Travis County Commssioners Court
April 15, 2003
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.
Item 10
Number 10 is to discuss outstanding policy issues, including subdivision regulation, regarding amendments to chapter 82, Travis County code, to resolve inconsistencies with the city of Austin code as required by hb, house bill 1445, and take appropriate action.
>> last Thursday the city council met, and I want to be able to bring you up to date with any action the council took and also to give you a status report on our meetings with the stakeholders and the city staff. As you may recall, there's about a half a dozen issues that were still outstanding, and we're coming very close to, I guess, closure on several of those.
>> can you crank up joe's microphone, please?
>> thank you. . The first one is the preliminary plan expiration date. Within the drinking water protection zone, the city and the county staff both agree that the preliminary plans would expire within four years. It would preserve the -- in some elements we differed. The county wanted 10 years, the city staff wanted seven years, with the possibility of extending those based on the improvement standard. We have come to a staff compromise that would be 10 years, with the possibility of extensions beyond 10 years if the developer enters into an agreement or an annexation agreement with constituent or the county. So basically, we're saying that you can get extensions for your preliminary plan based on certain conditions, and those conditions would be outlined in a legal document with the city or the county. Also, the date of approval of the preliminary plan is from the date of the approval of that plan as ochsed to the -- opposed to the date of the submittal. So there is some time given just because the time the clock starts is from the date of the approval of that plan. Now, on the traditional -- natural and traditional character of the waterway. My voice is playing out here. The reference to natural and traditional character of the waterway occurs in two places, one in the environmental manual and one in the drainage criteria manual. The county was amending the drainage manual. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily change the manual of the city. What we came to an agreement on is to the extent that the county changed the environmental manual. Overlap the environmental criteria manual, so if we were able to come to some agreement on the conditions from the channel and making channel improvements and the criteria given for doing that on when and how we can channelize, basically there would be -- any duplication of that rule within the drainage manual. Pat, why don't you...
>> I知 pat murphy with the city of Austin. I had about five opportunities to try to hone by explanation of this yesterday, but maybe that will help. Because it makes sense, the city's drainage section and the environmental section, the criteria for that were put on the environmental criteria manual. The reason being that our drainage policy is to preserve natural stream corridors where possible, if it's reasonable to do so. Floodplains get established at 64 acres. Under the city of Austin drainage criteria. But they may not become classified for protection with set backs from the environmental standards until they reach a larger acreage of upstream drainage. The biggest disparity occurs in the eastern watersheds where it is triggered at 320 acres versus 64. So our drainage section kicks in at 64 and says you have to preserve the natural and traditional character of the waterway to the greatest extent feasible. What does that mean in laymen's terms? We want the natural floodplain communities preserved as assets to our community and for their numerous benefit, both to storm water runoff quantity and quality. And unless there is no reasonable alternative, that would alleviate something to protect people and property. There are examples and town where we've channelized waterways and we have permitted those because there was no other reasonable alternative to protect the people and property in that area, however, a newly developing area, we would have a different scenario. We would go after preserving the creek and the development would have to be designed based on that, not with the initial intent of basically just getting as much developable land as possible by wiping out the creek and putting in a concrete channel. And that may be a slight exaggeration, but that gets at the intent. The county has agreed or the staff have agreed that the natural traditional character would be part of the city's drainage requirement and there is a need for criteria that was specific that would allow for mr certainty in how we would evaluate that. Obviously that's an opinion unless you define how you make that decision. So fred and I worked closely together, came to an agreement, that criteria has now been proposed as part of the drainage, the county's drainage requirements. In situations where the waterway is within the city's jurisdiction and also where it's classified, the environmental regulations will trump these regulations. So if I could just summarize, the city and the county have agreed on the criteria we will use to evaluate floodplains, and where they have met the standard to become protected with our environmental regulations, we will apply those. Those will be stricter, but they will be segregated between our drainage regulations, will have its own criteria and our environmental regulations will have their own criteria.
>> can you tell me the difference that you refer to the four acre study and also the 320-acre you're studying which would be applicable to the -- more so than the other part of the county? So could you maybe in layperson's terms for everybody out there in the viewing audience, so they can understand exactly ha that means?
