Travis County Commissioners Court

July 25, 2006
Item 14

14 a is consider and take appropriate action on the walnut creek erosion and flood control projects. And 14-b is to approve modification number one to contract number ps 0647 lp, alan plummer associates incorporated engineering services for walnut creek erosion and flooding project, phase ii. This is just one document, right, joe?

>> I just handed out some more emphasis that I wanted to highlight for the court. This is not new information, but it is something that I think -- as I heard the discussion from the video while I was away and also caught up with staff, there were some certain things that I wanted to make sure that the court was aware of these things before we proceeded into any actions. First the first and most important was when the voters authorized the bond in 2005, the premise was that the resulting properties would be parkland, so these are park bonds that we are using for the buyout program. Because once we've brought the property and the improvements, we're basically -- we basically will have dedicated parkland in perpetuity and that qualifies it for the bonds. The more and more we started talking about improvements, such as the retaining wall and some of the improvements, we began to realize that perhaps we're kind of veering off course with regard to the use of the bonds themselves. It doesn't mean they can't be done, they just have to be done with certificates of obligation, and in the past when we've been in situations like this where we've chosen to do something that doesn't quite qualify for the bond covenants, we'd issue certificates of obligation in lieu of bonds. So it's still possible. And to the extent that the bonds are used for the buyout, then they certainly are qualified for doing that. We may have -- also attached is the budget as we see it today. We are using the state money, the sep funds, the 111,000 for the structural improvements. We've come before the court for an additional 500,000 in the certificates of obligation for the grading, the conveyance improvements, the tow improvements, all of the bond money we're contemplating we will use for the purpose for which it is intended and that is for the buyout themselves. The second point I want to emphasize is this is a voluntary program. The property owners are certainly welcome to accept or reject any offer made by the county. It is not our intent to use the powers of eminent domain to use the properties for the purpose of this program. Somehow I think there may be some thought out there that we would come in and condemn. We are not going to do that. This is voluntary on the part of the property owners.

>> joe, I'm glad you brought that point up because it has been brought to my attention that just what you stated is the case, and that is that eminent domain would be used, condemnation proceedings by Travis County in this program to acquire these particular homes. And I really don't know how you can muzzle such an inaccurate assessment as that, and it's a misunderstanding or concern and now we've spread all over the place the basis of fact.

>> we are employing imminent domain. I don't know any other way to handle it except what you're saying there and any other means that we can get that out to the public that that is not the case. I'm really concerned about that, though.

>> we have initiated the appraisal of the properties in tier one and tier two. And have been in discussion with the appraisal. They will be done at fair market value. It will be done at fair market value they will look at the flood and erosion and take that into consideration in the appraisal of the property. Based on that consultation, we understand that there's a likelihood that the properties will be discounted because of the flood and erosion that has taken place or the potential for that. That could be anywhere from 10 to 40 percent, somewhere in the 25 percent on the average. We say this now only to calibrate expectations. The county is expected to offer fair market value based on a professional appraisal, and that is certainly what we're going to do. And I don't know what the property owners feel that they feel the value of their property is. But it may behoove them to also seek an independent appraisal of their properties so in a when we come to that point, we will have some basis of comparison.

>> and that's from the appraiser?

>> one of them on our list.

>> it is not our opinion, it is the opinion of the appraiser who is conducting the appraisals.

>> but if the homeowner disagrees with the appraisal of our appraiser, that homeowner is free to get an appraisal?

>> absolutely.

>> and if we end up with two appraisals markedly different, then we'll have to sit down and try to negotiate one price is what it amounts to.

>> typically it is. They can challenge ours based on another professional appraisal.

>> okay.

>> on that line, though, just so that people do not misunderstand or basically do understand what we are saying, you're not saying that there might be a 30 or a 40% discount off a tcad value.

>> I don't know what tcad value is. I don't know that that represents the fair market value or not. To the extent that it does, that is what I'm saying, but I don't know whether tcad is an accurate reflection of today's market or not. Our appraiser will tell us that.

>> tcad generally is not.

>> I don't know that. I have been told both. I've been told that it's up to 100%, I've been told that it's typically below. So I don't want to say that tcad is or is not reflecting fair market value because I've heard different opinions about that. Our appraiser will go out and look at comps, real market transactions that have occurred recently on similar type properties and that's what we'll base it on.

>> starting from scratch, working from comps which may or may not line up with where tcad is, but we're not starting with tcad's number and going downward.

>> tcad is just a benchmark and you can use it for whatever you want. It's certainly used for taxing purposes, but we're not saying it's the basis of our appraisal.

>> I guess if I were a property owner, I would wonder where the county gets its appraiser?

>> from a professional appraiser that we pay for.

>> we have a list of appraisers contracted to do business with the county. We basically reat a time from that list to get the work done.

>> that's correct. To step back, we use appraisers continuously in our business. When we go out to acquire right-of-way for a roadway, we do the same process and in those cases it's done with threat of eminent domain. We're not doing it in this case. Nonetheless the process is the same. We have a series of companies that are under contract to do appraisals for the county, they're professional certified appraisers and we pick from within that pool of vendors, and then they go out and do their work, they come back and give us a report on each and every parcel.

>> okay.

>> there are three properties that are linked together. To get value, at the top of the project there are three parcels, that's 3612, 3614 -- I'm sorry, there's a typo here. That should be 3616. Those will be three properties right next to each other. What transpires after we acquire the property is that there's an excavation that goes on on those three properties that basically enable the flow of the creek. We need to acquire all three parcels. It will not be parcel if possible for the contractor for the county to go in, if only one parcel is purchased, it's not sufficient to do the improvement. So all three of those properties, it's kind of all or nothing. We're going to have to have all the properties acquired in order to do the improvement. So we need three willing sellers on those three properties.

>> on the tier one.

>> on the tier one, right. We understand that the -- one of the tier one has already said that they would not participate, but they are not in the area to be excavated, so it's not as critical.

>> is that one of these three?

>> no. It's the fourth. We've already kind of taken them out of the mix because they've said they would not.

>> 12, 14, 16, that's right.

>> that's what you're referring to now.

>> that's right. Finally tnr does not recommend the bank stabilization along walnut creek for several reasons. One, the study that was done by alan plummer and associates indicate that the bank materials are structurally unsound, unstable. What that means is to actually construct a wall you have to go in and remove a lot of the materials in such a way as to get such a wall constructed. They will be excavating some of those properties back a distance where you get a slope ratio that will not fall in while you're doing the construction, so you're in a process where you're going to have to acquire and remove a lot of the property merely to construct a wall, and then to backfill that wall. There's two things that happen. One, you're acquiring the property to do that, and also, number two, you're also doing quite a bit of potentially environmental damage when you're doing that. The other thing about the wall is for it to be stable, you're going to have to actually go down at some depth to be able to construct a wall that will withstand the flow of the water that you're going to get during the flooding event. Even with the wall in place, you still have a scouring that goes along and this is true of any bridge structure. The minute you put something in the middle of the creek, that water is going to continue to act on those embankments. In this case we've got a wall, so there's some eroding that goes on along those piers. Those things have to be maintained. You can't just put the wall here and expect it to be as is forever. There's ongoing maintenance of the wall. When all those things are considered, the acquisition of the property, the acquisition in construction of the wall itself and the ongoing maintenance, you're talking about a substantial capital improvements program, probably in excess of two, three million dollars to put that in. The -- it can be done, but the cost of doing that -- and I think that's in part why the alan plummer recommended a buyout instead. It gets to the point where your most feasible option really at that is to buy out rather than to construct this wall because of all those factors.

>> joe, with that, though, I'm still -- I'm hearing you, but even with that, what would be the downstream impact on the conveyance of that water downstream, especially if fema has some say in how what we're doing here to properties downstream as far as the study is concerned and what we're looking to do. As far as the end result in ensuring that we don't cause havoc downstream to properties.

>> let me get stacy up here, but it's my understanding that we'll need to conduct what's called a clomer, which is required of this type of construction to ensure that we have looked at any upstream or downstream impact or if there is any change in the improvements.

>> that's what I'm trying to get to. What is fema's involvement, especially if we get here and we're conveying water downstream. In what role I guess at this time has fema been involved in, when will they become involved after we do what we're doing and what would be the impact.

