Travis County Commssioners Court
October 28, 2003
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Item 1
Number 1 is a public hearing to discuss request to consider proposal for chapter 30, Travis County code, joint Travis County/city of Austin subdivision code for extraterritorial jurisdiction.
>> move to open the public hearing.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> good morning. I'm joe gieselman with the transportation natural resource department. This is the -- the same code, single code that was presented to the court several weeks ago. It was developed jointly with the city of Austin. It applies to the extra territorial jurisdiction. Any subdivision activity within the five-mile e.t.j. Of the city of Austin will be subject to this code. It's literally a merging of the county code and the city subdivision code with respect to subdivision development. With additional changes that are agreed to by the city council and the Commissioners court. Because we are mandated by state law to have a single process, actually, we have a choice, where there are four options under the law. The Commissioners court and the city of Austin chose option 4, which is the single office, as a combined review of subdivision plats within the e.t.j. It is that option that we are implementing via the interlocal agreement that we signed over a year ago. That requires that we have a consistent code, consistent and consolidated code between the two entities. That's what this single code represents. This has been out in the community now for several weeks. The Commissioners courted called upon the [indiscernible] and I believe today you will receive comments from various community leaders regarding the content of this code.
>> joe, have you received written comments?
>> I have not.
>> meaning your entire office. You would share those with the Commissioners court if you --
>> we have -- I have not received any. My office has not received any.
>> okay. There's a deadline for submitting written comments is when?
>> you know, I'm not sure that we had a deadline.
>> we haven't established a hard dead line. We will take them any time they can get them to us. I know the real estate stakeholders were working on a set of comments that we had anticipated getting before this hearing. I imagine if we don't get them today, we will get them, you know, within the next couple of days.
>> okay. Would anyone like to give testimony during this public hearing? If so, please come forward. Take one of those available four chairs. Get real comfortable. Give us your name, we will be happy to get your comments.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, judge, good morning, Commissioners. I'm rick reed, one of the real estate stakeholders. I was before you two weeks ago and, yes, we are working on our written comments and should have those as tom predicted like the nostramus deas damus, any day now. We have been reviewed and have been going over on in a small group the initial draft of the joint city/city subdivision code. And our comments, I think that -- fall into three categories. One which is what you might call grammatical, typographical things of that nature, which I won't go into here today. Another group seeks to restore substantive provisions into the code that we believe are consistent with current requirements. For example, the constitution -- the constitutionally mandated limitation of prop portion nationality on the obligations for dedication and improvement of roadways. In fact this court adopted that as part of its code on August 12th. We noted that was not in the -- in the new code. Or new proposed code. And there's also -- in dealing with craij issues -- drainage issues, in the 100 year floodplain, talking about preserving the national and -- natural and traditional character, in some places it talking about preserving the national and traditional character of the land as opposed to the portion of the land within the 100 year floodplain. So things like that that we think are consistent with current code that just didn't find their way into -- into it. The vast majority of the changes I think we thought somewhere between 75 to 85% are changes that we think should be put in to implement the allocation of discretionary authority between the city and the county that's consistent with the first amendment to the interlocal agreement. 30-1-91 of the proposed code -- 30-1-92 shows that the city has discretionary authority to make all determinations within the near Texas annexation area and discretionary authority over water quality and environmental matters throughout the e.t.j. The county, on the other hand, has that -- has authority, discretionary authority in the non-near term areas, but only over those issues that it currently is regulating, the transportation floodplain management and storm water conveyance issues. The problem that we saw in the code is that it -- in the proposed code is that it -- it gives a lot of those decisions to the single office. And the single office is -- is really city staff and county staff that get together on a -- I don't know if it's a regular basis, but it's a frequent basis to review applications, to discuss issues that come up, and it's -- it's a blending of the authorities of the two groups. We thought it was more appropriate to have those same determinations made by -- on the county side, either the executive manager or this court, and on the city side either by the director as applicable, whether it's watershed protection and development review or if it was a utility issue, the water and wastewater utility or the transportation group, or the land use commission. We went back and looked at house bill 1445 as has been amended by house bill 1204. And joe is absolutely correct, it gave you four options to choose and you chose with the city option d-4, which allows you to enter into an interlocal agreement that establishes a single office, but that single office's functions are limited to accepting plat applications, collecting municipal and county plat application fees in a lump sum amount, so that the applicant doesn't have to go to different places, write different check, make it a one-stop shop. And then provide the one response of approval or denial. The interlocal agreement is also required to have the parties establish a single set of consolidated, consistent regulations. So we believe that it's -- that there is nothing in 1204 that requires some kind of dual regulation