Travis County Commissioners Court
June 14, 2005
Item 4
Item number four is an item to receive comments on rejection of dedication of public streets and accept the second amendment to declaration of covenants, conditions and restrictions for the rob roy, a subdivision in precinct 3, beacher lane, boardman lane, chapin lane, cicero lane, clarendon lane, color rij lane, rob roy road, staint stephen's cove, stegner lane, thoureau lane, pass cal lane and saint stephen's school road.
>> move the public hearing be opened.
>> seng.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> morning again. We have a request from the rob roy homeowners association to divert the roads that you just named from public to private. This comes about in part because of traffic conditions in the vicinity. This is a residential subdivision, primarily cornered by loop 360 on the east and ranch to market road 2244 on the south. As is typical of most residential areas, single-family homes relatively large lots, local streets, and what's happened over time is because of conditions, traffic conditions on 360 and 2244, they began to experience a good bit of cut-through traffic to avoid the congestion on those roadways. As a result of that, they looked for ways to mitigate the speeding, the accidents, the additional cut-through traffic within the residential area. And they came to the conclusion that the best way to do that is to basically convert the roads from public to private and gate the community in such a way that they have access for all the homeowners within the residential area, but they would exclude the cut-through traffic. Basically the volume on their roads would then be their own volumes. They also propose to do some modification to the streets, some landscaping and whatnot that would improve the look and feel of the roadway. We do provide for conversions within our subdivision regulations. They have processed their application accordingly. They have submitted the appropriate consents for utility companies and adjoining properties who have access to these same roadways. There are some legal issues. I believe tom would like to brief you on them in executive session. We also have representatives from -- and I must also say that there are certain property owners that are in disagreement about the conversion. Both sides are represented here today. Both legal representation as well as community representation. For the county it's about a little over six miles of roadway that's being taken off the county road system. The homeowners association understands that it would be their financial obligation to maintain those roads, and that is -- would probably cost in the neighborhood of 50 to $75,000 over a period of time, according to our pavement management system, which mapped out what the county would do to those roads in the next five years if they were public roads. So with that we've quantified what we suggest they have as a minimum to maintain those -- the surface of those roadways. They would also be responsible for all the other duties that the county has with regard to the road, the signage, the drainage, mowing, pothole patching, all the services that the county would otherwise provide on a public street now become the obligation of the homeowners association. As well as constructing the entrance gates and maintenance of the entrance gates. And I think they've discussed those and actually polled their residents about the conversion, but I will let the representatives speak to the process they went through to inform their residents.
>> joe, did we meet with -- we, meaning tnr, with residents or the homeowners association and try to address some of the issues that they are concerned about?
>> on several occasions, yes.
>> and we -- have we pretty much exhausted what we consider to be viable options other than the conversion?
>> we have. We believe that they are -- we've discussed various options that might mitigate the traffic. We've informed them clearly about our reluctance to go in and do speed humps and some of the things that we've been requested to do in the past for traffic calming. But I think their conclusion is to really absolutely control the through traffic, the gated community is probably the best option for them to take.
>> any questions for joe?
>> a couple. Joe, have we signed off on or gotten information with with regards to how the esd service or the esd in particular feels about it and do -- have we satisfied ourselves with regards to that?
>> gated communities are not all that uncommon in that part of the -- especially that particular esd, so they have made arrangements for getting access to all the homes within the area.
>> and you're aware that there is saint se 15's school -- stephen's school in that particular area?
>> we are.
>> in fact, one of the roads is saint stephen's road. Are we satisfied that there's no issues with regard to saint stephen's school with regards to the gating of the community?
>> that was one issue. There were actually two issues which tom pointed out directly to the applicant. One was with the saint stephen's school and the other was with the utility company that services the area. And I believe at this point I believe tom is -- I believe the documentation that we have received from both of those entities is satisfactory, but I think tom needs to really address that.
>> that's an executive session item, Commissioner.
>> okay. What kind of response or what sort of rules and regulations do we have at the county with regards to the kvueing of the traffic -- cueing of the traffic. I know there's probably not much of a problem coming off of 2222 or 2254 because is I know there's a difference before the gating would start, but I think on 360 that's passable. Do we have any way in there with regards to how we would feel about that and is there ample room? What input would we have on that, joe?