>> typically in this type of project -- first of all, alan plummer will have to look at the downstream effects of this and certainly we'll have to put in mitigation. That is where fema will come in with an additional letter of map revision for the project. We need to get one of those in place, fema's permission that this project is a good idea and how it's upstream and downstream effects once the project is completed we would go in for a letter of map revision, which would actually correct the fema maps that are in place at the time.

>> I guess the when of that is what I'm trying to get to, as we go through this process. Sooner or later fema will have to get involved.

>> if needed, the time line for that would be after the design phase, after alan plummer comes up with the design, we would submit that to fema. Typically fema is very slow on this. It could hold up the project. They've been as long as six months to get approvals out of them, the conditional letter of map revision. We can certainly ask them to speed it up for us if this is the way we choose to go. But fema would come up shortly after design.

>> in order to start design we also need to approve these contracts with alan plummer, so it's kind of a sequential step. I think what we need today is some sense of direction from the Commissioners court, approval of the contract. We start going into design the structural improvements with the understanding that the certificates of obligation would be approved in our fy '07 budget to pay for the capital improvements. In the meantime we're moving on with appraisals for the top six properties depending upon how many willing sellers we have once we've offered fair market value. We'll know basically what strategy we're going to take. If the tier one projects don't sell, then we may end up doing all tier two and perhaps tier three projects. And end up doing just erosion type buyouts. So a lot of it is going to depend upon the appraisals, you know, and whether or not those are acceptable to the property owners and how many property owners are willing to sell their property for that amount. So we've kind of got a three-pronged approach here to the problem. Whether to go ahead and proceed with the structural improvements with the sep money, doing appraisals, going for the tier one type improvement. If tier one property owners don't sell, then we'll be dropping become almost exclusively to erosion. And we'll go as far as we can with the money available.

>> did we give publicly a time line as far as the appraisal when they will be conducted and how long it will take for the initial appraisals if the court decides to go in that direction, do we have specific time lines?

>> I remember seeing a time line. Let me see if I --

>> the July 25th memo?

>> let me see if I can call it up here.

>> and the reason I'm asking, we'll go ahead and -- go ahead.

>> we had in our July 25th memo appraisals were due August 31st. We expect to make offers probably first of September and expect to have feedback from the property owners within 60 days of receipt of an offer.

>> okay.

>> so I'd say probably by the fall, certainly before the end of the year we should know where we're going.

>> there were some significant questions that were asked last time this item was before the Commissioners court from the residents that's being impacted by what we're doing here today. Some of those questions needed to be answered by the consultant that we're using here. My question to you is have all of those particular inquiries been satisfactorily addressed by the consultants from the questions that were asked last meeting? Do we know of any activity concerning those questions that may or may not have been answered? I really don't know.

>> all I know is that our consultant has met with some members of the residents in the area and also my staff has been contacted by some of the property owners about appraisal issues. I don't know if those issues have been satisfactorily answered. There has been contact and some discussions going on.

>> okay. But like I said, not only appraisals, but there were other I think questions that may have been asked as far as downstream of the fact of how it affects erosion, flooding, just the structural upgrade, the tow, just several things I think were asked. And I don't know if all of those questions were answered.

>> I don't know how to answer that.

>> I can't speak for the consultant.

>> and I don't know whether the residents feel their questions have been satisfactorily answered.

>> that's what I don't know.

>> some will have questions and they'll have an opportunity to ask those today. Let me ask just a few here. So when you say make offers in the schedule, that basically is us sharing with the residents what our appraiser came up with.

>> that's right. The basis of the appraisal.

>> in the bulletted memo that you handed out today, you say, number one under the fifth bullet, the alan plumber associate study indicates that the bank materials have serious potentials for structural instability. So it could be $10 million and not hold up.

>> I think so.

>> and that's what the consultant said basically.

>> I think you'll be paying -- what the engineers are telling you in a pretty fluid situation from the water and also the soil, can it be done? It can be done, but there's probably some pretty serious construction that can take place before the engineers will tell you this will last. I mean, it's a fairly complex issue. Not only the type of improvements itself, but the process of constructing those improvements.

>> my question in a few minutes will be for the consultants, what would it take and what will it cost? So if the two to three-million-dollar remedy in our view may not last, r., and tnr is recommending against it for that reason, but what is tnr recommending in terms of relief for those not part of the buyout project.

>> after biteout some residents will be -- buyout some residents will be left also in a tier three.

>> we consider the tier three less at risk than the higher tier projects. We're trying to get to the higher risk properties. We may not end up serving everyone in this project.

>> if we don't do the bank stabilization, what do we do to address the erosion, flooding, etcetera, in the future?

>> we do not do anything for those properties for which we do not have resources to buy out.

>> maybe I can clarify. We will be doing some tow protection. That's what we're proposing to help protect the tier three and four properties. That is different than the bank stabilization wall.

>> so we will do engineering as well as purchasing the homes that are mostly in harm's way. So it's actually two things that we'd do?

>> I think the idea was to buy out the most severely damaged properties or the ones that have the most potential to be damaged. And for the remaining properties do some sort of tow protection to slow the erosion down.

>> let's say we buy up six and let's say that there are six to eight homes left. The tow protection project will hopefully provide some relief for them.

>> that's the idea, yes.

>> maybe we need the consultant here.

>> I think so, judge.

>> just describe for us what the tow protection is.

>> basically what it does is it protects the bottom of the bank from the scour action of the creek along there, which is what tends to undercut it and destabilize the bank as a whole. The fact that the soils aren't that great to start with may be and there's some potential instability, it won't address that, but that's not so different than if you owned property away from a creek and you had a fairly steep bank and you didn't have great soils, you would have potential instability in that case too, not related to the water action that we have along a creek. So the tow protection, it doesn't stabilize the whole bank structurally, but it protects that tow from the water action and the undercutting that then makes matters a lot worse. That's the intent. The other thing in that project is grade control, which basically puts a hard point in the stream to keep it from cutting the -- making the bottom of the stream lower and lower and lower, which is a tendency that would happen along this area. And if your bottom continues to get lower, then obviously your banks are going to have to start to have problems because of that too. It's a couple of engineering measures aimed at I am proo improving the situation for the properties that aren't necessarily going to be helped by buyouts, it's just not the full structural issue taken care of.

>> do we know what the tow protection project will cost?

>> we've got an estimate and that's included in what wees got there.

>> is there a source of funding for that?

>> that's part of the certificates of obligation that we will be seeking fy '07 funding for.

>> that is not part of the voter approved bond?

>> it is not, no.

>> the tow protection is 200,000, but all of the engineering and everything, the court with relationship to the engineering part is the 580,000 total.

>> I think that was the conveyance included.

>> and finally from the judge at this time, going back to bank stabilization, what will it take and what will it cost?

>> we did change our proposal to make sure that we took a harder look at the tier 3 situation with the bank itself. And that's in the proposal to look at a little bit harder. There's still the things that he talked about, though, with the bank stabilization wall that you had the environmental problems, you lose your trees and there's all those issues that still are applicable to trying to do a bank stabilization wall even long the tier 3 -- along the tier 3 properties.

>> so is the first answer per the study?

>> it's basically written in the proposal as a phase a that we would look at it and basically report back to staff on what other potential improvements might be, like what they would look like costwise, what they would be, and then before we would take the next step, let them look at it.

>> we don't know at this time. It requires further study.

>> right.

>> okay. Any other questions from the court?

>> the tow construction phase of what we just -- what you just laid out, how would that impact downstream? We've talked about upstream, downstream, as far as conveyance, would that be -- I know it wouldn't be similar to the bank stabilization issue, but would it actually deal with water flow or would it impact downstream flow in any shape, form or fashion?

>> it shouldn't have -- the conveyance that you're talking about earlier, we do have to look at what would happen, but with the tow protection, we're not going to greatly change the cross-section of the creek. If we have to put something over here, we'll have to change it a little bit over here to make it balance so that we don't make flooding worse downstream or upstream. And then as far as changing the character of the creek or the roughness of the banks or anything like that, it will have some impacts, but not -- I don't feel like serious environmental impacts.

>> do we think that an appropriate bank stabilization effort maybe would require so much funding that the county would have to try to get assistance from the federal government, city of Austin?

>> right. I think you would be looking at a whole lot more money and in the case of the tier 3 homes you have the situation where the homeowners aren't as seriously at risk as further upstream and it's not as immediate, but you've also got a bank that goes a lot further back, so to try to stabilize it and build a wall, it's that much more impact, I guess, in terms of the environment and what trees would be coming out and that type of thing.

