Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Crazy how that

My name is Isabella Perez, Recreation Leader for the City of Socorro. Thank you for joining today's meeting. Before the meeting begins, we would like to remind our guests to remove all hats and silence all electronic devices. No destructive behavior or outbursts will be tolerated and violators are subject to rejection and possible prosecution.

Hello, my name is Judy Rodriguez, Secretary of Planning for the City of Socorro. Thank you for participating in today's meeting. Before the meeting begins, we would like to remind our guests to please take off their hats and silence all electronic devices. No disturbing or abrupt behavior will be tolerated and the offenders will be subject to expulsion and possible processing.

Good afternoon, everybody. This is the Planet Zoning Commission of the City of Socorro, Texas. It is May 19th, 2026, 5.35 p.m. We call this meeting to order.

Good afternoon. Item number two, establishment of quorum. Andrew Arroyos?

Here.

David Estrada?

Here.

Osvaldo Reza?

Here.

Yolanda Rodriguez? Absent. Rafael Carrillo?

Here.

Isidro Torres? Absent. We have a quorum with four commissioners present. Item number three, open forum. Alfredo, do we have anyone that would like to speak?

Not at this moment.

Thank you. Item number four, consent agenda. Do I have a motion?

I make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

I have a motion made by Andrew Arroyo, second by Oswaldo Reza to approve. All those in favor of the motion? Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Any nays? Any abstain? Motion carried. Item number five, presentation and discussion of the draft review of the Unified Development Code. Mr. Arroyos?

I would like to make a motion to move that item over to the end so that we can get the other ones up front, and then that way they can leave and we can just have our presentation afterwards, if that's possible.

Do you have a second? I'll second.

I have a motion made by Andrew Arroyos to move item 5 after item 11. And second by Oswaldo Reza. All those in favor of the motion? Aye. Any nays? Any abstain? Motion carried. Thank you. Item number six, public hearing for a proposed amendment to the City of Socorro's master plan and rezoning of track 15E, block 10, Socorro Grant, located at 11159 Alameda Avenue, City of Socorro, El Paso County, Texas, from M1 Light Industrial to GMU General Mix Uses, to allow for commercial and residential development. Mr. Arroyo?

Good afternoon, everybody. We will open public hearing at 537.

We do not have anybody that would like to speak.

We will close public hearing at 537.

Thank you. Item number seven, consider and take action on the proposed amendment to the City of Socorro's Master Plan and rezoning of Track 15E Block 10 Socorro Grant located at 11159 Alameda Avenue, City of Socorro, El Paso County, Texas from M1 Light Industrial to GMU General Mixed Use to allow for commercial and residential development. Mr. Ruiz.

Thank you. Good evening chair and members of the commission. Diego Ruiz, planner with the city of Socorro. We will be continuing with the rezoning request of the property located at 11159 Alameda Avenue. Rezoning request. The rezoning request pertains to Tract 15E, Block 10 of Socorro Grant. The property owner, Raul Rodriguez, is represented by Seer Architects. The property consists of approximately 1.259 acres. It is currently zoned M1. which allows for light industrial use. Summary of the request is to rezone the property to GMU to allow for commercial and residential development. Staff recommend approval of the rezoning request. Here's the zoning map depicting the property with a blue outline and colored in light purple signifying the M1 light industrial zone. Additionally, the surrounding properties include multiple residential, agricultural, and industrial zones. According to the Socorro 2040 Comprehensive Plan, the future land use designation for this area is neighborhood commercial. The requested GMU zoning is generally consistent with this designation. Here's the aerial image providing context to the surrounding area. The property is located at the corner of Alameda and Rodent. Here are the site pictures that show the current condition of the property. The first picture on the top left is the front of the property as seen from Alameda Avenue. Below is the side view from Rodent Drive. And lastly, the picture on the right shows the view from Rodin towards Alameda Avenue. The public notice map currently shown illustrates the surrounding properties on the 200 foot radius to which they were sent the following public notice letter. Here's the mass, master zoning plan report submitted by the representative in compliance with the GMU zoning requisite to explain the project more in detail. Here's the conceptual plan, shows an existing building of 1,500 square feet and a proposed office space building of 3,675 square feet with a proposed apartment building of 16,245 square feet at the rear of the property. A proposed planning area is shown. And here's a render of the proposed apartments. Here's the general description of the GMU. The general mixed-use GMU zoning district is designed to support flexible mixed-use development that combines residential, commercial, and community uses in one coordinated plan. Its goals are to encourage redevelopment, offer different housing options, create walkable neighborhoods, include parks and gathering spaces, and reduce the focus on vehicles. Any GMU rezoning request must include a detailed master zoning plan for city council review. The summary of the request is a rezoning from M1 Light Industry to GMU General Mixed Use. At this time, staff and the applicant's representative are available to answer any questions.

I know the area pretty good, and I think it's a great location for what's being proposed, so I don't have any questions. No, no questions.

No, I'm looking at the aerial, and I think these parcels are mostly junk yards, right? Automobile yards. So I think this is a good transition. Good move.

Good move as well.

I'd like to make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

Sorry, I have a motion made by Andrew Arroyo, second by Osvaldo Reza to approve. All those in favor of the motion?

Aye.

Any nays? Any abstain? Motion carried. Item number eight, public hearing for a proposed amendment to the City of Socorro's master plan and rezoning of lot 16, block 13, Flor del Rio, located at 11820 Flor del Sol, City of Socorro, El Paso County, Texas, from R1 single family residential to R2 medium density residential, to allow for a new build out of a duplex. Mr. Arroyos?

Good afternoon, everybody. We will open public hearing at 543. We have no speakers. We'll close public hearing at 543.

Thank you. Item number nine, considering take action on the proposed amendment to the City of Socorro's master plan and rezoning of lot 16, block 13, Flor del Rio, located at 11820 Flor del Sol, City of Socorro, El Paso County, Texas, from R1 single family residential to R2 medium density residential to allow for a new build out of a duplex. Mr. Royce.

Thank you. Good evening, chair members. Diego Ruiz again with the planner of the city of Socorro. We will be continuing with the rezoning request of the property located at 11820 Flor del Sol Avenue. The rezoning request pertains to lot eight, block four of the Florida Rio subdivision. The property owner representative is Sergio Anguiano of Fango Homes LLC. The property consists of approximately 22,451 square feet, which are 0.52 acres. It is currently zoned R1, which allows for single family residential use. The land use being vacant and the future land use is suburban residential. Summary of the request is to rezone the property to R2, which allows for the construction of a duplex. Staff recommend approval of the rezoning. Here's the zoning map depicting the property with the red outline and colored in yellow, signifying the R1 single family residential zone. Additionally, the surrounding properties include multiple residential and agricultural zones. The future land use map showing the subsequent zones. According to the Socorro 2040 comprehensive plan, the future land use destination of this area is suburban residential. Here's the subdivision map. The property is located within the Flor del Rio subdivision, which is planted in October of 1997. The subdivision consists of primarily single-family residential lots, 196 R1 lots and 14 R3 lots. Here's the aerial image providing context to the surrounding area. As you can see, the property is integrated with an already developed residential neighborhood Here's the site picture. The view is from the front of the property, from Flor del Sol Avenue. The public notice map currently shown illustrates the surrounding property on a 2,200 foot radius, in which they were sent the following public notice letter, shown here. Here's the development plan. It proposes a duplex in front of the property with a driveway and covered porch on each side of the duplex. Summary of the request is for approval of rezoning from R1 to R2 medium density residential to allow for a duplex. President Lee's staff and the applicant's representative are available to answer any questions.