>> sure, i'll attempt to do so. When when we passed the 1986 comprehensive watershed ordinance, a decision was made that those eastern watersheds were not as sensitive to development as some of the more steep western watersheds. In the steeper watersheds, you have much more accelerated runoff and potentially mother damage would result more quickly than it would in the flatter, larger floodplain areas of east Austin. That decision was made long before my time, but it was in may of 1986.
>> right, I remember it.
>> now, what that means is those wawrds get set backs -- watersheds get setbacks and protections of environmental protections for those creeks when they get big enough, 320 acres. In the eastern watershed that happens pretty quickly because 320 acres is really not that much land. And it accumulates fairly quickly that that much land is draining into a specific creek. So at that point you get setbacks and preserve ration requirements of that floodplain community from the environmental regulations. Up to that point it's a floodplain, and in our drainage regulations, if you want to modify that floodplain by filling your land to shrink the floodplain or if you want to channelize and basically dig down and increase the capacity in the channel to get the water through more quickly so the flain will be floodplain will be smaller in size, hence more development could occur outside of the floodplain. This standard basically requires you to prove that, first of all, there's no significant environmental characteristics of that waterway that are something that we need to protect. And two, to make sure that you have -- you have looked at all other reasonable alternatives to modifying that natural floodplain community.
>> that's my point, though, is that at this point, and Commissioner Gomez may have brought this point up, about just things that have happened upstream that have made a lot of flooding situations just unbearable, life-threatening situations, with flood-prone areas in this part of the county. And I know that even back in 1986 with the comprehensive watershed ordinance become thean it was -- owe back then that was passed by the city of Austin, that particular segment of the community didn't have that kind of protection and as a result of what has happened here is that we have flooding situations from upstream development that have actually -- are still having a negative impact, people having to lose their homes and everything else because these regulations didn't apply to us. So that is part of the problem, and what i'd like to make sure does not happen is that we don't have a repeat performance of things that happened back in 1986 as we move forward with any type of setting, even in hb 1445 that will not give this sort of area the kind of protection it needs from these flood-prone crisis like the flooding situations that we face over there.
>> so far the legislation has not attempted to take away a community's ability to regulate storm water runoff to prevent flooding downstream. And if the city will continue to enforce those regulations as well as the county. So hopefully we can make sure that any future development does not make anything worse. We are still dealing with past development impacts. And crystal brook was a real good example, but that's also a good example as it relates to this issue. And we came up with a design that preserved as much of that natural floodplain community as we could, including all the trees and so forth associated with that by doing a flood wall type proposal. And I think that's a good example to show how we were trying to preserve the natural and traditional character of that floodplain community and came up with a proposal that did that to the greatest extent feasible. And so that's exactly what we're trying to accomplish here.
>> okay.
>> pat, can I restate it to see if I understand it?
>> that would be fine. Thank you.
>> it's all bated on the contributing -- based on the contributing area of the waterway. What an area contribute to that waterway. Below 64 acres it's basically not regulated. As soon as you hit 64 acres, this new stuff that you and fred have been working on will kick in, and that will apply. Then as soon as it hits, for example, 320 acres in eastern Travis County, on top of what you and fred have worked on, the city's setbacks hais baised on critical water quality zones and water quality transition zones will also apply.
>> correct. Thank you. See, this is my eighth time and I didn't do it as well as you did. Sorry about that.
>> if I can understand it, anybody can.
>> good.
>> okay?
>> all right. There's also an issue for the stakeholders with regard to the maintenance of any channelization. Typically the county requires when a developer comes in you get a change to the floodplain area, which is called a conditional letter of map revision, that being fema's map of the floodplain. We require them to maintain any alteration to the channel. The question to us is will the county at some point take over maintenance of those improvements in the channel? It goes to larger issue that is still unresolved, is whether or not the county will take over maintenance of drainage, off road drainage improvements that come about as a result of the subdivision improvements. Rie now it's a gap in the system. In some cases there are homeowners associations legally tagged with maintaining those, that infrastructure. The reality is they probably are unaware of that obligation or have doneious financial capability to do -- dubious financial capability to do it. So county staff has raised this for a policy issue for the court to consider. It does have a substantial fiscal impact, but we think it needs to be dealt with at the policy level. We do want -- pardon?
