Title
Conduct a Public Hearing to Consider/Discuss/Act on a Request by the City of McKinney to Amend Section 146-101 ("CC" - Corridor Commercial Overlay District) and Section 146-139 (Architectural and Site Standards) of the Zoning Ordinance (Chapter 146 of the Code of Ordinances)
Summary
MEETING DATE: February 24, 2015
DEPARTMENT: Planning
CONTACT: Michael Quint, Director of Planning
RECOMMENDED PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION ACTION:
· Approve the proposed amendments to Sections 146-101 ("CC" - Corridor Commercial Overlay District) and 146-139 (Architectural and Site Standards).
· The recommendation of the Planning and Zoning Commission will be forwarded to the City Council for consideration at their March 17, 2015 meeting.
ITEM SUMMARY:
· Staff is proposing a series of amendments to the architectural and site design standards which are intended to address the following topics which were expressed by the City Council, Planning and Zoning Commission, and members of the Development Community:
o The standards should mandate quality but should be flexible enough to remain competitive with sister cities;
o The standards should allow more material types;
o The standards should focus more on architectural design including, but not limited to façade offsets;
o The existing standards are too restrictive;
o The current point system is too confusing; and
o The current architectural and site design standards create delays in the overall development timeline.
· Prior to drafting any ordinance amendments, Staff first set out to thoroughly evaluate the City of McKinney's existing architectural standards, the stated issues with these standards, and possible ordinance frameworks. The result of this evaluation was a document titled "Architectural and Site Design Standards: Analysis and Recommendations." This document, which was written by Staff, includes a preliminary set of draft regulations (due to the significant number of changes, a "tracked changes" version could not be produced) and the original analysis from 1999. It also identified a number of issues with the existing regulations and recommended a significant overhaul (save and except changes to recently adopted amendments pertaining to multi-family residential uses) to the existing ordinance which was intended to introduce more flexibility. It's Staff's opinion that the objectivity of the existing ordinance adds to its confusing nature, restrictiveness, and inability to address a wide variety of architectural design without needing approval of a meritorious exception application. This overly objective approach to architectural design standards may put the City of McKinney at a disadvantage when comparing our regulations to those of our sister cities; Plano, Frisco and Allen. These municipalities rely on flexible and more subjective regulations to govern architectural design.
· Steps Taken to Date:
o July 28, 2014 - City Council Directed Staff to re-evaluate the City's current standards
o December 15, 2014 - Staff discussed a preliminary set of draft amendments with the City Council
o December 16, 2014 - Staff posted draft amendments online for public review and comment
o December 18, 2014 - Staff emailed draft amendments to recurring McKinney developers for review and comment
o January 7, 2015 - Staff met with the McKinney Economic Development Corporation's Development Advocacy Group to discuss the draft amendments
o January 13, 2015 - Staff met with the Planning and Zoning Commission to discuss the draft amendments
o January 26, 2015 - Staff met with the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council to discuss the draft amendments
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
· The Architectural and Site Standards section of the Zoning Ordinance, Section 146-139 of the Code of Ordinances, was originally adopted in May of 2000 and has not been significantly updated since that time, with the exception of design requirements for multi-family residential uses which were updated in 2013.
· In August of 2009, Council Member Day expressed concerns about the existing Architectural and Site Standards and requested amendments. Staff worked with the Development Community, City Council, Planning and Zoning Commission and McKinney Economic Development Corporation's Development Advocacy Group between 2010 and 2012 to draft significant amendments to this section but the City Council ultimately decided to abandon these efforts due to a lack of consensus.