We’ll start our June 17 meeting with a Work Session at 2pm followed by a 6:30pm Regular Session, both at City Hall at 215 E. McKinney Street in beautiful Denton, Texas. Click here for the full agenda, complete with links to all the backup material. Here’s what I think you might be interested in…
CITY BUDGET TALKS BEGIN
The city’s fiscal year begins on October 1, so preparations are now taking place to hammer out our 2014-2015 budget for the entire city. With General Fund revenues and expenditures now around $90 million per year and total city services (including Denton Municipal Electric) surpassing $900 million per year, oversight and direction of the city budget is arguably the most important task and power of the city council. Any significant policy decision comes with a price tag – this is where the council helps shape the direction of the city for years to come.
This is why our Work Session begins with an overview of the city’s Strategic Plan – the document and collection of metrics that defines the council priorities. That will closely be followed by Preliminary Budget Overview outlining major assumptions leading into this year’s budget talks between the council, city staff, and the citizens of Denton. Click here for a copy of that presentation.
Some highlights of this presentation:
- Early property tax figures are encouraging, showing somewhere around a 12% increase in revenue to the city. This is quite preliminary, as appeals are taking place right now. The city is estimating a 8% increase for the 2014-15 budget.
- We are assuming a 3% sales tax increase from 2013-14.
- The increased revenue is enough to put off a planned 1 cent tax increase for this next year.
- But the city continues to grow and expenditures grow with it – new requests for additional funding will still be hard to come by.
- There are about $5.4 million in supplemental package requests from various city departments (requests for new funding) – many of these will go unfunded.
- Street repair and maintenance continues to be a priority.
FREE OAKLAND STREET!!
Does the above photo look familiar? Thanks to the popularity of the downtown square, the success of Oak Street Draft House, and the increasing desire to live in downtown Denton, the once sleepy stretch of Oakland Street between Hickory and Oak has been overcome by parked cars. City Staff and the Traffic Safety Commission has recommended prohibiting parking on both sides of that street. An ordinance to do just that is on our agenda, so heads-up!
FRY STREET AREA CVS REZONING REQUEST
A CVS is being proposed near UNT on the corner of Hickory and Ave. B, where the old Suhko Thai used to provide us poor university faculty and staff with very affordable Thai cuisine for lunch. This came before council at our last meeting and many of us were concerned with a hardship variance that was approved by Planning and Zoning to allow a 3rd driveway into the property. As I argued during our last meeting, this area is arguably one of the most walkable areas of the city and this project is likely to be in existence for several decades. As new infill development is coming into such parts of town, it is crucial that we require that development to conform to our long-term policy goals. Additional curb cuts and allowances that focus on the ease of car traffic in and out of such areas is counter-productive to our goals of urban design and pedestrian/bike-friendly streets. I expect another spirited discussion on this topic.
The presence of such a drug store will be an asset to university students and nearby apartment dwellers seeking to live out a car-free existence – such amenities are needed. The design and site plan, complete with a building pushed-up toward the street and an angled entrance on the hard corner of Ave B and Hickory is solid and preferable. There’s much to like about this project. Adding a third driveway, however, is unnecessary and harmful to our goals in that area.
CONVENTION CENTER TIRZ CREATION
We will be holding a public hearing prior to deciding whether or not to create a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone on the property that is anticipated to hold the proposed hotel and convention center. Because it resides on UNT property (see rough outline of property in red on the map to the left), the current property tax value of the site is a whopping $0. A TIRZ allows a city to capture increases in property tax from a given area in order to invest in public projects – in this case, to help pay for the city-owned convention center. The city has plans to seek participation in the TIRZ from the county and Denton ISD.
AMENDMENTS TO THE GAS WELL MORATORIUM
On May 6, the city council voted in a moratorium on all new gas well permits, enacted in order to give us time to amend the current gas well ordinance. The purpose of the amendments proposed at this meeting are to fix some unintended consequences of the current moratorium. For instance, some gas well operators have been working with land developers to abandon existing well sites in order to allow for new development. The current moratorium didn’t contemplate this possibility and will not allow for amended gas well plats/site plans that would seek to do what is in the best interest of everyone: reduce the number of gas well sites in the city. So we aim to fix that.
On that note, the date for the public hearing to contemplate the Frack Free Denton initiative petition has been set for our July 15 meeting. I expect that to be a lively meeting. Put that on your calendar if you are interested in witnessing a great example of local government in action.
As always, let me know your thoughts on any of this – contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.