Local · Trusted · Free
The Morning Impact — your neighborhood's most important stories, delivered every morning.
A new townhome community is coming soon to Allen.
Allen City Council members unanimously approved a zoning change for just under 6 acres of land near Allen Drive, which allows for the development of a 41-townhome community, at a July 28 meeting.
The gist
Located east of Central Expressway and southwest of Allen Drive, the site’s previous zoning allowed for shopping center uses, Senior Planner Kim Yockey said.
The concept plan for the development includes:
The details
Following resident concerns, city staff realigned a driveway access along Allen Drive to allow more visibility, Community Development Director Haley Angel said.
“This normally would have been handled further along in the development process when we start to review those engineer drawings but we decided to go ahead and take a look at it early to make sure we are proposing what is most feasible,” Angel said.
The city’s code doesn’t require staff to complete a traffic analysis until a road hits a threshold of 1,000 trips per day, Director of Engineering Chris Flanigan said. The neighborhood access along Allen Drive “falls well below that threshold,” he said.
“We went ahead and took the extra step of counting cars out there and fully evaluating what the impact would be,” Flanigan said.
How we got here
The Allen Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the change at its July 7 meeting.
The site’s unique shape makes it “not conducive to commercial uses,” and having townhomes in this location would align with two of the city’s comprehensive plan goals to diversify housing stock, Yockey said. In addition, the site has limited access to the frontage road along US 75, Angel said.
“Given the overall shape and complicated aspects of this property, we think that it is feasible that a townhome development could still meet that overall intent of the comprehensive plan,” Angel said.
What they’re saying
Mayor Chris Schulmeister said this decision aligns with the city’s 2045 Comprehensive Plan.
“One of the things that was first and foremost was about housing and varying housing alternatives and this does just that,” Schulmeister said.
