Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

to order uh the March 23rd planning meeting. It is officially 9:02 a.m. I am going to ask because there is quite a few members of the public. If you have your phone, please silence it. We get a lot of feedback up here and sometimes it's kind of hard to hear. Um so vibrator silence would be really much appreciated. Um so we'll begin with public comment. Any issues or concerns not on the regular agenda may be raised to the public at this time. Citizens should speak from the podium, address all comments to the dis and begin by stating their name, address or single member district. And please limit um your remarks to less than three m three minutes. Do we have any public open public comment? Ray Now, members that have not been here before, we do allow public comment on each of the items. This is just general public comment if anyone had anything to address to the city or um to the planning commission.

There is none. Okay. On uh we will go ahead and close public comment at this time and discuss the consent agenda. The commission may request for a consent agenda item to be moved to the regular agenda for presentation and public comment. Otherwise, the consent agenda will be considered in one vote. All items on the consent agenda have been recommended for approval by staff with no opposition received to date. Since some items on the consent agenda may require public hearing, the commission will accept public comment on any item on the consent agenda in one public hearing. And do we have any consent agenda items? No. No.

Okay. So, we will close the consent agenda without a vote. Correct. We don't obviously need a vote.

Nope. You're Nope. You're good. Since there's no consent agenda items, we don't need a vote. Correct. Okay. All right. Moving on. Regular agenda resonings and comprehensive plan amendments. And I said silence phones and here I am. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. Um, let's see. Um, excuse me. Regular agenda. Reszonings and comprehensive plan amendments. The city council has final authority for approval of reszonings and amendments to the comprehensive plan. We'll start with item one, which is PD26-01. The address being uh 620 East 43rd Street, which is SMD number two. We have a request for a zone change from single family residential RS1 to a planned development with the base zoning of low-rise multifamily, which is RM1, allowing duplexes and quadplexes located at 620 East 43rd Street. And again, just a note to everyone that this item, we previously tabled it in the February 23rd meeting, um, and we are looking at readressing it. Okay, as soon as Ray is done handing these out, we will hear a presentation from staff. All right. Good morning. Ray Linbury, lead planner. This is um an item that was tabled. It was originally just a reszone. Um they have come back as a planned development.

Um so it is a request to go from RS1 single family residential to a planned development with the base zoning of RM1. It is in district 2, Joseph Lake View neighborhood. Um the underlying vision plan is neighborhood. It was or it is single family residential. We did mail out 29 notices. Um you have two in opposition um that I passed out and then we received one that just marked opposed. Did not make any comments. Um, it is this one right here in my hand. Um, these are just some screenshots. It is everything in the red. It is all I believe six lots. And this is the concept plan that you can't really see very good on the screen, but um they do plan on demoing this house as phase two. Otherwise, it's building quadruplexes um possibly duplexes right in here. And the other picture is a what it's going to look like with that staff did it is compatible with the surrounding area as it is residential. It's right next to a school. Um the housing study that we did does show that we need to have some affordable housing. Um duplexes, quadruplexes in this area will will fit in. Great. So, with that, staff is recommending approval. Um, we do have four conditions and the board can add more conditions if they want and remove conditions if they need to, but the applicant must receive

all necessary building permits. The property shall generally conform to the RM1 zoning district. Um, any lighting shall be shielded downward so it doesn't spill out on other property. And the applicant will need to do an urban design review where we look at landscaping, colors, how it looks, everything like that. With that, is there any questions?

I don't I don't think we have any right now. I think we have a lot of public comments. Okay. Thank you, Ray. Okay. We will open up for public comment. Do um I'm assuming we have a signup list. Yes. Okay. Um and Joseph, I did ask to go after the people. Um Samantha or Michael. Okay. Good morning. Thank you guys for joining. If you can please state your single member district or your address, we'd greatly appreciate it.

620 East 43rd. Okay, go right ahead. And since we do have are we five minutes? Yes. Okay, we're allowing five minutes on comment for the applicant. Oh, for you and then we'll switch from there. Okay, go right ahead. Uh, we're just trying to improve the area that we're building in. I mean, she did a great job at putting all that together that I really don't know how much to improve on that other than we're hoping to be able to build more housing in that area to increase the Lake B district area. Um, Has anything changed since you guys last presented as far as your plans? Uh, was it was it originally

uh quadruplexes what y'all proposed last time? Uh, yes. Yes, we wanted quadruplexes. Yes. Yeah. So, everything's basically the same. Okay. As before. And correct me if I'm wrong. So, I know that y'all had a pre-development meeting scheduled, but the city had a lot of technical errors in the past couple of weeks. So, I know that that was pushed off. So, y'all have not had that yet, correct? No, but we are aware that you know, the existing home that's there, Ray had mentioned kind of like a phase 2 was going to be demo. In the meantime, is that going to be occupied or is it just going to sit vacant? No, it'd be occupied. That's where I live.

Okay. And yeah, thank you. I guess my other question is, so you know, y'all are proposing kind of three there. So that's 12 units, correct? Do you know what you are proposing down there? Two at the bottom. Two at the bottom. That would face inwards. So another eight. So that would just be copied on the other side. Okay. And is there what? Sorry. No, no, no. You're good. I was looking at your coast map. Um, and Ry, this might be a question for you, but is the drive, like for instance, I know this is a mockup, but featured coming through here. Is that in lie of developing bonum further out or bottom

possum entrance would be on the bottom street is where you'd come up and come through. Okay. Now what is the plan if you did quadruplexes in order to you know allow enough space between each home? Again we haven't done a um development meeting with with the staff. So, we just need to make sure that obviously you've got enough clearance on your setbacks and and whatnot. Um, and then any I don't know if the city is going to require any noise barriers between since there are going to be potentially 12 units going.

Um, I mean, you guys can add um something in the comments. Maybe there is a noise ordinance that I do think if you look at the picture and you see bottoms at the top and 43rd at the back. So the alleyway is to the left of the screen. Correct. Correct. And if that's going to be an entrance there and a driveway, I think there should be at least a landscape buffer between the alleyway and the driveway. Okay. That would help in some way. Now that's under the urban design review as well. Um but I think that would assist in buffering some of that noise.

Okay. um may have to shift the quadruplex at the front because of the sight triangle at 43rd and bottom. You don't want that to be a safety issue if that gets into the sight triangle for vehicular traffic, but that may turn into just being uh two duplexes or three or triplex at that point at the front.

Um as staff worked with them and and staff talking is it's a balance between the number of houses that still pays for the development that has to take place. Correct. Because if they they will have to plat the property. Yes. They will have to extend a sewer line, a water man. They'll probably have to place a hydrant. Those are all development costs. And so can you develop the lot with their idea without getting very high on density but still within the rules on density and still protect those neighbors to the north as well as the neighbors to the west. Um and trying to make a development for Lake View that's that's workable. any any more questions or

I don't think I have any right now. Y'all don't. Thank y'all. Thank you. Okay. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Anne Joseph. I reside in single member district 2. Um that drawing up there just as an aside I did the math the quadriplexes are 38.5 ft wide that would divided by into 150 ft lot length is not going to allow more than 11 1/2 ft between the quadriplexes and that's assuming there's no setback. So that idea what one of the things that really bothers me about this is it seems all haphazard. This looks good but practically speaking it's not. than moving to practically speaking. Um there are currently nine single family homes on the block in question with addresses as follows. On East 43rd there's 620. On Buouie there's 4302, 4304, 4312, 4314, and on 44th Street there's 617, 621, 625, and 629. Now for years I have dealt with chronic pain. I have lived at this address for 15 years. Over that time, I have seen sewage problems on Buouie where the city sends out maintenance crews to clear the sewage line. This plan is going to increase the load on the sewage and that is a issue. Changing the zoning of six lots on this block will result in an overcrowding which will detract from the quality of life for the existing residents who are accustomed to a more quiet, less congested environment. It will also overt tax a utility infrastructure system which was designed and built to accommodate the demands of a single family housing neighborhood on the block and not low-rise multifamily duplexes and quadruplexes. Highdensity multif family units mean more people and this translates to increased pressure and demands on existing infrastructure such as sewage systems and public utilities.

And I have already talked about the issue with sewage. Another consideration is that the introduction of multif family units in an area predominantly populated by single family homes can dramatically alter the fabric and the identity of the neighborhood. Furthermore, the potential degradation in aesthetics and the increased strain on the infrastructure that is already in place can negatively impact the value of surrounding single family homes. Please acknowledge that it is essential to consider the broader, no doubt unintended repercussions on the established single family homes on this block. Decisions need to be made with a keen sense of foresight and with empathy toward existing residents. Zoning commissions do bear the responsibility of ensuring that growth does not come at the cost of community well-being. Please be cautious about integrating a high density development into a low density area. And please prioritize the interests and voices of those who already call this neighborhood their home. If you have any questions about the math that I did where I saw this just wasn't going to work or if you have any other questions, I stand ready to answer.

Any questions? I don't think so. Thank you, Ann. Thank you very much for your time. Okay, Rocky Templan.

Morning. Rocky Templan, single member district 6. If the PD and the density allows, you can end up with six quadlexes here, which would be 24 units. And with the RM1 zoning, you're going to allow all these to be STRs. So, do you want 24 short-term rentals in that neighborhood be equivalent of like a man camp? Thank you, Rocky. Yeah, thanks, Rocky.

That should be it for public comment. Okay, so if that's all on public comment, we'll go ahead and close public comment and open for discussion. Um, I do have a question, Rey, on um, you know, as far as with the new potential lot size, um, that's on the table for next month, does that change their plan? Like, if if the lots are, let's say, 150 deep and they have a main road coming through and cut them up, could they still essentially have the same amount of units, but maybe they're duplexes? you could have about 14ish if we approve that new one. I think

right now they are locking themselves into the original RM1. Correct. Um so they would have to reszone to one of the new ones if it gets approved.

And and that was more or less just so the public had some understanding um on the next in April. We're having a joint city council and um planning commission meeting in regards to potentially reducing lot sizes um in order to create more um affordable housing. So, you know, to the neighbors that may be concerned in this area, if this does not get passed, there still is a potential for the applicant to come back and look at doing a similar different concept on smaller lots, which would still allow some density. So, now it might not allow the STR that um Rocky had mentioned, but they still could potentially put quite a few units up there.

Okay. Thoughts? I know Shane Ky. Well, I I would like to just uh question what Rocky said about 24 STRs or um uh is that a possibility for STRs to be in a grouping like this? With it being a PD, we could put standards on it though to say a a certain amount of STRs. Correct. Correct.

Yes, that's correct. you can since this is a planned development. But to answer your question, uh, Miss Bull, is that yes, RM1 zoning allows STRs by right with no separation different than the RS districts that require the 500t separation at a certain distance from schools. Now, this is also close to a school, so we'd have to look at that. But as u Mr. Mai has mentioned this is a plan development and we can put conditions or the planning commission can recommend conditions and if one of the conditions is a limited number of STRs or no STRs I don't think that's the applicant's intent but again these could be sold you know in 10 years from now and things could change and so those are things that y'all can consider. So I guess my comments, so you can have 25 units per acre in RM1. We got one a little over 1.3. So you could have approximately 31 units here. Um, if we look more right now, it's six residential lots. It could very easily, just in 2 minutes of me measuring, could be eight with no questions asked to replat, no new streets, anything like that. Um, I didn't do RS2, but I would assume you could probably have about 10ish units there. If you look at our new zoning that we're proposing next month, you have about 15ish. So, the reality is there's going to be more than six here. Whatever we do, it's just what number do we think is appropriate and is not appropriate is the real question. I like putting a limit to it. I don't like 31, but I also don't like eight. Uh I think some higher density would be good. I think that, you know, if you look at where the infrastructure is, uh when they have that pre-development meeting, you're going to have to put quite a few units

on here because you have a lot of infrastructure to do. Correct. Um and I I like the fact of putting an STR limit. I think that STR should be allowed there. Um, but I think a couple of them, not 10. Yeah, but that that's kind of where I'm at with things. I agree with that.

I guess the only comment I have is which I know that this is um kind of at the detriment to the applicant. But we we tabled this last month so that we could have that pre-development meeting. I know circumstances arose that did not allow that. But again, I think that that is kind of I think that that would be helpful. Um I know that that's kicking the can down the road another month, but um I don't know what's changed in the last month that would preclude us from moving forward with that. Well, I do think that with a plan development meeting um there's probably going to be a lot of additional potential costs um that the applicant may not have thought all the way through or requirements through the city. Um so I I was really hoping before we got to this meeting that that we were able to have that um but understand what happened the other week with the city was out of out of their control. and Chairwoman Davis and Miss Albert, it that could also be a condition that you put on the plan development is that they must go through a pre-development meeting. That is their intent and they want to do that so they understand everything. Um, there are many times that folks come in just for the reasoning to see if they need to start investing more money into stronger plans. Now, we also think that's what the pre-development meeting helps with of saying, "All right, well, you're going to have to plan for water, sewer, and then your design is going to be dictated by that of how much cost you have sunk into that piece of land." And so, we understand both sides of that, but that could be a condition going forward.

Okay. Okay. Thanks, Andre. I I think also the the quadlexes, I'm not sure exactly how the building code works, but you know, when you get to those four units and more, you add extra things. So, you know, a duplex or a triplex may make more sense than a quadplex just because of sprinkler systems and firewalls and all the things that are included. So, um, very good point. I would like to make a motion unless y'all have more comment. No. So, I would like to make a motion to approve with some extra conditions. Okay.

Um, I would say two short-term rentals are allowed. Only two units in within the entire in the entire parcel. Okay. Um, and then I think that we should limit it to 15 units. And so if we did a quadruplex, so they have 12 right there. That allows it how they're and that would be on the potentially on the bottom two lots

cuz like I said, right now they can have eight single family. If they waited three months and if the changes that we're proposing to add new zonings and things come into place, then they could possibly instantly replat and get another 14 units without having to do any roads, right?

So they're already at 14. Um so again, whether we like it or not, this is going to be developed. It should be developed. And there's many different ways to skin the cat. So there's no point in kicking the can down the road. Also, with this plan development, they're very, very, very limited on things. If they want to change anything, if they want to do a triplex instead of a duplex or instead of a quadlex, they can't without redoing it if we don't say that. Right. Right. So, I would say also that we allow triplexes. Okay. So, giving the ability depending on when they have their plan development review, I'm sorry, their um review with the city that they could do a triplex or quadplex. So that duplex or duplex.

Okay. And 15 units, two short-term rentals. Um I think that we should put the condition on there that they also should do the pre-development meeting. Um and then as far as and I'm sorry it's Monday morning on on RM1 or on with the PD are we able to limit heightwise? What what is our ability? Is it still just the two and a half story with a quad? Two and a half story. Okay. Okay. Well, I think fitting if they did quadplexes fitting that on a

should it be one story but again if they do a quadplex I mean we've got some lots that we've looked at and it's hard to get more than 900 ft especi you know on certain things if you're fitting four units. It's It makes me not want to give them that limitation. I think two two and a half stories is adequate, especially since they own the front and the back. Okay. So, and does FAR apply now? Correct. Okay. So, I I would like to make a motion to have FAR not apply in this PD. have two short-term rentals and a maximum of 15 units

allowing duplexes, quadplexes, and triplexes and need and requiring a pre-development meeting. We did try. I promise. Yes, they did. I just want to put that out there. Yes, they did try and we tried. We just didn't. We had technology issues that was wasn't going to be helpful for them, unfortunately. That's a lot.

Okay. Well, we've got a motion on the table. Any thoughts, entertainment of second motion or anything else from the commission? Okay. I will second Shane's motion. I think that with those stipulations that allows us to control what's about to be there without allowing the density to get too high. Um, and I I do agree with Shane on, you know, making sure they've got the ability to once they have their meeting figure out if a triplex is better than a quad based on space allocation. So, we've got a motion and a second. All in favor? I

I was 50 to six. Can you breathe? I'm sorry. Were you at nay? I'm a nay. Okay.

All right. We've got a uh one nay, five in favor. So passes and we are on to our next item. And I do want to thank everyone from the public that came out to discuss um our first case today. So our second case is PD26-02 and CP26-01. Addresses being 4657 and 4665 Boulevard. That's SMD number six. A request for a zone change from planned development district PD14-01 to a new plan development district PD26-02 with a zoning of commercial neighborhood and comprehensive plan amendment from neighborhood to commercial allowing for self- storage units located at 4657 and 4665 South Boulevard.

