Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, January 25, 2011,
Item 1
Number 1 is a public hearing to receive comments on the following: a, amendment to chapter 82 to require a notification arting Travis County's limited land use authority on the cover sheet of plats, and 1 b, amendment to title 30 to add section 30-2-87 to require notification regarding Travis County's limited land use authority on the cover sheet of plats.
>> move the public hearing be open.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that carries unanimously with Commissioner Gomez absent this morning.
good morning.
>> good morning.
anna bolin and steven miller, Travis County t.n.r.
we had placed notice of this hearing in the paper and it has been online and we have received a couple of responses regarding this.
one of which was a letter from harry savio of hba and I think you were all copied on that.
and additionally there was an email from someone in Austin's colony area who expressed concerns about in the event that they resubdivided would this notice harm, you know, possibly scare potential buyers.
so so far to date that is really the response that we have received.
>> I believe the court was also copied on a response from the hamilton pool road scenic coalition supporting this.
>> by the way, what was the answer to the question regarding scaring off prospective buyers?
>> well, if something is resubdivided, we would expect to put this notification on the front of the plat should this be approved.
so it's a form of disclosure.
>> if the truth frightens a buyer, I think that they ought to know it.
>> it's come up once before.
of course, during this time on this particular issue when it came before the Commissioners court, the Commissioners court did approve the notification of this particular event; however, it was not in this particular format as far as it being a cover sheet over the plat.
and, of course, we followed with the proper notification; however, later revealed that how and what can we do to be more effective than what we did in the past is actually have an instrument, per se, such as a cover letter or cover sheet over the subdivision plat to actually let the persons know who's actually purchasing this particular piece of property could be notified.
and so this just really a followup to something that we had previously done before this court, and just maybe laid out as far as another instrument.
of course, the other part of this is basically under the situation whereby -- I don't want to get ahead of anna, but this is our e.t.j.
along with the city of Austin's e.t.j.
under title 30.
so we head in that direction.
anna, I didn't want to jump ahead of you a little bit, but just try to basically give a background of where we've come from with such a very critical issue.
>> certainly, and as a reminder, what this would do is cause a cover sheet on the plat, on all plats that would have a disclosure that, you know, basically says that you are outside of corporate limits and anything can be built around you.
and the idea behind this is that when you are closing on -- when you are closing on your property and you get a reduced copy of your plat, this is the first thing you would see is this cover sheet with this disclosure.
so and any transactions down the road where you are closing, this would come up.
>> let me make sure I understand the difference between what we're looking at today and what we adopted previously.
>> previously it was -- it was more of a plat note that was on the plat and in the body of the plat.
and this time it is a separate sheet that is the first page that basically would have the name of the plat, the location map, and this disclosure.
and the rationale was when you are closing and they give you a reduced copy of your plat, this would be legible if this was the only thing on a cover sheet as opposed to lost in the body of the notes on the plat.
>> okay.
court, any other questions or comments?
this is a public hearing.
if anyone would like to give comments, please come forward.
and if you would give us your name, we would be happy to get your comments.
>> hank smith, president of the home builders association.
I知 not harry savio although we did authorize him to write the letter.
I知 speaking on behalf of the home builders association.
we have some concerns about, one, the language the way this is worded and where it's being placed on a plat and the timing of when all this takes place and are we really doing anything to help most people who buy a home in Travis County.
I think we can work on the language a little bit, we can provide you some suggested language.
the home builders association has been supportive of buffer zones.
the legislation never made it anywhere, but we have supported buffer zones in the past and we think that is good for our industry.
so we certainly agree with what you are trying to do here.
most people don't read plat notes and you can make it as big as you want, you can put it on the cover sheet of the plat.
it's curious, I talked to anna this morning, I actually had a person call me, it happens once every five or six years and says hey, I was reading my plat and the plat note says this.
what do I do about it?
that happens very rarely.
people look at these plats -- when I buy a house I look at it because I know what a plat means, a draft plat.
your average person is never going to look at the plat.
they don't understand what's happening.
we're going to be adding a new cover sheet to every document that gets record understand the courthouse that 90%, 95% of the people will never look at and never see.
so I don't know that we're accomplishing what you want to accomplish here.
if it does get read, it gets read at the closing table.
everything has been done, the documents are signed and someone puts this in front of them and says here, read this if you want to.
there's a stack of documents they do the same thing with.
they keep handing you documents and say sign this, sign this.
most people would sign it and go on after never read the document.
if they do read it, they are literally closing on the house.
it's too late for them to do anything about it, to research to see what that e.t.j.
means or what development in e.t.j.
means.
what I would suggest is there some other mechanism we can accomplish what you want to do?