>> we would have our traffic engineers look at the set back of the gates to make sure that there was adequate cueing and spacing to keep the traffic from backing up on to 360. That would be a consideration that we would need to work out on the placement of their gates to make sure there was enough area. And I think in their design of the gate I believe they also separate the mix of traffic for people that might otherwise -- a provider or a delivery service that may be trying to get into the area has a separate lane from those residents with a pass card that just automatically gets them through the gate. So anyone that might back up traffic is actually shuffled off to the side so they're not blocking otherwise traffic that would have fairly immediate access to the gate.
>> and joe, last, obviously probably the major concern and one of the major reasons as to why the majority of the people in rob roy are wanting to do this is because of cut-through traffic/safety. What is the county's stance with regards to when somebody comes to us and says, you know, we're no longer happy about the traffic pattern and just, you know, the lack of -- or what is the county doing, how is the county working with txdot? What are the alternatives to somebody having to gate their community in order to protect themselves? Have we worked with txdot? Is txdot in agreement with -- I?m sure that somebody is going to go, you know, that's a public road, I?m using that road, I have the right to use that road, and quite frankly, if you're out there and trying to get to 360, that is some of the issues that people seem to have. What would the county's response be to somebody if they brought that to our attention about you're taking some sort of access away from me?
>> typically txdot would not weigh in on traffic enforcement on local roads even though it may be caused by traffic on their own roadways. They're con strained by the projects they have and how fast they can do them. So I suppose the permanent solution would be to improve the mobility so that people wouldn't cut through neighborhoods, but that's easier said than done. So as a result we get cut-through traffic in various areas. It was possible to do with enforcement, just more sheriff patrol and ticketing and just making people abide by the posted speed limit just enforce what you've got. Then we would look toward the signage, striping, things that we could do in the uniform manual traffic control devices to gate conformity. If there's a very strong desire to use this path because it's perhaps a path of least resistance, then we'd go to some type of design option, redesign of the roadway. We have not gone extensively to what's called traffic calming. We do not do speed humps. We have not. We've done one traffic circle in the entire county, and that's really probationary at this point to see how well it works. So we have not gone into a whole array of traffic calming that you might see otherwise in perhaps the city of Austin. So we try to do things within the more traditional ways of managing traffic. And then if it really warrants it, it's a path that we believe should be a major arterial, we look at upgrading the roadway to a multilane arterial roadway. I think in this case that would probably be inappropriate because it's not -- this road is not -- this road is not appropriate for that purpose.
>> okay.
>> anything else from the court? Now, we did receive many enlightening e-mails. [ laughter ] [ applause ] some phone calls and other correspondence.
>> not as many as coyotes. [ laughter ]
>> but at this time we would like to hear from -- I understand there are two sides, and it would help us I think if we could get three to four representatives from each side to give us facts and share information about the different perspectives. Then my recommendation would be that we convene in executive session for several minutes to get tom's advice and then come back to court and give you our decision hopefully. So who will be first? Morning. And if you would give us your name. And for those of us in tv land.
