Travis County Commissioners Court
September 26, 2006
Item 12
12. Consider and take appropriate action on the fiscal impact of the proposed conservation development ordinance and take appropriate action. We have two take appropriate actions here, which is why we are not taking action today. Now, the dripping springs deal, that everybody brags about, what financial incentives, if any, do they provide?
>> what financial incentives are embedded in the origins. Ordinance?
>> they talked about the density bonus, is that their financial incentive?
>> no.
>> okay.
>> we have a series of incentives in our package --
>> judge, it's fair to say that the density bonus is an incentive under the dripping springs ordinance. They don't have any financial incentive. The incentive under the dripping springs ordinance is relaxed density requirements. Because dripping springs does have density requirements that the developer has to deal with.
>> that true, mr. Smith.
>> [indiscernible]
>> get you on the mic here, okay. I was trying to get -- to get -- through our public hearing this morning to deal with some of the other matters that I knew would take some time. Which is why I didn't ask you, but in terms of incentives, what are they, in dripping springs.
>> in the dripping springs ordinance there are no financial incentives written into the ordinance. As the counselor said, there is incentive with regard to density bonus in the ordinance.
>> okay. In other words, if the applicant needs certain -- meets certain conservation open space set asides, then he's allowed to do additional density under the ordinance.
>> if we look at the density bonus in Travis County? Did we?
>> there's a fundamental difference here. One the cities can regulate densities, therefore they can give incentives. As a county we don't have those authorities, we have nothing to reduce or increase the density, too. Right now, a developer when he comes in does not have any density restriction. Whereas in dripping springs they have one to begin with. That is some of the snebt that they are getting, more density, the cities will grant more densities. So there's a document tall difference between the fundamental difference between --
>> the answer is no because Travis County does not regulate.
>> one clarification.
>> please clarify that for us, mr. Nuckols.
>> we do have a density requirement with regard on on-site sewage. If the developer of the conservation subdivision wants to use on-site sewage, he will have to deal with that density limit if it's over the trinity or edwards is one acre per unit.
>> part of the -- in looking at that, to get a greater density using on site sewage systems, you would have to go to a cluster system. There you run into state regulations that can be -- can become restrictive for us. Because we operate under the state rules for septic systems. They are not favorably disposed at this time to have cluster septic systems. So if we could get that changed at the state level, that would certainly be an incentive for this type of development in the rural areas of the -- of the county.
>> really, we think that -- that all things considered, the financial incentive may well be the only incentive that Travis County has left?
>> well, there -- we are -- our incentives are not just financial. There are time, certainty and money. All of these things are important to a developer, we have approached it from all three of those angles.
>> does anybody -- I mean, those are incentives, certainty of money?
>> I say that all the time. Getting through the approval process is just as important to them as saving money because time is money. That's a -- we understand that.
>> I guess that I am trying to clear up some thing, so I can understand going forward with this, looking at the meetings that I know will have to be held with some of the stakeholders, I'm visualizing the large tracts, large parcels, farmland, where persons have been farming these hundreds of acres, the number of acres for many, many, many years, they have a -- they have a -- they have a house or a home, some improvement there, where they live. With you the rest is dedicated to agriculture use, follow under the ago exemption kind of things. My question is if -- if a person decides to -- to go along and say, look, I would like to have a real part of this, and -- and they do decide to dedicate 50% of that particular tract of property or whatever to open space, the question then is would they be able to continue to farm that open space property as they once did before? Of course the other percentage of that would be used for the development purposes of whatever.
>> doing it before, still farming, keeping it up under ag exempt.
>> the answer is yes. They can continue to farm the portion of it that is in the conservation space. One of the things nationally that you are seeing is a loss of farm lands near urban centers. One of the things that we wanted to protect here was that same, other communities are taking that same orientation because of that loss of land to try to preserve farmland. So -- so they -- the ordinance would contemplate that a farmer would continue to farm it or it could become community gardens or it could continue in some type of ag production in order to provide for the urban center, fresh fruits and vegetables, so forth.
>> okay. Okay. That's a pretty good important point because know that if as we go through this process, of course set aside that, still [indiscernible] space into that. I guess that open space would be perpituity, may not be open space, once it's dedicated and set aside as open space.
>> in the process what we anticipate is a a developer would come in, layout the open space area that he wants to protect. In the assessment of the property, he will identify particular uses that are historic, agriculture, farmland, so forth that he's trying to include as the open space, that area would be identified and accepted under those conditions. So -- now obviously if they were to stop farming it, we would like to see it go back to a natural condition, but as long as they wish to farm it, it's possible that it could stay in the conservation space and be available for agricultural use.
