Travis County Commissioners Court
April 4, 2006
Item 22
22. Consider and take appropriate action on a preliminary plan in precinct one: villages of new sweden subdivision (1,355 lots - 429.4 acres - f.m. 973 and new sweden church road - no fiscal required - water to be provided by aqua water supply corporation - sewage service to be provided by 973 wastewater company - new sweden mud #1 - no municipal e.t.j. This is the one that we were asked to discuss today, but delay action until next week, right?
>> that's one -- get a layout from staff and -- and take action. Next week. Be sure to take action. Let them go through. Things that -- that they have brought -- some additional information. Also. [indiscernible] if you all can go ahead and take over, just lay this thing out. I would appreciate that.
>> the applicant I think is here. So -- so if we have any questions of the applicant. You can -- you can -- maybe others in the audience.
>> proceed.
>> as soon as we get the charts and graphs ready, we will be ready to look at them.
>> judge, this request to postpone action was a request that came from -- from folks in the neighborhood. [indiscernible] sent request to -- to postpone this -- delaying it. To have an opportunity to make comments if not today than next week for those that did come down. Thank you.
>> okay. This preliminary plan is for 1,355 lots on 429 acres. What's special about this preliminary plan is it is the first preliminary plan that we are bringing forward under the interim rules. That -- that's pretty special.
>> it is. [laughter] and it's in the desired development zone. It's -- adrienne domas, one of our planners, is going to go over some of the particulars and I知 probably going to interrupt her and annoy her, but -- but anyways, our environmental staff has looked at this for compliance with our interim rules with regards to the environmental components. We have worked very closely with the applicant to meet those. They are not coming -- they are not needing any variances to those. Setbacks have been a big thing. There's -- there's -- there's some minor waterways on the site. So buffers are very important. I知 going to let adrienne lay a little bit of the background information and then we will talk about some more of the particulars of this -- of this prelim.
>> good afternoon, my name is adrienne [indiscernible], I知 the planner that's been working on this project. I have just put together real quick a presentation just to give you all a feel for the project and to outline some of the issues that staff has looked at in reviewing it for its consistency with our subdivision regulations. As we stated earlier this is about 1355 lot subdivision on a 429-acre site. There are about 1300 residential lots, two commercial lots, one lot that would be for an amenity center, another lot for a wastewater treatment plant, a school site and seven lots which would be devoted to the water quality detention ponds. And the residential lots are about 4800 square feet and 6,000 square feet. This project site is located about four miles east of Pflugerville, about three miles north of manor. It's also -- just for reference, f.m. 973 forms kind of the eastern boundary of the project site, I will show you a vicinity map in a moment. It's also about five to six miles east of s.h. 130 as you will see from the area photograph, mostly farmland surrounded the site. As we stated earlier, two creeks which traverse the site, unnamed tributaries of cotton wood creek. There's a vicinity map. You can see that f.m. 973, I wish -- I need a little pointer, but runs, f.m. 973 runs right through the middle of that map, that's the eastern boundary of that project. As you can see from the aerial photograph, this is located in rural area that's pretty much completely under agricultural use. As we stated earlier this is our first subdivision being reviewed for its consistency with the interim rules. Some of them -- some of the requirements of the interim rules required that environmental assessment was performed for the site which identified and mapped some environmentally valuable features on the site. Those features that were identified included those two creeks, there was also a jurisdictional wet land, which was identified on the site and the appropriate buffers consistent with the interim rules have been -- for those creeks and the wet land have been incorporated into the subdivision design. The applicants also put together a storm water management plan for this project as well. Which is another requirement of the interim rules. Next I値l just outline some of the major planning issues that we reviewed when working on this subdivision. The first one is at a -- that a wastewater treatment plant is being proposed to the site. Echo resources would be operating and maintaining this. Tceq has completed their technical review of the draft discharge permit for the plant. However, this permit has not yet been issued because it is being contest the by some members of the public and through this -- the tceq process they have referred this contested purpose to the state office of add administrative hearing, they have a permit scheduled for this on may 8th 2006.
>> [indiscernible] final plat cannot be awarded until that particular review process has been expired; is that correct?
>> that's correct, Commissioner. One of the requirements of the interim rules is that a final plat, as you say, cannot be approved until we have the -- until the permit -- until the discharge permit has been approved by tceq.
>> okay. Judge, also, with that, also, the neighborhood, I think -- issued I think -- the opposition that they say they had was the 40 or 50-foot lot size. So if that's all a part of the backup as far as it is concerned, so I wanted to make sure that that is a part of the record today since I don't think anyone is here from the neighborhood but they said they would probably be here next week. I wanted to make sure that's a part of -- since they have already mentioned this part of what they also came through as far as the permit with the facility. Thank you.
>> okay.
>> go ahead, I知 sorry.