>> financial, fiscal I am fis fiscal impact? What ballpark amount of money would that be? I知 sorry, joe.
>> we'll get into more detail on Thursday's work session on drainage maintenance.
>> that would be fine.
>> it's a really big topic.
>> I would imagine.
>> all right. Getting back to areas where we do have staff resolution, that's in the area of variances and waivers. As you may recall, we -- we divided this by jurisdiction, which said that the city was going to annex, then they would have full jurisdiction over granting waivers and variances. The question was what do we do about the limited purpose annexation areas. These are areas that were created over time, but we need to know the point when constituent was going to annex. We took a greater look, a more detailed look at all of those areas, and as it turned out, there is -- there's all sorts of colors when it comes to this limited purpose annexation. So then are areas that are pretty much developed, so the county probably would not expect to see many subdivisions come within these areas. There are others that are in -- have things like property that is not likely to be developed because they are covered by bcp acquisitions. There are others that we believe rightfully should be governed by the city. For instance, the corridor along lake Austin of the. Typically because of water quality concerns, we believe the city should have full authority of granting waivers and variances in that corridor along lake Austin. Finally, in others there were strategic agreements clearly outlining what the city is obligated to do and when. So there's more certainty there for the county. My recommendation to the court would be that in all these limited purpose areas that we grant authority to the city to have full authority on granting waivers and variances and we get out of the business in those areas. I believe there is slight risk in granting the city that authority on waivers and variances. We would continue to maintain the waterways in those areas, but we believe the risks are minimal. And it will also bring a white line to who has authority to grant waivers and variances. So we don't have this dual authority. Now, there are areas where the city comes in to annex for limited purpose where the county would expect to be a party to the partnership agreement because this uncertainty of when it was the city would take over maintenance of the infrastructure. Short of that, we would expect the city to take over maintenance within a three-year period as is as is required by the law or with with the agreement. Those would be prospective, forward looking to really do limited purpose annexation areas.
>> i've got a quick question on this subject, and it probably one for pat or david. On the map that you guys gave us related to the city of Austin limited purpose annexation, quite a few of these tracts are on the Williamson county side of the line, avery ranch, anderson mill, the motorola area. How did you all resolve this same issue related to the limited purpose annexations as to who was the controlling interest related to Williamson county?
>> well, actually, that did come up in Williamson county in the avery ranch area. David lloyd with the city attorney's office. And we did refer to Williamson county and ask them to review the bodies rhodes in the subdivision. So we followed the policy that heretofore we followed in Travis County regarding roads and limited purpose areas. I think avery ranch is a good example of what joe is laying out here. We had a development agreement with the developer there. We've limited purposed a huge area and we agreed that we would annex it for full purposes as they final platted it. And if you look at the map you can see that probably over half of that is already -- has already been annexed for full purposes and it's an arrangement that's worked out well for both the city and the developer and Williamson county so far as I know. And that same kind of arrangement is what we're talking about. In future if we're about to enter into such an arrangement we would come to the county and make sure that everyone's on the same page, I guess. And reach an agreement about the terms of annexation and when that would occur. The staff's in agreement that we work with county staff in the future on a limited purpose annexation areas. I guess that's really all I can tell you about Williamson county.
>> this is basically asking are you looking at being consistent in terms of how the city of Austin handles its relationship with either travis or Williamson county is really where the question is going?
>> basically we're land locked on the north in Williamson. And the 1445 agreement we reached with Williamson county was basically with the assumption that we would be annexing all of that land in the near future.
>> in the near future.
>> so really therefore they just were agreeable to us just maintaining our authority and taking authority.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> and another unresolved issue is about what plan -- what transportation plan covers the subdivision in the e.t.j. And lisa gordon and I are still working out a compromise that we can bring to the city council and to the Commissioners court with regard to that issue.