>> okay.
>> in the past, as far as the public wanting to purchase open space, the past years, that has gone before the voters to vote on, two actually acquire that open space, I understand it correctly, between what, 5,000, $13,000 per acre, what type of situation is that? Is that about accurate? Fee simple acquisition of parkland. If we had to buy it, own it 100% it would cost us probably in excess of that. A lot of these areas are experiencing the -- the growth pressure of urbanization. Land rents are going up substantially. 10,000 acres are probably 20,000 an at or about. These lands are on the fringe of the urban area. If the county were to go out and acquire these fee sim pells, those prices you are saying, the incentives we are offering here are really substantially less and giving you the same ruts for the open spaces -- same results for the open spaces. Not necessarily publicly owned land. We have made incentives to let the property decide 50% of his property as open spaces, but the property owner continues to own that property overlaid with an open space easement on it. For that we would pay approximately -- the way it is currently structured, about a thousand dollars per acre. For that same that ease, 1/10th or less acquiring it fee simple. The incentives are really just that, they are not intended to purchase the property. Just a developer when he comes in, make a prov fit off the development and with incentives -- also set aside a substantial part of his property as -- as open space in perpuity. What you heard this morning do we have the right balance between development rights of the remainder of the property, the incentive as we set them out in this ordinance. Let me ask this question. In looking at the total number of acreage that we have -- incentive summary that we have as far as -- can you tell me basically the larger tracts that we are looking at as far as western and -- and eastern Travis County? There have been depicted as such, in other words, if I wanted to find out how many acres are in eastern Travis County as far as -- especially in the -- in the grass lands, black land prairie area, the natural grasses and stuff like that, is there any delineation depicting those tracts with that type of attributes, have they been broken out accordingly.
>> we have actually identified the parcels that are currently agricultural exempt in Travis County outside the -- the city limits and outside the extra territorial jurisdictions. About 1600 parcels total. What you see in brown, on the far northeast, the western fringes of the county are properties that are currently agriculturally exempt. I think the largest tract is about 6,000 acres, that's not typically what you find in Travis County. I think what -- the average size of an agricultural exempt property is 65 acres. You do have probably property that is 500-acres or greater in size that are agricultural exempt. The rest of the properties, the prepond der ran of the property are less than 500 acres. In the northeast you will probably find a mix of anything from 20 to 500 acres, perhaps even some thousand acre tracts up there. But they seem to be smaller than the large ranches that you find in western Travis County. I expect there's probably a reason for that. You needed larger acreage to ranch than you did to farm.
>> exactly. That's all that I have right now.
>> we have a representative here from the ladybird johnson wildflower center, who was here this morning. She had some comments to give.
>> my name is danielle, the conservation development coordinator at the ladybird johnson wildflower center. For the past year, past five years we have been putting on a conservation development symposium. There's been a growing interest to the development community, through large landowners, community members, county officials and we find that conservation development is a very feasible, sustainable, practical way of developing land and conserving land at the same time. We developed this booklet to -- to become a primer for -- for developers, land planners, county officials to -- to become familiar with this concept that's been -- it's a growing trend nationally, we hope that it becomes a growing trend in Texas. Thank you.
>> judge?
>> yes, sir.
