Travis County Commssioners Court
February 17, 2004
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Item 23
Now, while Commissioner Davis is here, there is a small matter regarding number 23, consider and take appropriate action on agreement with milburn homes -- it has a new home -- relating to the design, construction and operation and maintenance of a public swimming pool in the Travis County east metro park.
>> yes. Joe gieselman with tnr. I think we probably should start with the agenda wording itself. What has happened is hr horton was a national home builder who has purchased milburn homes, so we have been negotiating up to this point with milburn homes and dick wrathgaber with regard to the pool. We now have a new owner and a new project manager. They are picking up where milburn left off. I think the deal is pretty much intical to what was agreed to before, but we are dealing with new people. And so there's somewhat of some learning curve here. Not so much at the local level, but at the national level and the corporate office of hr horton has to approve this contract. So we have everything structured, but it is not signed. And I want to walk through what we have so the court is approve of all the moving pieces and where they are. But the most important one is that there's a new partner, a different signatore to the contract than what we had before. The second thing is we structured this as one contract, a contract that would do not only the pool construction, but also the operation and maintenance of the pool after it's built. The attorney at hr horton preferred that we split that into two separate contracts, so now instead of one, you have two separate contracts. The other significant thing about the second contract is that it is a three-party contract. It is a contract between Travis County, hr horton or their continental homes is the actual name of the company, and the homeowners association of briar creek. Because they will be obligated ongoing for the o and m costs through membership fees. So it's important to bring them on as a signatory party. Other than that I think the basic tenets of the agreement are identical. The home builder, dick wrathgaber and the home builder, who is now continental homes, will build the pool, bathhouse and the septic system. They have capped their capital improvements at $518,000, which is the equivalent of $500 for every lot within the briar creek subdivision, about 31,036 31,036 lots. So the math works out to $518,000. So that is their commitment to Travis County under this contract. That money will go to building a pool, septic system and the bathhouse. Our obligations under the contract are again are to build on sign improvements, the parking lot, retaining wall, the site clearing, the sidewalks, the landscape, the utilities and all the stuff that serves the pool itself. And those site improvements have been designed. The engineering design has been completed. We have advertised the construction bid. Expect to award that bid next Tuesday before Commissioners court. I think it would be wise at this point in time to defer the award of that contract until we have a signed contract from hr horton, but we are complete with the design work. That's why i've been pushing to get this on the agenda in part because all these other things are ready to go. The other thing is the septic system has been designed. The designs have been turned over to hr horton and the bathhouse has been designed. That is under separate contract between hr horton and land design studio directly. All these things have been moving forward and we expect to be able to execute in serial motion, but the contract with hr morton on the pool are somewhat the keystone towards the sequence of events we need to follow.
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>> but because the h.r. Horton matching money is tied up in this contract, again we will wait until we have a signed contract with hsm r. Horton before the county executes the contract with Texas parks and wildlife for the grant. So things are set up in motion here. With that -- we're that closing able to -- I'm not going to advise the court to move forward until I have the signature from h.r. Horton.
>> as far as the things that we have done, Travis County, you mentioned those things that we have done leading up to this point with the exception of course -- the bid of course that's gone out for the other work, I guess until we were able to get the contract signed.
>> h.r. Horton has been dealing in good faith, I think nothing that I hear from them would suggest that they are not going to go forward. But they have been telling me that whereas decisions could have been made at the local level by milburn company, they could not make the final decision, going to the corporate office. Education going on, also final authority has to be granted.
>> did they tell you basically that -- the -- the folks, continental homes, did they actually give any type of indication of how long of a ballpark it would probably take for the corporate office to respond to the contractor to go ahead and -- around move forward on a lot of this? Did he give any idea on that?
>> I think that it's a matter of weeks, but I have been wrong in the past on this. I -- I was under the assumption that -- that I would have a site contract by today -- a signed contract by today and that's why the item is on today's agenda. I will not put it on court's agenda again until I have a signed contract. So no matter how long it takes, this will be on this -- as well as everything else that's associated with it, will be held in awayence until I have a signed contract.
>> joe, if you will again, could you just go over the things that Travis County has done and how can complete -- have completed leading up to this contract needing to be signed?
>> all right. For our part we have designed the site improvements. We have put those out to bid.
>> uh-huh.
