Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah, if they have fulltime chefs as long as they have that, too. Has this already started or Yeah, I'm wondering how much Yeah, that's already recording. Okay, great. Be prepared. Practice your zeros. This will be here if you want to [Music] Does he have

two grandsons? It's a cult. Chair cross. We're good. I will now call the August 4th, 2025 Planning and Zoning Commission regular meeting to order at 5:30 p.m. Mr. John Atkinson, please call the role. Good evening and welcome to the August 4th, 2025 Planning and Zoning Open session meeting. Commissioners, please state present if in attendance. Commissioner Morales, Commissioner Walker, present. Commissioner Jerasic present. Commissioner Rhodess present. Commissioner Carney. Commissioner Prager. Commissioner Longo present. Vice Chair Smith present.

Chair Crossy present. For the record, a quorum is present with six commissioners in attendance. Thank you. Thank you. Please rise for the pledge. Commissioner Smith will give the invocation. Commissioner Lo will give the pledge. Dear heavenly father, we thank you for this opportunity to gather here today. I ask that as you watch over us, you provide us with the wisdom and courage uh in the best interest of our city. I also ask that you continued prayers um and support for our TPD family. In your name I pray. Amen. Amen.

Amen. 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.

Please be seated. We will now confirm the meeting agenda items. We've had a request for item FY-25-27 PLT to be tabled until our August 18th meeting. Are there any questions or comments? If not, we'll we will approve the meeting agenda items by unanimous consent. Need a motion to table? Yeah, we can have a combined motion on this. If I have a motion to table uh as requested to the next meeting and confirm the remaining items as posted on the agenda, that would work.

I move to table um FY2527 PLT as requested and approve the remaining agenda items. Second. There's been a motion by Commission Commissioner Smith and a second by Commissioner Rhodess. Mr. Atkinson, may we have a vote? Commissioner Walker, I. Commissioner Jerasic. I, Commissioner Rhodess, I, Commissioner Long. I, Vice Chair Smith, I, Chair Cross, I.

Vote is unanimous. The motion carries. Thank you. Are there any public comments at this time? If so, please come to the podium. Limit your comments to three minutes. I see no hands raised online.

Seeing none, we'll move to the consent items. Item four, the July 21st, 20 and 25 2025 planning commission meeting minutes. If there are no objections, I will entertain a motion. Make a motion to approve this stadium. Second. A motion has been made by Commissioner Rhodess and a second by Commissioner Walker to approve item four on the consent agenda. May we have a vote, please? I commissioners. Hi, John. Hang on. I think we got a question.

Commissioner Rhodess. Hi, Commissioner Longo. Hi, Vice Chair Smith. Hi, Chair Cross. I vote

is unanimous. Motion carries. Item four is approved by unanimous consent. We'll move on to item number five, FY-25-24-ZC. Hold a public hearing to discuss and recommend action on a request to amend ordinance number 2017-4882 for a conditional use permit to allow expansion of the chemical manufacturing plant on 20.193 plus or minor minus acres located on lot one block one Temple Industrial Park section 26 in the city of Temple Bell County Texas and addressed as 2114 Torino Road. The case will be presented by principal planner Jason Deckman.

All right. Good evening, chair and commissioners. Uh we've got the city council schedule for this case on your screen. Uh and I'll let you know that the representative from Plato, Mr. Jeppi Bertine. He is here if you've got any questions that I can't answer with my presentation tonight. So, this is located in Temple's Northwest Industrial Park, not too far off of Loop 363, as you see on the smaller map. And then on the area photo, you see that, you know, the the facility is already there. They're looking to expand. You can see that there's room for them to do so. Uh, and there's some rail lines to the north uh and to the west that kind of wrapped around, and that's why that property has that curved boundary. Uh, so here's some photos of the facility. As you see, there's a couple large buildings. There's some mechanical work that connects them as part of their production process. Uh their parking areas on the bottom left and two things sent out on that photo is the landscaping and the trees that are already in place and the fire hydrant. As anybody knows, it's if you've worked in the industry or chemical fire is a big consideration. So there's one of the fire hydrants right there. I've got another slide that shows you that's not the only one. And then the lower right hand corner is looking back down Lucius McKelby towards the loop uh and shown one of the nearby businesses. They're all fairly widespaced out there. You know, if there was a concern for safety, that's one of your mitigations to keep them separated. So, as stated in the descriptions, about 21 acres, it's an existing facility with an existing CUP. The UDC requires the CUP for the chemical plant and that was what was approved back in 2017. So, we're not changing the conditions. We're not changing the use, but what we're doing here is expanding an approved use to add four more buildings. So, two of them will be production, storage, warehousing, um, and then two

