Travis County Commissioners Court
October 24, 2006
Item 15
15. Consider and take appropriate action on proposed financial incentives, key policy issues, and other related matters regarding the proposed conservation development ordinance.
>> good afternoon, joe imees geese and joe lisard and joe gieselman. The court has seen this several times. We are really back on -- to update you on what we have done since the last meeting, but also to get directions for the next step if you choose to do that. We can meet with the large land owners in southwest Travis County. This was a well attended meeting. I think you characterized this meeting -- I think the large property owners are generally in favor of the ordinance. However, they -- they are looking for -- for things that are beyond the ordinance at this point. Particularly when we talked about financial incentives. They were saying well, you know, what incentives you have in the draft ordinance are really not as important to us as -- as getting some type of protection from the county from future regulations that in their opinion would depress the value of their property. And so they are looking for something in addition to the ordinance as its currently drafted. And I think that was one comment that -- that kind of resonated within the group because there -- there were future regulations made -- they are worried future regulations may reduce the value of their assets in the future. But I think overall, we have some -- there was quite a few questions. I think that we did our best with those questions. Overall I would characterize it as being generally favorable toward what we are trying to do. They do understand that it's a voluntary discretionary ordinance, that there's -- there's not any regulation that they have to follow. They can if they want to. We also met with the black land prairie concerned citizens in northeast Travis County. Again I would characterize that as generally favoring the ordinance. They are experience accounting the -- experiencing the adverse impacts of urbanization. Northeast Travis County where it's basically been rural farmland for decades, decades, now all of a sudden small lot subdivisions are getting uses like sludge farms, they are concerned about all of these things all of a sudden coming around them. So in part they were looking at the ordinance as perhaps some form of protection from these type of uses. They do understand what this attempts to do. That it is discretionary, not a regulation that we are going to impose upon the landowners out there. With that we ask the same question. Are you for or against this ordinance as you currently understand it. Yeah, we are in favor of it. But that doesn't go far enough. They are particularly concerned that our subdivision regulations that we apply beyond the extra territorial jurisdictions from the city is not as strong as what is applied to -- to the area within the etj. They would want us to beef up our regulations outside the e.t.j. Area to match what we do within the other area. They also that the counties by and large do not have the fundamental authority, language control, that they would want foremost to stop some of the uses that they see coming their way. The real estate council they have not taken official position on it, but they have spoken with one of their subcommittees and representatives from that group. I think they are looking for what they would call equal yield, that they would want to see an ordinance adopted that provided them as much return on their investment as a traditional subdivision. Meaning they could get a thousand lots. It took the decision. Still wanting to get a thousand lots under a conservation ordinance even after setting aside 50% of the land for open spaces. That may be a little difficult to do. Because we would force this ordinance probably a net loss of anywhere between 20 and 40% of the lots given the way you have to have buffers and set asides, whatnot. May be somewhat difficult to achieve that particular objective of equal yield lot wise. Value wise, they provide incentives, if they can get through our review processes faster and if they get the premium for the lots because they front on to open spaces, that we might get the same amount of return on the investment if we don't have the same number of lots. That's -- I'm not sure that we drafted the ordinance with the original intent of -- of holding them harmless in terms of the return on investment. I think that we were looking at a way to increase the amount of open spaces. We did not look at this document as being wholesale substitution for traditional decision. Quite frankly -- subdivision. Quite frankly we don't look for a production builder to choose this course. They are very familiar with the business model that they have. Subdivisions and probably will continue to do that. Under the current subdivision regulations. This is an alternative path that may appeal to some property owners, some developers and probably not all. The -- the other thing that the -- that the representatives from the real estate council were looking for is credit. For set asides that we already bought within our regulatory framework. As an example, we currently require them to put the 100 year floodplain into a drainage easement. Under this ordinance, they might get credit for 50% of that area set aside as a result of a -- of an existing regulation. They would want 100% of that counted as part of the open space planning. Explain to that that there may be instances where -- where going with the conservation development ordinance and a standard subdivision ordinance really there is no net gain in open spaces because there is so much of a property in the floodplain. If they have 100% credit for that, there would really be no benefit for having this ordinance. There's no net gain. Especially if there's incentives to be given to them. Why would the county provide incentives, particularly financial incentives for set asides, the floodplain required of our current regulation because of federal law. So that's -- that's part of the -- part of the discussion that took place and then it would be -- with the real estate council.
