Excerpted from Flower Mound Planning and Zoning Commission Oct. 12, 2009
4. Public Hearing to consider a request to amend the Land Development Regulatoins (LDR 02-09 - Compatibility Fences for Schools) by amending Section 82-302, Compatibility buffer, of the Code of Ordinances to change the fencing requirements for schools.
Staff Presentation
Doug Powell, Executive Director, said this was a Town-initiated application. There had been several projects by LISD in the last year or so where the issue of the compatibility fence requirement adjacent to residential areas had been discussed, particularly with the Ninth Grade Center. The current standard was a four-foot-high chain link fence. Back in the spring, there was an Attorney General Opinion that said towns could regulate schools to a higher degree than previously thought possible, so the Town Council asked staff to look at possibly revising that fence standard. It went to a workshop at Town Council, and the resulting recommendation was for a six-foot tubular steel fence with masonry columns along edges of school property next to undeveloped residential, and a six-foot masonry wall next to existing residential neighborhoods, which was the compatibility standard for other nonresidential adjacent to residential.
Mr. Powell said as part of that discussion, staff supplied Council with the survey results from the Town’s comparison cities on how they dealt with this issue. That survey was included in their packet. The responses showed there was really not a consistent regulation that towns used. Some did not have any; some had six-foot tubular steel; some had masonry walls; and some treated it on a case-by-case basis. So, before them that evening was the revision to the standard requested by the Town Council.
Questions and Answers
Commissioner Webb asked if vacant residential property meant property that was undeveloped, but zoned or master planned residential.
Mr. Powell said yes.
Commissioner Johnson said he did not doubt the need for this; he was just trying to visualize how it would work. For example, at the Ninth Grade Campus, they had an athletic field and not actually a building. There was occupied residential along the side of that property. He asked if this were in place, whether the Town would have required a six-foot masonry fence along that whole border.
Mr. Powell said there would have been two standards. Part of that border was along a park and part was along the existing residential neighborhood. Against the residential lots, it would have been a six-foot masonry wall.
Commissioner Johnson said, so the residential lot had an obligation, depending on the obligation within their HOA, to possibly keep a six-foot wooden fence. Then, if this were in place, the Town would require the school district to put up a six-foot masonry fence behind an existing residential fence, so there would be double fencing.
Mr. Powell said there was a standard that called for not having double fences, because that led to maintenance issues and other problems. The Town had been successful in the past with having developers work with adjacent property owners to take down their wooden fences and tie into that masonry fence. It was a negotiation discussion between property owners. So, their hope going forward would be that LISD would talk to the neighbors and have them take down their wooden back fences. Hopefully, most people would concede the wisdom of that.
Chairman Hollingshad asked what happened if somebody said no.
Mr. Powell said if they said no, there was not anything the Town could do to force them to take down a wooden fence. Since he had been with the Town, they had been fortunate that almost everybody had agreed. There was an example by the Meadowlands Addition where it was kind of a hodge-podge working with the neighbors; some had wooden fences they kept, and some built new ones. At another location some property owners supported the developer’s request for an exception to the masonry wall standard, so they could keep their wooden fences. So, that could happen here through negotiation and discussion. The school district could ask for an exception, and if it was supported by the neighborhood, he thought it would be looked upon favorably.
Commissioner Webb asked when this would be triggered, only at new construction or when there was an addition to a school.
Mr. Powell said it would depend on the impact of the development, and whether certain portions of the Code were impacted because of a change in a site plan. They would have to go through that analysis. If it was an expansion of an existing school site directly adjacent to a neighborhood that was going to impact that neighborhood, because there were going to be more buildings closer to the neighborhood, it would be triggered. If it was on the other side of a large site and did not impact the neighborhood, it might not.
Commissioner Webb asked what the difference was in cost between the existing ordinance and this one.
Mr. Powell said he had that information in his office. He apologized for not bringing it. He thought the chain link was around $10 a linear foot. Obviously, a wall was much more significant of a cost. He thought a wooden fence was probably $14-15 a linear foot. He could not remember the tubular steel cost.
Commissioner Webb said just on scale of magnitude, if the chain link fence was $10, the masonry wall might be 10 times that and tubular steel 2½ times that.
Mr. Powell said he would have to get them that information. He hated to call that out for memory.
Commissioner Ward said the proposal was for two different types of fences, one against an existing residential lot and the other against a vacant residential lot. He asked for the thinking behind those two different types of fences, and if a school wanted to upgrade, whether they could put up a higher quality fence.
Mr. Powell said yes, they could. The discussion was that if a new school was surrounded by agricultural property, and that property was later developed as residential, then those people would know going in that there was a school next to them. But, if the school went in after the neighborhood, then the residents would be impacted, because they bought their lot before the property next door to them developed. They might know it was going to develop as houses, but did not know it was going to develop as a school.
Commissioner Ward said he assumed the tubular steel was a lower quality fence. If they were building an elementary school, they might have safety concerns with that type of fence, and would want to build a solid fence, so the kids could not get through it.