>> as this is a large subdivision staff also looked at some of the traffic issues involved with this project. It's important to note that they are proposing the construction of a new neighborhood collector road which would connect new sweden church road to 973, that would actually reduce some of the traffic on the boundary streets surrounding the subdivision. The applicants are also proposing to realign a portion of new sweden church road near one of the main entrances to the subdivision. Staff also asked the -- commission also staff the staff to put together a traffic impact analysis. We agreed with the conclusion. It outlines search improvements that would be necessary to f.m. 973, one of those would be a signal at the intersection of the neighborhood collector road with f.m. 973. As I stated earlier, because this project is a large subdivision, it also generates enough demand for a new school, there's about a 12.8-acre site essentially located within the subdivision that would be dedicated to an elementary school. Looked at the location of this -- it occurs with its location as well. We have looked at, I would be happy to answer any questions and -- and the applicant, mr. Dawson is here as well as the engineer, mr. Ken [indiscernible]
>> thank you.
>> since you have stated earlier that this is the first project, dawson if you would like to come up to the table if you possibly can, do we have any neighborhood folks here this afternoon at all?
>> earlier.
>> this morning before lunch.
>> okay. I guess adrienne you did mention that this is the first -- the first preliminary plan that has been subjected, going up under the interim rules that we have in place now. Could you basically tell us what that means for this particular project, how the interim applies, what are the result of those interim rules especially when you get into your impervious cover, setbacks, all of this other kind of stuff on the interim rules.
>> I can do that. As I said in the presentation, the applicant did have to put together an environmental assessment which was reviewed and approved by staff. That's not usually our -- from my understanding our previous subdivision regulations didn't require those types of environmental assessments to be performed. So we have asked them to do that. And that environmental assessment did identify the -- the two creeks on the site as well as that wet land, so the -- the buffers that -- that have been incorporated into the subdivision design that go along the center lines of each of those creeks and there's also 150-foot buffer from the edge of the wet land on the property, those are new provisions that were not in our previous subdivision regulations as well. Those are the main -- the main provisions that were incorporated into the actual subdivision design. Also that storm water management plan, that storm water management plan looks s at both detaining storm water to reduce runoff, also looking at the actual quality of the storm water, looking at storm water treatment. The quality of the water that's coming from the site. That's an additional regulation that our interim rules apply. Some -- some -- a lot of the interim rules, regulations, don't come in until review of the final plats that -- that will be submitted for this project. When we start looking more in detail at the construction plans. So we will be reviewing things like cut and fill limitations and things like that, that we -- that right now is a little bit too early in the process to be looking at those issues.
>> on the -- on the storm water and detention ponds, stuff like that, how many do we have for that site on this --
>> seven?
>> seven. Detention ponds based on -- based on the overage as far as outside of the range of the impervious cover?
>> uh-huh.
>> element that's required for them to do that.
>> Commissioner, keep in mind that interim rules do not have an impervious cover cover limit in them. This subdivision has a 34% gross site area impervious cover. Even with all of those homes on all of that acreage. That is -- that is what their impervious cover is. It's proposed.
>> [indiscernible] detention ponds.
>> that is more than 20%.
>> more than 20%. Which is the cutoff point.
>> right.
>> but that isn't specifically interim rules. That's our standard period.
>> period, okay. All right. Okay. Okay,. So ms. Dawson, as you heard me say earlier, the neighborhood has questioned the width, the depth of all of the lots are what, depths --
>> the lot depths average 120 feet deep. I知 rhett dawson, with rm d and company. 120 feet is the average depth of the lots. The blocks are 290 feet, that's a 50-foot right-of-way and we -- and most cases put little bits of curve in the interior streets. So you don't have straight shotgun streets. What that does is the lot on one side of the street might be 110 feet deep, on the other side 130 feet deep. But in no case, you know, is it less than the average of 120. If the street were straight, all of the lots would be 120 feet deep.
>> all right.
>> that's a deep lot for this size.
>> well, some of the -- like I said, the opposition that I got, it's been shared with the court from -- from [indiscernible], faxed some information here, they were definitely opposed to 20 -- I mean to the 40 or 50-foot lot size.
>> right.
>> I guess that you have talked with them on that.
>> I have been to all of the bland lack prairie meetings since we started this object last October. I have made several -- several concessions, if you will, in working with black land folks. The lot width is a big issue to them. It's not a requirement of the county. We are -- we have impressed upon them that this will be a quality subdivision. We have lots of amenities. We will have sidewalks on both streets. The county does not require sidewalks. We are doing that. We are giving a site to Pflugerville elementary school district for an elementary school. We are giving a site to esd number 2 --
>> esd.