>> joe, also, we have already answered, one of the questions that jean lowenthal asked a couple of weeks ago. Will any of this mess with any of the interim rules that at some time probably will become permanent rules. That -- that really goes right to that question. And -- and that's the reason that you can't include that -- you know set aside property that's already got all of the setbacks from the creeks and the floodplain, you know, the critical environmental feature, all of this kind of stuff. You still have to have those intact, then you still are going for that 50% of what you really call your buildable property and let's -- let's call it what it is. In order to really be able to net, you know, shoot joe you have been in this business, in order to net the developer the same return the only tool that you really have that I can see is that -- that can you really sell a -- a piece of property a lot for a substantial amount of more money because there are going to be less homes, you are going to be closer to a lot more open space, maybe right next to it, all of these kind of things that's really where it gets, where the rubber meets the road. I mean it's -- can you really get more dollars for those fewer lots. That's -- that's the reason, you know, one of the examples that I know that you all especially worked with the p.b.o. In, about let's come up with a real life example. Let's find somebody that's willing to let us apply these kind of rules to a specific tract of land so that we can honestly see can you make that deal work? With that landowner, with that developer, would they go forward and say okay, here's what if you took this 115 acres, and we got in this and took out all of the stuff that you have got to take out from interim rule wise and just lcra rules, e.p.a. Rules, all of the rules that you have got to comply with, can you make the numbers work? And it's a
>> [indiscernible] deal, not something that's such a lay town that everything is going to run out there and do it. That's the reason I continue to answer the question when I'm -- as I continue to be asked, I think it's great, if there's no use having it unless you have got a real viable instrument that allows somebody to say I know what you are after. You are after leaving as much open space as you possibly can. That in order for me to do that, I've got to have -- I've got to really have the ability to sell something for a whole lot more because of the open space and we really need not so much a guinea pig but you really need somebody that's willing to say okay I'm going to do that. I think that's the reason that it's fabulous that we got somebody like the reeses that, you know, are starting to buy some of this property. I think at this point in time there may be a willing buyer to come along, I mean, I don't know that, you know, I haven't talked to them and asked them this specifically. But I don't know that they are just interested in owning all of this mega property in western Travis County, as much as let me secure it. If I sell it, then I can put some restrictions on it. And I think that somebody probably will come along and -- and hopefully do that, because that's what we have arrest at least in western Travis County. So I -- you know, I'm -- I continue to be encouraged. Now we are moving in the right direction. Unless we have something that we can show someone because you may only have five percent of the people that's willing to participate in this. But if you get 5% of the people participating, it's kind of like hey, are you happy with $838,000 when you weren't going to -- I mean versus having none? I think that's what we are after with the conservation development ordinance.
>> I think we are already seeing if you listen to the radio ads, check out the print ads, in the real estate section. There are people today who didn't go through conservation development ordinances who are selling the fact that you live next door to a nature preserve. Very successfully saying that, you can offer somebody guarantees that that beautiful view will always be there. Steiner ranch successfully doing that, lake pointee, half a dozen more up in Williamson county that are -- that are using that as a major selling point. It wasn't intended that way, but certainly gives us the sense can that be a selling point? You bet you it can. The whole idea is that -- is that it's about having the open space be bundled together, I mean, you might wind up with the same amount of open space, but if it's all fragmented to use our word in the bcp, then it doesn't have as great of quality. To be able to bundle it together, that means clustering the development. That means that it is something that is going to be an interesting test case. I'm glad to see considering going through this and -- we will see where we go. In terms of the salability of this, I think that's absolutely what's going on in western Travis County right now. Is the certainty of your next door neighborhood who happens to be a bird.