I don't have any questions. It's over half an acre and it's only a duplex and there wasn't nobody against it, right? No phone calls or anything? Ah, no.

Okay.

I don't have any questions.

No questions? No. No, I'm good. Okay.

I'd like to make a motion to approve.

I second the motion.

I have a motion made by Andrew Arroyo, second by Rafael Carrillo to approve. All those in favor of the motion?

Aye. Aye.

Any nays? Any abstain?

Aye.

Abstain?

No, aye. Aye? Okay.

Motion carried. Item number 10, consider and take action on the proposed approval of the preliminary plan for Bauman Commercial Center being all tracks 9, 10A, 11A, and 12A1, Block 2, Socorro Grant, located at North Loop and Bauman Road, City of Socorro, El Paso County, Texas. Ms. Rodriguez.

Thank you, Mary. Good evening, Chairman and Commissioner, Judith Rodriguez planning with the City of Socorro. We'll continue with the next item on the agenda, and this is the preliminary plan request for Balmain Commercial Center. We'll now proceed with some general information. The property is located on Norrie Luke Drive and Emboundment Road. Legal description is all the tracks 9, 10A, 11A, and 12A1, Block 2, Socorro Grand. The property owner is Clean Landholding 2, Company LLC, and is represented by Jorge Azcarate from CEA Group. The lot size is 45 acres. Zoning is C2. General commercial and R2. Medium density residential and current land use is vacant. The summary for this request, the applicant is requesting approval for the preliminary platform of Bauman Commercial Center. And staff recommends approval for this request. Then we have the zoning map. The subject property is outlined in bold black. The red shading represents the C2, general commercial, while the R2 is shading in orange. And that's the medium density residential. This aerial image shows the subject site outlined in yellow along North Loop Drive near the intersection with Bauman Road. It also shows the property's relationship to the adjacent residential development to the south and east and as well as undeveloped land to the north and west. We have some photos of the property. The first is a view of the property from Norilupe Drive, and the second is a view of the property from the intersection of Bellman Road and Norilupe Drive. This is the preliminary plot presented by the applicant consisting of 10 lots and two ponds. The two larger lots at the bottom are zone R2, medium density residential, and the eight lots at the top are zone C2, general commercial. here also we can see the two proposed uh street extensions the first is bauman road which will be extended as part of the project to provide direct access to this development and the second one is uh leonard duran street that will connect to leonard state subdivision to bauman road Next, we have the development schedule, highlighting the projected dates for documentation, improvements, construction, final acceptance with project completion anticipated in 2027. And once again, summary of the request. Requests for approval of the preliminary platform development commercial center. And at this time, staff and the applicant, Mr. Scarate, are available to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.

I think we attended this one before, and we had kind of agreed that just as long as there wasn't anything under industrial, which I think is the case or whatnot. So I don't have any questions.

Well, I'm OK.

No? No questions? Okay, so, and I'm just trying to remember, we had rezoned, I think, to R2 on those two large parcels in the previous?

The back part.

And is the plan to build multifamily units on those still, on the R2 parcels? That hasn't changed? It's the same thing, so we're looking at the preliminary plan. Okay, and we're not rezoning anything, correct? Correct.

I'd like to make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

I have a motion made by Andrew Arroyo, seconded by Oswaldo Reza to approve. All those in favor of the motion?

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Any nays? Any abstain? Motion carried. Item number 11, consider and take action on the proposed approval of a preliminary plat, final plat for Alameda Center subdivision being tracks 22C, 22D, and 22D1, Block 8, Socorro Grant, located at 10201 and 10211 Alameda Avenue, City of Socorro, El Paso County, Texas. Ms. Rodriguez.

Thank you, Miriam. Good evening, chair and commissioners. We'll continue with the next item on the agenda, item number 10. And this is a preliminary plat and final plat request for Alameda Center subdivision. We'll now proceed with some general information beginning with an overview of the property. So the property address is 10201 and 10211 Alameda Avenue. The legal description is tracks 22C, 22D, and 22D1, block eight Socorro Grant. The property owner is Alameda SBLLC, represented by TJ Karam from Karam Development. The lot size is one acre. The zoning is C1 light commercial, and the current land use is vacant. Summary for this request, the applicant is requesting approval of the preliminary plat and final plat for Alameda Center subdivision, and the staff is recommending approval for this request. Next is the zoning map. The subject property is outlined in blue and includes the 10201 Alameda Avenue and 10211 Alameda Avenue, along with track 22D1, the small triangle between the two properties. And the pink shading denotes the C1 light commercial. signing this this aerial image shows the subject property outlined in blue the intersection of Alameda Avenue and North Rio Vista Road the site has frontage along Alameda Avenue and is located near existing commercial development Its location supports compatibility with surrounding commercial uses and provides convenient connectivity to nearby roadways. We have some photos of the property. It's a view of the property including both addresses, the 10201 and 10211 Alameda Avenue. A scene from Alameda Avenue frontage. Now this is the development schedule presented by the applicant. It outlines the project as a high-end coffee shop with an estimated 12-month construction timeline after permit approval. It also includes the project representative and contact information. Followed by the development plan, The site plan shows the overall layout of the proposed development. The building is on the west side of the property. A drive-through lane wraps around the site for a smooth vehicle flow. Parking is spread throughout the site with access from both Alameda Avenue and North Rio Vista using the existing driveways. This design separates drive-through traffic from parking and pedestrian areas to improve safety. Overall, the layout allows easy access and efficient site circulation from both streets, which are Alameda Avenue and North Rio Vista Road. Next is the preliminary plaque. It shows the topography of the three tracks, existing utility easements, site elevations, flood boundaries, public right of ways, and surrounding zoning districts, among other details. And this is the final plat, where the track lines have been combined into one lot, giving a total of 43,560 square feet. And it also identified the property corners and the final site boundaries. And once again, summary request. Requests for approval of the preliminary plat and final plat for Alameda Center subdivision And at this time, staff and the applicant, Mr. Karam, are available to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.

I don't have any questions.

No, no questions. I'm good. I'm good.

I'd like to make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

I have a motion made by Andrew Arroyo, second by Oswaldo Reza to approve. All those in favor of the motion?

