Travis County Commissioners Court
February 14, 2006
Item 31
31. Consider and take appropriate action on proposed changes to Travis County standards for constructing streets and drainage in subdivisions, chapter 82.202 relating to the design and construction of sidewalks. Joe was here, I think the intention is to lay this out, not take action today, but take action next week.
>> joe gieselman with the t.n.r., we want to bring an issue before the court regarding our subdivision regulations and requirements for building sidewalks. The city and the county have a joint code. The county has a separate code that relates to the area outside the extra territorial jurisdiction of the city. Both of these regulations require that the developer construct sidewalks on both sides of the streets within the subdivisions. These sidewalks are -- typically at least four feet wide and some cases six feet wide. The regulations do provide, enable the city and county to grant waivers so that the developer does not have to conform with the standards or grant variances to the standard so there are ways of -- of negotiating what gets done depending on the situation. The federal government and the state government do not require that sidewalks be built. But if sidewalks are built, whoever builds them need to build them to the standards set in the americans with disabilities act which is a federal law. The state has further adopted state law that mimics the federal law and they have a -- a Texas accessibility standard which they use for -- for Texas development. The a.d.a. Does -- the federal and state standards, minimum standards, really speak to providing access to public accommodations, those accommodations would be such things as parks, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, golf courses, community centers, commercial centers. Basically, making sure that there are accessible routes to these destinations. And by accessible, they mean pedestrian ways that are not obstructed to someone who may be in a wheelchair or on a walker. They also set standards for -- for running slopes and side slopes. Now, running slope is basically if you are going down the road, it is the slope of the road as you are walking down the road. That's -- takes called the running slope. The cross slope is the -- is the angle out of the sidewalk that you are as you are just standing right on it. In other words how it tilts to one side to the other. So the running slope is going with you, the side slope is going perpendicular to you. I want to -- I want to -- the running slope historically that the federal government is looking for is no more than 5%. The side slope is no more than 2%. And I want to demonstrate what -- what 2% is. The -- yeah.
>> that's probably -- that won't work. Now this is a measuring stick that -- that is used by inspectors in the field. And it's about four feet long, which is the minimum distance of a sidewalk. And two percent would literally be about 15 pennies. That's roughly 2%. You get some idea of the tolerances that we are trying to build. We I mean the development community is trying to build sidewalks, too. The sidewalks should not have more angles that what you see right here. Like a 2% slope. Further, there can be no obstruction in the sidewalk, greater than half an inch. Half an inch is about 8 cents. So -- so that's about -- about anything, if you have a bump in your sidewalk, that's greater than half an inch, about 8 pennies stacked on top, you have got an obstruction in the sidewalk that has to be remedied. I bring this out in part because a lot of what we see on the existing county road system is of this nature. It is where -- where the sidewalk and the driveway has settled a differential rates, usually seen because of the mass of the driveway and the mass of the sidewalk are different. When the sidewalk gets wet, they [indiscernible] at different rates. What you will find is that the sidewalk comes up, the driveway doesn't. And more than half an inch separation between the two you have got a non-compliant sidewalk that needs to be fixed. That is predominantly the type of problem that we have when we look at all of the roads throughout the county, the accepted roadways, we have about 10,000 sidewalk features that are not a.d.a. Compliant. 75% of those are -- occur at the driveway in the sidewalk. Where we have problems with the sidewalks that are being build at the time of subdivision is a little bit different. Those -- those problems occur primarily -- let me make another distinction here. I say the development community because there are two parties that are building sidewalks in the development process. And initially, the engineer and the developer, the developer and his engineer are laying out the streets in subdivision. And typically the sidewalks are right next to the street, so how those streets are laid out somewhat sets the dye for whether or not the sidewalks can be built to meet a.d.a. Standards. The developer builds some of the sidewalks, the developer builds most of the ramps at the intersections. What happens for the -- then the home builder, the home builder comes in, buys the lot, and the home builder constructs the sidewalk in front of the house. So you have two different parties constructing sidewalks. Where you have the problem is the developer -- with the developer is typically at the ramps. What happens is the state agency that regulates this law for the state, that the -- that the Texas department of -- of regular -- licenses and regulations, tdlr, used to inspect sidewalks within subdivisions, they stopped doing it about a year ago when the law was changed, it said that privately funded sidewalks that were donated to the local governments were not subject to the state's review. So they no longer review and inspect sidewalks. But up to that point, they were basically the saying that