>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]

>> so you are in a community that is a very beautiful community, with beautiful homes and beautiful trees and yards and you are going to have all of this interruption going on with -- with the buyout of some houses. Now when it comes to the upkeep of whatever park there will be that is not going to have -- to have -- that would have a positive effect upon the community, what about the maintenance? When you come down syringe springdale now, there's so many trees overhanging springdale about a block from 290 that the county has never done anything about, we are beginning to have wrecks because people cannot see that road at night when -- whether they are coming or going because of the overhanging of the trees, how can we trust that here's a house up here, they have taken, and they have left two houses on the side, who is going to be really maintaining that property and keeping it in good condition. I also wanted to say, you know, why isn't my house also involved. This -- I'm not in tier 1, I'm not in -- in tier 2 or 3. What about tier 4? Because before I moved there, I was told by my next door neighbor, there was a torrential rain and the water came all the way up to our houses at that time. Of course we know there's going to be continuing erosion of that land where they are saying up on the hill and we are not at much risk. Also, it's kind of ironic when you look at the houses that's going to be bought out, we have to -- we african-american have homes that are not on those lists. So -- so I think that anything that is going to be done should be fair. I think that quality should prevail. I think that all of those houses should be bought out or the county should go ahead and try to do what it will take to make that creek so that we will all have relief there. Thank you.

>> thank you.

>> what address are you -- are you at --

>> 3638. I'm not on --

>> 3638.

>> I'm not on any of those lists because they are looking at a hill and they are not realizing that sometimes that rain come all the way up to our house, which is taking away dirt and eventually we don't know what will happen to our homes that are not even included in this. Of course you know I'm african-american and the person next door is african-american and up the street you have some african-americans that I don't think their homes are even on the list on any of these categories. He's my point, though. As she said, is there a reason for the exclusion as far as what she described here today as far as that home not being included in --

>> I don't know.

>> tiers. I was asking staff. Let me get staff to maybe address that question.

>> all I know is that there is one house that I think it's like 3634 that's kind of in the middle of our houses that's on one of those lists, so I don't understand how some of these other houses are skipped over and that particular house comes in as one that's on the list to be bought out.

>> can I get an answer from staff on that particular --

>> Commissioner, there is erosion going on up and down walnut creek. When we started this project, it was brought to our attention by some of the residents there. We focused on six properties. We understood that the -- that the Commissioners court wanted to address those particular units with the knowledge that -- that, you know, you could define this problem as broadly as you wanted, up or down. But there were limited resources, we have tried to focus on those properties where -- where the improvement on the property was actually falling into the creek or had some potential for immediately being affected. So I think we were just trying to focus on what was the highest priority at the time. We -- we scoped this c.i.p. Project. But I can assure you there was -- there was no intent to slight anybody in the process. Because of race. I was unaware myself of the ethnicity of anyone along the creek. It wasn't race related at all.

>> but I guess that I was kind of alluding to the close proximity to this address according to other addresses --

>> we could probably go upstream and downstream. We could continue to take this scope of this project up and down this project area. I can assure you there is erosion going on up and down walnut creek. So I guess I need some direction how far do you want to go? Because we can keep on going upstream and downstream as far as the court wants to go.

>> I just want to make sure, the point -- the question that I'm just asking is, is there property that is in close proximity to the property that was just discussed --

>> we also had properties as the allan plumber study evaluated that are in the middle of the creek that we are not adding with this -- with this project that are -- that are subject to flooding every time it floods. The condominiums on the other side of the creek were -- we are not doing anything for those. So there is a limit on how much we could do with two million. We were trying to focus on that the highest priority parcels.

>> right now we have -- we have 3612, 3614, 3616, in tier 1. If we were to go out and look at these, these would be the ones most in danger? These are what we call tier 1.

>> tier 1 and 2 actually --

>> tear 2:00 we have 36, 22, 24, 26. Now that skips 3618 and 20. They are in tier 3. The reason they are skipped I guess is that if we were to go out and look at them, the tier 2 ones have more imminent danger than a tier 3 ones.

>> that's correct. That's how they were tiered the degree of severity of impact.

>> in terms of judge murphy's house, she's next door to -- to a tier 4 project, and two in tier 3. So it's homes that are of lesser danger than some of the others. So --

>> what about -- what about 3634?

>> 3634 is a tier 3.

>> well, that's just two doors from me.

>> actually, I can [indiscernible]

>> thank you.

>> 36 -- part of the erosion evaluation is based on two things, one is how close the home is to the creek and how high above. So how steep that slope is how to do with unstable it is or isn't. The second thing is the degree of water action along the bottom of the bank there. If you are on the outside of meander bend you are getting a lot more active scour than a straight stretch of the creek. 3434 is closer to the creek and on the outside of a meander bend, a fairly steep bank. That's what puts it in tier 3 instead of tier 4. Down to 36, 38, 40 those homes are further away from the creek, it's not an active meander bend, not as steep of a slope, that's why it would be tier 4 going down.

>> what the -- with the total improvements being suggested here, would it actually protect the erosion, significant erosion that if the court decided to vote for those kind of improvements of those particular homes, then tier 3 and also 4?

>> it's intended to protect, yes, the bottom of the bank from eroding further. So, yes, it protects from erosion.

>> from future erosion as far as at the bottom of the bank.

>> right.

>> okay. Thank you. Thank you.

>> yes?

>> we are 36 -- where is 3420, tier 3.

>> last name.

>> nelson. John and mary.

>> okay.

>> we I think part of the protection is where you put the rocks in with the gabions.

>> there's several different ways that you can do it, we haven't chosen a specific method, but there's something hard along the bottom that basically protects that bottom from erosion.

>> [indiscernible] tiers, I have done a lot of work where I have already built about 65-tons of rock and put in my back yard, so it's pretty stable because of that. This is stuff that we have done. But I think the protection in our property, can we refuse you doing --

>> tell me again where you are.

>> 3620.

>> in the middle, one of those people sitting in the middle.

>> we actually didn't rope to do toe protection that far up. Part of it because you disrunt a good job of -- you have done a good job of stabilizing the bank --

>> cut through. We used to get bends right up here where we are, back flow come up to the patio, until they do the cut through.

>> okay.

>> the only request is that we leave you and your property alone?

>> yeah.

>> we are kind of requesting that, at the same time we are also want doarg what's happening with tier 3. My big concern at the moment is if there's going to be two houses sitting there by themselves with nobody on this side, nobody on this side, and nobody taking care of those properties either and that really makes me a nervous wreck because my bedroom window is going to sit beside that vacant lot. I don't know unless they are planning on coming in and putting in trees and grass and maintaining and taking care of it, I don't want to see it become a disaster area over there.

>> joe, could you address that please? We've had homes removed I'm thinking down in the timber creek area. What is the end result of homes and things being removed, what do we do after that? Reraise a legitimate question.

>> they go into open spaces. There is a -- becomes part of our park maintenance program where we go out periodically mow it, if it requires mowing, litter pick up, this sort of a thing. We may or may not actually have any organized activity within the open spaces. In the case of timber creek, they may eventually have a -- a playscape that is put there by the corps of engineers after they finish the buyout programs. So there may be a trail, there may be a playscape, that sort of a thing. But typically when we acquire these open spaces it will be left in its native space, we will take down, tear down the house, we will basically revegetate the area, then maintain it as an open space area. We are not trying to make a -- an activity where it draws people into the neighborhood. It will be more of a passive park.

>> are we going to have any say-so about what you all --

>> play scapes. It's not that we don't want children but -- I'm a teacher, I don't want to do this all of the time.

>> as I said, it's not our intent to organize the park. More as it's going to be a parkland open space. It will be people, it is public property. But it's not -- we are not trying to draw people into this as a pocket park. So it's a -- we would probably consult with the neighborhood if there was any intent to put a trail in or anything like that.

>> you know, there's stairs already going down to that creek. I know there is next door to me, I don't know -- okay. So there's already a path going down to that creek. We are also a little concerned about who is liable for that? If kids go wandering through that now open park down into that creek, it's a little dangerous down there.

>> plus full of snakes.

>> snakes down there, uh-huh. We are a little bit worried about that, too. We don't want to have to be the main -- maintainers, stopping little kids, I don't want to stand out there going you can't go down those stairs by yourself. Not that we want it fenced off either. This brings on another whole set of problems where you start going what if, what if, what if.