>> we expect -- we expected to award the bid for construction next Tuesday. We have submitted an application to the Texas parks and wildlife department for a $500,000 grant using the matching money from milburn or h.r. Horton. We have got that notification of grant award. We have a direct contract ready to place on the court agenda to accept the grant money. We have also designed the septic system, we have given those design plans to h.r. Horton because they will be the ones that will construct the septic system. We have also, as a -- as an associated improvement, we have designed the realignment of blake manor road. Those plan haves been completed -- plans have been completed. Also out to bid and we expected to award the construction of the realignment of blake marijuana also on February 24th -- blake manor also on February 24th. That contract would need to proceed with because it's somewhat independent of the swimming pool contract. That can go on irregardless of whether the pool contract is awarded or not. I would suggest that we continue to do that. Baugh all of these pieces are represented some more than others. The site improvements are definitely related to the pool contract as are the septic system design plans. So we have some -- some costs, we are moving forward. With the full anticipation and they will have a signed contract with h.r. Horton. Now, I need to talk to the schedule. Oarjnally we plan to have this opened by June 1st. We will not be able to meet that deadline at this point. H.r. Horton, the new project manager, is telling us that it will take no less than 120 days to construct the pool. There are certain items that have to occur before pool construction begins. And that includes the grading of the county park, as well as the construction of the retaining wall. Those construction items and the the county site improvements have to be completed before we can let the pool contractor in to start construction. We are now looking at late August to early September completi of the pool improvements. What'ssy can't about that -- significant about that is that it's going to be a much briefated season for the -- abbreviated season for the swimming groups. Unless the whole summer we are talking about a month of use before it gets too cold to use the pool.
>> late summer.
>> if we make summer it will be late summer.
>> early fall.
>> we may get some use out of it, perhaps in August, more likely in September.
>> okay. All right. At this point I have a draft contract before you, it embodies all of the terms of our discussions with milburn. This contract has been redrafted by the attorney for h.r. Horton. We are now moving toward execution of both agreements and remember the second one is a three party agreement. So we will be having a homeowners association pay for that out of --
>> joe, just to -- the second agreement, the use operation agreement is actually a four party. We went ahead and made the developer a party to that agreement. But the key party is the homeowners association.
>> homeowners association.
>> the second agreement again is the ongoing o and m. This -- this is the central component of this entire arrangement? This is where the homeowners would pay in on a monthly basis for membership fees? As price because the developer has paid the $500 per lot capital recovery fee that [indiscernible] buys the pool. The second agreement really speaks to payments being made to pay for the ongoing operation and maintenance of the pool once it is constructed. And all of these, both contracts, were developed as models in such a way that whatever we do in -- in east metro could be replicated in any of our other parks, in a -- if the developer and the homeowners associations are agreeable to doing that. These are self sufficient, pool complexes, these are self sustaining and that we expect these to be paid for not only the capital investment, but the ongoing o and m, by the users of these facilities. The only subsidy that the -- that the county would be in for is the start-up period, there aren't enough subscribing homeowners in the early years of the -- of the operation, the county would -- would help offset those o and m costs up to five years when we expect us to be fully self sufficient. That's the way the citizen is envision -- that it is envisioned atmosphere working. The second agreement is key to everything. All these pieces have to go together. We expect that they will.
>> how about corporate identity, d.r. Horton.
>> I'm sorry, thanks.
>> okay. I would also need to make public that we -- we had set up ground breaking on Monday anticipating that we would start construction on the site improvements that week. I think that we will postpone the ground breaking because I don't want to get everyone moving out until I see the -- the contract. So I will be calling that ground breaking off until -- until it's appropriate.
>> we can let them know that ground breaking will be postponed on the 23rd. East metro park site. So we will do everything that we can to legality folks know about -- to let folks know about that. Travis County horton homeowners, the fourth party is the developer.
>> that's correct.
>> we have -- for the construction, called the cooperation agreement, that is going to be the county, continental homes, which is the horton, and the developer, which is the bill nash joint venture. Who is contributing to -- to the capital recovery funds. In the news and operation agreement is the real clencher where the county is going to be able to recoup its costs, we have the county, builder, association and dwoarp. As I said the association -- developer. As I said the association is key. Being a contract directly, they will -- first they have agreed to the terms of it and secondly will have -- will have the authority to -- to impose the mandatory assessments on the individual homeowners that again will -- will permit us to recoup those costs.
>> is parks and -- if parks and wildlife had not given us a grant for $500,000, how would we have covered it?
>> actually, everything that we are doing with the grant money are additional improvements within the park. There's a skate park, any number of different things, the grant money will be used for. So none of the grant money will be used on the pool itself. The $518,000 getting from hr horton is going toward the pool. That money counts as our match, 50% grant on the state match.
>> the $500,000 grant money is new, never a part of the program.
>> exactly.
>> what legal documents do we have substituting horton for milburn.
>> I don't have any yet.
>> paper trail that has us and milburn then up to a certain point. But there will be something that --
>> absolutely.
>> that legally --
>> absolutely, ensure that we have the proper assignments. So we expect this back on the court's agenda at the appropriate time.
>> that's right. Substitute for mobile homes, substitute --
>> next time you see this on the agenda you will see a different signator.
>> being fully apprised, expected of us today.
>> no action.
>> okay. Oakey-doke. Thank you, joe, appreciate it.
Last Modified: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 5:44 PM