Travis County Commssioners Court
April 27, 2004
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Item 28
Number 28 is to consider and take appropriate action on the city of Austin's counterproposal for the review and inspection of subdivisions in the extraterritorial jurisdiction. I guess I was supposed to hand this out. I was given this this morning. Have you seen this April 27th home builders association letter? You got one of these. Would you like two?
>> let me just throw out a question.
>> I can start any time you're ready.
>> i'll wait. > I also passed out the city of Austin's letter, which some of you may have had, but I wasn't sure that everybody got a copy of it. It is the subject of the agenda. As you recall, several weeks ago we sent the city a letter ourselves with a proposal that basically said that the county would do the subdivision review for drainage and transportation within the e.t.j. That's where deloitte and tiewch said we had a duplication of effort. So our letter said by and large that we would do that and the city would do the reviews for utilities, environment, storm water quality. So what you have before you is a counterproposal from the city of Austin. It's actually two counterproposals. The first one would have them doing the review of transportation and drainage in the near term annexation area, and also the two-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction. The full e.t.j. Is five miles, so what they're saying is that they would do it in the zero to two-mile area and the county would do it in the three to five mile e.t.j. Most of the near term annexation areas are within the two-mile e.t.j. What they have sent us -- let me say this. The second alternative is they have divided the e.t.j. Into two areas. One area is the drinking water protection zone, and that is an area west of Travis County, west of this line right here, which is the red line, and it composes most of the areas, the watersheds that either contribute to -- actually dump directly into lake Austin, town lake, or contribute water to that source of drinking water. So basically all the areas that the city relies on for contributing to Barton Creek, to town lake and by and large the drinking water supply of the city of Austin. On the eastern side of that line is what they call the desired development zone. And so under option 2, they would have control over the review of drainage and transportation in the drinking water zone, which is west of the red line, and the county would have the drainage and transportation review authority east of that line. So there's two separate proposals, one basically being the city controls the two-mile e.t.j. And the other proposal being the city controls the drinking water protection zone. And there are other things that they have said in their letter, but that is the biggest division of labor that they have. I think under both of the options that they gave us, they've tried to more narrowly focus their business interests and ha they think they should have control over. Now, understand that we've already conceded for the most part all the near term annexation areas. Our principle to them is that where we have ongoing responsibilities for the maintenance of the infrastructure is being put in place by the subdivision. The county should have the responsibility for the review of those subdivisions. But in near term annexation areas, we expect the city to take over control of the maintenance in those areas, so we back out. We said, okay, as long as you're taking over the maintenance of those areas in the near term, the last stake we have in that review and approval process. So all throughout here we have conceded that in the areas they are likely to annex in the near term, they should have full responsibility, and they have. And we have pretty much agreed to that already. We have also said that where we do not have a business interest as in utilities, because we're not a provider of utilities, the city would also take responsibility over the review of those elements of the subdivision review. As for the environmental qualities as well. Chapter 135, which we have adopted in the single code, the city is responsible for reviewing for environmental quality. In particular water quality. Throughout the entire e.t.j. They have developed the technological expertise to do that. So we have conceded that. So really the only area we're talking about at this point is transportation and drainage. However, those are the two core functions of the county, and have been traditionally. But those are the areas, unfortunately, that we continue to be in duplication on. And so we're looking for a way to eliminate duplication into the county's core business functions. We now have three alternatives on the floor to discuss. One from the county and two from the city. That's what we're here to discuss. We have any number of alternatives we can take. One is to say thank you very much, we think our original alternative was the best, and that's the one we would like to discuss further. Basically the initial letter that we sent them two weeks ago. The other is to give the city a counterproposal to one of their two proposals. Actually, you could accept either one of them and say, okay, we like a or b, one or two, and let's go forward on those. Or we could send them a counterproposal on either one of those. So you have a full field to play with here. I would suggest whatever route we take, we begin to do this we face to face negotiations as opposed to letters. There's a lot left to be desired about the way we're going about this process. We're over here, they're over in their silo. We really don't dialogue as much as we structure something and send it back, and I think we would make more progress if we had a subcommittee of the city council and a subcommittee of the Commissioners court going through this sort of face to face basis. The second thing is that the city council does not meet next week, so we gave them an April 30th deadline. It looks to me like we're not going to get there today because we don't have a partner to respond within the time frame, so I think we should relax the April 30 the and give ourselves more time to reach an agreement. I do think that the city is intent on reaching some agreement. I think they would prefer to do that than go with the binding arbitration. And they're intent to try to reach agreement with the county. Now, I also have met with the stakeholders, and I must say that I think while they have their preferences, they can't say that they wouldn't be happy with any of the alternatives that are on the table. Their main focus is elimination of duplication of effort. They want to make sure that is done first and foremost. Secondly, they want only one entity to be charging for the review. They don't want to be charged for duplication of effort. So those things are taken care of. That is their objective. And they believe that under any of the alternatives currently on the table, that can be attained. So they're not really weighing in on alternative 1, 2 or 3. They're saying for them they want the duplication to end, and they don't want to be charged twice for it. If we can meet those objectives, they're okay with any way we can.
