Travis County Commissioners Court

March 28, 2006
Item 27

27 to consider and take appropriate action on the current status of and alternatives for future disposition of stroets vets within the seven oaks subdivision including marly way and olympus drive.

>> he is sitting waiting for a baby to be born. But tom is fully briefed us on this.

>> okay. Including the e-mail that I sent.

>> yes, I discussed that this morning.

>> mr. Gieselman were you about to play out this item -- lay out this item.

>> I was. This is seven oaks subdivision, let me orient you first of all. This road is 22 -- farm-to-market road 2244. This is in precinct 3. Some of you may know cuernavaca, existing county road. This subdivision is called the seven oaks subdivision, it has -- excuse me. This is the seven oaks subdivision here. This is marly way. Basically a collector road that goes through the entire subdivision connecting into 2244. This is an existing subdivision called Austin lakehills. This is olympus. What we have is the conflict in -- and the reason this item is on the agenda and both neighborhoods are well represented today, they have provided us with briefings, is the disposition of the streets within -- within seven oaks. The subdivision was approved to Commissioners court and the streets have been dedicated to the public. They are near completion, typically in a situation like this when a developer has finished the completion he will seek court approval and we will recommend to the court that the streets be accepted for ongoing maintenance. That finishes the cycle, making them public roads and in this case, in this instance we still have some outstanding items on the punch list that's have not been completed. We have not closed the loop yet in making those public.

>> the method of dedication was what?

>> the subdivision plant.

>> plat.

>> all of the roads.

>> for all of the roads in -- in the seven oaks subdivision.

>> the -- the residents of -- of -- this is part of it, of this subdivision is now inhabited. The lots have been sold, homes are built, people are living there. That is not the case for the entire subdivision, but it is occupied. There's some desire now among the -- the subdivision at least to consider the privatization of the streets within the subdivision. I understand perhaps that has changed slightly and we will know more in a minute about whether they are willing to continue to pursue that. That is a -- that certainly is allowed under the county subdivision regulations to -- to take a public street and convert it into a private roadway. In that case I believe the intent was to gate this olympus and also gate the entryway of the subdivision making it a private gated community. The conflict is that the residents in -- in this subdivision were seeking that this become a public road, that the county accept it for ongoing maintenance, thus allowing them a second access out of the subdivision. They currently come from this area down this way, to -- to 2244.

>> I might add this is a signalized intersection, this intersection is not and we are told by txdot that they would not signalize this intersection not so much because of the traffic volume but because if they did put a light in here, the queues to the signal, there were some issues with sight distances and people coming over this hill and not seeing the queue of cars backing up at the signal.

>> that's cuernavaca.

>> this is cairn here. Cairn.

>> where cuernavaca comes into Bee Caves road.

>> I think txdot is concerned that traffic that backed up at the signal would be such that people coming in might not see the backed up traffic because they were right on it. So there's an issue there with -- with you certainly we will get into this in a minute in this level of -- we are estimating that if the -- if this were not gated you would have about 750 additional vehicles that would be added to the traffic of seven oaks that would come down to this intersection at 2244. Joe, how did you get that number?

>> by the -- by the number of lots occupied lots within the subdivision. Certainly not all of that traffic will use marly way for all trips. So there was an assumption being at about 65% of those trips would be using marly way, the other 35% would continue to use this way for-- for various trips. So -- so taking all of that, we estimate that there's usually about nine to 10 trips per day being made by a single family resident. So those were some of the calculations that went into the forecasted traffic.

>> why did you all presume that the only people who will discover that punch through would be people in that immediate subdivision? Because I will tell you my bigger concern, I will tell everybody, I drove this yesterday, so I have been out there on site both sides, spent a good deal of time out there yesterday. I see it as being northern cuernavaca as being all of those folks further down figuring out a new way to punch through, less so in the morning because you have the protected intersection there at cuernavaca but in the evening, 1.4 miles, 2.7 that they will use both subdivisions as a punch through cut through subdivisions to get to things that are further down cuernavaca.

>> part of it is not just distance, it's travel time. You do have some delays. Because at the signalized intersection here that helps minimize dallas. At least you have some repetitive openings for people to get out whereas -- whereas if this intersection is not signalized you don't have that. So you --

>> there's also a matter of -- of, you know, what you are saying is people from this point would actually come in through the neighborhood and back out again.

>> no, the rivers, only in the evening when you are coming from Austin, you will make that right-hand turn on to marly way and cut through both subdivisions, get to lower northern cuernavaca at that point and continue on. To avoid going down to cuernavaca and going down that distance. It is only coming home. I don't see them doing this in the morning because you want the signalized intersection.

>> [one moment please for change in captioners]

>> there's certainly a lot of growth occurring out in this area, and the trip destinations may change over time. And as the areas change to the west as well as to the east. So we have a variety of issues here. And one is certainly circulation whvment we review -- when we review subdivisions we always look for circulation, dual access, and in this case we have an area that is subject to wild land fire. I want to show you another map that -- this is the same area with basically topography. You see the canyons here, that are up here. Appeared not only do you have the issue of the drainage, but you have the potential for wild land fire that would come up these canyons. The emergency service folks have mapped out the potential for a wild land fire in the area. This map shows basically slopes. The peak, it is 15% or greater, so you see this area in here, the next area in orange is 10 to 15% slope and then the green is five to 10 percent. You see most of the area is fairly hilly area, which is also represented by the area. While I’m at this map I wanted -- part of the issue is the grades on the road. You do have a section of roadway here which is in excess of 15%. That's bumping up against our maximum in terms of slope. We look at that as particularly relevant when you have icy conditions, which not all that frequent in central Texas, but you do have some of that. But you also have -- they have it on marly way also. It's just by virtue of the fact it's in a hilly area. The roads, you have a difficult time being less than that grade because of the natural topography. But what I was trying to point out here is this area here, as all this area, is in a high to moderately high area for wild land fire hazard. Now, again, the probabilities, because of what we've experienced lately, the dryness certainly has increased our consciousness of this potential. In reality, the esd's and the fire department have done a pretty good job of tamping those fires down when they started, but there's always a potential for things getting out of hand. That was a concern for us.

>> that was the emergency service district that served that area from those particular sites?

>> I think they are conscious and they've expressed this repeatedly as they have this morning about being aware of the wild land fire potential. In the case of the request for gated community, they were not opposed to the gated community, an installation of gates, as long as they had control of the gates with -- and we've seen them around Travis County, basically a remote control gate access that they can plug in the control number and it would open the gates for them to get in and provide emergency access and that would be to fire e.m.s. And all the emergency providers.

>> but as far as response time and stuff like that, my concern is how far are they away from -- let's say there's a situation where there is a wild land fire that happens there in the other subdivisions. As far as timing is concerned, what would be the response time for them to get to that particular situation?

>> hi, anna bolen. I’ve been told two miles and four miles. There's two emergency responders that serve these areas.

>> two miles? And also four miles for the other esd?

>> there's two emergency responders.

>> okay. Thank you.

>> and if it weren't gated then would people exit out on the bottom on the south? Not on the olympus, but down at the bottom?

>> yes, if it were gated at olympus, then all of seven oaks would exit 2244. This residential area would exit over cuernavaca. Now, we did -- david greer, our traffic engineer, did an analysis of this intersection with seven oaks indicated and with even oaks not gated. So we can predict what might happen at this intersection. The level of service is typically how we would measure the capability of an intersection, and the range is from a to f, a being a free flowing intersection, operating at the highest level, and f being failure. And with a gated community -- with a gate here on olympus, which means just seven oaks would be using the intersection, it operates at an service level e. With it open and the additional trips coming through, it drops to a service level f. So it's not good either way. It's worse with the opening. So you do have an intersection problem here at 2244 and marley, probably under both circumstances. The delay times increase with it being open, but you will have a significant delay even with it gated. The remedy ideally would be a traffic signal, except that you've got issues if a traffic signal were put in because of the potential for safety issues on 2244 itself. It's not an ideal location for a traffic signal.

>> joe, some of the e-mails I’ve gotten some folks seem to have the impression that a controlled gate at the olympus end would be accessible to anyone within seven oaks and they would have the secret code to go use the back door, and some folks understand that no, it's just for emergency use, police, fire, e.m.s., and I’m going to even throw in there school buses to be able to go between the two, but can you shed some light as to who would have the magic code to the olympus gate?

>> emergency service providers.

>> only?

>> yes.

>> so anybody that is under the impression that somehow the seven oaks folks would have the ability to sneak out the back door and head to the lake, that would be incorrect?

>> right. And I don't think even the school districts have a key. I think it's just really the only purpose for that gate is for emergency service providers to get in and out.

>> so do we have a request to withdraw the offer of dedication of seven oaks?

>> I have received an application to privatize the roadway, which is tand mount to the same thing. -- tantamount to the same thing. It would be the abandonment of a public roadway and it's kind of in -- I guess really the county attorney should advise you on the status, the legal status of the roadways now, but it's basically you have an offer and once accepted it becomes a public roadway. So what they're asking is for that to be abandoned so that it could revert to private. And I understand that the vote of the Commissioners court is different in different circumstances, so I would have the attorney advise you on that as well.