you could exceed the running slope if it exceeded 5%, as long as that sidewalk followed the natural grade of the -- of the adjoining roadway. So if the road is going up, a 10% slope, it's okay to build sidewalks that are also going up a 10%, at the same slope as the roadway. What typically happens, where the northern conforming -- non-con forming use comes in, two slopes that meet, the running slope may be fine on both of those streets, you go to cross the street, you end up having that sidewalk that tilts more than 2%. In other words it's very difficult to get a ramp at that intersection. And meet the 2% slope. The tdl acknowledged that only to a point. They were granting variances up to -- up to 4%. Exceed the 2%, but only maybe double that to 4%. Any -- anything over 4% generally they did not approve and as a result you have now in subdivisions, particularly in the western part of the county, ramps that do not meet a.d.a. Standards and Texas standards. Now there's some of a different issue when it comes to the home builder. Usually where we have non-compliant sidewalks with home builders is at the driveway. Because these are for the most part on curb and gutter streets. The curb is about 6-inch higher than the road surface. So to get the driveway from the street level up to the house you are coming up at an angle. That angle quite often exceeds 2%. So where the driveway crosses the sidewalk, you have an automatic violation of a.d.a. Because the sidewalk, when a person gets to the driveway, you are dropping down into a much steeper slope than 2% granted under the law. That is where we are finding non-compliant sidewalks. Particularly where the sidewalk has been built next to the curb because there's just for distance to get the -- no distance to get the sidewalk up to the same level as the sidewalk -- the driveway up to the same level as the sidewalk. You can set the sidewalk at a distance from the curb, you can have a better chance of making sure that both grades are -- that -- alike when the driveway crosses the sidewalk. You do have these problems, fairly prevalent in subdivisions throughout the county, for that matter inside the city. I want to go through this, in a visual format so you can get a picture, step quickly through --
>> you want to step quickly through it or come back this afternoon.
>> I would rather come back this afternoon. Unfortunately there are those who came down on this item who want to give comments, also, right?
>> what time do you come back? 1:30 typically. And --
>> just the road district. Road district ought to take two minutes. If you get here at 1:35, my guess is you will be in real good shape. We will let joe finish his presentation, we will take any comments. Sounded like it will get a little -- a little more complicated before it gets simpler, right?
>> yeah.
>> we have a gentleman here that's not [indiscernible] [inaudible - no mic] item 29.
>> Karen had questions.
>> that can take 30 second. Take a pause on this one and come back at 1:35. But I?m happy to do my 30 second issue to get that approved.
>> can we go ahead and do that.
>> let's call yours back up at -- after lunch. So on 31, we basically will call it back up at 1:35 this afternoon to complete our discussion. And -- joe, you are not asking for action on that today? Just understanding, questions? If there's additional work that needs to be done, let us know exactly what it is. We will do that this afternoon then. Apologize for that.
this morning when we recessed for lunch we were in the middle of a discussion of the matter dealing with the sidewalks, and that is number 31. Which is to consider and take appropriate action on proposed changes to Travis County standards for constructing streets and drainage in subdivisions, chapter 82.202 relating to the design and construction of sidewalks. Mr. Gieselman?
>> all right, let me start the afternoon session off with maybe some visuals so you can begin to understand what the issues are. Primarily in western Travis County. What we did is go ahead and put the visual on the screen. All right. This is steiner ranch. It's in western Travis County fairly close to mansfield dam. It in the area of the county where you would expect to find steep slopes. We actually took two separate sections of steiner ranch. Study area a has already been accepted by the county for ongoing maintenance. It has sidewalks that are not compliant with a.d.a. And then study area b is one of those areas which is pending acceptance, and the reason we have not accepted it is because there are still? Outstanding issues with the a.d.a. Compliance on sidewalks. What I tried to highlight this morning was the fak that the county requires the sidewalks to be built, the federal government does not require sidewalks to be built, but if you build them, you must build them to the a.d.a. Standards. The developers are attempting to build those sidewalks. If they fail to accomplish that, we don't accept the roadways for ongoing maintenance. And we have subdivisions now that have been in that state of limbo for years. Because the tdlr who do not -- let me see, rarely grant a post construction variance, these sidewalks are already on the ground, so it's either the developer goes back out there and tears out the sidewalk and makes them fit or they're in this catch 22. They can't get them approved by tdr and we won't approve their streets for ongoing maintenance, so the streets don't get maintained, we don't do traffic enforcement on the streets because the sidewalks have not been built to a.d.a. Standards. So this is now the crusmg that we're in. This is why this policy is being discussed today, so we can get out of the box. The --
>> can I ask you a question? I?m sure there's a real simple explanation. Why is it that the county imposes mandatory sidewalk building as part of our -- what's the logical reason?
