right. And so that's why the way we work is public review period, and then that public comment period closes. Then we go through, we do our just quick run through, yes, no, sure, here you go, fill this in, give this definition, fix it up. And then we create a stack that your attorney will go through with the attorney. And then from that, you'll get that final version where you can review and provide drafts. And we've added in, we've talked about, we have added in a number of extra meetings to make sure that this has had the attention it needs to have. And so, The next time you get a document, it will be all of the comments and feedbacks you've given us that have been addressed in that document. And so you'll see it again probably by the end of summer. Because budget, we're trying to also be respectful of your time because you are in budget season and so you're going to be dealing with budget. And so we don't want to put those two because then one, they fight against each other in terms of importance and that's not right either. So I think we landed on this in September so that budget's over. Yeah, so after public comment period closes, we go back and we have a chance to work through all the comments that we receive. Then we get together with city attorney and look at everything like that. And then everybody receives the draft with comments responded to.

So are there things that would impact both planning and zoning and city council regarding industrial zone? I mean, that showed up on one of the slides, but it was deferred as a parking lot. But we have an industrial zone based on legislation that was passed to try to alleviate some mud congestion. Maybe that's the best way to word it. And is there an opportunity to discuss maybe how we want to use that or how it can protect us against bumper-to-bumper people? We can do that. Or off-street parking. There's egress and ingress issues. I believe right now in city limits you're supposed to have all four lots. tires off of the highway. Some streets down the road from here, you can't park on the side of the street at all. So is there uniformity that as a group we could all discuss? Things about lot sizes. Is anybody interested in having something about lot sizes? Is anybody interested in confusion regarding a statement about a landowner will not be responsible for entry maintenance into perpetuity? Okay, so what are you interested in? What floats your boat and gets you up in the morning?

Yeah, me too. Thank you. Yeah.

But the developers are coming to us frequently and fast, and we may not have another year when something happens. And I certainly don't want to have liability because we have an oops. So I don't know.

I mean, to me, there's a lot of questions. Yeah, I thought that's why we were doing it so quickly. was because the commercial developers are starting to come real quick. And so, you know, like, I mean, it's right. And I mean like, okay, commercial design standards that should have been in here and not on the parking lot.

So let me address the parking lot just a little bit and let me address the document as a whole. So a unified development code, um, this is to get it into a form that is a little bit more, um, applicant friendly. and what people are used to. So most of the cities I see are moving to a unified development code. Um, if they're not already there, the thought with, um, I respect all these changes need to be made. And I agree that there's a lot of changes that need to be made and cleaned up, but the thought is each one of those is owned its own due process. So if it's a zoning change or it's going to be a change on the use chart, um, each of those probably needs its own consideration because they're all deep and serious topics. How we would lump all of that into one adoption, I think probably would take another two to three years. And I don't know that you want to do that. So at the moment, our thought was just get it into the right format. We create the parking lot of things that we've identified as we're going through here. Um, and then we'd have that living document that, okay, let's, let's bite off what we can chew for the next six months, the next six months after that. And so on. Um, and I think that's kind of where some of these priorities came in.

This is going to be where we can update it ourselves. So, I mean, we don't want to go out and keep getting it all the time for that.

So just like we process zoning changes on a regular basis for change in use, it would be a similar thing. So at some point in time we would. Now we might need to help with some of it, say design standards, depending on how technical they are. So if they're engineering design standards, we're probably going to use somebody from outside because we don't have our own engineer. But if it's things like let's look at single family one and let's look at setback requirements or two, that we can do internally. But I think for that, you're going to want to advertise and go through all the normal zoning change processes that we normally do. And that way everybody gets, it's a little bit easier to swallow and everyone gets adequate notice that we're gonna be considering those topics. I think it would be completely overwhelming. I'm overwhelmed just thinking about maybe changing all those parking lot items in this document. So this is just trying to get it into the main form to identify inconsistencies and to get it into a format where we can actually read it, comprehend it well, and then communicate what it is. As you're gone through here, I think the exercise in making that parking lot is great because we do, you know, the staff and I see it all the time, things that need to be changed. But I don't know that you want to handle them all at once. You'd have a P&Z agenda and a council agenda that was miles long. But if you break it up and you put it in priorities of chunks, you know, I think in the next fiscal year we can handle, you know, so many. We can kind of break that up and make it more manageable.

So the penalty for violating one of these mandatory pages is $2,000 per occurrence or per day. So are you saying we're only going to implement like 30 pages every six months? Is that what your plan is?

No, you would approve a document once you get into the form. But as far as individual zoning changes, you would take those one at a time. If it's a zoning change or a subdivision change, you take those one at a time.

And so if developers.

Yes, you're going to have a lot of changes. I hope there's not 800 like Lubbock had, but it's a living document and it will change. It will change.

Okay, so what was your vision of having us here together tonight? What was your hope and vision of us doing tonight?

It's part of the process, just so you have an opportunity for input.

