Rockwall planners table mini-warehouse landscape variance after utility‑easement conflict

Rockwall City Planning and Zoning Commission members on a 4‑0 vote on Feb. 11 tabled consideration of SP2025‑001, an amended site and landscape plan for a proposed mini‑warehouse at the southeast corner of John King Boulevard and State Highway 276, after staff and the applicant said a 50‑foot Atmos utility easement on the property restricts plantings and earthwork called for in the approved site plan.

The request, by applicant Brian Baca on behalf of John King Property Owner LLC, would have revised landscaping required as part of earlier variances and compensatory measures for the facility being built on a 3.682‑acre parcel identified as Lot 1, Block A, Cambridge Estates. Planning staff told commissioners the applicant is proposing an 18‑ to 24‑inch berm and removal of canopy and accent trees that the Unified Development Code (UDC) and the site’s overlay standards require; staff said berms and shrubbery must have a minimum height of 30 inches and that two canopy trees and four accent trees are required per 100 feet of frontage.

Why it matters: The proposed reductions would remove five of 13 previously approved compensatory measures tied to earlier variances granted for the project in 2022–23, staff said. Commissioners said allowing the changes without clear compensatory work elsewhere could set an undesirable precedent for future projects.

Staff presentation and applicant response

City planning staff (Bethany) summarized the property’s approvals: a 2022 site plan that included variances to building materials and roof‑design standards, a 2022 city‑council approval of exceptions to conditional land‑use standards, and a January 2023 amended site plan that increased a variance tied to stone percentages after the architect had mislabelled materials. Bethany told the commission the applicant submitted the landscape change on Jan. 17, 2025, after Atmos raised concerns about proposed plantings inside its 50‑foot easement on the south side of the property adjacent to SH‑276.

Applicant Brian Baca said the easement restriction was an oversight by the landscape architect and that the owner “has no desire to remove that” green area but was responding to Atmos’s rules. “It was discovered only just recently,” Baca told the commission, adding he and his design team would work with staff to find solutions.

What commissioners asked and said

Commissioners pressed whether the applicant had attempted to relocate required trees or otherwise provide alternative compensatory measures elsewhere on the site, and whether the berm had actually been reduced from the 30‑inch minimum to the 18–24‑inch range now proposed. Staff and the applicant said some ornamental trees were added in detention areas but that canopy trees could not be accommodated in the easement area. Commissioners repeatedly raised concern that this is the second time the same design issue had come back to the commission for the project and that the oversight should have been caught earlier in design review.

Outcome and next steps

The applicant asked to table the case to work with staff on alternative compensatory measures; the commission voted to table SP2025‑001 for two weeks (to the Feb. 11 hearing date) by a 4‑0 vote, with Commissioners Thompson, Conway and Hastings recorded as absent. The commission asked the applicant and staff to return with a revised landscape/mitigation plan and recommended compensatory measures that would maintain the design intent of the original approvals while complying with Atmos easement restrictions.

Planning staff said the applicant will coordinate with Atmos (the private utility easement holder) and meet with city staff to draft options for the commission to review at the next meeting.