Flower Mound residents will have to wait a little bit longer to find out if they’ll be getting a Residence Inn by Marriott at Lakeside.
The Town Council meeting scheduled for Monday, April 6 was canceled, pushing the Residence Inn hearing to the later regular meeting on Monday, April 20.
According to the Town, it was postponed because the agenda was not sent out in time.
To avoid violating newly-passed House Bill 1522, which aims to increase government transparency, the Town made schedule adjustments.
The bill states a governmental body must publish notice of a meeting at least three business days before the scheduled date of the meeting.
Normally, the Town posts agendas on the Tuesday before a Monday meeting, but that was a day too late this week because Friday is considered a holiday for Good Friday.
Therefore, Friday couldn’t be considered a business day when the Town planned to post it. Flower Mound will host a special town council meeting on Wednesday for a few items, but the Residence Inn hearing was pushed back to the next regular meeting.
“To be safe, we wanted to re-publish the notice about the Residence Inn item in the paper, so we moved that item to April 20,” said Melissa Demmitt, Flower Mound’s communications director.
A few extra weeks might give Realty Capital, the developer of Lakeside, a chance to tidy up its pitch for the proposed 99,240-square-foot hotel at Lakeside Crossing.
Flower Mound’s Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously recommend Town Council deny the project because of its overall density, the “extended stay” tag that comes with a Residence Inn hotel and an idea for something more unique.
According to the Lakeside Village website, Jimmy Archie of Realty Capital met with residents, where he addressed some of those concerns.
The area has been zoned for a hotel since 2017 with one application being considered by the Town that never came to fruition.
Despite being an extended stay hotel, Archie said Residence Inns are consistently rated near the top of all-suites hotel brands with room prices expected to hover around $190 per night and an average stay expected to be three nights.
Archie also addressed the parking concerns, explaining spots near the townhomes on Northwood Drive were built for use by the previously-planned hotel patrons, but is now used by apartment and business guests.
“Due to the town’s decision not to enforce parking rules on the public streets, our parking is in a state of anarchy,” said Archie in the Lakeside Village website update. “That hurts our customers, our business, the town and us.”
Archie believes if Lakeside Village is able to privately manage its parking, it will be a non-issue.
Since the project was recommended denial by P&Z, it will need to pass by supermajority at Town Council, which means four votes.
The most recent project that needed a supermajority from Town Council in Flower Mound was a proposed self-storage business, which failed by one vote and has since withdrawn.