>> 3618, 20, 22, there's a -- actually an old pathway through there, stairs going down. Every once in a while, people will be walking along down there that you notice. These are people coming from I don't know where. Actually come up the creek. Wading, when it gets down kind of low. They come in the back yard. Of course you know just walking along that -- actually an old walkway that goes for three houses. But if the next door becomes a park and encourages people to come down there, we are going to have all kinds of people in our back yard.

>> show them those pictures, we are not fenced, there's no division between yards back there.

>> I have been out there. I have seen it. When we say park, we say it because open space to us is the same as park. I don't see the county putting any kind of park structures out there any time soon. I mentioned before if I lived out there, what I would do is get my neighborhood association and make it like a little neighborhood park. It sort of is out of the way for park activities, in my view, except for those that live nearby. We were brought a problem by those whose homes were about to fall into the creek.

>> we understand the --

>> the last two or three years, our effort has been how do we address those, that's the strategy. That's not to say there may be some developments that we have to address along the way.

>> [indiscernible]

>> one of your neighbors is in imminent danger of losing the back of the house.

>> yeah. We understand that.

>> absolutely.

>> I mean --

>> [indiscernible] swimming pool, 22, so --

>> the other day that I was there, I mean, thanksgiving day, a couple of years ago I guess, the water was flowing like -- on television. Discovery channel.

>> but it doesn't stay up anymore. It gone in two hours.

>> right.

>> used to stay up.

>> they changed the path somehow and now it's gone in two hours. You have to run out there to see it do that and then it's over.

>> but two hours apparently does a whole lot of damage during that short span. I mean it is --

>> well --

>> it's hard to believe unless you go out and look at it or see a videotape of it. I left clearly convinced heavily convinced that the residents need help basically.

>> well, we agree those residents need help.

>> down the road actually buyouts, say that we were to want to sell our house in 10 years, would there be any way that the county could help us with their engineers, to provide us a letter saying that our house is stable to -- to potential buyers? He can see it hasn't gone anywhere but is there any relief for that the at all when you are doing studies at my house to get a letter saying that it's -- how stable it is?

>> the court at that time may be a lot more enlightened than we are. Today my guess is that we would say it's not the county's job to give you such a letter. But the report that our consultant did for us is a matter of public record.

>> right.

>> we have made it available to all of those who have asked for it. So to the extent that you can tell a prospective home buyer you need to see the county's report done back in 2006 it will be available.

>> okay.

>> do you have any idea at this point in time when or if ever tier 3 will be addressed?

>> depends on tier 1.

>> if tier 1 is bundled together, it's one for all, all for one. And if something happens on tier 1, then there are dollars available to go down into tier 3.

>> short of that, you have to wait for another round of appropriations and that would probably be four years on a bond election unless a court made a decision to do something sooner than that.

>> yeah.

>> we will go and say these homes with serious erosion flooding problems, we need approval for a certain amount of money to try to provide some relief. A finite sum of money was approved. That's not to say that a few years from now, we don't go back to voters and say that was phase 1, here's phase 2, here's what we have tried to do in the interim because my guess is the average taxpayer would ask, what kind of relief, remedy did you try to put in place after the buyout. That's why we was having that discussion a few minutes ago. It may be no matter what we try to do, relief is inadequate. Then the question is what do you do, so, you know, in addition a buyout may be possible. You almost have to address that at that time.

>> while we can tell you right now tier 1 decide not to sell, if you come down to tier 3 we are not selling, either. But -- but four years from now, maybe a totally different story. Is this something that we have a second chance at.

>> tier 1 doesn't sell, by guess is -- tier 1 doesn't sell, my guess is this project goes away.

>> oh, it goes away.

>> it's not like if tier 1 doesn't sell, go to tier 2, 3, if 1 doesn't sell, we go to 3 or 4. Had we went out there the biggest erosion flooding problem now is tier 1, after that 2, and so then the question was okay if the buyout provides relief to these homeowners, what about the others in tooers 3, 4, 5, that's why we were discussing what kind of remedial relief can we put in place. It's costly. Before you spend 3 or $4 million I guess the question is what if we bought everybody out? As Commissioner Davis said we don't like to go out and condemn property. Some folk like a little risk in their lives. So where you have unwilling, unmotivated home buyers, we would like to leave them alone. But that may impact other homeowners out there, too. I don't know, I don't know how go buy two third of the home, leave one third of them there. Next time there's a flood, more erosion, homeowners who are left there will call us and say why don't you help us.

>> that is my question exactly. Because it was also I'm sorry, I'm torre obie [indiscernible], 3640 quiet. That was one of my question was that, you know, if the tier 1 or 2 are bought out, what happens to the value of the -- our homes?

>> exactly.

>> if there's some stabilization effort, the pool of affected buyers has to increase or -- right now if a prospective buyer shows up, looks at the back yard, if he's reasonable he's got to say I can't buy this house in tiers 1 and 2. But if you see a stabilization effort has taken place, provides some assurance for the foreseeable future, the erosion won't be so bad that you lose your positive. My guess is positive consequences result if we put some sort of remediation process in place.

>> we are still looking at, as far as tier 3 and 4, I don't think we have zeroed out -- zeroed out the total construction phase of it, which helped prevent the undercut of erosion, which give longer life I think to the area of those particular residences that reside there now. But as was stated at the top of the pyramid where the most severe properties that suffer, not only from erosion, but also from flooding, a combination of both occurred in tier 1. That is the most severely impacted of all of the tiers would be the tier 1 project, then of course goes down farther to tier 2 basically a lot of erosion, less and less erosion as you get down to tier 4.

>> that is correct, there's a lot less erosion. However the flooding does not stop because in the last flooding that we had, not only because I have a pool, not only did the creaking into the pool, but it started coming around in the front because I'm right there in those trees.

>> I'm glad you brought that point up. You may not have been here at the last open discussion that we had.

>> I was not.

>> there are some persons that propose [indiscernible] [inaudible - no mic] to address a lot of those concerns. Even heard from judge murphy. That's why I was asking the question early oh, would the conveyance of water downstream, what kind of impact it would be with bank stabilization there. And I guess to address the question specifically as far as that is concerned, I guess that I have to -- [inaudible - no mic] [technical problems, please stand by] maybe address your question, other question that anybody else may still have as far as the -- as far as this project is concerned. As far as your flooding is concerned.

>> tier 1 doesn't [indiscernible] all of that money we put into toe protection.

>> stabilization?

>> there's a little problem in that when we went to voters -- saying this money would be used for buyout, the covenant with voters, ie the law, would be basically we have to use that money some way. We can creatively pay off that part of the debt that as much as issued and turn around and issue some other form of debt. But we have no flexibility. But that same money no because the law didn't allow it. A similar amount of money we could maybe more creatively but it would have to be issued under different regulations.

>> he asked a really good question in terms of -- property value f. You guys start doing this further up. I think another legitimate question would be what's going to happen to your property value if this project crashes and burns. It is not going to be helpful for the curb appeal to have houses on your street falling into the creek. Because people will go well I will bet that one will, too. To me it's phase 1. I will slightly disagree with the judge that if tier 1 crashes and burns then the whole project is at risk. I find great value in tier 2 and in tier 3 if that's how it has to go because one is high risk erosion, tier 2, substantial risk erosion, that's still a big deal. But if all of a sudden we are having to get into tier 4, that's when you start questioning, all the way down to tier 4 for anybody to start participating, that really does to me call into question the value of this project. But tier 2 is a way big deal. I just hope that the tier 1 folk can get to a good place because getting tier 1 and 2 done will do good things. I hope shore up all, no pun intended, the value of your home.

>> what tier am I considered.

>> you are not any tier. You were not considered one that it was either an active erosion, a high risk erosion, a substantial risk erosion or at risk. It's kind of you are fortunate in the sense of -- I wouldn't necessarily want to be on this list at this point because it says you have got more time. Hopefully some of these measures might keep it from having to be. If you could stay it's a lovely piece of property. I know where you live, it's beautiful.

>> thank you.

>> my view on that is that we told voters we would spend public money to address the most critical issues. We have made an objective finding that tier 1eus the most critical. In my view if we don't spend the money on tier 1 we ought not to spend it on this project unless we creatively don't buy any homes out, use the money in some sort of stableization effort. As you can see, we differ on that.

>> anything else? That's it, thank you.

>> we have got a finite sum of money. Luckily if you are not in tier 1 or 2, we have 7 found you are better off than some of your neighbors.

>> we are happy there, too, which is depressing at this point.

>> they are beautiful homes out there, yes.

