Travis County Commissioners Court
June 14, 2005
Item A2
A-2, consider and take appropriate action on the following with regard to chapter 82, Travis County code standards for construction of streets and drainage in subdivisions. A, amend section 82.203 a-4, relating to temporary suspension of preliminary plans. B, publish notice of proposed amendments realitying to interim rules on water quality, the environment and procedures for review of applications.
>> did you want me to start?
>> give me one stack and then --
>> i've got it.
>> pass out two separate things.
>> this is what I e-mailed you all. If you don't want a hard copy.
>> I made my own hard copy last night.
>> all right, these are the -- a revised addition of the interim rules that we considered three months ago, four months ago. We've been working with a small group of stakeholders including the development community and neighborhood groups to refine what we had on the table before. Modified some of the provisions, setbacks on [inaudible] as you recall is one of the perhaps more controversial issues. We've amended that from being 150-foot setback from the bluff to 50-foot setback. Basically we sat down with all parties and began to look at some of the scientific bases for these things. And I think came to some pretty good agreements across the board on what we really needed and what we could live with. That was kind of the spirit of going back through the interim rules. The interim rules are nothing but a placeholder while we have time to develop final rules. It's neither the ceiling nor the floor for what will come thereafter, but at least it's something where we have a set of rules in place. So we wanted to make sure that whatever we recommended to the court was at a good bit of buy-in from all of the stakeholders, and I think that's what we have with this set of rules. We have consulted rica, the home builders, and quite frankly I think it's well rounded at this point. We actually stepped through some of the changes that we proposed. There's some new sections, entirely new sections. Partly driven by new law passed by the last session of the legislature. There's a new provision on cut and fill that was not there before that was brought to us by the development community because they thought that was a worthwhile addition to the interim rule. And would protect against some of the more egregious development practices by certain types of developers in the area. Let me have tom step through the first sections which are the provisions that were changed as a result of the law, the change in the state law.
>> if you'll recall, we've discussed on a couple of occasions the need to amend the county's regulations to reflect the changes in the grandfathering statute made by senate bill 574 and senate bill 848. And the first couple of pages on the June 13th, 2005, draft interim rules that we've given you do that. As you recall, the senate bill 848 basically says a project is grandfathered from rule changes if an application is filed that gives fair notices of the project and we have attempted to define fair notice since the legislature declined to do that in the statute. I think one of the things we need to accomplish in the rule is to define exactly what fair notice is so that staff, applicants, everyone have a common understanding of when a project is going to receive grandfathering rights. And let me say again this is just a first cut at. That these are just proposed rules. My anticipated schedule would be if you give us your blessings today, we will publish the required notices and go through the 30-day posting period and this will be back on your agenda either July 19th or July 26th. So between now and then, we can work with the stakeholders to refine this language to come up with something that everyone is comfortable with. Another thing we did was, if you will recall when we went through the house bill 1445 exercise with the city of Austin, one of the issues was expiration dates for preliminary plans. We adopted a set of expiration dates that there was consensus for. Those apply only to within the city of Austin e.t.j. So one proposal, joe and I are making is basically take that same set of expiration dates and have it apply outside the e.t.j. As well. Because that seemed to be something everyone was happy with and a fair and reasonable approach to it so that's in here. Those are realty two major things we -- really the two major things, on the grandfathering, I知 sure these will be discussions we'll be having with the stakeholders to see if that's what everyone is comfortable with for outside the e.t.j.
>> in terms of the completeness document, tom, that's referring back to what is the final plat application completeness review form. It's specifically tied back to this is the kind of information we need and this needs to be complete and you will have an opportunity to complete it.
>> right.
>> this is the base.
>> that's the base. I think it's fair to say that under the -- senate bill 848, you no longer have to be administratively complete, have all that information on a given date. You are given a broader window of time to provide all that, to vest your grandfathering rights. That's what this language says so far. Again, we'll work with the stakeholders on that so that everyone has a common understanding of what that needs to say. This language may look somewhat different when it comes back to you. I don't think it will look too different because i've tried to stay as close to the statutory language as possible.
>> but this is slightly bigger than a cocktail napkin.
>> right.