Aye.

Any nays? Any abstain? Motion carried. Item number five, presentation and discussion of the draft review of the Unified Development Code, UDC. Ms. Camilo. Thank you, Mary. Marie, do you have any comments?

Good evening. Thank you, Marion. Lorraine Kimido, City Planner. I just want to welcome and thank Victoria for joining us again for our continuing discussion regarding the UDC and the UDCC adoption. So I'll go ahead and let Victoria continue with the presentation. Sounds good.

We do have a presentation. Do I need to just... Go ahead. So we'll just wait for him to get started, but just a quick update for this UDC. We are providing some updates to it. Right now we're gonna really focus on the subdivision aspect, the chapters in there, kind of break down and show you what some changes that have happened, okay? So again, the same how we've been reviewing in the past sessions, breaking down those chapters, looking at the key topics, key changes, and then opening up the floor for any questions. So I'm just gonna fly through this. So like how we mentioned last time, a lot of these changes, policies, and updates really are supposed to complement the comprehensive plan. And then also we want to include the expansion of your existing code. So consolidation, clarity, and visual standards to really create some modernization. Like I said, we're going to be really focusing on the subdivision regulations. So to get us started, the following is kind of presenting some of the changes. So in your existing code, You have payment minimums where it's around 40 feet, whereas in the UDC we're trying to be a little bit more flexible with those minimums and decreasing it to around 20 feet for a residential. We have connectivity where in your existing code is around 750 feet and we try to bring that down to around 600 feet. We have parkland dedications where right now it's limited options. It really creates some basins and then neighborhood parks Whereas we really went into more standards and creating for park dedication within the UDC. And we'll discuss a little bit more for that. And also who gets to approve certain things. So originally right now, city council has to approve a lot of plats on the process. So we wanted to kind of limit how much we have to go having people going through the full process, going to city council and kind of getting either PNZ or staff decisions. So subdivision chapter, just wanna really emphasize that we are setting up land development, establishing utilities and drainage, water requirements for plats. We bring in models, subdivision rules, and parkland dedication. One of the first things is we're looking at to develop vacant land, so a plat is to require the official, to require an establishment of property lines, the mention of the lot, number of lots, and if you're splitting the lot as well, and what are the establishments of utilities and easements. You kind of see an example here of a flowchart of the preliminary plat. One thing I do want to emphasize that we have updated is, as you can see in the flowchart, it says public hearing. We've kind of taken that away where it's just the decision from staff. just because as a preliminary flat, it doesn't make sense to go out for public review. So there's a new flow chart that outlines the process and the decision for P&Z for the final look over and recommendations.

Okay.

Okay. Our minor plats really can be reviewed by staff level. So kind of taking it back and just having our planning department review these minor plats, especially when it comes to splitting for residential lots and consolidating lots. So there's options for older properties with no previous plat as well and any minor adjustments. So it kind of becomes a quicker process for review times for the applicant. And of course, minor modifications also means lots without utilities in there. Again, just a breakdown of each of the plat types and their description. Really try to be as transparent and clear of what the expectations is and what each of these can provide. Other aspects is kind of showing the authority table of who should have the final say. There is a part here in chapter five for the subdivision, but also was shown in chapter 11, chapter 10 in the authority chapter. So just emphasizing who is in charge for the approval. Other aspects that are in chapter five is the street developments and impacts of design for neighborhoods. So we really wanted to have standards that are directly how it can influence how neighborhoods grow, function, and look. So we really wanted to design neighborhoods with streets with increased walkability, adequate sidewalks, and honestly have compatibility with all ages and areas around. So when you look at it, you've kinda seen these in other reviews, but this is just going a little bit more into detail. We try to create some street minimums and also figures and images for references for easily to be planned and implemented on the type of streets that can be provided in here, whether they're gonna be these wide right-of-ways or narrow right-of-ways. The goal is really to create this complete streets concept. So another example in section 5.03.09, we have street designs for the standards. This breaks down the street types and then the right-of-ways and streetscapes. There's minimums on depending on the types and also requirements that are now being presented in this table. So we really wanted to again emphasize that safe and adequate and connected vehicle circulation. Also within this section here, this includes the streetscape requirements like sidewalks, bicycle tracks, landscape, street furniture, bio wells, rain gardens, planters, and permeable pavement and more. So creating this walkability that also just doesn't just focus on streets, but also the greater features that all connect into streets is a big aspect into the street design standards for the UDC. Other stuff that we were looking at is complete streets include elements like how we were just saying with the transit, the crossing, traffic calming, landscaping and shading, all levels of complete streets. And then moving on to the park dedication, which is within section 5.03.18, this is really adding that emphasis. So we're not just focusing when we create subdivisions of housing, and nothing else, there needs to be a process where new developments also include vibrant communities with shareable gathering spaces. So under the Texas law, parkland dedication is a valid exercise of municipal police power intended to protect the public welfare. So this actually ensures that growth pays for growth. So existing taxpayers are not burdened with the capital costs of providing new parks for these subdivisions. Continuing for this, it offers a preservation for natural drainage paths and also reducing the city's overall expenditure of artificial or on artificial stormwater infrastructure. So you can kind of see here for the new developments we have for the plats, depending on the size of dedication, it ranges from one acre per 50 or 75 dwelling units. And also we wanted to look at the, they're being proposed for the subdivisions is the fee in lieu. So this is an option that allows for developers to, instead of paying into a fund that can only be used by the city to purchase and develop parks, the land must be situated to allow convenient pedestrian and bicycle access in addition to the facilities. So this is talked about in section 5.0318. And as you can see, there's a table here that kind of breaks down the feature, the land dedication, and the VNLU. The next big aspect that we really wanted to emphasize in chapter five is the model subdivision rules. So this is actually a code developed by the Texas Water Department Board, and it's really to ensure that there's adequate supply of drinking water and sewer facilities available. So looking at ways, providing funding opportunities and grants that can really help fund for these wastewater treatment plants, water storage tanks, sewers, pipelines, and fire hydrants. It also applies for these subdivisions that are creating two or more lots or five acres and less intended for just residential use. It really requires adequate water and wastewater and utility services in these sites. kind of going back to the connectivity and the street designs, in that section of .0309, subdivisions have to provide a stub out of adjacent undeveloped land. So what it really is, it's connections to adjoining properties, connections to existing stub outs and limits on permit, cul-de-sacs and dead end streets and secondary increase standards. So this is just breaking down what are those street stub outs, they're that permanent dead end streets that are intended to be extended for future use. We really wanted to have, again, that emphasis on connectivity when we look at all elements of the street when we're creating these subdivisions so we're not creating obstacles when it comes out to emergency response, any traffic dispersion, or even pedestrian mobility. So with that, I'm gonna open up the door for any questions or comments on the UDC as we move forward.