>> if I had known I was on t tv I would have grown some hair. Thank you for hearing our request today. My name is jeff connally. I've been the chairman of the traffic safety committee since may of 2004. I was in the summer of 2004 elected to the rob roy homeowners board on the platform of following through on the recommendations of the traffic safety committee, which is made up of about 30 of our residents who have worked over the last year. I was elected to implement those. I would like to give you a bit of background. The rob roy development was created in the early 1980's. The developer built our roads and initially maintained those roads and they were designed as residential streets. Our neighborhood is very winding. We've got a lot of elevation changes, very blind corners, intersections which don't have a great deal of visibility. Which is perhaps the reason mr. Gieselman pointed out that this was not designed as an arterial through pass. There are 296 lots in rob roy roy. We are had an active homeowner's association since the very beginning. We have bylaws and covenants which govern the way we do things in the neighborhood. A 51% vote on any of the major issues is necessary to pass any kind of change to change the bylaws or ccnr's or to levee a special assessment. Travis County has maintained these roads. The records go back as far as 19 anyway 98 and you've -- 1998 and you've maintained the roads since then. The problem is, and if you look at the packet that I left for each of you, there's an overhead view of 360, bee cave road or 2244, and our subdivision right there. It's a very convenient cut-through. What we got are a number of commuters and other drivers on 360 and bee cave road that are extraordinarily frustrated, so not only do they cut through, but they drive through mad and they drive through at speed. The trips per day in our neighborhood have dramatically increased since the neighborhood was built out in approximately 1992. About 95% of our lots were completed and built at that time, and we had 1440 trips per day. That's according to txdot surveys. Since 1992, those numbers have dramatically increased, and the latest survey done by Travis County showed that we had 3914 trips per day. That's a 272% increase since our community was built out. We feel a large portion of that is cut-through traffic. The projection based upon on what txdot tells us about 360 and bee cave volumes shows that we're going to increase and will see something in the neighborhood of 5500 trips per day through our residential neighborhood by 2010. As far as speed goes, the county's posted speed limit is 30 miles per hour. On the county survey, which is done last may, may and June, we had 87% of traffic going through a particular checkpoint at more than 35 miles per hour, and regularly the sheriff's department, by the way, have been delightful to work with, regularly ticket speeders in excess of 60 miles per hour. It is simply not safe for many of our young drivers to pull out of a driver when you've got cut through drivers zipping through at 60 miles per hour and it's really no longer safe for our kids and grandkids to cycle, walk and for neighbors to jog and use the neighborhood as it was designed. We would like you to snow that we the traffic safety committee understand strict control by the board has considered four options before coming to you with this request. One was do nothing, which we did not feel was an option. Another was stricter enforcement. In fact, over the last several years, we have not only encouraged and gotten great support from the sheriff's department, but we've hired off duty sheriff's at our own expense to increase the ticketing and increase the enforcement. It's like putting your hand in a bucket of water. When the sheriffs are not there, the speeding continues. And it really doesn't seem to have affected the volumes. We've looked at calming. As mr. Gieselman pointed out, we actually had don ward of the county staff come out and graciously spend several hours of his personal time in the meeting to meet with the traffic safety committee exploring all forms and educating us on what calming was all about. His comment was we may be able to affect some speed in that way, but we probably wouldn't affect volumes because of what is occurring outside of our community and outside of our control on 360 and bee cave, the increasing congestion we're continue to go see. So we looked at that and that doesn't dint seem to be a stand alone recommendation. It would work in conjunction with gating. We do understand since we started our investigation the county has an investigation or a probationary one traffic calming experiment on springdale road, a traffic circle. Begun, don ward said that that would probably not reduce the volume. So we got to gating. And frankly, we've been an open community, we've enjoyed our openness. The native vegetation that separates most of our homes, we are an open community. But we came to this as the only reasonable, plawses I believe solution -- plausible solution given everything going on outside of our control going on beyond rob roy. So through due process we amended our ccnr's to enable the homeowners association to be responsible for the streets and maintenance. We make sure that the county attorney reviewed all of our amendments to our ccnr's and most recently passed the special assessment. And this really shows the support of the community because not only a special assessment, but also a financing option where each of the lot owners have agreed -- 86% of those voting or 76% of the actual lot owners have agreed to spend $2,000 over the next several years in order to implement this solution. So there is very solid support for this. And also along the way we recognized we've got to increase our liability. We're not a municipality. We've got to increase our liability. We've looked into that and price it had into our financial models. So we're here today to ask you to please vote yes on this. As you can see by all of the colorful badges we're wearing today, su scu to please private ties our street for the safety of our kids, for the safety of some of the older folks that want to walk through the neighborhood, keep their hearts moving, and for our quidz and grandkids we ask you to look favorably upon our request. I would like to ask our attorney to step forward, bob burton.