>> we don't want to leave.

>> you don't have to leave.

>> is this court saying that our houses, 38 and 40 are not on any tier?

>> huh-uh.

>> no tier.

>> what is tier 4.

>> tier 4 is your neighbor, 3636 is tier 4.

>> that's next door to me. Just as high as mine, you know. I don't understand this. This is all unfair. It looks like a case of discrimination. Something of that sort.

>> judge, murphy, we wouldn't know anybody who owns any of these houses, I have to respectfully disagree with you.

>> that house is just as high up as mine.

>> if you are not on tier 1 or 2 at this time you are not a part of the buyout.

>> 3836 is just as high up as 3638, which is my house. It's on tier 4.

>> we don't have money for 3 or 4, so -- so it's not a 1 or a 2.

>> well, if we move in the direction that we are going here, 3638 would be the next house. Because there's 34, 36, 38, 32, so in the direction that we are heading, 38 would be the next one inspection miraculously there's no problem. [multiple voices]

>> tier 5.

>> there's no 5. We are out of it. [multiple voices]

>> yes, ma'am?

>> my name is mildred snead, at 3628 quiet drive.

>> how are you doing?

>> yeah. I'm next door to batter kelly. So -- bart kelly. If his house is removed, he's on a high cliff, that cliff is encroaching on my lot, as if I'm sitting with him, there is also wet land water under the ground in my back yard. And I'm trying to determine how they decide what's what without talking to any of us? Because if they had talked to me about my property, or looked at the back side of my property, they would have known that the water is coming up underground behind my fence. So if that's the case, then I don't understand why I'm not in tier 3. I know bart kelly's house has to go because he's sitting right over the creek. But the minute you remove his house, I'm going to be over the creek also because there's nothing to stop that creek. That high embankment, if you go on to cure that problem by doing something to that high embankment, you could buy the rest of us out. I'm at 3628 quiet drive. Also, I'm concerned about the way the appraisals are being country. Although my house is not -- I'm in tier 4 so probably nothing will be done with my house. But if -- if you are going to appraise by comparables, that is a custom built neighborhood. And you will not find custom built homes anywhere near there. If they go out into the university hills area or around that general area, appraisals generally go into a five mile radius, we will not get a comparable price. I feel the properties should be appraised based on reproduction costs as opposed to comparable properties around it. I feel this 10 to 25 to 40% reduction because of what happened to us through natural causes should not apply.

>> well, I think that the appraisals that we use, I don't understand which standards they use really, typically we tell them to go out there and come back with the market value.

>> when I listened to the meeting on the 11th, I think it was, that they would do it based on compareables. If you do this based on comparables, we will not get a comparable value for our property, simply because each house is different. All of these homes were custom built. This is not a tract neighborhood. The only way that you are going to get a comparable property for us is to get all the way over to lamar at parmer. I'm a real estate broker. And the projects that are sold in our neighborhood are either distressed or someone under duress. Consequently you don't get a good comparable on our street. I know this because I have been working comparables on the street. I value, we are going to get fair market value, we can't get it doing comparables in a surrounding area without moving out further than where the appraisals generally go right now.

>> it will be disagreements among praisers. If I were a homeowner, I didn't agree with the county's appraiser's estimate or appraisal I would get my own.

>> what I'm saying is the approach. The appraisers -- each entity, if you were asking for the approach to be done on comparables and we ask on reproduction, we are going to be this far apart.

>> okay. What is -- joe, I didn't ask anything in particular, I was probably not popping off an example, that's the only one that I know about. Normally we hire appraisers to go out and do the right thing. I don't know that we give them specific directions about how to go about doing it. Joe?

>> the approach is fair market value, with the existing conditions, which means that we do take into account the -- whatever is going on with that property. This is if an independent third party was going into to buy these properties. Okay. It's not something that's outside of the sphere of that property, trying to get things that are in the same area. That -- that's what a comp is. What she's asking for is replacement value, which is a different approach to appraisals. That's not the way that you typically instruct --

>> I don't think we ever said replacement value. We don't like to condemn, but in projects about in -- in a couple of other areas, as far as I know, the appraisal goes out and tries to come back with -- with market value is what I always thought it was. But now when we come back with the value, there's also an explanation by the praiser of -- appraisers of how he or she reached that value. When you look at that, if you really disagree, you think that it's dramatically low, I would get my own. In the end though we still only have a certain amount of money and so the question is whether we could buy six or three, but the value is important. For each one of them.

>> [indiscernible] what happens to his property. This is more than 3,000 square feet with a pool. And if you get comparables within that general area, his value should be somewhere around $350,000. He's not going to get that based on a comparable appraisal. It has to be something other than that. I know you don't want to do cost approach. If they just consider the fact that the homes were custom built what's in the houses as opposed to comparing them with a tract home that would make a difference.

>> okay.

>> I would like to offer a request from staff, also the consultant with this particular -- these particular properties that have been brought up to our attention, they say they are not a part of -- weren't included and seemed to have similar conditions. I would like to maybe have those revisited as we move forward in this process. And have the -- have them added to the list if -- if appropriate. But I would like to maybe see if there is any chance by these particular properties that have been brought up to what we are looking at, whatever tier they need to go into, they will go there. But I definitely kind of warrant you to go out and investigate that -- want you to go out and investigate that again and look at these properties that have been brought up.

>> I would make a note even the project scope officially stopped at 3636, because of the character of the stream along there, it wasn't a natural stopping place when you are looking at the conditions along the stream and the different factors that influenced the erosion or flooding. So in actual fact we did look further downstream than the 3636. The grade control in particular will impact the properties at 3638 and 3640. So there was some inclusion even though the insurances aren't included in the report because it wasn't part of the scope.

>> maybe it would be good to add them to the list as far as having them in a tier. As we go through this process, that's what I would like to recommend. Even at that, the funding issue, of course, that's been talked to, the judge I think hit is contact ratly as far as what -- accurately as far as what the covenant says as far as the property owners that came before, the damage of a lot of erosion, flooding problems, this thing has been going on a long time, nothing new, this particular erosion flooding, it's been around for years. But the deal is we have an opportunity to address it and of course the voters of -- of -- have elected to support and approve the bonds, this past November of 2005. And with that, there is a finish night defined -- finite defined amount of money that we have to use. But outside of that, let me ask staff one question, there may be another funding issue that we can look at as far as looking at toe construction because that's part of I think of the process as far as saving some of the properties from further undercutting erosion. What was -- what would the actual cost be if interior -- I guess three and four, anywhere we can apply it for toe construction outside of the bond money? Do we have a cost figure for that, per se, outside of the bond money? Because we may be looking at the possibility of [indiscernible] co's.

>> are you talking about toe construction beyond what has already been recommended?

>> if necessary. I really don't know how far down we need to go. But what do we have on the books right now as far as --

>> right now we have about a half million of -- of structural improvements, including toe protection, grade control, conveyance improvements and the engineering design. Those are all --

>> that satisfies both.

>> that's right, those engineering measures are name at 3 and 4.

>> maybe sufficient, also include those other properties that I would like to maybe see on the list.

>> my name is trek blish.

>> how are you doing trek?

>> okay.

>> I wanted to first of all, I would like to clarify something that he -- that is creating a big mess today. From t.n.r. About the properties that were having problems I did extends beyond the overflow channel because -- because at the time the -- I didn't realize that you wanted everybody on -- the names up and down walnut creek. I have been dealing with this since 1980. Is that mr. Kelly, keeps seeing people walking up and down his property because I bring people over there, it could be repaired trying to figure out. The creek jumps behind their property, comes on -- comes on -- -- comes almost from the front of the homes, comes up to the front of the homes rather than the back. So -- so half the time you don't flood from the back, from the -- from where the property is touching the creek, you understood from the front because the creek jumps and comes around. So I had to put these two properties into the realm of things because of the -- because of the way the creek operates. Nothing could be done without knowing where the creek was coming from upstream, that was number one. The other property that was put on the list, which is 3634, which is christina kubeck because I had walked up and down the creek and there's -- then another little funny trick -- about the creek by where the home is. So at the beginning we thought it was a study that could be done of this little stretch, how we could just address this -- this -- this -- this bypass channel that had for you become this whirlpool basically. This started a long time ago. All of these problems started in the -- in the late 70s when that levee was built. Since then it affected mr. Kelly the most. Gradually got worse. Last two weeks ago when we were here what I heard made me think, well there's going to be something fun fee here because we only start, a few people, but this is the way that you were talking, bank restoration, toe protection, blah blah blah, I knew it was going to affect a lot more people, I didn't want to wait until all of the bulldozers came to the neighborhood and for some of the people at the end of quiet to suddenly realize what are they doing, how come we weren't told. So prevent this shock down the road, I asked that the people at 3638, 3640 be notified so that they would know what's going on along the creek. Before you get bulldozers, a lot of people may not watch a court proceeding, may not even know from their neighbors what's going on, I think this would be a big problem. So I apologize to anybody that thinks that there was -- that there was -- justice done to their property because it's not really worked at all. Injustice done. We were addressing the problem of stream erosion property falling into the creek at 3626, 24, and so on. The reason -- I would like to put a note the reason that 3620 doesn't have as much erosion, I agree with you they are on the straight stretch, but in -- when that overpass, when the -- when the wastewater line was installed, their recommendations there from sp houston, to put the exact same gabions that were at 3620, 3622, all along the properties. On the creek. That was -- that's in writing. And it wasn't done. If that had been done, we probably wouldn't be -- wouldn't be losing half the property that we have lost in the last six years. It's taken a lot of years to eat up obviously the bottom part of it, but more so in the last five years. My second point, I don't know, I hope this explains to judge murphy.

