UPDATED June 21 at 9:10 a.m.
At last night's McKinney City Council meeting, council authorized the city attorney to enter into negotiations for a settlement agreement with McKinney Entertainment LLC.
This authorization passed with opposition from Council member Tracy Rath.
Originally posted June 14 at 4:24 p.m.
McKinney Entertainment LLC filed a lawsuit against the city of McKinney on June 9 asking for a Collin County court to review a decision by the McKinney Housing Board of Adjustment to fine the company $44,800 over violations of the city's tree ordinance on a 17-acre piece of property.
Former McKinney City Council member Don Day, who owns McKinney Entertainment, received
three cease work orders from the city of McKinney and notice of the fine in December and January for what the city said was work being done without proper permits and in violation of the city’s Code of Ordinances on property at S. College Street and Eldorado Parkway.
The cease work orders state that McKinney Entertainment “cut down and removed a large number of trees from the property without first performing a required tree survey and obtaining the proper tree removal permits.”
McKinney Entertainment in the lawsuit contends that the saplings were “less than six inches in diameter, measured at four foot and six inches above the ground as mandated by the Tree Ordinance."
The city’s
Tree Ordinance states a protected tree is a “quality tree with a trunk six inches or greater in caliper at four feet six inches above the ground.”
At a Housing Board of Adjustments meeting on May 31, a public hearing was held to appeal the fees, but the board denied the appeal.
This lawsuit asks the county court to overturn the Housing Board of Adjustment's decision.
The lawsuit states the work done by the landscape administrator, who issued the cease work orders and sent the fine request to the city manager's office, was done against the Tree Ordinance. The lawsuit also argues the city’s decision to deny the appeal was done so illegally.
The city of McKinney will file a response to the lawsuit later this month and a hearing on a "writ of certiorari" may be held in the next couple of months to identify the documents the Housing Board of Adjustments considered in making its determination, according to an email response from Denise Lessard, communications and media manager for the city.
McKinney Entertainment said it plans to develop an approximately $7 million commercial development on the property, and in order to plan for the development, the company cleared weeds, underbrush, trash, fallen limbs, dead trees and saplings on the property.