>> well, it's really an amenity within the subdivision. I think -- and we could stop requiring them. I?m not saying it not at the discretion of the Commissioners court as part of our subdivision standards, we just stopped requiring the sidewalks to be built. And my guess is that the developers would stop building them so that they wouldn't end up in a situation of being liable for something they couldn't build to standards. So you would end up with subdivisions without sidewalks. That is really a matter of public policy. We know that school districts, for instance, do not bus children within a mile of school. These school children are using those sidewalks to get to school within at least a mile rayious of the schools. We also know that many people like sidewalks. I mean, they use the sidewalks to get from places within the subdivisions to the parks and other places, so whether or not we required them or not, developers would probably want to provide that as an amenity within their subdivision. So I think to get out of the legal box, we could stoprying sidewalks to be built. That is an alternative. But I think for the most part most of the community and for the most part local governments would want to encourage sidewalks to be built for the obvious reason that there are pedestrians and pedestrians that need the sidewalks to get to places, not only within the subdivision, but adjoining the subdivision. The noncompliance issue is not just a western Travis County issue. We have sidewalks all over the county that are not compliant, but we thought we would take the more severe slopes to show you what's going on. So what you have here is a slope map which shows the area around steiner ranch, the salmon colored area are slopes greater than 20%. The gold areas are yellow areas, are slopes in the area of 10 to 20 percent. The green areas are five to 10 percent. And then the white areas are less than five percent. Note, five percent. We still haven't gotten to the two percent yet. So to be using a two percent threshold you can see that most of this area of steiner ranch is well over five percent. The way the engineer for the developer lays out the street network is very important. This is the lay requestout of -- layout of study area a. All these areas have been accepted. This is how that street system is laid out or laid out relative to the slopes. You can see the engineer did a fairly good job of trying to locate the streets in the areas that had the least amount of slope. So it not like we're going head long into slopes of 10 percent or 15 percent. Generally speaking, the layout of the roadways are in the most level areas of the area. So that is -- there's not a predisposition on the part of the developer to just make roads willy-nilly anywhere so that the on home builders could not possibly build sidewalks to a.d.a. Standards. But nonetheless you do see that areas that are less than two percent are a very small area. So you will end up in conflict. The next table shows where we have conflict. And again, this is the area that has already been accepted for maintenance. We have this liability today. The dots are where the driveways and the sidewalks are in conflict. And I want to show you a picture of what we're talking about. Here's what we're talking about. The sidewalk otherwise is a two percent side slope and meets a.d.a. Standard. It is built next to the curb. What happens is you get to the driveway, then the driveway, because it start at the asphalt level and comes up to the house, has got to overcome first of all the six-inch curb. That's exactly where the sidewalk crosses, so you're in conflict almost immediately when the sidewalk crosses that eight percent grade of in this case an eight percent grade of the driveway. In some cases that driveway is actually sloped at a 10 or higher percent grade, so it's even more conflicting. So what you see is a person in a wheelchair maybe going down this sidewalk at a fairly even two percent slide slope. They get to the driveway and they tip eight percent. That's in violation. That is what we have predominantly, 75%, of the features that are non-compliant in this subdivision, in this section are of that variety. Which means to remedy this what you have to do is basically reroute the sidewalk to the higher level of the -- to cross the driveway at where it's at a leveler plane, meaning you have to have kind of a bypass route to get it up and then back down to the other grade. On future sidewalks you may avoid this issue by pushing the sidewalk back away from the curb so that you have more area to kind of match up the driveway grade with the sidewalk grade. Now let's move on to the -- here's another example of a cross slope. These are two streets meeting. The street coming at us is at a two percent grade. It's a relatively flat roadway. And so is the sidewalk alongside of it. Everything is going fine until you hit that ramp. And that ramp you're transitioning from a running grade of two percent to a slide slope of four percent. You're immediately if a violation when you go to that four percent because this road is going downhill at a four percent grade. So this is how you get those ramps in conflict. Now, this is the type of -- the driveway issue is an issue of the home builder. We have to work with the home builders to remedy the driveway issue. The ramp issue and the street issue is more one with the developer. They're putting in the roadways, and for the most part they're putting in the ramps. And if we turn to the in connection subdivision, this is a new section -- this is more of a 3-d view of what we were looking at before. Now we're into study area b, which is a section of a subdivision that has not been accepted for maintenance. And by and large what we have and the reason we have not accepted these roadways is because those ramps, some of those ramps are not at two percent, they have not met a tdlr compliance of two percent. Now, let me say one more thing with regard to tdlr. Even though they are no longer inspecting and reviewing sidewalks in private subdivisions before they are given to the county, they do certify registered accessibility specialists. And these are private individuals who are in the business of going and inspecting. So there's a cadre of inspectors out there certified by the state to determine whether or not these features meet a.d.a. Standards. These inspectors are available not only to the private sector, but to the county. And as you will see in our policy in the making, we are going to be relying on these certified inspectors to continue to inspect and certify compliance even though the state is not doing it. So we're making use of the state certification process so as not to create another need at the county for another layer of inspections. We're going to rely on inspectors already in the market offering that service. What I want to do is towrn to the policy now. How do we get out of the box? There are several components of the policy. One is to stop the bleeding. That is, see if we can stop a new subdivisions from creating new non-compliant sidewalks. That is that happens in two branches. One is to work with the developer and the engineer for the developer to make sure the layout of the streets can get the least amount of slopes for those side streets where the streets meet together. And then also work with the developer and engineer in the construction of the ramps at those intersections. Then we need to work more closely with the home builder in the construction of the driveways and the sidewalks within each lot. Right now we require the developer to put up a subdivision physical for the sidewalks. We do not require a fiscal of the home builders. So we are holding the developer fully accountable for whether or not the sidewalks in that development meet a.d.a. Standards even though the home builder for the most part is building the sidewalk system. So we have a disconnect between who we hold fiscal with and who we ultimately are going to be holding accountable for the sidewalk. So part of our policy is that we will continue to require a fiscal of the developer, but then we will also require a fiscal of the home builder when he comes to seek a permit for the driveway. To the extent that we're picking up fiscal from the home builder, we will reduce the fiscal of the developer so that we're covered by fiscal, but the fiscal is actually relating to the person who is taking the action to construct the sidewalk. So we'll start holding accountability where it rightfully should be.