of them will be tank farms for some of the raw materials or finished products that are part of what Padio produces. So the tank farm storage areas are shown in the orange yellow. Uh the new buildings for production warehousing are shown in blue. And then they're also talking about as part of a future expansion to extend that rail spur and have another rail loading and unloading facility. That'll give them the ability to reduce some roadway trips that they can have one site for finished product or one site for raw materials coming in and another rail terminal for finished products going out. You can't use the same rail car for the finished product as you shipped the raw materials in. Again, I'm not a chemist, but I know you can't mix certain things without causing problems. So this will allow them to ship their more of their materials on the rail without necessarily relying on trucks. That being said, if you look on the site plan, you see there's a number of diagrams showing the traffic circulation pattern in there. That's both going to be their freight and service vehicles coming in and out, but it's also going to provide the fire lane access in the case that there is an emergency that our fire department will be able to get in there and respond appropriately. The parking is shown, like I said, that's the existing parking and that's that strip along the bottom right hand side along the front. The parking is is outside the secure gate. So, they park outside and then walk in. They're um they're also going to comply with the landscaping. Uh the what's after the new facilities go in, there's still going to be 5% area that will be landscaped with either trees or sod um within the facility. One will curve along that that upper area along

the rail line. So they will comply with the landscaping requirements. How many fire hydrants? You said there's going to be six. uh and you see they're on the front and then there's another water line that comes from the north across where that rail spur is. So there will be fire hydrants on the front but one you know more on the interior of the site as well and there are existing utilities 8 in and 12 in water and sewer lines that run through there. Trino road and Lucius are not on the thoroughare plan. Uh does have access to the highway uh future land use shows us as industrial. We're not reszoning it, but it is still an industrial use that requires the cup. So, it's compliant with both the thoroughfare plan and future land use map. Uh, as far as the traffic generated, like I said, some of that traffic may end up going on rail, may not be highway. But for the existing traffic, we see about 2,700 trips on that intersection with Lucius. But they're not the only facility. There's a number of of factories, production facilities. There's a a concrete batch plant out there that all use that entrance to the loop. And if you've been out there lately, you know that there's a big construction project that was funded through through Tex DOT. Um the city had some small participation in getting the utilities relocated. That one is due to be complete uh about a year from now. So they're building two new overpasses, new frontage roads, extending the main lanes. If you've been out there, it is a massive investment, but is going to have a big impact on the traffic going around uh the loop. Even before I started working at the city, we were looking at some of the traffic numbers, and I've been watching the traffic on that part of the loop just grow and grow and grow. So, this has been well needed for a number of years. And in terms of safety analysis, the vast majority of the crashes should be surprising no one. They're all

concentrated on the loop with some some hot spots at those intersections. Um most of them are failure to yield to a stop sign or disregarding the signs. Um and a good portion of them are driver in attention. I did have one fatal crash, two serious injuries, and eight minor injuries. In terms of traffic, you know, there's these are very rule of thumb categories or use codes from the IT tables. Uh when I've done these for other cases, there's very specific restaurant uses. There's very specific different types of single family versus town home versus apartments. But once you get into the industrial, it's just pretty much general industrial or warehousing or manufacturing. And it doesn't make any distinction of whether we're manufacturing cars or machinery or chemical materials. So I would, you know, say this is very much a rule of thumb and you could compare that to if this was to be an office park with a large large number of employees coming and going every day. Um you'd probably see a much larger volume of traffic. Um as it is, they they've got around 30 employees at the site now. plans to expand, you know, that that employee count would go up, but it's still not going to get you into that 1 1700 range of of daily trips. If this was not industrial, if it was say an office park or a building materials site, it would be a much higher traffic use. So, I think staff's assessment is this is not a high risk from a traffic standpoint. We did send five notices out to properties within 200 ft. We got one response in agreement from Temple EDC and published the notice of the public

hearing on July 24th. It is compliant with all the standard criteria for conditional use permits. Um these are all intended to make sure they're a good neighbor and to date Padio has been a good neighbor. Um, so they are yeses in all categories and staff recommends approval of the amendment to the cup subject to the conditions approval listed in the original ordinance. And I want to make it clear, we're amending the cup because the cup ordinance has the site plan. They wouldn't be able to add these buildings because it would conflict with the approved site plan. We're not changing the conditions. So these are the same conditions in the existing ordinance. So, subject to TCQ and EPA regulations for air quality or spills or materials handling, material safety. Um, allical building and fire code requirements. The foam fire suppression system and spill containment, they're already there, so they'll continue to be apply to the proposed new buildings. Operations must occur in a safe manner to prevent excessive noise, dirt, litter. You recognize those are the some of the criteria from the cup table. Substantial compliance with the site plan. So we are updating the site plan to allow the expansion. Um minor revisions can be approved by the building planning director with council from the building official or fire marshall. Um and in this case they had put in the statement that cup and this is true of all cups. they can be revoked if council deems that it's become a nuisance or it's detrimental to the public health and safety. So that concludes my presentation. I'll take any questions you may have. Commissioners, are there any questions or comments?

