Neither representatives of the industry nor residents who packed the Denton City Council chambers Wednesday night supported the first round of changes proposed for the city’s natural gas drilling ordinance.

In nearly two hours of public testimony to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, industry representatives decried the tenfold increase in permitting fees while residents complained that the rules would not go far enough to protect human health and safety.

Commissioner Jay Thomas said he could not recall a time when changes inspired more opposition than this first phase of revisions to the city’s five-year-old ordinance.

“I’m a little floored,” Thomas said.

Several residents called for a moratorium on new drilling permits, citing the problems the city is having in writing up new rules.

Deputy City Attorney Jerry Drake defended the city’s decision to phase in the changes, saying that it could make some swift changes — such as increasing setbacks — to provide relief to residents while working out other details later.

Attorneys for the industry disagreed, saying that some of the proposed changes could face a legal challenge, particularly one that would see plats and permits expire in a year or less.

However, an attorney representing residents’ interests dismissed one perceived threat — denying a mineral owner access to property by rule-making — out of hand.

“You are so far away from a regulatory taking, I don’t know why it even comes up,” said Sara Bagheri, of Texans for Responsible and Accountable Energy Development.

After Thomas made a motion to deny the changes, commission member Jean Schaake made an impassioned plea for the commission to seek progress, saying that residents could no longer tolerate the status quo.

The planning department estimated that Denton has 205 gas wells and one oil well inside city limits, with another 1,045 wells in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. The new fee schedule — which shows that taxpayers have previously absorbed about $15,000 of the initial cost, and another $1,500 each year, for every well — assumes that the city will review an average of 10 new site plans or plats each year.

After reviewing a similar drilling regulation department in Fort Worth, city staff recommended that Denton buy three vehicles and hire four people to deal with the workload. The new department would cost $652,269 the first year and include an administrator, two inspectors and an administrative assistant.

The commission went into executive session for about 15 minutes; upon reconvening, Thomas’ motion to deny failed by a 5-2 vote.

A new motion, made by Schaake, went forward to the council on another 5-2 vote, recommending the changes with four concerns. The commission recommended that the new, 1,000-foot setback not be reduced by variance to any less than 500 feet, and that any variance be granted only by the City Council. It also recommended that exceptions to noise limits be allowed only during the daytime and in emergencies, and that the city staff revisit concerns expressed by industry attorneys about automatic expiration of plats and permits.

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com .