>> joe, can you give me an idea of roughly what that would be? Let's say you were to take b up here. How many square feet or -- I don't think it's a square mile. It probably not that large. Let's say you were to calculate for me. If you don't have it, you can give it to me later, but it would be interesting for me to know what a developer would have to post if they were responsible for b -- or a, it doesn't make any difference, just give me a section. I would kind of like to have an idea of what a developer -- is that $10,000, is that $250,000?
>> roughly, roughly. And this is fiscal to make sure all the original construction is done to standards, is about $12 per linear foot for a four foot sidewalk and about $18 per linear foot for a six-foot sidewalk. And $12 a linear foot and anne dollars a linear foot. So you imagine how many lip yar foot of sidewalk there may be in a subdivision. And roughly we're talking quarter of a million dollars more in a subdivision for a sidewalk. And that is just for the initial installation. If we had to draw down on that fiscal to tear out a sidewalk and replace it, it would probably cost you more than we're currently posting in fiscal because to remove you will have to jackhammer a sidewalk, remove it, totally replace it. The cost of that is going to be far greater than what we're currently charging for the initial installation. On the other hand, we do not expect that the -- that we're going to have to tear out every non-compliept feature. I don't think that is probably a reasonable expectation. We do want to be in a position within our policy to replace the ones on an on-demand basis. Let me go ahead and --
>> I?m sorry, I?ll let you finish your deal.
>> so what we need to do is develop a subdivision rule that allows us to work with the developer and his engineer and the home builders to bring full compliance with the policy as it is written. That my mean that you -- that may mean that you may need to grant me the latitude to grant more waivers to that two percent side slope. We may make a judgment -- you've seen and all it takes is so much to meet two percent. Perhaps you'll allow me to grant a waiver of up to three and a half percent. That is probably a reasonable waiver to give someone in order to meet our standards. As far as running slope, we know that the tdlr currently allows greater than five percent slope as long as it's with natural grade. I think that's reasonable that we would do the same thing. So a little more latitude in granting waivers as on part of our normal course of business without having to come to court for a variance on the policy. On the other hand, you will probably be in a position at the end of the day, in spite of the best efforts of the developer and his engineer, you will come across situations where it just will not fit. They will not be able to comply with our standards, even with waivers. In that case I would recommend that the court grant variances. But when you grant variances, you understand that there's a certain level of risk that the county takes on by granting a variance, and by granting the variance, what you're telling the development community is that you will accept these roads for ongoing maintenance after they have been platted with the variances. So you're taking that on. I do believe, though, that there is a shared responsibility in that variance that the developer in seeking a variance should put up a fee that we would collect and we would put into a retrofit account. Basically that's an insurance account that we have available to us in the event that after we have accepted the subdivision, we are approached by an individual who has an accessibility need. And when we are approached, we can dip into that account and retrofit the sidewalk or find an alternate route for that disabled person. So understand what we're trying to do is grant variances, accept the roadway for ongoing maintenance, but understand that we are picking up a risk in so doing, but we have an insurance account that couple laits over time, a dedicated account that would be used for nothing more than responding to requests that we may receive from persons who need accessibility. That is part of the policy that I?m recommending to the court that we set up such an account. And then it be funded with a fee for variances. The next piece of the puzzle is what to do with the subdivision that have not been accepted because of non-compliant sidewalks. I mean, we have quite a few of those out there. Mainly they're in the hill country, but they're not only in the hill country, we have some in eastern Travis County for various reasons. I would suggest first of all that we work with the developer of those subdivisions to bring down the number of non-compliant sidewalks through retrofitting, warping, whatever we need to do, bring those down to a minimum, including the waivers that would otherwise be granted to them if they were starting out anew. Then we would say we have, okay, a core of non-compliant features that in spite of their best efforts cannot be fixed. We would again accept a fee or a sum of a contribution in lieu of a fee to be able to accept those subdivisions in spite of the fact that they do not meet the a.d.a. Standards, and go ahead and accept those subdivisions as part of our normal system. Then they become part of our system. And again subject to the demand response of account of the retrofit account, if we do have a request from someone who lives in those subdivisions to take care of a particular route or a particular ramp or particular sidewalk in front of their house, we would have the wherewithal, the financial wherewithal to take care of those. We then have the 10,000 features on accepted road systems that we know are non-compliant. For the most part those are on accepted county roads, 75% of those are where driveways and sidewalks do not meet standards. We