All right, good morning. Austin Reed, senior planner. Um, these two cases come to you from the Bonum neighborhood. It is district number six, Mary Coffey's district. The subject property is just under nine acres. And as you said, what we have is a request for a comprehensive plan amendment to go from neighborhood to neighborhood center and a zone change to go from an older PD to a new PD. And that new PD will allow self- storage units. So, we sent out 52 notices. Did not we received uh one official response this morning in opposition from someone who lived Let me see if the pointer works. somewhere down there. And they cited concerns with traffic. Um, that's the only official response we received. Here's a look at the zoning and the vision plan. On the lefth hand side here, we have our zoning. You can see that old PD district that it's under. Um, across the street, if you couldn't tell, is Bonum Elementary. Um, to the north there is some commercial zoning. You get up towards Sam's Club in that area, and then it butts up to some RS1 and some RS3. Um the vision plan you can see kind of matches the area. You have the campus institutional over the school, the commercial to the north, and this is with the neighborhood currently. Here's kind of a basic look at their concept plan. It's just a grouping of self- storage units and they have a couple access points off of Southland. onto our rationale. We do think it's compatible with the surrounding area because it's located on a major collector um being Southland and it represents a transition between the neighborhood and the road and the commercial to the north. Um we do also aim to maximize the compatibility um through the standards of the PD. Um we do think this could indicate a community need because it never developed under the old PD which was for multif family and there shouldn't be any uh adverse effects on the natural environment and and landscaping will be required. So we require two separate motions on this. One for the comprehensive plan amendment and one for the zoning. I would ask that you have one for the comprehensive plan amendment first. But

we are recommending approval on that and then we are recommending approval on the plan development as well subject to these conditions. Number one is the underlying zoning of commercial neighborhood or excuse me neighborhood commercial. Number two is that self- storage units are allowed. Three is for the necessary building permits. Four is that a UDR is required where we will review their landscaping. And number five is for privacy screening in between them and the residential. You guys have any questions? Did you say there were going to be um um exits off all to Southland? Is that what you said?

That's what their concept plan shows. I don't think that's exactly binding and that's probably subject to approval from the city, but yes, right now. And with that being Southland on that portion is considered a major collector. Yes, major collector road. Okay. So does that have any additional stipulations? I mean obviously it's by the school. So is it sidewalks? What are we or like I don't know if sidewalks I believe would be required just because of the proximity to the school if nothing else

right now. right now that is a track of land that to the I guess north west goes to nothing. I think it's a drainage easement. Um so you know I don't know if that's something that the city needs to look at is like where the sidewalks are appropriate maybe being on the bottom track not required in the top but I mean what other people's thought on that? Yes and that can be considered at probably the site plan phase or if they're going through subdivision at all at that point as well. I actually like sidewalks there for once.

Okay. And then again there um during the there would be some sort of landscaping I'm assuming across the back shielding from the residence and then maybe down whatever I can't remember what the street coming in is. Mills path. What what kind of fencing is required, Austin, between here and like a residential zone? At least six foot and opaque. Okay. Okay. Any other questions uh for the staff? Okay. All right. Thanks, Austin. Thank you.

So, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment. Uh Rocky Temple morning again, Rocky Temp, single member, District 6. Yeah, my only concern here is is of course the kids um crossing south in there. They did put in like a crosswalk right there at Mills Pass. And then if anybody's been by there at 8 or 3, they know exactly what's going on. I don't have to explain.

You don't go by there. I do not have to explain what's going on. Uh we've tried for years to get the city to stripe it. Uh it is wide enough for a lefthand turn lane and for some reason they just won't do it. So yeah, during that design I just would like hopefully that that plan PD that they would look at those entrances and exits correlate with bonum right there. Thank you. Thank you, Rocky. And then I'm going to ask James Carmen. You just put number two. Was this number two or B number two? This one. This one. Okay. James Carman. Morning.

Morning. Uh James Carman and I live at 4201 Lexon Place which is at the corner of Mills Pass and uh Lexon. Right across the street from me is uh the proposal, you know, for the storage unit. I can't say I'm really opposed to storage units. C could you speak more into the microphone, please? I'm sorry. I I can't really say I'm opposed to storage units. Um because if it doesn't pass eventually something will be built there, right? We just don't know what. Correct. Okay. The current zoning is actually for multifamily, so it could be

Yeah. And we definitely do not want that. So anyway, uh I've looked at several storage units in town and some of them look really nice. If this one is uh built that way, I don't have a problem with that. I I I truly don't. Um, so I and and Rocky uh mentioned this while ago about the entrances to it. And it looked like to me on the diagram they were all coming off of Southland. Mhm. And not Mills Pass. Is that correct?

Currently, that's what they're proposing. But once they sit down with the city, that might change based on fire marshall or depending on what the curb cuts coming off a major collector. That's going to be a city question.

That is an engineering question. Um but typically for a property that has that len that frontage length u at least two and they're proposing three and they probably have a a gated access on a couple of those. Um, I think it's more appropriate to have them on Southland than the residential street. That would uh help kind of regulate things. They may put a gate at the back corner somewhere for fire access, but they could have that gated and not be a a public access, if you will. But, this board does have the ability, again, this is a planned development, to put conditions, conditions of driveways and such is one of those things. Um, but I I think it is more appropriate to have them on Southland um, entering and exiting. So I think although that is a short short drive there on Mills Pass, it does put additional traffic on that area. So just things to think about.

Okay. Well, in in the Lexington, I believe um to the north as it goes behind with the housing, the residential housing, they do not have alley access. They have front garages. If I'm That's on Autumnwood. Well, Autumnwood does not have an alley access. Okay. Lexington, we do. Oh, okay. Between Autumnwood and Lex.

Autumnwood. Okay. That's the name of that street. Okay. Um and so I was thinking about alleyway, but there's not one there because it's uh front garages. Um, so are you saying then uh by engineering that they might have to have a back pass of some sort back there?

It would only be maybe by the fire marshal if they needed a secondary egress. Now, if you look at those two at the top, they're they're a good distance apart and that's normally what they look at. Um, I know that the um applicant um is SKG uh on this project, so they probably can explain that even better than I can. And so when they get an opportunity to come up and explain their design, uh, that might become a little more clear. But that would be the only thing I could envision just kind of knowing the general knowledge of development, but it I I would recommend that they have their entrances, their primary entrances and exits off of Southland. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. And and real quick back back to what Rocky said about the traffic of a morning and an afternoon. It's a nightmare. Okay. It truly is. I mean, I I put cones I have a circle drive and I put cones at each entrance so people don't pull into my driveway. It is what it is. But the at the intersection of Southland and Mills Pass, I don't know if this is appropriate place, but about a a red light there. I I mean, come on now. It needs to be there. Okay. So, I just thought I'd bring that up. That's all I have.

Thank you for your attention. Um, Russell Gully. He'll ask question.

Good morning, Russell with SKG here on behalf of the applicant. Um, and thank this gentleman for the maybe the words of of support for this. Um this is currently a PD uh for a multif family. So if we look at comparing I guess storage units to a multif family project um you know there there's going to be a decrease if you will in in traffic if that is a multifamily location. They're most likely going to have kids or they're going to be leaving for work at the same time that their their kids are being dropped off. So, uh, really we see this this PD change, uh, really helping that situation. Um, it's going to be a lower density. You know, we have instead of hundreds of people than a multif family project, they're just going to be a bunch of partially filled storage boxes out there that people go visit occasionally. Um again fewer parking conflicts uh less traffic generated for these uh decreased demand on utilities and infrastructure. Uh lower noise um is most of these units would would not be conditioned like you would for a multif family project or the noise associated with the multi- uh with the multif family project. the hours uh multif family is 24/7 365 nonstop storage units a lot less use especially at night in the evening. So overall uh we feel that this really should be a benefit to the the surrounding neighborhood uh that you don't have this intense high intense use coming in there. So I the the concern I heard was about access potentially to Mills Pass. At this point we really do not have an in an interest in accessing Mills Pass unless it is a requirement of

the fire code official. Um and if that case it would just be really gated and and controlled and and act actuated by a knockbox if you will that really only the owner and the fire department would have access for. So, most of these storage units will be, you know, they're going to have one single most likely one single access controlled entry for those that have um units stored there or or unit there that they would be able to come in and and access their stuff and then maybe leave out one of the other in exits, I guess, either side of that main entrance. So, we would ask for your approval of the conditional use and the zone change to the PD and happy to answer any questions. questions for Russell,

maybe for staff, but Russell may want to stay. Um, because of the size or the amount of buildings or anything, does that what does that look like landscaping wise?

If we're over 25,000 square feet in any one building, that's going to trigger the urban design review. So, one thing that we've done here is we we've set the front fence back. in order to have a 6ft tall fence, we'd have to be set back at the 25 ft building setback line. So, that's going to allow really a 25- ft landscape buffer of sort. If if if a sidewalk is great to go there then and that's a requirement, then I I would see us putting a sidewalk there and then also some some landscape along there as well. Okay. Thank you, Russell. Thank you.

Okay. Do we have any other public comment? Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment and open up for discussion or a vote. And this is actually a question I have for um Aaron. Um obviously, you know, if it were the original PD that was set for that, the the amount of u possible foot traffic would increase plus uh uh vehicle traffic. But with the city, is that something that obviously I know we can't put it in our vote, but is that something that we can have the city look at it as putting another crosswalk or something there for a little bit more safety? I mean, that is like just a dangerous

Well, I did get on Google Maps and there is a crosswalk right across the street. It's just not a signalized crosswalk. Okay. Uh that's something I can talk with the director of operations and let them do an evaluation uh to see if that is warranted. Um, right now in our current development requirements, there's not any traffic impact analysis studies, uh, unless it's a school that's being developed. Um, that's the only trigger currently, right? Um, and so I I do think they will be, uh, looking at that. Uh, I know the operations team with Street and Bridge is always looking at different areas to try to improve safety, right?

Um, and so from a city standpoint, I think on the Mills Pass side, a sidewalk there that connects over to the other other makes a lot of sense. we'll have to evaluate on the Southland Boulevard. Um that is a major road that gets a lot of traffic and so anytime I don't I don't go in that neighborhood very often so I'm not sure what the walking traffic is that goes up to the commercial areas and down into the neighborhood but that's something to consider. Right. I think it's just, you know, again, this land set sat undeveloped for so long. And now that this is developing, it's just a matter of time until the parcel on the other side towards Sam's gets developed and then, you know, we're just

Yeah, if there's any other development to the north, depending on where the drainage easements and things like that go, um, this may be the last developable track if there's, you know, that's where the the drainage kind of comes through up there to the north. But um anything that we can do to help make those connections uh for neighborhoods to commercial areas, we are we are better for it in the in the future. Right. Okay. Perfect. Any other questions or anyone wanting to make a motion? I guess my I have a question. I'm just looking at the development map. Is it there's a weird city like the

city limits line that cuts through it or something? Am I just tripping? No. You I'm sure the public map is just outdated, but um that may be a water a pressure differential line for high pressure versus low pressure. Uh there's a that's in that area as you can see that there's the water tower there behind the fire station and stuff. Um there's a white dotted line that kind of goes up and behind Sam's. Yeah. I don't know. Well, you never know which map Mr. M is on. So, we'll we'll just leave it at that. Y'all gotten rid of my one that searches.

I like it. I would like to make a motion to approve as presented. Okay. And um we have two motions. one on the comprehensive plan and a second on the resoning. I would like to make a motion to approve both. Okay. As presented. Motion from Shane. Second. All right. On both. Second from Candy. All right. All in favor? I

I All right. Both comprehensive plan and resoning pass at a 6. So we are moving on to ordinance text amendments. City Council has final authority for approval of text amendments to the zoning ordinance. Um, consider adopting land use regulations for data or sorry, our first item is consider adopting land use regulations for data centers through a conditional use process within the light manufacturing and heavy manufacturing zoning districts.

This doesn't actually happen. Let's get this right.

Good morning. Uh Aaron Venoy, director of planning development services. Thank you guys for sitting and listening to our data center uh regulations for a conditional use process and design guidelines within the light manufacturing and heavy manufacturing zoning districts. Currently there's a director's interpretation, my interpretation that data centers are allowed by right within light manufacturing and heavy manufacturing. through this process, we want to rescend that director's um interpretation and add these regulations to our zoning ordinance that apply again to light manufacturing and heavy manufacturing zoning districts. Uh and we'll kind of go through those. Uh so the the public and you guys uh while didn't have a whole lot of time did have some time to look at the packet uh around 11ish pages. uh 10 to 11 pages. Uh last page basically a an appendix that has landscaping plants. Um we have the information about definitions and then it goes into a lot of the design standards for this site. The main concern uh for citizens uh there's lots of concerns I should say but the one of the main concerns was separation between residential and these areas that could house a data center. And so we took that into account. We took into account some building height, um landscaping regulations, um water use, noise, and and several other things. So I will go through these. I know we have citizens here to to make comment, and we're appreciative of that so that we can continue to to drill down to to what works for our community. Um if you see these two large notebooks here uh on the table in front of uh Mr. read. Um those are two books that we've been utilizing uh that talk about data center design uh

and best practices on how to design data centers from the outside and inside. Uh we've been utilizing that and you'll see some of those references in there to an different things in ANIE that um one of our consultants has been helping us with um get to these data center regulations for our community. uh Westwood uh public services um professional services did a good job of helping us get the the meat on the bones for these regulations and we've been refining them over the last six weeks um within city staff as well as sending out to citizens that have come to the podium during council meetings to say we we would like to see this or we would like to see something else. Uh and so we've been trying to do what is best for our community as well as for all the citizens involved. Uh we did they the consultant did look at uh the state of Virginia where it is the highest uh data centers concentration in the United States. They also looked at Irving, Round Rock, uh Plano and other places that currently have data centers uh and what their ordinances look like and tried to bring in those best practices into this ordinance as well. And so a lot of research has been done uh to drill down to what we think works here in West Texas and try to strike a balance between us continuing to grow and recruit major businesses to our community and still satisfy our community needs at the same time. So with that again we talked u you know I have an interpretation that's sitting out there. Uh we through this proposal we want to rescend it. We want to adopt the definitions and uh guidelines uh that also deal with noise site plan and water use regulations. We will add section 430 which is a use specific section within the zoning ordinance just for data centers. We will amend section 313 which

is our um our land use um chart or table that allows that says where we would say data centers are allowed within the community as a primary use. It would only be in light manufacturing and heavy manufacturing with a conditional use if this is adopted through city council. And then we would adopt appendix A for landscape species recommendations for data for data centers and as a reference to use for landscape species in the future for other urban design review processes and things like that that there's a landscape list that developers can see and say, "Oh, that's what the city of St. Angelo would like to see on a landscape list. So the proposal is to create a conditional use process to allow data data centers in light manufacturing, heavy manufacturing. It would follow the current section 208 of the current zoning ordinance for procedures and review, which means it would come to planning commission for approval. We would require a full site plan, the noise study, the water use study, the lighting study, and a landscape plan for you to review at planning commission that allows citizens to comment on those plans um before it could move forward. Um usually with our conditional uses, we do require a site plan of some type. Sometimes it's just a concept plan, but we have some very specific things that we're looking for and our citizens are looking for when it comes to how a site is going to be developed. And with data centers being new to our part of the world, we're wanting to make sure that we take the extra step for our citizens to go from there. So again, those conditional uses come to planning commission, you have the the say to say approve or deny. either decision could be appealed to the city council and the city council has the final say. Say if you approved it and there's no appeal, then they're able to move forward with their project.

So, I took some pictures of maps. Anything that you see on here that is blue uh in color, that is light manufacturing or heavy manufacturing. This is kind of the northeast and you know that we have some area that kind of still goes out to 67. It's all uh the all the way to the tip of the city limits is light manufacturing. So you can see the uh Texas Pacific Railroad right here. Kind of has that spur that comes off um and goes up to what is our rail yard up a little higher right in this property. This is the city's industrial park that most of it is light manufacturing of course Ethicon those areas. This is Loop or this Houston Heart right through here. And you can see there's a little bit little bitty pieces of it. This is Main Street right here in the bottom corner. And that's kind of where the downtown starts. So you can see here on this map, this is more what I would just call North St. Angelo. Again, this is uh OC Fiser. This is not light manufacturing. That's actually a lake. So maybe we need to change that to a different color. Maybe. Um but this is the main corridor coming in. Um North Bryant. You can see on both uh east and west and then it kind of changes a little bit here where um it starts transitioning into where the Walmart is and then you've got some different uses that have been zoned over the last few years from light manufacturing. Uh you keep coming down and this is the large steel area that has uh steel works and things like that. It's heavy manufacturing. Then as you get into the top part of downtown, you can see this is kind of what I would call the warehouse district really along the railroad. and this then uh Windland and then of course this area we just reszoned um just this last week and our maps have not reflected that yet to general commercial along Bryant.