>> what would you suggest?
>> I don't have a suggestion right now.
I do have some language.
we're meeting tomorrow, our government relations group is meeting tomorrow.
your new director is going to be there with us and I壇 be glad to bring this up as a topic and talk about it.
we'll have other builders in the room.
we meet at 8:30 so the timing is good to sit down and talk and see if we can't come up with better language and strategize.
>> is there anything in the language that isn't factual?
>> no, there's nothing in here that we really object to.
I mean it's not something that we're just saying this is a horrible thing to do.
I just don't know what you want to do and I don't know it's the most effective way to go through and do this.
there's a lot of positive thing the county does.
the county does a lot of great and wonderful things.
that's all a plat does.
if you are going to come out and put a plat note, put some of the great things.
you have one of the most aggressive flood plans in the country.
when you are buying in the county this is what you are getting, but these are some things the county don't do right now and we agree with that, that I think timing, you are putting in front of a buyer when you are sitting at the table, he's fix to go spend $100,000, he's nervous enough now he gets this plat note and he doesn't understand what it means and you are asking him to sign it.
that may cause concerns down the road.
I知 sorry, go ahead.
>> thank you for being here.
>> sure.
>> I really did enjoy myself at the last home building association.
>> goo.
>> and I learned a heck of a lot.
and believe it or not, a lot of affordability questions came up, how we keep housing stock available here within Travis County.
>> right.
>> and, of course, I知 a big fan of trying to keep affordability of housing, and this subject matter came up with persons that I sat at the table with, and, of course, there are other avenues also that we ventured into.
I知 not going to go into those other avenues of how we can actually keep housing affordable in Travis County.
but the persons I did speak to, no one really opposed basically what we were doing because really they couldn't think of a vehicle how we could end up dealing with what we're dealing with this morning.
this is just an off shoot of something we've already initiated earlier, but it was just basically within the constraints of the e.t.j.
of -- of, you know, as far as the county's e.t.j.
as far as notification.
however, in the light of all of this, I here and my colleagues hear several times over and over and over and over again when they move out into the -- out of the -- well, out of the corporate area of municipality such as the city of Austin, when they move outside of that range, they are in harm's way of sometimes this happens out there that they had no idea they were in harm's way.
I don't want to go into examples.
>> sure, I understand, and we see the same things.
>> right.
but at the end of the day, they say my goodness gracious, Commissioner, why didn't you tell me that this activity was going on next to me.
if I壇 have known that, I may not have been there or I may have done something different.
a lot of but, but, but stuff.
so the best I can do is say the only thing I can do -- you know, we have very limited authority to begin with, is so notify you.
and, of course, in talking with some of your colleagues at the home builders association meeting, some of those folks say yes, Commissioner, we do disclose this to the buyer, we do disclose this to the buyer.
we also disclose this to the buyer.
but then again I asked the question do you disclose that Travis County has very limited land use authority, very limited authority, do you disclose that?
>> right.
>> they shook their head no.
so I think you are already doing a real great job as far as the list of disclosures that you tell the person.
this is just an add-on to the disclosure list that you are already doing.
>> right.
>> so I don't really --
>> I understand.
>> -- understand why you -- you know, I hear what you are saying, but this is just another add-on, just another juncture, just an amendment to what your persons will discussing with me and so this is just an add-on.
>> agree.
I would like to think there is a better mechanism -- for example, only a small percentage of the homes bought in the e.t.j.
are new homes that are going to be under these new plats.
most of the homes bought and sold are going to be under existing subdivisions and things that don't have this note on them and this doing nothing to make those people aware of what's going on.
and the answer is maybe we can't, but I don't know that we've engaged the development community and the realtors to come down and say can we get a group of four or five people together to say is there a better way of doing this.