>> joe, walk me through how this is different from a situation that we had kind of after the fact related to rob roy where we had an area that became cut-through traffic and they didn't even have a pass cal, they had a signal there and there will not be a signal here at marly. Help me idea why this is not prerob roy where after the fact of cut-through traffic, etcetera, the same kinds of concerns related to access, etcetera? Help me understand why that one was -- that's not applicable in terms of our understanding of the situation.

>> I think there are some similarities and some differences. The similarity in the rob roy case, we required that all the adjoining landowners were in agreement with the privatizization and you recall there were some issues with utility companies that had access to the roadways and in that case saint stephen's school who do not object to the closure and gating of rob roy street.

>> that was within rob roy?

>> no, that was outside of rob roy, adjacent to it. So in some cases that's the similarity here. This would be the saint stephen's school, that they would be seeking permission to basically say they were using it for access. The issue with rob roy because it connected 2244 and loop 360, not only did you have the local traffic, but you had a lot of traffic that was cutting the corner between 360 and 2244. And that was the traffic that was predominant in this case, which was basically precluded by the gating of the roads in rob roy. So you had a lot of external through, and I think the point you raised was that very issue of is this a chut-through for -- cut-through for this area. That would make it similar to the issue we had in rob roy. If the preponderance of traffic using marly way was all of this coming through, then we would have a very similar situation to rob roib was somebody was cutting corners between the arterial network.

>> that is a legal question.

>> I will save it for inside the other room. Thank you.

>> are there some other issues we need to raise? Both sides are here and prepared to make presentations.

>> so what we have is a desire from applicant to privatize the streets, a gated community, with first responders have access to and from.

>> the applicant has a subdivision in the state of being ready, almost ready for acceptance of public road. They want -- they have filed simultaneously an application to privatize the roadway or abandon the roadways, the public interest in the roadways and to gate the community. We have a competing interest in that the county accept the roads in this area for public use that they have their second access to their subdivision.

>> when we approve the subdivision plat for Austin lake hills, did the county make any representation as to a second access?

>> this stubout would speak to that. We would not have stubbed out this roadway had it not been for an eventual connection with the adjoining properties. And that is typical. Most of the subdivisions when we have an adjoining property we always stub out to provide for additional circulation.

>> so what did the stubout tell the residents of Austin lake hills?

>> as a minimum that there be a connection to the adjoining property.

>> and that is what was what we -- that was what we intended to convey?

>> I understand there's different levels of access. In this case this is a local street and at least there would be some connection from here to here via a local street.

>> okay. So if seven oaks is a gated community, there's only one exit from Austin lake hills?

>> yes, that's correct. At this time.

>> but there's been one exit there for the last 30, 40 years based on e-mails, I take it.

>> it has been -- when was Austin lake hills platted?

>> 1961.

>> what's the county's policy on the preferred number of access from a subdivision?

>> we do not have a policy on that.

>> okay.

>> but you prefer more than one.

>> a number -- I was thinking in terms of traffic volumes. No, we have a policy on dual access, primarily for emergency response, but also for good circulation.

>> if seven oaks had not basically offered to dedicate the roads and simply gone out and built private roads when the subdivision plat came to us, would it be routinely approved or would we question it?

>> the issue that we're talking about today would have come up at that time. Had there been a petition to file a subdivision as private streets, then we would have looked at this issue at that point in time and said is this a good idea or not because a private subdivision is the discretion of the Commissioners court, so it's not a right. And you would have worked through these same issues at that time whether or not it was a better idea to have it connected or not connected.

>> and those same issues can be raised at that time. Had those same issues been raised at that time to have it a private subdivision.

>> any questions?

>> so ultimately what is staff's religious?

>> staff's recommendation is that the roads be public roads.

>> do you have anything further? It may be good to hear from the applicant and then hear from -- is there like a representative for the Austin lake hills residents?

>> we do have, yes, sir.

>> okay. Let's hear from the applicant for seven oaks first.

>> judge, are we going to act on this today? Is this an action item for today or we're just hearing for folks today, surfacing all issues and legal issues. I want to make sure that people have a sense of what's happening today or not.

>> I think most people -- the people that I have interaccused with I had made mention that this being as controversial as it will be, generally what we do is we take all testimony and then we take action next week because sometimes what you have is the ability for people to go back and say, okay, can you work with this and can you work with this. If you can't, but I would suspect that next week would be the week that we would make a decision on it.

>> I think that's true.

>> anybody here from the applicant? If you would have a seat there, get comfortable, give us your full name and we would be happy to get your comments.

>> hi, my name is michael ray. I am building a home on brandon way, and I’m here with my wife, melissa, and I’ve got two kids and a grandmother that will live in seven oaks. Hopefully we're moving in in about a month or so. I’m here representing not only my family, but also I’m chair of the traffic safety committee that was formed by the seven oaks neighborhood association to address the issue of gating and privatizization. With me I’ve got multiple folks that I’ll decline to name right now, but one of the things -- a couple of things that we've heard tonight are things that aren't new.

>> this morning. We haven't been here that long. [ laughter ]

>> I’ve been at some other hearings that have been that long. You know, I think joe did a fairly good job of explaining the situation. Our neighborhood really has two concerns. Number one, it's the vehicular traffic that will be created by the single occupancy vehicles, particularly the daily commuter traffic in peak times and going home as Commissioner Sonleitner pointed out. And also within the neighborhood the increase of vehicular traffic that poses a higher risk or more danger to the families of seven oaks, particularly because of the way seven oaks is designed. If you'll notice, as a lot of the hill country neighborhoods are, the roads, because of the steepness of the grade, have to be built on the tops of the hills. Because they're built on tops of the hills, it causes two problems. Number one, marly acts as the spine for our neighborhood. This is not an interconnecting grid like you see in a lot of urban neighborhoods that allows connectivity. Marly is the bypass of the way that families or folks on kpar interact with folks on the other streets when it's built out. So marly serves to connect not only vehicularly, but with pedestrians, walkers, joggers, kids on bicycles in particular, connects us with the rust of our neighborhood. And so having that increase in traffic on marly, which is our main way of getting around, specifically outside of vehicles, is going to pose more of a risk to our kids in the neighborhood, so we're concerned about the cut-through traffic as we've talked about. We make no bones about that. The second thing we're concerned about is the intersection, and the intersection has been talked about at length by mr. Gieselman, and I think he made our point for us, is that we already have a bad intersection. We've had eight accidents there in the last year or so, and don't quote me on the numbers, but it's been significant. We've had a death on marly. The well publicized traffic and backup on Bee Caves going east in the morning towards town is not legendary, but it's getting there. And as the staff's own report says, the cue length as and the length of wait is averaging about a minute and a half right now. It's going to go to four and a half minutes if it goes to a level f intersection. We do have a problem with this intersection. So for us it's the traffic inside the neighborhood for the kids and the traffic going home in the afternoon because it's going to be -- they're going to be heading home as they say not only now, but in the future as the rest of cuernavaca builds out. So those two issues are really what's driving our move. What I’d like to present and introduce right now is a gentleman that we've tried to -- let me back up. We're trying to find a solution. We don't think that the concerns of the bluffs that have been aired through their brief and through their presentations are unreasonable at all. I think they're very valid. I think that I would be doing the same thing if I lived in the bluffs. So we don't cite the bluffs one bit, but bigger than the bluffs and bigger than the residents of seven oaks are the rest of the residents of Travis County. Especially those ones travelling on Bee Caves. The solutions to putting a light on the road may not be that good of a solution. In fact, it may create a worse problem than what we're dealing with now. So -- there's a gentleman we brought with us today named charlie gandy. And charlie, forgive me, I’m going to use my notes for this, charlie is the president of little communities incorporated. He is an urban -- it's an urban design consulting firm. Charlie has worked around town here and he'll tell you about that, and he's worked nationally on traffic management issues such as olympus drive and is here to present what we think is an alternative solution both to privatizization and the concerns of the resident of the bluffs, and we fully and wholeheartedly support the recommendation that he's about to make to the Commissioners court. Thank you.

>> any questions for mr. Ray? Now, I asked for the applicant -- joe, who is the applicant? Is there ray the applicant?

>> I apologize. The applicant is the seven oaks neighborhood association. I’m here representing that association.

>> so the seven oaks neighborhood association is the developer in this case?

>> no.

>> they're the controlling legal interest.

>> did you want to hear from the developer of the seven oaks?

>> well, I can hear from him later.

>> he's not very articulate. [ laughter ]

>> normally what we have for the applicant, that's a iew fa nism for developer here at the county. We were looking for the developer, but later --

>> I think the issues have been pretty well represented by the homeowners association.

>> the homeowners would wear bear the burden sork we'll assume to be the applicant.

>> okay. Mr. Gandy.

