Travis County Commssioners Court
September 30, 2003
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Item 42
42 is to receive report from envision central Texas. Good morning.
>> good morning. [inaudible - no mic]
>> we're here to give you a brief update on the progress of envision Texas and to bring to you deliverables which we have promised you at certain stages. We will be presenting those this morning. We understand that you have a heavy agenda and you would like us to be succinct and we assure you that we will be. We will go through a brief presentation which you'll see on the monitors. Beverly silas our executive director is with us.
>> and your name is neal kasurek?
>> yes, I'm the chair of the envision central Texas. Why envision central Texas? An estimated 1.25 billion more people will live in central Texas in a 20 to 40 year time frame and we must apply today's lessons to tomorrow's housing, transportation and land use challenges. Envision central Texas is a private nonprofit corporation. 501(c)3 that has been formed to take the people's input and weave it into a vision for central Texas. We did this by working with a lot of people in a number of workshops throughout the five county region, hays, Williamson, travis and bastrop, and we put our topo maps on tables and I know that many of you participate and we have 6-foot by 8-foot topo maps and a lot of computer chips are really game chips and we put those on the board, they're all coded, and we told the citizenry we'll have another 1,250,000 folks in central Texas in the next time frame, where you do want them to live, work and how to get to and from. Put the game pieces on the table, and then they presented their plans, their visions. This was done in all five counties. And then our contractors, word class contractors did a digital takeoff there and then they were able to sort those that were similar and in the process of doing that they brought the scenarios that we will present to the public next week together. You see here a picture of the presenters presenting their various scenarios and each table did that at each workshop. Now then, from that, the contractors brought together four scenarios. The first one here is scenario a, and this is what would happen in our community if we just continued as we are, and you'll see the -- the red material shows the new area where the additional 1,250,000 folks would go. Now, there's a summary of information there about each scenario. Scenario a shows that we would develop an additional 468,000-acres to accommodate these people. About 3600-acres would be redeveloped. 68 minutes would be the daily time spent getting around by a citizen of central Texas. And we would develop some 36,000-acres over the edward's aquifer. 750,000 new jobs would be concentrated in the area. The preponderance of those falling in Travis County. Now, then, scenario b, this is the first scenario that was developed by the citizens themselves, and this one centers around putting people along the transportation arteries, and this was a very popular one. This is scenario b, and you'll see the detail here, instead of 468,000-acres being developed, only 192,000 new acres could be develop and 5500-acres would go into redevelopment. 64 minutes in moving around and instead of 36,000-acres being developed over the aquifer, only 18,000. Not have many new jobs in the low income areas and the jobs would be spread more evenly throughout the 5 county region. Scenario c is called the new town approach, and you'll notice all the red area is new area, and you see that there is growth in all the existing cities and there's some new towns and cities that pop up along the way. Only 170,000-acres would be developed there, and about 8,000-acres would be redeveloped. 60 minutes in getting around time. Only 53-acres developed over the edwards aquifer, about 2300 new jobs in the low income areas, and again the jobs would be spread more evenly throughout the 5 county region. In scenario d, the concentration there is not so much in new towns but concentration in existing towns, and only 85,000 new acres would be developed there, 10,000-acres would be redeveloped, very little over the edwards aquifer, 16,000 jobs in low income areas and again the jobs would be spread over the 5 county region. We have a lot of indicators which have been develop and these indicators compare each scenario and various things like total acreage consumed and a whole lot of indicators and I'm going to give you a handout here in just a second, give you some more of that, and then each of you received a briefing booklet when we did the briefing for the elected officials and it has all this information in great detail. Another indication of indicators there in this particular presentation. What we would like to do now is tell you what is going to happen in the future and beverly can move through those indicators just briefly. I won't spend your time going through that. Now, starting next week, we will be taking the four scenarios to the people, and I will hand you a copy of the insert.
>> give me four, i'll be happy to pass them down.
>> all right. Great. Now then, you'll see in the center section of this handout the four scenarios that i've just presented. And this is the insert that will appear in all the newspapers in the region and it will appear in the newspapers on either October 8th, 9th or 10th here in the central city I think you'll be getting it on the 9th. Now, then, what we're going to be asking citizens to do, is we're going to be asking them to study this insert and then to comment on each scenario, and the back page of that shows a page for input. This will be input from all the citizens, both -- both sides of the back page and then we ask them to fold that and to mail it to us. Now then, you can go also on line at www.envisioncentraltxdotorganize whichisrightthereonthe handout.
