Travis County Commissioners Court
September 14, 2004
Item 33
33-a is to consider adoption of the amendment 3 to the interlocal agreement
with the city of Austin relating to the platting of subdivisions within the
extraterritorial jurisdiction, e.t.j., And take appropriate action. And 33-b
is to consider amendment to fy '05 general fund budget and the adoption of
the fy '05 fee schedule for the review and inspection of subdivisions within
the e.t.j. Of the city of Austin and take appropriate action.
>> judge, what I gave you earlier is in the interlocal and
the pay schedule. I asked the court not to take action today on behalf of
the assistant city manager that should be given more time to review the interlocal
with the councilmembers before the court adopts it.
>> I don't mean to cut you off, but is there any time line
on what we're doing here as far as when we need to really go forward with
the fee schedule and all this other stuff?
>> the reason it's on the agenda is because I wanted to be
able to include the phase in part of the fy '05 budget with Travis County.
Because this is an interlocal agreement, I would like to allow the auditor
to certify the revenue for fees after the budget has been adopted. So I was
trying to dove tail this in to start our procedures, but subsequent to the
direction of the budget, so I got the motion scheduled, had the subdivision
fees certified and incorporated into -- (indiscernible). I don't think that
there's any pressing need to have it on today's agenda, but with that said,
I think from the city's point of view and arrangement and -- (indiscernible).
-- on the official -- (indiscernible) the review and inspection of subdivisions
within the city of Austin's e.t.j. And the last time we brought this to Commissioners
court, I asked the auditor, deloitte and touch dowsh, at this does is -- (indiscernible)
-- and responsibilities. We basically divided it into two zones. The drinking
water protection zone and the desired development zone. The county -- for
subdivision duplications in the desired development zone. In the the drinking
water protection zone, the city manager is the case manager. Travis County
-- (indiscernible). The city of Austin will look at the utilities in consideration
of plats within the e.t.j. The city of Austin will do all the inspections
of subdivisions in the e.t.j. They will -- (indiscernible). Travis County,
with regard to the charges that are from the construction plans, and once
they have the design of the subdivision, sometimes in the process of constructing
the improvements, there are changes to the way the streets are put in. The
city is not authorized to put those changes -- approve those changes unless
Travis County approves to the changes that are taking place. Now, our fee
schedules are based on this division of labor. One other thing. We have what's
called the annexation area. This is an area that is likely to be annexed within
three years. With the near term annexation areas, the city is completely responsible
for the review of all elements of the subdivision plat and for the inspection
of the construction of those plats. This has the robinson ranch, which is
defined as a large area of annexation. This is a very large tract of land
in northern Travis County along the Williamson county border. The division
we have in the agreement is that the city would agree to annex for full purpose
-- the robinson ranch was partially platted. So basically they would have
the maintenance of the infrastructure that was reviewed and approved by the
city in the process of subdivision planning. And this is so much of an ongoing
principle in our negotiations. The city has the responsibility of the infrastructure
over a longer period of time has a greater stake in the inspection of those
improvements. So in long-term annexation areas, the city is going to annex
that infrastructure and therefore has the higher stake in how those subdivisions
are designed and constructed.
>> is near term three years?
>> typically speaking, yes. The agreement that they had with
the property owner, there's actually a document that they sign with these
properties defining the terms and conditions of annexation and service provision.
And so there are things at robinson ranch, there have been some waivers made
by the city. And the city is still undetermined on whether or not they like
the provision of this interlocal agreement. They're back and forth on whether
they want to take it out or leave it in. And that's one of the areas that
I think laura wanted to run by her councilmembers and attorneys before signaling
us to go ahead.
>> I missed that.