>> that one is reaching even greater importance because we just talked about -- this morning about what's happening with the rma. And that makes specific reference to the mpo plan approved by the governor. And that would mean campo. It would not mean the amatp. So we would be creating a whole bunch of conflict issues if all of a sudden we start talking about recognizing a plan that is not the mpo plan because it is being imbedded in other legislation, which may trump all of this stuff.
>> are you aware, joe, of what the latest -- as far as coming down on some of this legislation? Somebody just brought it up and I知 just inking about some other things too. Are they aware of the imbedded situation and how we're addressing this on some of this legislation that may have an impact on hb 1445? Are you aware of any?
>> I know that currently the bill, 14 -- perhaps david could help out here. I知 pretty confident they're aware of all the other rma bills.
>> well, i've reviewed some of the bills that have been filed by representative krusee. I can't profess to be an expert on it. And as far as the rma goes, the city isn't, I guess, an active participant, of course. And we are familiar, keeping up to date with the proposed changes to house bill 1445. And the way it's working out, I don't believe that's going to be a problem for the city and Travis County in our agreement, but I知 not sure which amendments to the rma that you may be referring to that would have an effect on our 1445 agreement. I know that you're going to be granted -- the rma would be granted authority to issue bonds and some rather expansive, I guess, authority regarding airports, railroads, seaports. I don't know what else. But I really am not an expert on it.
>> my only point there is that in legislation it's just everybody is getting to the point of endorsing mpo-created plans and not a boutique plan that is in conflict with what regional partners sitting down together agree to, because there are things in there that I agree with and there are things in there that I disagree with, but I prefer to -- defer to the majority rules on an mpo and move on. So I知 just -- I知 not trying to create a fight here, I知 just stating here that in terms of us trying to get to a resolution of this, it is the weight of evidence is on the side of its mpo plans that have weight in other state legislation. And if we're trying to get to a place where pending state legislation doesn't tell us what to do, it's helpful advice about where we ought to be heading. Because I think that's where the state is heading. And if we don't do what they say, they may give us instructions on what we will do as opposed to what we agree to do.
>> the reason that I brought that up is because one of the scugs that we had was hb 1445, it was brought up at that time, campo, the mpo plans and campo, same thing, as far as it's really concerned and being looked at. And then also the Austin metropolitan area transportation plan. And of course, if that's been resolved, it appears to me there's got to be some middle ground, something to look at as far as how do we deal with this as we proceed with 1445. And I understand, joe, you did say that you had spoke with one of the city officials, and I guess i'd like to know exactly where that confession led. -- conversation led.
>> well, first of all, the city has submitted proposed amendments to the capital plan, all right? I believe you are expecting the county to support some of those amendments to the campo plan. They would help reconcile the policy differences between the city and the county with respect to 1445. With that said, what I am trying to accomplish on behalf of the county is to make the campo plan the business for our regulation of subdivision in the e.t.j. And the differences between the campo plan and the city plan. In other words, if there were conflicts, the campo plan prevails in the e.t.j. With regard to subdivision platting. I think the city at the end of the day would want to maintain their own policy position with regard to financial participation in components of the transportation plan. They would want to reserve their option to buy right-of-way or not buy right-of-way, to put capital improvements in or not put them in. And it would be what's in their city transportation plan. So not taking that away, we're trying to come to a middle of the road on what plan governs in the e.t.j. Inside the city with respect to subdivision planning. And other than that, there are going to be certain roadways where the city will expect the county to come to their side of the table and help them amend the campo plan. And others it will come back the other way. The city will agree with the county with respect to the campo plan, so it truly is a compromise proposal.
>> my last question is, joe, have you received any requests from the city of Austin looking at where the approach they're trying to take as far as the language and that -- as far as the e.t.j. As far as their Austin transportation metropolitan area plan, have we received that?
>> yes, we have. And I will have that to you very shortly what I believe both the sustained the county could -- the city and the county could adopt. I would like to give you something that I believe is a change in passing to governing bodies.
>> so joe, what are we asked to do today?
>> nothing. This is basically a legislative version on all these issues either next week or the week thereafter.
>> in the meantime we have the frowrn 45 -- 1445 updated legislation --
>> tomorrow morning.
>> does if address the same issues that we're looking at today and have discussed before?
