Alexander Ct-CS070711 (2)(1/8 Ken Griffin - Alexander Court letter
From:
Rhonda Adloo
To:
Ken Griffin
Date:
7/11/2007 5:12 PM
Subject:
Alexander Court letter
Attachments:
Plan Review KG Ltr.doc
It is also printed out in draft form to make corrections.
If
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Page 1 j
July 11, 2007
John L. Hawkins, President
Mira Mar Development Corp
6003 Sunderland Drive
Colleyville TX 76034
RE: Alexander Court
Dear Mr. Hawkins:
This letter is written in response to your letter of July 9, 2007 in which you noted eleven items
that you questioned the City's authority to require. Because your letter was copied to an
attorney, I have met with our city attorney concerning your letter. Our city attorney has advised
me that until such time as he has had opportunity to contact your attorney and discuss the issues
raised in your letter, our Engineering Department should offer no additional approvals, reviews,
or permits for the Alexander Court development. Also, because you questioned the City's ability
to require certain things, the attorney has advised me that any items we have currently offered
that are outside the scope of the City's current rules and regulations should be rescinded.
Two items have been offered to you by the Engineering Department as an opportunity to develop
your tract differently, or to proceed in a more timely manner on development. Those items are
as follows: 1) placement of the screening wall along Denton Tap Road within an existing City of
Coppell sanitary sewer easement, and 2) construction of your roadway in what is currently
shown as a floodplain without benefit of a Conditional Letter of Map Revision from FEMA.
These considerations are hereby rescinded, therefore, as relates to Item 1 - your plan should
show the screening wall to be removed from the sanitary sewer easement and revised to show the
screening wall placed in a separate landscape easement adjacent to our sanitary sewer easement.
As relates to Item 2 - no construction or fill of any kind should be placed within any floodplain
shown on the official Floodplain Insurance Rate Map for the City of Coppell until such time as a
Conditional Letter of Map Revision has been provided.
If you wish to seek relief from the issue concerning the floodplain, I advise you to read our
current floodplain ordinance Article 3, Section D which deals with variances. Variances require
City Council approval. In the past, City Council has granted variances for encroachment into the
floodplain if in fact, all the information has been submitted to FEMA and FEMA has verified
they have received all fees and data necessary to complete a review of the information provided.
The actual variance granted would a variance to Article 4 Paragraph 11A, which states that
Floodplain Development Permits are required for all new construction or development within a
floodplain management area of the City. Subsection A states that we must assure conditional
approvals are received before a floodplain development permit is issued. Conditional approval in
this case would be a Conditional Letter of Map Revision or a final Letter of Map Revision if that
is the route you are taking on this development proposal. Prior to any work in the floodplain, my
office has to provide a Floodplain Development Permit and by ordinance, that permit cannot be
issued until such time as we have approvals from FEMA. Again, if you wish to seek a variance
to the requirement that no fill, encroachment, etc. happen within the official floodplain, then you
would need to seek that from the City Council.
In the backup information for the Council to review your request for variance, there has typically
been information from FEMA that they have received all information necessary to conduct the
review including any required fees. Your floodplain study is currently in the final stages of
being signed off by my department and processed to FEMA. If it is processed in a timely manner
to FEMA by yourself, along with the necessary fee, then it is conceivable you could have your
variance request considered at the August 14 City Council meeting. To meet the deadline for
the August 14 meeting, you would need to have all verification information to my office no
later than Wednesday, August 1, 2007.
Because our attorney is in the process of contacting your attorney, I'll not go into great detail on
the eleven issues in your letter, but will provide some general information on them.
1. Rolled curbs — these were allowed in the Summit at the Springs development across from
your development as a test section. What was found in essence was that with the rolled curbs
on a typical 28' street, you were only providing 24' of roadway. Our typical standard as
approved by Council Standard Detail # 2035 requires that a 28' street have a 6" curb, thereby
providing 27' of driving surface between the face of the curbs. If you choose to pursue the
use of rolled curbs, you need to insure that there is 27' of driving space between the gutter
line. This would require an approximately 31' paving section. You also question why you
are required to have a 6" crown when Summit of the Springs was allowed a 5" crown.
