McKinney City Council tabled a McKinney small lot zoning request indefinitely on July 21, closing the public hearing without voting on the merits. The case covers 25.285 acres at 6327 County Road 161, where Dallas-based Skorburg Company has proposed 134 homes on land still sitting in the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction. Planning Director Lucas Raley told council that staff requested the delay because the development agreement and supporting documents were not finalized.
Nobody spoke. Councilman Cloutier moved to table, Councilwoman Feltus seconded, and the motion carried. As of August 13 the case has not reappeared on a Planning and Zoning or City Council agenda.
The delay is procedural. The dispute underneath it is not. This McKinney small lot zoning case turns on a question every landowner in the North Texas growth corridor will face: when state law sets a density floor, who controls everything below it.
What the McKinney Small Lot Zoning Request Asks For
Case 26-0008A is a voluntary annexation petition. Case 26-0023Z seeks a Planned Development built on the city's R3 and R5 bases: 134 lots on 25.285 acres, split 78 at 30 feet wide and 56 at 50 feet, for 5.3 units per acre gross.
The 50-foot lots meet R5 standards. The 30-foot lots are the fight. Skorburg asked to cut the front setback from 15 feet to 5 feet and to run a zero lot line on one interior side with 6 feet of building separation. Development partner John Arnold called the product "kind of like a detached townhome" at the June 23 commission hearing.
Staff recommended denial, not on density and not on land use. Raley's written argument is that the request identifies no additional public benefit and could be handled through a conventional district. The commission recommended approval unanimously anyway, according to Community Impact, and staff logged zero letters of support and zero of opposition. This McKinney small lot zoning case is a staff versus applicant fight over the instrument, not a neighborhood revolt.
Why McKinney's R3 District Is Senate Bill 15 in Local Form
Every McKinney small lot zoning case now runs through a district the city did not design on its own. McKinney created R3 in September 2025 alongside other code amendments answering the 89th Legislature. Senate Bill 15 took effect that same month as Subchapter D of Chapter 211, Local Government Code. Line the two up:
| Standard | SB 15 ceiling on what a city may require | McKinney R3 |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum lot area | 3,000 sq ft | 3,000 sq ft |
| Minimum lot width | 30 feet | 30 feet |
| Minimum lot depth | 75 feet | 75 feet |
| Front setback (lots 4,000 sq ft or less) | 15 feet | 15 feet |
| Rear setback | 10 feet | 10 feet |
| Side setback | 5 feet | 5 feet |
R3 is not a design district. It is the statutory floor transcribed into the code, digit for digit.
That reframes the entire McKinney small lot zoning dispute. Skorburg is asking the city to go below the state floor, not to honor it. SB 15 lets a city require a 15-foot front setback and a 5-foot side on lots of 4,000 square feet or less. The request on the table is 5 feet and zero. Staff is not blocking density the Legislature mandated. Staff is declining to hand over relief the Legislature never compelled.
The statute also explains why annexation and zoning move together. SB 15 reaches a tract only once it sits inside the city, will be platted, is zoned single-family, runs five acres or more, and has no recorded plat. None of that applies in the ETJ. Section 211.058 then lets an adversely affected person or a housing organization sue, with mandatory attorney's fees to a prevailing claimant.
What This Means for Land Along Ridge Road
County Road 161 is the future North Ridge Road, designated on the master thoroughfare plan as a four-lane divided arterial from Wilmeth to Bloomdale. The entitlement stack around these 25 acres is already dense. Staff notes the land west is zoned commercial along the future US 380 bypass corridor, with multifamily planned north and partly south. TxDOT places that bypass along CR 164 and Bloomdale, with an interchange under consideration at future Ridge Road.
The map below plots the tract against its neighbors. Pan north and the multifamily parcel comes into frame, west and the commercial frontage does, which is the geography driving this McKinney small lot zoning case.
Directly north, the city annexed and zoned 37.4 acres to MF36 in March 2026, permitting up to 36 units per acre. That hearing ran seven minutes with no public comment and passed five to one. Read the two files together and a McKinney small lot zoning case and an MF36 case are the same transaction wearing different labels. Land here converts out of the county one petition at a time, negotiated between staff and applicant months before any public hearing.