>> we actually took our own property and applied the principles of the ordinance to the -- to the remaining sections of the rhyme mer hogue tract we purchased last year. This is the poke hollow springs area. This is the reimers ranch park. About 1200-acres on the back side we still own as open spaces, with the idea at some point we would sell it, use the proceeds to buy higher quality open spaces. What if in the process of selling this to another buyer, we first apply the principles of the conservation ordinance to it. This is -- this is what it would look like if you just developed a large lot subdivision on a septic system just out of our normal regulations. This is -- this is the way it would normally come in. No set aside for open spaces. He would have the floodplain reserved as you would require. And this yields about 750 units. Again it's on a septic system, so you have to have larger lots. If you take the same development, take this same piece of property, and you develop it under the ordinance, this is what it would look like. Now, you get two -- 425 lots out of this development, but in the process you set aside open spaces all around the area. So you are beginning to clust e.r. Some of the development closer together. This is still dependent on septic system for -- for its waste we are and there again that is some part accounts for the lower number of lots. You still have to have an acre lot for a subdivision. But what it does is show you side by side here the difference in what the subdivision looks like. Under standard setup and under the conservation ordinance. You can see how much more land set aside for green spaces, particularly along the -- the tributaries and in this case we preserve the springs close to the tributaries, there's also some archaeological sites in that area. Generally natural areas, trees, are in that green area. Also provide in this case, we were looking for corridors that link to the open -- to the preserve area and the parks. So -- so the -- the advantage of someone living here is all of a sudden not only are they looking out on open spaces, but they feel linked in, in this particular case to a large park, a large preserve. That is what basically drives premium on the lots.
>> joe, have you put the math to it? That's what you need to do. You united to take something over here, joe can probably help you do that, you can say hey those kind of lots right there bring you $90,000 a lot. If you are going to have the 0,000 times that many lots, what do you have to sell a lot in here for? That's what the development community generally get you. We can't create a market. We can't say you know what? We really need for you to pay us $230,000 for that lot. I mean, if there's a market for -- for, you know, enough $230,000 lots, I mean, that also means that you are putting a million dollar, you know, plus home on that kind of a lot. That's where it's difficult to get the development community to buy off on it because you just can't make the numbers work. And have you put the -- have you put the math to the --
>> couple of other things operating on that before we get to that. We have also reduced the infrastructure costs in this. Once you have a reduction in the amount of asphalt that you are putting out there, that's real numbers. The premium, cord to one professor at Texas a&m will range anywhere between 7 and 20% of premium on what you could charge for a lot in this type of a set up, particularly if they are within a quarter of a mile of the open spaces. Generally the higher premiums you have to be within 750 feet of the open spaces. With that said, I do think that you are talking about higher -- higher income properties locating in something like that. What might make the difference, though, is if you have organized wastewater where you have a -- where you have a package treatment plant has can use drip irrigation to discharge to -- to the open spaces. At that point you go back up to 1450 units. Okay? Now, in this case, that went a long way from an organized system and you would also have the cost of putting in a treatment plant in if it were to be a packaged treatment plant. What you can begin to get back, some of the lots, by belonging to an organized system. I think even with that said, you are probably talked about a niche market appear possessed to a production. The products may look somewhat different than what you have seen in a traditional subdivision. We won't know whether all of this works out until we get a real live investor, real live property owner that says okay let me sit down and do my pro forma to see if I can really make money. By making money, that may be different for some property owners than others. Depending on what their base cost is in the land. If we are talking to an original property owner who has owned this property from generation to generations, where they are starting from is so much different than someone who just bought it at today's prices. What they are expecting in terms of return on their land may be different than a person that just got it. The sense of the land itself, what to leave behind. There's intrinsic value as well for someone that owned the property for an extended period of time. Knows the lapped, says this is what I would rather leave behind than something that looks like this. So -- so I don't know what the value of that is to -- to an individual property owner. We do have one property owner, mr. Huffnance who does own property in this area who is interested in becoming our test case. In huffnanc subcommittee wife is a half owner of what used to be known as the peacock ranch. Very, very large ranch in southwest Travis County. This is half the ranch. This is the part that the huffance nances own. They would be willing to sit down and negotiate with the county. To see if they can get to the point where they say yeah we are ready to sign on the bottom line. He said that he was not interested in doing the -- the entire ranch, by the way he is a banker, so he -- he laughs, he says that he likes to hedge his bet. He's willing to put a portion of the ranch into the ordinance to see just how it works. He is interested in finding out from the court whether you are interested in sitting down and going down that path with him. At least to the point where he can say no, you know, this is not for me. I'm not -- not enough in it for me. Again he is -- he -- his wife is an heir to the original ranch, been in the family for perhaps a century. I mean, they go back a long ways.