This case requires a public hearing. We will now open the public hearing. If you wish to speak and are attending in person, please come to the podium. If you're viewing the meeting online, please virtually raise your hand, provide your full name and city of residence for the record. Seeing no hands raised online.

Seeing none present, we will now close the public hearing. If there are no more questions or comments, I will entertain a motion. I make a motion we approve FY-25-24-ZC as recommended by staff. Motion has been made by Commissioner Walker and a second by Commissioner Smith to recommend approval of item 5 FY-25-24-Z to city council per staff recommendation. John, may we have a vote? Commissioner Walker. Hi. Commissioner Jasic. Hi. Commissioner Rhodess. Hi, Commissioner Longo. Hi,

Vice Chair Smith. Hi, Chair Crosser. Hi. Vote is unanimous. The motion carries.

Thank you. We'll now move on to item 6, FY-25-27-Z. Hold a public hearing to discuss and recommend action on a request for a conditional use permit to allow sales of all alcohol for on premise consumption located on 1.9468 plus or minus acres being the remainder of a called 3.295 295 acre tract situated in CSM master survey abstract 550 in the city of Temple Bell County, Texas and addressed as 1702 Brace Street. The case will be presented by principal planner Jason Deckman.

All right. So you'll notice this one also has the same council schedule. Uh and in this case the applicants are here as well. Uh Mr. Steve Whiskiver and Christy Shaker are here if you've got questions about the Cheddar Scratch Kitchen that I can't answer. And so this is located on Braay Street on Jender Bruce Drive, the frontage road of I35. And you see that as it is right now, it's a undeveloped site, but they'd be on the corner. However, their access is going to be off of Braay Street just as their address. And that's I think a key component of the site plan. So, here's some photos of the site looking north and kind of looking across. There's sidewalks on either side of that corner. And if you look on the bottom right, you know, you're looking across, there's some existing and some future restaurants are on their way in. And then looking down Bray Street to the school in distance. And there's a good amount of landscaping, street trees, and pedestrian scale, both pedestrian and street lighting with those dual fixtures uh that you see there. So, it's a, you know, it's a really nice area. It's growing and this is part of that growth. So, they're here to request a conditional use permit for all alcohol sales. Uh, it's a 6,000 square foot restaurant. So, they'll have the seating area as well as a bar area. Chapter 4 does set distances from churches, schools, or public hospitals. Uh, this is outside the radius of any of those protected uses. So, the access management is one thing that I wanted to talk about. Um, they are not proposing a driveway onto the frontage road. They're having two entrances on Bray Street, which staff is in full agreement with. If you're going to have conflict points, have them on a street with the lower speed limit. So, they've got two options coming in and out, but they're not having that entrance onto the frontage road where people are going 55 and sometimes faster. I've seen them. I drive that

road and they do use it like a drag strip. So, this will keep the customers out of that speedway. Uh they're showing 135 parking spaces with 216 seats. Code requires 72. They're providing a lot more, but they're providing landscaping within the parking area. They're providing ADA spaces. They're providing pickup drop or pickup spots for people that are ordering to go food. Uh there's even a spot for for bicycles. So they're really providing that multimodal transportation and adequate parking. They've got the landscaping at the corners with the trees and the islands within the parking area. And they're showing a good bit of landscaping on the front at Bray Street. There's a condition that ensures that they'll preserve that appearance of Braay Street with the pedestrian and dual fixture lighting and those street trees and those sidewalks. Those will be kept in good condition. Any damage will be repaired. So, they're going to be a net positive for the area for transportation, whether it's pedestrian or vehicles. They're still pending the subdivision plant and building permits in the sign. So, there's a number of moving pieces. This is one of them. So, this is just for the alcohol sales tonight, but this is the same site plan that we've been reviewing, you know, for the building permits, looking at in terms of access for solid waste landscaping for the I35 overlay. So, it's been a really involved project with a lot of us looking at it. Uh, current zoning is general retail. Future land use shows it as regional commercial. Uh, and that complies with both of those categories. As we mentioned, you've got the highway. 31st Street is a little ways away. It's a minor arterial. Brace Street's a local. Um, but it does curve around to that new traffic circle. So having that that arterial street and the frontage road, there's going to be adequate capacity for, you know, the customer traffic coming and out. Uh and there's existing utilities to the site

