A landowner’s request to tear down a dilapidated house in Southeast Denton and replace it with two brick duplexes may prove to be a canary in the city’s zoning mine.

Landowner Roosevelt Washington asked the City Council on Tuesday to change the zoning on his property near Ruth and Cross Timber streets so he could build the duplexes.

City leaders did not vote on the request during their regular meeting Tuesday night. They hope instead that representatives from the city planning staff and the neighborhood will agree on a small-area plan for the neighborhood within the next six months.

If they cannot agree on a plan, some on the City Council said they were afraid the current zoning would discourage reinvestment in the area.

Going into the meeting, the city staff, the Planning and Zoning Commission and a representative of the neighborhood association all recommended that the council deny Washington’s request because it did not conform to the city zoning requirements.

Washington said that after he retired as a University of North Texas professor, he wanted to invest in Southeast Denton. He already owns two properties in the area. For this project, he estimated that each duplex would cost about $150,000 to build, bringing $300,000 to the tax rolls. But he still wanted the pair of two-unit buildings to create affordable housing.

“I pledge that once I build the property, there will be people with Section 8 [housing vouchers] in there,” Washington said.

Many neighborhood residents aren’t against the project itself but worry that the zoning change would create a bad precedent, Carolyn Phillips said. She came to speak on behalf of about 40 members of the Southeast Denton Neighborhood Association, who were already upset by the noise and traffic that have come with other duplexes, four-plexes and apartments in the neighborhood.

Residents Adolphus Henry and Jack Johnson also spoke against the change, saying the city had done little to fix problems created by other apartments.

Johnson said he was too old to move now, even though the neighborhood is going downhill. He bemoaned the traffic and the noise that came with the multi-family units.

“When I built, it was a nice area,” Johnson said. “It was quiet. That’s gone now.”

Several council members said that the city had a hand in creating the zoning problem.

Six years ago, the city updated its land use plans and zoning, giving much of Southeast Denton the “default zone,” known as NR-3.

The designation permits only single-family homes, even though about a dozen properties already had multi-family units when the zoning was adopted.

Most lots in the neighborhood are too small to conform to current zoning and could create burdens even if a landowner were to build a single-family home, said Mark Cunningham, the city’s planning director.

Council member Chris Watts said he didn’t feel comfortable voting on the request without giving the staff more time to come up with an alternative.

Cunningham said he, together with a new staff member being hired specifically to help develop small-area plans for neighborhoods, could meet with neighborhood residents and hammer out something in the next six months.

“I may be overly ambitious,” Cunningham said. “But that’s my goal.”

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