>> this is also the family that's willing to -- to go in with the other half of the ranch, other sister, do the right of with.
>> I that's correct. That is this road right here. This is the -- what is currently the alignment of the reimers peacock road. We have in our bond program bond money set aside for the design of the arterial that goes from hamilton pool road which is here all the way up to 71. So this property is -- is bordered by that arterial roadway, we would expect some kind of setback along that roadway as a scenic hill country scenic roadway and it also borders along hamilton pool. This particular tribute terri feeds hamilton pool, which is the creek in the spring within our park area, so it's of a particular value to us because whatever -- whatever happens here affects the water quality in our park. And that -- that is something that we have always been interested in trying to protect is doing it so. The county has a stake, direct stake because we are a property owner downstream from mr. Huffnance's property. We are very interested in what happened because the runoff ultimately ends up in our park, the pedernales river in Lake Travis. It would be a very good first test case to see if from a sheer land economics points of view, the ordinance works, but also how it might affect the county's interest in open space set aside water quality and some of the other issues that we are trying to accomplish with the ordinance.
>> joe, do we know how many acres that is, that is willing to put in play. How many acres.
>> 15 -- oh, he has 1500 acres total. About 500 acres.
>> 500.
>> okay.
>> typical size acreage or tract in the areas that have a -- have a conservation program of some sort. Is there a tract that's too small, one too large or -- does it really vary according to where it is and what you are doing --
>> we look at --
>>
>> [indiscernible] you can see on the western part of the county, the tracts of land are much larger, the eastern part, northeastern part of the county, smaller farmland areas. There are about -- about oh, maybe a dozen, maybe 20 properties in western Travis County that are -- that are in the thousand acre size category. 500-acre or larger. Those are -- they are substantial size properties. Them they start breaking down into the subgroups below that. The largest property, if I recall, is something like 3600-acres. That's under a single owner. 500 acres is -- is a good size for a test case. Most of your average subdivisions come through like 60, 70 acres in size. So it's a substantial piece of land to come through at a single time. And it's -- but it's probably a good size, also, to test the ordinance on. It's not too large for a single property to take on. Most likely he will have to assess his entire property, see how it fits on with the -- where the 500-acres fits on his property. And so I would say 500-acres is a substantial offer. It certainly will work in terms of looking at properties in the western part of the county. I think if we were looking on the eastern side of the county we would be looking at something substantially smaller than that. Probably something more like 100 acres would be of substantial property in that part of the county because it's subdivided into smaller farmland parcels. The characteristics are different. But certainly it gives you an opportunity to see how the ordinance actually works. I understand how the incentives actually work. And potentially have a property owner willing to enter into a negotiation with an actual agreement. So it's a real life case. In that respect. So I would say 500 acres is a large piece of land, it's a good representative in terms of parcels that are much larger in terms of how they might come through and look if you do an agreement with someone larger.