I've got a question, the one that caught my eye really quick. I think it was one of the first pages where it showed from 40 feet on the width of the street to 20 feet.

Yeah, the proposed payment minimum.

Me too. I think it was the first one.

Okay, let me just go back. Did I pass it?

No. No, it's still before that.

More? Okay.

Right, that one.

Okay, this one.

On that flexibility, so on a subdivision, you would allow the streets to be 20 feet wide?

For residential, yes.

For residential?

Mm-hmm.

Would that make sense for vehicles to be parked on the sides of each side plus one going and coming? 20 feet, I don't think they'll fit.

No, that's just for coming and going.

Mm-hmm. There's not going to be no street parking in residentials?

Not for those. There could be discussion to do a PD or to expand upon it, but as of right now the minimum would be Not 20 feet for that residential unless it's a different road type as well What's the reasoning for the 24 Just to not create so so much emphasis for the car. Usually it's a lot harder for people to cross the street pedestrian wise biking you would want your street to be a little bit more narrow, especially in these residential subdivision spots.

So kind of so that you can kind of push them to park on their driveways and not on the street? Exactly, yes.

But then visitors, where would they park? Can you go to the next page? I believe you showed an example, but the example does have parking on the side of the roads. That one. from a wide road to a narrow road, but that's no parking on the sides, right? One going and coming?

Yeah, that's one coming and going.

The other one does show parking on the sides.

So it depends on the type of road separation that they choose. And then these are also broken down on the roads, type of road it is, like I said earlier. So it could be a rural road, residential, aerial. So it really... encompasses of what the type of development it is as a whole. So are we worried that the 20 feet is too aggressive

Yeah. I do. There's a subdivision, actually, that's being built over in the northeast side of town, and it kind of has this, and it's even further construction of it or whatnot, but even after people move in, like you said, if anybody wants to visit, you know, a certain family member lives or whatnot, zero parking on the sides. So that would be, like, my only concern. I'm not saying I'm against it, but...

I'm more concerned they're going to start parking in the sidewalks, walkways, on the easements in the front, yeah, and start blocking them more with those 20 feet rather than if we do, like, I totally get it where they narrowed it down, one parked on each side and then just the one going and one coming, right? They have to pull to the side. And they did that to slow traffic so that they wouldn't be speeding. But if we're trying to do something in residential where no parking is on the sides... I mean, imagine a duplex community with no parking on the sides, I don't know that it'll, I mean, it's great, right, if they wouldn't have so many cars, but I just know for a fact they're gonna start parking on the sidewalks or blocking walkways.

So I guess we could also kinda look into the type of density that plays a part. Correct.

Now for rural, though, I agree because you have the 20 feet plus, you still have dirt, easements or whatnot, right? You don't have no walkways or nothing. So I don't see a problem there. But in a subdivision where you have curbs and all that and drive-ups to the driveways, I think that'll be an issue. Maybe 30 feet will work. You got eight for one vehicle on one side, eight for the other one. And then the other, what is it? 20, no, 14 in the middle.

Usually like 10 feet is parking spaces like 9 feet.

I think they usually on the street It's like 10 to give it a little bit of room The other Another comment I would make is that we get I've seen I guess subdivisions where there's like multi-generation living in the household and then children are maybe staying with the parents a little longer, and so you have mom has a car, dad has a car, teenager has a car, the older son or daughter, they're probably in their 20s, they have a vehicle, and then maybe grandma's living there, and now you have like three, four, five cars per residence, and so I've seen even with our standard parking, I've seen, like you're saying, parking on driveways, parking on their front yards, they're extending their driveways, putting all concrete all across the frontage so that they can park their vehicles. And so I know it's neither here nor there for me, but I've asked why and think why, and it's because of that. there's a lot of people living in the household for different reasons and everybody needs a vehicle. So it's a lot of parking requirements. So by eliminating the parking on the street, I see that

Unless we're thinking of like a designated parking area, sort of like roundabouts or HOAs do it where, yeah, you have no parkings on the site, you only get the driveways, but then there's a designated parking area, let's say next to the park or something, and people have walking distance to the property or something like that.

There's areas in Horizon. That have it like that, yeah. It's like a cul-de-sac, and then they have extra five, six parkings in the middle. And it looks nice, because they've got a lot of greenery, so something like that would be nice. And it's like an actual roundabout. It creates a roundabout.

So that could work, yeah.

I've seen those. Plus it's just us cars driving through. You've got the emergency vehicle, you've got the ambulances, the fire department going through those small streets.

I'll put in notes for those.

I have two more questions.

Yes, go ahead.

So the other one, can you explain the process of the flowchart, if we understood it correctly?

Yeah, let me go to it. So the flowchart is supposed to be a visual, so it is written out in the actual UDC on what the actual procedure is, but we wanted, yes. We wanted to have a quick reference breakdown of how a pulmonary plat should be processed. So you start off with the pulmonary plat. This is your goal, this is what you wanna do. So then you have your, let me zoom, can you guys zoom in a little bit to it? Because I know it's a little, so the initiation, yeah. just so we're all on the same. Perfect, thank you. So you have the initiation, so you have to initiate it going to the city planning department and completing the application for it. Staff will review that and provide a decision. From there, And that actually, so like I said, kind of needs to be updated. It needs to go to PNC for that decision, and then be, either it's gonna be approved, approved with conditions, or disapproved, and they kind of have to start from the beginning. But in the actual UDC code, it kind of breaks down a little bit more into detail.

I saw a second slide where it also said that city manager or planner, I think it was, that they can make the decisions and then that way it wouldn't come to commissions, which is great, right? I think that's what we were aiming that way. Not everything would come here, but something that you guys would already either deny or accept based on the rules, right?

And so that was the big thing we were kind of going back about. I'm going to show on this one that was was because we didn't want a lot of these can be done either in like by staff. It didn't have to go to city council. So some of these right now, they they are in the process. You have to go through the city council You guys still have to approve when it doesn't have to be that hard. So we were discussing either we stop at planning and zoning or we have staff approve it. And I'm actually kind of curious your guys' thoughts. Does a planning plan need to go to PNZ? Is it a final plan needs to go? Or can that be something staff can just recommend and then when it goes into final or maybe like how minor is, that's just staff? And amending plan, that's staff? So that was the big idea for it.

Okay, is that better? Yeah. Okay. So I had a few questions on the legal side. I'm not trying to be difficult or be a negative Nancy about it, but the flow chart, so that flow chart is going to appear as a visual in the UDC code once it's adopted?

Correct.

