Good to Know

Why is the City doing a Northeast (NE) Denton Area Plan when there is already an adopted comprehensive plan that covers this area?

The Denton 2040 Comprehensive Plan is a high-level, visionary document that does not consider specific conditions of this area or of individual properties within the area. The Comprehensive Plan recognizes that NE Denton is a special area in the City with an overall vision of preserving green environment and environmentally sensitive land. The Comprehensive Plan recommended that NE Denton be studied in further detail to work out the specifics on how to achieve the overall vision in a manner that meets consensus, especially among the property owners and stakeholders in the area.

What are the limitations of this NE Denton Area Plan?

The NE Denton study area is 8,546.29 acres, with 3,981.85 acres (46.6%) in the City of Denton city limits and 4,564.44 acres (53.4 %) in the City’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ). Therefore, the City can only influence development in 46.6% of the study area to meet the vision established through this planning process. The other 53.4% of the study area will be influenced by the County.

What are the roles of the project team (City staff and consultants) in creating the NE Denton Area Plan?

The project team is made up of urban planners, open space experts, economists, and engineers. The project team’s role is to be facilitators. They will work to collect extensive input from a large and inclusive group of property owners and stakeholders related to what the community wants the area to be and the ways in which the community wants to achieve this vision.

To assist the community in making these decisions and develop the plan for the NE Denton study area, the project team will provide the community with research and data related to existing conditions in the area and surrounding region, and development trends in the City of Denton. The project team will also use their knowledge and expertise in urban planning and development to provide the community with possible solutions, strategies, and action steps to achieve the community’s vision.

The project team will use thought-provoking questions and deep-dive discussions to understand what the NE Denton community wants and the ways in which they might want to achieve their vision. The project team will do this both in-person and online. These questions and discussions will focus on understanding the desires of the community. Through this process, the team will provide multiple ways for the community to provide input on what the community wants to see in the NE Denton area in the future.

At the end of the planning process, the project team will package the community’s desired vision, community-chosen solutions, and proposed action steps into a plan document that will assist the City and the County in guiding the property owners and developers in the types of development that is desired in the area. The plan will differentiate between land that is in the City limits and land in the County. The NE Denton Area Plan document will help the City and the County to plan for the types of infrastructure and services that will be needed in the area based on the community’s vision.

It seems like there is huge interest and development pressure this area. Why?

1. New transportation-related improvements, such as widening US 380, service roads and realignment of Loop 288, improvements to FM 428, and the alignment of the new Outer Loop along Sherman Road, are expected to improve accessibility to and from the metroplex to NE Denton.
2. The NE Denton area has easy access to the University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University, as well as to downtown Denton and its amenities.
3. There are large parcels of vacant land under single ownership in the area, which is more desirable for development compared to consolidating multiple smaller parcels under different ownerships.
4. According to the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Dallas region has grown by more than one million new residents every 10 years since 1980, putting intense pressure on the region’s housing stock.

Why does the City consider zoning change requests for projects that do not match the existing zoning?

If a property owner applies for a zoning change, the City is required by State law to take the application through the process and allow the property owner to make their case to the Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council.

Why does the City consider recommendations that seem contrary to the Future Land Use Map (FLUM) in the City’s Comprehensive Plan?

In such cases, the City takes into consideration the following reasoning:

1. A comprehensive plan is a conceptual and visionary document that does not consider specific conditions at a smaller subarea or individual property level.
2. A comprehensive plan is a living document that must be constantly updated to reflect current conditions and social, economic, and physical changes in an area.

What can the City regulate in the ETJ?

The City only has platting authority in the ETJ. Platting is ministerial, which means that regardless of use or density, if a property meets basic service requirements such as access to water, wastewater, and roads, the City is required to approve the plat. The City can specify minimum lot size only if a property needs a septic system. If a property in the ETJ is serviced through municipal or regional water/wastewater system, the City has no authority to regulate lot size or setbacks in the ETJ.

What can the City do to preserve open space?

1. Buy property and designate it as park space.
2. Use zoning power in an area to:

• Specify lower-density uses
• Establish large lot requirements and require larger setbacks from the property line
• Specify cluster development resulting in open space conservation

However, a city can only do this within the city limits while following state law regarding property rights.

Why can’t the City buy property for parks in the area?

1. The City has a limited budget and must balance providing services to all parts of the City equally.
2. Some larger property owners are not willing to sell land to the City.

What is cluster development?

Cluster development – also called open-space development or conservation development – is an attempt to achieve balance between growth and preservation of open space in rural and suburban settings. It is done by clustering homes on a smaller proportion of land. The additional land, which would normally be allocated to individual lots across the entire subdivision, becomes protected as common space. Depending on the site, the common space may protect wetlands, floodways, steep-grade slopes, farmland, wildlife habitat, woodlands, archaeological resources, historic or cultural resources, or groundwater resources.

The example below shows three different scenarios on a 100-acre wooded site: before development, developed with 2-acre lots, and developed using cluster development.

1https://www.mass.gov/

Beyond achieving site-specific goals of open-space preservation, cluster development attempts to connect open spaces from one development to the next, creating an interconnected network of farmland and conservation land. Conventional development patterns fragment open space into disconnected parcels, severely limiting the amount of suitable wildlife habitat and doing little to create a visual sense of contiguous open space.

By contrast, cluster development places dwellings in areas hidden from existing roads in order to preserve view corridors and rural aesthetics. In many cluster developments, municipal trail networks are included with the goal of one day connecting to each other to form a regional trail system.