>> so i'll start with what we started at the very end, because I think that's part of what the problem is here. And that is to get some of us -- and I'm saying a collective us into a room with the city councilmembers. I think we're being hurt by the fact that we can have face to face discussions with joe, he had have face to face discussion water and wastewater lisa, but we are not truly -- I still cannot tell you what the city council is thinking on this because they are getting filtered information and we've got been able to directly ask them what were you thinking when you put forward 1? What were you thinking when you put forward 2? We can't get below the thought process here. And quite frankly, they never did respond to our letter. It's a response, but they didn't respond to it. I didn't really find that to be a counteroffer. They never said, we reject what you put forward in your letter. It was a typical, well, here's the two things we'd like to do, and it's our way. And to me i'd like to have some discussions about our original letter, and then in terms of what I see in terms of options that they've given to us, to me number 1 is completely doa, there's one person here related to this one mile rolling e.t.j. And here is why. We've got subdivisions right now that have been approved related to drainage and transportation in terms of us taking a look at them for the last 25 years and the city has yet to get around to annexing things that are literally within two miles of their e.t.j. We've been doing river place plats for more than 10 years. Wells branch plats have been coming through the Travis County Commissioners court for 25 years. They're within the two-mile e.t.j. And they have yet to indicate whether they're going to annex them or let them incorporate into their own city or keep the status quo. Steiner ranch, the nine years i've been on court, steiner ranch has been coming through. So it's like to me it also means that there's this rolling e.t.j. That a developer could be starting out in the three to five mile, but with annexations end up in the two mile and you would be switching from county staff taking a look at something to city staff. Also, traditionally we have done all of our bond projects related to transportation within one mile of the city of Austin city limit line. So it doesn't make any sense why we would even get involved in doing bond projects if the city wants to review everything and seemingly wants to control everything there. And number two, my first immediate reaction to two was, I don't think so. But I might get there if I had assurances related to any previously approved county bond projects are not touched because the voters have already spoken. And it makes no mention as to how we handle arterials and state highways that are under campo. And I know that there is some underlying thing that campo rules, but I would like some assurances that that indeed is the situation, that arterials and state highways that are in the campo plan truly are going to be reviewed by the city of Austin with the campo plan thoroughly in their own mind. So that's kind of where I'm at. I don't find one of their suggestions to be a reasonable suggestion. Neither one of them are the ones that -- they're basically based more on business propositions as opposed to what is your core business? And that is why I want to get our proposal back on the table in terms you didn't address what we put there. You just told us two other ways you would like to do it, and you never addressed what was wrong with our original proposal. And i'd like to get some discussions and find out why they didn't respond to our letter. They just did it themselves.
>> I think we ought to have a subcommittee, maybe the judge and a member, and go and have a discussion with the mayor or somebody, and just have a discussion face to face. That will take care of it. Because I think we're overlooking the fact that you're dealing with a different form of government over there than we are. And so we're never going to get there unless we just send a subcommittee over to talk to -- elected officials to talk to elected officials.
>> why don't we ask for two members of the court and you and one other staff member if you need to, meet with the mayor and one other councilmember and city staff in a meeting as soon as possible.
>> have it take place quickly.
>> maybe we can meter later this week. Maybe we can do that. I guess in terms of the council, just let the mayor make the council. I don't think we ought to ask for -- I think we ought to ask for the mayor himself. Whether they bring two or three or four people don't matter to me. [overlapping speakers].
>> I don't know where their head's at.