>> charlie gandy, Austin resident, and I work around the country on these types of issues. As I think you're aware, this is a typical issue, not just for olympus way, but when we design communities such as thrks these issues will come up. So you're in something of a precedent setting mode here because I think outside this district other Commissioners are going to face the same issues. And from what I’ve seen so far, the options that are considered address the concerns of one side, but not the other. And it appears to me that there's a middle ground here. But first let's talk about traffic management because mr. Geese he he will man pointed out -- gieselman pointed out that there are options to just closing the road or opening the road to unlimited use. We use traffic management tools from interstate highways that prohibit the use of bicyclists or pedestrians or slow moving vehicles to the other extreme where we design usually in more dense, urban areas, restrictions on high speed use of cars and sometimes trucks and we buy as pedestrians and -- we bias pedestrians and bicyclists. The key point in today's newspaper is that we're going to close a section of road downtown when we build our courthouse and make that a pedestrian bferd boulevard. So we're in the business of -- to simply say it's open to everybody or it's closed to everybody is missing the nuance and all the tools that we have in between. In this case on olympus, we can go to limited management or limited access there to achieve almost all of the objectives on both sides of what we now have as a most dangerous condition. I work in different places and one suburb of detroit that we worked in we had a similar situation where neighbors didn't want their street to become a high speed cut through so the barricade went up. That didn't solve any of the issues, so it put a hold on the conversation. The problem was when there was a fire on one side and the fire department came through to try to put the fire out, by the time they got there the house had burned down. The problem we have out there right now is we're doing the same thing. We propose the seven oaks solution, and that is let me share photographs of this. I don't know how we can put it up. Maybe you can. We've heard that from a safety standpoint there needs to be access, people in the -- I think Commissioner Sonleitner is right. I think that this would be an attractive route at an alternative to cuernavaca. We can talk about solutions to cuernavaca if you want to relieve traffic congestion over there, but if people were trying to get out of those neighborhoods because of a fire or whatever, then they need to have this as an alternative, but it need not be open all the time for all reasons. So the notion of creating a gated electronically activated gate for police and fire and handing that off to the school bus drivers if they want to use that as the back way cut-through once or twice a day I think is -- we have agreement on that from all sides. Then the question is how do we deal with the emergency situation? And the photograph that I shared with you that I hope is up illustrates the concept of a breakaway ballard. Those ballards that are presented in that image at the corner of marly and olympus can be pushed over with my emergency vehicle and any private vehicle should they choose to or need to to escape whatever they're running from on either side, whether the seven oaks folks need to go through there or the Austin lake hills people or somebody else needs to come through. In an emergency situation, those ballards are simply designed as they are on the pfluger bridge downtown, across town lake, and at the state capitol. In fact, those photographs are photo shopped from the state capitol. Ballards that can be pushed over for access to anybody. I think that's the solution for olympus drive. And it addresses everything but convenience for those that would live on either side of that barrier. And I’m happy to answer any questions related to that.

>> one thing I might add is that charlie and our group spent a considerable amount of time trying to consider all of the -- take into account all of the valid points and reasons that are made of why we need access. Sometimes you need a gate, like, for example, on a daily basis, to get your school buses in and out, and so they obviously -- a ballard is not the solution for that particular case. But you need to have emergency vehicles be able to get in. That's why they would also have the code. The ballard is basically a fall-back so that in case the gate falls or someone's not notified or the county drops the ball, heaven forbid, and some private sit seasons have to get out, they don't have to allow that gate being opened. They have drive over that ballard. That's their design. So basically the dual solution to the dual access issue is the combination of the ballard and the gate. We believe that we've addressed all of the valid safety concerns of the bluffs residents with this particular configuration. Is that tumbleweed? It gets awfully close to the bluffs. Is there any way there is any kind of connectivity to tumbleweed from the bluffs that would solve the dual action -- access issues of bluffs and give them a much shorter path to get over to cuernavaca.

>> that's something the county would address. It's my understanding that the owner and the developer have met with the staff about building a through road which would be a second access point for that specific purpose. That's something nog that seven oaks can control, but it certainly would be an option to be explore and I think it's one worth exploring.

>> so the compromise would allow residents of the adjacent neighborhood to come through seven oaks on an emergency basis, but they would be expected not to come through unless there's some sort of emergency.

>> that would be the hope, yes, but on a daily basis school buses would be able to have ingress and egress which are necessary and that would probably be welcomed by eanes. In the backup that we submitted, there's a letter from the transportation department at eanes school district that said, we don't have a problem with gating or privatizization. What we're offering is actually better than that solution.

>> this is two-lane road?

>> that's correct.

>> typically two-lane with --

>> two-lane local road.

>> 26 feet wide.

>> and I don't remember seeing sidewalks in either subdivision.

>> no, there's not. I don't know about the bluffs. Seven oaks certainly doesn't have them.

>> I don't remember seeing sidewalks.

>> any questions for mr. Gandy or mr. Ray?

>> judge, let me ask, joe, what do you think staff's opinion would have been had they come in considering privatizing these roads, but knowing -- I’m sure staff would have said we really prefer to have two ways in and two ways out. And they would have brought this suggestion to you all, would that have been something that you all would have considered or would you have just brought it to us and said we'll consider it, y'all are the Commissioners court.

>> our first preference is always to have unimpeded two way access into subdivisions. Had they petitioned to be a private subdivision, I think at least we would have required a crash gate if the court wanted to go that way, but I think from our perspective, we always look for uninhibited two ways out of a subdivision.

>> what's the difference between a crash gate and what's proposed here?

>> that is a crash gate, judge.

>> I think they're proposing not only that the gate be a crash gate, but the ballards also be available as a crash gate.

>> have the residents seen this? Any more questions for mr. Gandy or mr. Ray?

>> I did want to raise one issue after you hear from your attorneys in regards to gated public roadway. I think the nuance here is they're not asking for privatizization of the roadway. That this gate actually be in a public thoroughfare, and there's probably some legal guidance -- [ laughter ]

>> limited access public.

>> and that is something you should probably hear from your attorney on.

>> okay. What's that now? Let me make sure I catch your point.

>> at this point we do not have gated public roadways, we have gated private roadways.

>> okay. So the proposal would be for these to be public roads, but with a sort of crash gate --

>> let me let mr. Gandy speak to that. The mitigating factor is that there is -- there are limited use public roadways, and in fact you see them all the time. What mr. Gandy is suggesting is in fact a public road, is just limits use. The only one of about eight or nine uses of a public roadway which includes walking, bicycles, school buses, emergency access, the only one we're asking that's limited is that daily commuter traffic. And that one item, the daily commuter traffic, is the one that we're most concerned about that's causing both of the issues that we have to be raised. And unfortunately, staff's wish that ultimately you have unimpeded access for all roads is making -- is causing a larger problem both for folks exiting on to Bee Caves and those travelling on Bee Caves.

>> let me give you a hypothetical. If the only choice is it public, it be open, or private with this kind of solution, which do you choose? If the possibility is not -- I’m going to ask this of everybody. [phone ringing] anybody who has a cell phone, pager, whatever, that is not on off or vibrate, could you please do so at this time? The only way that this could occur is privatizization, would you go that route?

>> yeah. You know, our petition all along was for privatizization gating, but we're trying to go -- we're trying to compromise and we're trying to make it where that we don't make a bad situation worse, but if privatizization is our only way out, then yeah, we'll have to go that direction, but actually we don't believe that it is. We believe that this limited access and traffic management solution that mr. Gandy has brought forth is probably even better than that.

>> michael, when did seven oaks -- I realize that there are about 30 to 40 residents right now with the potential buildout of 153.

>> there are 27 houses, 27 or 28 occupied right now, there's 21 in their construction. We're probably 35% built out, close to it.

>> when do you think that gully and lay determined that they might want to privatize this given that when they made application that was not what they were asking for? When did this all come about?

>> well, it's come about -- it come about in several ways, but one of it was --

>> when?

>> has it been in the last year?

>> I believe it has been in the last year.

>> and are there any other things other than the safety that you think has caused the seven oaks people to want to gate?

>> you know, I can't -- here's the issue. [ laughter ] is that let's be honest about this. Every house out in seven oaks, you know, you can -- there's not a need other than what we've got. Here's my real concern. I’m having a problem putting it into words, but I’ve got three kids -- two and a half. One due in July. Excuse me, my wife correcting me. And the reason why that we picked seven oaks to build a house is because it was kind of a quiet neighborhood. We're afraid of losing that quiet neighborhood feel because of the commuter traffic. Also, we're afraid of speed. And the kids right now in the neighborhood, and there are many kids, ride their bikes constantly on the street. Now, do we like it? No, but there's not much we can do about it. If the developer gates in seven oaks, I have to tell you that, you know, if you're barking up the economic tree, I don't know that any of us want higher home values. Our tax bills are high enough. I have to tell you that I don't think it's a net add to seven oaks to gate. Look at Barton Creek. Barton Creek is gated in some areas and not in areas, and yet the home values fluctuate wildly in Barton Creek. Some areas that are not gated are very high rent, as you know, Gerald, and some of the areas that are gated have homes in the lower price ranges. So if there's an economic impact, I really don't care about it personally.

>> what are the home values in seven oaks? Since you brought that up, what are the home values?