So other than that um warehouse area along the north of downtown you can see this is central business district. This is a the part of downtown goes south. The rest of it of course follows the railroad quite extensively when they were making those decisions. Comes down and of course Nickerbacher kicks in here and there's a few spots along Nickerbacher. It's actually a shopping center there. um they don't do a lot of light manufacturing, so they've got some um basically some uses that are still allowed. Um but those are still light manufacturing. And then of course as you come towards the base along South Chadburn, there's some areas through there and along Old Crystal Road. And then this is the south end of Christoval Road where you've got some off of what used to be or what is Dan Hanks back up here and then a large area right over here right at the interchange that's within the city limits. So those are the majority areas that we have of light manufacturing and heavy manufacturing. Um I don't have it's hard to consolidate all that to get you any detail but it's kind of along our our railroad corridor and our major corridors. Uh and then our northeast section seems to be our highest intensity and largest land parcels that have maybe room for a large scale data data center. So within this um we're going to have other standards uh added definitions for data data center as a principal use generator yard private utility cryptocurrency mining allowance for accessory use on data centers in other zoning districts. And so there are many businesses that have smallcale data centers within them. Say Shannon Medical Center, the city of St. Angelo. Um there are lots of places that have smallcale data centers because you're holding data. You've got servers there. Could be the school district, could be a bank, it

could be any of those things. And those are accessory to what the actual land use is. And so we do allow those as an accessory use, just not a primary use. And those would be allowed in those zoning districts that allowed whatever that primary use is. A property could still go through the plan development process. Uh and then they would and we would require them to still be subject to the design standards. They wouldn't get away from the design standards by going through a plan development. But that means back on those maps, if there's a large parcel that is something besides light manufacturing and heavy manufacturing and they want to reszone it, they can maybe go through the reszoning process in the conditional use or they could come through and do a plan development and it would still have the design requirements. Again, anytime they come through, they're going to have to submit plans for elevation, site lay layout, sound, the noise studies, materials, signage, lighting, landscaping. All of those things will have to be submitted with our packet to come in and either get a plan development or a conditional use through the planning commission. So again, some of those things that are on those that plan submitt again location with all the setbacks, ground mounted equipment, parking, driveways and circulation, sidewalks and pedestrian routes. Uh we really like ground mounted equipment. I noticed this at the council presentation and I didn't take it out um in this presentation just so you know that ground mounted equipment are generators typically. And so we really want to know where those generators are going to land within there. If they have a diesel generator, a natural gas generator, or some other type of uh auxiliary power, that's going to be a land a groundmounted piece of equipment, fencing, landscaping, screening, lights, and phototric sound study, building elevations, materials, and signage. So this one there's uh some a lot of information on this one, but again these are some of the setbacks and buffer

recommendations that we have in here to move forward uh in the ordinance. So this specifically is residential zoning or land use and is the light manufacturer property that they're looking to develop, is it adjacent to them? And so you have front yard, sideyard, and rear yard. If you're inside the city limits and you're adjacent to residential use, the RS districts or the RM districts um and the properties are touching, you have to have a 300 ft buffer on the front side and rear yard. That means you can't have any structures in that 300 ft. So your buildings, your generators, everything else has to be back at least 300 feet. So you're talking about a very large piece of property, but we're we're saying we want a 300t buffer. If there's a residential zoning or land use and it's say adjacent to the city limit, so it's in the ETJ, we're going to say that you need to have a 200T buffer there between them and another residential land use building setbacks. So say you're not adjacent to residential, you're adjacent to another light manufacturing, heavy manufacturing, something of that. Um we start with our ground mounted equipment actually the buildings and let me start at the very top. So the very top is actually the primary structures and we talked about the building setback being 50 ft or the collapse zone. Now in the regulations you'll see a building height that can be up to 75 ft. There is under some of the design stuff talking about that if it is over 50 feet you would stagger that building a little bit. What we've learned is through data centers, you don't stagger a building. It doesn't make sense. It really doesn't that because they're needing some of that height for all the mechanicals and all the other stuff that's going through

there. Um, so we still believe that the the 50ft or even a 75 ft setback is appropriate or the collapse zone. say if they wanted to build something even taller and say for whatever reason say it was 100 feet um they'd have to have they'd have to be back in that collapse zone. We believe anything over 75 ft is too excessive for our community. We just don't have that many large structures like that and talking with the data center folks that's more than what they would ever go. Um I know that that's still a big structure and so we just have to be mindful of that. You can see the next one ground mounted equipment is 300 ft. And we will be wanting that groundmounted equipment. So if the buildings are on the outside, we don't want that on the outside. We want those on the inside. So the buildings are a buffer. And then they actually will have a masonry structure around those ground mounted generators. If they choose to do those types of things, they would have masonry walls around those to help mitigate sound and vibration, but they have to be 300 ft from the property line. So, pavement, um, so if you've got a ride ofway, uh, your pavement, obviously you can have the driveway, but then your access road, we don't want it right up. We want at least a landscape buffer. And so, we're saying 25 ft back if they happen to front on US67. And that's because that's one of our major entrances coming into town. We want you to be 40 feet back before you have a structure. And then pavement on the side and the rear yards can be 10 ft. And so that's again those those three pavement things there for right away, US Highway 67 and side and rear yards. So the pavement so you have some landscape buffer built in for those areas. And again, building height, you can see down here where we talked about building height and then

accessory height. um any of those accessories is a 30- foot max between the property line and the structure. If you're inside um the boundary, then you can you can do a little bit taller height, but there are some we don't want something just really sticking up that while 75 ft is very tall. That is a a tall structure. Um and so those are the things that we have in there. Before I move from this chart, are there any questions so far on any of these items? I know you're you're having to absorb a lot of information. Um, and so there's there's lots of things to think about. I think I've probably got four more slides, but I just wanted to take a break and see see where you guys are at.

I I have a few questions. Uh, building setback 50 ft or collapse zone and then you have pavement US highway 67 40 ft. Explain that again because the way that you explained it, it seems contradictory. So if you have an access road to the site, we don't want it right parallel to 67. We want that access road to be 40 ft back. So there can be a landscape buffer of at least 40 ft between 67 and their driveway roads, if you will. And then the building height, that's got to be at least 50 ft back before they can start having a a true structure. Okay. Uh and R& y'all classify that as residential.

Yes, we do. I apologize. I didn't mention that one, but yes, R& is a residential zoning district. That's all I got right now. Okay. Anybody else? I know it's very

I know it's very exciting. All right. Well, we'll move forward then. So, other items. This is where we get into some of the details about parking and other things. uh one space for every 500 square ft of office space and one space per data center employee. That's talking about parking, trying to find parking, enough parking for them. Uh we also added in the regulations to have some additional parking spaces in case there's deliveries uh or other things that may come and instead of you know you've going to have some vendors that are going to show up, people that have to come and do certain things. So, we needed additional parking spaces for them. Groundmounted equipment all must be screened. Doesn't matter what kind it is. They will have to be screened through masonry walls of some kind. Uh rooftop equipment will have to be visually screened. Um fencing could be masonry, row iron, and this is perimeter fencing. You know, if they're wanting to secure their perimeter in some way, masonry, row iron or black PVC coated chain link uh along the street frontage. So, we'll just take an example of Highway 67. Highway 67. We want that to look a little nicer than just chain link. And so we said, "All right, any street frontage, whether it's Highway 67, a local road, 87, it's going to be required for that front fence to be masonry or rot iron. The rest of the fencing could go and they could continue with masonry, they could continue with rod iron, or they could switch to the black PVC coated um that could do the perimeter. fencing not in uh we asking for the fencing not to be in front of the landscaping so you can actually see the landscaping uh not necessarily the fencing although black coated PVC it's hard to see that sometimes but uh the landscaping requirements we would want that to to be able to be seen landscaping along the parkway the sideyards and rear yards um grass and sod parking lots over 100

spaces although we don't think we're going to get to 100 spaces on a data center for parking um must have some landscape islands. But if they do have that and then if they have lighting whether it's on the building uh in the uh parking lot around the perimeter of the site, they definitely want it to be shielded and downward and not to exceed 30 ft. One of the things that one of our council members had mentioned is about the dark sky community regulations. And so you'll see in there a certain lumens allowed for lighting and that's part of the dark sky uh conditions that they have for communities like that. Um the buildings on lights are going to be located between 10 ft and 18 ft. Those are really to be showing things right there on the ground by the building, not out 30, 40, 50 feet. That would be a different style of lighting. And so we don't want those super high. We want those low so you can see right around the building. Noise. So there's lots of things about noise and it all takes some studies to really tell us uh basically on the site and how they're doing the construction. One of the largest things that we talked about about uh just noise in general is this is at the property line uh for the daytime and nighttime. And then the low frequency noise there has there's some studies that look at what is the band frequency. Sometimes the units that are inside the building are tuned a certain way and they can cause a low frequency noise but a hum that can that isn't loud but it's can be very annoying. And so we we've worked through what does that look like? What are the current standards? Uh what are those things that need to be done to help mitigate those issues for our community? Uh, and then one of the big things was in there about generator testing. If you have a lot of generators, you know, everybody that has one needs to test those. Some do it monthly, some do it weekly, some do it other times, but we have generators all throughout our

community, whether they're homesiz generators or large generators like what we have here at city hall and at at the hospitals to keep operations and and things moving. Um, but basically if you wanted to conduct it during uh 9:00 a.m. to to 4 4 pm, you can do it unless approved by the planning director. And so basically outside those times, if you need to do it outside those times, you have to get it approved. You can't test your generator at 2:00 in the morning. And I think we' all Who approves those, Aaron? Huh? Who has the final approval on that if it's outside the 9 to4?

Right now, it's the planning development services director. It could go to the city manager. uh it could go to to somebody else that's designated uh but they would have to contact somebody saying hey we've got to do an emergency uh generator test for whatever time and and discuss to see what's the implications of that and then water um there is a section in there about water usage um talking about the closed loop system and I think that is on page let me just see yes page eight number um talking about the cooling system requirements

and we know those are all are ever changing. Um and so we we are trying to write something that's what helps us do things today um and helps some of those companies look at what our regulations are today. But water consumption is a concern for our citizens. Um, and we want to make sure that we're doing the best decision that we can, that if they're going to use our water to to charge those systems, that they have a process to go through. If they have um certain there can be certain exceptions in there. And then there's also an exance protocol. they start seeing that we having an excessive use of water, they have a major leak, they have something, they have a process to go through to make sure that they're doing it correctly, getting the right permissions back through. At this time, I believe it's through the mayor and city manager to say, "Okay, we're going to allow you to recharge those systems again outside of the normal uh wear and tear of what's going on with the with the process." So, I know water's a big deal, so you all probably have more questions on that. So, I'll come back to that in just a second. So, my recommendation to the planning commission is that we officially rescend the current director's interpretation. We adopt section 430 to article 4, which is a specific land uses um which would be a data center uh regulations. Amend section 313 to add data center as a land use under the industrial category. um amend that table to say that they must get a conditional use uh in the column for light manufacturing, heavy manufacturing and adopt appendix A as an approved landscape plant list. And that would be my recommendation uh today. Next steps for this ordinance if it moves on from here today uh would be

the first reading in public hearing uh April 7th at city council and then a second reading and public hearing April 21st at the regular city council and I say regular city council on the 21st because there is a joint meeting of planning commission and city council and then the regular city council will meet after that and so it would be at that second meeting afterwards. So, just just so it's clear for you guys as well as the public and the folks that are listening here today. With that, I will let you guys ask more questions or take any questions you may have. I I would like to hear public comment and then I have, like I said, notes on every page because this is important. That's my comment, but if y'all have other comments,

and the last and the last thing I'll say is I just looked down here and saw uh these things. These are notice letters that we sent out. We sent out 1,157 or something of that number uh to property owners that either own or adjacent to light manufacturing, heavy manufacturing. There's a stack over there of maybe 15 that uh came back returned. Um we have the ones there's one that's opposed to data centers completely. They're just opposed to data centers. So they don't want any regulations. They just don't want data centers. The rest of these, which is one, well, let me save that one. One, two, three, four, five, are all in favor. Uh, they didn't say yes or no. I mean, they didn't say data centers or data center regulations. They just said I'm in favor. One of them just said make it happen. And then I have two that are here. Uh, one represents one property. This one actually represents nine properties. and they are opposed to having regulations. They want data centers but not to have the regulations. Um so and when you're talking about over 1100 notices sent out um and we've had probably less than 30 respond back

terrible response. It is a is a bad response but it also may say that maybe that's not that big of a deal for us. uh maybe we are open or maybe they are saying yes, we think this is going to be good for our community. Erin, can I just say something real fast and just kind of reiterate for everyone in the room and for ourselves to make sure I'm understanding.

So if we did nothing now, the way you interpretate interpret everything is that data centers are allowed no conditions, no no restrictions. What we're doing now is rescending or what what's on the table is rescending that and putting conditions on data centers um so that they are not allowed by right. That is correct. Okay. Okay. All right. Any other comments or questions for Aaron later? Okay. Okay. All right. I do have one for Aaron.

Okay. Did y'all look at any of the I guess traffic impact conditions putting those in these in these regulations as far as like impacting city infrastructure as far as roadways the generation that that happens? We did discuss that. We did not see that in any of the ordinances which I was a little surprised at. Um but we didn't see it and we have been having some discussion that we thought about putting that in our regular land development and subdivision ordinance cuz that's normally when you start looking at those things. Um and so that is something that could be added uh is that is a requirement as a traffic impact analysis uh study for these types of things. It's just not in there at this time. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. Well, time to make this exciting. No, joking. Aaron, um we're going to go ahead and open up public comment. Ray. Okay. Um so, Richard Summers. Okay. And again, please um we're going to limit our time on this rate to three minutes or I'm sorry, are we limiting the time for to three minutes. So, please state your name or single member district.

Good morning, commissioners. I'm Richard Summers from District 5. Before I make my comments, I wish on the record to place a formal complaint against staff for not allowing several people in this room to speak on the public record when they had indicated they wish to do so. To begin my formal comments, I want to briefly reinforce three process concerns regarding proposed data center design regulations before you. First, accessory data centers currently bypass a conditional use hearing, which raises a critical question. How will residents review key items such as noise, lighting, buffering, and a timely manner, if at all? Second, pre-construction noise and lighting study results should be presented to the planning commission, then made available in advance to the uh conditional use hearing for public review, not later in the process, and appears that would be done so as it is. Third, the same applies to water testing results should be made publicly available early enough to confirm the system safety before any CU hearing approval recommendations. Taken together, these considerations continue to point to a recurring process concern timing, transparency, and sequencing of information. As projects increase in scale and complexity, the questions surrounding them like these regulations becomes not only what the regulations apply, but how and when those regulations are evaluated. What may be helpful along these side these regulations is more structured framework to ensure that technical analysis planning commission review and policy decisions occur in a clear and consistent manner. I was going to tell you about a framework that could do that critical infrastructure verification and impact governance and I was denied the opportunity to do it. Civic does not attempt to determine whether a project

should be approved. simply establishes a practical transparent structure for folks like you on how to evaluate projects of the scale from the pre-planning phase to the final disposition. In closing, I'm simply placing this framework into the record as a potential tool for you and for the city council now and in the future to support your work. You do have uh multiple enclosures that I provided to you. Are there any questions? All right. Thank you. I'll take some questions for Richard. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir.

Vernon Hogler, Heaggler.

Good morning.

Morning. I'm Vernon Haggler. I live off Armstrong in 22nd. Um, my concern is about the electrical possibilities going with this. Uh, as you see, I am not a young man anymore, but I'm going to frame this in something quite probably beyond what y'all's thinking is. I was in high school or junior high or college when I remember actually seeing Richard Nixon on the TV when he made the decree that all power generation was going to be coal. Now jump in jump forward in time a few years. I worked for Houston Lighting and Power, which is the core company of AP. I worked in a power plant for a while. Then I went into personnel and I hired staff for the power plants. So I have a great deal of knowledge about the nuts and bolts of power generation. Um we've my uh request is my my thought is have them have their own generation. I have seen things change like I said with my deal about Nixon doing with Cole. When I was with HLP, I hired the staff for the four coal burners that are at Smither's Lake. The EPA would not let them set those plants up to use natural gas. And they cannot be reconverted back. If you want to convert a plant that's not already set up to natural gas, you have to tear it down and start over. That's first thing they do is put in the gas lines. They come up when they come up out of the the foundation, they're enclosed in what amounts to a bunker. The concrete walls about that thick. So they don't they don't mess around with

that natural gas. And um so at this point, as you see, I am semi-retired. Uh u as you see right now we have an administration that is very energy conscious as far as promoting but you know the worm turns we just got through with some that did everything they could to kill it they don't have any sense they don't know it I've seen from power plant I have it's funny you know some things in life as a driving a truck I did a lot of things where I went into The other form I've I've been around u I've called discarded wind tower blades. When you go north out of Abalene on 84 off to your right is the dump and you see that huge red mea in the dump. That's all over discarded wind tower blades. They only last about 10 years. Then if you ever go to Sweetwater, you come up 70 there on your left. You see those discarded blades that companies this company said they were going to recycle them and then the technology didn't turn out. Now Sweetwater having to deal with this doing those blades. Uh as far as generation uh it's like a wind tower makes generally about 3 megawws. um uh to replace a 600 megawatt steam turbine generator with uh solar panels take two sections of land.

Yes, sir. So, uh Vernon, I'm sorry. Not I don't want to cut you off by any means, but our timer did um go off and we definitely appreciate you coming out and your concern and your thoughts on everything. We do have quite a few other members um of the the community that are also set to speak. So, I'm so sorry that we're going to have to move on. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay.

Morning, Lee.

Good morning. Thank you for your service and doing this. Um, most of mine is just understanding the vernacular. Uh, when I see data center as a single as a double word, uh, that means a lot. I looked at some of the restrictions 300 ft in the front. Three, that's a that's a football field in the front and a football field in the back. Uh, any of the properties that a lot of the most of the properties I saw on your map weren't even 100 ft deep. I mean, uh, 300 ft deep. So, we're throwing a big blanket of a whole bunch of restrictions when people go into it. Uh you don't want to mitigate the value of your property by having u one of these deals where you you have one incident and all of a sudden put this big blanket that just covers everything and everybody's got to go through oh I this is under the restrictions of this code four and I don't know if I can even buy that land because it's going to be so so tough. I do think you I think there are small data centers but I don't I don't understand understand the vernacular. So that just needs information on my part. I think data centers are good for our community. I think they're good for our area and I think they're essential for us to have positive grow growth in St. Angelo, Texas. But I would like to know whether we can have big this is this covers big data centers and not the little data centers that may be in somebody's office and I know we have them. Thank you very much. Appreciate your thoughts.