>> she's not here.

>> she's right there. I just -- I wanted to know, I want you to know how you stayed out to start with and --

>> [multiple voices]

>> I'm trek english, I live at 3616.

>> are you an engineer?

>> no [laughter] I'm not.

>> are you a part of this project?

>> yes. [multiple voices]

>> we gave the consultant directions to the problem, right the consultant went out and looked at the situation, right. For example I never gave addresses, I said hey we have got this problem off of walnut creek, quiet drive backs up to it, we need the consultant to take a look at it try to help us fix it. Idon't don't know, seems to me that the consultant should have gone out and observed the situation.

>> we were given a specific -- any time that you have a project along a creek, you have to talk about what part of the creek you are looking at. In this case, like I said, there were reasons just from an engineering standpoint that we had to go a little further downstream to kind of get a handle on what was going on overall on the reach that we were told to look at. We did go further downstream.

>> nobody from the which I chimney chills associated talked to me. When the report came back, their situation is about as precarious over on quiet drive. Who I'm trying to say is hopefully the consultant to an objective look. I'm taking comfort in the fact that the consultant observed the problem and recommendations as to what we ought to do is based on the observation, not what the county judge told him he saw at thanksgiving. I just say there's a big mess out there, joe. We need to put a program in place. So, you know, a couple of years later, or a year and a half, we end up here today.

>> I'm not -- I was trying to actually give you an out.

>> a little bit more objective than your description of it, though.

>> I'm not trying to -- I'm not sure you understand. What I was trying to say is the reason these properties were not listed at the beginning because I thought you wanted to know who was having hunks of land fall into the creek. That's how I started was giving the names of the people that literally had lost big hunks of land into the creek.

>> [indiscernible] [inaudible - no mic]

>> we didn't include our house --

>> 3636 [multiple voices]

>> we need to be focusing on tier 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, but only money for one and two. Stay focused please, otherwise the project is going to die and nobody gets anything done.

>> well, I was trying to explain how we arrived that the mess where not enough people were notified from the beginning because I didn't realize this was going to be a whole creek project. If it was everybody would have been listed it's not even up to me.

>> trek, given ms. Murphy, you all confess to have strayed amongst yourselves, we are never going to get anywhere if you continue this.

>> I don't want to talk to anybody. I wanted to say how it happened.

>> I know you are talking to her as you turn around. She definitely needs some explaining, I mean, and since you kind of got us started with all of this trek, all that I'm asking you is go out in the hallway and say this is how this -- you weren't excluded for any reason. But, I mean, my gosh we are never going to get this thing moving if we don't get beyond this.

>> okay. I'm sorry. I thought that all that I was trying to do was not create this an months community. I -- animosity.

>> there's a list of tiers here in where your home falls. If you lived out there in tier 1 I would feel a whole lot better than tier 5, just a simple fact of the matter.

>> I realize that. All I did two weeks ago was to say we had better tell everybody else because they are going to be surprised because nobody has told them anything. That's all that I did. I can see where this is started into another mess. I don't know. Forget it.

>> ms. Kubeck.

>> thank you. I'm christina kubeck, at 3634 quiet drive. If I can offer one explanation, to ms. Murphy, the creek, if you have ever actually walked the creek, there's a lot of different situations. Like where the kellies are in tier 2, it's a steep, severe cliff, and it's undermining their driveway and the magners next door lost 10 feet from one storm, dropped off took their fence with it. I think the tiers are based on different points of severity in the erosion as the creek, you know, goes downstream. The different bends and turns and situations. So I don't think anyone was excluded with any malice. Just didn't happen. I did have the opportunity yesterday to finally, which I have been wanting to do for a long time, get with mrs. Landcaster in the creek and show her a point that will help the -- the people that live downstream from me if it's removed. The problem of when -- when s.b. Houston completed the job of putting the sewer pipe down the creek in '84, they put this gabion literally in the middle of the creek blocking the flow of things. Over time nature has deteriorated that and the water, you know, has shifted closer on to our properties. I pointed out to her by the removal of part of that would -- the water where it was supposed to flow less than how it's pushed towards our properties, put it back in the middle. How that would improve. Had a great opportunity to point that out to her, it would help everybody tremendously, especially downstream, because that's where it is mostly. So I'm grateful that -- that to have had a great conversation with her. I hope we have more. Thank you.

>> thank you, ms. English.

>> I live at 36 is it quiet drive, I'm [indiscernible] 3612. There's several things that -- that are questions that have come up to me in the court this morning. I have studied cindy's report, when they had them -- the meeting with the neighbors over at johnny morris, very few people came about -- about the -- about the creek in open spaces. That was a very complete and comprehensive long-range plan of which there was no mention of a joint program with the county or the city to address walnut creek. And when I asked about the absence of walnut creek, in that program, mr. Gieselman hisself responded that there was no plan. That we were extra territorial and the city of Austin they weren't -- that you and they were not going to be combining to do anything significant on walnut creek. So I felt somewhat confused during that meeting. The other -- I have not responded to the creek in open spaces plan because I wanted to see what you were going to do.

>> is it the creek in open spaces or is it parks in open spaces.

>> it may be parks in open spaces.

>> because that is a little different. We treat this a as an erosion flooding problem.

>> I know for this one thing. See the only reason that we mentioned the park is when we -- when -- in a buyout program we acquire ownership of the land, then we don't put any kind of other kinds of structures on there. We kind of convert it to open space and parkland use.

>> because --

>> raw land.

>> as an end result. But it starts out an erosion and flooding damage problem. Not as a parks in open space project. If you look on the ballot, though, we go to voters under the parks and open space authority because after we acquire ownership of the property, it becomes open land. That's why we do that.

>> okay.

>> I have the complete -- thing about the voting. And about the covenant and about the -- about the os system. And of -- although I was finally told that I could get it from the county, I already had it. From another source. I didn't bother you again. It wasn't easily done and so -- so I wasn't going to fight with it.

>> well, last I remember, I asked our consultant, our lawyer, bond council to give you a copy, because I didn't have one.

>> you know what? He talked to me in the hall and he didn't do a thing.

>> all right. [laughter]

>> but that's okay. Because I still found out how to skin the cat.

>> okay.

>> so -- what I want to talk about is the points -- I am tier 1. Everyone in tier 1 who owns property you got them to commit two weeks ago that, yes, we were interested in buyout. Do you all remember that?

>> absolutely.

>> I remember it clearly and real well.

>> okay. But we didn't get that in blood, if you change your mind --

>> I'm not interested in changing my mind.

>> I'm sorry.

>> but I am interested in a fair purchase. What mr. Gieselman described is not the decision that we came away with two weeks ago. You talked about what the tax value was, plus 25%. And now he's talking about -- about an appraisal that because of -- of flooding or et cetera it would be less 10 to 40% of what a fair market value was. Well, the -- one of the reasons I have been most upset about the county being ambivalent, saying one thing, then something else, is this. One month before we got your letter, saying that you were interested in a buyout, we were already talking to a realtor to sell our home. And we are smart enough to know that if you send us that, that we have nothing in order to -- to secure us from liability if things didn't go. So what I am interested in is something firm, something where the staff says the same thing that we talked about in the court, not just because mr. Gieselman was on vacation, you had staff who supported what -- what you were saying at that time. And so -- so it gives a mixed message for us. Still, not knowing what to expect. And, remember, I have been to this court off and on for over 20 years. It's now been over 25 years since the memorial day flood. And it's talk and inaction, talk and inaction. I want -- I want the -- the appraiser was laurie johnson. As mentioned in a letter that I got at my home, the last -- the last Friday. I received it on 7-21. And --

>> of 2006.