>> I don't understand how -- how -- how -- how does this test case work. I mean I haven't talked to bob. The write up
>> [indiscernible] but I'm going to real soon. I mean what -- how does this -- how do you see this unfolding? I mean when you say we perhaps have a real life deal here, I mean, because, you know, unless somebody says I have got a potential buyer for this thing, the cost of going through, putting together a plan like this is pretty expensive. I mean not to say or not to mention that you have got to just basically survey the whole 13, 1500 acres. I mean and -- and, I mean, has -- has he said something that -- that he's willing to go forward where we can really get a real life deal? The other thing that has got to come into play is lcra water getting into the peacock ranch because I will tell ya, I mean we are about to sit down with folks in western Travis County over the whole well issue, because nobody questions how dry they are going, I mean, unless you have the ability to get surface water, I mean, to this road and I would -- the question that I would really pose is what kind of resistance are we going to see out there with bringing that water line another three and a half to four miles farther down hamilton pool road? Which to date that -- that water line has been a major fight. So I don't know. I mean I'm willing to be part of the meeting, I mean, if you -- if bob has really got something in mind about how he would like to put this on the table as a real life example, I do think christian has said that for day one. Let's find a real model here that we can apply numbers to, really see how it would work.
>> the agreement doesn't necessarily trigger the actual development. You wouldn't necessarily have a
>> [indiscernible] in place to complete and execute an agreement. Come almost like a preliminary plan. You ever a notice of intent on what mr. Huffnance would want to do with his property under the agreement. He basically locks in his development plan. He doesn't -- I don't think he has any intent right now of going ahead and developing the property. What he does want to see is -- is can he lock in a development under this ordinance and still be able to make a -- a return on his asset which is the land that he owns. Sell it to a future buyer at some point with prospects of that owner would make some money under it.
>> what financial incentives are recommended?
>> we have what was in the original I guess the 15th draft. Had been carried forward except that they had been taken and put into a separate program as opposed to being hardwired into the ordinance itself. We are suggesting that we still give a -- a wave our review fees, traditional review fees for the development, that is in the ordinance itself. We would also have a planner on our staff who is basically -- who would basically shepherd the application through the review process. We have some consistency of interpretation on rules. We would also have the -- have the waiving of parkland dedications. Or fees in lieu of parkland dedications. Because if someone setting aside 50% of the profit there really is no need to set aside yet additional acreage for parkland. What we have taken out of the ordinance itself and put into a separate program are the stream of payments that would be paid to the property owners for setting aside the -- the open space. Now would still be, right now, this is certainly subject to the court's direction, but we have estimated that at $6 per acre as an annual fee. That the duration of how long the county pays that is dependent on the size of the tract. And then once a -- once a property like mr. Huffnance, if he has got a 500 acres development, 250 acres go into conservation. The other 250 are going to go into the development at some point in time. If he starts to develop that 250 acres, we would pay her $600 per conservation acre when he got into development. We don't know whether that's 10 years or 15 years or how many years out. So those are the payments that we currently have in the draft document. We would also make available a reimbursement for his front end cost under new environmental assessment. In the case of mr. Huffnance we may solicit some work from the nature conservancy and/or colorado river authority as well as the county itself in assisting in identifying critical environmental features on his property. Then some way as a pilot case he gets additional benefit that others might not get. But the way we envision this working over the long term is that anyone who went through the process and executed the agreement will get reimbursed for the environmental assessment. Also long term we have incentives in there for the future owners of the property who might have the obligation of many obtaining the open spaces that the county may provide grants to lick a homeowners association for assistance in maintaining the open space property. All of that we feel is -- can be conditioned, capped, you know, we are looking at it as a program I guess in my mine, I make -- I compare it to our substandard road program where we have a policy, we have adopted the policy, we have guidelines, we know how to set up the priority. It doesn't mean that the court fund that program every year. We have funded it some years, we have funded it from anywhere up to $500,000 one year to I think we put 2.5 million into it another year that we went out on the bond program. That is totally the discretion of the court. And as is, just how much you want to put in for how long. You may decide that you want not more than -- than five properties. Total. Or you may want to -- to say the programs a one year program or a five year program. We have tried to leave the incentives program assist much to the advertise creation of the court as you would want to have. Merely from our financial point of view, you get to choose how much financial exposure that you want to -- to open yourself to on the part of the county treasurer.
