Travis County Commissioners Court
July 12, 2005
Item 8
Number 8. This seems complicated, I think it's simpler. Eight is to consider and take appropriate action on the following items related to the wells branch parkway and heather wild boulevard cip projects. A, reallocation of up to $2,855,000 of surplus 1997 bond funds for the wells branch parkway and heather wild boulevard cip projects. 8-b is an interlocal agreement with the city of Pflugerville for the construction of wells branch parkway through the settlers meadow and gaston shelton subdivisions. And 8-c is a road construction agreement with the village of north town, ltd, for the construction of wells branch parkway and heather wild boulevard.
>> good morning. This all relates to two capital improvements projects that were approved by the voters in 2001. That's the three contracts related to item c. That was the originals. Three copies of the original. In 2001 the voters approved a little over five million dollars for the combined projects of heather wild and wells branch parkway. Wells branch parkway between with heather wild boulevard. And the eastern boundary of what's called the north town m.u.d. That crosses two separate private properties. The heather wild project goes from wells branch parkway down to howard lane. That crosses three separate private properties. We envisioned the construction of these segments in a public-private partnership with those landowners sharing the cost of the construction with those landowners. Prior to this time we executed an agreement with two of the property owners, spurtis and sealy properties. And that took care of one segment of wells branch and another segment of heather wild boulevard. What we now have before us is another public-private partnership with the north town property owner, which completes -- will complete yet another segment of wells branch parkway through that property and another segment of heather wild boulevard through the north town property. And I believe in your attachment you have a map which shows the various segments that we're talking about. So the item c is related to the public-private partnership agreement with the north town for the construction of those segments. Item b is an interlocal agreement with the city of Pflugerville. There are two segments of wells branch parkway which go through what have been already platted subdivisions, settlers ridge and gaston shelton subdivisions. These were two decision subdivisions that were platted several years back, platted the right-of-way and put up a physical, the security fiscal of the roadway. The security of the fiscal covers a portion of the construction of the roadway, but not the entire amount. The city of Pflugerville will be designing and building this section of wells branch parkway within their corporate limits. They had already hired a design engineer and were fixing to bid the project, so we thought it would be butter if we just attach our work to their work. And that's what the interlocal agreement is about. We will be paying the city of Pflugerville for the engineering design and the construction of those two sections of wells branch parkway within the gaston shelton subdivision and the settlers ridge subdivision. That's the way that will get done, and they are almost 90% complete with the engineering design, so they expect to go out very soon with the construction of that roadway. So all told, when all these pieces are finished, we will have wells branch parkway completed from ih-35 all the way over to emanuel and actually be on emanual, but we will have a very good east-west arterial roadway that will serve that area of the city in the metropolitan area. It's partly inside the extra territorial jurisdiction of the city of Austin and partly within the corporate limits of Pflugerville. But nonetheless, we will have a completed roadway east-west that will serve the travel demand in that corridor. We will also have the completion of heather wild boulevard, that missing link will complete heather wild all the way from the county line up at Williamson county, all the way down to yager lane. So you will now then have a four-lane arterial all the way north-south practically through the entire area of northeast Travis County. So these are very important links in the overall arterial system. And these two agreements basically get us to the point where we will complete the missing links. Now, I would like to take a little more time on the public-private partnership so you understand what we are doing on that agreement. Back in June of 2003 I wrote a letter to all the property owners kind of setting out the terms of the county's participation in the agreement. In those terms the private property owners would dedicate all the right-of-way and the drainage easements and the land necessary for the water quality features. So all the land, real estate, would be brought to the table by the private sectors and that's what this agreement does. They were dedicated 1 flort feet of rate of way for wells branch parkway, 90 feet of right-of-way for heather wild within the limits of their property. This is the same that our agreement with spurtis and sealy also did. They dedicated all the right-of-way, all the drainage easements, all the land we needed for water quality. On the roadway construction itself, the agreement would have the county pay 60% of the construction cost and 40% in the private sector paying 40% of the construction cost for wells branch parkway. And the reason for that is that that is a six-lane roadway and right-of-way dedication is somewhat larger for a six lane roadway than a four lane roadway. So portion was adjusted to account for that. On heather wild, the construction proportion is 50-50. The private sector pays for 50% of the construction and the county pays for 50% of the construction. Finally, because this is in the extra territorial jurisdiction of the city of Austin, we abided by their water quality provisions for the roadway. The county agreed to pay for the water quality features, the detention ponds that serviced roadways. And that is a significant cost, but we agreed to do that so that we could move this project forward. Now, the private sector will hire the engineer who is consort incorporated. It's the same engineer that works under contracts with spurtis and sealy to do the design of wells branch and heather wild on those properties. So one engineer is basically designing both projects through both properties, all the properties. So we have some coordination in that effort. We will reimburse the private parties for our share of those costs. There are --
>> what percent?
