Travis County Commissioners Court
November 8, 2005
Item 17
17. Consider and take appropriate action on an interlocal agreement with the city of Pflugerville for the construction of wells branch parkway through the settlers meadow and gaston sheldon subdivisions.
>> now, as I recall, this agreement was actually approved by the Commissioners court in July of 2005, and since then the city of Pflugerville has been looking at the construction plans. They were under the misimpression that the right-of-way was 120 feet when the county actually had 140 feet of right-of-way. So they thought there were some issues with regard to the design that they had already prepared for the construction. We have since worked those out, but the design will require a transition zone from our 140-foot right-of-way within the unincorporated area to 120 feet within the city limits. So that is now the -- the agreement has been modified in such a way to permit them to design the roadway with that transition zone. There's also a retaining wall that was needed on our section, but the real issue is with the prices -- their estimate of construction cost for the county's piece has gone up in just a short six months that we've had the draft agreement. And we had moved money around in order to enable us to adopt the interlocal agreement the first time. We would have to move some more money from a completed project, that being howard lane, in order to now finance the additional money that they're saying it's going to cost for construction. So in order for us to adopt this interlocal agreement as it's currently drafted, we need to take $339,000 from savings out of the completed howard lane cip project in the 1997 bonds and move that into the wells branch account so that we can cover our cost on this interlocal agreement. And I will have more to say about construction cost under another agenda item that's coming up.
>> joe, can we just say for public what we believe are the reasons for the increase in costs?
>> yes. What we are seeing across the board are all construction items, such as the petroleum based products, we know that the cost of fuel has gone up, but the petroleum fuel, so many others, hot mix, asphalt, pvc piping, all those are by-products of petroleum. So those prices have gone up, cement prices have gone up. Locally we're in heated competition with other contractors for base materials, labor and equipment. Just because of the number of projects that are currently under contract on roads such as the toll roads that are under construction. So what we are seeing right now is a tremendous increase in construction prices, and that's beginning to reflect itself in the bid prices that we're receiving on our projects. And I think what the engineer is looking at here is anticipating that by the time the city of Pflugerville goes out to bid on this that our costs will have gone up.
>> okay. Questions or comments about this item?
>> and joe, just to make sure because I think this is something we want to say every time we do these kind of arterial projects, there is a combination sidewalk and bicycle accommodation. In our projects like this, that is included, it is not excluded.
>> that's right.
>> and that's very important. Pflugerville has a very good hike and bike system and this will complement that, but we want to let our friends in the cycling and pedestrian community know that these are a part of our projects. I would move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion? Discussion and a motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 8, 2005 6:21 PM