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> a lot of information was presented to the membership and a lot of feedback was obtained from the membership of the community back to the board and the committee members. Also in jerusalem and August -- July and August 2004 a survey was submitted to all members of the community. The response was quite -- was unprecedented, 260 out of 296 members of the community responded to the survey. That's an 88% response rate. 244 reason r. Owners -- owners supported privatization and gating. That was 82% of the entire community. As a result of that survey, preliminary -- members of the committee and board members had a preliminary meeting with county representatives. That was in September 2004. We received the county requirements for abandonment and then the committee, board members and some gracious volunteers of the community association then sought to try to achieve to satisfy the county requirements. One of the county requirements as jeff has mentioned, and tom knows about this, is the amendment to our community covenants. Our community covenants require 51% consent of all members. We prepared an amendment, we provided that amendment to tom knuckles. He reviewed it, provided some suggestions. We made those changes. He re-- it was presented to the membership. 202 owners approved the amendment, that represented 68% of the entire community. Also, that amendment was filed in December 2004. Also, in December 2004 the board satisfied an additional requirement which jeff mentioned, which was to obtain consent from all non-member owners who take access across these roadways. We achieved 100% consent from those individuals and filed access easements. Those were all filed in late December 2004. There are 11 non-member owners by the way. After the amendment and after all the easements were filed and recorded, jeff also mentioned the fact that a special assessment was necessary in order to finance or to pay the costs of certain improvements that were going to be needed in the event of privatetation, particularly for gates, landscaping, some other improvements. The board proposed a special assessment be levied against all members. In addition, a portion of that cost was to be financed through the local community bank for a term of five years. Unfortunately, our bylaws limit the term of any grant between the association and a third party to two years, so consequently we had to go amend the bylaws and we also had to get the approval of 51% of all owners to the special assessment. So in a sense it was another opportunity for the community to express their approval or disapproval because if the special assessment would not have passed or if the change to the bylaws would not have passed, this effort would have stopped. That meeting was held on may 2005. 265 out of 296 members participated or cast votes. That's a 90% turnout. Out of 260 eligible votes, five of the votes were cast after the cutoff date, so were not counted. Out of the 260 eligible votes, 224 votes approved the special assessment and the amendment to the bylaws to permit the financing. That represented 76% of all owners and 85% of all votes cast. There's been one survey, two votes that have been held by this association, and in each instance the community has had the support for privatization. I would like to point out too that all through this process, in addition to the survey, town hall meetings and the formal votes, this board and the traffic committee, at least from my view, have sought to provide as much information as they can to the membership. One of the primary sources of that information is through their community newsletter. It is distributed to each member via e-mail and also posted on the community website. This board prints its minutes in the community association newsletter, which is not unprecedented, but pretty unusual for community association. I've provided copies of the newsletter to you and if you're so n inclined to take a look at them.
>> any questions?
>> do I understand that you're a resident?
>> no I?m not.
>> you're not a resident?
>> no.
>> are you doing this pro bone know?
>> no, I?m not.
>> we wish he was. [ laughter ]
>> hello, my name is -- hello, my name is claire howard. I?m 10 years old and I live at 18 pass cal lane. Thank you very much for giving me the chance to speak for myself and the other 165 kids in our neighborhood. I have lived here for over three years now and not once have I been -- sorry. Allowed to ride my bike freely around the neighborhood because there are so many cars speeding by my house. And I?m not the only kid who can't ride their bike in rob roy. I know other kids can't either. My friend lives right down the street and it's not safe to walk to each other's houses. You would think that it would be safe for me to get off my bike and cross the street because before the -- (indiscernible). But even so, last may I was almost hit by a car that didn't stop for the school bus stop sign. My bus stops at the bottom of my driveway, but my mom still goes out everyday and sometimes stands in the middle of the road so my neighbor and I can safely cross the street. Even doing that, this year two more cars sped by while we were crossing the street. If we put up gates in the neighborhood, it would stop a lot of the speeding cars from coming through. Then I would be safe to ride my bike anywhere in the neighborhood and even walk to my friend's house. Won't you please say yes to me and all the other kids? Thank you very much. [ applause ]