So on that one, you know, there's a couple issues on that one. So the way, you know, it happens in Texas and then the way we end up doing it is it does go to a public hearing to PNZ, but then it goes to city council. Although I can see maybe the public hearing decision is the council, but, because we have a two-step process, but we also have a timeframe because it's, these guys know that it has to, Once the application is made, we need to do something in 30 days. But in your flow chart, though, it doesn't have that part where if these guys don't act in 30 days, it actually automatically is deemed approved and it goes to city council. Same thing there is that there's a second 30 days that starts tolling if they don't approve it. it gets automatically approved. So in your green box there where it says approved, there's probably another little box that should come down that says if no action's taken or something, then it's deemed approved. So I don't think it's happened recently because we take action now very quickly, but it can. So that's just one part I was gonna mention. So yeah, on the recordation part, that little bubble, there's still the city council part of it. The second part was on the city manager and the designees and on the authority. So a few years ago, we actually wrote into the code in several sections that the city manager or their designee would have authority because there was a lot of other little things besides the minor plats and things like I don't know. They would be able to waive certain little items. So we had a catch-all provision. It was pretty much at the end. I don't know if the UDC now is going to still have something for if these things aren't covered and there's some other little thing that comes up, could the city manager or designee waive it? And then for you guys, for the planning zoning commission, so you know that it's not for major decisions, it's for like minor things. Like, I don't know, they're missing a page that was attached to something. Do they need to come ask you for permission? So it's those kinds of things where they can, okay, they can go back to the applicant and say, hey, you're missing a page. Can you bring that with you? You know, so tiny things, but not major decisions, because all those major decisions still need to go through planning zoning commission, no matter what. It's under state statute, under our ordinances. so they can't bypass planning zoning commission is what i'm saying um that's under the law and then it then it goes to city council but if they're missing that yeah paper or something we don't have to restart the whole process again because i remember writing it a few years ago because we were running into problems where every little thing that was at planning zoning in the department was like well we don't know and so we started writing that in there intentionally so it may help if it these things aren't covered and there's something other, some other minor issue that planning and zoning can do it. Part of the thing is that they have kind of a customer service function, the planning zoning department. So it's to make it easy for the residents when they come in because not everybody's sophisticated has an engineer and has everything together so we're not trying to make it difficult for people to come in and say hey you're still missing in x y and z you need to bring it in so it's to make it easier for the residents not make it difficult because again people don't have the access or the finances to really put together i mean some of these like there's there's a one that came in tonight on one of the items that had a really nice report attached here the diagram i mean if they all came like that

That'd be great.

Because that just, you know, it can win you over. And it's like, okay, everything, all the ducks in a row. But most people, you know, you'll see handwritten ones or a diagram. It's like, well, that's mom and pop and that's what they have. And, you know, and so that is to make it easy.

So now that we're talking on the legal side, to understand it better. So per se, the item that we had on the duplexes, right? So we all agree that it's half acre. They have the space. Does that still need to come to planning and zoning, even though we've... pretty much like stabilized it that if it's a a developed already community or an older community but they have the half acre to where there's not going to be any issue for the duplex is it not something that staff can approve automatically yeah yeah it would still have to come here yeah you're trying to rezone and change something um so yeah what's what's certain because with you guys i know

you now have created a kind of a standard among yourselves. Like if we see this, this is how we're going to handle it. Some of those are hard to kind of put into the code because that's just the current panel. But you guys will change in and out and there's new people that come in and then maybe the standard changes. Yeah. Some of them is just you have to be consistent on your own decision making. It's not in the code, but it's just between you guys. Hey, this is how we handle it. This is what we did the last 10 times. Yeah. But, you know, the part of this is that they're trying to standardize everything that was missing. There was a lot of holes in there. Some of it, you know, I mean, as the attorney, I'm still sometimes a little bit skeptical because I see it and I'm seeing the images and it looks like, you know, downtown Chicago and everything. I think you guys are picking up. on the streets and everything is it's still somewhat not localized to Socorro because those streets don't look like the Socorro streets. I got brothers that live in Chicago and it looks like that. You know, if you have trees on both side of the walks and you've got the benches going all the way down, I'm like, so here you got wider streets. You've got, you know, that's just, it's Texas also. So I don't know if it's necessarily that localized, but I understand the intent is that we're trying to, fill in all the gaps because the code has been rewritten so many times that there's holes everywhere. Every time I've looked into it, I'm like, oh, that's something we need to fix. That's something we're missing. So this is to fill in all the gaps. Um, but yeah, just this is for this guy, you know, as well.

So I just like to say a couple of things. My name is Samuel Haas. I'm the planning studio head at able city. So first time I'm meeting a lot of you, uh, separate rain. Nice to meet you in person. Uh, but it's great being here. Thanks for having me. I just want to talk about a couple of things. so regarding the street with thing yeah i mean 20 is really small typically a right-of-way especially for residential streets it's about 10 feet one way you know for for that car so you know 20 feet for two cars you're not going to have any street parking however that's the minimum right so a developer can go out and build a 100 foot road if he wants to and that's still allowed in the code it's just not the subsidy of the quota would no longer require at least 40 feet it gives developers a little more flexibility that's really the intent of that The other thing about this I want to just ask some clarity. So the state of Texas allows planning staffs to approve PLATs, preliminary PLATs and final PLATs. If the city of Socorro doesn't want to do that, they can stick to their current approval route, where it goes here for recommendation, and then it goes on to city council for them to decide. What we are proposing, or we're saying that one option is you could bypass all that and just have staff approve those. That's allowed in the code. It's especially helpful with the 30-day shot clock requirement, which the attorney here was mentioning, right? You have that. Window to do things and that makes it really tight to call a meeting to get it to City Council and all that stuff, right? So you have the option to do that if you want right now as we were proposing it The Planning and Zoning Commission would get final approval authority. That means no more recommendations to City Council It's going here and you are deciding upon it whether it gets approved or not Now the state of Texas doesn't allow a lot of discretion in that because if it follows all your UDC requirements Anyway, you basically have to say it's approved So there's not a lot of wiggle room anyway. So it is sort of parliamentarian, right, just to come in here and do the whole procedure. So that's the question that Victoria was initially asking. Do you want the authority to approve Platts? Do you want staff to have the authority to approve Platts? Or do you want it to stick to what it is currently doing now, and that is going to city council? So I'll leave it at that.

Mr. Scott.

We want to have the last say on everything.

I understand that for sure. I mean, there's a lot to consider here. Like, you know, if there's not a lot of capacity at the staff level to approve these things or to properly review these things, right?

mean there's a lot of things to think about there's a lot of things to discuss but those are sort of some options well for example when stuff comes in sometimes we see you know staff recommends approval because they're but with the condition that they're still missing uh tia or or something like that to me i think that if you know planning the zoning they know all the steps and they know what's required. And if they come in with all that, I mean, I think plannings, I mean, yeah, plannings only should have that last say so, right?

So you want, so that's the commission, yeah? The plannings only commission?

I mean, if they know what's required and if the applicant is bringing everything that's being asked to bring in, I mean, it should go through. I mean, that's just, again, that's just my, that's my opinion.

And that's just for preliminary flats or final flats as well? That can be for either one. Either one.

