Some residents on West Oak Street are fighting another rezoning attempt they say threatens the character of their neighborhood.

A landowner is asking the city to rezone nearly five acres at the northeast corner of Bonnie Brae and West Oak streets from a residential to a mixed-use designation. The change would allow the development of medical offices and some retail in a growing medical district across the street from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Denton, said Larry Reichhart, a consultant for landowner Berdy Tjandramulia.

The subject land is just outside the western border of the 52-acre West Oak Area Historic District created in 2008, and some residents say they fear the rezoning would set a precedent for allowing developers to erode the area’s residential character.

Opponents of the rezoning also say there’s no guarantee that medical offices would be built because the landowner plans to sell the properties and isn’t committing to a specific site plan. Tjandramulia told neighborhood leaders he hoped the properties would develop as medical offices but wasn’t wedded to the idea, said Elise Ridenour, who is active with the West Oak Area Homeowners Association.

“That leaves a lot of room in between for what could happen in our neighborhood,” Ridenour said during a Denton Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Wednesday night.

The commission voted 5-1 to recommend approval of the rezoning with a list of conditions, including restrictions on the types of land uses that would be allowed. Patrice Lyke voted against the change after noting that many neighbors opposed it. John Ryan was absent.

The request now heads to the City Council, where a supermajority vote would be needed because more than 20 percent of properties within 200 feet have formally opposed the change. Reichhart, the consultant for the landowner seeking the rezoning, said some neighbors have offered to drop their objections if certain land-use restrictions are attached, which could negate the need for a supermajority vote.

The landowner has agreed to limit the possible uses to offices or retail, although nothing would require that the offices be medical-related, Reichhart said.

“There might be a nonmedical, but we believe right across from the hospital they’re going to be medical offices,” Reichhart said during the meeting. “So I don’t think there is a question on the uses.”

Reichhart acknowledged that he and his client aren’t builders. They plan to take the properties through the city platting process and then sell the lots, he said.

“That is a form of development also,” he said.

The rezoning request involves seven tracts of land, including six that are developed with houses, according to information provided to the planning commission. The other property, at the corner of Bonnie Brae and West Oak, houses a vacant retail building. Commercial uses were previously allowed at that site under a special exception to the residential zoning, according to city records.

Commissioners did not endorse the rezoning of one of the residential tracts, at 2286 W. Oak St., after the city’s planning department recommended keeping the existing zoning there as a buffer between the proposed development and the historic district immediately to the east.

West Oak residents have spent years fighting projects they said would mar their neighborhood’s character, including apartments, a towing company and a fraternity house. Last fall, the neighborhood association celebrated retiring a $22,000 legal bill it incurred in a successful zoning battle against a proposed apartment complex in 2003.

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com .