have as a county dedicated $200,000 in our current fiscal year for taking care of sidewalks that are not compliant. We would use that to bring a plan to Commissioners court that says basically here are all the features that are non-compliant, here are the priorities that we would take in such a way as to take on a number of these every year and get them fixed. And the priorities would basically be fix those non-compliant sidewalks along roadways that we are reconstructing and doing an overlay. When you do substantial improvements to accepted county roadways, that triggers the need to go in and take care of sidewalks that are adjacent to those roadways. So that would be our first order of business, our first priority is when we go out to repave, overlay or reconstruct a roadway and fix the sidewalks on the streets. The second priority would be in fixing ramps at interesections and streets where the grade is greater than 2%. . The third priority would be to take care of sidewalks that are otherwise non-compliant. But those that are closer to public accommodations, for instance, our priority would be higher within half a mile of a school than it might be where there's no school at all. It would be higher where there's a community center or a public building as opposed to where there's no community center or public building at all. So what we're trying to do is direct the resources that we have toward the areas that we know that have a higher probability of pedestrian traffic and a higher need for a.d.a. Compliant sidewalks. We believe this is a rational way to deal with non-compliant issues. And as long as we are making a good faith effort every year at rectifying them on some order of priority, we believe this is the best use of public resources and still trying to fulfill the spirit of the americans with disabilities act. So these are -- the issues are fairly complex. I think we have some experts who have been dealing with this issue for years. Hank submitted has been the engineer for the development community. He can probably inform you on specific ways that they have worked to bring ramps and sidewalks into compliance. I?ve tried to represent as best I can what I believe the real issues are and what we need to do as a public entity to make our original regulations to the point where we can ultimately accept these subdivisions for ongoing maintenance.
>> judge Biscoe, members of the court, my name is hank smithand I?ve been doing this fr years. The sidewalk issue has been going on for many, many years. It's been a thorn in our side for probably the last two or three years. We started having meetings with the county and the city and tdlr two to three years ago, trying to am come up with a solution to the problem. Prior to that everybody kind of ignored sidewalks. It was an afterthought. You put them in on both sides of the street, the developer built the ramps, the homeowner put in the sidewalks and no one ever looked at tdlr regulations. When the county stopped accepting the roadways, that's when it became critical and we started looking at it. There wasn't a good solution. The development community has always come in and said you really can't build subdivisions in western Travis County or eastern Travis County and comply with tdlr regulations. You simply cannot do it from an engineering standpoint. And there was a lot of debate back and forth and I think we all finally agreed to that. And about the time tdlr came on board and started working with us, they simply changed their regulations and said we're not going to review projects anymore. We're not going to approve variances. It's taking us off the table. And that happened about a year ago. And so then we kind of had to step back and say okay, tdlr is now out of the picture. You can't go to them and get a variance or a waiver. So now we're dealing with the county and twhoos we started meeting with joe and his staff trying to work out a solution. It's been a long time coming. I think there's a lot of frustration on both sides. It's a very complicated issue. It's an increased liability on behalf of the county when you accept these roadways. The problem is there's not an entity out there once the developments get built, a lot of developers and a lot of developments that are out there are done by limited partnerships. You create a limited partner, you go out and develop a 20-acre piece of land, put homes on it, home buyers come in and buy the lots, the partnership is dissolved and is gone away. If you went back to that partnership today throorks nobody there. It simply doesn't exist. You can't hold the liability expecting the partnership to pay for it when the partnership it gone. The policy joe has come up with is fairment we haven't talked about what the cost of the variances are. I don't think joe has any idea what that would be. I think if it's $10,000 per variance, we will sit back and say we're still in agreement. If it's $10, we're going to have you will never have enough none to do anything. There's a number in there that will be fair for the development dmunt and will also get money in the pool to fix the problems that are bound to come up as we move forward. The key is getting the roadways accepted. The lodger you go -- nobody is maintaining them. The developer is not going to maintain the roadways. You have roadways being unmaintain and the longer the county waits -- sooner or later the county has to step up and do this. The longer it goes without them doing that, the worst condition the roads are going to be in because they're not being maintained on a routine basis. There's no one there to do that. I think this policy does address that issue. I think working through the nuts and bolts we have a great framework to move forward with. We sit down and talk about what the numbers are and figure that out. I think the framework is a good policy for moving forward.
