Travis County Commissioners Court
December 5, 2006
Item 1
Beginning with number 1, a public hearing to receive comments on the following: a. Chapter 82 of the Travis County code relating to conservation developments; and b. Conservation development design manual.
>> move to open --
>> open.
>> to open the public hearing.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Good morning, joe gieselman with transportation natural resources department. And rose farmer and sue ana bowlin. We have before us both the code which has been developed by the county attorney's office, which is the conservation development code. Chapter 82 of our Travis County code. That is a translation of the laymen's version which we have been working on for over a year. As you may recall with joe lissard, our consultant on the project. Basically, this has gone through several public meetings and -- and today we are having a formal public hearing on the code itself. We are not asking the court to adopt this today. But merely receive public testimony with regard to the -- to the code. What we also have is the design manual. This is a document that complements the code. Basically lays out what we expect in terms of technical support of a conservation development. I would like to spend just a brief moment here to give an overview to the public on the -- on the design manual itself. Prior to receiving public testimony, if that's all right with the court.
>> okay.
>> good morning. I'm rose farmer with natural resources and environmental quality. Worked on the design manual and this provides a -- some guidance for the practical execution of how do you do a design development. So -- so in this design manual, we have tried to summarize again how you apply for this. What types of areas do you choose. You have to choose critical features, significant featurers to protect where you set aside your conservation area and then you design your development around that. To basically tell a developer, the land owner how this would work and the setup some design standards for things such as roadways and landscaping and sidewalks and lighting and that sort of thing in the conservation development area. Also providing information on how do you manage in the -- in the set aside conservation area, since 50% of the property is the -- the set aside conservation area, what do you do in that area as well? And to tell how it will be protected and managed and maintained in perpetuity and also to provide some examples and some suggested text for all of the various documents that -- that they would need to submit. Such as an environmental -- rather an ecological assessment to start off with, that's early on in the process where they send biologists and archaeologists and various folks out to look at the property to find what are the significant features and so that -- so that those are listed in the ecological assessment and then they have to kind of put together a -- a conceptual land plan as to where the conservation area will be and where the -- where the -- the developed area will be. And then -- then this document also tells -- tells once you have figured that out, what the ecological asset management plan, what things need to be in that. That's really a practical guide in telling folks how do you go about -- about doing your conservation development and how do you manage your land once you've had that there. I would add that we added information in there about the road standards that are -- that are for the most part you would follow the standards in chapter 82 for streets and drainage, with the exception of -- of the design speed, and conservation subdivisions and certain circumstances we can go down to a 20 miles an hour design speed as opposed to 30. Which would be our standard in conventionnal subdivisions. And along with that, 20-mile design speed we talked about right-of-way widths that would be acceptable to be reduced in conservation subdivisions. And -- and we talked -- we added a roundabout design criteria and we added provisions in the conservation subdivision about mailboxes needing to be clustered. But with the exception of the things that are in the design criteria manual regarding streets and -- and driveways, the regular standards in chapter 82 would apply. There's also something that -- that the conservation -- in the conservation subdevise ordinance about dark skylighting, landscape irrigation. If they elect to irrigate, there's things that they have to do. It's up to them if they choose to irrigate. And -- and there's information about an integrated pest management plan that would be required. Our attempt is to make -- to make -- we don't want people that are thinking about doing this to wonder well, gee, I wonder what the county really wants here. We want to give them as much guidance as possible. And at the end of the conservation design manual, there's a list of helpful links on the internet and we want to look and find out more information about any of the elements that are in there.
>> we have conducted several meetings with the design professionals in Austin, as well as the -- the -- some stakeholder groups that had been reviewing the conservation code itself, I believe it's probably safe to say that they are still digesting the -- the design manual and we may have comments yet come in to us before the court adopts this in its final version. We are expecting that this item will be carried over for next Tuesday and then take -- take possible court action around the 19th of December. And that's kind of our time table. So -- so we did expect to have a public hearing today and receive any testimony that we might get early on.
>> joe? Some folks out in the prairie grass area sent a list of -- of concerns and have we responded to those folks? Out there?
>> I did send them a copy of the design manual as well as the ordinance, the code excuse me. They did have a copy of the laymen's version. I still need to get the response to the list of questions that -- that I believe was miss samuelson sent to us. We have for the most part answers to most of those questions and but I still need to get that to them, to her.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> that it in terms of presentation?
>> yes.
>> would anyone like to give testimony during this public hearing?
>> move to close the public hearing.
>> hold on. Hold on.
>> [laughter]
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> I will keep it real short.
>> how are you doing?
>> just fine.
