Commission grants waiver allowing landowner to reapply to change tower from flagpole to faux tree

Plano — The Planning and Zoning Commission on July 21 voted 7–1 to waive the planning ordinance’s two-year waiting period so the landowner may seek an amendment to Specific Use Permit (SUP) 56, which permitted a 120-foot commercial antenna support structure on the site.

The original SUP approval included a condition that the support structure be a flagpole design for compatibility with surrounding properties. The applicant now requests a faux-tree design. Staff told the commission that the two-year waiting period normally prevents a second submission soon after approval unless the commission finds a substantive reason to allow it.

Applicant representatives said the landowner had been incapacitated and an interim manager signed the earlier approvals. After the landowner recovered and re-examined the approved design, he asked the applicant to pursue the faux-tree option. The landowner’s representative described the change as a preference by the owner rather than a correction of an error.

Commissioners debated whether the landowner’s hospitalization and the interim signature provided a substantive reason to waive the waiting period. Supporters said the landowner was deprived of the opportunity to present his preference while incapacitated; opponents argued that an agent’s prior signed approval is legally operative and that the commission had already vetted the application once.

After discussion, the commission approved the waiver, allowing the applicant to submit a new SUP amendment to request the faux-tree design. Commissioners emphasized that the waiver allows the application to be filed and does not itself approve the tree design; any revised SUP still must pass through staff review and public hearings before the commission and council. "A waiver does not preclude us from considering [the merits] when the application is actually filed," staff told the commission.