>> my name is nancy harlan and I live with claire and also her two brothers and my husband. Thank you for letting me speak to you today. You've heard about this tremendous increase in volume and you've heard about the outrageous speeds that are going on in neighborhoods. I heard about those too because over the past year i've served on the traffic safety committee and I read through that data and I looked at that data. But hearing those facts is one thing. I found that living them everyday is quite another. My family and I have personally experienced three separate incidents over just the past nine months where we've been passed by cars cutting through our neighborhood that were going at least 50 miles per hour while we were poking along at 30. On October sixth and October 27th I was triefg in the neighborhood either picking up kids or bringing kids home from activities. Around dinner time and we were passed by cars that we know were going over 50 miles per hour. In two cases I was able to catch up with the cars because as they were waiting at the neighborhood exit at bee cave road and at loop 360 to turn out. One lady I stopped apologized for cutting through and she admitted that she was speeding and she promised me she would never do it again. The other woman ignored my attempts to get other attention. I wonder why. I was pretty angry. On a rainy Sunday morning, February 13th, my family was passed on a curvy part of saint se 15's school road and it is very curvy and hard to get visibility for a long way. We were pass bid a advocacy wagon that we all -- voc wagon. He ended up on the shoulder facing us. He was unhurt and he apologized for speeding. I called the sheriff and waited just a few minutes up at the church for him to come by. And he said there really wasn't anything he could do about it because he wasn't there and he didn't see it. I can't tell you how angry I am. I can't tell you how frustrated I am. And I can't believe how many times this has happened to me in the last nine months. I just don't think that it's too much to ask to feel safe on our own streets. I can't believe I?m the only one in rob roy ha has experienced these kinds of things. And it turns those facts into real emotional issues for us moms. The data that we show that thization is only going to get worse. I?m fearful for myself and my family. I served on the committee that studied all the options. I've sat in the room and looked and studied over those four options. The best solution is to private ties into a gated community. Please help moms like me protect ourselves and to protect our families. For those who cut through and don't care about the speed and don't care about the safety of our neighborhood, vote yes. [ applause ]
>> there may well be a counter point that we do.
>> there are always.
>> morning.
>> county judge, Commissioners, michael whalen on behalf of michael (indiscernible) who opposes this. There are several petitions that were gathered on very short notice by those who oppose the privatization of the road and many of those are here. Some are in the audience and I think that by a show of hands if we can identify the folks here opposing the road. We've got several folks here. It is accurate that it is not the majority, but it is a significant number of people who are in opposition to the privatization of the roads. I know dan gillian is going to talk about the petitions he has worked on gathering. You've received a letter earlier this week from my partner, terry bray, that set forth our legal position. We believe a statute and regs, the county's regs a require that all the abutting landowners approve the request to abandon the roadway. This opinion has been set forth in writing. The statute also requires unanimous county Commissioner support and for good reason. Abandoning a road seriously affects those who abut the roadway. And if someone prefers to be within the jurisdiction of the county and not share the responsibility or the risk -- we only heard a little bit about that, the risk soarkted with that ownership, that person should not have to go along with the majority. The county precedent I think is very important also, and I think you will hear more about that as time passes. We are unaware of any precedent in this county that allows for privatization without all abutting landowners' consent, unaware. In all previous cases there's been unanimous consent of all abutting landowners. And that clearly is not the case in this instance. These issues are neighborhood issues. In the past the county has required unanimous vote in the neighborhood before privatizing a gated community. The neighbors are scheduled to meet this week to see if differences can be worked out and then perhaps this can be achieved between the abutting landowners. That's happening later this week. Walking in and seeing yes for safety, the first thing I want to do is grab one of those because I too am for safety and education and health care and police and fire and emergency services and hospitals. We are all for safety. I think the -- to suggest otherwise and to -- especially I like what mr. Gieselman said about so many other neighborhoods, whether it's rose dale or balcones, have this cut-through issue and everybody is working to try and find measures to be sure that our roads are safe. But really in this particular case, until all abutting landowners have consented, we ask you to deny the request to private tooiz this roadway. Thank you very much. I think we just have three people that are going to speak briefly, dan gillian first.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> are you working pro bono?
>> no, absolutely not. Thank you for asking.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> morning. I have a brief prepared statement and then i'll give you copies of that when it's over. I have owned and lived may my home in rob roy subdivision for more than 22 years.
>> what's your name?
