Travis County Commissioners Court
January 17, 2006
Item 26
26 is on to consider and take appropriate action on a request to create a state highway 130 corridor development planning committee. 26.
>> since this goes through precinct 4, I would like to be on this subcommittee.
>> that sounds good to me, because I know I will need some company. [ laughter ]
>> move that we set this up for maybe 2, joe.
>> that is a good question. We are -- I haven't had a chance to talk with my counterparts at the city of Pflugerville and the city of Austin. Generally there's support for some type of a combined planning process for the 130 area, 130 corridor. I think there's general sense that if they're combined, we could probably do more than we could do separately. But I知 not to the point where I think at this point I have a scope of work that we can agree to. And I know that the city is right now doing a parallel effort somewhere along the same line. They are beginning to look at the corridor. And have staff working on various tasks. So I think it would be a good time to have our elected officials meet selectively with the city councilmembers members to see how we could do an interlocal agreement to form this committee and give it a specific scope of work. The timetable I understand the city is on is somewhat similar to ours. This would gear up in March. But I think there's probably a lot of other participants that would want to become signature torz to that interlocal agreement. And as I outlined in my memo, it could be as broad or narrow as you would it to be, but I don't think Travis County will get very far without aligning with other implementing agencies. That would include the cities, of course, and if we go into adjoining counties, the county governments. You've got any number of water supply corporations that are instrumental in being able to provide infrastructure. You may want to go as far as to involve school districts because they certainly will feel the impacts of the population shift to these eastern areas. State department of transportation, all of those are kind of agencies that have some role in providing infrastructure within the corridor and/or having development regulations that would have to be put in place for future development. So right now I知 just really recommending a very general framework, and that being a policy committee made up of selected members from the governing bodies of these implementing agencies. In most cases that is an elected official. But on the boards of the water corporations would like to be a board member and perhaps elected, maybe not elected. And the Texas department of transportation will probably be the engineer. And that committee would be supported by staffs from the implementing agencies, and I do think there's probably going to be a role for some paid consultants along the line to either service facilitators to the effort or special expertise we will need to buy in consultation as we get down the road in discussing some of these issues. And then you also certainly have a stakeholder group, a broad group of representatives from developers and landowners and environmental groups, neighborhood groups, all of which will have an interest in what happens up and down this corridor. So I think this -- today's agenda is really to kind of lay out perhaps an organizational design that we can further discuss with other implementing agencies. To the point that we can bring back a legal document, an agreement that all these parties can sign into and then we'll start the planning process. But I think what's different from this is that it should result in a set of service plans or capital improvements programs or something, a set of regulations that each one of those agencies has some role in implementing. So I think the focus will be on implementation, not just a planning process. I think the planning process is good and necessary, but it -- I don't think it will -- I think it will go beyond that into what -- and that's why I compare this to the clean air coalition. At the end of the day, we had things we had to do. We had to put in place, especially in the maintenance program, various policies that at a government level. Idling restrictions, things that had to get done concretely to affect change. And that's why I think this committee is very similar to that. We -- to just develop a plan doesn't do anything. You've got to follow up with measures in some part of the capital improvements on the part of the cities and the counties, perhaps the state. Some -- perhaps some regulations if we don't already have sufficient regulations in place. So that's -- those are the things we want to end up with. And those are the things that will get implemented probably over the next five to 10 years that really will determine what takes place in that corridor.
>> judge, since we met last when this item was brought before the Commissioners court, and we requested that it come back within a two-week time frame, there's been a lot of discussion as far as moving forward with this particular organization, especially with the structure that we kind of set in place. In fact, I did have a chance to briefly discuss some things with mayor will wynn yesterday, and he was really excited and I was further -- I will further elaborate on some things to him. It was kind of real brief and he's very interested in what Travis County is doing and then what role the city will have to play in this particular event. So I think really the behaving structure as far as what we have here now today is heading in the right direction. Implementation rtion I think joe hit something right on the head, and is the implementation phase of it. And those that are now willing to even enter into interlocal government relationship with Travis County and others, so it's a moving target here as far as the sh 130 corridor, development planning committee, but I think the way things are going right now, people are ready to ride of nail it down and move forward. And I致e been getting a lot of positive response from several persons in the community who is very interested in this, some of the water source corporations. We've met with one of the main providers and others, so there's still a lot of -- let me put it like this, the I痴 need to be dotted and the t's crossed, but the interest is there and they're looking forward to move forward with this type of implementation and the things we need to do to prepare for the growth that's going to happen along the sh 130 corridor. And the buildout potential and all these kind of things. I知 really ready to move forward with this.
>> so you expect the larger committee to be put together and a scope of work, a mission statement, and we'll be kept, I guess, posted on developments?
>> I would hope that you would appoint a couple of yours members to meet with -- I think maybe the first meeting with the Austin city council, maybe in a subcommittee meeting where you can start to talk about the scope of this effort and what direction it will take and then migrate that to city of manor, city of Pflugerville, some of the other cities in the area. And then maybe start to talk about involving the water corporations.
>> the questions I had were in terms of adding on, making sure we're not adding folks out. Under school districts, two other school districts, georgetown independent school district and Pflugerville got left out. Pflugerville is right in the middle of it. Related to their stuff.