Thank you. All right, can I ask a quick question along those lines?

Yes, ma'am. Um assuming these amendments are adopted, um if someone comes forward proposing a data center and are they able to request a variance say for the 300 foot setback I mean similar to we on any other developments would it be a similar process or is it just cut and dry? That's a great question and the answer is the short answer is yes. They can request a variance um to any numerical number.

Now they they should be required to meet the variance threshold that's lined out in the state ordinance and our local ordinance, which means if it's blank land and they're doing this to themselves, they should not be eligible for a variance. The the zoning board of adjustment should vote against that. Yeah. Um, so that but to answer your question, are they eligible for a variance? Yes. Okay. Will they really be eligible under the state law and our local ordinance which is identical? Okay. Asking that that would be the question. Okay. Thank you. Oh, sorry.

And I I don't know if this is out of line or not, but um you know, the ZBA does a great job with what they do. Um but I also feel like our attendance in city planning is considerably higher for the community. Um that I feel like if somebody's coming in requesting a variance for a data data center for you know size or you know whatever the the request might be. I personally feel like it should be come before the planning that would be against the state law. So we we cannot do that. That's why the zoning board of adjustment is created is to hear variances and the threshold is extremely high for us to say yes.

Um now somebody could do a say plan development right and then it would come here. Uh instead of just saying hey I have light or heavy manufacturing if all of this passed and I would like a conditional use instead they could say instead of applying for a conditional use I would like a plan development and do a resoning. Right. Yes they could.

Okay. Um, I would say city staff probably would not recommend changing those buffers there if if that's the way they move forward, whatever the final buffers and setbacks are decided because that means it's gone through the citizen process to hear and listen from citizens of what they think uh should happen and then to come in and say, "Well, let's do a plan development that while we still send notice to that local area, um would compromise or could compromise some of those setbacks." So, not sure that staff would stay strong would would advocate to changing them, but again, yes, they could through a plan development.

Kind of like if if Lee said though, I mean, you have a 300 and 300, that's 600, then you probably have a 300T building. I mean, you got 900 ft there, you know, and then you have the side and the side and I mean, you're talking about a big piece of land. So, you Now, remember that's adjacent to residential zoning. So if it's not adjacent to residential zoning, you don't have those that that what are the setbacks then they would then be that building setback of 50 ft. Okay. And then it just depends on what else of the site design that is happening for front side and rear. If it's not adjacent to residential, it's 50 ft or collapse zone for front side and rear. I believe that's correct. Yes.

Okay. it. We don't have rear in there on 2B, but we just have side and we just have street rideway side and year yards. I guess that's rear. Yes. Okay. Sorry. Also, for members of the public, all of this is available online at the same time that we get it. So, you can see all of this paperwork that we're referencing and looking at. Okay. Um, next public speaker, Olivia Castro. Nope. Okay. Okay. Um, China Young.

Uh, China Young, SMD4. And before I begin my comment, I do want to acknowledge that I did request to make this comment during regular public comment at the top of the meeting and not during the agenda item. But I guess here we are. So I hope I stay in compliance. Uh, regarding the data center guidelines, I do want to thank Mr. Venoi and anyone else that worked on these guidelines for including specifications in your regulations draft that included no data center shall engage in cryptocurrency mining. Thank you very much. I'm also very grateful for water use specifications that you've included. uh specifically the draining provision that states that the process shall comply with all TCEQ requirements and other applicable law and the provision to use reclaimed water whenever available. Um if these machines could initially use reclaimed water saving the fresh portable water for the living human beings and animals and the gardens and crops that provide sustenance that would be preferred. I'm not an engineer, so I don't uh still don't understand why these machines get priority over our most precious resource that is water. But the growing demand is something that we should all be concerned about. A frequent argument in support of the closed loop system, which is included in the current proposal, is that it uses far less water than the open loop system, which is true. However, that argument is made looking at the water use in in a silo separate from hundreds of other closed loop systems that are being proposed that would be filled simultaneously out of the same precious water resources. Corpus Christi is currently facing a large a loss of access to portable water available to its citizens by May of this year due to industrial water use. This is a crisis that we all face. More and more state lawmakers and candidates are talking about this issue as the threat exacerbates and the awareness of the strain on our resources grows. These are lawmakers from every side of the aisle. So, this is not some kind of political agenda or ideology. This is a very real and concerning threat that anyone with

pattern recognition capabilities can reasonably predict the fate that awaits us in coming years regarding water. The belief that someone will come along to solve the problem for us in the future is, and I do say this with all due respect, blindly optimistic. It has been made clear that this current data center is full steam ahead. And again, I am incredibly appreciative of the fact that the planning commission and the city council has listened to citizen recommendations and have incorporated many of our proposals. Thank you again. Um, but I hope for the sake of all of us that whatever revenue is generated from this project, the city does use it for the infrastructure updates that the city so desperately needs serving the citizens whose resources are being used and whose taxes and utilities will be impacted. Thank you all so much for listening.

Thank you, China.

Um, and then Russell Gully is the last one. Russell Gully, 706 South Abe Street. I really like just the stick with the wisdom of the director's interpretation that they're allowed currently. So I I think we could make it real easy here and just stick with a very valid interpretation of the ordinance. But if if that changes or is proposed to change, I have a few comments um to put forth. So, in looking forward, we have some some I guess proposed changes to some RS districts. I don't know if we need to add potentially the RS districts that were were proposed in that when we're talking about the residential districts in in the first section there. Um, and then for the data centers of principal use, um, and and Mr. Fluger mentioned this, if most of these data centers are are huge buildings, you know, well over 100,000 200,000 square feet. Uh so you know Shannon or some of these ASU or some of these other areas that that that really could almost be argued as a data center. My company could be claimed as a data center by because we process information on computers. So maybe we need to add in something for that these data centers are in a building over 100,000 ft² or 200,000 ft² cuz applying these to a small little data center that may just get inadvertently swept up into this is is probably not fair to someone along those lines. Uh then skipping ahead, one of the concerns really that I hear about is water usage. and and we have some landscape requirements in here and and I just kind of running through some quick numbers. You know, a data center sites are typically very large. You know, hundreds, 200 acres or larger. Um so I just said, well, let's assume it's a 100

acre data center site. Um and it's, you know, approximately square in size that would that would have over 8,000 linear feet around the perimeter of it. and and to follow through and and and plant the amount of shrubs and trees. Um you know, you're going to have to have 66 large trees in in the front. Uh 60 large trees around the the back and sides, 100 medium caliber trees, um and then over a thousand shrubs. So you go and look at that and and just estimate what it would even take water-wise to get that established. you're you're you're using a lot of water on on these shrubs and and trees and and and while I believe that that that's a good thing to have trees and shrubs, maybe let's look at toning that back. Are they really necessary on the sides and and the perimeter? If you're in an industrial area and you got a you got your your data center site and and there's a substation right behind it, why would you need to plant some shrubs or trees between your data center and a and a substation, you know? So, so maybe let's tone that back and and maybe focus that to the front and and and on the sides, why do we need it adjacent to other industrial activity? So, appreciate your your thought and and your your consideration of this.

Thank you very much. Yeah. Thanks, Russell. Appreciate that. Okay, that's the end of Okay, so we're going to go ahead and close public comment. Um, just Ray, can you a minute? Uh, we'll open public comment and Ray's going to set the time clock for you, sir. And it was Vernon, correct? Okay. And after Vernon, we're we are going to close public comment again. Thank you. And so Ray's got a minute up there for you, Vernon. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Well, the the point I was trying to make is one of the things that's drive bringing all the data centers. Texas has the biggest grid in the country by far. Texas generates 125,000 megawws. Florida is second with 65,000. Pennsylvania is third with 40ome,000 and it goes down from there. Maine buys most of theirs from Canada. So the point I was trying to make is all kinds of things are affecting the price of electricity and so forth. My asking that they generate their own electricity is they say I'm retired under Biden. My electric bill went up about 50%. My natural gas tripled. Uh Trump has got us a little bit of relief. Uh so that's my concern is is we don't know what's going to h over the lifetime how our price of electricity and everything is is going to change and that would be something as far as y'all talking with other cities that you know that's an issue.

Yes sir. No that's a very good point. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. Okay. And again, we will go ahead and close public comment on this item and cut back to Aaron or discussion questions from um the planning commission itself. I guess so I I have some comments and I I I really agree with Russell. Um you know, you look at what is allowed in heavy manufacturing, light manufacturing. You can have a slaughter house, you can have a steel yard, you can have a cement plant. I mean you can manufacture uh textiles, cabinets. I mean you can do all sorts of things that are very that pollute the environment that use a whole lot of water that use a whole lot of power and they have no regulations other than just the general zoning. Um I I I I love that people are coming out to to fight and talk about all of this. I think that it's great. I think that we need more community interaction in everything that we do. Um I think that I mean local politics is so much more important than who's in the White House. Um but 10 pages for one thing is crazy. Um it it's crazy. And I mean, like Russell said, uh the the trees and the plants. I mean, I'm reading here on uh let's see, on page number, uh four where it says, "Side and rear yard landscape area shall be landscaped in accordance with the following. If no fencing, a row of large evergreen shrubs planted 8 feet on center to form a solid screen that is at least 3 to six feet tall at the time of planting and one large tree every 100 linear feet. If fencing with rot iron, so that's if they're fencing, let's see, that is if they're fencing

not fencing and they're just using shrubbery. Now, if they choose to fence with rot iron or black PVC, according to this, they still have to plant trees and shrubs and everything. That is going to use way more water. And I love trees and shrubs. I'm from East Texas, right? I I grew up there and all we had was trees and water. Um, you know, so I would love to see St. Angelo get more green. But the reality is we don't have all the water to do that. And especially if I mean you can have a data center that's right next to a slaughter house and right next to a steel yard and a substation and the data center has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on trees and hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to support those things. Um, I I'm all for having some regulation and some control, but you know, then we talk about the the noise things and we talk about how we can have um, you know, we can just call um for noise tests. Who pays for those? I mean, is that it's the city employee that has to go out there to do those kinds of things? So, that's just more money that we're spending. Um, and I I have lots of comments and I would like to go into more of those, but I I will leave it with this one last thing before y'all talk and then I have some more things. But, um, you know, the reality is we have change coming. The reality is I just I don't want to push things away from St. Angelo because a a data center could go to a surrounding town or out in the county. They're going to pull from the same aquifer. They're going to pull from the same power grid. They're going to have all of the same negative impacts that they would have if they're in the city. We just get none of the positives. So, we should have some control, but we want the positive. We want the tax base. We want the millions and millions of dollars to upgrade our infrastructure. And if we put, you know, tens of pages

of restrictions on people from a business, cuz that's what they are, they're going to go to miles. They're going to go to Grape Creek. They're going to go somewhere else. And those towns need the money just like we need the money. And they're going to let them do whatever they want because with no restrictions. And it still hurts us. It still pollutes our air. It still takes our water. It still does all those things. So, I

I really don't like all of this, but I I know that that's what everybody's pushing for. So, I would like to hear y'all's thoughts and comments, but you know, there's 12 people or 14 people in this town that will make this decision, and this is massive. Um, that's where I'm at right now. Oh, well said, Shane.

My comment was, um, I read through this over the weekend, um, and I was lost, uh, to tell you the truth. And I and I said this to Aaron while ago. Uh there's so much of this that I would have to really study before I could um make a conscious decision yay or nay on this and that and this and that. It's just um a lot to have to take in. And I'm kind of like Shane. I'm not just real sure u how much the need is. and um uh listening to um uh Russell and um Mr. Fluger. Uh there's questions uh that we should have and I'm not ready to make any kind of major decision on nine or 10 pages

without more study and more questions and more input from the the community.

No, I agree. And I think, you know, for for the general population, you know, of the of the city of St. Angelo, again, we're looking at slides that say, okay, 50 feet here, 300 feet there. You're like trying to conceptualize this and then um and I I I'm not sure who it might have been Mr. Flu. somebody said something about the football field and you can then kind of have a visual but then at that point you're like but is that just seems absurd like you know again like where how far out are these people going to have to go and again at that point if we're going to go 20 m or 20 minutes outside of St. Angelo to the you know northeast corner why not just go to Miles and not have anything and just do what they want to do and let Miles get um all the tax revenue too. So I completely understand where the citizens

not pushing for a mouse but

no completely understand citizens concerns on you know that the excess um water uses or usage the excess um electricity usage etc the pollution um but like Shane said I mean it's inevitable it's coming it's coming somewhere and it's coming to West Texas and so what you know can we summarize this down to something that is has some restrictions without so many that again financially it doesn't make sense for somebody to plant gosh Russell your math is better than mine is but let's just say 200 trees on um you know in the middle of a slaughter field you know so I think that you know there is um you know some more work to do I think the staff's done a great job putting this together but I do think that we need to as a community or as a development task force or um citizens coming out and with um city council and staff pick apart some of the unnecessary things in this. So

and Russell I would uh question you said right now it's allowed by right in light manufacturing heavy manufacturing by the director's interpretation.

That's correct. We don't have anything in our our local ordinance that discusses data centers. Now, our local ordinance is from 2000. Uh and so it it has not looked at a lot of these types of concepts in the past. Um and so I I do understand that and we've been hearing from citizens um that are asking for certain things and have have certainly come to city council and asked for things. Uh I may ask if we could open up public comment for Mr. Rick Weiss uh to talk. He's been uh one of the main points of contact uh talking with uh not only our consultant that's been in with Westwood but also uh the data centers that are out there that are looking or speculating on St. Angelo. He can give some insight of how some of these came about. So

Okay. Oh, before you do that, um Commissioner, are you okay with opening up for one more public comment? Yeah, I was going to make a comment, but I can

Okay. Oh, no, no, go ahead, Liz. And then we'll open up. Go ahead. I mean, I I appreciate all the effort that you guys put into this. You've looked at this way more than I know myself. I can't speak for anyone else. So, I think we need restrictions. Um, I think we've heard, you know, a lot of concerns. Um, water is obviously a a major one in my mind and I don't think we need to allow data centers by right. So, I definitely think we need this. I think there's some um legitimate concerns about the complexity of the restrictions and the landscaping comments that everybody has made. That makes 100% sense. I mean, I don't I don't think all of this is necessary, but I do think a lot of this is necessary. And I just want to thank you all for the amount of time that you've put into this because that looks like a really big book there to read through and I'm sure you went through multiple multiple of those.

Yes, ma'am. Thanks, Liz. Okay, before we move on, I just want to clarify that Mr. Weiss doesn't need public comment. He's staff, so he can come up and speak. So, sorry, I didn't public comment. No time.

Yeah, please. No, I really am here to answer some of your questions um that you may have. You know, I I realize this has been staff has been working on this a long time, so we kind of know more of the ins and outs of what's in there. Um, I will say what the consultant really tried to do was take the huge concerns that citizens had, which would you'll see a lot of the the water, the noise, those kind of things, and I really think in those areas you may not have, for my opinion, a lot of flexibility in how you alter that. I think those are things that I think council thought important that we, you know, limit uh the type of data center as far as the cooling system, so the amount of water it uses. So, those kind of things. I I didn't hear you have a lot of talk about that. So, I'm thinking those are not areas you're concerned about as well. From the other standpoint, I do believe um you need to take whatever recommendation you think is practical to St. Angelo and I don't disagree with anything you've said. You've talked about the landscaping. I I'm I come from a a background in that. So, I think those corridors coming into town, it is important to retain the look. Whether we do it on all sides, I agree. Um something may become excessive. So you can direct staff to go back and say, "Look at those. We really want you to focus on the corridors. It doesn't matter whether it's 67 or 87 or wherever. We think those are important." Um so we could scale those back to what we think is appropriate for St. Angelo uh in quantities and where they are. Um I think if possible, it would be great if we're able to use uh reclaimed water in those areas, but that's going to require infrastructure. So, that may be something that can't be solved today. Um, what was the other one you mentioned? There was the landscaping and the Oh, the setbacks. So, I think y'all did have some good comments. Do you want to require that large of a setback um from a side that's, you know, not it's not residential? It's not, you know,

once again, protect what's important. The 300 was put I'll say that uh most of the ones we saw were not 300. They were less. Um so if you choose to reduce those I I mean I think you once again you have to go for what's St. Angelo. I will say that we did talk with uh the group that is looking at St. Angelo currently went over a lot of this. So we wanted to make sure that uh one we were including them in the discussions. They they were very uh community-minded in trying to make sure that these things protected the citizens. So, you won't find anything in here really that that they were refusing to do. But once again, you're trying to set a standard that protects St. Angelo but doesn't discourage others who may come in. So, I'm here to answer any questions y'all may have. We've talked a lot and some things I may not be able to speak about, but for the most part, I will be. So, just follow.