>> joe, the 150 -- the 250 times 600, the 150 grand, that's a one-time payment and then the $6 an acre is the yearly deal and I think that the way that we have the thing set up initially five years, so that would be -- 1500, is that --
>> no.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> I believe it had to get to an agitated state of affairs before it got to the Commissioners court and I want to know where did this wind up because I'm not seeing any changes here.
>> the idea here generally is that the standards that are representing the ordinance are substantially higher than your current, and I assume, potential interim -- higher than interim requirements in the code now and probably substantially higher than even when a final ordinance might be when you move away from the interim. So by having a higher standard that would exceed anything that's currently in the code, the concept is that if a subdivision comes through and does not require any variances in your regular code as well as in this addition to the code that it -- the subdivision could receive administrative approval. If you look at the 16th draft of the document, this language is on page 28 under final approval. It's paragraph b, I believe. And in paragraph c on the same page discusses that if they come through is administrative variances that and only relates to this document, they don't relate to the current code or the interim water quality and environmental code have you in place. But if you come through and they meet all those standards, plus they substantially meet these standards in this document, but need a minor administrative variance, then they basically would receive approval unless the court acts to deny them approval. With they fit the administrative approvals. Any variances beyond the administrative variances requires the approval of the court. Also any conservation agreement to implement these will have to come back to the court. That document will have to come back regardless of whether or not the subdivision is approved administratively or not. If you look on section 10 of the document, there's a section on page 30 that begins, it's section 10 of the document, subsection 2 2 begins to talk about administrative variances. There is a series of paragraphs here that talk about guidelines and criteria that have to be met before an administrative variance can be granted. The variance actually starts on page 31, subsection d. And then there are a series of about a dozen or 18 variances, be and basically what we've done is gone through this document and said, if they require a conservation space of a certain design, that it doesn't quite work and the developer or the landowner can make their case, then they can receive a minor adjustment in order to get an administrative variance. So there's a series of minor adjustments here that can be made by the executive manager, tnr, to grant administrative variances. So those two people are the once that grant the administrative process that we're talking about here. The incentives in the document really are some financial incentive, process incentives and the process incentives, these ones are targeted at simplifying the process since they're already competing all of your standards, simplify the process so they can get through very quickly and standardly and come under the conserve bevation agreement that you've already approved.
>> let me imagine if I can a scenario where somebody comes through all of this, meets all the requirements, everything is done in accordance and there's nothing that's a variance, but you still have unhappy people because there are developing the land. I can't imagine such a thing happening. Happening: so what happens to those kinds of things when they immediately pick up their phone and call the precinct 3 Commissioner because that will be happening and says I'm not happy and we've been cut out of the process because there's no way for the public to weigh in on this situation? I can't imagine such a situation happening, but I'm just making it up. You.
>> what joe showed about what we would do with our piece of property. We always talked about given the fact that we kind of found ourselves in a spot where we had to buy more land than what we really wanted, but even the could covenant allowed us to sell that property. But if we sell that property for any reason other than open space, I mean, it will be the alamo again. I mean it will be. That's exactly the reason that I have asked if we could just air lift the hays county conservation development tract into western Travis County, we would still have a substantial number of people not happy with it because it still is 'four, six, seven hundred homes in western Travis County. I guess, Karen, what you're getting to is joe, maybe you don't want the ability to say, okay, we can independently do this thing because she's absolutely right that even if you have a book here that says, okay, all of you know, all of you can come down, even people that aren't supportive of developing much in western Travis County, you can get one of these things, but that doesn't mean that you're going to be happy with that development. Especially because it will necessity water being brought to it. S.o.s. Was supposed to say these are the thing you have to go by. The development comes back with school compliance and they are still a bloodbath. Y'all have done a great job of putting something together that's very interesting to read and when you really sit down and do read it, it is pretty amazing. The common denominator of verbiage or the common word is complicated or detailed. And I mean, it has to be that way. The court needs to send a message that we are very interested and I as the precontinuing 23 Commissioner -- as the precinct 3 Commissioner am very interested in trying to come up with a conservation opportunity, a way for them to develop in western Travis County at least, but I'm not so sure that this is not one of these things that we've got to do it either in a work session, in a treat, we've got to do in a time where you've got all of the questions really -- I know because, my god, we've had question after question after question after a number of folks and it still is one of those things that you go, I don't know that I could answer that question unless somebody said, hey, go to page 32. And I've read it. So for us to be able to take action on -- and I don't know what part of this that you felt like that we needed to take action on other than -- because people called me and said do we need to come down for the conservation ordinance agenda item, say I don't think so. I said I think that the court is supportive of the concept of conservation development. Now we have can bcp money -- there are a lot of questions that are asked and I still don't know that we've had the time for tom to sit down and say, here are the legal things that I've told thaw I wanted to be able to go over with us in a executive session or work session or how we really move the ball forward with this?