>> yes. There are three issues I wanted to point out to you. This is on representative baxter's committee substitute that's already passed out of the house committee.
>> this is what's expected of us today and I guess next week, if anything.
>> the first issue I wanted to call to your attention is house bill 1204 calls for an immediate effective date, and it sees sez that if cities and counties have not reached an agreement by the effective date, they automatically go to arbitration. We've got 26 in Travis County that we need to do agreements with. I think it's highly doubtful we'll have those in place by the time the bill goes into effect, if it goes into effect immediately upon passage. That means sometime within the next six weeks. As the bill is drafted now, you're cast into arbitration with 20 cities immediately.
>> what's the difference between arbitration and mediation?
>> well, I think arbitration under the bill is generally, you make your case to a neutral third party and he decides. Mediation is you've got a neutral third party that tries to get something that's agreeable to both sides.
>> are there professional arbitrators available for things like that?
>> there may not be enough in the city of Austin to do 20 arbitrations at -- arbitrations at once? That's part of the issue.
>> these are labor related issues, right?
>> I think you can arbitrate on any issue.
>> but binding arbitration is what the bill anticipates.
>> that's the way I read it.
>> okay.
>> and then the city and the county have to each pay half the cost of the arbitration, so there's a fiscal impact too.
>> the city and the -- okay.
>> we have actually reached agreement with other municipalities within Travis County, so we're not starting at zero. And some of them we have maybe one or two plats a year that come through, and it seems like we can get there. But this is the biggie.
>> I知 assuming the bill anticipates that you're starting over with the agreement because we've got an agreement in place with the city of Austin. And I知 taking it that everybody involved assumes that the legislature is not satisfied with the agreement the city and the county have in place, they're looking for more agreements on more issues. If the agreement we've got got with the city of Austin is enough, then we don't need to be worried about the bill. I知 thinking that the law -- the the bill's changing the law enough that representative baxter and senator wentworth are anticipating the city and the county need to at least amend the existing agreement.
>> that would be the city of Austin.
>> city of Austin.
>> so immediately you would think that immediately upon signing by the governor. After sass package by -- passage by the senate and house.
>> so, what, 20 days?
>> I知 not sure. I'd have to go back and look.
>> it's not to say a September first date or anything like that. It's an imminent date. That's in the next couple of months.
>> of course, that's if they get, is it, a two-thirds majority, to approve it, both houses and I guess the governor has to sign it immediately also.
>> the bill applies to all of the cities and counties in the state of Texas affected by the 1445?
>> yes.
>> it exempts any county with the city of houston e.t.j., Exempts the border counties, but I think at one point there was a bill or amendment drafted that would basically have it only apply to large cities and exempt the small cities. That would take, you know, maybe 19 of the cities off our plate, but representative baxter's substitute doesn't have that exemption in it. It applies to all cities.
>> what's the direction for any exemption, or does it have to be one?
>> I don't think there has to be one. You could check the legislative history, but somehow it ended up being city of houston and the border counties.
>> there's not much left in houston.
>> I think harris county is pretty much --
>> it's pretty much -- you basically have city limit to city limit to city limit.
>> there's some in the surrounding counties like fort bend has some e.t.j.
>> yeah.
>> and month gomry and some of those other counties.
>> any other significant areas?
>> I don't think this is as big as the first issue but I did want to traw it to your attention. The way the bill is drafted, on the maintenance of infrastructure issue, as joe pointed out, there may be cases where the county would be taking the position, notwithstanding that this infrastructure has not yet been annexed, we would like the city to assume that maintenance. And the bill reads that if you go to arbitration, then the prevailing party is always responsible for the maintenance. So we go to arbitrator and say we would like the city to do maintenance on this infrastructure, and the arbitrator awards for us, the law says we've got to do the maintenance. It's a circular thing. They didn't draft this precisely enough. I think nine out of 10 times that the city and county are at odds over the infrastructure, yeah, it's going to be the party that prevails to do the maintenance, but there is this one narrow category of issues where if we go to arbitration we may be asking the arbitrator to have the city do the maintenance. And the way this provision is worded, it would give us trouble. It would basically rule out that poakt. [one moment, please, for change in captioners] -- rule out that possibility. [one moment, please, for change in captioners] > my first response is going to be that the campo plan -- that [inaudible] your regulation, the law says the campo plan prevails, so county you have to build this road in 10 years, you can't ask me for right-of-way or fiscal for it. So, again, I think it's just drafted ages overbroad. That's -- a little overbroad, that's an unintended consequence.