>> repeat that very slowly.
>> www.envisioncentraltexas .org.
>> thank you.
>> , you bet, thank you Commissioner. Our citizens can go on long and we're hoping to get thousands of responses providing their feedback to each of the scenarios, then the contractor will take that material and develop a final scenario or a final vision as a result of the work that has been done, and then that vision has no legal basis or anything like that, but it is a vision developed by the people and it's had plenty of quality assistance in putting it in its final form. There will be a long list, well, not too long, but a list of recommendations that would go along with the vision for things that jurisdictions, community groups, can do to ultimately see that this vision becomes a reality. And what we've done is we've gone back and looked at where other visioning processes have been done and asked how has this worked out and here is what we have found. We spent a lot of time working with envision utah because that area is roughly the size of our area, and there is a lot of sensitive environment around that area, so forth, so there are a lot of similarities. They've completed that process in 1997. It's been six years. And during that process we've asked what's gone on and here is what they told us. When the vision came out and the list of recommendations came out, an our list of recommendations will be carefully scrutinized and worked with and reviseesed by a board of directors, and they've been very active. Our vote meets every month and has now for almost two years and we have committees of that board and the completes worked on developing this -- committees worked on developing this, and they spent over 40 hours of in-committee time and a lot of out-committee time so it's an active board t executive committee meets every Tuesday monk at 7:30 and they're very active and have been working very hard in this process. So that -- the board and the executive committee will spend a lot of time scrubbing the recommendations that come from the process, and then those recommendations will come to the jurisdictions, community group, and so forth. And in utah, as those recommendations were provide, a number of the jurisdictions in the area adopted all of the recommendations that were appropriate for that jurisdiction. Other jurisdictions adopted none of them. During the six years all of the jurisdictions have adopted some of them now, and some of them -- and more of them have adopted all of them. They've added some recommendations and deleted a recommendation of two during that process. Now, during the process in utah, some of the largest developer there did not like the process and did not participate. All the rest of the developers thought it was a really good process and participated. Now, in the six-year period, those developers who liked the process have put forth developments and projects along the way and they have aligned, if you will, their projects with the vision. Now, that -- that developer who didn't like the projects still says he doesn't like the project but he has put forth a number of developments and all of his developments have also been aligned with the vision. The citizens there in utah feel like the process is a very good one and it's been very helpful. We're very hopeful that the same thing will take place here in our community. What we would like to do is we would like to provide you with deliverables and this is a presentation of the -- of the land use model, the transportation model, and the economic development model, and then a dvd of all the data that has been developed through this process. We have world class models for land use and for transportation, and they are ours, part of the project, and the county has full access and your -- your transportation director and planning director have participated with the contractors on a monthly basis so they are very familiar with what's there, and those models are available for use of the county, and that huge database that we have is available for the use of the county as well as all the other jurisdictions in the five county area, and it is our intent that envision central Texas will stay in existence after the vision is committee as an honest broker to serve all jurisdictions, community groups, developers and so forth, in providing information for them to use as they go about their business. And that concludes our presentation. We would be happy to answer any questions.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Let me -- is there any way possible I can get some extra inserts?
>> yes, sir.
>> some neighborhood groups over there that were not able to attend last night's meeting and of course I would like to make sure that they get this information. Again, I would like to thank y'all for that great overview of some of the things that you brought before the neighborhood association in that whole area at the church last night. Unfortunately I wasn't able to stay for the whole meeting. But as stated, then, told folks to ask question, I understand that did happen. I wasn't able to stay, again, for the entire meeting. I talked to one individual this morning that is over, very active in that neighborhood group over there, and scotty alvery, for example, who y'all know, and she wanted to be a part of it, unfortunately she wasn't able to attend that meeting last night, but she is definitely on board with a lot of the things, initiatives, that they're trying to get done in that area over there. I want to make sure that she -- she will be getting in touch with y'all later on.
>> very god. She was there at the workshop.
>> exactly.
>> [inaudible]
>> she really wanted to be there last night and unfortunately was not able to be. I talked with her in fact this morning. Of course she wanted to follow-up along with others that were not able to attend and this is the reason for doing that. Let me ask you one more question.