>> I didn't mean to cut you off, but you brought up georgetown. I was hoping that if we deal with this -- that question came up. Does that go beyond the boundaries out of Travis County? I think it does with Pflugerville. It's on the other side of Williamson county. But also georgetown --
>> but we're listing under cities georgetown and hutto, so my thought was, well, gee, if we're listing the regional cities, we need to list the regional school district. That's the only point I知 making. And Pflugerville certainly is Travis County school district. I was struck under non-city water providers that the lcra was not listed somewhere. Whether that goes under state regional or a non-city water provider, because they certainly are out there and doing things. And then there's that new -- I can't remember the name of it. Probably should ask kimberly here. The carrizo -- there's some new water thing. There's another one out there that is doing a whole lot of water supply for Williamson county. And I apologize because I don't have the formal name.
>> ask the lcra. They know the name. [ laughter ]
>> under state and regional, I also raise the question of capcog. This is our, you know --
>> I think what I was trying to focus on is the entities that had the authority to implement programs. That's where I was trying to concentrate my efforts. And in all of these are really just candidates. Where we started this was Travis County and basically a program within Travis County. The corridor does go into Williamson county, it goes into caldwell county, and so -- and at some point it's really a choice of how many entities you involve in the planning process and where you go with that. Even school districts, I think that's a choice. I think they're certainly going to be impacted by that and they have to provide the schools to have a healthy community, so I知 not saying all of these are -- should be part of it or are not excluded. This is kind of an open table here. And I知 trying to basically pull the people together that need to be together in some kind of a legal framework so that we can move on to implementation.
>> I just want to make sure in terms of us discussing this that if there is intended to be a wide net that needs to be cinched down, that somebody isn't included before there's even been an invitation. Certainly if you have Austin, del valle, manor and Round Rock school districts, Pflugerville for sure needs to be on that list. There are a lot of questions being raised related to the emergency service districts. I知 just saying it out loud. It may be that those are districts that do not have a stake in here, but I can tell you they are absolutely tied in to the land development issues, fire code issues, water supply issues, and service responses that that not be a barrier, but that be something that is helpful, not hurtful. I知 just asking the question. And then you have the question of capital metro, whether they deserve to be a part of this or not because they are a regional transportation provider, and certainly are in the unincorporated part of precinct 2. And as the city of Austin chooses to annex further, that becomes part of a regional service area that is only going to get bigger with the city of Austin. Just raising the question.
>> we're not complicating envision central Texas here?
>> that's the next question.
>> see, my thinking early on is that we would have a subcommittee of the court to work on some of the main issues from a Travis County perspective and collaborate with others, city of Austin sort of comes to mind, economic development has been mentioned. There are a lot of other issues, especially infrastructure related. In terms of impact, the initial sort of thought I have is that the more entities you adhere, the less effective you will be just because of the size of it. That's why I thought the scope would be real important. And maybe we ought to give a little more -- it doesn't bother me to have two members of the court serve on the subcommittee, Commissioners Davis and Gomez; however, if this thing is too broad and includes too many people, I知 not sure that we really give ourselves a shot at becoming effective. The other thing is that it may be a good idea to find out exactly what envision central Texas is working on. I know they don't have any regulatory authority, but they have claimed to have pretty much all of these entities represented, some a whole lot more than others, so maybe we ought to back off and find out exactly what they're doing because it may be that we need to work with them a bit more closely or instead of staff, maybe the same two elected officials, and then figure out what we should do in addition to what they're doing.
>> judge, do you mind if I approach that question that you're posing to joe?
>> no, sir.
>> what we're doing here, and right, I do agree with what you have stated as far as narrowing it down. And I think folks looked at this and I wanted to make sure that I was basically looking at Travis County as far as the involvement of the local jurisdiction within the Travis County boundaries for the sh 130 corridor. Also within that, if you look at some of the structure that we have in place -- and joe, I know you've mentioned a whole lot of things here, but they're outside of Travis County. If you look at what joe has put together as far as a layout, you basically mentioned the policymakers, basically mentioned the technical support cast and you also have mentioned the citizens advisory group, which is a part of envision central Texas and other groups that are part and want to be a part of this will come up under that, so it's like a partnership that we will band together, but I think from the git-go we're going to have to have the local elected officials at the top of the pyramid dealing with the technical support of whomever we want to do to make sure that these things get done, but also looking at the citizens' advisory committees such as envision central Texas and others, development community, neighborhood and stuff like that, because we will need their input also in this process. So that in my opinion has narrowed it pretty much and I don't think it's a duplication of what envision central Texas has done, even though I know that we will need the expertise that's coming in from envision central Texas and others in this whole process. So I think this basic structure that joe had laid out here, especially with the elected officials being at the top of the pyramid because of the critical need and the implementation phase that I think we need to have in place, I think -- in my opinion it just appears that a lot of things have already been done and the groundwork has been laid out to make this happen, in my opinion. I mean, the nuts and bolts of the work that have been going on for a number of months and all the meetings, that really has been resolved. I just think it's now just a matter of implementation in them moving forward. And I知 not trying to knock anything that anybody else is done, but the inclusiveness is still going to be there.
>> nothing beats a good scope of work. That way we'll see exactly what we're doing.
>> exactly, judge, I agree with you. I can see why joe brought it in as a general concern, but -- I can see that. When you start talking about georgetown, those folks have already done -- theaf done their homework, they have annexed and did everything they need to do to deal with the growth around sh 130. However, in Travis County we have not dealt with those things yet, and I think we need to. So the scope of work is very important. And I知 willing to get started on this.
>> do you have in mind us working with the city of Austin early on at least and trying to put together an appropriate scope of work?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> I知 very comfortable and I appreciate the fact that Commissioner Davis and Commissioner Gomez, they have the bulk of sh 130 within their precinct. I think that's wonderful for them to get that assignment, kind of like that's where we're headed.
>> so move.
>> any more discussion? We'll work with the city to try to get a scope of work and bring it back to the court for review. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 18, 2006 8:13 AM