An agenda item during Monday’s Flower Mound Planning & Zoning Commission meeting sparked quite a bit of social media dialogue this week, but a lot is left to be decided in the fate of a future motel in south Flower Mound.
The final non-discretionary item on the P&Z agenda was for a Comprehensive Site Plan for Silveron Corners, a 35-acre tract of land in the northeast corner of Silveron Boulevard and FM 2499, located in the Lakeside Business District. Town Council has previously denied proposed mixed-use developments for the property. The property is under planned development zoning PD-31. Attempts to contact the representative for the applicant were not successful.
The plan presented during the P&Z meeting included a large office building, hotel, motel, retail space, grocery store, bank and indoor recreation. The motel aspect caught the attention of local residents, who fear that a Motel 6 is now on its way to Flower Mound.
But it’s more complicated than that.
The Comprehensive Site Plan application that was used by the applicant is no longer used by the town, according to Lexin Murphy, the town’s director of planning services, and it didn’t actually move the plan closer to full approval.
“The Comprehensive Site Plan was an extra step in the Town’s normal process, it did not replace other required steps or reviews,” Murphy said in an email. “Whether or not the property owner is able to build a Motel 6 on this site did not change with the approval of the Comprehensive Site Plan … This application was non-discretionary, so approval of it did not grant or restrict development of the site in a way that did not already exist.”
So when the applicant is ready to develop on the property, they will still need to submit a full site plan application and apply for any necessary tree removal permits, exceptions etc. before they can apply for a building permit. Murphy also said that “the town’s current development standards would not allow for a new motel utilizing franchise architecture to be constructed at that location,” but the applicant may have a way around that.
“However, an applicant can claim vesting per state law, based on the date their project, whether it be a rezoning or plat, was originally approved, and ask to use Town ordinances that were in place at that time,” Murphy said. “If an applicant made that type of request, the Town would have to review it in conjunction with the Town’s Attorney in order to determine how to proceed and what would be allowed.”
This news story has been updated to remove a sentence naming the property owner/applicant upon learning that the information listed in the P&Z agenda packet was outdated.
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