>> yes, sir.
>> you mentioned that these inserts would be placed in a media source?
>> they will be in all the newspapers in the region.
>> all the newspapers meaning which ones?
>> every single one of them. All newspapers in the whole region. In other words, the georgetown newspaper, the Round Rock newspaper, the american statesman, the san marcos newspaper.
>> you said american statesman and I know everybody doesn't subscribe to the american statesman, and I was wondering if there was any way possible in that area over there, some of the free publications that may be available, such as the village in the core, la prensa , is that looked at at all?
>> they're included.
>> they're included? We're doing the villager,.
>> Austin chronicle.
>> all of them.
>> the daily texan.
>> all right. I was concerned about that.
>> we've printed 650,000 of these.
>> 650,000?
>> yes, sir.
>> okey doke. Okay. That is my final question on that, and again I really do appreciate y'all coming to the community and working with the community the way you're doing so they will have some say in what's going on and which I think is very, very important.
>> we very much appreciate the county's participation in the project, and it's been a very broad participation that we've enjoyed and I can tell you that an awful lot of people from all over the five-county area have worked very hard on this project and we appreciate your support. I know that each one of you have participated in some of the activities of envision central Texas because i've seen each of you there participating at various times.
>> very quick question related to how you're going to get to the subject of affordable. In terms of getting down to that next depth. I see that you have attached infrastructure costs to each of these scenarios. Sometimes those are huge numbers that you can't really translate in terms of what is that going to mean for me. We may say I value open space or value transportation, can't build me enough rode, whatever it is, it's one thing to say that, then it's another thing to get your property tax bill that reflects that investment, and I know that there's been a great deal of sticker stock, especially in Williamson county for example, that went with a $350 million infrastructure package, and with 200 some odd thousand people all of a sudden they're seeing what that saying really does mean. How are we going to be able to boil down, once we get all of this, so you can get information back to folks of this is what that really means to you in terms of dollars and cents about making some of these choices about what you choose your community to look like.
>> and that's one of the reasons that we want envision central Texas to stay in existence in order that we may make those computations and provide that information on a regular basis, and jurisdictions can come to envision central Texas when they're looking at something and say what is the overall impact and we very much want to be able to provide that overall impact. In other words, we want to look at the total bonding capacity of the community and that kind of thing and assist jurisdictions in that process. So that is an excellent question.
>> okay.
>> one of the other things I can share with you, Commissioner, is that this is an issue that the social equity subcommittee is looking at.
>> huge.
>> and they're beginning to take the economic analysis that we got from the financial consultants, from the economic consultants and they're trying to see if there's anyway that we can address that from envision central Texas.
>> another thing that is important is our economic contractor on the project was a local firm, and we wanted to make sure that was the case because they know best the local economy, and so even of these scenarios was scrubbed for its economic viability, and each of the scenarios is economically viable.
>> okay. Anything else from the court?
>> just one more comment.
>> wait a minute. Wait a minute. Commissioner Daugherty?
>> i've got three points out loud to make.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> neal, tell me how many numberwise you all expect to find respond to the survey?
>> we're hoping, Commissioner, that we have in the neighborhood of 20,000 people respond. That's what we're hoping for.
>> and what did -- what did utah have responsewise?
>> response? I think they had between 25 and 30,000 respondents.
>> because i've 27,000, I mean I --
>> and i've heard 17 also, but i've heard 25 to 30.
>> they told us when they came last year that it was close to 30,000.
>> what -- what percentage do you -- I mean would the 25 or 30,000 approximate be? What is their total population. We have 1.2 to 1.5 million.
>> about 1.2 that we have. Uh-huh, and their population is about the same. It's about the same.
>> so we very well could set out to do this thing and predicate some of the things that we're going to do in this community with perhaps as little as two to three percent of the people in this community dictating what we're going to do. If we reach 20,000 people out of, what, a million and a half people, what would your response... If you were sitting out there, you weren't very engaged. Let's face it, 20,000 people is not going to be what I would consider a huge engagement in this process, and plus I would like for us to know how do we make sure that we don't have 5 people respond 35 times? I mean do we have some sort of a safety net there that we know...
