Travis County Commissioners Court
December 1, 2009,
Item 21
Item number 21 is to receive presentation from envision central Texas regarding the central Texas green print for growth.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>>
>> [inaudible] explain this.
well, I am delighted to be here and thank you for letting me come because I wanted to officially give you the good news that the central Texas green print for growth is completed.
as you no, you received the Travis County green print in '06, but as you also know, we felt -- envision central Texas felt a regional green print would be even more valuable, even to tract as well because -- Travis County as well because you could see how the natural features and connectivity and all the other things that connect the counties together would be much clearer in the green print for the four counties.
and so I have given each of you a copy of the final report.
there's some additional materials I'll mention as we go through it.
i don't think I need to go to square one, but behaving I think most of you are aware that this is a mapping tool to help plan to the sustainability of the region for figuring out valuable conservation areas and the reverse where appropriate areas are for development.
this second phase, which was the addition to the Travis County green print, was a partnership with even situation central Texas, the trust for public land and the capital area council of governments.
a slightly different team than the first one.
this builds on the Travis County green print and adds to it.
it took us about a year and a half, a little bit more.
the second phase was about a quarter of a million dollars.
a nice thing that happened was the federal highway administration was kicked in about half of that because they -- they have realized through some of our programs that the more they plan around the valuable natural features the better off they will be because they don't have to go back and mitigate or make changes.
that is forward thinking on their part.
then we raised the rest of it locally.
a couple things I wanted to point out.
of course, when we did the Travis County green president clinton, that was in, you know, 2005, 2006 and so the data that was used back then was -- that was the newest and some of it was older because it wasn't done every year.
as we did the new green print, there is more recent data obviously because we're producing this in 2009, but there were also a couple new data sets that were not involved in the Travis County green print because either they weren't available or someone hadn't thought of it.
one of those was the edwards trinity aquifer, which is important to Travis County, but they did not have an appropriate data set at that moment in time.
the other thing was something that we struggled with when we did the Travis County green print was the idea of view sheds.
of beautiful landscapes and sights that's hard to quantify, but capcog made an attempt to do that through elevations and specific formulas they came up with and made an attempt with the last three counties which is a little different.
the other thing that's different is when we did the Travis County green print, there were four main goals set.
these here.
water quality, recreation, sensitive, environmental features and protecting local culture resources.
and by the way, within that cultural resources goal was ranch land and farmland.
that was one of the criteria in that.
the three counties that have just completed opted to have six goals.
they just broke some of those out into their own goals.
so you see we have a separate goal for serve farm and ranch land and a separate goal for protecting the corridor.
so it's slightly different.
that's why had you see the four counties matched up on some of the maps, they vrnt precisely apples to apple, if you will, but pretty close.
and we make note wherever that's the case.
i still think overall it gives some really good information about connectivity and how the counties match up.
just as in Travis County there was a map for each goal, there is a map for each goal in the new central Texas green print for growth for each county.
there is also one where all of the goal maps are basically stacked on top of each other so you see the highest priority areas.
and now we can look at that regionally.
so you see here this is a four-county priority map, which in other words the land that had the biggest bang for the buck if you were able to acquire them or mitigate them in some ways.
i think you're already well aware of how to use the green print because you are already using it.
and I know it has been valuable as you seek to acquire new lands and as you look for trail connectivity, I think I talked to wendy and others saying this has been a valuable tool.
we look forward to having the rest of the counties have this tool available to use in the same ways.
to let you know what else is available, we have this regional report.
in this report is not just the maps, there's also some strategies that these counties have come up with on how they are thinking they might go about saving some land and that might be something worth reading for Travis County as well.
i'm sure they are very similar, but there might be some new ideas.
the other thing we did differently on this set, and I didn't bring them, but we actually did a small brochure for each of the three counties and raised separate moneys to do that because sometimes you don't need this big thrik brochure, you just want bastrop county or caldwell county so we did that, envision central Texas took it upon us to do that because we thought that was a great add-on.
and the gdra, guadalupe blank crow river group pitched in to give us the money to do that.
the other thing that's knew and you can look on the website if you have a chance, the capcog website, is we have a I wanter active map where you can disbloop down and say I wonder if this area has any conservation value and you will be able to see the red.
it shots off at a certain point, but you will be able to to get a general idea and I think that will be useful.
this is what these look like.
and then just to let you know the next steps on this, obviously the reports, the brochure -- the brochures, all the maps are available online to anyone who would like to see them or download them.
the capcog sight as well as ect.
we had a planner round table last week to introduce this to planning level staff around the region, let them know how to use it, and we will be going out regularly giving presentations on how green print can be integrated into planning.
there's lots of people doing comp plans, this is going to be a piece in several of them that we've talked to them about and I think a valuable piece and we are working to find those people who this really will be useful to and get this into their hands.
and this will be going on for at least the next year.
and the other thing we're trying to do, and this is really was motivated but I think was a great idea from the grant was to try to identify metrics about how the land is changing in the region.
now as opposed to a year from now.
that's a short period of time, but to see if the green print maybe has impact on how much london is being conserved, so we're going to try to attempt that.
and just I thought you might be interested to see who was the funders of the second phase.
you can see them listed here besides fhwa, the lcra, barton springs and guadalupe.
the three counties.
and that was for the phase 2.
and then, of course, thank you for Travis County and university of Texas on all the others who did phase 1.
but that concludes the information I brought, but mostly I want to come in person to tell you it is complete.
we've been talking about it for a long tame and I'm very happy it's completed and it's within very well received.
if you have any questions, I would be happy to try to answer any of them.
i have governor even a c.d.
of all the raw -- given a c.d.
of all the raw data to joe.
>> now, you mentioned the maps that we can look at and play with, those are being hosted on the capcog website?
>> yes.
it's called the information clearinghouse.
you will go to maps and it will say green print.
>> okay.
that's great.
thank you so much.
>> you're welcome.
>> I particularly like the added criteria on the second phase of the regional scenic corridor and view shed priorities.
is there any way we can go back and amend the first phase to include some of those?
it seems like that would be beneficial.
>> well, I think we do hope to revisit this in the future, but you can't do it piecemeal because the green print is a process, not just a map.
and so but I do think -- I mean the idea if this is well used and perceived to be valuable, we will revisit this and you date the maps periodically.
it only be this year or next, but it will be integrate in the future if people want that to happen.
>> I was out on 969 in eastern Travis County this weekend and the continuation of that as a view corridor and the other counties, certainly scenic crairs that feed to be preserved.
>> even the scenic areas, it's in the eye of the beholder, but at least it was attempt to cover some of that.
but I think we will keep thinking of ways to enhance the information that goes into this because obviously the better the data that goes into this the better the results.
but yes, great idea.
>> this is great.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you very much.
appreciate it.
are you here to waller creek item?
>> yes, sir.
>> are we expecting other people or just you?
>>
>> [inaudible].
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 1:50 PM