>> the fire station. We are amentizing the subdivision with a half million dollar amenity center for the neighborhood. Street lights. We are the developers of -- of hidden lake subdivision in the Pflugerville areas in precinct 2. I have impressed upon the folks out there that we are doing that exact type of subdivision, with the difference being hid depend lake was 50, 60-foot lots, these will be 40 and 50-foot lots. Same quality, same strict deed restrictions. The hidden lake subdivision is up for an I ward Thursday night at the Austin business journal awards banquet. We are very proud of that. We intend to do the same kind of development here in new sweden. The lot size in today's economy with costs going up allows us to do a quality affordable house. That's becoming harder and harder to do. The fact that we are doing lots with less width is not a deterrent to the quality of the subdivision.
>> since you brought up affordable, what range of the prices would these particular homes be in the construction.
>> based on today's cost in the home buildings that we are dealing with, we -- we are anticipating the lowest priced home to be $125,000, and to go upwards towards the upper 100s, up towards 175, 180. At today's prices and we are seeing those continually going up.
>> that's all of the questions that I have for you at this time.
>> what size lots do you have in mind?
>> in our plan we have lots that are 40 feet wide and 50 feet wide.
>> both? Between 4 and 5,000 square feet.
>> 48.
>> 48, yes.
>> paired with that 120-foot depth, turns out 4800 to 6,000 square feet. They raised a few corridor having to do with that [indiscernible],.
>> I just saw that today when I got here. Ana gave me a copy of it. I talked to my office earlier saying it did arrive at my office since I have been here. I sent a proposal to the bland land prairie concerned black land prairie concerned citizens group, new sweden evangelical church council at the end of February, I have asked to attend special meetings that they have had, they have politely said they would like to meet on their own. This is the first that I have heard from them since then. In reviewing the letter that -- that I just saw this morning, the things that they are asking me to do in this letter, we are doing all of them. With the exception of the 40 and 50-foot width in the lots and our minimum size home being 1200 square feet. Again, I refer to this hidden lake project because it had a track record, we are selling over 200 homes a year in that subdivision. It's very well received. The minimum mum size home in that development is 2400 square feet, we don't anticipate building many of those in this subdivision, but it's a lower level size of home that you feed to be able to -- you need to be able to build in the event that you have a spike in cost, in interest rates and you need to deliver a home that is affordable, you shrink the home at that point. We are not in that economic climate today. But it's not to say in two or three years we wouldn't be there and need to have that to compete. All of the competitors in Pflugerville, manor, market have that 1200 square foot minimum, and we need to be able to compete with them.
>> what's the name of that subdivision again?
>> it's villages of hidden lake. From the northeast side of Pflugerville. The city of Pflugerville is 180-acre lake that's not full. We sold them part of the land for that lake and in the contract to them in selling the land we required that they build a hike and bike trail around it. Which they have. And it's a -- it's a real nice amenity and we have the same kind of rec center that we put in hidden lake, we are using that exact footprint, that exact budget, that exact model for this project.
>> okay.
>> so the lot width requirement so far is the -- the big heart burn for you?
>> yes, sir. And again, I don't know if you got a copy of this letter or not. But there's a page and a half of things that they are asking you to do, which I want to repeat, I知 doing those things. -- with regard to the -- to the sewer treatment plant, I would like to add, also, that -- that beyond meeting we have -- we have met all of the tceq requirements. They said -- we are ready to issue the final permits. We have no more hoops to jump through the tceq. We meet all of their requirements at the highest level of discharge permit that they issue. We are there a permanent plant, not a temporary package plant. Over above and beyond the tceq requirements we are adding the most expensive type of blower that is made that has a noise level that the e.p.a. Says is equal to an air conditioner, a clothes dryer or a washing machine. That's pretty quiet. A good one.
>> a good one. We are doing extra odor control measures and we -- we are prepared to -- to, you know, go to the contested case hearing on may 8th and state our facts and we are confident that, you know, that will go well.
>> standard of tceq standard of 5521.
>> that's the highest level. [multiple voices]
>> highest that you can attain as far as what I understand. There was a lower the number, the better off you are. The higher the number the worst off you are.
>> I would like to add, too, we took samples out of the creek that we will be discharging into. The water in the creek is -- has got contaminants greater than what the discharge. In other words when we are discharging into that creek, we are putting cleaner water in than what's in there now.
>> I had a chance to go out in the area and take a peek at a lot of these things. I also asked and posed a lot of questions, especially some of the questions that I thought were relevant and pertinent dealing with the question that had come up that I have heard from the water and wastewater treatment facilities. So I share a lot of those which -- with staff that produced a memo. And shared that with the Commissioners court on some of the things that -- that had to -- did come into question such as the noise, such as the discharge, such as the monitoring of the facility, who would actually be dealing with this -- with the -- with the operation there. And all of those kind of things. So several questions that were answered. And hopefully shared and -- help with my colleagues as far as reviewing that process. But of course we don't get into the business of issuing permits as far as -- as far as the process that -- they would have to go through. At this -- at this time we just have to wait and see what happens on may the 8th. And -- and so again [indiscernible] anybody from the neighborhood showed up, I don't know you say there was somebody here earlier of the if they are here, I would like them to come you. If not judge if the staff doesn't have any other questions, I would like to maybe -- you may have other questions to ask staff and mr. Dawson here.