Great. Thank you. All right. All right. Let's go back to discussion. And I know Shane, you've got

Yeah. You know, Liz, I don't necessarily disagree. I I like, you know, I like the some of the standards with noise. I like some of the standards with water. I like the setback being at the building fall zone or the collapse zone. You know, I think those things are important. Um, but then, you know, there's some just ridiculous things in here. Emergency maintenance may occur outside of the stated hours with notification of the planning and development services director. Power goes out at 2 a.m. Does it really matter if they email you and tell you that they got to run their generators or do they just need to do it? You know, um some of this just gets very um I guess bureaucratic. Um and just lots of water use. And I I think that I I like the conditional use, but I think that it needs to be knocked down, you know, 60%. You know, we need to get rid of 60% of the things. I don't think that we need the setbacks to be 300 ft, even ad a joining residential. I mean, that's probably not going to happen anyways. Uh and here's the thing. If they're going to do this conditional use and they're next to residential and the people that don't want it next to them come up, we could deny the conditional use because of all the public comment, you know, or if they come up and it it's ranchers that all are around and it's all R& um you know, the ranchers probably don't care. I mean,

well, and I think that's, you know, that's a really good point, too, because is it 300 feet from the next property line? Is it 300 feet from a house? you know what happens if that house is 300 feet from the you know and so then you know so I agree like some of the restrictions I think you know again I think it's really good to have some of this but I also don't think that it we need to bulk it up so much that you know a company is going to come and look at go see you later St. Angelo, you know,

I like the making it pretty in the front and the corridors and that kind of thing. You know, I think when you're driving into town and things like that, you know, you don't want to just pass a big square gray box with, you know, loads of concrete and that sort of thing. Um, so I I like making it look pretty in the front, but you know, like Russell said, um, I mean, you know, there's a one of the parcels that, you know, we've talked about different things. I mean, it's what, 145 acres. um you know so you have you know 5 to 10,000 linear feet of fencing then you add the cost of the fencing you add the cost of the plants you add the water you add all those things I mean at the end of the day it is a business we want the tax revenue we want all those things but um you know if I was a data center developer which I probably never will be cuz that's just way out of my scope I would look at this and I would run as far away as humanly possible from this. If I ran any sort of business and a municipality had restrictions like this, I would run far far far away. Um because it just it at the end of the day, they're in business to make money. And it's very hard to make money when you have 10 pages of restrictions. But I think we should have some. I I I like the some just not all. Well, I can appreciate the comment that it sounds like um that you all have been in discussion based on your comment saying that you have been in discussion with the potential data centers that might be coming here and they've seen these. So, they they're there's I know the concern with the restrictions is it's going to turn people away, but um again, I'm not I'm not saying we need all these restrictions, but it doesn't it looks like from what you're saying, they've seen these proposals and they're not like, "Oh my gosh, I'm hightailing out of St. Angel."

That's one company, right? You you you're correct. And and you you have to run a balance between the thing y'all aren't also mentioning is what St. Angela brings to the table. We have fire, police, we have water, we have sewer. You don't get that outside the city limits. Now, I'm not saying people won't choose that. They they have to make their choice, but St. Angelo does offer things that others cannot offer surrounding us. So, there's a value to that. Um, so you have to walk that line of, you know, what is reasonable at the end of the day. Are these a little excessive for what we think St. Angelo needs? Okay. If so, tone it back to what you think. Um, that protects the community yet still doesn't discourage someone from coming in.

Thank you. And I do also want to say thank staff and everybody for all of the time and all of the meetings. And I mean, man, this has been this has been a huge undertaking for everybody. So, I I yeah, like I do not want to downplay all of the work that went into this cuz I I so appreciate it and I'm glad I'm not the one that's putting all this together. No. Quick question for you, Erin. Yes, ma'am. Um I mean, I think we all know that data centers coming to the area is inevitable.

Right now, it's allowed by right. How soon are these data centers coming here? I mean, I know that that's a that's a question that we can address, but how long do we have to kick this or to continue to modify these to get them to where we're comfortable before we're, you know, a day late and we already have the data center coming here and then these don't even apply. Yeah. My my feeling is you need to move forward on that. You need to look at these. You need to try to alter them and we need to get them in place. Okay. Good. Sooner than not. Thank you.

Okay. Do we have it in the budget for lunch if we're approving something?

I would like at least couple minutes come up and say something. I'm going to allow my fellow council members to help make that decision. Technically, I think we allow one minute just as we did. Okay. Uh for Okay, we have one minute and then we are going to move on to new business.

Quickly, we don't need to lose sight of how big this thing is. If you took those buildings that are on there, it would be 61 floor white houses. And uh one of the reasons those offsets are there is for noise. Noise goes a long way. And noise is one of the principal considerations when they're doing these things. Another thing is and this is something that may be useful to you. Uh we did not get any of the results of the studies released to us. This data center is being built backwards from a professional viewpoint. You can get a lot of that information from Westwood, but those studies and whatever Westwood has done has only been given to the public, to the council, and not at all to you except in snippets of what they've done. And they went and talked to a lot of other data centers and got that information. I think you're well within your rights to request to see it. And finally, these regulations that you're looking at are not that odd. Other data centers have to obey them. Thank you sir. Appreciate it again.

And on that note, we will close public comment on this item officially.

So the big question is do we have support of a conditional use process for light manufacturing heavy manufacturing zoning districts? And then do we need to modify some of the setbacks? You know what are the things we want to keep? What are the things that we think could change? Um, I do agree with there should be some landscaping. Um, does does it need to be on the sides or does our urban design requirement threshold already address that within our existing ordinance? Um, that means a structure that's bigger than 25,000 square feet is built new or a 10,000 square foot addition to a structure that's already over that size. And then the urban design review is looking at um colors, articulation of of materials, uh landscaping, those types of things. Um or do we keep just like y'all were mentioning, well, the stuff that's in the um I think they call it the parkway, the the you know that are facing the public road, does that need to stay? Um,

I would like to see all of the landscaping stuff taken away and there be an urban design review required if you get this conditional use because I think it depends on the what they're building. I think it depends on where it's at. I think it's dependent on all of those things and there should not be a blanket landscaping requirement. That would be my thing with all of other than I I like the drought resistant plants. I like all of those things, but we don't need 300 trees and 400 bushes and 87 roses. Um, it's just not needed. Roses aren't on the list, sir. Well, I'm sorry. Well, I want the roses. They actually might.

But I I would like an urban design review and I think that the city staff is more than capable of determining what would be good for water usage, what would be good uh visually and aesthetically and things like that. I don't I don't think that we need to have a blanket uh thing on that. I agree. What about the facade of the building? I mean, if you're looking at you know areas especially just one clarification on something that you said. So, you want an urban design review on the conditional use. Do you want it to fit in with the UDR guidelines? So, the square footage requirements, or just because it's coming for the conditional use, just because it's coming for the condition. A UDR no matter what. No matter the square footage. No matter the square footage. Okay.

Yeah. And I think that provides enough I guess uh buffer for for the public to be happy. I would hope. Um yeah, the the building configuration and design and stuff. I mean, you know, 5 foot here and your depth here and and this and that. Um, urban design review, would that take care of the look of the structure as well? It can take care of the look of the structure. Mhm. And I'll I'll say a couple of things here. One is the state regulates that we cannot tell them what materials. Now,

99% of these are concrete structures. They're not just a metal building. Now they might have a metal facade or something like that, but it's usually a concrete structure. The other thing too is sometimes why these get a little a little too detailed sometimes is we want predictability for a developer that says all right what are your rules for a data center and we're able to tell them instead of saying ah you really got to talk to a staff or you have to go somewhere else to get that information. So again, that's a as Rick was talking about, that's a fine line of trying to figure out what really works for our community and what still allows development to move forward forward quickly.

Um, and again, I think that it's nice for, you know, a company to be able to look at it and say, okay, like we know pretty much what we're dealing with other than we might have to, you know, have a few more sit down meetings on this and this and this before we're serious about moving forward. But, um, you know, I I do agree with Shane, you know, in some of the other comments that again, there's just there's a few things in here that I think that just need to be, um, tweaked a little bit more. Um, and again, not necessarily in favor of the company, but in favor of again our water conservation and and all of that on landscaping. And then, um, again on our setbacks, the 550 ft versus 300 feet. Um, I understand a noise aspect, but again, I think that there's a few things that we just need to look a little bit deeper on. Um, and again, we've got we want to make sure that we're making a very very very big decision for the citizens of St. Angelo, not just the ones that are sitting here today, but the ones in 50 years, you know, and so we want to just make sure that we're making the right decisions. Um, and you know, not giving away too much or not putting too many restrictions on on page four under 12E, it says native and regionally adapted drought tolerant plant species are strongly encouraged. That should say required. They're required. It's not strongly encouraged that you use droughtresistant plants. It's required. If you're going to use a plant, it's got to be drought resistant. Um, that's a terminology thing on the building configuration. I mean, I I like the height restrictions. I like those sort of things, but I I would like to just um you know, I guess for lack of better terms, I'd like to dumb it down just a little bit and say you have to have x percentage of brick, rock, stucco.

Um you know, just just like you do in a residential uh place, you know, 70% brick, rock, brick, rock, or stucco on the front. on the front something that would be facing a for a facade on the sides. I mean, I'm sure that I mean this is a very expensive facility. They're not going to throw up. It is. However, but as you go on, if you look at 7C and you'll see that word preferred,

we can't require them to put a certain type of brick or brick at all. If it's allowed by the building code, they can build it that way. We can do color and articulation. What how was it look? But if they chose to do brick or stone or none, we can't require them to. And the reason it's written that way is because a lot of them want to please the community. So if they know what your brothers are, we would prefer Stuckco rocks, then they'll they may do it, but we can't require it. So it's to give them guidance on what the community values as looking nice. Okay. is the parking. Um I just kind of want to go back to what you said, Erin, and

um a lot of these are written to give them guidance versus I mean I mean to me I'm thinking about about it I know this is not comparing apples to apples but from a residential restrictions HOA you know those are 40 pages and we're talking about not all of them but it lays out exactly what you have to do. So you it's it's not open-ended. And I mean you're talking about a2 $300,000 house compared to a multi-million dollar project. So, I get there's a lot of pages here, but also I appreciate again you guys have looked at this and you're laying out, you know, what they have a guideline these companies coming in and I can understand that them looking at this and,

you know, knowing what what we prefer, what the community wants, I I would think that they would appreciate that. And and that was a decision that we came across of do we just say all right we've got the rule to get a conditional use and here are the things you have to do this um uh let me see if I can find it this list here you've got to do those and then we have this setalone design document that's just kind of in staff's hands so we do that with like river corridor and the historic district and like we have a a very large document that you have to go through to figure out how to do things there or is like a design manual for how to build a street and things like that. We chose to try to put these in the ordinance because we wanted some citizen input. We wanted y'all to see what is it that we're going to require them instead of saying, "Well, we're going to make them do a conditional use and they got to turn all this stuff in." And probably, "Well, those all look pretty reasonable. Let's move forward." Um, so we do want to be reasonable. Uh, but we also want to make sure that it's transparent so that our citizens can see what we're requiring for this new type of development that could come to our community. But we also know that we want to continue to attract some of those types of developments to our community.

Okay. Any other comments, thoughts, questions from I guess my again, are we how much of a slap on the wrist are we going to get if I make a motion to table this? Um so, so that way we can dig deeper. I mean, again, I don't want to kick the can down the road, but you know, I will say will not vote to move as presented. Uh, so we'd have to I mean, h how do we discuss, you know, what we're marking through and what we're not marking through to make a motion? I think that would be something you'd need to specifically say if you were to make that motion, what exactly do you want staff to bring back? Okay.

What is it in here that is just not working? Or is it that we should remove things? I mean, I would be To me, I I mean, I think it's going to be hard for us to go page by page and and mark this up, but to me, but that's what they're requesting. No, I realize that but I think you guys have put a lot of thought and effort into this and and we don't want to just

I think the landscaping portion to me is the unreasonable section here and I am I agree with what Shane said and if we open that up, you know, we get rid of the landscaping requirement and we require whomever is proposing the data center to to do an what what did you call it? Urban design review. Urban design review. I mean, I would be I would be open to just killing the landscaping section um and then keeping everything else. I I like the pre-approved plant list cuz I don't think that's anywhere else in our ordinance. Right. So, I I like keeping the list of plants and things.

That's good because that should be in there. Um goodness. Uh here on on 16 I it says you know if data if data center operator anticipates that cooling water usage will exceed the allowances in subsection B yada yada yada yada. You know in this section would we have an extra charge? I mean of course they're going to have to pay for their water, but let's say that there's an issue and they're they're going to have to refill this closed loop again. Can we say, "Hey, there's a $10,000 fine on top of the water usage or a $5,000 fine or whatever." C Can we say something like that?

I don't think the zoning ordinance is the appropriate place to put that. And the the challenge is is there is it a fee or a fine? Fine's not the way we can go because that's really done through municipal court of a fine. a fee for us to administratively say yes, you can have more water. The idea is that they're trying to do their due diligence to not have to recharge this system. That's the idea. And so we've put through a process that so far we haven't really found that in too many other ordinances that you have to go through this process. Most other cities are like, "Okay, you need the water, buy the water. Here you go." At the same time, they have the option to to truck water in.

They don't have to buy our water. uh it's advantageous to us if they buy our water if we have available water and I think that's really the questions in here is is it do we have the available water where it gives some admin very high administrative folks to say do we have the available water to let them recharge right now or we tell them no you need to go get it another source but I mean we could we just tell them no yes okay is this getting read to city count like the same presentation as city council and then in April we're doing the final vote on everything or

so if y'all have a recommendation to go to city council it would go to city council on the 7th of April and then it would be heard for the final reading on the 21st at their regular meeting not the joint meeting. Um, I and I'm sorry I keep just digging into this, but you know, all of the things about studies for sound, you know, that we can require a sound test at any time and stuff. Again, who who pays for that?

The company and then we get their own outside expert to come in and do those things. I mean, and Rick can talk. said that initially, you know, on your stuff that's submitted to you originally, but I think the way it's written is if the if you know, you get a planning director who's just requesting one of them every other every other month for No, then the way it's written is that the city shares that cost with them because we can't unreasonably Was that in these documents? I'm pretty sure it is. If it's not, that's not how I read that.

Yeah, we can. engineer special. Okay, it's 15B3 talks about the sound study engineer. Also, while we're talking, um, we're looking into the fact to see if during your joint meeting with council if a lot of this couldn't be addressed at that time. So, we're checking to see if that could be an option for you versus

like if we could pull it from their consent agenda and talk about it together. It's not even on their agenda yet. That agenda is not posted. So, you're having a joint meeting with them on what day is it? The 21st. Yeah. if if that could be just an agenda item during that joint meeting instead of voting right now currently because I'm not going to lie I I know we've had this a little bit but I would per personally prefer a little bit more time to I mean it's a big decision but that's me I I would

yeah I don't I don't again not to counteract or anything you sir but I I don't see anything in here that talks about who who pays for it or a split or it says within 60 days of issuance of a certificate of occupancy for each phase of development and at any time the planning and development services director requested a post-development sound study must be submitted. The study must be conducted at a time generally known for peak data center cooling operations. In the event the study shows that the use exceeds maximum allowable decibel levels, the operator must immediately undertake all necessary efforts to comply. But it doesn't say anything about splitting the cost or I've taken that note from you.

Okay. So what we're voting on today it if we were to vote we're voting on the exact wording of this. Yes. Yes. Okay. That is correct. Okay. Now that would be now if you have recommendations to say well like um is it number 11 that's the landscape or number 12 the landscaping you would strike that section. Okay. And say be required to have an urban design review. I would like to make a motion to table until the joint meeting on the 21st with city council so we all discuss it together.

Okay, so here's the legal, you know, caveat to all that. So the joint meeting required a resolution to have it called and the data center issues that we're talking about weren't on that resolution. So you'd have to do a new one and push that meeting further back. So you you could table it, but we'd have to move the joint meeting since the original resolution didn't have all. Can the meet does it have to get moved a month or can it get a week?

Because we have to have 15 days to renotice in two public ways and the resolution has to specifically state what it is that you're going to hear at the joint meeting. So I knew that would probably be an issue. and and so if they made a if we did that, we wouldn't have enough time between the 7th and the 21st for them to make a motion on the 7th to do that. There's not enough lead time to get that done. I'm going to lean to and I do want to just remind we did send out nearly 1,200 notices to these property owners. So those have to get reset,

right? Well, if we do it at a joint meeting, we don't have to resend them, but we've already done that process. And you, while not everybody can come to a planning commission, and y'all can just imagine if we had 200 people standing outside the door, but we've had less than 20 here today to talk about these and and say things. And I and I respect every one of your minds saying, "Well, this may be a little too much." I get that. And so if there's any way we can say, well, I want to this is my this is our recommendation from the planning commission to city council. Now, you could table it. Um I would say we would just have to go back through that process again. I think it'll be very difficult to get a joint meeting again in May around um graduations and start a summer. I I think it's going to be very very difficult, not impossible, but

I my comment I want to make is I feel like I'm kind of saying the same thing over and over is I know nothing about data centers other than what is written here, what we've heard. I don't know about sound testing. I don't know about constructing a data center. You guys have done your research. you've looked into this. While to the blind common person eye this may look extensive, I'm going to guess that a company operating a data center, this is not over their head. This is over our head. Um I'm I'm thinking that while this may look extremely restrictive, as you said, you've you've had the discussions with these companies. that's not overwhelming to them. Um, I think we've heard the concerns. We've heard a lot about landscaping water usage in that aspect. I 100% agree with that. I think it's the landscaping restrictions are overbearing. But I don't think in my opinion, I can't pick apart what y'all have done here because you've done the research and I am willing to defer to you as well as listening to the citizens what their concerns are. And I've the few concerns I've heard today. It's the landscaping. So, let's take that off of here. I'm going to defer to y'all. What you've written here. And I mean, I just I don't know how kicking the can down the road and picking apart each and each and every little provision is really going to do any good. I'm going to play devil's advocate and say the same thing other than I don't want to make an uninformed decision and I feel like we're not informed enough to make a decision. Uh now in saying hang on it in saying that that means the data center can come in tomorrow because we're kicking the can down the road

because it's up to them. But I do not feel comfortable putting into law things that I do not fully understand. And I understand that y'all have done a lot of research and I so appreciate that. Um, and I know that there's all kinds of rules and things for the time limits for how you have to get these things to us, but I just I I won't put my name and say yes on something that's just I'm blind to and I'm sorry.