Yeah, and the, so you see where minor flats and mini flats.

But no rezoning, correct? Sorry, no rezoning.

No, zonings will still come here. That's a state law. And the replats as well have to come here because you have to have a public hearing on replats. Not all of them, but most of them.

I think I would be okay on a preliminary or final, but per se, something like what we saw today, the duplex. Because last meeting, we had somebody wanting to put 10 units on half acre when they already had a duplex. If it follows the guidelines and they approve something like that, at that point, that's when we were all against it. Why? Because it was an established neighborhood and they were trying to put in 10 apartment units and something that was already developed. Now, if it's a new subdivision, then hey, people know what they're getting into. The people haven't even bought there. You're gonna develop all new residential, 200 apartments, and people know what they're getting into, but you're not getting something into what people have already established. Maybe if we could set those, I guess, correct, then I wouldn't see why not.

Yes.

so just to clarify that was also a reason a rezoning request so those would still all go to the planning and zoning commission not having to go to city council for the preliminary the final flats that would be helpful just in meeting that 30 day clock if there's not much change from the i mean once you approve the preliminary and there isn't any change in the final the final could even just be approved on the consent agenda there's really not much that again that needs to be reviewed at the level of the planning and zoning commission and then in the example that you described in a plat where a person wants to just split the property nothing in the exterior boundary has changed the utilities are there the street is there they're not providing anything additional. All they're moving, creating is a line within that already approved plat. It makes sense for that to be something administrative that staff can do internally. To your example, you were still talking about a zoning, but in a platting example, that's where it's administrative. There isn't really anything that is changing. We're just drawing a line in the middle of a problem. So that makes sense to just be taken care of and everybody goes on their way.

So it's just very important that we understand that. And I agree with you. They want to put in eight units or whatever. That would still have to come in through here.

Yeah. And to build on what Lorraine's saying is a lot of that density and use regulation happens at the zoning level. So that'll still come here. You'll still be able to hear those items. But like she said, when you're just drawing lines on a map, essentially.

It's pretty much like they have a ponding area. They have a...

Six-foot high rock wall they have everything the space that they need the land all that it should go through And then they'll bring us the item to approve or disapprove the ten Units per se that already established.

Yeah, ideally that would come before the plotting Well Thinking and I made a little joke right now, but in in general I think I the process that's in place right now, like staff, it goes through staff, it goes through planning zoning, but ultimately the elected official makes the decision. And for example, if staff is given more authority, then there's more power there, right? And if planning and zoning is giving more authority and it stops here, then this board is given more authority and it allows itself, opens itself up to other stuff, you know, corruption, for example. And so ultimately, I think the elected official that can get voted out, right, I think they have the final say. So in this case, what we're talking about here, I think, you know, there's some stuff that's redundant and it just, you know, so the parameters need to be set, but I think it still needs to flow through as, you know, as much as possible so that everybody, just check some balances there. You know, that way there's power that's kind of spread out through the different departments.

And I 100% agree with that. I think my only, the only thing I'll say to that is that When you have judgment calls, you need to have your elected officials and your appointed officials making those calls, right? When there's sort of like a should we or shouldn't we, right? But plats are very technical. And the state of Texas keeps taking power away from local municipalities, and they don't allow them to have discretion on a lot of things. And plats are one of those things. It says in Texas law, if you meet all the UDC requirements, your plat has to be approved. So at one point, this is the question that we're posing. What are we really doing by bringing developers and property owners in here and making them do this whole process if the state of Texas is just making it rubber stamp anyway? So that's sort of the question and that's what we're offering the options here. That's really it.

But the UDC code, is the one that's being developed for this city, for Socorro, so if that code is done to the thinking and the liking of the city, then developers have to meet that. what we're doing and what you're asking is, okay, what code do you want in there, right? So the first one that comes into mind is warehousing. The warehousing can be controlled by putting the code in place right now. So for example, we've had discussions or whatever, no warehousing unless it's within a mile of Interstate 10. Yeah. Or Loop 375, right? We don't want warehousing. And so if that is put in the code, then this is the time to do it. And for clarification for my part, that's the question right now that you're asking. What do you want in the code? What do you want to be? No different than the width on the streets. And so my two cents that I eventually want to get with you guys is the warehousing. Because, I mean, if you drive down the Pecan Orchard right now, that thing is a monster. I don't know if you guys have been down there, but drive North Loop past Horizon, look to your left a mile down the road, and it's just out of character for Socorro, in my opinion. And so it can be controlled right now. And that's what you're doing, correct? That's what you're saying?

Yeah, that specific instance would be controlled through the zoning section of the UDC, not necessarily the subdivision section.

Okay, and so I'm waiting here. Hopefully we get to a part discussing warehouses on these presentations, right? But it's a big issue because there is a lot of vacant land that I'm sure developers are, and we're seeing a lot of projects come through that are not warehousing that are great, right? But there's a lot of land out there where if we're not careful as a city, the warehouses are gonna pop up all over the place. Or they may not, but we have no control if they're not addressed in the UDC. And so that's a big hot topic across the board, I think.

And when you're talking about the warehousing, are you also talking about the data centers? Are those going to be in the same realm and maybe same type of...

Okay, so I've been having private discussions outside of here on the data centers and their role and what's happening in the water usage and the electrical usage and so on. So I think the data centers are... I mean, they're gonna be, we need them as, I believe, as a society in whole across the country. And so the cities that go along, I think, are gonna just eventually be ahead of the game when it comes to the data centers. But they come with a lot of cons that we don't know about. What's gonna happen in 10 years from now, we just don't know. We just don't know. It should be related to warehousing and manufacturing. But as a subset, not in the same. It should be separated. Gotcha.

And the type of regulations we're thinking is separation from residential and type of even sizing of different warehouses. So there might be different regulations that go into the setbacks, the screening, the buffering, things like that. I'm assuming we just want to create a a big emphasis on and maybe have conditional permit, conditional use permit in ICN.

It's because like the data center and the setbacks, the site plans, but once you allow the data center or the warehouse to come in, it's in. Who cares the setback and the parking and the height, it's already there, right? I think the UDC should address, do we want a warehouse or not? Yes or no? And then do we want a data center? Yes or no? All the other, once you say yes, When it comes to here, we have no say-so. You know what I mean? As far as saying yes or no on the details. The big question is, do we want a data center, and where are we gonna allow it? So data centers consume enormous amounts of energy, electricity, and enormous amounts of water. And so, do we want them as a community, yes or no? That's the big question. And if we do, where? And warehousing, more than anything, it's the trucking, traffic, and then what they look like, basically. They're out of character for the city and what's out here. And so they should be placed strategically, and where should they be placed? And once you say yes, suppose they're coming in, and if it's not controlled, look, the warehousing right now is in my backyard, and I don't like it, right? I wonder how many, for example, I know that we all live in Socorro, right? is it in one of your backyards, right? Is it affecting your, Andy, Mr. Arroyo, does it affect your traffic flow? You know, what's gonna happen when you're driving out of your backyard onto North Loop? And so these are everyday things that now I'm looking at, like, god damn, this is horrible, horrible. And so I'm sitting here trying to think, okay, if you can't beat them, join them, you know, find a way to work with it, but it, it's very important I think that the data centers and warehousing and manufacturing should be addressed in its own chapter maybe or its own subsection or whatever but as two separate ones and then the flow needs to come through just like we were talking about and then the elected officials I think have the final say as to where do you want them I'll go back to is it in your backyard know do you have to stand in line in traffic behind 10 big rigs on the infrastructure that is not there you know the roads are not there and so we're waiting there i mean i witness close accidents almost on a daily basis and then accidents on north loop all the time and that's our backyard and so now's the time to I mean, this is a window to do it.