>> there actually are some roads that are not in the campo plan because they don't rise to the significance of being a major or minor arterial, because we actually had some of those come up during our bond lakes well, is it in the campo plan, I will use bratton lane for an example. It was basically a neighborhood collector street, it wasn't in the campo plan because it shouldn't have been in the campo plan because it wasn't intended to be something that carried the regional traffic. It was intended to carry neighborhood traffic. But still was worthy of -- of the project.
>> thank you, judge. I just wanted to -- to clarify something that I said before in answer to Commissioner Sonleitner's question about Williamson county. Before we adopted the Williamson county agreement it was true that we reviewed all of the roads for Williamson county. The Williamson county agreement does defer everything to the city of Austin. So -- so it's all city of Austin regulated now. I guess that's an aside, though, I still think that avery ranch is a good example of what we are talking about in terms of -- of the annexation agreements and arranging for things with Travis County. If we should enter into those agreements in the future in working with you.
>> that's a real good point because there may be some decisions in terms of the city decides to defer taking something in to get the property tax dollars because they can get the sales tax dollars, [indiscernible], lakeline mall, but that means it's on our tab related to the maintenance of the roads in that area, so what may be very good for the city related to --, sure, we will take sales tax any day over the property tax over what's coming out of that way. It creates issues for us in terms of -- of when is this getting off of our rolls. When for all other purposes cities -- the city is this control out there.
>> the lakeline mall is in the -- this is a test, unified set of , simply not there. There's some major issuesn
>> that's why we think we need at least 10. We would like any central Texases that go beyond that to be measurable. At that time there was language that the extensions would be tied to the fact if the rules weren't changed, you would get that extension. That defeats the whole purpose of the extension. The whole reason we want the extension is because the reduce are going to change and we don't want to comply with the rules that are going to change. If it takes 12 years for the county to get a project done, if we can get a three-year extension. If at the end of 10 years we've done 50% of our development, we platted those lots, built that amount of money, we've invested 50% of our capital into this project, to get another three years is not that much. We're making progress, waiting on the county to finish this last piece so we can build our last 25%, give us another three-year extension to 16 years, give us the last 100% and then it expires. That gives everybody plenty of time to get everything done they need to. I don't think that's unreasonable to ask for. The natural character of the land. I think we've got to agreement so what we're looking for there. The biggest issue that needs to be looked at is how are these off line systems going to be maintained. If you rely on a developer to maintain them, the developer is gone. As soon as the project is built, the development is built and the plats are recorded and the homes are sold rngs the developer is gone. He's got no financial presence or physical presence in that development. If you look for a homeowners association, most of the homeowners associations aren't mandatory. A lot of them aren't mandatory and a lot of them, the people who are in charge of these are not elected officials. They're people who live in the homeowners association and want to see a park kept up, want to see a swimming pool built thevment don't know anything about maintaining drainage basins. If the county starts mandating you have a choice do you want to maintain your pool or spend $20,000 maintaining our drainage improvements, they will maintain their pool. I think the county will have to maintain. We all agree there has to be a financial way for the county to do that. Right now the county does not have the funds or even the ability to collect funds to maintain these drainage systems and we will work with you to help you get there that, but it's something that really needs to be done, because the county in. E.t.j., The city maintains those facilities. In the county it needs to be the k he you need the money to do. Limited purpose annexation areas, I think we're all in agreement on what's been going on there. But this is kind of the last of a lot of issues that have been going forward. And one thing that's got me concerned and a lot. Stake concerned is every time we do a project, when we started this project we gave a list to constituent and county and said here's what we think are the conflicts. If we can work through these issues I think we'll be there. Every time we do a project, we find more conflicts. These are the major ones, but if you've seen the city and county rules, that's a huge stack documents and there are conflicts all through there. Until we get to one set of regulations and one review process and approval process, we're not going to meet what I think is the intent of house bill 1445 because there will be conflicts between the rules, regulations and the approval process. And doing affordable housing and doing the things we all want to see done in the e.t.j. And in the county is going to be very difficult to get done until we get to that point. I'll answer any questions if you'd like.
