Travis County Commissioners Court
November 28, 2006
Item 13
13. Consider and take appropriate action on a request to approve a participation agreement between Travis County and a private developer for improvements to decker lake road, in precinct one. The backup was substantial. This is a fairly straightforward project, though, isn't it?
>> good morning.
>> [indiscernible] from t.n.r. This is one of seven public private partnership agreements that were established in the 2005 bond referendum. It's -- that is a fairly straightforward project that will result in the construction of about 2700 feet of four lane divided roadway between f.m. 973 and the southbound frontage roads of s.h. 130. Just south of walter e. Long lake. It is part of the campo plan and the -- the construction will result in a project that complies with campo. The -- the basic elements of the agreement are that the developer will donate all of the right-of-way, split 50% of the construction cost with the county. And this particular case, we have an agreement, a verbal agreement anyhow at this time with the city of Austin that they will provide a third of the construction costs, so this is one of three agreements that is unique to. So in this case we have it currently structured that the county will pay one third, the developer a third, the city one third of construction. The county splits 50% of design costs. In the event that the city -- that the city for whatever reason cannot come forward with their funds, then the developer has the option of paying their share of it or the Commissioners may want to reconsider sharing the additional cost as well. But that is something that we can determine after we get through our process with the city. And we are currently working on interlocals with them. Hopefully early next year we will know for sure whether they are going to have funds for this project.
>> if we don't have the city's agreement on these contributions, what are we working on?
>> well, what we will know for -- for sure that the -- that the developer can put up 50%. Then it's up to the Commissioners if you want to consider increasing our amount from a third to 50%.
>> my question is why don't we know today whether in fact the city will put up one third?
>> we don't have an agreement with them today. We have verbal commitments from the city, from the city of Austin public works director indicating --
>> in writing. We do have a letter from them, but we don't have approval through the city council. So we are operating on the grounds that this will -- that this will happen but there's always a chance until city council does -- until city council proves it that they may not come forward with their funds.
>> so this one.
>> my assumption always was if the city council choice not -- chose photo get involved it would go back on the developer. One of the reasons that this one got in there, because it was in the near term annexation area is that flat out that the city was going to be a participant in this. So I never thought that this was going to be -- that the county would go back to 50% because that's not what was told to the voters.
>> I guess Commissioner, one thing that is -- that is pertinent to this particular project is that it is a fairly straightforward section of roadway. And today with the county's county'sfunds, just the develops fund, I think we could build a project if the Commissioners want to go forward with it if the city decides to bail out. I think there is a way to build a road. If that happens, if the city says no we can't put money into this project for whatever reason, we will come back to the court and say these are our options. We have enough money in the amount that was allocated in the bond referendum to split the costs 50/50, no more than 50/50 with the developer or we don't do the project.
>> also,
>> [indiscernible], after my lengthy conversation with the city departments, also in writing, understand that they are committed to this project. I haven't heard anything different from them since we have moved forward. Now getting in writing per se as far as the interlocal, whatever we need to do, to make sure that their portion of the particular project is -- you know, as far as coming, but right even as of today, when it's being mentioned and just general conversation, the city has not told me anything that they were backing out on this project.
>> I have not heard that, either, Commissioner. I just don't want the court to --
>> I understand.
>> to know that it's not 100% agreed to at the city level yet. They have not said no they are not going to do it.
>> right well, you know, so --
>> I think what's important is that we are trying to get as we said in the -- in the bond covenants to try to get our end of things locked down with this developer per what was in the bond election by December 31st. And so -- so there's still a possibility that there's some things in motion, but I think that we ought to have the attitude that -- that we expect the city to come forward with their piece of it and not -- not be stepping back and saying but we might just do 50% because this is not the only one where there is a partnership involving a third leg on the tripod. We need to be very straightforward because there are -- there are folks who are waiting as a tier 2 project would love for something to crash and burn, for them to be taking advantage of leftover dollars there on the table.
>> you still have a tier one project to go through before we get to December 31st.
>> that's correct.
>> more of them, though.
>> there are three coming on probably the 12th.
>> excellent.
>> wells branch, braker lane and slaughter lane.
>> excellent.
>> this is the amount set forth in the proposed agreement. Same amount that the voters approved?