>> from my perspective, the only thing I would like to spend more time on is making sure that it meshes well with the regulations that you've already got on the books. And that's really just a drafting exercise. That's my point.
>> I'll be honest with you, I've got approximately 68 days left and I would like for this to happen within the next 68 days. We've all work on this real hard, but also once I leave you I do not doubt that there will be be knows those whom see this and still take issue with it in terms of I didn't think they would actually be able to develop that piece of property because it's just going happen. But I think this is a wonderful -- it's a first step. It will have to be a living document. With the next one you will have to adjust and make things but we've got to go someplace with this. I absolutely believe, truly, that it is a sellable kind of thing that there is a niche market for this and there are people who want to buy and feel environmentally responsible and to live next door to preserves and open space and birds and all those things that make Travis County very, very special. I think we can get there, but we've just got to get there. You start with the first step. I'm ready. When we are ready.
>> what would you guys think? You have put the most time into this and have met with people.
>> I think that is reflective of the fact that you've got no one in this room at this point. We have met with so many people in this thing. There's no protest here, not from the development community, not from the environmental groups. This thing has been vetted to the point of this is it. I think joe and I have communicated to most every party that this is our last stop. I think we've probably done as much due diligence on this thing as we need to do at this point. It does need some direction from the cowrlt on a, whether to go forward at this point at all, and under what -- if there are issues with the delegation of authority that's clearlying something court needs to say this is all we're willing to do, the same with incentives. So we're at the point where technically it's probably -- it's all there and it's all been discussed in various forms. And I think there's a general sense in the community that they're supportive. Everybody wants to see a real live example. So do we. We would like to move forward. I guess what we were looking for today is if tom can begin to draft the ordinance and not necessarily adopt it today, but basically give it direction to start the drafting process, to give tom whatever policy direction that you would want to see in that the codification of this ordinance is and then start the example with mr. Huffnance. When these things converge, we've done our shakedown crews with mr. Huffnance and he's saying this isn't going to work because of this provision and if you change that provision in the draft ordinance, we think it might work better for everyone. In the process tom can look at it from a legal perspective and iron out whatever legal issues it would be so that from a legal perspective it's adoptable. But quopt to suggest that -- I don't want to suggest that there aren't changes the court might want to put its fingerprints on this. This might be the time between now and adoption for this. We think that we've delivered a product that is you court yesterday. I tell you what, a couple of the places where you've taken the financial incentives and you've kind of shifted them, they kind of have an area here where the court needs to deal with those things on maybe a yearly basis and maybe the substandard road analogy is good, joe. I mean, what we don't want to see in here is people making a mockery of -- I think that's why we cringe. We have had to change and we've heard it from art corey. If you're trying this into the ag exemption, 20 acres is the minimum for us. So those kind of changes that you've made, those are moving in the right direction. I mean, I don't see this thing being a deal where quite frankly that -- I never thought that this was a 20, 40, 80-acre deal. Those aren't the tracts that we're necessarily that concerned about people developing. It's the larger tracts. Now, what is large? Is large 250 acres or more? I think we probably could sit down and come up with that -- that's it. Is as long as it looks like we have the ability, and it looks like we do, to take and modify where it needs to be modified and quite frankly see if we get a taker because we can come up and get somebody to say I'm kind of interested, but until you find somebody that comes along and say I'm in the development business and I'm willing to take this thing on, that's the reason I went back and I asked sweetwater, I said, could you do the sweetwater development? No, they couldn't.