>> this can only be a positive step for us. Moving towards this conservation development. The real key is how much can you offer a developer to get them strictly away from roi, return on investment. I think that the phrase equal yield, that is really where we have got to go because quite frankly I mean just -- just speaking strictly of western Travis County, wherever we can do this, I am 100% supportive of this. Because what we really need, what we are really looking for is to take as much of the land and leave it as natural as it can be. In order to do that, I mean somebody has got to have a pretty darned good financial incentive to do that. If you take a 500-acre tract, if you immediately got to skim 250 acres off, you are going to get $600 for that, you are going to get 150 grand, then you have got I mean the six dollars an acre, probably pretty insignificant because it's $1,500, 250 acres. Then you really wonder okay is that -- I mean, a streamline, there's no question that you are right, time is money to the developer. And if they can put a financial model together show that -- so that that shows a benefit, then obviously that's what we are looking to do. I do think, which is the reason that I'm going to have at least this first meeting to talk to folks and say tell us how big -- I mean, the carrot has to be. Because if we don't, if we just go through the motions and say well we are just going to put this, sounds good on paper, the conservation development ordinance, but -- but you know people just kind of look at it, go hum, no, because I can -- that's going to depend on what somebody is going to have to pay for the dirt that they have got to buy. I mean, it really -- the financial part of this thing is the thing that's going to push it. But we are certainly moving in the right direction. To offer it. I mean, and -- I do think that we will have some folks that will go I'm not necessarily as concerned about making the big hit. What I want to do is my family has lived on ranches, we have lived in western Travis County and we are very cognizant of the fact that people in this community want those kind of developments. So -- so hopefully we will -- this will morph into something where we really will have a number of folks that will say I can do this just as easy, as a matter of fact easier, I'm willing to take less brain damage from going through the process, and for it being streamlined and so I'm -- I'm appreciative of -- of joe and everybody that's worked with it because it is moving us in the right direction. The only question that I have been asked and that I can't quite answer other than because you live in Austin, or? Central Texas, you are spending taxpayer money to give financial incentives to people. We just got off a subject matter about spending tax dollars on thinking we were doing it for the right reason. We probably won't have a lot of people that will question us on spending tax dollars to give to a developer or a property own they are that turns developer in order to set aside some land, I mean, quite frankly because we all know when you have a bond package before this citizenry that open space is something that you can pass. I mean, the unfortunate thing you have a hard time passing infrastructure issues sometimes but open space give me all the open space you can. So it is encouraging to me that we are going to be able to go to people we are really wanting to participate, really putting some skin in the game, that being the developer that there is something here. I do think that we are going to have to move the incentive package up. There is a fine line there about how we can do that. I'm more than willing, look forward to working towards this.
>> I'm looking forward to -- to when we get to the final version of this, we are -- 15, we are not finished yet. I have every intent of voting for this when we get to the final. I have three areas that I would hope that we could focus attention as this thing gets revised and honed in. One of my biggest concerns having gone over to the state legislature is make sure that we have got all of our ducks in a row related to how this is interpreted, not only by our own appraisal district, but when we are sharing appraisal districts. When a school district is primarily in another county, then all of a sudden they are a player in this and can have contrary opinions to what our own appraisal district has in terms of the value. And when you have something that's going from -- from being ag exempt to this -- to this conservation or habitat exemption or whatever you want to call it, where we seem to be having some issues and we've had one on one particular a plot of land in western Travis County, is that while we are with good intent stripping off the highest and best use and taking away the development rights on a piece of property, there have been varying opinions about whether that means you get to stick with kind of the old ag value, which is practically nothing. There -- they are having interesting conversations about whether there is value attached to a conservation easement. And what is that value? It is highest and best use, but it isn't where the ag exempt is. We've had some real clashes that need to get worked out. Especially since a lot of this tracts in western Travis County you are going to have some of the school districts from -- from burn it net, I'm guessing it's going to be, because marble falls, there are other players here. We need to make sure, we have got firm answers. The state legislature has also had some very interesting discussions because they are not happy with some of these things because they kind of see it as wow I have got a really cool back yard. We probably spend more time over at the "lege" talking about the discovering vacation easements of getting asked questions of can you do deer hunting. It's just -- we need to make sure that the "lege" and the appraisal districts that this thing is all worked out because you don't want to have somebody coming in here with expectations this is what my bill is going to be from whomever the other neighboring district is, they find out that's not what's going to happen on their bill. Okay. Second thing. I'm going from the lessons of the bcp. That is a bipartisan community based solution. There are those in this community who would like to see the bcp fail. Because even though you get the conservation, water quality, open space, it meant that people were going to be able to develop their land. So with that I -- if this is intended to help thread the needle in terms of dealing with the issues, to get the open space, it can't be that we are still going to have the development wars, Gerald, in terms of especially in your precinct, that you could still meet our standard with no variances and you would still have people come here saying well I'm not happy, I'm fighting that. And I think this is intended to try to get us away from all of those things. But I think we need to -- there are still going to be individuals out there who prefer a no build option. There has got to be a way we make this as something that would work but the court does not still get pulled into what are really development wars about development versus conservation development. The word is still in there. Called development. So I'm trying to get to a place this is a workable ordinance and not one that makes people