>> so you feel that looking at the way the policy direction that joe is suggesting, having fiscals -- posting fiscal for the developer and then having a posted fiscal for the home builder, let them deal with the sidewalk issue and of course you guys continue to deal with the roads, is something that -- as far as variances and all these other kind of stuff is concerned, it's something that y'all feel comfortable with?
>> yes. I?ve talked to a couple of inspectors over the lunch hour and I think there may be a way -- the timing of the variance is going to be important. Because a lot of times bh you get in the field and you design a ramp that's going to be at four percent, there's -- you can warp the pavement, you can do things in the field to tell the contractor to make it three and a half percent. There are some things we can do to shave it back to make three and a half percent and comply with the waiver procedure. There's some cases where you imp sichly can't do that. It's too steep to come at it and make it work. In case where's we think we'll get a two percent ramp built, that it ends up getting built at four percent. I think if you collect fiscal for everything, get an snmer out there at the end of the day to measure the entire stwition and subdivision and say these areas don't comply, then you have the waivers done off that. We can talk about how this gets implemented as one of the ideas. I will say the engineering community, a lot of us have come around. If you look at some of the subdivisions that were built, particularly in steiner ranch five years ago, 75% of the ramps and sidewalks didn't comply. We just got phase one section seven approved and I think of the entire section we had four or five that didn't comply. We're paying attention to the sidewalks and there are ways to do that. The sidewalks look change straing. You don't have the sidewalk on the same side of the street through the subdivision. We always assumed put the sidewalk on the right side of the street. We cross the street, go down another four or five lots, cross again to the other side of the street. So the sidewalks kind of look five fi, but they all -- goofy, but they all meet the a.d.a. Criteria. I think there are ways to solve it, but you will still have variances. There's no way to build and not have variances unless you just don't build sidewalks, which I don't want to get to that position, but there are some areas that you simply can't make it work.
>> another side issue to this is in some cases as we saw last Friday, the crosswalk is being designed to a.d.a. Standards mid block, okay? And it's not typically where you would expect to find someone crossing the street. And so there is a tension here between perhaps granting a variance at the intersection, knowing that really is the safest place to cross someone across the street because that's where motorists expect to see someone cross the street as opposed to meeting the a.d.a. Standards and crossing someone mid block. So I think there's not a simple yes or no. I think there are going to be some risk management issues for the court in deciding whether or not it's better to cross in mid block and meet a.d.a. Standards or not meet a.d.a. Standards at the intersection and create a variance situation. So that is probably something that we're going to have to weigh in and make some choices on.
>> and that depends on how the roadway is used. If you're in a neighborhood that is pretty well one way in, one way out and 95% of the traffic are people that live there, mid block crossing is not that big a deal because no one is driving through. You get to a collector street where 75% of the people aren't people who live in that earks the mid block crossing is huge. I think it's a case-by-case basis when you start looking at that.
>> what I?m really having -- I guess we're going to all have to struggle with it as far as the challenge, and that's that variance fee or that variance fund that's going to be set aside. What is the actual amount of money that will have I guess us at a comfort level to say, well, mr. Developer, you want variances? This is the fee that you will have to come up with.
>> right.
>> and of course, once that happens, what I?m understanding is you do not have any responsibility anymore, he kind of let you off the hook.
>> and that's worth something. A developer is going to want to know what that fee is as early on in the process as possible or approximately, because he will have to base his home sales on what that dollar figure is. You're going to price a lot that sold at 40 thiew dollars, but if you have two variances, you have to sell the the lots at $41,000. So you make the decisions early on in the process. So in the preliminary plan phase we need to say we think we'll have five variances. You may wind up with four or six, but you have to be close up front where that number is going to be and really deal with it at the end. It's got to be something predictable up front as to what the criteria is. That's the problem now, there is no criteria. You comply with a.d.a., period. There are no variances, there's no process for noncompliance and you simply can't do that. So the frustration priet now is there's no way to build subdivisions that comply. So we're building -- we've got the federal government saying you don't have to build sidewalks, but if you do, build them this way. We've got the city and the county saying you've got to build sidewalks and we're saying you're making us violate a federal law by telling us we build the sidewalk or we don't build the development. Designing a subdivision on how to put a sidewalk in is the tail wagging the dog. You build them based on what makes sense off a tow poe, but you also have to make sense with the sidewalks.