Maybe we can bring up the warehousing, per se, chapter on the next meeting or something.

Yeah. And kind of just like talk about where Because like David said, they're gonna come in, property owners can sell, they can come in or whatnot, but kind of just keep control of maybe trying to keep them out on the outskirts of Socorro or whatnot to where there's, you know, they got easier access to a highway or whatnot, keeping them away from subdivisions.

Or on one main road per se, like just down Alameda. All warehouses just down Alameda or just down North Loop or something. We already have a lot of warehouses on Alameda, so maybe keeping them just down that road or something like that.

That would be if we could have like just a meeting just specifically on that and kind of just like look at the whole city of Socorro and see where there's empty land and where there's potential of they would fit or not.

Yeah.

Yes, so I like the Alameda idea, because I don't live off of Alameda.

But I think there's a lot of farming in schools there.

But Alameda has two lanes going in one direction, two lanes going in another direction, and then a turning lane. North Loop does not. Down a certain way, right? On the other part of the warehousing, though, is I drove down East Lake on the way over here to this meeting, and as you drive down East Lake from I-10, the first warehouse to the right I haven't driven by there at this time of day in a while, but the first warehouse to the right is now open for business, and that parking lot is max. There must be 200 vehicles out there, and I'm assuming they're employees, and they're right on East Lake. That is awesome for business owners. Rental property, real estate, the whole thing. It's phenomenal. So I see that, and I'm like, well, There's a good thing for that. It's a positive because it brings money and it brings business into this neck of El Paso, right, into this neck of the woods. But where they're located, that's a big one. So I agree, have a separate meeting specifically for that or a separate agenda item.

And then I have a, go ahead, go ahead. I just have another question on the subdivision. once i go your goal you can go okay i'm gonna go back into i love the fact about that on the pictures of what you're proposing on the width of the houses maybe we can tweak it 25 30 or whatnot right my main concern is i don't know if you guys have been down to coral road they put those walkways and whatnot on that historic district looks awesome but who does the maintenance for the streets and then on the subdivision, I mean for the sidewalks, because now you have a lot of tumbleweeds. So I don't know if that's text on or not, but maybe we can implement to the know if it could be developers or who it is but also or maybe on the code if we can specify in the subdivisions per se up north dallas or etc i know there's specific days of when the sweeper goes through for a while i would see it they're passing but now like something that we can add to where hey vehicles on certain subdivisions vehicles need to be moved Tuesdays because the sweepers going to pass by right up keeping these these new nice subdivisions because that that's a big one if you pass per se where the duplexes are at on Villas and Valles there's a big old chaos there I mean they did it so nice and right now you got gravel on the street you've got cars junked etc I mean and it was it was a super nice subdivision so maybe adding something like that of maintenance whether it belongs to the tech stock or the city or the city or the homeowners and actually be out there on them, if it's a walkway or whatever, for when developers are building that, to specify that. I don't know if that's something we could add. That's just a question.

yeah i mean for the text.1 you could write all the codes you want to try to get text out to do whatever they're going to do so but it's so cora socorro is text.1 right uh well there are some streets in in that are text no no no the road so yeah yeah the one that yeah we drove down today we saw the nice all the curb and stuff yeah we saw all that but now we've got tumbleweeds in the middle they are supposed to maintain that that's their right away so that's what they're supposed to do if you're having issues with that my guess is i would have city staff contact the local TxDOT field office and tell them to get out there and clean it. As far as your other question, how to get subdivisions, and typically what we see in subdivisions is, you know, when they dedicate right away to the city, the city has to maintain it, right? That's why there's impact fees. That's why there's all those things. That's kind of what theoretically is supposed to pay for all that. What we see in a lot of other subdivisions too, even private subdivisions like gated communities, is that typically that's like a homeowner association, yeah, like an HOA responsibility. And the city, it's really, that's a civil matter at that point. The city would have to basically take a step back and they can bring up, the homeowners can say, why isn't my HOA taking care of this? But that's a separate issue. But I mean, I guess to answer your question directly, if it's public right of way, if the city of Socorro owns that right of way, it's the city of Socorro's responsibility to maintain that. And there's no real way to, to write that into the code per se. It sounds to me like it's more of a code enforcement thing and just getting more people out there and checking things and making sure things are kept up. That's really what it comes down to.

And just because when I saw the benches, the bushes, the Chicago view, I said, hey, that definitely looks nice. But okay, who's going to keep it up?

Who's going to upkeep it?

We won't have bushes. We'll have tumbleweeds all over the place. We definitely don't want the tumbleweeds for sure. But that's why I said, all right, if it's a business owner or whoever, stipulate something there where, hey, you have to be on it to upkeep it. We want to do nice things for sure.

But good improvements, good future for sure. was my two cents there was a few things i was gonna add just for the planning zoning commission there's a few things brought up so on the issue of the warehousing and the data centers and everything and you know how it should look in the code really that was the 2040 comprehensive plan that sakura had enacted that they had hired those consultants they put that comprehensive plan together i think it was in 2024 but that's supposed to be supposed to be the future guide for the city on how should development look what what should be in different zones And it took into account the historical nature of some parts of Socorro and preserving it. So that's where I think that gets addressed. And then the code really is more of the technicalities of the streets and all those things. And they're probably basing, I'm going to guess, off of some of the comprehensive plan.

Yeah, absolutely. We crafted a lot of these to fulfill the goals and policies of the comp plan.