think that they are going to get through the system and find out they have the same issues. Which gets us to where we need to have the good discussions in terms of I would hope that people would take very close watch and look at chapters nine and chapters 10. There are a lot of things in here related to final approval and on the things with administrative adjustments and variances, where things are approved or accepted administratively by the executive manager that satisfies the executive manager, shall be adjusted or modified by the executive manager. The executive manager may grant the -- my only grant and I think this court needs to have some discussions as we have had every time we meet with conference of counties and tag about anything that dilute the ultimate authority of any Commissioners court to handle its business. If that's the way you want to go well then the majority rules on that. But I think we ought to be abundantly cautious about granting that kind of power. And especially when there have been times when joe and staff with all good measure have said it's ready to go and we have said we disagree with you, we need to have more discussions. I don't want to put joe or his successor or the staff in the position of somehow they have to take the flack for what really are proper decisions that need come to to the Commissioners court and the five who sit here have to just make some hard decisions and move on and deal with that. I -- I also remember there was one, joe, where you bumped it to us. A site development permit that was controversial piece of property. It was already granted administratively to you to do, but you went ahead and bumped it to us simply because it was controversial. I think the court needs to just seize its powers and deal with it because these things can get bumped back to you anyway. I think it puts the executive manager in a very unfair situation to basically take the hits when it really is the court needs to own its decisions. And so under chapter 10, I have got all sorts of things circled of the executive manager granting variances, I have got it as recommending to the court that it needs to be recommending to the court for consent. There's got to be that balance there of sending a message to the development community that if you do all of this, you are going to get through the process. And it's not that -- that you are going to get stuck in the buzz saw here. [indiscernible] talked in terms of how many times have there been developments that truly did take more than an abnormal amount of time? You know what, in the 12 careers that I have been there, probably been less than 10. And every single one of them had special issues with them that made them special cases. Sometimes we changed our development rules because of them. Sometimes the developer might have been their own worst enemy in terms of how things were presented. But most things go through in I think a reasonable amount of time in total observation of what's going on with -- with the he will begin bank case, et cetera. Sometimes something might get rolled over for one week or two weeks, but we don't really have things that are just spun out of control. So -- so those are my things. Make sure it's all in order with the appraisal districts. Okay in terms of where the lemg is going with -- "lege" is going with scertion of ag exemptions, conservation easements, what is the value of that, making sure that people understand this is something that is going to allow development to occur in maze that they thought it was not and to make sure that the court is comfortable and I would advocate switching it from being the that the executive manager does all of this stuff to that it really is the court's duty and responsibility to be the final word and to be the ultimate --
>> you and joe used to be so close [laughter]
>> I get to leave. So you know what it's going to wind up here anyway. So you might as well just own it.
>> two things. Am I correct that most residents would like to see us pull this off if possible? I've not heard negative comments. I have heard questions more than anything else. My interpretation so far has been if we can adopt a conservation ordinance then residents would like to see it. Of course, you know, at some point they want to know what's in the details. Second question is, which needs an answer, where do you see us going from here? And -- I remember seeing four or five drafts, if we have 16, I think we ought to self impose a limit of 20 or something. [laughter] but where do you see us going, what steps -- I know one neighborhood association requested an audience with some county staff to discuss these. I don't know seems to me that we ought to make another run at -- I would get input make a revision, then if you have to have a meeting with neighborhood associations, good and bad, if you are early you may have to have two meetings. If you take this out there, significantly change it, my guess is you may have to go back to the same group for another meeting.
>> I think [indiscernible] the basic core ordinance in place. The reason you are not getting a lot of opposition, that has been voted through a lot of -- vetted through a lot of core development type of groups. What Commissioner Daugherty was saying is the key. At what ordinance do you have an ordinance that looks good on paper but no everybody. Do we have the incentives where it needs to be so it is more than just a paper document. There are some issues that will -- may not be resolved by further discussion. I mean, you have got -- how much does the county want to put into this in terms of financial commitment, that's certainly an outstanding question. And if that is less than more, then have we reached that -- that incentive base that the developer is saying that they would want more of an incentive to encourage them to do more of these. That's going to come right down to a policy decision. How much does the court feel comfortable with the incentives. How much and -- and is that sufficient. We do have some -- some additional meetings scheduled. We will probably go up to the black land prairie group because they are as you can see by the map, it's a large segment of the population. That will be affected. Also meetings at least one meeting with the land owner from southwest travis county. I think we have too many version -- several key policy issues for the court to decide. Whether or not they want to provide that incentive or not. Then I would expect this to be launched in a pilot program. It is number one, it's complex. It's new. It's not new just to Travis County. It's new period across the development community. They are trying to get a handle on this. They think I believe some -- some developers who believe there is a market here. They believe it is marketable. But they are wading in gradually on this. They don't know whether they can make money doing these things. We are approaching this kind of conservatively, I would recommend to the court that we do likewise. We launch a pilot program, let's see, try it out. We have done this before in other programs, make adjustments as we have seen what experiences that we have with it.
>> I asked this question once before, but I can't recall the answer. What jurisdiction do we believe has something similar to this in place and has had it in place so we can learn from their experience?