I think what y'all may want to do is um push this to your next meeting. You bring it back at your meeting. Um, but you will need to get staff real specific um, notes on your suggestions so we can make sure we incorporate those into the discussion um, so that it'll give you all an ability to make possibly a quick decision based on those notes that we can bring forward for you and display. So that's what I would recommend based on, especially with the noticing and the timeline, is that you push it to the next meeting, but make sure you get that information back to them or come sit down with them to talk through it um as quick as possible.

Okay. And to add to that, if you were to say flat out deny everything today, that is your recommendation to council. Council could still do what they want to do with it, right? Um that's just something. I don't know. And I just feel like council's going to have hopefully a lot of the same questions and whatnot that we do because again this isn't something that's just impacting us momentarily. This is going to be impacting us for decades. You know, our kids, our kids' kids, etc. So again, we appreciate everything staff's done and I know you guys want this off your desk, but we just want to make sure that we

I don't think one one month one way or the other is going to kill us. Okay. So again, just for clarification, if we say we would like to table this until the next meeting, when does um uh city council actually get to if this was tabled to the next regular meeting of planning commission, which is the 20th of April, then we would look at May, the two council meetings in May to have public hear, first reading and public hearing at the first uh city council meeting and then the second city council meeting would be the second uh reading and public hearing in May.

So in May is the first time that they're going to unless they were watching today or went back on the notes or had discussions with you guys. This the first time that they're going to dissect it publicly. Correct. Yes, publicly for sure. Yes. I mean they've they've actually had a presentation on uh data centers. Um, they also went through a presentation of my interpretation uh and things like that. I feel like on some of this major we need a presentation. I I would like to make a motion to table until next planning commission meeting. Okay. So, we have a motion from Shane. Do we have any other thoughts or motion or

Well, yes. So, I I would I would like to I would like for staff to dig into the landscaping. I like the thought of I like my thought of the urban design review uh and knocking out everything else. Um other than that, the the 300 ft difference versus the uh building fall zone. Um just some of the I mean a some of the this is going to sound terrible me suggesting it but just some of the terminology and the grammatical errors uh which I do all the time but I also don't write these things so that's good. Um let's see

where is it with the 300 ft. Yeah. Is that where you want them to go? It's on page two. Page two in the middle number five setback. Thank you.

I would like it to see the building fall zone um or a a more clear definition to say, you know, not just um against residential zoning, but like Britney said, you know, you could be next to R& that's a 500 acre ranch that your house is nowhere near it. So, I don't think there's a reason that we should put that restriction. I say we have a we have a standard that's within our zoning ordinance that's defined of it's always at property lines. Now we would have to do something specific here or we just have to reduce the setbacks. And so

well and again I hate to say this I think some some of these things would be a casebyase situation you know like you know we're kind of put a blanket on very large areas on some of these. What were you going to say? You almost gonna say I'm sorry. I'm gonna cut in one. You You almost want to do that though because if you just patchwork everything in and then every case you get every case staff sees right after that is a gray area and then that makes it even more frustrating for the developer at that point.

Right. No, and and I agree with that. It's just again looking at you know some of these really large areas northeast of town. You know, again, I I would like personally I want to spend a little bit more time looking and going through the KOSA map on some of these areas and the the parking I I have a question about that. Um you know, one for every 500 ft of space. So if somebody has a but it's office it was it's specifier. So we we anticipate a small parking area. Right. Right. Right.

Um and I know that this is a later agenda item, but um we should allow food trucks in the whole construction phase of all this. I would like to make that note take. Um okay, so let's recap. We Shane currently has a vote to table to the next meeting. Um and well my question to him was was he wanted to add to his motion right before we consider it. Yes. So a motion to table I would like staff to look at the uh

landscaping requirements. I would like to look at have them look at the building setbacks. Um also the I guess in the landscaping the fencing on the sides in the back. Um I I guess that's all in the landscaping there. Um nonor variable shrubs. Yeah. Other than that, again, I think the landscaping probably is the biggest I'm going to say I don't know enough about noise and I I don't either. I don't either. Um well, evidently it's it's two pages long, so I think it's pretty well covered.

Right. Well, and again, you know, the facilities know kind of what their, you know, output of noise is. The staff I'm you guys have done your research. I'm completely good with relying on you for the noise aspect of it.

And I feel the same way about the water usage. I I feel like that the study that's already been done and how the water usage is laid out in number 16 on page eight. Um I would consider it much like u the noise of studies already been done that we don't know that much about. Um I'm sure um the water department and uh those that know more about it have weighed in already on some of those. So I'm in agreement. um with the table and teal for number five uh which is what I think Shane said which is the setbacks

and number 12 which is the landscape for staff to relook at those and see if there's any changes that they would recommend and 16 I are we wanting staff to

I think that we we are supposed to send our notes to staff and again just to make sure that we're um not breaking any rules if we have a joint email going to staff with thoughts on it. Is that allowed? Is that not It really should just be an individual to staff and then what our commitment would be is to work diligently to get this information together and get it back out to you and the public and post it in on our website so that both you and the public can see it well in advance and know what your questions are before the next meeting. So, I think on that note, I think that we also need to, and this is my opinion, I don't know if we're allowed or not, but as a planning commission, I think that we need to give ourselves a deadline to get this to staff to give them the adequate time to review um and to post to the public before our next meeting because again, posting the public in our normal time frame before that I don't think gives everyone enough time for review. So, I just had a quick question as far as the landscaping goes because there was discussion about killing it all together and or are we wanting staff to revise it? Because I don't I don't want us to go back to them and say we'll revise it and then next meeting we're just going to say kill it all together. I don't want them to like waste their time in doing that. So, I guess what what are our thoughts on that? I mean, I I really, and this is me personally, I don't think in a non residential area we need anything on the sides or in the rear. I think it really just needs to be in the front. Um, and I mean, and again, like this is part of our job sitting here is can we, if we're all in agreements, agree agreeance on that,

can we move forward on that item and just say, you know what, we all agree that it's um, is that what the 25T Parkway setback standard is? I I I like that. Um I I don't like the saying how far apart your trees have to be and everything in the front because you could have a I mean a thousand foot long frontage. Yeah. Uh which is still adding a lot of landscaping.

Okay. So with that being said to question to staff is if we take out basically all the landscaping other than stating landscaping is required within the front xyz feet especially in uh major thoroughfare areas or anything like that but that decision is made by the urban design review board. Does that just blanket us and can we move forward on landscaping? There is no board that reviews that. It is city staff.

Okay. And the short answer is yes. But I I can hear Russell Gully talking to my ear that that leaves it to staff to decide your planting distances and things. And that's the reason why they're in there is for uniformity. So it's going to look consistent. It's very standardized as opposed to okay, let's just say you go through an urban design review and then the city staff is making those decisions. And it's for the developer looking for some right basic. It's not left up to someone to decide. So, why don't you let us look at the landscaping? I think what we'll still try to do is mainly those entrances, but you may want,

in my opinion, and I'm all about the water, and I grew up in West Texas, but you may want some trees around the perimeter. Maybe not as thick, but just to give it a little break from, right, your neighbors, a tree, especially if you plant the right type that are not, you know, you don't have to water all the time when they get established, live oaks, those kind of things. So, let us look at that and see if we can get your intent. Okay. So I think and this is my opinion on just so we have direction for staff 12 landscaping A to the side and rear landscape. I would I would just say that personally I would take that part out.

I think we'll bring back a landscape plan that takes in y'all's intent. Let's move on. So, we had a um motion by Shane and then Candy, did you you basically were in the midst of setbacks and which is five and then you you threw in what was it? 16 16 I just to re-review that section and maybe have some answers back on it. Just some sort of fee or something. I'm not sure. I mean, we can look at that. I just I don't want them to have some uh employee who makes a mistake and causes tens and tens and tens of thousands of gallons of water. Um and of course they'd have to pay for it or they could truck it in or anything like that, but I mean if we're going to put some restrictions on them, let's make make them make sense.

Okay, let's look we'll look at that and then Okay, so we've got a motion and a second. I am going to ask are we trying to put a I mean I guess with those three, never mind. Forget my next comment. So motion a second. All in favor of tableabling with with rediscussion on number five which is setbacks, number 12 which is landscape and number 16 which is water usage. Okay. All in favor? I I All right. So that was 6 on table. Thank you everyone that showed up for public comment. We really do appreciate the impact uh input from the citizens.

Chairwoman, do you want to go keep moving forward or take a 10-minute break? I would love to use the restroom. Yes, if we could just take uh I don't know if we need 10 minutes. I think five is adequate. Um if we can do five minute break.

So, be back at 11:36. How much more we have to do? back. Um, and we're still going under the ordinance text amendment. We are going to temporarily skip item two and move to item three, which is a discussion and direction for modification to the land development and subdivision ordinance to impact affordability of housing and development. You've been waiting on this one.

I know. Thank you, Austin Reed, senior planner. I'm going to talk a little bit about some changes to our LDSO. This is the same presentation that was given at city council last week. We received generally supportive feedback. And so, um, most of you should be familiar with this. If you're not, the LDSO is what controls our regulations for people who are subdividing or developing their properties. Um, it also controls how and where we get our infrastructure. So kind of the purpose of this whole conversation was to find changes that could promote affordability and consistency in our LDSO. Um what we did was we formed a committee and within that committee was developer, city staff and even some of you and we met monthly between August and February of this year and we presented some of these discussions at city council here in development task force. The goals that we laid out for this committee were to one promote affordable development through revised standards. Um two was to simplify development through consistency within and across our own ordinance. And then three was to hopefully as a result of the other two promote affordable housing and infill. Uh more specifically, this was just kind of our approach. We started by identifying items within the LDSO that were outdated or incompatible. Um, number two, we tried to research solutions to those issues by consulting with our committee and other communities as well. And then finally, we were drafting amendments and bringing them here and to city council. And that's where we are today. So the question is, how do you bring down the cost of land development? And to answer that question, you have to look at the some of the factors that drive land development costs. And this includes things like labor, materials, water, sewer, storm water. Um, these are five things that the city doesn't have very good control over, but what we do have better control over is our streets and street standards. So, one thing we've heard from others and we found to be true ourselves is that um, St. Angelo has a very wide street in some areas. Um, we took a look at other cities minimum street widths for new local roads and this is kind of

what we found. It's a little bit of a spectrum that starts at about 30 ft and works its way upwards. You can see we're at the far end of that spectrum. We require 40 ft for a new local road. Um, I've also included here a chart showing our plat variance data between uh 2020 and August of 2025. And this just kind of shows you how many uh times our streets were varied here at the planning commission. As you can see, there was a lot of variances, but they were also overwhelming overwhelmingly approved. So sometimes this can indicate that a change is needed. Most of what we looked at in this committee and as part of this process was two charts within our LDSO. This first one controls rideway widths, the amount of rideway that we get when someone is going through an LDSO related process. And so we went back and forth on changing this chart, but um ultimately we kept it mostly unchanged. Right away isn't usually the issue for development. Um that being said, we did still change some of the language within these charts. We got rid of the local rural street designation because it wasn't used. And then we had two columns that were labeled standard width and minimum width. We made sure that these pertain to new and existing streets because that's the way it's treated. So just make that a little bit clearer. Um this next table controls the paving widths, how wide our streets are when someone that's platting or developing their property. And so we have again again cleared out that language on the columns. Uh local streets you can see it was that 40 ft before or 36 ft for a uh with a sidewalk being required. We've come through and just made that a flat 36 ft with no sidewalk required. For an existing local road, it is that 26 ft minimum. And that is still staying true many places, but specifically within the city's designated infill area as a way to promote infill, they're allowed to remain as little as 20 ft. Um, in no circumstances though should a variance for anything um allow a feet less than 20 ft. Um, we've kind of given new minor collector streets the same treatment as new local streets where as before it was 48 ft or 40 ft with the sidewalk, now it

can just be the flat 40 ft. Um, the upper road classifications we found to be pretty consistent with other cities and didn't really need changing. One last thing on this was the sidewalks. Um there is some confusion about where and how sidewalks are being required. So we wanted to clear some of that up. Um they're no longer required near commercial developments and churches as those were kind of hard to define sometimes. But um they're still required within 300 ft of schools and parks. Um more specifically now measured as a direct path along a budding street rideway from the nearest point of the new development. Um and I think that's all I had on this. I know that was a lot, but do you guys have any questions? And just to clarify on that sidewalk item that's talking about in residential areas that it's been very challenging for home builders to understand if they're down the block from a commercial district, do I need to put a sidewalk in or not? And we've gone back and forth and done lots and lots of waiverss. And it just seems like commercial development and churches are the two things that are the sticking points. And so we're just striking those from from the ordinance. Do you have that diagram uh that at one point was presented to give an example of that measured as a direct path of budding street right away from the nearest point of new development?

I don't have it within this presentation. I apologize. I put this together when our system was still down. I actually wanted to grab that and I forgot to put it in. But um we can have that when this is um being considered actually to adopt. Right now this is just a discussion item. So thank you. I mean I've seen it but it would be good for them to see. Okay. Any other questions or anything? Are we doing Nope. You're good. Are we doing any public comment on this one? Yes. You guys be nice to us. Um, we are going to start with Russell Billy. I'm good. You're good. Okay. Rocky Templan.

Rocky Templan. single member district th 6 August to February. Thank the staff for all their time and patience with these uh meetings and I think they did a great job of trying to help us out. Uh I only had a couple questions uh mainly concerning sidewalks basically when there's not a curb. So whether we're 5 foot from the property line or we're 3T from the back of the curb and whether we're 4 foot wide or we're 5 foot wide. It is a little still a little confusing from the original ordinance that was written and so other than that it's good to go. Okay. Thanks Rocky. Okay. Um Karen Best actually I need to be on the next item.

Next item. Okay. Okay. Um Tony Jones. Tony Jones single me member district six. Uh just as a question, could you put the slide back up on what uh staff has control over or what the city has control over the items you listed as far as what we're concerned the list

what you have control over. You said you have control over or don't have control over storm water specifically. Okay. Factors driving land development cost. So here's what I can speak to. Um the fact that lots in St. Angelo uh are up about $20,000 over the last 5 years. Part of that has to do with COVID. Uh a major part of that has to do with the lack of uh city's action on storm water uh which is a big driver of lot cost in St. Angelo today. And so the city's been locked down for the last 2 and 1/2 years on approval or agreement as to whether or not they will buy storm water ponds or they will take ownership of storm water ponds that we're now required to put in each and every subdivision. U and so city's refused. Uh the manual was written in 2011 with the help of Russell uh Ron Jones, city staff and God bless them freezing nickels. Uh and in that manual it was stated uh that the city could take ownership of those storm water prawns if they were uh required. Okay. So that was the way the manual was written and that's the way we operated. Uh the first two storm water ponds that were put in were put in by me in subdivisions here in St. Angelo and as per the agreement the city took ownership of both of those. Those were the last two ponds to my knowledge that the city has taken ownership of. Now they have verbally agreed on individual basis that they would take ownership of those ponds but basically as it's written and prescribed now correct me if I'm wrong Aaron the

city will not accept those ponds they want us the developer to maintain those in perpetuity it's a public utility that we're required to put in a storm water pond in the southwest part of St. Angelo benefits the entire city as a public utility. And the city refuses to take ownership of those ponds. And so in the last two and a half years that I know of, there have been probably 100 lots at least that have not gone into development because of the city's in inability or unwillingness. I'm sorry the fourth floor is not here because that's where most of this has come from the city's inability or unwillingness to take ownership of those ponds. And so there's now a lot shortage in St. Angelo, Texas, okay, which drives the cost up and we can hire as many consultants as the taxpayers will pay for to come in and tell us how to run our city, but they don't have a clue about our market. We can't afford some of the things. Uh they're now going to require us to put stripes on the street. We're going to now do what our taxes have historically paid for. The developers are going to be required to put in street signs. I mean, this is part of a proposal that's come up lately. I believe they're going to require us to put in street signs, put the stripes on the roads. uh you know, it just goes on and on and on and so you can give voice all you want to about affordable housing in St. Angelo and there's I dare say there's not a meeting that goes on down here where affordable housing is not mentioned but where the leather hits the street from the fourth

floor on down staff has chosen not to act on this one issue and this is just one issue that's all I have thank you thanks Tony any other I'm an ET. I'll leave before I go. Thank you for your time. Thanks, Tony. Ray, do we have any more? Oh, do we have any other public comment? Okay. All right. We'll go ahead and close public comment and open up for questions or discussion.