>> and then the other two documents I gave you, one is the takings impact assessment for the rules. This is essentially what you are posting notice of, that we have these interim rules and we have done this assessment. This will be publicly available. The newspaper notice will include the name and number of the person to contact if you want a copy of this. The public is free to send you comments on this and to weigh in in any way they see fit. So that's another piece of this. And then the third they think I gave you was the actual order amending the Travis County code to extend the suspension on preliminary plans from June 15th to July 31st. And again, the July 31st, that date was intended to give us enough time to do the 30-day posting, but still leave you a couple of different opportunities to actually come back and adopt these interim rules. And in addition to changing the date from June 15th to July 31st, the only other change there is again intended to reflect some statutory changes in senate bill 848. Senate bill 848 used the term plan for development. I think that's the same as a preliminary plan, but I think it would be prudent to make that clear in our rules.
>> I知 having a hard time finding that July 31st.
>> third page.
>> in exhibit a, right. And it should be underlined. For some reason the underlining --
>> I had not gotten to page 3. I was looking at the first two pages. Questions? Comments?
>> just a couple other things that we came up in our discussions. One on the utilities services. We were looking for proof of capacity of the utility provider system-wide to provide utilities to the plat. I think in the original set of rules we had that basically having a contract prior to approval of preliminary plan. We have changed that to a resolution by the governing body of the provider. It's sufficient for acceptance of the preliminary plan. But we still require the contract before final platting, but we've reduced the requirement for the preliminary plan. Basically it's an intent by the executive body of the utility provider that they express to us that they've got the capacity to serve this subdivision. And we felt if the governing body can give us that kind of ashurn, that's probably -- assurance, that's probably good enough for preliminary plat. It's certainly more than we're getting right now. It's just a letter from a staff member which doesn't show any policy or if capital improvements were required, there's certainly a lot of debt that has to be issued to provide that capacity. You never know with a letter whether that's there or not. If the governing body has to pass a resolution, we're pretty sure they are aware of their obligations to serve the subdivision. The -- another change like I said earlier is the -- we had bluffs defined as one of the environmentally valuable features. The setbacks on that was 150 feet. Same with rim rock canyon, rim rock. Those setbacks have been changed to 50 feet. After some discussions with some water experts, we felt that they had the documents, the studies to show that 50 feet is not only adequate but probably appropriate for that.
>> did you share that with stakeholders on both sides?
>> yes, we did. The buffer zones in another provision we're defining -- it was somewhat difficult to decide whether the buffers were part of an already designated 100-year flood plain because we had language that you weren't quite sure whether it was an addition to the flood plain or part of the flood plain, so we basically rewrote that section to say it is the flood plain and more if certain things happen. So it may be that the entire buffer is within the 100-year flood plain. In that case, what the buffer is the flood plain. But the way we have it worded now, I think it's more clear that the buffer could extend beyond the 100-year flood plain if certain requirements are there. And so it's just a more clear way of defining when the buffer extends beyond the 100-year flood plain and what type of watersheds.
>> joe, it's under discussion with the lcra right now and others about under the flood plain definition out at the lake is going to change or not in terms of our tried and true definitions. What do we define --
>> it's the fully developed 100-year flood plain.
>> today or what might be changed?
>> forecasted. In other words, when -- when that watershed is fully developed, the flood resulting from that.
>> okay.
>> it's not the fema flood plain, it's the fully developed flood plain.
>> thank you.
>> we also had an issue with regard to stream crossings by roadways. We imported language from the edwards aquifer where there are perhaps more arterial roadways. In this section of the county there are very few arterial roadways so there's greater restrictions on how many crossings can be made by local streets and collector streets. And because of the topography of the area, it's likely that we're going to end up in more and more variances because it's just not possible to have so few stream crossings. We believe that the water quality impacts of stream crossings can be met with other management practices, but rather than go into all the details of what those might be, we just added a provision that would give the executive manager discretion to look at alternative practices if it was practically not possible to have this development without more than the number of stream crossings provided by this language. We are saying, look, if you just cannot build a subdivision without more stream crossings by collector streets and local, then let's sit down and talk, tell me what you are going to do with the resulting water quality, the runoff from those additional streets, and we might be able to come to terms with that. But we're focused on the water quality impacts of those. We're still focused on the issue of water quality even if we have to permit additional stream crossings. But we just merely with the interim rule made a provision that we can allow for more stream crossings, but we're going to sit down and talk about what you are going to do to mitigate the water quality impacts of those crossings. We did have a cut fill provision. This is entirely new to the I want room rule. This is recommended that we use Lakeway's cut and fill requirements and that is what we have used in this draft rule. Basically the development community thought there was better to have some cut and fill requirement than none and I think they were a favorly comfortable with the cut and fill requirements for the city of Lakeway. These are new, but we feel they are conservative. That people are attuned to this type of cut and fill requirement.