>> dan gillian. For a number of years prior to August 2004, I was a member of the rob roy homeowners board. In August 2004 I resigned that position because of the board's determination to pursue gating the subdivision without obtaining permission from all the landowners. After consulting legal counsel regarding the vacation of public roads, it became obvious to me that all property owners abutting the road must approve the vacation. On August six, 2004, I wrote a memo on the board informing them of my findings and suggesting that they did not have the authority to request vacation of any rob roy roads without all property owners agreeing. The board never responded to my memo. Despite this, I followed up with a majority of the board in hopes of exploring a legally sound direction for their proposed actions. I was not successful. I am opposed to the plan currently under consideration by the Commissioners to privatize and gate the streets of rob roy because the plan violates county road and the property rights granted to me by the state of Texas and by Travis County's own codes. I own property abutting pascal lane, a public street. County code 82801-c covering the county's procedure for vacating the public roads requires that adjacent property owners sign a letter agreeing to the vacation. I have supplied no such signature and do not intend to do so. The proposed rob roy privatization plan is further flawed in that if the vacation is granted by the Commissioners, Texas transportation code 251058-b, the center line of the road being vacated and the owners of the property that abut the road, so even if the roads are vacated by the county, they would not belong to the hoa. I find it very -- I find it a very strong statement indeed that both state and county transportation codes vest adjoining property owners with the sole authority to relinquish their rights to a private road and further make it a requirement that the vacation of public roads occurs only after unanimous vote of the Commissioners court. I believe these provisions make the intent of the legislature very clear as to the proper procedure for vacating public roads. Finally, it is my understanding that the Commissioners court has not previously vacated a public road over the objections of abutting property owners. For all of these conditions, I would respectfully ask the Commissioners court to respect my legal rights and deny the request to vacate the public roads. I have here that document along with a copy of the e-mail that -- the memo that I sent to the -- to the board and quoting some of the county statutes and state statutes as well as a copy of the petitions for those who are opposed to the gating.
>> can I ask you a question? Did you say that under no circumstance are you willing to be supportive of this? Do you think that you could not find a way to support this in any measure?
>> I probably said those words. That's not the intent. I want input into the process. I want -- I don't want the board to speak for me and give away my property rights.
>> just one additional comment. This is not a prepared statement, but in response to one of the issues that was raised earlier by the previous speakers. I was a security officer in rob roy for about a year and a half, and just by way of information, during my tenure, more than half of the tickets that were written by the sheriff's department and the constables, which we got to come in there, were written to residents and not cut-through traffic.
>> thank you. Yes, sir?
>> morning, judge, Commissioners. My name is george (indiscernible), and I live at 33 coustaeau lane in readback roadway. I've lived there 14 years and the purpose of my appearance and this letter is to oppose the request of the housing association and for the Travis County Commissioners court to reject the dedication of the streets. Rob roy's application is fatally defective. Because it fails to present to the Commissioners court the necessary consent of the abutting property owners. Rob roy association must overcome two legal hurdles. The first is the consent required by law to close a county road. And the second and equally important, is the statutory requirement for revising a subdivision plat. The rob roy plat was recorded in 1978 after approval by the city of Austin and the county Commissioners court. The first paragraph in the plat dedicates the streets in rob roy to the public and Travis County agrees to their maintenance. To abandon these dedicated streets and allow gating is a major revision of the plat of the rob roy plat. Every homeowner will have their lots increase in size and all the legal descriptions will be altered. We all have our mortgages, title insurance and legal instruments tied to the present plat and its legal descriptions. The rob roy homeowners association is not just a request to abandon county roads, it is also a revision of rob roy plat, and must comply with state law controlling plat revisions. The elections held by rob roy association made the association ready to receive the streets, but they do nothing to provide the Commissioners court the necessary consents of all abutting property owners. The association elections cannot overrule state law that requires that Commissioners court be shown that the revisions, and that is a rejection of a public dedication, with the land going back to each landowner, will not interfere with one established rights of any owner, and two, each owner whose rights may be interfered with, has agreed to the revision. The test is not the association holding elections to speak to its internal affairs. Instead to revise a subdivision plat, abandon the county road requires the consent of the abutting property owners presented to the Commissioners court. There is no evidence in the application provided -- that is provided to the Commissioners court that all abutting property owners have consented to the application. The application should be tested by the applicable law and not considered a discretionary political decision. A rob roy community historian said that a (indiscernible) was considered in the past, but was abandoned. Very likely it was because of the heavy burden the law places on plat revision and street abandon the. Please deny the association's application. I?m in total sympathy this their problems. I know there's a traffic problem on saint se 15's. -- stephen's. I've watched it carefully since this thing has come up. But what the homeowners association is asking the Commissioners court is an overresponse to a traffic problem. Sure we can get together, the county and its staff and the residents of rob roy and solve a traffic problem without privatizing six miles of road and gating the community in this day and time in Travis County. Putting gates up, that's not the direction we ought to be going. I request this letter be accepted and placed in the record of the public hearing. And I thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Do you have one copy of that or several?