>> it looks like the 10 years is 10 years of possible extensions with the agreement or an annexation agreement.
>> let me real quickly just briefly explain, right now you can ask for a phasing agreement up front on a preliminary plan. If you have your crystal ball and you can see that far into the future, you can say, okay, I want to be able to live longer than the time in the ordinance, and right now it's three an five-day forecast years, for instance. In the city. I want to go further than five years, and this is what I知 going to get done on my end for you to agree to give me a longer life. So i'll build these many roads, then if I do that, then I get more life. You can only ask for that up front. A suggestion yesterday, although it has not been begun to the elected officials for discussion yesterday t yet, was perhaps we could consider removing the ability to request that phasing agreement to any time during your plan life. So the county's bond project -- I知 not assuming -- is to fall through or is delayed, you could come forward and ask for a phasing agreement to put you out ahead of that again. And if it was a reasonable request, then it would be approved. So that was the idea. The extensions. We were thinking about perhaps ability to get a little further out from your deadline, your expiration date, for the extension. And the only measure we can come up with right now that everybody agrees with would be a tracking nightmare, might be a certain percentage of platting of that preliminary. Anything else becomes very difficult to track, such as how much roadway you've built or how much money you've spent or those sorts of things. Thank you.
>> so we don't have the authority to charge a fee to do the drainage maintenance?
>> let me ask tom to answer that.
>> very little authority to do that. I知 sure you can't find a way to do it, but we haven't found anything that's workable so far, put it that way.
>> but if we come up with a funding source, assuming responsibility for maintenance in the county, would be simpler.
>> oh, yes.
>> and that's our problem. So it may be a matter of us creatively figuring out a way to fund it. Then we would agree to maintenance and the county the same as the city and the city and e.t.j.
>> I agree. This is a bad time to be asking for additional fees or taxes of any sort right now.
>> right. But I agree right now it's sort of left in limbo. The proanters are there, -- the property owners are thrrks the residents, but they're not as concerned about that as other matters, swimming pools, parks, etcetera.
>> correct.
>> so we keep working.
>> what was the third one that you mentioned?
>> the limited purpose annexation areas. I think we're all in agreement on that.
>> okay. So the thing is to try to get this done. And will it take two weeks to come back or do you think you will be back next week?
>> let's do two weeks.
>> the representative are waiting to see signs of substantial progress, otherwise they continue, right?
>> I知 sure we will.
>> if it looks as though we've achieved the interlocal, it gets the job done, then they would have an interest in continuing -- the term of the interlocal would be what, 10 years?
>> perpetual right now. There's no expiration date on it.
>> david, could you enlighten us as to what is the city council's meeting schedule over the next month? Because while we are hurrying to try and get our end of it done, it has to be signed by the council as well, and they're not on an every week schedule, especially right now before the election.
>> well, this week we expect to put it on every couple of weeks or three weeks for an update and possible action. But I think at this point --
>> do you guys meet the week of the 29th?
>> next week. A meeting on the 24th and then a meeting on the eighth.
>> so if it doesn't get on the 24th --
>> if we think it's all right, we'll approve it and put it on the city's agenda next Thursday. Because on the legislation, it seems to me rather than fighting about it, we may and well go ahead and try to get this deal done.
>> that's our goal as well.
>> I think it makes more sense for us to double the effort -- go to the effort now and get it done, and if we can't get it done, we accept whatever the legislation mandates. But I don't --
>> we hope that we would have a joint subcommittee meeting this week, but I see that that's been fried. - because of good Friday.
>> it's understandable, but we lost that forum this Friday.
>> we plan to post it every two to three weeks as necessary to do updates before the council and allow them to take action. We'll post it as necessary to take action. But -- of course, they did on the March the 6th adopt the first set of regulations. I知 not sure if the Commissioners court taken the corresponding action on those regulations yet. But I recognize that we're dealing with the major policy issues at the same time. I wanted to say one thing about the bill substitute. I知 not sure that our agreement is the entire focus of the bill because i've heard many people talk about other cities that -- and counties that have done nothing.