as we think the city, excuse me, the single office lends itself to. As I said, the -- the initial draft provides that determinations of compliance are to be made by a consensus of the city staff and the county staff in the single office, that that consensus is not reached by those staff members, then it escalates up first to the managing officials, which is mr. Gieselman and ms. Gordon, I believe, under the current agreement. If they can't decide then it escalates up further to this court and the city council. Again, we think that this continues the dual regulation system which has some inherent conflicts and differing determinations that can come up. What we have proposed -- well, let me back up and say it's interesting to note that in some portions of the proposed code, the draft does contemplate what we are talking about. In the transportation chapter, 30-3, the revised draft replaces the potential conflicting determination by the single office with a determination either by the executive manager or the appropriate person at the city. So the drafters of that code obviously contemplated in some areas that it should be the executive manager, who should make those decisions. If it -- if it was a transportation issue or the director of watershed protection and development review if it was environment matter. We just extended that -- in our discussions, we have extended that to cover drainage issues, so those decisions should be made by the county staff or the executive manager or this court. So our allocation goes, it stays along the same lines as y'all approved previously in the first amendment to the interlocal agreement is that outside the near-term annexation area, the county will continue to have control, making all determinations, including enforcement actions, appeals, variances, waivers, over transportation, storm water conveyance, and floodplain management in those areas. The city will make those determinations within the near-term annexation area and as to environment and water quality throughout. We think that this is consistent with 1204, we think it invites legislative review, a lot less than what's currently proposed because what's currently proposed we think perpetuates the kind of duel regulation because the -- dual regulation because the single office is making those determinations on a consensus basis and the code nowhere describes what a consensus is. Is it based on sheer numbers of people or if one person from the city or county objects, strenuously, does that mean that there is no consensus and how are those issues resolved?
>> okay. My name is hank smith. I'm one of the stakeholders. I'm also representing the home builders association of greater Austin. As risk said, one thing that we try to do to kind of summarize this, the intent of 1204 and 1445 was to eliminate dual review and dual authority to eliminate the conflict between the city and the county. And there were four options that were laid out how to do that, option 4 was chosen the city and county said let's form a single office. The way we look at it, that's more of an administrative role to what the single office should be. You bring your application to one place, fees to one place, comments to one place. Beyond that the single office can take two roles. I talked two weeks ago about it could take the role of what the tax appraisal district has done for the taxing entities where you truly have a third entity that's a neutral third party that reviews the plans. I think to do that the city goition have to give up some authority and the county is going to have to give up authority. I don't know if that's acceptable to either one, the city or the county. The other thing is that single office is administrative in nature. It takes authority over what it currently has responsibility for maintaining, that is the street and drainage system. You are going to own, operate and maintain that system. So you should have discretionary authority from beginning to the end for any decision that takes place on those issues. The city is going to own, operate and maintain the water quality and the environmental controls. So let them have the discretionary authority over those issue that's they can maintain from beginning to end. That way nobody is stepping on anybody's toes, there's for conflict. We have one code. And so in theory the city is going to review the same code, the same project, with the same code. The county is going to review a project with the same code. You have a unified code, it's just who reviews and who has discretionary authority over certain decisions. So what we did was take a more global look and say from an overall standpoint, how do you administer this program? And we don't want to make the administration program so burdensome that nobody can get anything done. We want to simplify the administration of the program, make it simpler, but we know as a stakeholder, as an engineer or consultant coming into a project or a developer, we know a decision that has to do with the roadway is going to made at the county. We have one entity to go to talk about that, we don't have to go to the city. The rules are no different, you don't -- you just have one entity to go. The way the code is written right now, if the decision is made by the roadway preliminary phase, we have to go to the city, go to the county, talk to both entities separately and get different interpretations possibly back and then try to resolve that up through the chain of command. We are looking at this as there's a way to eliminate doing that. Make the single office administrator, give discretionary authorities based on the interlocal agreement that the city and county has and how you decide variance processes from there. That's really all that I have to add.
>> questions? You will have this in writing to us within a couple of days?
>> yes -- has the city had a public hearing on 1445?
>> no.
>> do you have one scheduled
>> yes.
>> [indiscernible] tom?
>> do you know when tom?
>> November 6th.
>> next week?
>> we eagerly await the delivery of the written comments.
>> okay. Good.
>> we will -- give us a couple of day, we will get back with you on it.
>> would anyone else like to give testimony during this public hearing? If so, please come forward.
>> [indiscernible]
>> we will have further discussion of this item on number 30 today. No action will be taken, maybe directions given. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, October 28, 2003 7:52 AM