>> the city of Austin, in our agreement with the property
owners, granted certain variances to code. Now, it does not make any difference
to us -- (indiscernible). Quite frankly, they take on the accountable for
whatever they waived. But it's the full purpose annexation that the city has
to decide whether they're going to agree to or not. If they do not agree to
the full purpose annexation upon final platting, they may just decide to take
this out of the agreement, there by we would have to become a party to any
waiver that they have already agreed to by their interlocal -- by their agreement
with the property owner.
>> is this strictly about the robinson ranch?
>> that's correct.
>> judge, the provision in here that says the city agrees
to pay the county for the repair and maintenance of roads and drainage in
the area of robinson ranch if it's not annexed, did the city tell you they
have the legal authority do that?
>> they have not told me that.
>> i've had county attorney's tell me they don't have the
legal authority.
>> city attorneys.
>> and that's what they're also considering.
>> how big a deal is that for us?
>> well, it's a very, very large tract of development. I
have not actually seen the waivers, so I don't know exactly what consequences
they have and whether or not we would or would not have recommended approval
of those waivers anyway.
>> okay.
>> this is probably a tom tom nuckolls question. I know near
term annexation area is one that is legally defined by the city of Austin
in terms of what that really means. Certainly they have a fence around what
the drinking water protection zone, what that means, but this is the first
time that I知 hearing that the desired development zone is everything that's
not drinking water protection or near term annexation. Because i've always
heard that the desired development zone is a place where they want to try
and encourage development because it doesn't have a negative impact. I知 hearing
this stated in a slightly different way, that it's everything but that. And
I知 just trying to make sure that there's not some kind of something left
out that when we say desired development zone, we mean if it's not near term
annexation or it's not drinking water protection. But I want to make sure
because up until this point, desired development zone has actually had a more
legal context of where they want to try to encourage growth to occur, and
that's basically on the east side. And I want to make sure that there isn't
any swiss cheese going on here that something doesn't fall into one or the
other of those categories.
>> the way the city's always defined desired development
zone, it's always been whatever's not drinking water protection zone. That
is the way they design it.
>> okay. Would you like -- since we've got another week in
terms of doing all this stuff, just double-check that. Because I don't want
to have that we thought it was something and they were like, we didn't read
it right, and we do have swiss cheese.
>> what kind of buy-in are you giving with the stakeholders
on number 3 and what we've come up with here?
>> I think we've made major projects on all other contingents.
The one issue they had was the county holding the final fiscal. We gave that
up. Also the final determinations would be made by the agency responsible
for that element. That was also another somewhat of a bone of contention on
who actually has the final say. And we divided that up. And the city agreed
to that. So I would rather they speak for themselves, but I think we have
directly addressed a lot of the issues that they raised. As long as we have
a provision on this interlocal that would have us monitor the process and
periodically bring it back to the elected bodies for their considerations,
we're saying if it doesn't work, we're okay for looking at it again. The other
issue was the codification. As you may recall, the city wanted to do this
by way of interlocal agreement. The county and the stakeholders prefer to
do it by code amendment. The agreement has us doing both. In the interim we
have the interlocal agreement, and then by a year from now have it codified
in the chapter in the code.
>> that makes sense because people thought that there might
be some sort of movement or some sort of alterations that may need to be made
in a year. So it kind of sounded to me like that was an easier -- that was
an easy deal to get over.
>> the fees themselves, our fees, the county fees, are based
on this division of labor, which do not have duplication. The city's fees
have been lowered to reflect the division of labor. And they have calculated
their own fees. So these also -- another issue that the stakeholders had is
whether or not they reviewed the construction plans that were part of this.
And yes, we clarified that this division of labor not only applies to the
plaque and the review and inspection of that plat, but also the construction
plans that are submitted to -- for the plat. So we're going to be reviewing
based on this same division of labor. So I think that we have addressed most
all of the concerns.
>> the council meeting this week, I know that they were doing
the budget. They basically finished off the budget yesterday, but are they
meeting Thursday?
>> they're not.
>> so it's semi pointless for us to try to bring this up
next Tuesday if they don't have an actual official vote in.