>> my name is hank smith. I'm an engineer here in the Austin area, also vice-president of the home builders association of greater Austin. We have been reviewing, we don't have any formal written comments, we may or may not by next Tuesday. We kind of passed around e-mails asking people in the community to respond to us. The good and bad news is I haven't seen a whole lot of interest in people wanting to do conservation development ordinances. I don't know if there's a lot of people waiting to get this ordinance passed then they will step in and take off. I'm not personally aware of anybody in that position. At the same time talking with the development community, no one has looked at this ordinance, has any real opposition to what's being proposed. They think that it's a good ordinance. They think it will work. We have all kind of agreed that it's going to be difficult to get the first person on board to do this. Once that happens, he comes in and proves the development is beneficial and probable and successful, I think others will follow. We talked a little bit, one of the most successful projects in Austin I think is steinner ranch. I have been working out there for 10 careers. It's fairly close to what a conservation ordinance would look like. Between 20 and 25% impervious cover. I would guess somewhere several thousand acres set aside in preserved land. So I think it's very close to what you would have if you went through the conservation development process. It's been a very successful development. So I think that there's some examples out there of what can and can't work. Some of the key areas that we are going to look at is the variance process. We want to make sure those variances are handled administratively. It kind of defeats the purpose of the variances having to come before this court. Open up an open forum. One of the key things I think is going to be a challenge is making sure all of the stakeholder groups are on board and agreeing with what is going forward. If you don't have the development community on board, obviously, you are not going to build these. If you don't have the environmental stakeholders on board, that's going to lead to conflicts down the road and slow the whole process up and defeat the purpose again of what we are trying to accomplish here. So I think it's going to be important. I'm not saying they are not. I just think that it's important to get everybody's opinion on the table of what we are doing and I'm kind of here representing the home builders association. We have not seen any problems or opposition to what's going on. But I would encourage you to try to get public comments from all of the stakeholder groups to see what the position is before you move forward.
>> think how you think people would feel if you took out voluntary. Don't you think that we would have the courtroom filled up?
>> you would have a very full courtroom. Providing a lot of testimony. A lot of them look at this and until a client comes to you says we want you to look in tell us whether we can do this or not. Everybody is very busy right now, nobody has the spare time to sit back and read through the ordinance, see what does and doesn't do. So it's just tough to get the community out here. If you made it mandatory, obviously you would have a much different turnout, much different perspective.
>> that's the key is letting everybody know that it is voluntary because you continue to -- some people say well I mean is this the step towards this becoming the rule versus, you know, being able to choose to do this. And -- and I think that we need to trumpet that loud and clear, this is really a voluntary kind of a -- kind of an opportunity for people. I mean, I -- I have heard that we have what, joe? We have at least one person that's --
>> actually got a phone call unsolicited yesterday, another gentleman, properties -- seriously interested and want a copy of backup. Whether it goes anywhere, we will find out.
>> has there been any interest in the prairie grass --
>> I have not had anybody in northeast Travis County ask for -- for applications yet. But I've -- it's also before it's adopted I think they are probably waiting to see if there actually is something that -- that -- if it's formally adopted that they can ask for.
>> voluntary, but the county has to agree to it.
>> it's -- it's a -- it is a -- once adopted it will be an alternative to a normal subdivision process. But they will have to apply for it, will go through the review process.
>> what's the variance process?
>> the variance process right now is by and large the -- the applicant would have to meet most of the requirements in the ordinance. The variances are allowed basically to make adjustments because there's so many things going on from the dedications of up to 50% of the property, and it is really a -- really a design process where there's a little give and take in terms of how much you can fit on to the property and still make it economically viable. And the variances are in that category. They are not -- they are not substantive in terms of -- of you are going to get by with 40% dedication instead of 50%. These are -- these are -- edge variances that say okay, maybe you will get a -- a little bit more impervious cover here if you give a little bit more dedication of open space over here. It's basically trying to fit this to a piece of property and not be so rigid with the design requirements as to -- as to not being able to negotiate the ordinance to fit the property. And I would put it in that category. But these are -- these are administrative hearings as opposed to -- to those granted by the court. This is also something that I think the court has expressed some interest in whether or not they would be willing to -- to delegate those variances to the executive manager.
>> as drafted, though, the variances really are submitted to the executive manager who has the authority to approve them.
>> that's correct.
>> those denied can appeal to the Commissioners court.
>> that's correct.
>> thank you, mr. Smith.
>> thank you.
>> would anyone else like to give testimony during this public hearing?
>> move to close the public hearing.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. And this will be back on next week for additional comments. And in case there are some and we expect to post it on the 19th for act.
>> that's correct.
>> okay -- for action.
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, December 6, 2006 9:34 PM