>> we're very much in a position to say this may be the agreement, but -- (indiscernible) it's a whole lot better than it was, and this may not be perfect, but it's a whole lot better off than it was before the session. And we know you are coming back in two years and then we may have another set of issues, but we think this is a whole lot better off. I would like to see us double the effort and get it down rather than trying to protect ourselves and fight back. I mean, this has been the law on the books for a while. And although we have been trying to reach agreement, I don't think anybody is saying that we have resolved the -- all the significant issues. There are obvious conflicts is why we've been working as hard as we could, I guess, but we've not gotten there. My question is why waste the energy coming over there and explaining shortcomings or trying to fight back, I mean, why don't we just put it on both bodies' eagdzs next week and -- agendas and try to reach agreement and have a document. It's one thing saying we're close to agreement and another thing to say here's the agreement right here.
>> we will do everything we can to get that on that 24th agenda.
>> do I need to write another letter to the city manager?
>> we'll let you know if that's necessary. [ laughter ]
>> if we're going to ask joe to double up the effort to get this done, at the same time we're asking him to triple up the effort on landfills and on the sh 130 130 intersections, it's not fair for him to double up and turn out it's not on the agenda that week and it's going to slip at least until mid may. Let me plain two things. Just because we aren't meeting can council on a specific day, we are working with individual elected officials and discussing these and try to come to resolution as we speak. We're meeting with them. And they wanted to bring up something else.
>> to the extent that a resolution on major policy issues requires amendment to the land development code, we do have to go through that process where we take the amendment to the planning commission. [overlapping speakers]
>> the rest of it is a formality.
>> that's correct.
>> show good faith.
>> say here's the outline and the city and county can agree to make the necessary code amendments within 30 days, whatever.
>> I zoom even the stakeholders would like to see us considering something we could call an agreement and if we postpone final action on that it's one thing. To just keep delaying it and working and working toward a draft agreement that we consider, it seems to me is what our posture has been. And at some point you come up with a draft agreement that contains all the agreements, and if you're not able to agree on something, then you just have it set aside, realizing that in all probability there will be legislation that resolves it one way or the other, even if it's through an expedited, binding arbitrator. I could see where if you're fighting over employee compensation, an arbitrator could come in and listen to both sides and boom. What we have been discussing it would appear to me to be a bit more difficult. If we even get to that point I guess would be what I知 thinking. I mean, I don't know basically what I知 hearing today, we're not really that far apart.
>> no, we're very close. There's also -- I just want to mention one last thing, that there is also a proposal put forth yesterday regarding trying to resolve the single set of regulations. And by allen heywood, who is one of the stakeholders. And we are talking about that. That may -- if that could work are then what we heard was there would be agreement that we would be meeting the intent of that. So we're hopeful that maybe we can work through that, but I just wanted to mention that, that that issue itself could be resolved as welfarely quickly.
>> I think we're going to come a lot closer to bridging that gap if we don't send pat and david back over with our explanation of the Commissioner Sonleitner's, that boutique transportation plan that you had [ laughter ]
>> boutique, yes.
>> buffet! [ laughter ]
>> so let's post it next week and see what happens.
>> we'll try.
>> move approval?
>> to have it on next week, sure.
>> any desire for us to say anything at tomorrow's committee hearing or go in and smile and wave?
>> that's the problem. I知 not sure what you could go over there and say that --
>> other than we plan to have an agreement done real soon.
>> we could say that, that's our intention.
>> certainly I think that we want to bring those technical points that you brought up on how to approve that legislation. It just seems to be brought to the attention of somebody over there, whether it's -- it doesn't have to be testimony and to bring it to representative baxter or senator wentworth's staff's attention as to where those are issues, in the same way that on the rma stuff our suggestions were welcomed and largely incorporated. Without issue.
>> anything further today? We'll have it back on next Tuesday. Thank y'all very much. We appreciate it.
>> thank y'all.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 9, 2003 3:52 PM