>> the safety approach we're looking there is address. We're asking for that information, so that we can do that. And that was not a problem in utah. There's a little bit of that, but not a significant problem. Also, we feel like when you have 20,000 citizens participate -- and we've worked hard to make sure that it's not just the activists who are participating, but a lot of salt of the earth citizenry who isn't always involved in things but have their own opinion, and we work very hard in the workshops to get out a full spectrum of the populous and when we did initially looking at values and this kind of stuff, then the selection of individuals was done expertly by professionals and they actually paid people to come sit in the focus groups so they can draw on full diversity of spectrum and they did the selection so that they could do that, and then if you look at the way visioning has been done historically in the past, a few individuals have come together and done the visioning whereas if we have as many people as we have and as many people voting on it, that is by far a much much larger cross-connection of our citizenry than is involved in any other project. We've spent a lot of time worrying about this and I appreciate you asking the question.
>> I don't have to tell you that I'm probably one of the more cynical people in the community with regards to what has taken place with regard to envision central Texas and that certainly is no reflection on you. You're not paid a dime to do this. I've been in your seat many times in this community where I didn't get paid a dime but thought I was doing the right thing. I appreciate what you're doing. I know have engaged you have been in this. Part of the reason, you know, my cynicism comes out in this is because the first one of these gatherings that y'all did, which is the largest one at the convention center and we had some 400 plus people engaged, me sitting at a table, it was very clear to me that 7 of the 10 people at that table were only concerned with one thing, and that was to tell you where you were going to build something and where you were not going to build something, and that frightens me in this community because I think that the market is probably going to dictate more than 7 people at a table of ten telling me that I can either sell my farm or I can't sell my land or who I can sell it to and what I can do to it, so I'm -- I'm somewhat jaded, you know, by the process because I feel like that I didn't have a whole lot of representation there, and I -- I'm also fearful that whenever we have the respondent, you know, with this, that we may see that we have that same sort of number with regards to who responds to this thing, and I -- I hope that something comes out of this that we can use and that we can use construction tefly, but if I see that where this thing goes, then, you know, I'm not going to have any choice and I think there are a number of people who are not going to have any choice other than to stand up and say, you know, there's a flaw in what we're trying to accomplish with this, and so I -- I hope that I'm proven wrong, neal. I mean, I hope that I'm proven -- when we see the respondents and what comes back out of this is that something that everybody -- or most people would say, well, that is reasonable, and -- and i'll wait I guess until the end of October is when y'all are expecting to get these things and I look forward to seeing those, but I'm -- I'm cautiously optimistic about seeing what we can -- what we can do with the program, but, hey, it's not like people ever question as to how I feel about something. I've got a question, i'll certainly address it to you.
>> well, I appreciate your comments and regret your experience at your particular table. I can report to you that i've had reports from many, many tables and they said the discussion was very diverse and they said they didn't feel like at the beginning that they could come together, but they did, they feel like it was representative, and they really enjoyed the process and feel very good about it. That has been the majority of what i've heard, but certainly we respect everybody's comments and appreciate your participation. History has shown us that the results are very good and viable and over the long haul we've really had a lot of quality participation and people are very pleased with the experience, so I hope ultimately you will be as well. The feedback period runs for three weeks. It begins on the sixth of October. That's next Monday, and then the inserts will be in the newspapers on the -- either the 8th or the 9th or the 10th, one time, and then there will be publicity in the newspaper about it, and so we'll be asking all the citizenry to please respond to providing their input via the questionnaire or going on the website, www.envisioncentraltexas.org, and responding that way, and then the contractor also take that material, they will ultimately come up with the ultimate scenario which the board will then refine and then the recommendations which the board will then refine and then those will be available by March of '04 when we'll have that and then we'll be back to you bringing the final vision and the final deliverables at about that time.
>> one more question, neal, and I'm through. Will we get to see a exilation of all of the -- compilation of all of the respondent? I mean we've got 31,000 respondents and here is where each one of them -- will we be able to get that.
>> the data will be made available, absolutely. You have on a dvd there, all the data we have at this point, the reason it's on a dvd is there's so much of it because we can't get it on a cd. Envision central Texas is an honest broker and we're providing all the information to all who wish it and we respond to all who contact us, and sometimes it takes us a little time because there's a lot of work associated with it. We have been and we'll continue to be that honest broker.