>> 50% for -- I think it's 50/50 in both cases. Same percentage of the road construction, 60% on wells branch, 50% on heatherwilde. Our proportion of the engineering costs are 50% for heather wild, 60% for wells branch parkway. What was I saying? Oh, there was the -- the private partner expects to be reimbursed from the municipal utility district for some of his costs, so there is a provision in this contract that is different than one that we had with spurtis sealy and we acknowledge that we will allow the private partner to secure that financing from the m.u.d. Within 30 days. We have an out clause that provides if the private party is not able to secure that agreement with the m.u.d., then this agreement is terminated and that was an important provision for the private party, and they said if we could not get reimbursed from the m.u.d. That we cannot pay the county our share, so that is an understood provision, but they fully expect that they will be able to execute that agreement with the m.u.d.
>> at what point will we know whether or not the reimbursement by the municipal utility district will occur?
>> within 30 days.
>> okay. We'll know real soon, perhaps even before 30 days. So we are launching this on the premise that they will get approval from the m.u.d. There is --
>> I assume the m.u.d. Has indicated a willingness to do this.
>> perhaps I should have terry bray answer that question.
>> the question was in your dealings with the m.u.d., have they expressed willingness to reimburse the private party for those costs.
>> pli name is terry bray and I represent the village at north town. We have discussed with the m.u.d. The concept and under state law there are reimbursable items, drainage primarily and other drainage related and infrastructure related improvements. We do not have a final agreement with the m.u.d. What we have programmed is the elements of our project that would qualify for reimbursement, and we are asking for a presentation to the m.u.d. At their July meeting, at which we will make that formal request and request a reimbursement contract, which is the vehicle that provides contractually for that reimbursement, so we are hopeful that at that July meeting we will work out those details and know what we can do and get back with county properly after that.
>> but do we have reason to believe that m.u.d. Will consider it?
>> yes, we do have reason that believe that.
>> you are banking a whole lot on the m.u.d.'s cooperation?
>> and that's a very good way to put it is banking on it because for us it is critically important for our banking. Thank you.
>> the words were carefully chosen, mr. Bray. [ laughter ]
>> in terms of timetables, on all these projects, given that we've got 30-day clock on the m.u.d. Reimbursement, once that's cleared, we expect the engineer to be completed with his design probably by the end of the year and then we will go into a construction phase that could take up that 18 months to complete. So you should see some dirt start flying probably the first of the year or the Pflugerville project is somewhat on the same timetable. So roughly within 18 months to two years we'll have both of these roadways completed for people to begin to use them. Now, I want to get back to the county's finances, which is item number a. When we originally estimated the bond program, prior to the 2001 bond election, the $5.1 million was an estimate just for wells branch parkway alone. And that was pure and simple. That was a cost estimate for one project. In the last days of the preparation for the bond election. The bond committee recommended that we take that five million and spread it over both projects, which are heather wild and wells branch parkway both, and that that be used to participate with the private sector in the completion of both roadways. So we went into it with the acknowledgment that there would be a public-private partnership agreement. Originally we did not estimate cost for Travis County for heather wild boulevard, nor did we estimate any cost for the shortfall in the subdivision fiscal on the settlers ridge and the gaston shelton.
>> we also agreed that the county would pick up the entire cost of the water quality midgation, which is a substantial number. So when you add all those things together, we need an additional about $2.8 million in surplus cip money from other projects in precinct 2, which are available from projects that have already been completed from that prior bond election. That includes a substantial amount of contingency, so we're not telling you we'll need to use all $2.8 million, but at this point we're asking the court for authorization to use up to that amount to cover the actual construction cost and then about a 15% contingency going into the project. Because there may be things that come up either in the engineering design or in the actual bid that would require us to go beyond what we estimate the project to cost today. And the costs are going up. We have begun to see the cost of petroleum on our asphalt. We have seen increases in concrete and we have begun to see the influence of state highway 130 on the labor and equipment market, is prices for labor have gone up as a result. So in some part not only are we seeing those prices reflected in our current estimates for this project, but I expect that we will see them in other projects that we do in the future with county cip money.
>> you used the word substantial three or four times. You may and well say what it is.
>> 1.5 million.
>> that is substantial. So we've had pbo and legal certify that they are surpluses available from other completed cip projects and it's appropriate to use those surpluses on these two projects.
>> we have and we have -- I believe we have through john hill also consulted our bond counsel to make sure that these are expended for this purpose.
>> okay. Do we need to act on c now, the construction agreement, or see what the north town m.u.d. Does in.