>> the voters approved $1.5 million for -- for the county's portion of the decker lake project. What's in the agreement we have a -- we have a construction limit of 3 million. Now, one million of that -- of that 1.5 million of the county dollars is for construction and it is -- one for the developer, one for the city.
>> this is based on one-half or one third?
>> that's based on one third.
>> one third.
>> and is one third the amount that we asked voters to approve?
>> yes, that's correct.
>> okay.
>> I move approval, judge.
>> is this the reason that the -- this is a two party agreement, not a three party agreement?
>> that's correct.
>> the reason is what? Why wouldn't we execute a three party agreement, execute our part, send it to the developer, send it down to the city?
>> that was plan a, judge. And when we got comments back from the city on the draft contract, we realized that we were not going to be able to get all of the contracts that the city needed to be a party to, if we were going to do three party contracts done by the end of this year.
>> December 31st, right.
>> so it came down to that -- that is the way that we would have preferred to have done it. But -- but give very much the number of -- given the number of agreements we would have to negotiate out with the city, it was simpler just for the county and the developer to sign this contract by the end of this year and then say we have got until December 31st, 2007, to get the county and the city to sign an interlocal. The city and the county don't sign that interlocal, then that's what steve is talking about in terms of you may want to reconsider the deal. Now, if they -- if they don't --
>> our covenant with voters as to the December 31 '06 deadline was between the county and the developer.
>> right.
>> exactly.
>> it was not the county developer and city.
>> correct.
>> more time to get it done --
>> it would have been a whole lot better. But the schedule is after December of '07?
>> the schedule for this particular project? The way it's structured now is the developer agrees that he will have design completed for -- for either the entire project or a phase of the project by middle of 2008 so that we can put a construction contract on -- out for bids. And all work, no matter how many phases he decides need to be done, by December 31, 2010.
>> this money is not in hand, but we are planning to issue voter approved bonds to cover it when we need it?
>> this money will be in hand in March. March of '07 for us. This is one of the projects where we ask the court to accelerate the funding. It was -- it was spread out beyond March of '07 of our two to three year period. We ask that you all would approve the fy '07 budget accelerating the cash flow for this project. We won't start spending money on it probably until after March '07. The developer still needs to get a contractor or design consultant on board to start that process.
>> okay.
>> I think in the future, though, the court should be given an opportunity to land on -- on the agreement before it's presented to us.
>> sure.
>> I mean I can understand why we didn't do a three party one. But -- but I mean my preference would have been to leave that space blank so -- let them respond to it.
>> ours as well, judge. It really came down to --
>> if it had been presented to us when you all were making the decision, that would have been my motion.
>> okay.
>> I mean -- maybe it would have died. I would feel a whole lot better that way than -- than today.
>> Commissioner Davis moves approval.
>> second.
>> along with that, especially as far as depiction of where we are talking about it, if folks can imagine where the Travis County expo center is, just imagine where that is, what we are talking about is from f.m. 973 which is just on the other side to the -- to the east of he -- of the expo center, decker lake, we are talking about from that frontage of f.m. 973 to the -- to the frop damage of shhh -- frontage of s.h. 130, there will be a connection there to the frontage of s.h. 130. That's basically what we are talking about as far as the footage that we described as far as the length of that road.
>> that's correct.
>> basically to bring about the economic stimulus in that area. That the voters thought that we needed to have. So -- so I move approval. If it seconds I'm ready to vote.
>> thank you.
>> any more discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> I do think in the future before we put the final contract together, the court ought to have an opportunity to see exactly what it is, all of the I's dotted, t's crossed.
>> I'll do that judge. I'll bring that by you all.
>> steve could you also get us an e-mail in terms of what is the status of all of the public-private partnership agreements. We certainly have pecan down and Commissioner Davis had another one go a couple of weeks ago. This one, three more coming, but we are getting close to that December 31st deadline related to what's in what's on it. If you could just get us an e-mail to update us where we are at.
>> we should not get all of those the last week of the year, either. If we know that we are coming close to it, we ought to get whatever we have I would say on the 12th.
>> that's our game plan, judge.
>> because that way if it comes two weeks later it ought to be fairly routine unless it dramatically differs from our discussion on the 12th.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, November 29, 2006 07:48 AM