>> most of the examples I think that joe has come across during the -- in the northeastern part of the united states, which have entirely different land use cultures, their legislatures have granted counties land use authorities. So we are -- that is likewise true of municipalities in Texas.
>> Sam there is none.
>> Sam we are on the bleeding edge here yes. Probably the only county in Texas seriously considering such an ordinance. The approach that we are taking a contract based optional ordinance is certainly unique.
>> my final thought. It's easy for us to say a pilot program. That raises the question who are we piloting with? Do we have a property owner, developer, et cetera, that indicated enough interest for us to say hey if you provide these incentives, I'm on board. Then our easy challenge is do we provide those incentives or not? Last time I looked at the incentives when we had the meeting in the fifth floor conference room, I left there convinced that they were too large to be acceptable. But if something. Larger than I have in mind is necessary, then the question is do we go there or not. I guess what I'm saying is we are spending a whole lot of time putting in place a model that may well not be used. We don't want that to happen. Right? This is supposed to be a productive exercise. With productivity measured by at least one project even if it's a pilot project. Because we can learn from that, you know, how to twreak tweak the ordinance and maybe make it more attractive and -- or learn to give up on it.
>> yeah, I guess there's a balance, I don't think our intent was to create the incentives that were so power if will that we have a flood of applications, either.
>> I agree.
>> but do we -- I mean -- okay. I will go back on my word and ask you another question then. There are five of us. My guess is that we have read the executive summary, but not the full document. We will need to read the full document and conference with somebody over the next couple or three weeks. Should we plan to have this back on the court's agenda in a month?
>> I think that will give us enough time certainly to visit with all of the interest groups and also with you and to get through a 45 page document, yes.
>> [indiscernible] [inaudible - no mic]
>> > example plans out there for these programs, stuff like that. They were not aware of it. Of course now they are aware. Of course I guess the point is the outreach that I think has to still be done. You know, before it gets to that point. Because still need to be some tweaking from the -- from the outreach input that you gather within that month's time. So -- so I can maybe see some of these things, but I want to make sewer that there may be other inquiries asking for outreach presentations by your staff. I don't know, it's kind of hard to predict that. I just know what's happening basically in pntd 1 and a lot of things in the northeast, maybe other parts of the country that may have some similar type outreach initiatives. Requested. I don't know. I'm just -- I'm holding -- would that be enough time for you to address those things if that is the case? I guess you just have to plan it on a case-by-case basis I guess.
>> had several large meetings you know respond to every particular individual that comes through.
>> because I know the landowners out there are -- that's, you know, big large tracts of property, anybody else that's interested even at the minimum need to know. So --
>> okay.
>> mr. Nuckols?
>> two legal issues, judge. One big pick, one more detail oriented. In the big picture, I think what is really precedent setting, ground breaking about -- about this is the financial incentives. And I would like to have the opportunity to -- to discuss that with you all in executive session, but the -- the legal rationale for the county being able to do this, because obviously there is no precedent and you all need to be comfortable with the legal side of that.
>> [indiscernible] some other time.
>> I would be happy to do it today.
>> are we prepared today?
>> I'm prepared.
>> then we are. [laughter]
>> can we just -- play it by ear on the time because we have got a long executive session.
>> I would be happy to do it next week, maybe send you all something in advance so you all are prepared and I'm prepared. Up to y'all.
>> we are play it by ear.
>> the second issue is the understanding that I have have joe lisard is that he can write this any way that he wants to. At some point if you do choose to make this part of the county code, I would like to reserve at least one of those last drafts to make it mesh. There's a lot of language stuff that needs to be worked on to make it fit. You know, basically told joe there's no need for me to do this right now, but at some point it's going to have to be massaged a little bit so the language and other things are consistent with what's already in the code. So that needs to be done in at least one of the last iterations for this thing.
>> christian was allowed to be a part of all of this, I see him wining. Wincing.
>> do the department need a direction from the court as far as outreach and things like that as far as to the not only group he mentioned but also the black land prairie, a whole bunch of folks, over in eastern Travis County the farmland area, where the prairie grass is, does he need a direction on that.
>> I think that they have indicated their readiness to go. [multiple voices]
>> all right. Wanded to make sure that's understood.
>> there may be others. I would say individual or meeting was court members before October 24th.
>> okay.
>> and if there is a group of people who want to meet with you, or us, we can accommodate that, right?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> okay.
>> 1:30 or 145?
>> move that we recess until 1:45.
>> second.
>> all in favor is this that passes by unanimous vote. With Commissioner Gomez temporarily away. She had to run to another commitment.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 27, 2006 9:54 AM