>> I?ve got another category of sidewalks and I?ll call them the wells branch batch. And that is that it wasn't a matter of that somehow the sidewalk and the driveway settled disproportionately, it's called roots. And we've got a lot of very good landscaping that got put in to try to get trees down a road or in a front yard, and the roots have gone crazy and they have lifted up more than your eight cents that you put out there, joe. We've got serious obstacles. I need to know what do we do about that batch. Because it wasn't a matter of something settled wrong. We have an invasive feature, it's only getting worse on some of those things. And let me throw out a plug for a sponsor I hear about all the time on kvet, they talk about this kind of lift tech thing where they can shoot concrete undernootsz something to kind of level out foundations and sidewalks. I don't know if that works or not. Foam. But they can kind of even things back out again. There's a whole other category here that it is all about obstacles and it is not about soil stabilization, it is about trees. And do you make somebody take out that tree, do we chop up the roots? It seems like there's got to be a more environmental friendly way that under any other circumstance that sidewalk was just groovy the day it got put in, it's just that the trees have taken over and ruined what got put in.
>> I think that fits into the second category. The last category of just an ongoing maintenance problem to deal with these.
>> wells branch is just overloaded. We've got many, many pictures from the neighborhood association saying it's not a matter of soil, it's a matter of roots.
>> right.
>> help. Where do we throw those in, joe?
>> we have guidelines on tree plantings within the right-of-way. It may be that we want setbacks that account for root growth and the location of the sidewalk. We maybe need to look at all the physical features around these things that can ultimately bring a sidewalk out of compliance, but there's not a whole lot, unless you really start making some pretty start sidewalks in eastern Travis County, you've got the soils out there that just heave. And I?m not sure there's a real good solution for building sidewalks that won't ultimately separate.
>> how many lawsuits have we had over a.d.a., over this kind of stuff?
>> I know we've had lawsuits over a.d.a. Accessibility for voting booths and the like. We haven't been hit on sidewalks yet.
>> well, I don't want to see us -- not to say that you can't be sued. Sure you can. Over just about anything. But let's be mindful that what we're trying to do is be reasonable. We're trying to find something that allows -- we can't not have development go on in any parts of the community. And so let's not rack our brains and drive y'all crazy about how do you come up with this. It would be real simple to say there have got to be some subdivisions that you would probably -- I would think you would tell somebody, we're not going to force you to put sidewalks in the subdivision. You've got a tract of land because I can see where somebody will use this. Again, here's another thing that you can't comply with. I would think that if you built -- if I were going to build a subdivision, I let everybody know in bold print, we're building a subdivision in wherever, and we have no intentions of building sidewalks. You need to know that when you own a home. Even if they've got a pad site down here on their master plan for an elementary school, beware that we're not doing this. So I would like to see us get to a spot where we could be flexible enough versus just being so -- the county rule is that you've got to have sidewalks because there are just some places that -- not only can you not do them, there are a bunch of places where you go, god, let's not put sidewalks in there. You know, rob roy is a pretty nice subdivision. There are no sidewalks. There are plenty of neighborhoods we probably have examples of that. Maybe we can move towards that as well.
>> rob roy is an example of where the sidewalks aren't there. It's not because the topo doesn't allow it, it's because of the way you design the infrastructure doesn't allow for sidewalks. So I think extending that idea that okay, do you have successful developments that don't have sidewalks, there may be topographical reasons. It's not the entire subdivision on some streets where simply this street is not going to have a sidewalk, and it's just the way it's going to be.
>> and the people know that up front.
>> it's on their final plat, in the notes, the restrictive covenants that this street is not going to have sidewalks.
>> I think you could make some kind of argument oz a short cul-de-sac because basically the street becomes your giant playground, but I?m going have a real hard problem saying that we're not going to have sidewalks within the one mile radius of a school where a school is intentionally not going to give a child transportation, they are expected to walk and we say you've got to walk in the street or you've got to get your parents who might be going in two different directions at the same time trying to get to work and trying to get the kids to school, I think we'll have to be very cautious around school sites because the school district is not providing transportation. I?m not forcing kids into the street.
>> then you're mindful of where you locate a school. I?m just saying I think everybody would agree, let's give a kiddo the opportunity to get to school on his bike or walking. But let's also be mindful that there are just some areas that don't put the school there because you're going to entice people to either walk in the street, given that there are no sidewalks, and we don't want that burden either.
>> and there may be some flexibility to move the sidewalks into the street and stripe off a four-foot section of the street and make that part of the pedestrian pathway. I don't know. I?m not an expert in that area, but there may be some outside the box thinking that can be done to make it work.
>> if you can keep a car being parked in there that shouldn't be parked in there, and then what happens is the kiddo has to avoid the car and get out into the street.
>> right.
>> okay.
>> joe, how long has it been since we accepted these roads --
>> 1997. Was when we stopped accepting subdivisions that did not meet a.d.a. Standards.
>> did we go out and do an inspection?
>> we have.
>> so if we were to, say, adopt the fiscal posting approach, would we inspect the same roads again or just rely on the other inspection?
>> I think our first approach would be to see if we couldn't get some of those sidewalks to come into compliance. As opposed to just charge the variances and accept them. I think there are some of them that can probably still be fixed. If not, then we're talking about leveeing a fee for a variance that allows us then to accept the subdivision.