>> west cypress couldn't because of where the critical environmental features were located.
>> we necessity we'll have some of those. -- we know we'll have some of those. That one tract work for him doing it the conventional way because there weren't a tremendous amount of the environmental features that some of the larger tracts have with everything from bluffs to a lot of creek to environmental features, but I'm comfortable, judge, going forward. And the direction that we need to give tom is, tom, come up with the ordinance given the changes of the thing and even then knowing that we had the ability to alter, at some point in time I'm going to want to known on this is a -- hone in on this is a minimum acreage. I'm not, quite frankly, me speaking off the cuff right now, I would say that I wouldn't even consider for anything less than 100 acres and I probably am more interested in going to the 250-acre tract because those are really the tracts that we're looking to try to offer people the ability to do this thing and to show us that it's something that they'll do. At the end of the day, I don't think that we're going to have very many people that's going do this at all, but hey, if we can find two or three, two or three puts us in a spot where we don't have that right now. If it's appropriate, judge, then I would make the motion, then let's go forward, have tom draw up the legal part of the ordinance and let's take a look at that and if we need to go anywhere from there --
>> the people that are indicating an interest in the ordinance and general support for it had in mind tracts of what size?
>> I don't think anyone got to that lefl of discussion. -- level of discussion. I think in western Travis County thabld a large parcel for someone in that part of the county. In southern Travis County, I think 200 acres would be a large parcel. You wouldn't want anything smaller in your pilot program and that way we can screen out the smaller subdivisions that might come through.
>> based on what I've heard today and before, it is not the ordinance, it's how the ordinance is applied. So my guess is that there will not be objections until this ordinance is applied to a certain tract of land. And it's kind of hard to address those issues without the specific proposal before us. But I think we need to look at it here. Maybe we got the answers in executive session previously. I will have my questions to you in writing. How long will you need to do your work. Put it in the code format, I guess.
>> a couple of weeks, I think.
>> I so do have one question I need to ask joe. There were a whole set of standards that were going to be in the conservation design manual? Really you don't have an ordinance until you have that manual.
>> I think probably we're talking at least a month. You said two weeks and I imagine that's two weeks of solid work to do that and you've got other things going on.
>> if it's going to take a month to put the manuel together -- the manual together --
>> I guess the way I envision this is we would be be doing three things simultaneously. Drafting the legal version of this, we'd be negotiating with mr. Huffnance and we would also be completing the design manuals that accompanies the ordinance. In all three of these things would come democratic back to the court -- would come back to the court at one point. Probably not two weeks. I think that's too quick to turn all these things around.
>> the 14th is sthree week. Next week is the 31st, then the 7 its, then the 14th. That's three weeks. Do you think you need until the 21st? The 21st would give you four weeks.
>> I would say probably a month.
>> November 21st, I would be be happy to second it if that's a friendly, bring it back the 21st.
>> the problem we have as a governmental entity is if somebody else comes forward and say you're doing this, I would like to know how it applies to my tract of land, in fairness, we ought to do it.
>> I'd be happy to say that tnr would review whatever applications someone may want to submit. I mean, I'm not -- I'm just happy that we had one. So if there are others out there, come on down.
>> because what they'll say is well, until I heard the discussion on tv or read about it in the newspaper, I didn't know until October 24th about the possibility. I don't see a flood of people making a good request, but there may be one or two others.
>> we'll be back next week if there's a flood.
>> then we'll have it for November 24th.
>> 21st.
>> 21st. If there are additional legal questions I have, I'll get them to you in writing.
>> I think just putting it in code form would raise the possibility that all of us have further legal questions.
>> any objection to those being the general direction directionsfrom the court? Then let's make it happen.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 24, 2006 7:59 AM