>> yes. 2006. I -- I did not call the -- the dee heap who signed this letter because I did not want to create any confusion about our desire to sell. But I do hope that since we have been through a great deal of -- of -- I don't know exactly what to call it. Political indecision. When we -- cindy and I had an in-depth conference when she was -- in depth conversation which she was first looking at the creek. I could tell her exactly where the holes are and where the water will start filling first. Previous engineers with their fine and wonderful license and certification did not pay attention to us and neither did you. Neither did many of mr. Gieselman's staff. I previously -- our previous experience had been mainly with john kuhl. John has learned through persistent and persistent conversation that we are not all whipped and that we -- we can see as you happen to see on that thanksgiving day, that -- that you wouldn't want to have to deal with that all the time. So I hope that -- that we can come to some legal, fair, and firm thing that you will offer, that mr. Gieselman's appraiser will send and we will probably have to get one of our own as well. So -- so I just want to -- to state how I feel, I do not speak on behalf of any of the other residents, because I haven't asked them what they felt or wanted to do. [one moment please for change in captioners]

>> thank you.

>> cindy wagner. I want to say nothing would make me happier than if I wasn't on the list because that would mean that I didn't have anything going on with my land. If that never happened, that would make me a very happy person. Unfortunately this is something that did happen, and what concerns me looking at this is I came away two weeks ago from here feeling really positive that we were going to get a fair deal. And then again what -- what ms. Ingraham was stating that this says we're only going to get maybe 60 to 75 percent of the fair market value of our homes.

>> we will have to get an appraisal done.

>> it says here that after the appraiser then they're going to take away 10 to 40% of what the appraiser says it's worth, and that would be what we would get.

>> what you're going to get from the appraisal is a fair market value, all things considered, okay?

>> so they are going to take into consideration what's going on and they're going to subtract that from the value?

>> they will look at what the value -- if a therd-party were coming to value this property, what would they pay for it after they've seen all the things going on with it. That's what a fair market is. What are people wanting to pay for that property. When the appraisal goes in, they will be looking at flood and erosion potential. And they will incorporate that into the value they give to the fair market value. That is what an independent person will give for your property. That's fair market for that property. That's what I'm saying.

>> so what's going on with the collapse and the erosion will be taken into consideration?

>> absolutely.

>> so if we tried to get our own appraisal and tried to get it to someone else.

>> ideally if both appraisals are done correctly, they should come close to the same answer.

>> we've paid for good professional health.

>> the way I was reading this --

>> what we were trying to do early on too was get a rough idea of how to figure out how much we could accomplish with 1 point will million dollars, the voter approved amount. So those are working numbers for us. So the next step is to really get the appraisals done, share those with the resident and let the ones in tier one, tier two basically respond. And it seems to me that we will know what we need to do, how to go about doing it.

>> right.

>> so my question is whether we -- we may have to revise the scope of service after that happens. And the question really is whether we should approve the scope of service and contract for additional services today and wait.

>> I was concerned with what this says here, after consulttation with the appraiser, tnr expects the reduction in market value will likely range between 10 and fort percent. So what-- 40%. So I was reading that they would give us the appraised value and drop it by 40 percent.

>> that's joe saying what tnr thinks. We hire a consultant to give us the consultant's professional view. If you have an appraiser that you use rtion your appraise -- your appraiser may have an entirely different notion. With we have to put our heads together and see if we can compromise it or reach some sort of agreement. If not, then we've got a problem.

>> the more problems we have, the bigger problem, the more the reduction -- they're going to give us less money for the house.

>> think about it, you're going to put a for sale sign in front of your house, forget about the liability issues here, but if you're going to put up a for sale sign, what would you price your home at? You would be going through the same kind of discussions talking about what should I put this on, and you can adjust it in various ways or how many people want to bid on your property, but it's basically what do you think you can sell it for.

>> right.

>> cindy, you shouldn't leave this room today thinking that that paper is that far off. You know what's going to happen. Just fact that this thing has gotten this much publicity. We're not appraisers, but we have a real estate expert here and that is what happens. You know, it's not -- and government is not in a position to go and pay what might be fair, which is I'd like for this home to be -- I'd like to be able to sell my home so that I can go and rebuild another home. I mean -- that's not -- it's not replacement. That's not what's done. But I don't want you to go thinking that -- I do think that these homes are going to be fear severely lowered from -- because if somebody is going to come in and say I'm going to buy this and this is what happens to this thing, it is not -- is it not fair? Probably not fair if it's your house, and especially trying to go and rebuy something. What you all have, because you have pretty homes down here, and replacement for those homes, we all know, my gosh, you may have to go to mcada or something -- mcdaid or something to do something like that or elgin, especially since a couple of people have come up here and said this is what we were told is that we're going to take appraised value and add 25%. I don't remember saying that. I don't remember anybody --

>> one member said tcad value. We put a 25 percent fudge factor in just to try to figure out how many people's we may be able to do, realizing that at some point before you close the deal you've got to get a professional appraiser to look at it and give you a value, and then -- you're dealing with five or six homeowners, there will be some disagreement over the value. I never thought that we would be able to set the amount and get it done that way. I always anticipated that there would be some give and take at some point, but then the question is buyout aside, what do you do for the area and the rest of the homes out there? So in my mind we've always been trying to address that. The ultimate question is really to buy out -- if the buyout initiative falls through, where are we left and what money do we have to do it with? We have a lot more flexibility once we get away from the amount that was voter approved. Different kind of funding, a lot more flexibility in terms of what to do as long as we think that a fix will in fact be a fix. You hate to go out there and spend a few million dollars to have it washed away two or three years later. Voters don't like that, taxpayers.

>> I want to know if this information is going to be provided to the appraiser that you have concerning the erosion in order to get the appraisal done when the appraisal is done.

>> I hadn't really thought about that and don't know. Joe, have you ever given that any thought?

>> we rely on on the appraiser to do what they normally do when they appraise a provment.

>> would you give this information to the appraiser --

>> absolutely.

>> concerning the erosion on the creek.

>> they're going to walk out there and see it.

>> they'll see it, but will you provide them with the reports? Because it makes a difference. Prior to this information that y'all are providing right now, if I were to call an appraiser if I were to put my house on the market and call an appraiser out, the creek wouldn't be addressed. But with this the creek is going to be addressed if you provide that information to an appraiser, it's going to devalue the property.

>> that's right.

>> I disagree that the creek would not be addressed if the appraiser is truly doing their jobment.

>> not at this stage. If somebody asks us, are you telling us --

>> when you hire an appraiser, are you going to provide this information to the appraiser?

>> my answer would be yes.

>> I don't know that we provide a whole lot of details, but you've got to say this is a Travis County flood damage erosion buyout program.

>> why?

>> that sort of hints at --

>> without telling him we want to have this property appraised. Why not just say we want to have this property appraised and send an appraiser out. If you didn't address the problem, the appraiser more than likely would not say very much about it even if it's on the creek, or most of the homes. Maybe those that are down, completely down at the very end in tier one, maybe so, but the rest of the homes the appraiser wouldn't address that.

>> who would be liable if somebody went out and bought a home and there was an omission? Would that be the title company, would that be the appraiser?

>> well, there wouldn't be an omission on our part prior to this because we didn't know to what extent the erosion was taking place. Y'all have made this public which put a stigma on our properties and now if we wanted to sell we couldn't.

>> we've been asked -- this is not like that we have come up and said, do you know what, we're going to make an issue of this. There are people that have come to us, that have worked with us for the last two years to put it on the bond issue. This is not something that Travis County has gone out and said, do you know what, let's go out here and take quiet drive and let's take make an issue of this. That's not what's happened here.

>> I understand that. I'm not saying that you're damaging -- you're intentionally damaging us, but we're being damaged.

>> but if you were trying to sell this property -- forget about the bond issue. If you knowingly know about a condition with your home and you hide that from disclosure, a real estate agent who fails to disclose certain information, that is an actionable offense.

>> but that's not what I said.