>> what do we do about the roads that have continued to disintegrate for lack of a better word over the last nine years. Who is going to be responsible for an up to date punch list related to those roads? We're not talking about taking those roads in nine years after the fact without any maintenance on them, are we?
>> what's the chose? Like hank said, you've got a partnership that's no longer in existence. The up fortunate thing is that it may flow right to us. It's not anything that you want to do, but who is there to go to ultimately? A judge or somebody is probably going to say how did it get started to begin with? They've got a permit, they -- this or that. I don't want to take a nine-year-old road on either that doesn't comply, but when push comes to shove, we better hope there aren't a lot of those things because I don't know that there's a way that we can get around.
>> let me be mindful of a precedent you may be setting there because we have folks who through no fault of their own because their subdivision was built in the '70's and the '80's and the road never got accepted, are still sitting out there and we have not accepted them, we have forced them to to go through a process of figuring out how to get the money, work through the punch list and I think rob roy was one of those that we might have worked through. And then once they got it done, we did it. We worked very cooperatively up in windermere and heather wild where they are doing the replacement of the pvc under the streets where we were able to cooperate and collaborate and get to that happen. But we have lots of subdivisions out there who through no fault of there own have not been accepted and we've been firm saying I?m sorry, but you've got to get through your punch list before we will take out. I don't want to have one policy for newer subdivisions who have known that their subdivision wasn't being accepted for a very specific reason and we do not have a similar relaxed attitude about folks who also through no fault of their own, the fiscal was lost, it was never transferred to the city, to the county, whatever, and they are just as injured parties as anybody else here.
>> question number two, what's the pressure on us to move on this now?
>> just the pent up frustration here on having some of the subdivisions in a state of not being accepted, that there are people now living in the subdivisions that are expecting the expect ing county to maintain the roads, to do traffic enforcement and we're saying you're not part of the county road system because for these sidewalks. So we go back to the same loop and we've been in this loop now for too long. I think it's just a matter of we've reached a level of frustration where we're trying to seek some answers.
>> so we should go ahead and address these issues.
>> yes.
>> so if a lawsuit is filed, since these are not county roads, who is sued? And by whom? All of my questions are good, joe. I?m on a roll.
>> some of them are good for executive session. [ laughter ]
>> so when the feds say we don't require sidewalks, but if you build them, you've got build to these standards, who are they talking to?
>> anybody who builds a sidewalk.
>> they're talking to the builder, except we have intervened and said in Travis County we prefer for you to build sidewalks and we require you to build sidewalks.
>> in case of the federal law, the americans with disabilities act, the law speaks to the county in that case. What the federal law basically says is that if you've got a program for serving your constituents, you can't discriminate, just like a.d.a. And the context of all the other things the county does, in Travis County's case we've relekted to have a program of sidewalk construction by requiring it in our subdivision regulations. So by requiring it in your subdivision regulations, we've established the program, so the requirement kicks in that the program has to be non-discriminatory. You can't discriminate against people with accessibility issues. You have to provide a sidewalk system that is usable by them just like it's usable by people without the disability.
>> but -- but our enforcement of our requirement is refusal to accept the road. So are we obligated under federal law to force the home builder to build us a compliant sidewalk?
>> the case law says that we're basically obligated to use our regulatory authority to make our program non-discriminatory. There is case law on that point.
>> do we meet that standard then by refusing to accept the roads until the sidewalks are compliant?
>> well, I would say that's -- that's one way we're using our authority to make the program non-discriminatory. Accepting the road is leverage we've got. As hank said, the developers want the roads accepted. The county has something in our power that they want, so we've basically been using that as leverage to try to keep them at the table, them being whoever is left after 10 years and their posted fiscal. It's mainly an issue of their posted fiscal.
>> does federal law require us to do more? Do you want me to ask you that in executive session?
>> good executive session question.
>> okay. Am I left with the -- should I be left with the impression that the home builders are as eager to find an acceptable solution to this problem as --
>> ield say we're more eager.
>> should they be willing to post an appropriate miss fis kel, realizing we need to realize what that might be. Would an appropriate fiscal be based on the number of homes on thrrks the number of residents, the length of the sidewalks? Have you given that any thought.
>> no.
>> okay. We'll give that thought between now and next Tuesday. If you have thoughts on that, we'll get them by Friday, joe.
>> I will be meeting with the home builders association tomorrow and as a result of that may get some additional feedback on this framework.
>> okay. Anything else today other than my two or three legal questions that tom has written down and will address in executive session? Anything else in open court discussion? Next week we'll have a limited agenda, so we'll reach that item in the morning. That's not saying we'll finish it, but we'll reach it in the morning.
>> had thanks very much -- thanks very much. We appreciate your patience.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
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:
Wednesday, February 15, 2006 11:17 AM