>> also, I'm still concerned about this binding arbitration stuff. You know, one thing we wanted to try to avoid was going to the binding arbitration, but we're already in that frame of mind and mindset as far as that. I don't really understand is everyone aware that if we do not resolve this, there will be an equal cost to Travis County and also city of Austin, and an arbitrator will come in and say this is it, folks. This is the rule and it's binding. And it will cost both of us probably the same or equal amount of money. Those arbitrators, they distribute the cost equally, but there's another cost there that I think we can avoid. And I don't really know if everyone is aware of this. I'm kind of concerned. So it does appear to be a disconnect in communications here in my opinion. I really don't know if there's an understanding of the merit of what's going on. I thought basically we had come to some agreement, you know, that we were going to deal with e.t.j. Outside of the city e.t.j. And stuff like that. I thought we basically had come to an agreement that the county was going to do drainage and transportation. As far as the near term annexation and all this stuff was something that -- so I'm kind of left with the impression that there is another severe end of this, and that is binding arbitration. And, of course, if we don't come up with a solution to this, even though the home builder folks are saying either way as long as they don't have duplication of service and them wanting to know who to go to to get service and review their concerns, it's kind of mind boggling. So again, I'm kind of concerned about that. Is the notice that binding arbitration is the end result if we can't come together and get our heads together and move forward. So I don't know if that's been really pushed to the max. I'm kind of concerned about that. So that's really my legitimate concern right now is those concerns. They really need to be, I think, said, that this is what the end result will be if we do not do a, b and c or whatever. And I think we -- I thought we had closure on this, I really did, and now this is something new. So anyway, I hope it works.
>> I'm more than happy to be one of the people to go. As a matter of fact, I would insist that I be one of the people to go. Because this whole thing is about one thing. It is about not building roads. That's the reason the city of Austin doesn't want to relinquish the ability to control growth through the building of infrastructure, and in particular roads. And I am not going to be put on the spot in precinct 3 where we can't build the necessary roads that we want. Go lay it out for me clear and articulated, and really make a stance whenever it comes to, if you really look at the drinking water protection zone property and you get outside of that, you can almost get me comfortable with the fact that, okay, well, could you deal with that? Unfortunately, I feel the same way about that as I did -- or as I do about the legislature and us trying to come up with, okay, we can buy off on what you want to do, but there's 16 things that lead to 30 things that before you know it, you put enough people in a room, there are 70 things that you come up with and I'm going to wish I would have known that. And I know what's going to happen. We're going to get put in a spot where we can't deal with what we need to deal with. What our proposal is is on reasonable. How reasonable can you be? It's the area that we control, it's the area that we are responsible for. They have no interests. We've told them, if it's in your near term annexation, then fine.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> ... So -- so -- so I'm just not -- I'm just not going to go there and give anything up on this. I don't think that we need to, joe, but I'm in full agreement that let's go, let's sit down, with some of the members of the court. I think there is a little bit of a disconnect, I mean, Karen and I know there are some disconnect because we've had some conversations with at least one council person that thought that we had this deal worked out.
>> several.
>> and so -- and joe corrected me that, well, I mean, what that person thought was worked out is really not worked on. So, I mean, I think that we do need to go, judge and lay it out, say this is reasonable, this is where we're going to be. And I'm ready to go on arbitration if we -- if they are not willing to -- to take our proposal because I think [indiscernible]
>> the definition of near-term annexation area, while it is extraordinarily precise, there have been some things that happened in the meantime that we may noticed to logically expand the definition of near term annexation because of annexation that were not called near term that are voluntarily moving forward. One is on the [indiscernible] ranch property that is voluntarily being annexed into the city of Austin so therefore it's not on that three-year window list and the newest one started last week is robinson ranch. Humongous piece of property that's on a -- that's on a property that straddles the Travis County and Williamson county border. It would note be on any of the maps that we have looked at. And to me it is absolutely logical that if they have a voluntary annexation that literally is going to be settled in a matter of 60 to 90 to 120 days, that that ought to be added to the list of things as well that ought to be the city of Austin because it is completely going to be within their jurisdiction in a matter of months. And that right now is not on our screen on ribland and on robinson because they weren't on anybody's screen two months ago.
>> well, joe?
>> wants to do it?
>> looks like a judge Biscoe.
>> meeting with the mayor I mean that would be fine with me for [indiscernible] myself to meet with the mayor, a city council member, city staff to discuss this. Maybe this week. Be back on the agenda next week. So basically we put the April 3rd deadline because we felt legally obligated to make substantial progress or move to arbitration.
>> all right.
>> do you need a form of an actual motion about asking judge Biscoe and Commissioner Daugherty to meet as quickly as possible with --
>> [indiscernible]
>> you got that, didn't you?
>> second.
>> have it back on the agenda next week for discussion.
>> yes.
>> any more discussion of that?
>> no.
>> I think we ought to, you know, tell them we basically need a meeting in person.
>> yeah.
>> and I think we just tell the mayor's office that these memos going back and forth could go on forever.
>> uh-huh.
>> they are not meeting next week so we need to make progress, so on the week of the 11th for us, 13th for then, make some final votes on it. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much, joe.
>> appreciate it.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 9:46 AM