>> you can't hide things about whether it's in the floodplain. You can't even hide whether a murder has occurred there.

>> it doesn't make any difference. Everybody is going to know about this because of the process we've gone through so we might as well get beyond that because people know what the situation is there.

>> but I don't want that said about me. I said prior to this I didn't know the extent of the erosion. Under the law, I have a license, I cannot fail to disclose, but if I didn't know I can't disclose what I don't know. And that's what I said. I said now that we do know, it devalued our properties. That's what I said. If I were to put it on the market now I would have to disclose because of what -- that's why I'm asking him what he's disclosing because I would have to disclose now because of what's been said.

>> but as trek and others have said, they've been coming to court here for years talking about eat roation problems, so -- it was on a bond election. It's been publicly discussed. It's a matter of public record.

>> if I may interject in a minute, one of my points I was trying to bring up before, maybe I'll make this worse now with this conversation, was that why is it that you don't appraise the homes before you put the whole matter as a public record on these -- on these agendas? Because first we talk about it for two years and then we get it appraised. At that point it's like if you were trying to marry someone and then you had your doctor telling them everything about you or something like that. The whole thing is if you know that when you sell a house you minimize everything that you know about your home. You dough noe, but you minimize. When I tried to put my house for sale and I wrote everything down, I wrote it in letter form, my realtor almost had a fit. And she said that's not the way we do it. So --

>> joe, is it fair to thai sai that the appraisal value on these properties will be no different from any other cip project that we go through in terms of how an appraisal is reached.

>> we presume that there's a sophisticated buyer in the market looking at this property who would do due diligence in purchasing the property. We as a governmental entity will acquire in the same process. We're going to look into true market value of what this property is worth, and I can assure you they will look into what the existing situation is. If there's asbestos in the house, that will be taken into consideration because that's what a normal buyer would do before you plunge money down. We're trying to put the government in the same role as any other sophisticated buyer when we go out and buy something.

>> [inaudible - no mic].

>> what did we do about onion creek buyout? We did timber creek, which is right next to onion creek.

>> but the city of Austin did onion creek.

>> we did timber creek ourselves. What did we do there?

>> for the onion creek buyout we used a consultant that specializes in floodplain buyouts. He hired a local appraiser here in Austin, familiar with this whole region, and established fair market value much as you've heard already, the price that would be paid by a current buyer on the market. Now, we also have to look at currency of appraisals, so it's difficult to go back the way you were talking about because the appraisals will usually go stale within six months, sometimes a year, depending on which agency is funding us.

>> how do you put a value on the bond project? How did you put a value on homes? You said you had six homes holmes and so much money for buyout.

>> the buyouts for onion creek weren't bond projects, they were using fema grant funds. And they started out based on disaster declarations involving the property. And the basis for buying particular properties there is typically how much water rises into the house. They're looking in certain cases the property that were bought first were in guadalupe county. They floated down the river. Then they looked here in Travis County at houses that had between three and six feet of water.

>> right.

>> I would like to add that all of my dealings with creek engineers has all been done at the city level. I had very little encounters with the county because all of the projects that I dealt with, and I have three of them now that are city projects. I have worked on every project from walnut creek because I get notices and I was part of the stakeholders on the creek. They had a team that worked on the -- on walnut creek before the second round of study of the creek for the city of Austin. What I would also like to bring out is that the flood maps have changed drastically in the last year, and that is not in our favor because when my property was originally looked at, I was in the zone x, if you can believe that. Zone x means it's a 500 year floodplain, not the 100 year floodplain. And that was just as of a year ago. Now the floodplain maps are out and I'm I think in, what, zone w, if there's such a zone. I call it w for worse because basically I've gone from there to there. And so things have changed drastically just in the last two years. So I think this will affect the appraisal. I'm sorry, but it is because we're going backwards. First we go through and there's also things that would not be disclosed such as mrs. Plum -- alan plummer's report because it wouldn't have been done. You wouldn't be disclosing something like that. Now, yes, it would have to be disclosed.

>> but trek, it's already been disclosed to the buyer because these people are the buyer and they already know about it and they know about it because y'all informed them about it. It's been confirmed by the consultant's study, so the buyer knows about it. The only issue with the appraiser is what discount to value do you assign to that? That's all that's happening with the appraiser. There's no disclosure issue because the buyer already knows about the erosion problem. The only issue is how much of a discount to market value do you assign to it, and what they need is an expert to give them an opinion on that so that they're not just pulling numbers from the air.

>> can we make a move that we need to move forward. If we have to go through the appraisal process, then let's answer some of these questions and let's go. I'm sure that the homeowners are going to have their appraisers as they should. We need to know what we're dealing with here is the only way we're going to do that is to move forward.

>> it's already happening.

>> is there work that could be done, should be done by the consultant while we're waiting on the appraisals.

>> as soon as the court approves the contract amendment to the plummer, they can get started on the next phase of evaluations from the engineering work. In the meantime the appraisals are underway right now.

>> if the buyout falls through, it seems to me that whether we take a larger look at trying to provide some relief or not.

>> yeah.

>> we would simply amend the contract again at that point if that's where we end up?

>> we would if that's what the court wants us to do.

>> were you getting ready to come up?

>> [inaudible - no mic].

>> I'd like to move approval of a and b on this particular -- 14 a and b --

>> it's just the b part.

>> I'm sorry, b portion of this. And that is to make sure that-- which we did already do something earlier, and we go ahead and move forward with 14-b in this particular regard, but I still would like to -- let me leave the consultants alone, but I still would like to make sure that the addresses that we spoke of here before are included in this process because even -- whatever comes out of this thing with the toe protection and all these other kind of things with the money that we're probably going to set aside as far as co's that those properties be included. So I want to make sure that that happens. And maybe we're not into the oversight or anything else, but I want to make sure those properties are included. That's part of that motion.

>> b is the contract with alan plummer and associates.

>> I'm not sure you approved the budget amendment.

>> we already approved t 1.

>> 14-b is that modification number one of the contract. Is there a motion? Is that your motion, Commissioner Davis. Seconded by two people. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.

>> did we give you a chance to finish?

>> thank you, judge.

>> thank you, trek.

>> I think that on 14-a, the most critical next step really is to get the appraisals done, share those with the residents and see where we go from there. That's what we're doing already. We approved that before, right?

>> but judge, also, if there's any way possible, I still would like to have those other properties added, especially I think it was 38 -- was it 38 and also 3840, I believe, that was brought up, which is still a part of this process and there with the close proximity of what we have in these tiers.

>> what already explained is she didn't look at them, but even though the technical scope ended at 3636, that was not a natural break in terms of how you looked at it, so they did look at 3638 and they did look at 3640 and, lucky them, they don't land in a tier because it's not as serious as tier one.

>> but the bottom line is that --

>> [overlapping speakers].

>> I feel that we should be in one of these tiers and all of us to have a fair settlement of this whole situation.

>> and I want those listed in -- as we come back with those appraisals and stuff like that. When we look at this thing again, I would like to -- if that's the will of the court. I'm only one person on this court, but I would like to include 3638 I guess and 3640.

>> let me clarify. We are not appraising anything more than the tier one and tier two.

>> I'm saying after you do the appraisals. When it's coming back to the court, whenever it comes back, I would like to make sure that this particular list is updated to ensure that -- unless we have to have a separate agenda item to do that. Now, right now I don't know. I'm just asking for that to be a recommendation for staff to bring that back and add them to the list.

>> add them as what? Tier five?

>> no. I think they may be within tier -- hold on. I think they may be -- I think it would probably be in tier four and also probably three. They're in close proximity to those.

>> we've already made a judgment call that three properties are tier four. These properties are further down from there, so they're not going to be tier three.

>> well, anyway, 38 and 40, even though they may be even in tier --

>> four or five.

>> no, doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Because they're in close proximity to other tiers here that we have.

>> put them in four.

>> so the point is they need to be looked at and direction of staff to come back and include those in the proper tier. And I don't know that until someone go out and look at them and see where they are farce as far as the assessment of other properties.

>> you think their four's.

>> they would be added -- we've got 3636 and your request is 3638, that they be added right under that. And 3640? It will add right under that. Let's add those to tier four. Second? Discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.

>> thank you.

>> thank y'all of y'all for coming down. This is an agonizing issue. We'll see where we get after the appraisals and see where to proceed from there.

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, July 26, 2006 10:34 AM

July 25, 2006 Item 14

July 25, 2006
Item 14