Preview of May 7, 2018 City Council Meeting

This meeting will feature the swearing in of the new city council and mayor, as well as a few issues that were addressed during the P&Z meeting last week.

The Applicants are seeking an exemption to the 80% masonry requirements for residential structures. They would like to build a modern farmhouse structure with around 60% masonry on one side of the house.

This is the location of the house, off of Rabbit Ridge Road.

The elevation drawings show the side that has a large amount of siding.

The City Council requested information regarding the fire performance of the siding to be used. the Applicants have provided that information, and this request should probably be allowed.

The next item is is for a dermatology center located at the intersection of FM 549 and Horizon Road. There are a number of issues with this proposal that I detailed here in the preview of the May 1, 2018 P&Z Meeting. The deficiencies identified there remain, and several new issues have arisen.

As I identified in the earlier article, the building is generally unattractive, and designed down to a low cost point.

The building is an unattractive building at a prominent intersection that doesn’t match the neighboring structures. That is a negative development. The generally poor design can really be seen once the details are examined. The only side of the build that has significant windows is the side that is facing the rear of the lot, the East elevation shown above and labeled as rear. In contrast, the two street facing sides, the West and North elevations are essentially windowless except for a grouping of windows in the lobby. So for anyone traveling by, the building will appear to be essentially a windowless box that looks like one of the warehouses in Wilmer Hutchins.

In addition, the windows that the Applicant promised to add to the North elevation do not show the windows that were promised to be added, so the City Council does not know what the final building will look like.

The site plan shows two more issues with the design.

It is a little hard to see, but the trash dumpster not only faces Horizon Road with no screening of the enclosure, but the enclosure is smack in the middle of the lot along the right edge. That means the dumpster is effectively on the front of the building, and will actually be in front of the building if the proposed expansion occurs. That is not good design.

In addition, there are no driveway cutouts facing the commercial property to the north of the applied property.

The building doesn’t address either adjoining commercial property. This failure is caused by Heath’s lax development standards. As unbelievable as it seems, there is no requirement that adjacent commercial lots accommodate traffic between the lots. That is one of the most basic commercial zoning requirements in cities all of the Metroplex and reflects that lack of care that has gone into the current zoning standards.Heath has lax, low quality commercial standards, and this building reflects those standards.

The landscaping plan also shows a lack of respect for Heath citizens. Somehow, between the initial presentation and the second P&Z meeting the landscape plan got significantly worse.

The original plan had a perimeter planting of trees that would shade pedestrians and help shield the building from passing drivers.

The tree location isn’t perfect, they should be further out to better shield the sidewalk, but it is a perfectly reasonable plan. Compare it to the plan that was submitted with the second proposal.

The revised plan fails to shield the unattractive building and provides no shade. The trees have been removed from the street and pushed to the corners of the property where they will shade no one. It is very rare for a developer to present such a bad landscaping plan after an initial attempt that is fairly reasonable. Groundcover landscaping does very little to beautify and soften a city in comparison to trees. This is not a quality development.

The next item is the platting permit for this dermatology center.

The next two items are requests to produce large sized (greater than 3 acres lots) in the Terry/Myers neighborhood area. These were detailed in the discussion of last week’s P&Z meeting and should be approved.

The one complaint with the proposed agreement for the Fletcher Estates is that the developer is attempting to get out of the build the planned 10' trail along Crisp Lane. That is where the trail is indicated to be in the comprehensive trails plan and they are attempting to shift their burden onto other property owners. This is a change from the proposal that was approved by the P&Z Board last week. Backroom politics like this should not be allowed in a well run city.

Disclosure: I own property across the street from the proposed rezoned property.

The next item is the permit for the Arbor Enclave division on Terry.

I detailed the property in the preview for the May 1, P&Z meeting last week.