>> I can tell you what the lots run and you can extrapolate that. The lots have been sold anywhere from 200 to, I don't know, maybe $300,000. I’m not the developer, so I’m glessing at that. But between 2 and 300,000. So the values to be able to afford a lot like that or to justify building on a lot with that expense is probably from just under a million to well over two million. We've seen a parade out there.

>> Gerald, may I address your -- tom rogers, a resident of seven oaks as well. Seven years ago or eight years ago the platting probably started with the back portion. 10 and 12 years ago it started with the front portion. At that time it was stubd out to connect, and it makes perfect sense that the county gave themselves the county to do that down the road. What's changed since then is the county's unprecedented growth and the traffic on Bee Caves has increased exponentially. Now we're faced with the subdivision of what's the right thing to do today. If it was an automatic pilot, we wouldn't have to make that decision. Each group is here to represent their own self-interest and the bluffs have done that very well and seven oaks and my fellow residents there will do that as well as we go through this. But what we have to do is how do we solve the problem of the bluffs without creating a larger problem on Bee Caves? And really how do we solve -- we're all looking out for ourself-interests. The responsibility here with the county is how do we -- they have legitimate issues, but is the answer to make marly and Bee Caves more dangerous? What we're trying to propose is how do we address their issues of safety? First it was emergency vehicle use. We solved that with being able to have the code and knocks box to where they could have access to it. Then they brought up the point and we met with joe, what if there's a wildfire and the babysitter doesn't know how to get out or some of the fire departments at the lake and they don't open the gate? So then we looked at okay, that's a legitimate concern. How do we do the breakaway ballard as well as a gate for the school buses to go through to make sure they can get out at any point in time. Do they need access for emergency vehicles, yes? Do they need access in case of a fire? Yes. Is it it need to be open if it's icy conditions, yes, but if you heard earlier from joe, marly way is just as steep as the section through the bluffs. So how do we solve all of their issues but for economic gain and convenience? We can't solve that. Seven oaks has their issue on a microbasis of how do they make it safer within their subdivision and with exiting and with not having sidewalks? What really has to happen is how did they come up with the solution that doesn't cause a larger problem for the county on Bee Caves road and really keeps an eye on the impact for the greater good of the community. We're going to have connectivity and dual access on as many levels as we can, but not every level. We want to make sure we have access and social connectivity to where we have openings for bike paths, for joggers, for strollers. You'll hear from scott and the bluff sides, our sons play on the soccer team together. There will be interaction, we will have social interaction. We will have other kinds of access and dual access be it for foot traffic or be it for emergency vehicles, but we don't want to take Bee Caves and take it from an e to a failure. And that is an issue that's a responsibility of the county of addressing a wildfire concern, addressing emergency vehicle concerns, but don't create a bigger problem for the greater community.

>> any questions for mr. Rogers? Thank the three of y'all very much. We will need those three seats. Ms. Ray, anything? And did we give you a chance, ma'am, to have your say? And we'll be ready for the representative from the bluffs in just a moment. Ms. Ray, then ms. Davis.

>> hi, may name is melissa ray. I’m building a home on brandon way, hoping to move in soon. Like my husband said, we have two children and my 79-year-old grandmother who also lives with us and another child coming. Really the convenience issue of turning on to Bee Caves is a lot less of an issue to me because I don't leave the house every morning other than to drive the kids to school, but that's somewhat later than the morning commute. My main concern as a mother is for my children's safety. The children in the bluff subdivision are able to play in their streets, ride their bikes in the street and my children should have the same ability to do that. Without sidewalks on marly way, frankly if we're not able to do privatizization or gating my children aren't going to be able to walk up there, ride their bikes. I wouldn't push my children in the stroller up there. I wouldn't take them up there in the stroller. I wouldn't let them ride their bikes up there. And I think that this is a workable solution. If the main concern of the bluffs is access to emergency vehicles, that's been solved. If their main concern is convenience, then frankly my children's safety is not worth their ability to save a few minutes getting home from work and getting to work in the morning. It has really upset me to portrayed in the media somewhat and by the bluffs as an issue of home value and that seven oaks are trying to keep people out who have lower home values. I don't care what my home value is and what their home value is. My children's safety is worth the same as their children's safety. And we're not going to be adding 2,000 cars to their neighborhood everyday, and I would like the ones of them who are parents to think about how they would feel if they had the potential for 2,000 more cars driving down their street everyday where their children play and ride their bikes and walk to their friend's houses.

>> thank you. Ms. Davis, anything new and different for seven oaks?

>> I certainly agree with everything that I’ve heard this morning, but maybe a little bit different is that when we bought our property, we're building a home on camel back and it was not developed. The streets were not developed when we bought the property and it was not dwaited, and that was not an issue for us that it was not gated. We still saw it as a secure private neighborhood because it was one way in and one way out. Our street is on a cul-de-sac and we thought it would be low traffic and now we've begun building and we're disappointmented to find out that there may be a thoroughfare going right through our neighborhood because we didn't get that indication when we decided to build there.

>> what's your first name?

>> jackie Davis.

>> thank you very much.

>> ms. Davis, did you ask phillip gully or jay lay or whoever that particular question or did you just assume that --

>> exactly.

>> there they didn't tell you before you bought your home that this is going to be a gated community?

>> exactly. I’m not trying to point fingers in that direction, but we were not made aware, and it did not appear that there would be a thoroughfare.

>> if fairness we need to give the representatives from the bluffs an opportunity to give comments.

>> judge, I’ve worked on this for probably --

>> you with seven oaks?

>> yes, I am.

>> if you would take ms. Davis' seat and let's give the other side those three chairs and you will be fourth. Let's give the other side three speakers from the bluffs to come forward. If there's nothing to say we have to hear from one side fully before we go to the other side, and in fairness we normally break for lunch at 12:00, which is why it's important to hear from the other side. Yes, sir. Full name and we'd be happy to get your comments.