>> cut and fill there is defined as?
>> basically a cut and fill balance, a maximum six foot of cut and fill.
>> what does that mean though?
>> well, it means that you can't cut into a hill more than six feet. In other words, if you have rolling terrain, which is pretty prevalent in this area, you are not allowed to cut more than six foot into that hillside.
>> that's the cut part. What's the fill part.
>> fill is what you do with that cut material.
>> fill in somewhere?
>> that's right. In other words, like everything is leveling off, you are taking that six foot you cut off the hill and you are filling a void on the other side to an equal six foot dimension. So you're basically saying anything greater than that is prohibited.
>> have you ever driven to san antonio 281 and right before you get to 1604, judge, see what they've done to -- they've done with that hill where they've just -- whoop like this. And just did a -- kind of looks like a stairs coming down the hillside. That's a severe example of it.
>> that's somewhat what this is targeted at is just totally coming in and leveling the mountain.
>> so the san antonio example is an example of what we don't want to see.
>> that's right. Which would be most and he degree just practices we're trying to prevent in this. I think those were the most substantive changes to the I want room rule. All the rest of the requirements are still as we had them in the original draft.
>> so tom, after this is posted, the best and easiest way for residents to give us comments will be what?
>> are you talking average citizens or more organized stakeholders groups?
>> they would be a little different. Organized stakeholders meeting we've been doing. Average citizen would be writing which would be e-mail, memo, letter, et cetera.
>> perhaps we could post these on the website and have comments directed to the executive manager.
>> okay. Set out in the notice that it's advertised.
>> we can add that. It's not in there now, but that's easily added before the notice goes out.
>> I would make sure the average person understands exactly how to provide input.
>> tom, you electronically et sent this to us late yesterday. Normally when I get things from you it's attorney-client privilege, but this is the same document. Are we allowed to forward on those electronic documents?
>> if y'all are ready to say this is what goes public, then absolutely.
>> that would also be a real easy way -- because we've got individual people saying just tell me what you did. Forward.
>> any reason why these should not go public?
>> I think they're ready. Again, they are just proposed rules. Nothing is absolutely set in stone yet.
>> we received a booklet from mr. Lasard yesterday containing --
>> that's a final report.
>> report including recommendations from the study group.
>> that's right.
>> they have not been incorporated into this.
>> no. This is -- this is the beginning of implementation, but that is the proposal of the citizens group.
>> the members of the court began reading that report. I mean should we have this in mind? I mean do we -- are there recommendations there that we ought to incorporate into this or at least consider?
>> that certainly is where we're headed with the final rule. I think this is -- like we say, this is just to have something in place while we are taking that proposal and giving it a flesh and bones. And certainly this is -- we're going to use some of the ideas that you have in these interim rules, but it could change substantially by the time we get to the final rule. The proposal that you have is much more comprehensive than just involving regulations. It's got all sorts of desires from open space acquisition to transportation improvements, look and feel of commercial areas. There's a lot embedded in that proposal. What this specifically addresses is for right now subdivisions. Subdivisions and what goes into those subdivisions. So it's just one facet of implementing the proposal that you have.
>> okay.
>> and if you want, I mean we can agendize that report if you want to do a formal presentation of it, but I think you've had one or two of that variety so it's really up to you whether you want to go back over. I think what joe presented was a final cleanup version of it.
>> it's just a much more -- it's a wider net being cast, like you said all the different other subject matters. Whereas this one really hones it down into the real crux of what, you know, or at least a controversial sort of issues.
>> that's the context within which this is being done.
>> right. I know that we have one of the stakeholder committee members in the back and I assume that we're -- the group is all holding hands with regards to what joe is bringing. I知 assuming that -- you know, we're moving along pretty well. I mean I知 pleasantly pleased at this stage.
>> and we also discussed other issues and decided that they were too major to be included in the interim rule. And I expect we will continue to talk about those other issues and just where we go with them.
>> any comments today, mr. Cleveland?
>> no, judge. I知 happy.
>> oh, god, seize the day.
>> in that case --
>> I would move that we accept a and b and go forward from this stage.
>> second.
>> which would mean notice and proposed amendments to general rules and et cetera. Seconded by Commissioner Gomez. Any more discussion? I take it the assessment is wrapped up in one-on I mean b.
>> that's basically covered by the notice.
>> okay. All in favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 14, 2005 8:42 PM