McKinney Case 25-0081SP — Public-Record Brief

What this is. LION examines whether the City applied its own rules. It makes no claim about any religious community and no accusation against the applicant; where the record is silent, it says so. Not legal advice. Every citation links to its public source, and every original is preserved unchanged in LION's archive.

The record in eight minutes. Every claim on screen is a public document, cited below.

Update & correction · 2026-07-30

Readers checked our math — and made this stronger.

An earlier version of this brief read the plan’s building numbers as footprints and said the two-story buildings roughly doubled the 15,000-sq-ft cap. Two readers flagged it, and they were right: those numbers are gross floor areas, so the masjid sits at the cap, not over it. We corrected it — with thanks. Then we pulled the City’s own submittal files and found something bigger: the masjid was originally filed at 15,903 sq ft, over the cap, and relabeled to exactly 15,000 eight days before the vote. That’s issue ① below.

The same masjid building labeled 15,903 sq ft on the original 2025-10-06 submittal and exactly 15,000 sq ft on the approved revision dated eight days before the P&Z vote — **The same building, two numbers.** Left: original submittal (2025-10-06), “15,903 SQ FT,” 903 over the cap. Right: approved revision (“Revised 07-06-2026”), exactly 15,000. Both are the City’s own files, archived and hash-verified: original · approved · evidence manifest.

The case at a glance

Applicant / useMcKinney Islamic Association — religious assembly

ZoningPD-O (Office), Ord. 97-05-34 as amended 2017-04-041

Masjid15,000 sf · 46 ft · 2 stories

Classroom bldg10,236 sf · 38 ft · 2 stories

Gymnasium7,337 sf · 35 ft · 1 story

P&Z (recommendation)2026-07-14 · 7–0–0 · consent

City Council (final action)2026-08-04 · consent agenda

2024 rezone (to lift the cap)Recommended denial → withdrawn

The issues — tap any to open

Four issues where the record does not, on its face, show the plan complies — each expandable to the full detail and the primary sources. Everything that does check out is folded in below, for fairness.

▸ What checks out — the parts of this plan that meet the code on their face

We’re reading the public record in the open.

Two readers already caught an error and made this brief stronger. If you see a number that doesn’t add up, a sheet that contradicts another, or a rule we’ve read wrong — tell us. We’ll check it, fix it publicly, and credit you.

Flag something that doesn’t make sense → Every correction is logged in the open. That’s the point.

See it in the City’s own systems

You don’t have to take our word for the zoning. The City’s live map still attaches the 1997 PD to this exact parcel today — a repealed ordinance would not appear. And here are the two approved sheets the issues above turn on.

City of McKinney live zoning map showing the parcel zoned PD, governed by Ordinances 2017-04-041, 1997-05-34 and 1997-05-33 — **The City’s live zoning layer, at this parcel.** Returns **PD (Planned Development)**, governed by Ordinances 2017-04-041, 1997-05-34, and 1997-05-33. (Aerial: Esri. Zoning/parcel: City of McKinney GIS.)

Look up this parcel on the City’s public zoning map → Approved site plan (C-2.0) → Landscape plan (L1.01) →

The approval path — what happens next

▸ Aug 4 is one gate, not the last — plat, mandatory traffic study, and permits still lie ahead

The Aug 4 Council vote fixes the ground-level layout under the existing PD zoning; it authorizes no construction. Because the tract is unplatted, several code-required steps remain — and that is where the traffic study becomes mandatory.

1 · Site plan in progress

P&Z recommendation (7–0–0, 2026-07-14) → Council final action 2026-08-04 (file 25-0081SP2). After Council acts, under UDC §203F.2 only the applicant or the Director of Planning may appeal (7 days); third parties have no administrative appeal.

2 · Plat (initial) not yet filed

The unplatted tract must be platted before any improvement permit (UDC §301(e)) or utility connection (Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code §212.012). No plat case appears in the City’s records as of this writing.

3 · Traffic Impact Analysis triggered at the plat

Required for >100 peak-hour trips (Engineering Design Manual §2.13.C) and must be “submitted and approved prior to the submittal of a final plat” (UDC §305.B.3.c.XVIII).

4 · Construction plans → building permits

Civil plans approved and improvements accepted before the plat records (UDC §302.B); permits trigger fire-code / occupant-load review and impact fees.

What would require a records request (PIA)

Almost everything above is public. Only these internal documents would need a Texas Public Information Act request — and they are exactly what would turn the open questions into settled answers.

Documents cited

Every source is a public record, linked directly. Originals are mirrored in LION’s hash-verified archive.