>> thank you. My name is mark keen and I’m a resident of the bluffs. Sitting to my right is mr. Ken perry as well as mr. Steve marshal. And what I’d like to do is provide a little bit of an overview and then hand it off to some of my colleagues, my neighbors that are to talk about some of their concerns. What I’d like to do at first is answer or clarify a couple of points that you heard. I think you heard that the queue would be four and a half minutes. That's not what the county's -- the tnr submission says. It says that at buildout of the seven oaks subdivision, which you've heard there's 27 homes now and about 150 lots, but when that subdivision is built out, the queue at marly way and Bee Caves is expected to be 35.9 seconds if it's gated. If it's open to traffic from the Austin lake hills, the queue is expected to be 55.3 seconds. So neither one of them are over a minute, and I think you heard that the queue is expected to be four and a half minutes and that is simply not the analysis that's before the court today. In terms of number of vehicles -- I think this is where the number came from. At buildout if the property were gated at marly way, gated, the queue would be 2.43 vehicles. If it were not gated and Austin lake hills had access to that, it would be 4.81 vehicles. So I think the confusion that you heard was that they indicated that the queue in terms of minutes would be over four and a half minutes, where instead it's in terms of the number of vehicles, almost five vehicles. So I thought it was important to clarify that. We also have a proposed middle ground here, and the middle ground that you heard today, and we believe is not workable, it's simply to provide a different kind of gate, one that we could smash through if we needed to. And seven oaks has said that addresses all the safety issues, and you'll hear from others that the gates provide longer response times, that a minute can save or determine whether the first responders get there in time to save a person's life. Two or three minutes might mean the difference between being able to prevent a fire from reaching a home or not, especially in an area where the fires are expected to -- you will also hear from my of my colleagues on this, that a fire in this extreme area will go in a couple of minutes. The important concern is circulation within the area. As you see from the map there's no other private road in the area, and the Austin lake hills subdivision has about 180 homes with currently only a single access. That solution is a solution that tnr has indicated is feasible, speed humps along marly way. That addresses the risk or the contention that the future holds that marly will become a mini freeway. These traffic calming devices will slow any traffic on that road. And those traffic calming devices also provide for circulation in the area. So both of the reasons the county prefers in general I believe public roadways can be enhanced with that solution and that would be the one that we would propose. I wanted to talk about -- I’m an attorney with Davis and Davis, so I naturally gravitate toward regulations and things like that and I was picked to look at that. I’d like to talk about a couple of points that we feel are important. In chapter 82 of the county's regulations that if memory serves were accepted on August 28th of 1997, identify the layout requirements for streets. We've looked at that and we believe that the seven oaks request does not meet at least three different sections of the county's own regulations. In the subsection 202, so it's 82.202, talks about dual access. And it indicates that except as otherwise provided in the section, the new subdivisions need to have dual access. There's no contention that this section applies to seven oaks. Now, it does indicate in subsection three that a new subdivision may have one access if the executive manager determines factors under a and factors under b, so the application to privatize marly way and create seven oaks into a single access subdivision meets neither of those sections. The first, that marly way does not cross an area having a high wild land fire protection rating. There's no disbiewt about that. -- dispute about that. It does. And in b it indicates that the access street must be one of two things. It must be either shorter than 2,000 feet in length and serve only a few homes, 30, or when it connects to the arterial street, the external street, it must function at a level of service c or better, and you've heard from mr. Gieselman that even if it's gated it will not function at a level of service c or better, and there's no dispute that marl l.i. Is more than 2,000 feet and serves more than 30 homes. So in our view under this section, the application doesn't meet the requirements of the county's own rules that have been in existence, were in existence when the plat was filed and were the same ones in existence today. The next section that we think applies here is 82206. It talks about private street subdivisions. And subsection 5 says, and I’ll read it, we talked with Commissioner Daugherty when he was kind enough to give us some time out of his day about this particular subsection. It says that under no circumstances shall a private street be allowed where access to adjacent properties under an established right of access will be blocked unless the affected property owner agrees in writing. And, of course, the Commissioners and your honor have before you an indication that about 160 to 180 property owners in Austin lake hills have not agreed to that, and in fact have objected to that in writing. Now, it has been suggested that that section only applies and language that is being focused on is under an established right of access. And I want to comment about that, that the suggestion is that Austin lake hills don't have an established right of access. The first point I’d like to make is that the roads weren't dedicated to the Austin lake hills, they were dedicated to the public. And there's no question from my perspective, I’ve driven the roads. Everybody here in this room has driven the roads. The public has indeed accessed that road. Now, I haven't accessed a 10-foot sliver on which the footprint of the barricade exists, but I’ve accessed olympus and I’ve accessed marly way and all the members I believe of this community, Austin lake hills, has done that. Secondly, the languages and established right of access. Established right of access. It's our view that when the plat was filed and the roads were dedicated to the public, the public's right of access was established by that publicly recorded document. And I think you see that as well when you look at section 82801. That's the section that deals with vacating a public right-of-way. We believe that that also applies in this circumstance. And in fact the county has given an example that when a right-of-way is dedicated by a plat it conveys an easement right-of-way. And the county has provided procedures again whereby a public right-of-way -- it doesn't say that it's actually being driven on, but would be vacated. The plat conveys it, dedicates it to the public and there's procedures by which to vacate that. We've received a number of the requirements, you've received letters from the utility companies, a letter stating the request to privatize, but you've not received subsection 5, a letter signed by the adjacent property owners or any others who may be affected by the vacation stating their approval of the vacation. We believe that that section also requires that the privatizization request be denied. Now, what I see in these regulations is an attempt by the county to balance the rights of the property owners in seven oaks, plus those that would be affected by changing the deal, changing the terms of the plat that was conveyed and communicated to the public that these roads would be publicly available. I can tell you from my perspective, and eng in the submission to your honor and the Commissioners we've identified the number of residents in the county that actually purchased their home relying upon the fact that this additional access would be provided. I did. And so we have -- what you have here are the adjacent property owners developing reasonable expectations not based on what was said, but the publicly filed records that indicate whether there was any agreements incident to a piece of property. Those records indicated to the Austin lake hills that there would be a second access. We if founded our reasonable expectations on that and we're here to ask today that what the county determined in 2000, that there should be dual access. I think it's important to note that there has been in my view a determination of this issue by this court. In 2000, the county determined that in order to build out that subdivision, second access to Austin lake hills was necessary. We don't believe that there's been anything demonstrated today that requires that those terms be changed, and we ask that the county deny the privatization request. At the risk of stealing an issue of one of my neighbors, the suggestion has been that when traffic exits on to Bee Caves road, there's more traffic on that road. Tnr has indicated it's not 2,000 more trips aday as you just recently heard, but 750 car trips a day. But before your honor and the Commissioners there's also a document that was submitted by tnr by the traffic engineer for the Austin subdivision of txdot, and I want to quote his sentence when he's asking, he's awe talking about whether to put a signalized light there because there may be a lot of high speed rear-end collision of people exiting on marly, turning left and exiting. Under current conditions with a continuous two-way center turn lane, such crashes are unlikely since turning traffic is out of the through traffic, and what mr. Cunningham is saying is that the presence of that center turn lane provides a safe means to exit marly, turn on to 2242 and head east into town. So we ask that -- we believe that if the county will just enforce the regulations that it has in place for situations like this that it will term that dual access for both communities is safer, is better for traffic circulation, it's what represented to the folks in 2000, and the county's own regulations require that the privatizization request be denied. I’ll ask mr. Ken perry or mr. Steve marshal to offer their points, but certainly will accept questions if I can answer them.

>> I do. Do you have an opinion about the potential connectivity of tumbleweed trail into the bluffs.

>> I do, and I think it's fair to characterize that as simply an opinion. What I’ve tried to do is rely on substantive information and put that before this court. I had heard -- I’m recent to the area. In 2004 I moved there. We have heard that there was consideration of connecting tumbleweed to the Austin lake hills subdivision, but that topography would not allow that to occur. I happen to live on ogden, which is that sort of bend right there, and below me is the canyon. So I’ll be the first to go in a wild land fire. [ laughter ] and to the left of me is that roadway that you're talking about. Because there's not any tollograffy indicated here, but I’m going to guess that it would have to cross that same canyon and that's why it's not feasible to connect tumbleweed to Austin lake hills. That's simply what I’ve heard. I don't know for sure whether it is feasible from a traffic perspective, I just heard that it was considered and determined not to be feasible.

>> could I offer an opinion about that as well?

>> can we wait just a minute until we get to you? Joe, can you name me one county road that has speed humps on it? County maintained --

>> we do not have a policy on traffic calming devices. We have installed traffic circles in the springdale, walnut trace area, and that's basically what we said in our memo. I said before -- certainly it is a technique that has been used in other communities. We currently have not used that and we would expect that the court would want to adopt some policy before we did.

>> and I’ve had a lot of issues that speed humps are not part of our menu at this point.

>> where is tumbleweed on the map?

>> it's that green --

>> judge, in reference to springdale road, the reason for that is the residents requested that type of -- those type of traffic calming devices in that area, so I really don't know what is going to happen here, but it was due to requests, we just didn't go and just place those traffic calming devices on that road. So I just wanted to get some clarity on that point that mr. Gieselman just made.

>> regarding a buildout to tumbleweed,.

>> what's your full name?

>> kenneth perry --

>> what is the last name for us.

>> perry as in the governor, although absolutely no relation. [ laughter ] let me make that one point clear. I used to refer to it as in the refrigerator perry, but that's become dated. [ laughter ]

>> the homeowners in the bluffs have been anticipating the second way out of our neighborhood for 40 some years. It's been -- we've been waiting. When I moved in in 2002, the first thing I did before I bought the home was to call the seven oaks developer and ask him, are you going to connect to olympus way, and he said yes, we are. Once we get that built we are going to do that. That was one of the prime considerations in me buying the house where I did was that ability to get out a second way, which would indeed save me time, and I’ll speak to that in a moment. It would mean another wait for our residents to have to wait for tumbleweed to be built, if it could be built. Who knows how long that would take, five years, 10 years, hopefully it would happen in my lifetime. At any rate, that's just another burden put upon us for the convenience of seven oaks. I think we're going to let steve speak next and I’ll finish up.

>> my name is steve marshal. I live on caracas. I had a big statement, but I’m not going to bore you with it. They stated in their position, why shouldn't the residents of seven oaks be given the same consideration of 80 other gated communities in western Travis County. Why aren't we given the same considerations as other residents who enjoy dual access. Residents of seven oaks bought their houses and lots knowing that their roads were dedicated to the public and platted as county roads. They've been platted as such initially in 1984 and reaffirmed in public roads in every step of the development process. The fact that the rods in seven oaks -- roads in seven oaks are not closed is not new news. They could have moved into one of the over 80 communities in Travis County that are gated instead of moving into seven oaks. By the way, of the over over 80 gated communities in western Travis County, I know of none that cut off access to adjacent single access neighborhoods. They state that the bluffs residents have an alternative motive to keeping the roads public, economic gain. They also state that tom jones, the developer, owns lots in the bluffs and stands to gain financially had by opening olympus and marley and that all of our property values will go up. Mr. Jones owns eight lots in the bluffs. Phillip gully the developer of seven oaks owns 75 lots in seven oaks. It seems that mr. Gully has an order of magnitude more to gain by privatizing than tom jones will by keeping the roads public. For me personally I hope property values do not go up. I don't plan to move and I’m not excited about paying higher taxes; however, there are certain people who purchased property with the information that access was imminent and that their property would increase in value. Is this wrong? Is this unsafe? In many instances seven oaks states how unfair this is or that is. What about the fairness with regard to the people who did their homework, researched that owe pimlous and marley were public roads, about to open and factored this into their purchase decision, only to see the roads privatized? I would say this is not only unfair, but fails to fulfill the expectations of the residents of the bluffs that were founded by publicly filed documents. Furthermore the suggestion has been made that cutting through olympus to the residents on the the other side of cuernavaca. Just looking at the map here that appears to me that that is actually a longer distance than driving down to cuernavaca and taking cuernavaca down to the point of delgado. It also requires you to drive down two steep sloped roads with 90-degree hair pin turns place ted bottom of them to make that right, to secure this route. And I feel like it's the opinion of our neighborhood that if we really felt that was truly going to be a cut-through issue, we would not be before the court wanting this open. We would want -- we would want our kids to be safe just like they want theired kids to be safe. So we would not be promoting, opening those roads if we felt like it would put that same roadway they talk about going through their subdivision through our subdivision. That's all I have.