Yes. So, kind of speaking on what Tony just said, um it came to my knowledge that uh there was some talk about developers that, you know, I guess certain city staff or or representatives were trying to put the cost of street signs on developers. I don't know if y'all watched the last city council meeting, but um and you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but I I think that we spent about $8,000 on street signs. They're trying to put that cost on developers as well as striping. Um, as well as I I think that street lights were mentioned as well in new developments. Uh, I think all of that is a no. I I don't think that developers should be required to do that. I think that signs I mean that's just a cost of being a city. I'm sorry. It's not that expensive. Uh, I think that street lights are a great thought. Uh, but you know, we're talking about affordable housing and doing things. I think that if the city of St. Angelo would like street lights in new developments. I think that we should get together and get some sort of grant, pass a bond, you know, change the budget, whatever that looks like, but that is a massive ongoing maintenance cost and it would be a massive cost to developers. That makes no sense.

Um, and striping as well, that's not on the developers responsibility. Um, that should be a a city responsibility. Well, and again, unless it's a major minor collector, I mean, no residential streets aren't required or aren't currently marked. So, going forward, I just don't see that being a big deal, you know. But other than that, I I like what the LDSO committee has put together. Uh I like uh the definitions of uh existing street versus new street versus standard. and I agree that was very confusing

um for no reason. Uh but other than that I I really like what they've done with this. So is there clarification regarding what Rocky had mentioned with the sidewalk without curb?

I can look into that. Um, I know what section he's referring to of basically it's it's more clarification of when a developer needs to put it and not when but really where it needs to be placed if there's not curb. Um, so I think we can clarify that and in a final draft. Um, as far as an update on the other items that were presented to uh, city council by uh, operations director Patrick uh, Faric at this time that those items are not moving forward. The feedback from council was that while maybe a good idea, it's just not the right time. Uh, and I think that had to do around um, affordable housing or trying to control the cost of housing in some way. Um, even with the streets, um, that's that is one area that the city can and I guess the word is maybe compromise on how much it costs particularly in the future for long-term maintenance. If you've got a 40ft road compared to a 36ft road, your maintenance in the future is more costly. It's still going to cost the developer to put that in. But if we can allow them to put in a narrower street, then maybe that's more helpful. But again, we live in West Texas. We we like to drive big vehicles. We like to use on street parking and so that can but then that means our our property taxes are going to stay high because we decided to say okay we want big parking and maintenance is going to cost. Um we just have to be mindful of those things when we make those decisions. I I do understand uh Mr. Jones's comments about storm water. They've been asking through the development task force numerous times. um they allow myself and our building official to come to their to the H the local HBA board meetings and uh often not every time but often that question comes up is has there been any movement on those? I know our our team that's

over that has been doing a rate study. Um but there is a there is a need for a regional storm water plan for the city uh and for the city to work on being able to take over those areas. But again, that takes maintenance money to do those things. And so again, that's with our comprehensive plan coming up of looking at what our capital improvement projects are. I think those are things that have to be addressed in those studies to say this is where we're going to go as a community. Uh because we can't keep leaving things out. We can't keep leaving lots not being built just because we're not being able to take forward on some certain certain items. Thank you, Aaron.

All right.

Okay. So, our we're going to go to item number four and then we'll jump back to item number two. Um, this is regarding discussion and direction for modifications to the zoning ordinance allowing for additional residential zoning districts impacting affordable housing. All right, I'm going to say good afternoon. I got four minutes till noon, but I'm going to say good afternoon. It's been a long morning. Um, so Ray Linberry, lead planner. Um, we have worked together with a committee. Um, the the purpose of doing this is uh we need we have heard from builders that we in order to make affordable housing, some of our restrictions need to be different. smaller lot sizes would help. Um they they named a bunch of things. So we formed a committee and the purpose was to do greater flexibility and support housing development. So this is our normal chart that staff looks at um depending on what zoning you're in on what you're able to build. Um there's a lot of red lines that I know is going to be confusing. I'm going to provide a clean copy when we actually have the joint meeting so you can see the difference. But um all of these items right here, they they are kind of redlined all the way through because we have updated the structure type and that's where the structures are going to be listed. So this chart will have minimum lot area, minimum lot dimensions, um minimum front yard. it won't list out the different structure types. Okay. Um so some of the stuff the committee has discussed is we are adding three new

zones RS4, RS5 and RS6. RS5 is going to be infill only which designates um HUD gets together with our city. They designate areas in the city um that we are considered infill and we have a program that helps um I don't know if sponsor is the right word helps um build homes there and so RS5 will only be available if the property they are going to build on is in the infill designated area. Um RS6 is really there. Um so one of the things staff looked at was our RM1 zoning. That is a supposed to be a multifamily zoning. If you kind of notice it looks like it's a catch-all. You could do single family, you could do duplex, um town houses. It it is a a kind of a catchall. So, we took everything out of there except for multif family, which includes town houses um and twin homes and then multifamily. And we kind of made RS6 to have triplexes and quadruplexes. And then we have RS4, which is very similar to RS1 and um I believe RS2. And it's going to be single family homes, but a smaller lot. So I'm going to go to some pictures here to help me with this. So right now um single family homes are 50 foot by 100. We have created RS4 to be a 35 ft width. We have taken out the depth because if you have a width and a square footage then you the depth really that it was making it difficult for staff. we have some variances because they meet the

square footage and the the width but not the lot the the depth. Um so we took that out. Go back. Um so RS4 will have a minimum lot area of 3,000 ft with a max of 5500. Um again the lot width will be 35 ft. Um sideyard setbacks will be 5T. Um, so one of the things staff did discuss, I'm going to go to this page. Um, is not that page. Oh, I don't have Okay, in your documentation, you will see that, um, where is it at? So, front yard setback, it has a number two. The number two on your paperwork says that um if it's a front entry house, it's 18 feet from the property line for the front yard. If it's a rear entry, it can be 15 foot for the front yard. Uh and that is because our normal parking spot is 9 by8. Um we did discuss removing completely removing floor floor area ratio from this table across all zonings. Um floor area ratio. Jump ahead to my picture. So floor area ratio is a formula that regulates the density on a lot. Um it takes the total floor area which includes um second stories, uh sheds, any type of accessory uses that is enclosed and takes the lot size and divides it and that that's how much you're allowed. Um most cities either use lot coverage and not floor area ratio which doesn't include second story. Um lot coverage is

how much structures you have on the lot. Doesn't matter the stories. Um and when we talk about I'm going to go back. I'm flipping back and forth. when we talk about square footage and lot size and setbacks, we have already some green space there. So, um floor area ratio didn't seem necessary anymore. So, we are talking about getting away from that. Um we do have a maximum height, a maximum story in each zoning. Um trying to think if there's anything else that I left out. So the structure types um we did add industrialized house to this list. It is red. So I have another picture for that. Ha. So industrialized house um what what that means is it has to meet local and state codes. It may be built offsite and brought in to either be put together in in pieces or completed. Um, but it does meet state and local codes and it is on a permanent foundation. A manufactured house has to meet natural HUD codes and they usually use um peers or chassis foundation. Um, and also when speaking to most realators, um, and the appraisal district, when they look at industrial or modular houses, they are appraised the same way a stickuilt house is appraised. Um, a manufactured house has special forms. They have to have a physical inspection of conditions. Um, so staff feels that and the committee the committee also was

in favor of adding industrialized housing as a um allowed structure in all zonings. Um, let's see. We also did if so I will say all of these zonings city staff does not plan on going and choosing and picking and and reszoning any area to these these will be available for somebody to come in and um request a reszone. You have to reszone. It'll come before planning commission and then it'll go to city council um to see if it is in the right area for that smaller lot size. Um the idea behind this was just again some of the lot sizes in the infill program um didn't meet our standard and they always had to go for variance. Um sometimes it was uh a development just wanted smaller lot sizes so they didn't have to build us such a a larger house. Um and so affordable housing we need very much so in this with the housing study. Um, so I think I've hit on all the key points. Um, oh, RM1L. So, we did, we're keeping that, um, because anybody that is currently zoned RM1, um, will remain under the standards that they are currently under. Um, it'll kind of be put under that one. Nobody is allowed to reszone into RM1L. Um, like I said, that is just kind of a we're we're keeping the currently zoned RM1's as the way they are. And then the new RM1, um, again, we removed a lot of the the single family home, the duplex, the zero lot line. Um, we kept it as multifamily. You guys have any questions or thoughts

on how we're doing so far? I I think we'd like public comment and then I have comments of course. Okay,

we will open up for public comment. Thank you for your time this morning or this afternoon. Now, um couple of things I heard today. Um the reality is that change is coming. When commenting on the number of responses from the thousand plus notices that went on on zoning for a data center, it's not abundantly clear that those who were receiving those notices were aware of what the changes would mean or how they would actually impact their property. That is certainly the case for changes to modifications to the land development subdivision ordinance to impact affordable housing and development and for allowing additional residential zoning districts impacting affordable housing. I spent two days reviewing the presented redline data and I'm still lost. I don't know. That's calculus up there. Uh and it's not for lack of trying. Your own words today mirror my own thoughts on this proposed affordable housing modification in agenda items three and four specifically four. I read through this over the weekend and I was lost. There is so much of this I would have have to study before I could make a decision. Yay or nay. It's a lot to have to take in. I'm not sure how much the need is. I'm not ready to make a decision without more input from the community. Um 10 foot here and 50 foot there trying to conceptualize this. That just seems absurd. It's hard to make money when you have to deal with all these restrictions, timing, transparency, and sequencing of information. I first learned of this at 2:20 in the morning on Facebook when I couldn't sleep. Ray Limebury was summarized in KLS saying, "These homebuilders came back to us saying that their restrictions for single family homes didn't allow them to build affordable housing. So, they are trying to create some zoning districts that are smaller

and allow for more affordable homes to be built and an expedited process. Then it talked about building a shed if you had already exceeded how much of your uh land you could use. Miss Limebur's been wonderful in providing me the documentation that would be presented today. Unless you're a planner, it is calculus. I tried to figure out what could happen on a 7,000 foot lot. That's one sixth of an acre. Duplexes, town homes, and apartments. What is RM1L? What would this mean for my neighborhood, for my property? What is industrialized housing really? Why are we eliminate eliminating the requirement for allowing a one and four hour rated firewall in these proposals? What does that mean to the safety of my property? Um some of the changes that appear to put multif family within 5t of each side of my home. What is an infill designated area? In speaking with Miss Limeberry, these changes are more than Bubba building a ship a shed in the backyard. It is in anticipation of the influx of data center construction workers. And this she has verified this is our problem, St. Angelo's problem. It's Abalene's problem, too. And y'all probably read Time magazine's article last uh month on that very issue. Before the data center, the city forced a housing faced a housing shortage of about 5,600 units. Now, virtually all of the city's motel, even the the CD ones, are full. You have people who are working at the data center living in their cars. Okay? And those who hold affordable housing vouchers can't find housing. And they're being encouraged by the city of Abene to go elsewhere. Anyway, just a just a moment to finish this. We need affordable housing, but it doesn't mean cheap crisis devastation to our neighborhoods. And at some point, the public needs to be told straight up what is being proposed for their neighborhoods. And that requires more than an ambiguous description on an agenda.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Karen. Um, Russell Gully, Russell Gully, 706 South Abe Street. Um, really just want to catch a few things and I've had calculus. This is not calculus. This is math. This is addition, subtraction, and division for the most part. So, it is not calculus. Um really what we're looking at doing is is adding some additional zoning districts to allow for flexibility. Uh there there is a housing need in in St. Angelo. We are not going back and changing and impacting existing nice neighborhoods um and and changing them. We're we're allowing and creating additional zoning districts to help fill a need. And and this was discussed prior to this whole data center. This is not a reaction to the data center. this is a reaction to a housing need. Um, so a couple of things um that that I kind of really wanted to to touch on. One of the things that we're losing that a lot of developers like to use and rely on is is RM1 as kind of a catch-all zoning district that they don't know exactly what they want to do. And so they they you know the RM1 allows for single family, two family, zero lot line and a lot of that stuff. And so so per this we're we're losing that except for for those that are currently zoned RM one they'll they'll get to be added to the L. So they'll get to keep that but going forward really the only place that that kind of now is picked up with is within the RS5. So um but but RS5 is allowed u within infield zoning districts only. So I I really see that somewhat as a little bit of a reverse discrimination. So why does that have to be only for infill? So I I I really would like to see that RS5 if we're going to do it. Allow it to go

anywhere in St. Angelo. So So my ask would be um for the RS5, let's allow that to to to be going anywhere and not restrict it to the designated infill area. you know, these are going to most likely occur, we see in new developments or, you know, new develops that are outside of the infill area or infill in these designated areas. So, so to kind of be a new catch all of sorts, I I would like to see that RS5 um drop that within the designated infill areas only. Other than that, it's been great to work with staff and and the other builders and developers um through this. Um, also then I I we've talked about I made a comment on adding triplex and quadplex to the RM1 zoning districts because those you put enough of them together, they're going to look like a lot of these multifamilies, the the single story ones that the Tigers had done over in the Bentwood area. You know, yeah, they're an eightplex, but there should be there could be some triplex and quadplex within those. So, it just allows for some flexibility of build type, especially for the multif family. So, um I guess I'd like to drop that in there as well. And and thank you for considering this and staying late through lunch.

Thank you, Russell.

Okay. Um Tony Jones, did you want to say anything on this? No. Okay. Um then we have Rocky Templan. Like Ray said, good afternoon, Rocky Templ. Um, despite what Russell thinks, I think the RM1 change is probably for a plus so we can get rid of the STRs. And so if you already have the RM1L, you're going to get them. Whatever, that's that's fine. Uh I did have some confusion on the chart. Okay.

Um on the on 501's residential district standards on RS3 and four, my front setbacks have got to be 18t unless I have a rear entry, which is item number two on the next page. But on RS5 and six, I can have a 15t setback when the typical parking spot is 9 by 18. So here you're giving me a zoning that I can't apply for because my setback, my parking spot has to be 18 foot. And so I would think that RS5 and six should go to the 18 foot, which would help the permit department because then we'd have a basics of 9 by 18 parking spots for all unless you have a rear entry alley. And thanks staff for all their hard work.

Thank you, Rocky. So yes, staff did hear that um comment also and um we are considering bringing the number two to also be under RS5 and RS6. Any other public comment? No, that was it. Okay, so close public comment and then any questions for I know Candy, it sound like you I'm not really sure what my question is.

That was um um my question I think was for uh Russell. You said something about um RS5 could be anywhere. Is that what you said? He's asking for it to be anywhere instead of just designated to the infill. Okay. Just misunderstood you.

Thank you. So, I I have a lot of comments on this. Um, so I I was part of this um I guess task force or team or whatnot, whatever we called it that talked about this and we met a lot and we cussed and we discussed and um so a few of my comments I I agree with Russell. The RM1 should have triplex and quadplex in it uh because I feel like those are more multifamily than they are just residential. Um, I I think that the RS5 is good having it in the infill. We went back and forth on that a lot. Um, you know, should there be an infill only, should there not be an infill only? They're essentially the same. Uh, I mean, there's very little difference. I I would also like to note that the city staff can have a 10% variance on any number on this chart, right? So that means that you know any of these numbers they can change within 10%.

Uh essentially um and I guess going back to addressing uh things this was long before the data centers. This is about affordable housing. This is about uh not just affordable housing but this is about attainable housing. This is about how do we lower the median homeowners age in Angelo? How do we get younger people buying homes and not just renting? How how do we keep that American dream? Um I also on RS2 uh we have the minimum lot area is 6,500 but on RS6 for a triplex we have 5,000. I think that RS2 should be 5500. Uh and I think that RS6 for a triplex should also probably be 5500. Uh that could be a variance down to 5,000 feet by city staff. Um I like getting rid of FAR. There's no need for that. Um even FAR versus the lock coverage. Uh kind of like Ray said, you figure it out with your setbacks and your square footage and things. Um I like just the width and getting rid of the length. Um, uh, something that that Ray didn't point out, and since he they don't have a a picture of it, but, uh, on that RS4 and RS5, they're only requiring one parking space, uh, not two as per normal. Uh, another thing to note is in these discussions and things, we learned that city planning and, uh, building permits is on two different pages as far as can a garage be a parking space or not. A garage is a parking space.

Yes.

Um permits was a little bit they had a different opinion of that, but it is a parking space. So I would like to see that 100% clarified in here. Um and to Rocky's point talking about the 15 ft and 18 ft. I I think that it should be whichever if it's your front yard that is your uh driveway, it should be 18 ft. If it's your backyard, it should be 18 ft. The one that you pull your car into should be 18 feet. The other one should be 15 feet. Uh, and it just flip-flops. And I think that would work across all zonings really residentially. I I Well, I say that what did we talk about on the RS1 and two? We knocked it down to 20 ft. So, I think that would be good for RS 3456.

Um, so a question that I had for staff that I just thought of and I didn't think about all this this RM1L. Um, everything that's currently RM1 will essentially move over and get reszoned RM1L. Correct. So, will you have to send notices out to everybody to say, "Hey, this is technically changed, but what you can and can't do has not changed." Well, this is this is one of the items that we announced last city council meeting to be placed as an alternative notice process under the state law that allows them to allows us to do it by resolution that we notice by newspaper and on the website.

Uh and then we have a joint meeting and so we did not have to send individual notices because we'd have to send it to every residential district which is 90% of our zoning in in our community. Okay. Um, other than that, there's there's one other thing that's not on here. Uh, we talk about the um industrialized housing in section 501E. You you don't have a picture of this. I do. Oh, 501E5.