>> I think they need us to adopt the agreement so they can go to the mu and say we now have this agreement and it's the basis of our reimbursement. There is another provision I need to mention in this private agreement. They are asking for credit, over $315,000 in credit for services already provided by the engineer through the m.u.d. For this roadway. There was a columnar, which was -- clumer, which is a letter for the floodplain that the engineer prepared and submitted to fema that will basically narrow the floodplain where it is crossed by the roadway, so it is to our ben at this time to have that floodplain reduced to -- benefit to have that floodplain reduced at the culvert crossing. So that has been done. There has been a certain level of design that has also been done primarily with heather wild boulevard. As you remember, this is the same engineer who is working with spurtis and sealy to do the design of heather wild, so rather than be designing in two separate motions, he went ahead and designed all of heather wild, even the portion within north town that has made more sense to do it all in one shot. So the engineer has already performed some work. The engineer has been paid by north town. And what they seek is that there be a credit in this cost sharing for that service that's already rendered. We have not seen the documentation yet, we being tnr, to justify those payments so we would ask that the judge are authorized so sign the agreement conditioned with tnr seeing those conditions. It's actually $315,000 in engineering services, plus another $75,000 for the clummer. We're not saying it has been done, we just want to see the goods before we approve a credit in the contract. So we would ask that we proceed and we do our due diligence on the billings before you actually ink the contract.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> this is not an add on to everything that's agreed to. It is within the confines of the agreed limits.
>> the agreed to limits include the construction cost and the engineering cost, and a contingency. Basically the agreed to limits or our best estimates right now that the maximum would cost both of us. The reason we put that in there is for some reason if things go whack co-and we get things that are way out of line we want the ability to come back and say time out, let's reconsider and not be bound to whatever the cost might be. So it's a safeguard both for the county and for the private sector that at that point we have the right to come back and regroup and decide what we're going to do based on those new costs.
>> so the credit would be our acknowledging that work on other projects really contribute to this project and we'll try to place a monetary value on that.
>> actually, the north town has paid engineering bills that are directly related to this project. We want to see the plans, we want to see the work products, we want to see the clommer. We want to see these things and say they're legitimate, you did pay that and it was for this project, and we'll give you credit for it. It's just really an audit of what they claim to be real expenses.
>> okay.
>> [inaudible - no mic]. The one thing Travis County can take from this conversation is how unbelievably complicated this deal has been because not only have we been dealing with the city of Austin, we've been dealing with an absentee owner that is a bank that has turned like three different places, we're dealing with the city of Pflugerville, we're dealing with a municipal utility district, we are dealing with separate property owners on two different roadways, all of which are immensely (indiscernible). And I can't tell you how much these two projects are important to the city of Pflugerville. These are like part of daily conversation that we have with the city of Pflugerville. They're very important on a regional basis. But this is why it is very important that if we are going to be entering into these public-private partnerships, and I think we should in terms of best leveraging all of our resources, we've got to have all of this stuff locked down before we went to a bond election and not after a bond election. And I think a lot of this was good faith efforts by everybody involved, and us trying to leverage and stretch limited dollars back in 2001 or from one project to two projects. And it was so much more complicated than anybody thought, but here it is four years later, so this is why we're going to be getting to item number 4 shortly that talks about what are the parameters for entering into public-private partnerships so that we spare you all the angst that has happened on this particular project. We're going to get there and I feel certain that the municipal utility district understands the importance of those roads and the people within the m.u.d. Understand the importance of those roads. But we cannot go through this again. We've got to have these things locked down ahead of time and it is a message that I?m sending to multiple property owners that have projects in precinct two who would like to have inclusion on the bond election. You need to get this stuff locked down before because we're not going to do this after.
>> I remember when some of this stuff got started also, and it has been a long process and I think a process that really should have gone as far as the -- (indiscernible), the public-private partnership agreement. But anyway, I think it's something that we need to have in place, need to go ahead with, and I?m echoing the same thing for precinct 1. Bond projects, I think we have to have things set forth in the guidelines as far as what we must have on the table as far as dealing with these public-private partnership relationship agreements or whatever we want to call them. And it has been a long haul and I would like to applaud staff. Joe, you and your crew for hanging in there as long as you did with this. Commissioner Sonleitner and her office worked diligently on this, along with the different other entities, Pflugerville, the m.u.d.'s and everyone else, the landowners, all of those folks need to be applauded because it is in my opinion a precedent type setting situation as we go forward.
>> we want to make sure we acknowledge tom knuckles.
>> tom, I?m sorry, I didn't see you. The closest thing to me, tom, and I didn't see you, sorry.
>> everybody deserves credit, but there's somebody not here today, but I want to make sure that phil spurtis gets a lot of credit because he is one of the loansers that basically never gave up and kept trying to keep people at the table and I want to acknowledge phil for having faith that this thing could move forward. And judge, if it's appropriate, I would move approval of 8-a, b and c.
>> second.
>> with the added condition that we receive the -- that tnr receives the documentation related to the engineering costs that have occurred to date. It's about $315,000 on heather wild and the preparation of the clommer, that we get the proper documentation and credit can occur if indeed that happens. We encourage north town to please do its things as well.
>> is the m.u.d. Condition in the documents that I was handed this morning?
>> yes, they are. The last provision in the contract.
>> okay. Seconded by Commissioner Davis. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank y'all very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 12, 2005 3:46 PM