>> we have been asked to review -- delay action for one week to give residents an opportunity to come. Unfortunately we probably will need you to come back.
>> I will certainly be here.
>> now what we will do, though, is suggest that we think that we can reach it about 10:30 next week.
>> okay.
>> and -- and in fact we won't take it up any earlier than 10:30, any later than 10:45.
>> yes, sir, that would be fine.
>> we appreciate your patience today.
>> mr. Dawson, it's possible -- let me ask this question. The hidden lakes subdivision in precinct 2, did you present any type of rendering to show the quality of those particular homes as you spoke to the persons in the -- in -- as you made your presentation?
>> Commissioner, I did. Since it's so close to where they live I invited them to drive over three or four miles and take a look. A lot of them have told me that they in fact did go over and look, but a lot of them have said we don't want that much density. And the thing that after months and months and months of discussion, I値l let you hear from them, but what I知 getting is that they like their farms and they just are not really too excited about development period. It's hard for me to try to reach compromise with people that are saying go away. And -- and so we are -- we know we are not -- we are not hiding from what we do. We know that we are going to build a -- a quality subdivision and we are the first one in and so I think, you know, it's the hardest for them to -- to accept that -- that development is coming. And but -- but again we are -- I have made myself available and will continue to even after hopefully next week when the court approves this preliminary plan and meets all of the ordinances, I will continue to work with them. And we will continue to -- to have open conversations and -- and you know it's -- there -- if things worked out differently, you know, we can always make changes to plans in the future. We do it all the time anyway as the market changes. So -- so for now right, I致e got a huge financial investment in order to -- to obtain the financing that I need and one of the major boxes that has to be checked off is an improved preliminary plan. I am at that point where it's become a critical path for me and I need your approval next week. I look forward to coming back and in the meantime I致e continued and will during this next week to communicate with the neighborhood, I知 available and willing to come out and meet with them. I know they've had a lot of other meetings going on and -- and it's been -- they've had their heads down trying to figure out what they wanted to put in this letter. So --
>> give that view of the steeple some thought. I don't know from what direction they are thinking about. But it seems to me that most cases you can kind of work around that.
>> what I think we'll do is try to get some photographs because having been out there many times, if -- if this -- this is not [indiscernible] [inaudible - no mic] back here. This is the low area. The church is back here. So this is kind of the hilltop. I don't know where they are referring to but from here you will see over all of this. Now if you get down here in the -- this is a low part obviously where the creek crosses, you can't see the church from here now anyway. Because the hill is here. But from the higher points, you know, driving down 973, you will be able to see over this low area and over these houses to the church, but I will get some photographs.
>> even over a two story building.
>> I will recheck it. But I can't imagine other than maybe this one area here, and it not like we have a -- a wall up where nobody can be able to see the church anymore. One or two particular spots, possibly. But I don't think the view of the church is -- I don't think it's a big issue.
>> okay.
>> we will get some photographs.
>> appreciate it.
>> questions, comments?
>> can I -- [multiple voices]
>> those particular [indiscernible] we have identified that need to be here at the next meeting at 10:30 next week, I guess we need to notify them. I don't know who have contacted your office, but we are going to work hard to make sure that they are notified properly so they will know about this particular upcoming meeting for the time, at 10:30.
>> yes, sir.
>> next week. So if you all know of anybody, help out a little bit on that.
>> certainly. I would say if you guys have any specific questions about the wastewater treatment plant, we can help you and/or put you in touch with someone that is more qualified this that regard.
>> we will be sure to do that.
>> judge. I -- the other thing that I want to analyze, I think some people think that interim water quality rules only apply to western Travis County. And he apply to all of Travis County. There are critical water features that need to be respected in eastern Travis County and there are plenty of creeks in eastern Travis County that have interesting challenges related to floodplain and to that lovely clay soil. In the same way that it's important to folks on the western side with the limestone features. So right when we get through this, I知 going to be interested in your perspective. You have done it both ways in terms of going through the old way and you are our guinea pig through interim water quality rule. Once we get past this, I would like to get your perspective what it meant to you in terms of having to make that adjustment from the way you have been doing ing decisions to the new rules, whether you found that to be onlyrous or it's get with the program, not that big a deal, no variances I知 moving on with my stuff.
>> we will see you next Tuesday at 10:30.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, April 5, 2006 10:34 AM