So if you guys recall in that process, I think some of you guys are here that people came in here and we drew things together and maps and things like that. So they took into community input and it was posted. They had meetings and everything. So that's that I think kind of addresses that on the going back a few issues on the authority level of should things go to planning zoning and should they come here to city council? Ultimately, whatever you guys do on this, still going to go to city council and they might actually reverse and change their mind maybe and i don't know there's no right or wrong answer on the legal side is if they don't want to hear some of the issues because you know other cities let's say in dallas maybe there's 50 preliminary final plats each meeting yeah so the city council is not going to sit there through 50 of them each time and so i think in those bigger cities they've delegated a lot more planning zoning because they have such a volume that they can't sit there and go through every one every minute so it's kind of the time-based issue. Here, I don't think we have the same involvement. Sometimes, I think there was a couple meetings ago where there was a lot. Sometimes there's a couple. So that's really your guys' discretion and then city council on what they want to do. I don't know if they don't want to hear. Maybe they do want to hear and retain control over it. But you guys can make your recommendation on what level of involvement you guys want to have. And I think you guys brought up the issue of delegating too much power to planning and zoning. We haven't had that issue recently, but in the past, and I was here for some of that time, was with different planning zoning administrations, sometimes there was too much power and too much discretion. And at some point, city council and sometimes the city managers didn't know what was going on. And then that's where the potential for there's some other decision making that went into play and it shouldn't happen or favoritism and things like that. So that's why it's kind of become decentralized where it goes on exoning director, then it comes here, then it goes to city council. So there's pros and cons of doing it, right? Because either way, I mean, you know, if city council doesn't want to hear it, they won't hear it. And they'll say, you guys can just handle all of it. That's fine. That's up to them. But it also kind of insulates you from criticism from the public too. So a lot of times you guys might make a call and somebody doesn't like it and they say, well, I want another shot at it. Well, that's where then it goes, okay, well, you can go to city council next week and they'll take it up and you can try again and maybe convince them. Or maybe people, when we have neighbors that come and the residents and they're unhappy and they want to be heard again. They want to, I didn't get my first shake here. I want city council to hear me, my elected officials. That way you give them a shake, again, a fair shake to, hey, I'm going to go complain again. You know, because it's, if you guys recall, like on the arterial project, with a lot of the farmers that were upset, I don't know if it came here and then it went again to, or it went to city council, but they wanted to be heard. And they wanted their day in court and they wanted to hear city council hear it. And they gave them the time to do it. So, and that one, you know, again, there's pros and cons. If you force development into certain areas and say, hey, we don't want warehousing or data centers locally here, but closer to the highways better. Well, if they make projects where they're building highways and they're anticipating, we'll build data centers out in the empty fields. Then the farmers are all unhappy and say, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing the project. So it cuts both ways. You always make somebody unhappy and happy, and it's just dependent on do you guys want all the criticism? Do you want city council to hear it? But like I said, there's no right or wrong answer, but there's pros and cons. I thought I would just mention that to you guys.

And I just want to add, too, these recommendations are actually even coming from when we came out and talked to city council. We came to talk with staff. And there was discussion like, you know what, it might be better to not just always have it all go to city council. So we just wanted to provide you guys some options. And again, it doesn't have to be all of them stop with just you guys or stops with staff. It can be, you know what, maybe final plan is a little bit more tedious. And I think city council should be going to it. So we could always provide it. We just wanted to meet somewhere in the middle that provides your guys' needs as you guys approved. certain applications and processes.

I just want to add to that. I'm just going to give because I feel like it is our duty as professionals to just give our recommendation. so i was a municipal planner for many years i sat right there and that i wrote a code in that city it was shirts texas it was just 40 000 people about the size of socorro when we administ switched our code to have plats administratively approved it saved staff so much time because we didn't have to create agendas we didn't have to come to the planning zoning commission city council It really was a lot more efficient. And staff is tooled better to handle really technical things like plats, right? I mean, it's like, where's the sewer line? Where's the setback? Whatever. So that's our recommendation. Ultimately, it is your code. It is up to you. You can do whatever you tell us to do. We'll do it. We'll write it in there. But our recommendation is that plats should be approved by staff.

We don't have to vote on that right now, right? No, no, no.

We can talk more about it later, but this is ultimately just a workshop.

Okay. Any other questions?

Is there current zoning in the ordinance right now addressing data centers specifically? Yes. We'll get you that.

Yes, there is. We specifically talked about it and worked it out. And there is warehousing too, but I kind of need to go through it to see if it's as restrictive and I'll talk with Laureen, maybe there could be a little bit more. But just how Mr. Martinez was talking about how the land use can really go into specific uses, but whereas the code, if it's permitted into a zoning district and it's meeting all the criterias and it's getting its CUP, it kind of makes it a little bit harder to just flat out deny it because of the use. We just have to see what type of restrictions can be applied to it to, if anything, meet the standards that we're looking for for Socorro. So like how we were talking about having that buffer between residential is gonna be a big factor. Buffer between the highways or even looking at parking, which we've talked about, because I know parking with the big trucks is a big problem here, where they're just on the streets. That needs to be shielded, fenced off, and not seen in the public right away or their view. So I'll review it and I think it would be a good idea to just really focus on those elements if that's something you guys are seeing a lot more and maybe your recommendations we can apply a little bit to it.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, thank you. If we don't have anything else, we'll leave you to it and we'll probably see you in the next two weeks. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Victoria. Thank you. Item number 12, planning and zoning commissioner's report. Do you have anybody? No?

I don't have anything.

No? No. Planning and zoning.

David? Yeah, I have a comment. So on the warehouses. But if you haven't already, maybe you have, right, or not, but I'd ask if, you know, just drive out and look at the new warehouse that's being built on the Pecorn Orchard on North Loop. You guys have been there, right? Yeah. Okay, so when we see it on paper, it's not three-dimensional. It's just even if we look at renderings, it's limited to the size of the paper, right? And so if you're, you know, depending on the field that you're in, you can maybe visualize it a little bit better as to the size of it, right, on paper. But right now, the walls are up. The main trusses are up. That thing is a monster. It is huge. And so when it first came through, I'm seeing it, and I'm visualizing the size of that thing right smack in the middle of that pecan orchard, right? And so right now, if you go by, it's going to get built. It's going to get finished. I'm past that part already. But the size of it, it is huge. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm over-exaggerating, but.

You're looking at these warehouses almost half a million square feet, some of them. Yes. Half a million.

It's, I mean, these are huge things. So, anyway, that's my two cents.

Thank you.

Planning and zoning department report, Ms. Camilo. Thank you, Marion. I only have two items. One is that the border highway feasibility study for the extension of the border highway, not the border highway, I apologize, the whole border tech stop plan for that connection along the Texas border is still open, that closes next week. So if anyone is interested in looking at the website and providing comment, the link is on our social media to provide any feedback on that study that's currently being conducted by TxDOT. And then just to invite everyone to the city's 4th of July event, which is gonna be Friday, Friday, July the 4th. Saturday.

Saturday.

Saturday, July the 4th. And the entertainment is Lupita Infante. Thank you, that's all.

Thank you. Item number 14, considering to take action in the adjournment of this meeting. Do I have a motion?

Make a motion to adjourn.

I'll second.

I have a motion made by Andrew Royal, second by Oswaldo Reza to approve. All those in favor of the motion?

Aye.

Any nays? Any abstain? Motion carried, meeting adjourned at 7 PM. Thank you.