>> Commissioner Gomez? Not only have you been a honest broker, you've helped us kerr out the democratic process as you've gone out in the region to help conduct these workshops with people from everywhere who shows an interest. And there's been a lot of people, I can tell you, who have been involved a long long time here in Travis County just with concerns about all the issues that you're covering here, and it's good to have all the data in one place so we can look at it and so we can kind of tell you again where we want Travis County to go, or this region anyway, and so I thank you for that.
>> thank you, Commissioner.
>> it's a real involved process, but, you know, it has to be done so that we can enable people everywhere to express their opinion, and democracy isn't cheap.
>> it's not.
>> and it's not real exact, but you know, it's the process we love, and so I really expect a lot of good things to come out of the data that y'all have collected and I think we'll see the value of what y'all have put in place as time goes by. Hope springs eternal, you know, for some of us and even though there have been other processes in the pass where we don't agree with, still, you know, we mature as we go along and we see the value of data and how we can, you know, perhaps put it in place for the future. There are a lot of little kids who are coming after us.
>> well, thank you, Commissioner. And I think that one of the most impressive things about the process is there have been people from all over the community who have invested a tremendous amount of time and people of very differing viewpoints, but they have come to reach agreement and I think it was very interesting at our executive committee meeting last week, we had received a letter from a group that was asking us to stop the presses on the -- on the insert because they would like to modify a couple of the questions a little bit, and -- and so I mentioned this and we always talk about the response we get, I mentioned this, and one of the members said, good night, I would like to modify some of the questions too and i've been working around the clock on this thing, so it does show that a lot of people have had input and they worked together and I couldn't be more pleased with all the participation and the good will that has come from working together on the project.
>> well, thank you.
>> I have just one question. I think the document tear is probably as good as any as putting together recommendations, but I don't know that we're that good at getting to the implementation stage and I say that after serving on numerous committees and commission, a long list of them, and I heard what you said about utah, but what is the strategy here for getting from the recommendation stage to the implementation stage? I mean is it 100% voluntary?
>> yes, sir, it's 100% voluntary. Envision central Texas will stay in existence, it will work with jurisdictions to make sure that the -- that the vision is known, that people have the vision with them, and we'll have all of the data available to all of those jurisdictions. And it is intent that envision central Texas will work with elected officials and with community groups and with private developers, providing that information, making it available, making sure that people do know what is there and the process through which it was obtained.
>> but in utah, who monitors that voluntary implementation?
>> envision utah is an organization much liken vision central Texas, a 501(c)3, not for profit, and it's in existence just to deep vision out there, to answer questions, and this kind of thing. And so envision central Texas will stay in existence here to keep the awareness up, make people aware of what is here, and each five years we will -- we will do a -- an update on the process, so that input continues to be fresh and there, and so this group will continue to function as an honest broker to assist folks and so if a -- if a jurisdiction has a project, then they can interface with ininvestigation central Texas -- envision central Texas and get input to see how it may align with a vision f a private developer had as project he can do the same thing, community groups can do the same thing, so it will be an on going process. The process has been done perhaps a little differently, but there is an organization in chicago that was formed in 1909 that is still in existence that works with can community. There's an organization in new york city formed in 1929 that has been worked with the community, this kind of thing, so there's a precedent for doing these kind of things as an honest broker.
>> Commissioner Davis?
>> I have a concluding statement. Thank you, judge. Mr. Kasurak, beverly, ms. Silas, I would like to applaud y'all for doing what you're doing, a great move. I want to make sure all the time we get the bang for the buck. Always been very, very concerned about that. And I appreciate the aligned community to play a role in something that will determine its future, and I think that is very significant, a boat aligned, for those kind of things to happen. I would like to say publicly my prayers go out to pastor parker of the david chapel where this event was held. He's doing better now. Our prayers go out to him to hope that he has a speedy recovery. But more than this, I want to continue to work with you as much as possible and ensure that whatever economic development things happen in the area is coordinated in a way where the community can have the kind of say in that development in the future of the community as it grows, and I think that is the bottom line in my opinion through the participation of the community and the roll it plays in this and thank y'all for keeping that door open and hope you maintain and continue to keep the door open as you finalize these particular initiatives towards implementation.
>> thank you, sir.
>> thank y'all very much.
>> thanks.
>> we encourage all residents to complete the survey and return it so they can be part of this democratic process. We thank y'all very much for coming out.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 7:52 PM