>> I have a copy for you and four Commissioners and one for the public hearing.
>> that would be fine.
>> yes, sir?
>> my name is kenneth keller. I?m a property owner in rob roy and I have been a property owner there since 1980. The covenants that were presented to me and to my wife at the time we purchased were for a new kind of subdivision, sort of an open subdivision that had a wildlife kind of natural drainage and natural foliage design philosophy. And we bought into that for that reason. It wasn'ted a gated community and it wasn't envisioned to be one. In fact, it's a huge community to even attempt gating. It's 296 properties and there's only two entrances on 360 and Bee Caves. It's our preference that it not be gated. I?m in sympathy to those individuals who live adjacent to the section of saint stephen's school road, which by wait is a very minor section of all the actually seven miles of streets that would be privatized in the subdivision if this were to be approved. There's a steep hill going down in two directions. It's almost impossible for anyone to go down that hill and not exceed 30 miles per hour. I would suspect that almost everyone that lives in rob roy has been speeding on that hill at one time or another because it's such a steep hill. But notwithstanding, people should not speed there and it's very difficult to maintain a lower speed. The other issue that I believe many of those that arise against this is the protection of the homeowners rights and I believe that's been spelled out by the other speakers. Another issue that falls on us as well is the issue of double taxation. We would be paying county taxes for the maintenance of those roads and at the same time being essentially taxed by a quasi governmental authority under the name of the homeowners association. And that's roughly three quarters of a million dollars over the next five years and that doesn't include maintenance beyond that point. There are alternatives that have been aalluded to by several speakers. I?m not confident that they have been fully explored. It seems to me unusual that all of the traffic control and policing ability of Travis County cannot be brought to bear to control the speed of traffic and there by the safety on this one small stretch of saint stephen's school road and that we the citizens in the majority, if they are to prevail, have to then privatize the streets in order to get the adequate safety that they believe they deserve. And I believe they deserve it as well. Something needs to be done on that section of saint stephen's school road. People have said they don't want speed bumps, but that would certainly make that an undesirable cut through route for a whole lot of people that come in and out of the area out west on Bee Caves road. It would make it an undesirable cut through. That would cut the volume and it would certainly change the average speed in that section of the street. I don't want to lecture you about traffic control because I?m certain that you have a lot of experts who are doing that regularly anyway. But I believe that we in the minority do have some rights legally and I don't believe that we should have to privatize things in order to get adequate safety on our streets. Thank you for the time.
>> thank you. Any questions of either these four speakers? Thank y'all very much.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...the entire system was not planned to handle over 4,000 vehicles a day or up to the # 500 that are anticipated. My wife and I strongly support the project and appreciate the effort of various committees that have worked so diligently over the past years to investigate various ways to protect our neighbors, friends, children and pets from heavy cut-through traffic. We join the other 260 families in strongly urging the commission to allow our request to be granted. Thank you, judge and Commissioners, for allowing my wife and I to have a voice in these proceedings.
>> thank you. Now, I will say that seems to me there's no dispute to the facts. Everybody seems to agree there is a public safety issue in the community. And -- but the two questions are really what should we do, one, and two, what can we do. That's why I think that what we ought to do right now is get legal advice. Now, I will say that I don't know whether the residents have really gotten together and seriously tried to figure out is there a way for us to address these issues or not. So y'all may want to think about that a little bit while we're in executive session talking with lawyers. New and different.
>> I would like to be heard on that point. My name is terry scarborough, I?m a homeowner, a lawyer, one of three members along with hector deleon who is also a homeowner and scott osmund who are volunteer lawyers on this project. We are not being paid.
>> have you all chatted with tom nuckols?