>> we might meet with laura huffman. I think they take a
little break after their budget adoption, so I will bring this back when she
says, okay, we're ready to go.
>> but for purposes of blame, because of the interlocal,
we can certify after the start of the fiscal year if it comes down on to that.
We hope it doesn't. This needs to be put to bed before the legislature gets
to town.
>> would you like a briefing on the fees, the county fees?
>> can you brief us briefly? [ laughter ]
>> briefly, just that we met and we went through the fees,
the total costs, based on our service, cost of services. We went through all
the processes and we had those audited with deloitte and touche. We've created
our fees based on an average of about seven years. We average what the number
of plats that come in by type, by desired development zone within the various
areas and calculated the fees accordingly. The result of that proves that
we needed two other planners and a technician to do all the work because to
do the time studies that we did to come up with how hours were calculated,
that's how we did that. We also added a new fee for the parcel for public
hearing, four dollars for each parcel letter that we have to send out. In
the backup you have the legislative format, and we did it in red so you could
see the new fees and the crossed out fees. And the fees are structured --
we've been over it. This is explained. I think we're fairly certain that it
will pass. The auditor's, deloitte and towrn, will probably have -- touche,
will probably have a final say as a result of what we've done so far. They
have been working with us and detailed and reviewed all of the calculations.
Other than that, I don't think there's anything else I left out.
>> the fees that are imposed here that we're looking at,
is there no competition for these fees as far as the city is concerned? In
other words, everything that -- this is strictly the county. Because at one
time during a discussion of all of this stuff as far as sharing some of these
fees, we're looking at what the city was going to impose and duplication of
the fees as far as some of the stakeholders. Does this have a relationship?
>> there is no duplication in here. We have strictly divided
it based on the interlocal. That's why the fees have to wait for the interlocal
to be approved.
>> the third thing is a okay.
>> a okay. We have transportation and drainage in the various
zones.
>> pardon?
>> where we have responsibility for transportation and drainage
in the various zones, that's how the fees were calculated. There's no duplication.
>> okay.
>> we aren't ask to approve 33-c today?
>> no.
>> hold off on that too?
>> I think the order, we'd probably want a legal document
to backup the fee amendment.
>> okay. We can do that after October 1 also?
>> I知 fairly confident we can. We have certified interlocal
government revenues. It's a legal issue, a legal question, but I think --
>> that's your understanding also?
>> yes.
>> okay. Now, it would be beyond realistic to ask whether
the stakeholders are happy. Are they able to live with what you have presented
to us today?
>> I don't have a definitive answer to you before I put this
back on the agenda -- I will have it before I put it back on the agenda. I
am not receiving --
>> there's a difference between happiness and --
>> I知 very aware of that. [ laughter ]
>> the fact that they are not here tells us something. [
laughter ]
>> I mean, I don't know whether we've just beat them down
or whether we've calf roped them, but, I mean, I think they have realized
that there are only so many things that, you know, you can throw up that you
can get accomplished. And I think they recognize that we have really tried
to get to a spot where they can live with it. It's better than it was. And
I think that they're still like, okay, we'll see how it's going to work putting
this thing into motion is something where -- which is the reason why we're
interlocaling versus codifying and those kind of things. And ultimately the
stakeholders know that whenever push comes to shove. There's always the legislature
and that's where they end up feeling like they've had to go. I don't think
they look forward to that, but I think, joe, they appreciated the efforts
that we've put in because you've certainly put in -- I know you're as tired
of dealing with this thing as anyone. So I think we're -- I think we're getting
to the point where we're going to be okay with us.
>> when we put on the agenda pull as I have done, that means
we will await further notice from you.
>> yes.
>> and you're waiting on the city.
>> give me a couple of weeks.
>> any questions, comments on this item before we move to
the next one? Thank you very much for your hard work, etcetera, joe.
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Last Modified: Thursday, October 27, 2005 10:26 AM