>> what's your name, sir?

>> steve marshal.

>> mr. Perry, any brief closing remarks?

>> actually, I will try to be brief. Could I ask a question of Commissioner Sonleitner? You graciously went out there and drove these streets. Can you speak to what you feel is the more dangerous passage, down marly way or down some of the other streets and out that way?

>> my opinion is that the most dangerous passage is Bee Caves road.

>> I didn't ask that question.

>> that's where I’m at. And I’m having to make considerations related to what's going on with bee cave.

>> I thought it was nice that you had taken the time to do that.

>> and I intend to go back out because I really have to take a look at tumbleweed. I was trying to take a good look at some of the topography maps and I didn't read those maps, so I will have to redrive that.

>> I am a data analyst --

>> we will need you on the microphone.

>> could I ask somebody to come here and hold this? I’m a data analyst by trade and so I looked at the numbers, and we use the numbers not from our traffic counts, which we did. And our traffic counts said there were approximately 1100 cars exiting our neighborhood a day on a typical day, and we did a survey of our 41 residents and we did a weighted average of that survey and that's in what we presented to you. And we estimated 606 cars would go out via marly way -- I was hoping you didn't show this yet. That there would be 606 cars going out marly way using our estimates. But we're going to use joe gieselman's estimates of 650 cars. And if you will remind the court what that would be during the peak hour, do you recall that figure? 55. I recall it quite well. 52 cars an hour. That's one car every 69 seconds coming from our neighborhood using marly way during peak hours. A minute and nine seconds. I want you to bear with me. The first car just came by.

>> we get it.

>> okay. [ laughter ]

>> it's an interminable amount of time. And this is during peak hours another car is going to come by. I don't see that as a dangerous situation. Now I looked at the numbers according to tnr figures it takes two or three minutes to go out marly way, it takes five to seven minutes to go out our way. That's in tnr report to you. I used the midpoint of these, five to seven, two to three, two and a half to six to get a differential of three and a half minutes. They said there were 750 trips a day, three and a half minutes times 750 trips a day is 2600 minutes a day. 365 days a year, 958,000 minutes, decide dwooided by six is 15,000 hours of our time that would be taken to go the sir cue tus route, 17,000 hours. I get paid a whole lot more than $10 an hour. Using $10 as a figure, that's $160,000 a year of our money that we're giving up in productivity to not use marly way. Wear and tear on our cars. 3.1-mile differential according to tnr. Same calculations, 44.5 cents, which is the federal government reimbursement, comes out to $377,000 a year out of our pockets to not go down marly way. Wasted vehicle costs. The tnr report, this is where we diverge from tnr's report. They say 95 cents a yard is the maintenance figure over a 20-year period. I spoke with engineers at txdot who will remain anonymous because they didn't want to get into it, but on a comparable piece of road they just calculated what the total costs were for last year and did the square yardage analysis for me, it was 21 cents a yard per year, which amounts to $5,000 a year savings to the county, not $20,000 a year, $25,000 a year. We would submit that the maintenance, in case that is a factor that the maintenance costs that the county would save by letting this to be privatized.

>> your honor, may I speak to?

>> no, sir. The guy right next to you. But if you want to wrap up for your group. Who else wants to give testimony today?

>> your honor, there's two women that have children that I think we've all heard. One of them is my wife and kids out there. I was wondering for the sake of the court maybe they should go before me just so that they can go ahead and leave. I think it will be a little bit quieter here as well if there's no objection to that. I’ll just follow them if that's okay.

>> I don't have any objection. We do need them to start now if they're coming.

>> they're right here.

>> we will need those three seats. If you want to wrap up, we'll call you back.

>> thank you.

>> three who have not testified already, come forward. Yes.

>> this issue --

>> your name, please.

>> jill sare and I live in seven oaks. This issue seems to be very divisive and I hope that there will not be animosity over this issue. I attend church with many residents of the bluff, my children, the eldest of whom will be a kinder gardener this fall will attend school with bluff kids and kids in that area. The high school it iser who saved my life last summer when I had my third child under four is a bluffs resident. I think that the situation in our neighborhood however needs to be considered from the perspective of parents with small children. We walk and ride bikes in the streets, play basketball in front of the houses. We even have one rowdy teenager who rides his motorized scooter illegally through the streets. What neighborhood doesn't have one of or two of those. We're not able to build sidewalks because of drainage and environmental issues. So we like everyone else in this area are in the streets a lot. Our community feels like it's really shaping up, however. I believe the caveat emp tore, let the buyer beware, does apply. Each homeowner in seven oaks did know that marly way and our streets would be open to be made public at some time. I think what nobody really predicted was the incredible growth in west Austin and the huge traffic road on Bee Caves road, particularly at peak hours. I think it would be disastrous to open it up to 150 additional families to be driving through. When our baby was born last summer, I literally prayed that I would go into labor at night because in the daytime turning left out of there is really pretty hazardous. I mean, there are specific times, a five-minute window when you have to be there if you want to get your kids or you can't turn left. And I asked about getting a light. I’m sorry. I get with one and a half complete thoughts these days. One Commissioner said that txdot looked at getting a light on marly way and declined, and said, quote, unfortunately it will take a fatality at two before we will get a light there. Which one of us are going to die so we can get a safe left turn out of this neighborhood. The shell station is supposedly expanding, so when you're trying to get into that center lane coming from the west to turn left into seven oaks you've got cars and trucks who are getting into that same center lane trying to turn left into the gas station at 60 miles per hour. So I believe if there's not a tight lite and reduction in speed, it's really a very dangerous space. So add more and more cars in this congested area seems very dangerous. I think it's preproster rouse to think that we coined find some way to let people in for fires or other emergencies. Personally I don't really care if the front of our neighborhood has a gate. I don't care about it being exclusive, I just want safety so that our kids -- they live on the next cul-de-sac and our boys have been waiting until they're big enough to ride bikes, but marly way is the street that connects us.

>> I know everyone that lives in our neighborhood --

>> we need you on the mic.

>> I live in seven oaks as well. I live on (indiscernible) cove. And I have to boys, and still has three, and they play together and we would like to be able to be safe in our neighborhood, and we don't have the sidewalks. And I was not under the understanding when we moved in that our neighborhood would be opened and it's so dangerous already just as our neighborhood is filling up with the new homes and the traffic on marly way is increasing on its way in that respect, and the idea that it is going to get worse and worse and worse and that we could have so many more cars flying up and down marly way, which is I walk all through our neighborhood with my boys with strollers and we don't have a way to walk in the neighborhood without walking on the street. And it's very frightening to me to have the traffic just come in horrendously like that from another neighborhood when we're ready dealing with traffic from our own neighborhood. And my son wants to know when he can ride his bike over to his friend's house and now I’m like I don't know if that could ever happen because I don't want him to be smushed up on marly way. And I know it's so hilly that cars will tend to speed through there and the cars and traffic frightens me. I would like it gated on both sides personally for privacy and safety of my own family, but I would definitely like it to be considered not to have the traffic flowing through our neighborhood. It scares me. And we in seven oaks have families and children too that we're concerned for.

>> let me ask you this question and I guess it goes to both of you because both of you have brought up safety concerns. I don't know how the court's going to vote on this, but let's say that the court decided to not report it being a gated community. Would you have any objections to looking at traffic calming devices? Because you did bring up speed. I know traffic calming devices are effective.

>> I think if there's a way to make it so much not a good place for commuters to go through, people who don't live there, like a speed bump every 20 feet, six stop signs and a 10 miles per hour speed limit. If that's the only way to do it.

>> it's been brought to my attention that there are -- there is a county road that has traffic calming devices such as speed humps. Earlier it was mentioned about springdale road with the traffic calming devices, turn about, and of course that was predicated and contingent on what the neighborhoods particularly wanted out there to slow down traffic coming through their neighborhood on springdale road. So between 290 and sprinkle road. But anyway, I was just basically giving you an example if -- I don't know where the court is going to land, but if the court does land not allowing this to be a gated community, I wondered what you were thinking about ways of slowing down traffic for the safety and welfare of your residents within seven oaks. Thank you.

>> any other questions from the court? Thank you. Yes, sir? On the end here.

>> me?