Summit at the Springs was constructed under our old Construction Details. Those details
changed in May 2005 and now require a 6" crown on a 28' street.
2. Extra inlets — I have been in the civil engineering field for almost 25 years. One of the
problems I have seen in all that time, is that when houses are constructed at a "T" intersection
of a street and drainage flows toward that house from the intersecting street, in heavy rains
water tends to jump the opposite curb an flood either houses or garages. That is the reason
that we are requiring that the driveway for the house opposite the street be relocated and that
the house be elevated at least one foot above the top of curb to prevent the property from
flooding in the future. You will not find a city ordinance on this topic, it is based on
engineering judgement.
3. Denton Tap sidewalk — in the city Subdivision Ordinance Appendix C, Section 8 entitled
Miscellaneous, Paragraph B entitled Sidewalks states, "sidewalks shall be constructed for all
lots adjoining dedicated streets, along major thoroughfares where lots do not adjoin the
street, across power line easements and in other areas where pedestrian walkways are
necessary. Sidewalk construction may be delayed until the development of the lot but in
locations not adjacent to lots, across bridges and culverts, sidewalks shall be constructed with
the other improvements to the subdivision. Sidewalks adjacent to screen walls shall be five
feet in width." Therefore based on city ordinance you are required to built a five foot
sidewalk adjacent to Denton Tap Road at the time you develop the property, not at the time
of building permits.
4. Raised building pads — the detail for Number 4 is given under Number 2 - Extra inlets.
5. Headwall piers — you will not find a city ordinance requiring headwall be placed on piers.
That comment was made from a standpoint of professional judgement and experience. The
City has already experienced two headwalls that have collapsed adjacent to creeks taking
with them portions of the storm drain system. This has required the city to go in after the fact
and remove portions of the storm drain, rebuild the storm drain, re- compact the channel bank
and then place the headwall on piers to insure that it carried its weight and did not get
undercut, fall into the creek damaging the headwall and the pipes.
6. Extra manholes — your letter states that you were told by Scott Latta that Glenn Hollowell,
Assistant Public Works Director was Okay with the spacing and curvature of your sewer line.
Actually you had called Ted Dutt, Operations Manager and was told that your plan for sewer
lines was not acceptable. Apparently you then called for Glenn and when he was not
available you contacted Scott. Glenn's comments were that he reserved the right to review
your proposal once he got the construction plans. Construction plans have been reviewed at
this point and the opinion has been expressed that that is too without manholes, especially
with the curvature of the line. To insure that we follow our rules and regulations, I refer you
to Appendix C, Section 3 Sanitary Sewer, paragraph A.19 which states," manhole spacing
shall not be greater than 500 feet."
7. Added retaining walls — this was also an engineering judgement based on complaints we
receive after developments that the steep grade of the back yard would create problems and
at some point, the owners would probably level up the yard for items such as pools or decks.
8. Fill dirt in the floodwav — you are correct that the city ordinance states no fill dirt is to be
placed in the floodplain. Our ordinance supersedes FEMA because it is stricter than FEMA.
As previously stated earlier in this letter, no encroachments will be allowed in the floodplain
until you have either received approval from FEMA or a variance from City Council.
You then bring up Number 9 Park Fee, Number 10 Roadway Assessment Fee and Number 11
0.147 acre ROW dedication. I am unsure of the purpose of 9, 10, and 11.
To recap just so we are clear, 1) until items have been resolved between attorneys, there will be
no additional reviews, approvals or permits for Alexander Court, and 2) to insure strict
compliance with our rules and regulations, your screening wall along Denton Tap Road should
be removed from the city's sanitary sewer easement and placed in a separate landscape easement
on the rear of the lots, 3) no fill dirt, street, etc. will be allowed in the current floodplain until
such time as you have FEMA approvals or a variance from City Council.
Sincerely,
Kenneth M. Griffin, P.E.
Director of Engineering & Public Works
Office Phone: (972) 304 -3686
Fax: (972) 304 -7041
cc: Jim Witt, City Manager
David Dodd, City Attorney