that they're going to tap into. Uh the, you know, the big traffic and the big crash hazard in this area is of course I35. Uh if you look at either end of 31st Street, we see a few thousand cars a day. Uh but we see a massive amount of traffic on the main lanes and a couple thousand on the frontage road coming in off those ramps. So again that goes back to that access management having their entrance on Braay Street. I do these reports in Ash to where I select a you know reasonable area centered on the proposed development. Uh in this case it pulls in I35 and I get 124 crashes. When I went through and I was looking at that, I pulled that polygon down to just isolated to the Braay Street and 31st Street area. Um, got about 23 crashes that were not on I35. So, a lot of the percentage of crashes, it really reflects that highway traffic, but it's reasonable to look at that and consider con with them being located on the frontage road. Uh, of those 124, there was one DUI related accident. um one fatality, three serious injuries, and 22 minor injuries. Um but most of the crashes were caused by either unsafe speed or driver in attention. So this would be classified as a high turnover sitdown restaurant for that square footage. Um around 600 weekday trips. If it was a fast food, even without a drive-thru, the volume of trips would be drastically increased. So, keep it in perspective. Like I said with with the previous case, this is one of those where there are various IT codes of the type of restaurant. And you see the fast casual and the fine dining are comparable, but a fast food would be a

massive increase in traffic. So, we think this is a manageable amount of trips on that roadway. We did send out eight notices. We received one response in agreement in the upper right hand corner. Um, and that is the wheel skating center. The owners responded in agreement with that and the telegram did publish the notice on July 24th. Uh, it's not part of the notice, but the the applicants had reached out to Temple ISD. I personally haven't heard anything back from Dr. So, we assume that they're they're not in opposition at this point. and it is compliant with the cup criteria for the access, the drainage, the movement of traffic, um the lighting and the landscaping and staff recommends approval of the conditional use permit for sales of all alcohol for on premise consumption subject to the following conditions. uh requiring a site development plan which you've seen compliance with chapter 4 and the UDC section five which covers sales of alcohol and compliance with the I35 overlay that's specifically going to be the landscaping the building appearance uh the architectural designs that the developer is responsible for repairing any public infrastructure uh during their construction that the cup like all CUPs may be revoked If city council finds it's detrimental to public health or safety, uh, significant changes to the site plan would come back to you, but the planning director could approve minor changes if they had to nudge some parking spots or move a move a landscaping barrier around. So, I'll take any questions you may have about the Cheddar CUP. I realize this is a CUP, but just asking the question is, you know, for instance, the Chick-fil-A that's getting built and

the other businesses, they have a entrance onto I35 onto the access road. Is that it? Yeah. I I'm just, you know, for I appreciate them for doing that, number one, but also two, I mean, again, that might be get brought up later, but I just, you know,

it it's well, it's a little off topic for this one, but it's it's a relevant question. Um, when we met with them during the pre-development meeting, they wanted the the frontage road access and staff kind of compared the options, you know, put the the option to to go on Bra Street. They really preferred and text dot approved their driveway entrance. So ultimately it's not our place to say you can't go onto the frontage road. Text dot approved it. So it could happen, you know. I'm sorry. It could happen or no. I mean it's the way they got it laid out is on Bray. But I mean, right.

Yeah. I mean, if they had gone to text dot and asked for a driveway entrance on this one, it would have been up to text dot to say yes. Ultimately staff is on board with Right. But we're on board with the way these guys are doing it. Sure. And the only other thing I'll say is to since the representatives are here, thank you for trusting in Temple. We're excited about that. Commissioners, are there any other questions or comments?

Case requires a public hearing. We will now open the public hearing. If you wish to speak and are attending in person, please come to the podium. If you're viewing the meeting online, please virtually raise your hand. Provide your full name and city of residence for the record. We have one hand online. Go ahead, sir.

Alan L, Temple, Texas. I just wanted to add my two cents in here that I'm very happy to see a cheddar coming to Temple. We need more of the generalized type restaurants, especially the national ones here in Temple. And I'm glad to see that they've decided that we deserve to have a a cheddar. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Seeing no other comments, we will now close the public hearing. If I will entertain a motion, please make a motion to approve FY25-27-Z as stated.

Second. A motion has been made by Commissioner Rhodess and a second by Commissioner Longino to recommend approval of item 6, FY-25-27-Z to city council for staff recommendations. John, may we have a vote? Commissioner Walker. Hi, Commissioner Jerasic. Hi, Commissioner Rhodess. Hi, Commissioner Longino. Hi, Vice Chair Smith. Hi, and Chair Crosser. I vote is unanimous. The motion carries.

Is there any further business? If not, the meeting is closed at 5:59 p.m. [Music]