>> my name is rene garza. I’m a resident of the bluffs, and I was going to be part of the presentation. First I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you for allowing us this time to present our different issues. Also I would like to see a show of hands of the people that are here in support of keeping olympus open. And there's a group outside that can't get in. I guess what I’m asking is that the county enforce its regulations and keeping the street open, keeping it public is one of the requests. The other one is to exercise the county's option right now to drop down on fiscal so you can help the developer fix the road so we can have it open for use. The other one of course is to allow us to remove the barricade. I will volunteer to take that fence down myself if allowed. [ laughter ] as per the -- [ applause ] as per the analysis from seven oaks, they looked at our neighborhood and they state that we haven't had an injury accident in 10 years. And I suggest to you that we're safe drivers. They're part of our community. We can police ourselves and we won't speed through their neighborhood. We are not going to be the problem, I suggest to you. We talk about this whole mini freeway, lots of cars and stuff. It already been pointed out there's only 52 in the peak hours,, so that means all the other hours of the day there's going to be less. So I don't think it's that big. True that people will use this as another access, but that's part of building a robust transportation system. You all know in this community we need more enhanced mobility, offering people multiple ways to get somewhere is a good thing. So enhanced mobility, a comprehensive transportation system requires dual access, not a gate, not just when you need it for emergency vehicles. Our kids play in the streets. We have more traffic than their subdivision. They're only 25 residents right now. There's not going to be a mini freeway on marly way. At full buildout, county staff has suggested there's going to be 2,000 vehicles all day. On a freeway, 2,000 vehicles are handled by one lane of freeway in one hour. There is not a lot of traffic on this roadway. I do submit that a compromise for me would be not the crash gate, but to open up the street as a public street and then not even put any traffic calming devices till we do a study. Let's see. We're safe on our side. I think we're going to be safe on their side. My kids use that street, my kids bike over there, we walk the dog over there. We walk the dog in our neighborhood with 2,000 vehicles or a 1,400. It is safe to do so. I guess on the level of service I wanted to explain that that's kind of a misnomer. They're looking at the whole intersection of Bee Caves road. It will be level of service e because of Bee Caves road. Bee Caves road is the road with all the traffic. There's going to be very little traffic on marly way. Of course, if you turn right, you're not going to have a problem. Turning left is a problem, but as txdot stated, you can turn left into the non-high speed lane. So I did it this morning. It took me five seconds to come out and it took 10 seconds for somebody to let me in. We all look at the growth in the future. Today was a perfect example. With the rain traffic was backed up from 360 past cuernavaca. It was bumper to bumper. I mean, how more can traffic grow to fill up the lanes? They're filled up bumper to bumper, so coming out is not a safety issue in my opinion. In summary, I would like the court to enforce the existing regulations and I would like the street open as soon as possible.

>> any questions for mr. Garza? Yes, sir.

>> Commissioners, my name is chris robinson, a a resident of seven oaks, and I have a few things I would like to comment on. And -- let me go ahead and start with tumbleweed issue. The tumbleweed issue is actually a very good route to get out once it's actually connected to the bluffs. We asked joe gieselman which would the staff prefer, if you had the choice of going to a non-lighted intersection at marly and Bee Caves or would you prefer to have a lighted intersection at cuernavaca and Bee Caves. And he said for sure you would rather have it always go to a traffic signal than a non-traffic signal. And so -- as far as being able to connect, I’ve been out there. It's a very flat piece of land right there. I got my gps and calculated it. It's between three and four hundred feet of road surface, that's all you would need to connect that. It looks like there's a actually a buyer right now who has it pending under contract that would have to be developing it and have to come through the county to get permission on where to put the roads much the county could address this issue right now by connecting that little section. I guess he would have to if he has six or seven acres that are developed. How else would he be able to get to his lots there? So that looks like a feasible option, it could be something happening in the near future. So I really do believe when the comments were made there's a ravine or something there that would prevent, no, there's nothing that prevents it. It's a straight stretch. Anyway, I would also like to address a few more issues. As far as safety goes, I’d like to remind Commissioner Daugherty, many of the other Commissioners may not remember -- would not be aware of this because they weren't here for the first meeting that we had with Commissioner Daugherty regarding this for the seven oaks folks and the bluff folks all came and talked about the issues, but maybe you saw the news segment. They're claiming that their roads were dangerous. Cars were going over ravines, it was a dangerous neighborhood and the only safe means for them to get out would be to come through seven oaks. Fire really wasn't brought up as an issue. It was brought up, but it wasn't the emphasis. The emphasis was access in their neighborhood. Now they're trying to tell you they're all safe drivers. What I did and the reason you're not hearing that as the main point is I requested an open records request from the sheriff's department and I asked, tell me all the accidents that have happened in the last 10 years in the bluffs. And they came back with seven accidents. And I was able to pull, I believe, five of the accident reports and out of those five, none of them were injury-producing accidents. They were minor fender benders. One was someone lifted their car cover and there was a dent and so someone must have hit it. But we're not talking about serious dangerous roads in their neighborhood. They don't have a problem with their roads. The only real thing that I would concede on as far as the potential safety hazard would be okay, if a fire did come through there, they would need another means out. If a fire came through our area, we would need a means out probably too. So the knocks box system or crash gates would address both sides concerns on that. As far as safety of the roads, in their neighborhood you're not hearing it today because that was already spelled out in their paper, already brought out in the last meeting we had and so they have changed gears now and they're going in a different direction. Let's talk about safety. I heard their attorney say basically that marly and Bee Caves was a safe means to get out. No, it's not. They've had seven accidents in 10 years, that's less than one per year. At the time we wrote the pearp, it was seven accidents on marley and Bee Caves, seven. And that's within less than two years. That's all they had a date on was the past two years. That's when the first accident happened. So in less than two years we had seven. Immediately after we turned in the paper, guess what, another accident happened there at that intersection. And when you look at those police reports, those aren't minor fenders benders, they're serious accidents. People are injured. So when there's two cars, how many people are in the cars? We don't know. So basically we do know this, we're averagingite now four accidents per year on Bee Caves with only 27 homes, only 27 homes. And you know if you were to take an average of what it was two years ago, it was probably 10 homes, so an average would probably be around 18 over the two-year period of time. So when you look at it, they have 150 something homes currently built out and they have seven in 10 years? And we have 27 homes currently and we've had eight in two years, and ours are injury producing accidents. There's a huge, huge difference. What I don't have figures to address for today is I don't have any dat fa for marly because it's not open yet as far as the bluffs and where it connects up at the front of the neighborhood. But obviously on that riding road, compare it to their neighborhood. Their neighborhood I’ve gone through it, I’ve seen kids on rollerblades, I’ve seen kids playing basketball in their streets, I’ve seen a little girl riding during the scooter. People are using their streets in the crfert of knowing they have very little traffic. Look at their neighborhood, you can see that each street is independent of the next street, but they're still connected. Look at ours, especially think about the residents who are going to be living on marly way that are right off of marly way. Their kids going to stand out in front out there and play basketball on marly way? I don't think that's going to happen. It's going to be bad enough as it is with seven oaks being finished out. It's going to be horrible if the bluffs were allowed to cut on through it. And it is cut-through traffic. They are going to have one purpose. When they come through seven oaks it's to get out and go to work or return back from work or wherever they're going. I’d like to also bring out some points on numbers. I believe the staff did a pretty good job of phrasing the issues, pointing them out for the court, but I have some problems with the numbers, and I’d like to go over the numbers real quick. They said they did a traffic study at some point inside the neighborhood for one particular day. Some days you have heavy traffic, some days you don't have heavy traffic. I went out there and vaipd the traffic on Monday and it was high speed traffic going by on Bee Caves but it wasn't backed up. I go out another day it's backed up over the hill. So different days have different traffic volumes. What the staff did was they calculated the number of vehicles per day for seven oaks. And they did that of using the multiplier and they came up with 1,469 trips on the road per day at our buildout. And that's key. At our buildout. Currently they have 150 something. At buildout they have have 197. When you're doing these things you have to compare apples to apples, so if the county was to do these numbers, what they should have done was 9.6 times 153 and that would get 1469 vehicles just from seven oaks if it's not gated -- if it is gated and the road is not open. Then you should do 197 homes times 9.6 trips for the bluffs, because that's what theirs will be at finish out. And that would be 1,891 vehicles coming and going from the bluffs. And then the next thing the county did that I have a concern for is they estimated that only I believe 65% of the bluffs' traffic would actually come through seven oaks and so they came up with a conclusion that there would only be a few or 55% increase in traffic through seven oaks. Well, that's not correct. And I wanted to explain why it's not. They haven't told me how they came up with that figure, but I would guess it's because of the statements the bluffs have made. They all submitted a report saying I won't use marly way. I don't need to use marly way. As a matter of fact, when I go to 71 to do shopping or when the galleria is built out there, I will be going in front of the neighborhood and coming out cuernavaca. Well, I don't believe that's reasonable to conclude and here's the reason why. May I borrow your mic and walk up to the map, please?

>> let me interject this. Let's hear these two and others hopefully will be able to come back next week. I see us discussing this with council this afternoon. There are some legal questions and legal issues. As you can tell, we're kind of losing our quorum here. You are about to finish, and you are to about to close, I believe. And we'll hear these two and then the others that wanted to give testimony will be able to come back next week. There is some value in being -- in having all five of us here attentive. And I think we plan to make a decision next week, right? So we'll mull over this between now and then. We're kind of to the point we're hearing something new and different will have maximum impact. Go ahead.