>> we have. And I want the report to be clear that since April the 21st, i've been able to document at least 10 efforts on behalf of the homeowners association to meet with mike leosa and others who are opposed to this. I picked up the baton last week, and starting on Wednesday i've been trying to have a meeting with them to discuss various options. I made myself available on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. When that wouldn't work, I made myself available to them on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday. It was abundantly clear in my efforts to meet with these folks that they really didn't want to meet and no meeting was able to be scheduled before today, conveniently.
>> my question have you met, the answer is no.
>> well, we've been --
>> you're saying we have tried to meet.
>> we have tried. Now, we have a meeting scheduled in my office at 10:00 on Thursday.
>> and we is who?
>> we, myself and the volunteer lawyers, as well as bob burton, who is being paid on behalf of the association, to meet with mike leosa, his lawyers and others to try to see if there is any resolution. I was told by terry bray all options are on the table. Terry bray is the lawyer who sent the letter --
>> I was waiting for are joe geiselman, tom nuckols and Gerald Daugherty.
>> well, i've invited Gerald Daugherty to a meeting or a representative.
>> not to commit you, Commissioner, but it would be good to be there. [laughter]
>> i've invited tom nuckols and we've invited the lawyers and anyone that the other side wants to bring to that meeting on Thursday. I will express some concern because the agenda has been set by mr. Leosa, who is in the back of the room there, by saying in an e-mail, and I?m going to pass that out to you that he's tired of discussing the legal issues. He do not want to debate the legal issues.
>> I agree.
>> that's done.
>> and that -- maybe the court will have a couple of suggestions that the law authorizes us to make. I?m not suggesting that you just meet to meet. But when we hear what authority we have, and I had heard before today that someone had tried to meet and others basically -- what I was told, maybe you were having a difficult time finding a mutually convenient time.
>> certainly before today, yes.
>> and what I?m suggesting, though, it may make sense for the two sides to get with county representatives and take a good look at what it is that we can and cannot do. Now, I have two or three novel questions to ask the county attorney in executive session in just a few minutes about what the county can do other than convert to private streets, so there are some other things, but to be honest, some I think we can do, others I don't know whether we can do or not because we never have really considered doing them seriously.
>> particularly mr. Gillian, and the statute makes a distinction between vacation and abonn donement and the entire comments by mr. Gillian was talking about vacation. A vacation is where you are doing a way with the road. If a homeowner is not served by a road any longer, that's different than abandonment. Abandonment, you are basically abandoning the obligation to upkeep that. These homeowners are not going to have to go nine miles in the other direction. They are going to have the same ingress and egress. There's a big distinction in the law. We are prepared to discuss all options that are consistent with the vast majority of the homeowners. But I am concerned because I too heard this morning one of these homeowners say under no circumstances am I willing to give up my legal rights. If that's the case, and they believe, and I?m not going to try to convince them otherwise, that they have rights that are being trampled upon, that may have to be resolved in the courts. If it does, it does. We don't really want to go through, but all citizens have that right. So we are going to meet.
>> [inaudible].
>> say again?
>> that has an awful lot with my wanting to show up on Thursday. If that is the attitude, terry, then, you know, it's sort of like -- I mean do you need to get your golf game in line or whatever. It's kind of like don't -- I mean somebody has got to be willing to come to the table and say I?m at the table to try to come up with something. But if you're telling me that, you know, under no circumstances am I going to do that, I mean that's pretty deafening to me, I mean. So I hear what you are saying and I?m willing to participate in this if we can get somewhere. But maybe after we get out of this meeting we'll have a couple of more pertinent questions.
>> that's what I was going to say, the county absolutely has the right to abandon is the correct legal word these words and it would be terrible precedent for the county to ever take a position that when you have a vested interest -- here it's the association coming to you. But I can foresee a day when the county has a vested interest and the county wants to do this and it would be terrible precedent to set that it requires every homeowner, 100% in order to abandon the roads. And that's a terrible precedent that the Commissioners court should not go there.
>> now, this is item number 4 and we are about to convene in executive session to receive advice of counsel on this matter. And I am bold enough to say that this will take us 20 minutes. [laughter]
we have returned from executive session where we spent 22 minutes discussing item number -- [laughter] -- item 4. I move we close the public hearing.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 14, 2005 8:10 PM