>> and you brought up a good point because it is just for new -- just for new and folks need to understand this is just basically strictly for new purchases of property.
>> the same concerns apply to everybody, no matter where you are buying a house in the e.t.j.
these same concerns are there, you are just making to it a person buying a brand new house.
it's all we can do at this point, but is there a better mechanism.
that's what I知 asking for, we can talk about it tomorrow at the meeting and see if there's a strategy to say here's a better solution than putting a note out there that really nobody is ever going to read.
>> well, maybe legislation can address those other concerns.
>> right.
>> that you just mentioned.
but I just want to make sure that run the gamut and like I said, I知 really happy and Commissioner Huber was at that same home builders association, but bottom line how can we keep it part of the process and but also notification is still a part of that venue.
I知 trying to make sure we have all the is and dotted ts crossed.
I appreciate what you do.
>> and I think the problem, the biggest problem, and there's language that are minor we would look at making on this.
the timing of this.
he's fix to go write the biggest thing he's made in his life and they have this big pile of documents and you are putting this note in front of them that says buyer beware.
>> although many of the things in that stack of documents is the same thing, buyer beware, buyer beware.
it's a stack of buyer bewares.
I totally hear what you are saying, it's a huge stack and I致e sat there and gone through it and tried to inter ir interlineate.
but you are saying it will scare the bejesus out of them and put the kibosh on the sale.
if nobody reads it.
to the extent they are scared by that truthful explanation of our lack of authority, then perhaps there should be a kibosh on the sale.
>> right.
I don't know there's enough information available at the closing table to make a educated decision what they should and shouldn't do.
you are hitting them the only people there are people interested in making the closing go through.
>> do you agree that big stack of documents is essentially -- what isn't binding them contractually is warning them.
>> right.
>> and so this is just another warning.
>> agreed.
it's just that document to go on every plat for every new home, I知 just saying is there a better way to do it.
we're only going to hit a small percentage with a note that nobody is going to read.
I don't know that we solve anything by doing that and we've spent some time and money going over it and the reaction of most of our members we probably spent way too much time thinking about this because it's not a big deal for our association, but to me I understand what you want to do, I don't think this is getting anything done, accomplished to get that done.
it gives you a document you can hold up when someone calls and complains, you can say we did tell you and they are going to say oh, really, you didn't tell us anything.
there was nobody there explaining it.
>> we would appreciate hba's assistance in finding other ways in addition to this.
>> we can talk about that at our meeting tomorrow morning.
again, the timing worked out great because we're going to have a representative from y'all's staff here meeting with news the morning.
so we'll certainly go over that and see if we can come up with.
>> I would like to suggest and I think your points are valid, but the county has rather limited avenues in which we can legally give notice.
and that's the problem herein.
we can't require legally others to give notice, so perhaps if we put this -- approved this, which I heartily support, it will cause those who across the paths of home builders sooner than we do with this verbiage to get busy and give the advance notice they need so they don't feel like they might get blindsided at closing.
>> right.
>> have a good time tomorrow morning.
>> all right.
>> would anyone else like to give comments during this public hearing?
if so, please come forward.
>> did you have a question?
>> if nobody else comes forward.
I知 just trying to figure out, we're not
>> [indiscernible] so it's going to come back on the agenda as soon as we can get all the appropriate input.
so I知 just wondering if you are going to meet with someone tomorrow, and, of course, we've heard from a lot of folks already, but anyway, if we're going to -- if you are going to provide input or have meetings, my question is how long do you think you would need because I want to move forward with this as soon as possible.
>> well, initially I was planning on having this back next week, but based on what we hear tomorrow and when we process it and talk with our attorneys and with -- and try to incorporate some of that in, that might be the week after, it might push it back.
>> two weeks?
>> probably.
>> how many days did we advertise it?
>> it was over 30.
it went in before so that it would be over 30 days.
>> okay.
anybody else?
last call.
I move the public hearing be closed.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, January, 2011 2:19 PM