>> currently right now from the gate coming down to the front of our neighborhood is about 1.7 miles. I’m sorry, excuse me, that's not right. From here down to the gate and then -- to the front of marly way and Bee Caves and coming over here to cuernavaca. The reason why I’m talking about this, assume for a moment a bluffs resident wants to go to highway 71 to do shopping over there. Okay, so the question is would they actually come on down cuernavaca or would they use our street? They would use our street because it is 1.8 miles to come down through seven oaks to get to cuernavaca and Bee Caves. To go from the same gate, come back through here and come all the way down here is 2.6 miles. So it is quicker -- I’ll give them this, it is quicker for them to go to Austin through seven oaks and it's quicker for them to go to 71 through seven oaks. So how can you derive that 65% of their traffic would not come through there? Their traffic numbers should be 2,000 vehicles, not 700 and it should not be at 65%, it should be at 100%. The only place that they would be utilizing is there's a couple of convenience stores over here that they might want to go out, but the bulk of their traffic is not going to the convenience stores. If that's the case, maybe we could look into buying stock for that convenience store. The simple fact is going to Austin is quicker this way. Going to 71 is quicker this way. And that is just so clear. I’m not making that up. Ask the county. They've measured it, I believe. They'll tell you that. That 1.8 is not from here to here, this is 1.8 from here all the way down to here. So it looks like this map is mislabeled right here. And it is -- I said 2.6. There you go. It's 2.7 they're saying to get to right here. And so basically when they tell you that there's not going to be that much traffic driving through our neighborhood, come on, you've got to see it that that's not the way it's going to be. They're going to come straight on through the neighborhood and we have to deal with that traffic. Now, the only other part that I would like to mention is that talking about the safety. We have more access per year coming out with 27 homes. I did a quick mathematics here on this and you can check my numbers, but basically if you have 27 homes and you've already had four accidents at Bee Caves and marly, that's .15 accidents per household, per house, okay? So at buildout for seven oaks, if olympus is closed, at buildout the forecasted number would be 23 accidents per year just from seven oaks people coming out on Bee Caves. Okay. Now, if you use the county's numbers, which I --

>> why don't we just stop y'all from driving. [ applause ]

>> we need for something to get a little lighter in the room. I didn't mean that to be facetious. I realize everybody needs to clap and move around and laugh, but --

>> here's the -- based on their real numbers, and the real numbers of buildout as opposed to current, the number of predicted increase in accidents if marly way is open to the bluffs would be an additional 30 accidents per year, 30 more accidents due to their opening up and coming through than it would be actually from -- yeah, I’m sure you are.

>> [inaudible - no mic].

>> and I’d like to address one more thing. We believe -- there are obviously issues here and obviously if we were on one side or the other side we would have differences of opinion here or maybe the same opinion, whichever way you want to look at that. But there are some people who are fair in the way they look at this, and I want -- if you look in your reports that we turned in, there's a couple that live in the blufses and they have signed an affidavit basically saying that they would not wish this on themselves and they don't wish it on the seven oaks folks, and that if the tide were turned and that seven oaks was at the back and they were at the front, they would oppose any opening of any road to come through their neighborhood. That is a fair assessment. And I’d also like to -- this is my concluding thought. By the way, there's three miles plus of privatizing road. It's not 1.5 miles as pointed out by the county. Double the repairs because it's three miles or greater of roads within seven oaks. I guess that would put it up to 50,000. And the last thing, dual access. Was dual access originally meant that hey, we're going to burden one neighborhood with the full traffic of another neighborhood? I don't think so. I think the idea of dual traffic is like where I moved out from Cedar Park. At Cedar Park all the streets there is one big main street basically and all the subdivisions were off of cypress creek road and nobody was going to drive through the other portions of the neighborhood. You had your own exit out. Now, if there's a fire, sure, you can interconnect and go on out, but the traffic wasn't going to be burdening one neighborhood over another. And this dual access thing that they're saying, it's going to be all their -- their traffic will be our burden. And I guarantee you if we wanted to go the or way, which there's absolutely no reason why we'd be going the other way, they would be upset. And if we were to at buildout bring 150 something cars through their neighborhood everyday for fun, I think they would be very upset about it.

>> thank you very much.

>> my name is tom jones. I’ve got a little bit of experience with the road development in the area. I’d like to speak briefly about tumbleweed. We discussed this when we were installing the roads several years ago with county officials as far as bringing traffic through tumbleweed. First they told us it was undpeed nooeded because marly way would alleviate all of our issues. But it is a an extremely underdeveloped road and it probably does not meet the minimum width requirements. There are very steep shoulders, there's no curb and gutter. The edge of the pavement is eroding. It will not support the kind of traffic to be generated on tumbleweed. For the county to alleviate that would probably involve at least the improvement of the road, probably improvement of drainage, relocation of utilities and perhaps condemnation of land if you're interfering with some septic systems out there. We're looking at millions of dollars to improve tumbleweed road and even then it may be unacceptable. As far as olympus drive, even if you opened marly way, olympus is an extremely dangerous street. There are three curves that are prone to accidents. I myself have had three accidents on there. I have probably pulled at least a dozen other people out of the ditches out there. Has anyone ever seen an accident on olympus? They thai there's only seven. You don't report a one car accident on the police usually, but I’ve had three myself. There are other people in this room that have had accidents in this room as well. At the minimum improve the pavement on olympus drive because it's rip peld and it decreases traction when you come down the hill. Propane trucks, federal express, garbage trucks, you're talking about a whole slew of service vehicles that wouldn't be able to access and a lot of times cannot access our neighborhood. So it's imperative that you give us an al tentative way in and out. There are some significant safety issues there. I don't think there's any viable alternative to opening marly way. And fortunately your decision on opening marly way is not really a hard one. All you have do is follow your own rules, follow common sense and I think you should follow the will of the people and not defer this decision any longer. We need to open marly way today. Thank you.

>> your honor, just a few brief closing comments. I know that Commissioner Sonleitner had driven out there, but if you drive down marly way it's important to note that there are no homes at all on marly way. And I’m not a developer, but it appears to me that there can be no homes on marly way for about half of it. It's cliffs, it's got guardrails and so forth. So you're not -- I know that there's lots and my neighbor has indicated that there's lots in Austin lake hills that haven't been developed, but one of them is mine. It's the lot next to my home. Nobody is going to build on that lot. There's other residents that own double lots. They're simply counting the lots and saying there will be 150 homes in seven oaks or 180 in Austin lake hills doesn't account for the fact that some people own double lots. Some lots are unbuildable. And if you taiblg a drive on marly way it appears to me at least half of that roadway is not ever going to be built upon with homes at all. Now, if turning left off of marley on to Bee Caves is hazardous, then the solution to that is to permit the seven oaks people to come through our neighborhood and access a lighted intersection. One of the final points I want to make is the suggestion has been that tumbleweed may offer an alternative. But what if that developer wants to private ties that road and what if that developer wishes to do it and maintain Austin lake hills as a single access subdivision even if the regulations don't permit it? We have a situation where the road was dedicated to the public and we accept the tnr's report is fair and unfaye biassed. It's not completely in our favor. It's an objective report. We're not trying to undercut their numbers at all. We're asking that the county enforce its regulations and we're now in your hands. Thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> now, for those who did not get an opportunity to give testimony this morning, would you rather come back next week or this afternoon?

>> when are you going to vote?

>> next week. We'll post this item for 9:30 next Tuesday. We appreciate you coming down and we regret that we weren't able to hear everybody. We set aside an hour and a half and we've taken two. We'll take a little more time next week. We wish not to hear the same speakers next week, but we do all read our e-mail and u.s. Postal service does work in Travis County, so if you have comments to give and you've spoken already today, between now and next week please give them to us in writing. We'll try to give new folk an opportunity to give us new and different ideas to consider next week before we take action.

>> [inaudible - no mic].

>> my name is scott urdal. And I’ve helped in the neighborhood here and feel very deeply about this issue. But right now my question is just for a little bit of clarity. When we expect the vote next week, are we voting on specific issues or are we just having a general, yes, we're going to lean towards privatizization, no, we're not? Also, are we going to address the barricade issue, which I think is a separate issue also? I’m trying to get a little clarity on what specifically we're going to try to vote on?

>> I think the end result will be that either we vote for this to be a gated community with private roads or we have dual access with public roads. We will post it to -- we will post it to take appropriate action, so the wording of the motion is very important, but when we take action, typically it's in the form of a voavment could be one motion or could be more than one. Typically we try to include everything in one motion and try to be as simple and clear as we can be. But this is a complicated issue, so --

>> that's why I’m trying to get a little direction. It sounds like you're trying to imp la fi it down.

>> when you leave next week, you will know whether to expect dual access or whether we have voted for these to be private or public roads with limited access.

>> thank you very much. Appreciate the clarity.

>> [inaudible - no mic].

>> I give you my word and my handshake as soon as we recess.

>> move to recess.

>> we'll try to get the rest of the court to do the same thing.

>> move we recess until when, judge?

>> let's do it until 2:00 o'clock.

>> all right.

>> thank you.

>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote with Commissioners Gomez and Sonleitner away.

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, March 29, 2006 10:48 AM

March 28, 2006 Item 27

March 28, 2006
Item 27