Mr. Powell said it depended on the application, but in fact, the tubular steel was only three inches apart, so the kids could not get through there. And, a see-through fence was actually considered to be safer. People could hide behind a solid wall, but then the solid wall protected from noise, activity, lights, etc., and served as a better buffer.
Commissioner Ward said that made sense then. He was envisioning vertical pieces where kids could walk through or get their heads stuck in there.
Chairman Hollingshad said it was the same standard for fences around swimming pools.
Commissioner Johnson asked if that was what was going in by the maintenance facility they just approved.
Mr. Powell said yes, and along parks. A lot of people called it wrought iron, but it was tubular steel. It looked the same, but was less expensive. The tubes were hollow.
Ms. Marvin said there was tubular steel around the police facility off Kirkpatrick.
Commissioner Johnson asked what had been wrong with the four-foot chain link fence. He knew the ambiguity created some problems with the homeowners, but he was thinking about the issues with the school district burying power lines and the other things that increased the cost of construction. He was trying to understand the justification for increasing the standard.
Mr. Powell said going back to the premise of the compatibility standards, if someone was going to build something next to a residential area that was dissimilar in use, and the categories were nonresidential, commercial, institutional, and schools, there was a fundamental belief that there could be an impact to that residential land use. So, the buffer standards that included walls, fences, vegetation, and setbacks were to help create buffer areas, so those two dissimilar uses could be compatible with each other. As pointed out in the survey, there had been an argument that schools were really not akin to residential, even though they were in residential areas, and their impact needed to be mitigated. So, the discussion was that they needed to be treated differently, similar to an office building or retail, and have a higher standard than a chain link fence. Even the school district did not believe the chain link fence was an appropriate standard anymore. For most of their new construction, they used six-foot tubular steel. The reason was that a four-foot-high fence was too easy to get over, and if it was adjacent to an existing wooden fence, then it just created a stepping stone to get over that. So, it was a historical standard that was really not in use today.
In Opposition – None
In Favor – None
Close Public Hearing
Commission Deliberation
Commissioner Webb said he was thinking about how this would be implemented. If they were building a new school, and maybe two sides were open land, they would put in tubular steel. Then when that land developed, the developer would put up a masonry wall.
Mr. Powell said the compatibility buffer standards did not require a residential development to do anything, so they did not have to do any kind of fencing on the back side. It was just in an existing condition. The only time they had to do a fence in a residential neighborhood was adjacent to a roadway.
Commissioner Webb said, so along the backside of the playground where today it was a four-foot fence, tomorrow it would be a six-foot fence. Backing up to that would be people’s backyards. It was likely those people would want something more private, so perhaps they were not required to put the masonry wall up, but they were perhaps looking at a hodge-podge of walls. He could see it happening that way. If it was an existing neighborhood, they already had fences up, so they would be going through the negotiation process to put up a new wall where fences were already in existence. He understood why the issue came up because chain link fencing was not the most attractive and tubular steel looked better. He was not so sure about the masonry wall. The bottom line was that this would add a lot of additional cost to the school district, and he did not see any of that increased cost going to their kid’s test scores. It was not going to academics; it was going to aesthetics to please the Town, and he was not sure that was a good use of taxpayer money. He proposed that any place there was a chain link fence along a roadway, that might be an appropriate place for the six-foot tubular steel because of the aesthetic impact to the whole community, but along the backside of the properties, he did not think there was a driving need for that. He was not in favor.
Commissioner Johnson said personally he did not think this was the best solution for the school district. He did not have a solution, but did not think the masonry fence backing up to an existing residential property was the necessary way to go. He was thinking how they went through the deliberations with the Ninth Grade Campus athletic fields, where the school district came to the table and looked for something that was aesthetically pleasing. Some people actually wanted to be able to see that school yard behind their house, so for the Town to make this strict of a requirement, frankly, he was not in favor of it.
Commissioner Webb said schools were nonresidential, but different than other nonresidential uses like grocery stores or commercial. They were an integral part of the residential areas, and he did not think that putting walls up around them encouraged that sense of neighborhood that they had experienced until now, by having the schools a close knit part of the community.
Commissioner Webb moved to recommend denial of LDR 02-09 – Compatibility Fences for Schools. Commissioner Johnson seconded the motion.
VOTE ON THE MOTION
AYES: Webb, Ward, Johnson
NAYS: Walker, Goss, McCall, Hollingshad
ABSTAIN: None
ABSENT: Millichamp
The motion failed with a vote of 3-4.
Vice Chairman Goss moved to recommend approval of a request to amend the Land Development Regulations LDR 02-09 – Compatibility Fences for Schools – by amending Section 82-302, Compatibility buffer, of the Code of Ordinances. Commissioner Walker seconded the motion.
VOTE ON THE MOTION
AYES: McCall, Goss, Walker, Hollingshad
NAYS: Johnson, Ward, Webb
ABSTAIN: None
ABSENT: Millichamp
The motion passed with a vote of 4-3.