And you guys actually asked for this because you wanted another public hearing. And so you moved this up to June. We were going to do it later, and you asked to move it up to June so that we could do a public hearing so it could happen during the public hearing window. We normally wouldn't have even done this to

okay yeah i remember that i remember that good good call so so i'm guessing we'll have another joint meeting based on this two i think so one one more in september city council and planning that's for the adoption process what do you mean option when when you take action on this when you decide to so you're you'll get a copy of this probably a month or so before you know you need to you'll have time to look at all of this stuff too

But like I said, we were asked to move this up in process so that we could attach and do an extra meeting for public. And so that kind of, that's your second joint meeting. And so the next one will be when separate. So there'll be a PNC hearing and meeting where they make the recommendation or don't. And then there will be a council meeting where you approve or deny. So that's the next. You're going to get stuff in between. You'll get copies of stuff, and you can review it with staff. But we took that meeting and moved it up so it would fall during the public hearing process.

OK. And thank you for that. So we're pretty much done with an opportunity to share with each other.

Well, you can still do it.

No.

How? Well, and staff can facilitate that. I mean, we don't have to be here for that.

Correct. Yeah.

And I would have a work session. I mean, that would be great. That might be a great thing for you guys to do. You might not even know. I like that. And just talk through. But I do think this type of exercise, because we didn't want to do together, because as public funds and as, you know, to give staff their direction on what their priorities are. And so you guys, because that's a very good point. The other thing to keep in mind is the way the state is working now with zoning changes. It is very difficult for you as a city. You create liability for yourself when you make substantive changes to your regulations. Thank you. And because you change people's rights and rights and property. And our state is making that a very difficult process. So we err on the conservative side because of that, that only when necessary we can do that. And that's why that's a separate process. Like any substantive changes to your zoning regulations, you need a dedicated, you need public hearings, you need dedicated workshops to that. You might have to go to advisory committees in the cities where we meet monthly and talk through that and go through it because you have to be really careful with that.

It's its own due process for each one. And unfortunately, zoning is never going to be finished. You're always going to have zoning cases. Some things, design standards maybe change a little bit less often, but you're always gonna have some changes. So it's just a living part of government operations. I think you'd end up with transparency issues too, I think. Just kind of hinted at that is if you try to lump too much into this as far as change, if you got into say the zoning use table and some other things, I think you're gonna get into it where people say they didn't understand that that was part of it, they didn't understand it was included. So I think those things would be better left separate. I like the parking lot idea, and I think it's important that we're identifying these things as we go through. And this is a great opportunity to mention those. Hey, I saw this. Let's make a note that we need to address that. But trying to address it all in one big swoop, I think, is going to be so overwhelming, if not impossible.

And that's why those other cities you referenced, that's why it takes a long time. Normally, if you're going to do a full UBC with changes like that, that's a two to three year process. Yeah. and so that's why breaking it into phases and i'm we're doing that for fredericksburg right now we're breaking into phases so phase one is exactly what you're doing and then phase two is going to be to get into the design directives and really clean up a lot of the design side of everything and that's it's a common approach a lot of community because it's expensive it takes a lot of time to to really tighten up your regulations with all the growth we're seeing in texas right now so we're never going to be done done you just need a document to build on

We're just making something happy for the developers when they come in, that they can come in and develop in the city.

Anybody that comes in right now until this document is adopted works under the current document. And the purpose of this priority ranking is that if we follow this timeline and this process and scope as outlined, then this will help me determine what priority either we are gonna focus on or if you all decide to go with a consultant, it's up to you, what we're gonna tackle. So in that alone, whichever priorities you give me will have their own six month dedicated process just for that. There will be workshops just about, say, commercial design standards.

Hey, I like that one. It's number one on my list, okay? I got it.

With grocery store beside it. I mean, I think that's priority number one, but again.

Well, let's look at the priority stuff and the other stuff and wait six months, eight months. Yep. Look at the top five things, knock them out, and be done.

Yeah.

For priority, not parking lots.

Priority, yeah. Grocery store.

Grocery store. There's other cities out there. There's software out there you can go add for key words, key phrases, and see what the hell they're doing and implement it. You don't have to read that. I mean, yeah, we're Josephine, I guess. We do have different needs. 95% of it's repetitive.

It is. All right, let's go have a beer. Where? Your house or mine?

Get out of the way and let's move on.

Thank you all. There was some of that stuff I didn't understand. I didn't understand the red line was going to happen. I didn't understand what was going to happen. I thought this was it.

And I will say, and I wasn't just saying that. I really appreciate the comments. When I go into a community, I don't get that. That means nobody's reading it, and that makes me really nervous. Because I had one client about 10 years ago, it was the month before, and the community hadn't, we talked about that. So I would rather have those, but we also want to give them the attention they need with item by item review. All right. Is there anything else y'all want to talk about tonight?

All right, so do we need to make a motion to move forward? What are we doing here? All right, so are we all on the same page? Anything else to talk about?

Let's see. Okay, hold on, hold on.

I don't know what the page is.

Okay, so I am going to call us back together for one second. In the agenda it talks about the draft for public comment. We have the draft. We did make comments. This is gonna be an ongoing process, and there was a code comparison table that we really didn't discuss, but we're gonna refer to it at a later time. Is that my understanding? Agreement, concurrence, okay. So at this point, I think I inappropriately closed the public hearing too soon, but at this point, according to the agenda, we officially close the public hearing. Is there a, we're not supposed to vote, but I guess there's a motion or agreement concurrence to do that tonight? Close the public hearing now? Okay, and then a consensus to adjourn?

Or do we motion?

I'll make a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting.

Okay. Can we have one for the time, real quick? I feel like we're probably going to have a rough evening. No, I'm honest. Thank you.

I second.

Alright, there was a second.