Title
Consider an ordinance amending the PUD (Planned Unit Development) No. 47 zoning district (Turtle Creek Village) to allow office uses on 1.35 acres northwest of the intersection of South A. W. Grimes Boulevard and Logan Drive. (Second Reading)
Body
The Turtle Creek PUD (Planned Unit Development), which contains nearly 180 acres, was approved in July of 2001. It contains single family attached and detached housing with unique street layouts, setbacks and design features. The request for rezoning was made by D.R. Horton.
The subject 1.35-acre tract was created when the City acquired right-of-way for an extension of Logan Drive across a 10.93-acre tract entitled for single family attached units. This roadway extension was not part of the original PUD and D.R. Horton had planned to build single-family attached units on the entire 10.93-acre tract, as per the approved PUD. At the time of a pre-permit meeting for the attached single-family units, which was several years after Council adoption of this PUD, staff determined that a future extension of Logan Drive would be an important route for providing access to and from the Greenslopes subdivision to the west. Acquisition of the right-of-way forced D.R. Horton to reduce the size of the single family attached development and to accept the creation of the 1.35-acre site, which was made unsuitable for attached residential units.
The general plan designates the area as residential and it is zoned as PUD (Planned Unit Development) No. 47. The general plan specifies that office uses are appropriate in a residential land use category. The OF (Office) zoning district allows for office, medical office and day care uses.
The Planning and Zoning Commission held a public hearing on July 18, 2018. There were five speakers at the hearing and all spoke in opposition to the office zoning. Four were residents of the single family attached homes to the south of the Logan Drive right-of-way. The reasons they gave included: office zoning will add to the separation of this area from other parts of Turtle Creek; traffic through their neighborhood could increase; street parking could become a problem along Logan; concern about lowering of their property values; there is no practical use for the lot and it would be best donated to the HOA or the City for use as open space; and office zoning should not be at this location, next to a residential area. The Commission voted 6-2 to recommend approval of the rezoning. The two dissenting commissioners were presumably in agreement with some of the opinions expressed by the residents who spoke, however neither one verbalized their reasoning for their nay vote.