What to Watch on This McKinney Small Lot Zoning Case
The development agreement. Staff tabled the item over it. Whatever gets negotiated there carries the terms the zoning ordinance does not, including North Ridge Road frontage improvements and utility extensions. Tabled indefinitely means no date certain.
Whether the PD survives. If council follows staff and rejects the Planned Development vehicle, Skorburg can still build under straight R3 and R5. It loses the 5-foot setback and the zero lot line. It does not lose the 3,000-square-foot lots, because those are state law now.
For anyone underwriting acreage on this corridor, the takeaway from this McKinney small lot zoning case is that a city can no longer price small-lot product off a tract through lot-size minimums. What it still controls is everything the statute left alone, and that control now gets exercised through negotiated agreements rather than the zoning map.
Questions About McKinney Small Lot Zoning
Does Senate Bill 15 apply to land in a city's ETJ?
No. The statute reaches a tract only when it is inside the city limits, zoned single-family, five acres or more, and unplatted. It covers cities above 150,000 population in counties above 300,000 under the 2020 census. McKinney and Collin County both clear those thresholds.
What happens to the Skorburg case now?
Council closed the public hearing and tabled both the annexation and the McKinney small lot zoning request indefinitely on July 21, 2026. Staff said the item would be re-noticed once the development agreement is complete. No new hearing date had been set as of August 13, 2026.
Tracking entitlement risk on a specific tract? Request a North Texas Entitlement Brief and get the zoning history, adjacent case activity, and thoroughfare plan exposure pulled from the public record.
This article is based on the City of McKinney public record as of August 13, 2026. The Exhibit C zoning exhibit and the applicant presentation were not retrievable from the online case file at publication, and the development agreement had not been executed. The unanimous June 23 Planning and Zoning Commission recommendation is reported by Community Impact and was not independently verified against the commission minutes. This post will be updated when the McKinney small lot zoning case is re-noticed.
References
- City of McKinney, Legislation Text, Case 26-0023Z, Planning and Zoning Commission, June 23, 2026 Cited for: the 25.285-acre size, ETJ status, adjacent zoning and land uses, the R3 and R5 dimensional comparison, staff's denial recommendation and reasoning, the US 380 bypass commercial reference, and the absence of support or opposition letters.
- Skorburg Company, Letter of Intent, annexation and zoning of 25.285 acres at 6327 County Road 161, June 3, 2026 Cited for: the tract acreage and address, ownership by the Cisco Revocable Trust, and the R3 and R5 base district request.
- City of McKinney, Exhibit D Development Regulations, Case 26-0023Z Cited for: the 5-foot minimum front setback, and the zero lot line with 6-foot building separation standard.
- City of McKinney, City Council Regular Meeting, July 21, 2026, video and transcript Cited for: Raley's statement that the development agreement and supporting documents were not finalized, the motion to close the public hearing and table indefinitely, and the absence of public comment.
- Texas Senate Bill 15, 89th Legislature, Regular Session, enrolled text Cited for: Local Government Code Sections 211.051 through 211.058, including the small lot definition, applicability thresholds and tract criteria, the 3,000 square foot, 30-foot, and 75-foot limits, the 15-foot front, 10-foot rear, and 5-foot side setback ceilings, and the private right of action with mandatory attorney's fees.
- Community Impact, "Dallas-based developer proposes small-lot homes in north McKinney," June 24, 2026 Cited for: the unanimous Planning and Zoning Commission recommendation on June 23, the 134-home program and the 78 and 56 lot split, and John Arnold's detached townhome remark.
- Community Impact, "McKinney council approves Unified Development Code amendments," September 22, 2025 Cited for: the creation of the R3 district in 2025 to accommodate small-lot single-family development in response to new state law.
- Federal Highway Administration and TxDOT, US 380 Corridor Notice of Intent Cited for: the bypass alignment and the interchange under consideration at future Ridge Road.
- City of McKinney, U.S. 380 Bypass project page Cited for: the city's resolution supporting an alignment along CR 164 and Bloomdale Road between future Ridge Road and Community Avenue.