You knocked out five. Okay. All of this should go away. So industrialized housing is essentially a house that is built offsite or a home that is built in sections like a I think it's Boxible is a company that does it. Um we talk about this industrialized housing because I think that's the way that building is going to go in the future. We're going to get away from on-site stick frame and we're going to get into uh you know you're going to buy a package and put it together and and these things are really nice a lot of them. So this section uh 501E5 uh talks about value and it it and it makes you do a calculation for value if you can have this or not. Value has nothing to do with zoning. This should be 100% taken away because I I could build a a prefab home right next door to your home and the only difference is the walls are already built and you'd never know it. You should not have a a restriction about any sort of value in my opinion. Um, yeah, I'll let y'all have some comments while I make sure I

Shane, with you being on the committee, I think that you've summarized a lot of maybe somearities for other people and even for um the planning commission itself. Does anyone have any questions, thoughts, anything we have?

Yeah, my my other comment is every time that this has come up on the agenda, it's been at the very end. You know, when it was brought to city council, it was at the end of a data center conversation that lasted six hours. Here, it's after a data center conversation that lasts a long time. These changes are 100 times more important than any of that data center stuff we were talking about. And I feel like we have not had enough public comment on it. Now, I have been very well informed because I've been on these committees, so I would make a decision, but I do agree with what Karen said. This is a lot of change. Um, and it is very important. We have not changed this in decades. Uh I think that part of all this change is to try and get some relief, try and get some affordable housing. Um and I think that with the city's comprehensive plan amendment, I think that, you know, it would be really good to put some of these in place, get some of these infill lots developed, maybe get a couple of new neighborhoods, and then in the process of of looking at that uh comprehensive plan, thank you. um you know then we can look back and say wow that that was a really terrible idea we need to redo this again you know so this is something that I think that the city and everybody will relook at in the next 12 or 18 months but we're really just trying to get some some help here for some of those weird shaped lots and small things

and and I will say staff has brought this up to numerous contractors and builders that have come into the office for permits um we we have made it known hey what do you like what do you what do you what are you struggling with? Um so there are at least contractors and builders and people that have come into the office they they are aware also to try to spread the word. Okay. Ray, did you talk with um on this industrialized um construction? Did you talk with um Tyler at the appraisal district

or an appraiser? I I did not Tyler but I did talk to it was a lady and I don't have her name here. I don't Is she an appraiser? Yes. And she said that uh they wouldn't think anything different correct for valuing correct.

Okay. Um other than that I I mean I like it. I have some comments and um I'll make sure to email those over to y'all uh that I would like to see in the draft. And I would also like to say this also looks so confusing because as a committee we decided to completely change the whole graph. We decided to have two separate graphs uh and have two separate things that you kind of look at so that way it it standardizes it. So yes, there's a lot of red there's a lot of change um but really we only change a few things. it just looks like a lot because we moved it from this place to this place. So I think that when that final uh presentation is put together it will all make sense. Um but very important.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. We will close item four and move back to item two, which is the discussion and direction for modification to the mobile food unit section 419 of the zone ordinance.

Hi, Erin Venoy, director of planning development services. Uh we had mobile food units come to us and say the zoning ordinance that was created about seven, eight years ago is restricting us. Uh that was not the idea. And so we've looked at some items to try to change. Um it's also trying to meet a state regulation that's coming up at the end of June. The state has said the local jurisdictions in the state of Texas will no longer issue a food permit to mobile food units. Uh they get them from the state. And so there will be very limited interaction between the city and mobile food units. and having a lot of these extra regulations, we're trying to simplify them and maybe remove some because we're not going to be able to do a whole lot uh unless there's a complaint on the weekend uh in which we won't respond until the next week and then they have 30 days to resolve it and they're probably already already gone by then. So, one of the things the biggest thing is residential allowances. Right now there is a pretty strong restriction to allow mobile food units to go into to residential areas except for ice cream trucks and snow cone trucks. Um what we have found since the uh seven and eight years is that restaurants still cater and in residential areas. They just don't take a mobile food truck. And so you're excluding mobile food trucks from having everything set up and ready on site. and restaurants are still able to go and cater in a uh private home and do a birthday party, a graduation, a family reunion, and so they just really want to level the playing field. Um, if it's on a private site, it would be a 6 hours in a 24-hour period. They'd have to meet all the noise requirements, the lighting requirements that are in our residential districts. Uh, we would allow them on a site up to three times a year. Uh, and

so if you have three kids, you get to have three mobile food units at each one of your birthday parties. And other than that, if you're the dad, you're too bad. You don't get a mobile food unit. So, you're out of luck. Um, the other options we looked at is just allowing them per by right or allowing them uh maybe more times per year. at city council when they heard this uh we started discussing parks and I'm going to propose something different for parks areas but most of our park areas are zoned residential uh and so that makes sense that they're able to go and service folks at parks if they they chose to um and things like that and so really it's just allowing them some access to the residential areas um and so I'm going to stop right here to see if y'all have any questions on the residential area Almost everything else is commercial and food park related, but I know residential is a big deal. And so I just wanted to stop right here and let y'all think about what is what are these impacts to residential?

Where's the number three? Three times per year. Where does that come from? That came from the food truck vendors themselves. Okay. Um as they were talking about because there's some that still do it. Yeah. Um that's normally what they get called for. uh they would like to do it legally instead of illegally. Uh which is very honorable of them coming forward saying, "How can we work together to make this happen?" I definitely think parks should be different. Um even if they're zoned residential, uh I I think that food trucks are a great thing. Yeah. Um Great.

Definitely industrial sites during construction. Yes, de definitely we should allow them at a possible data center uh build sites. I I agree. They should be in at construction sites. They would make a lot of money. A residential construction site and you got four houses going up. Why can't they go and serve there? Yeah.

I don't know. Miss Bull, you're going to have a question. Oh, well, you made the comment that uh they want to be on the same playing field as caterers um in a residential area. Um I don't know many caterers that pull their truck up and sit there and feed people out of their truck. They take the food either inside or into a backyard for um I don't see the I don't see the same thing or am I missing something? Well, we've we've seen it around town and we've heard of folks that do that. But again, I agree there are some that maybe they're just they're already plated and they just go and they put them in into somebody's home.

Um this is this would be like if they were able to pull into their driveway and set up there and and serve out of the truck, correct? To that family. Yes. Not been aware of that going on. So, thank you. Yeah. Okay. Any other thoughts, questions?

All right. All right. Well, let's move on to commercial. Uh, one of the things is remove the locate for three consecutive days. Now, that was tied to a mobile food permit that you could sit in one space. Well, the state law now says they must move every day. So, it doesn't make any sense for us to have this local three consecutive days. So, it gives them the impression that, oh, I can sit there for three days. The state law will say you got to you got to be mobile every single day. And that's going to impact some of our current mobile food units that are out there. uh significantly now if it's enforced

if it's enforced by the state. Um one of the things that they ask about is lowering the commercial separation distance in the right ofway. Currently it's 100 ft between a brick andmortar what you'd call restaurant or bar and where they can set up specifically in the right of way not on another private piece of property but in the right of way to limit that down. The first suggestion was to remove it completely. Um we heard back from even the downtown association said n let's go to 50 and then we even heard at city council well let's go to 75. So maybe we're not quite ready for that. And so if if I'm restaurant Arenssburgers in right here and Mr. Reid goes and puts his mobile food unit right in front. I think that's unfair because a they're not they're just using the public's right of way to sell their burgers. Now, if he bought the property beside me and set up shop, I think that would be allowed. I mean, that's two businesses competing as opposed to using the public rideway. U my burgers are better than reads, so I don't have to worry about it. So, so that that's kind of where that comes to it. So, even allowed on the private property adjacent to an established food unit meeting development standards. You know, they they can't just, oh, it's just dirt and let's just All right, it's dirt. you know, if you're going to go buy brick and mortar, let's have some development standards. They're probably going to be required a restroom. You know, there's some things that you have to still do. The uh the other thing that we uh heard back even from schools is to allow them on schools. Right now, our ordinance prohibits them. Says you can't go on schools. Well, let's allow them with written consent. If you do go on the right of way, let's go let's have some separation distance a little bit so that when kids are walking down then you can have a little bit uh the the distance came to be 50t in the rideway. That could be higher or lower if y'all have a

a suggestion. City council didn't at the time. Um but it's just something there. And then within our zoning ordinance in the the um historic district and the other design districts, river corridor, cultural district, and uh downtown district, we have a clause in each one of them that says if you're there for for basically a temporary event, 3 days or less, you must get administrative approval for being there as a mobile food unit. I would like to strike that because the the idea of those areas are the design of the physical structures and the perman permanency of those structures. If you're here for three days for uh brews uh beers, brews and barbecue, you don't need to go to the to the design folks to say, "Can I sit up there?" You're a mobile food unit. You're going to be there. You're going to be gone. We don't need to have that language in there. it. We've had it in there for about eight years and we've had maybe one or two mobile food units come to us the entire time and so I don't like making ordinances that we can't enforce and they're probably doing it all the time. Nobody's complaining, but you know, we still have this quandry when we drive down the street. Oh, wait. I see, you know, Reed's burgers over there. Do I want to go and tell on him or not? And so, we're trying to level the playing field again. Uh, for those

You don't want to get a burger and then tell on him. I'll try it first and see what it's like. Yes.

So, those are the things in the commercial areas that we're looking at changing. I think the the most challenging one is maybe that 75 ft in the right of way. Um I think the one for the schools, whether that's public, private, charter, whatever, uh if they're on their private property with written consent, then I think they're going to take care of the safety. My my worry is the safety in the ride ofway. Is 50 feet enough for them to is it worth their time to go and set up there to serve kids as they're walking home from school or whatever it is that that they've they've talked about that. Schools have talked about that of hey, we should have that available for them, but a lot of our schools are in the residential area and so they still have to meet the residential requirements. And so we just want to make sure that we're trying to give them some opportunities but still maintaining a safety around that mobile food unit when they're serving whatever population it is. Any questions on the commercial stuff?

No. But I I love that there's a mindset there of allowing them at schools because I know there's been a lot of discussion about that um with certain campuses being closed and even if they're open. Our current schools don't don't have facilities to accommodate all of our students and um I think having that option is is great. Yeah. And I think, you know, if the school wants them there, why why would we prevent them by zoning? You're already serving food there. And as long as they've got them in a safe space, I mean, they're going to be very conscious of that. Yeah. So

is that written consent by the individual school or the uh school district? I believe it reads as a school district. I can look into that to see if it Do you have a preference one? I clarify when you find consent that is that that's a good point. Um because I would assume so like SISD they're probably going to have a campuswide policy. Yeah. is my assumption. They have a campuswide policy or a or a district-wide policy, I should say. Um, but yes, I think we'll clarify that in the language and see what what's the best option there. Good.

My comment is if you go back a page, I think Erin, that lower the commercial separation distance in the rottway to 75 ft. My only comment with that is does that apply if the brick and mortar is closed? Like what if you are, you know, downtown late at night after hours and also, you know, a a bar, you know, that's a restaurant, right? Well, they may not serve food, correct?

Um, so, you know, that food truck, it would be a great partnership for the food truck to sit outside of the bar where the bar doesn't serve food. So maybe there could be some sort of thing where um I don't maybe we look at if it's after hours it's different or if the brick and mortar that they're closer to gives a written consent to say hey you know we would love Billy Bob's Burgers to sit out in front of you know AB bar. Um yeah I think we should look at those.

We did kind of consider some of that because we do know we do have some of those operating and some of them are really on private property. they're not in the rightway and they kind of have written permission by that person. The challenging part is just the quirkiness of the bureaucracy of government. the government oversees that ride ofway and what can and can't really go there and business A does can't really dictate well I really want him to come and park right there and so we have to write it in a way that all right what what does that make sense at the same time I guarantee you there's nobody that has a tape measure that's going out there and saying well I'm exactly 100 ft away from this person

again we also look do we have any complaints we don't really have complaints and I think it's because most of them set up after the traditional restaurants are closed. They're serving a different customer. Um, we are in talks of creating a food truck park downtown potentially on a public private partnership and maybe that helps some of the things, but I I agree it's hard to write that ordinance to where all right, what are what's the specific rule? Where where can I really be? And so allowing them with written permission on the private property makes sense. The ride of way becomes tricky because some food trucks fit, some don't. Can they sit up on the sidewalks? It's it's challenging. Okay.

All right. Anything else on commercial before I move to the uh food truck park section? Okay. So, food truck parks, we do not have a section in our ordinance that addresses food truck parks. We've had a number of folks that have come to us saying, "Well, what are the rules and regulations?" Because they look at all the other cities and they have them. uh we don't and so this is our food truck data center rules and regulations. Um but we want to make uh create reasonable requirements for food truck parks in our community. Allow them as a primary use in those zoning districts. Um neighborhood commercial, general commercial, general commercial, uh heavy commercial, light manufacturing. It should also probably just say heavy commercial. Also, uh it doesn't say they're allowed by right in the residential districts. And we kind of go back to that residential area of all right are they on private property? Are they on in the ride ofway and where can they be? So it's they're designed where this is a food truck park and be there all the time. Food trucks can be mobile and go into residential areas but not a food truck park all the time. Uh allowed as mixeduse and adjacent to other permanent retail establishments. One of the requirements would be an on-site manager. uh if you're a food truck park uh to have restrooms if they meet the TABC requirements um and are in the proper zoning which Ry may have to help me and Austin may have to help me I think is CNCG and probably CGCH they're able to sell alcohol in those areas because of the retail sales component uh and lots of food truck parks do that around the state we don't have one currently doing that um provide parking outside of the central central business district. And I always get I kind of laugh because I put CBD right under the alcohol thing and I think well are people going to think something else but no that's the central business district because we don't require parking there but in other parts of town we should require parking. Uh they comply with the

noise signage and lighting. Uh they comply and that should be with and not with uh the food plane the the food plane flood plane developments. And so we need a food we need a food truck here.

Yeah, we do need a food truck in the food plane. Yes. Uh but if there's flood plane development requirements, we don't want them sitting in a flood plane that's going to cause them damage and cause in other challenges. And then they just have the regular site development uh plan requirements is give us their site, where are they putting their parking, how are they going to move trucks in and out, are they going to be an on-site commissary, which means that's where other food trucks would dump their waste water. They might do food prep in a building or something like that. and they could do different versions. Um, and with that, that is what we're working towards. I've been working with uh the food truck group as well as downtown St. Angelo uh and a couple of others that own some commercial areas around to how can we work with our food trucks to allow them in some sites, but it still meet the state requirements that says these guys may not even come to you because they could come to us from Ballinger and they don't have to check in with the city at all. And so as long as we have all well here's our rules, they're posted, please comply. Um then we think we'll we'll do okay. So

how how do you determine the parking? How many parking spots are needed in the food truck parks? It's usually our our zoning ordinance in 511 says it's a minimum of two, but then we take in account are they doing outside seating and tables? Mhm. And it's I think it's one per four seats. Is that right? Does that sound familiar? It's one per five. one per five. Okay. So, a family of five, we just need one parking space. So, don't invite all your friends. Just share your vehicles together. Uh but parking is that is a ch because that is that capital cost that most food trucks have a challenge with doing because they've got an idea. They've got they know how to make food really well.

They've got a mobile unit and now they're trying to all right, well, if I did a food truck park, how do I do that? how do I start becoming a brickandmortar building that continues to contribute to the community? And so that those are the things that they're trying to do incrementally over time is is step that up. And so sometimes we would say, well, they need 10 spaces, but they only got room for six. that might be okay,

but then they the downside is well either going to have people parking on the street in a food around a food truck park or they're not going to be able to serve as many customers because they can't they can't get to them. But we do know some one thing about food trucks is predictability. Where is food truck A going to be today for lunch? I love them. I want to go see them at lunch. I know every Tuesday they're going to be here at this place. I want to go there. How what's the restroom situ? I mean, how are they only open during food truck hours? Are they how many? I'm assuming they're portable restrooms. Well, they probably would have to get permanent restrooms at some point through the development.

Okay. And that's really uh managed under the building code of what all are they going to do? you know, is it a food truck park that okay, we're only going to let food trucks their their design is we're only going to do food trucks from 11:00 till 2:30 and then they're gone. They're there and gone. They don't we don't need anything else. There might be an option for portable toilets at that point. Okay. Uh, it depends on their permanency, but yeah,

I know I've talked about food and I'm hoping nobody's hungry since it's past lunch, but we plan on bringing all of these three initiatives back to our joint meeting. We'll have uh all the background in the day in the on Civic Clerk and or Civic Plus and and stuff. And then Ray will be sending that out early so you can look at the actual ordinance changes. And then we'll have kind of a summary page on the front of each one of those to talk through what it is that we've changed. So, okay. With that, I are you turn it back to you.

Okay. All right. The next regular meeting of the planning commission is scheduled to begin on Monday, April 20th, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. in the East Mezzine in city hall at 72 West College Avenue. and a joint meeting of the planning commission and city council is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, April 21st, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. in the city council chamber at the Mcnes Convention Center at 501 Rio Koncho Drive. And with that, may I have a motion to adjourn? Second. Yes.

Okay. Motion is a real quick one. And with that meeting adjourned, I appreciate again staff um all your hard work on everything we went over today. Public, thank you so much for coming out and voicing your opinions and we will see you next month. Thank you.