Travis County Commissioners Court
December 19, 2006
Item 25
25 is to consider and take appropriate action on the following regarding county public private partnerships. 25-a, request to amend guidelines to county participation in public-private partnerships for arterial roadway construction adopted July 12th, 2005 and revised on July 25 and October 31, 2006. Should I read all these at one time? B of 25 is approval of a participation agreement between Travis County and a private developer for improvements to slaughter lane in precinct four. C, approval of a participation agreement between Travis County and private developers for improvement s to braker lane in precinct 1. And d is approval of a participation agreement between Travis County and a private property owner for I believe -- for improvements to wells branch parkway in precinct two. We were advised that the wells branch parkway item basically had fallen through.
>> yes, sir. I'm steven noel from tnr public works. Wells branch parkway public-private participation agreement we had been working with the property owner to try to make his financial model work for that particular project. He was going to rely upon selling lots to home builders and assign them responsibility for building the road, but unfortunately because of the home market I could not find a home buildtory fill that slot, so he has decided to back out of this agreement. He will proceed with building his share of wells branch parkway through the platting process. He is plans on doing that. So this particular item we are recommending that you reject that participation agreement for wells brafnlg parkway.
>> anybody here on that item? 25-d?
>> quick question there, judge. Steve, what recommendation do you or do you not have in relation to whether that in effect would free up those dollars to go to a phase two project or not? What is the recommendation?
>> Commissioner, what I'd like to do is come back to the court in January. We'll have all of these agreements wrapped up today hopefully, but we have to put some thought into how you want to allocate these monies. By wells branch parkway falling through and you already heard that howard lane didn't make it by the end of the year, but there may be some options available to you for those monies. In essence it will free up about eight and a half million dollars, so it's something we need to talk about in January how you want to talk about it.
>> sure. I wanted to have that for the record.
>> because negotiations have broken down I want to reject the wells branch public-private partnership that was part of the voter referendum. Discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> back to part a of this, it involves a request for you to amend the guidelines that you adopted for these agreements, these public private agreements back in July of '05. You've amended them twice already. As we got through negotiations we found issues with the way they were written. We would ask you to consider revising it. We're asking you to amend it once again for the slaughter lane agreement. The guidelines state that the developers will pay their proportionate share of the project and they go on to state that there's two ways to compute how much is his proportion nat share. One is to use his preliminary plan and then you know how much traffic it's generating and how much impact it's placing upon the arterial roadway system within that quadrant of the county. The other method is just to say you'll pay half. And all of these agreements that have been presented to you so far will be presented to you today, have all been they paid half because they did not have preliminary plans in place. And the thing that differentiates slaughter lane is you do not have a preliminary plan in place before the bond referendum, but in the last year during our negotiations they submitted one. So that triggered that look at the preliminary plan kochtation. We went ahead and did that and the computation indicated that he should pay his costs of improving the -- for the impact of his development upon this quadrant of the county is about $5.1 million. And the value of the improvements that he's going to pay for on slaughter lane only, if you consider 50/50 costs, is less than that. So we're looking at what is a reasonable way to look at this. He didn't have a preliminary plan in place before the bond referendum passed. His costs probably didn't consider the implications of filing a preliminary plan during the negotiation process. The intent of the guidelines was to make sure that the developers paid their fair share of these projects. He will be paying at least three million dollars for slaughter lane and then what the guidelines don't say is if there are other roads in his development that he may have to cost share on that's not plugged into the equation. When he does come through and starts platting all of thinks development, pleasant valley road will be coming through and he'll be paying part of that as well. It's not a quite equal number, but it's close enough we feel, and also knowing that the model that we use to compute the value isn't exact. It's --
>> we have better information now.
>> I believe that the fair way to deal with this is to allow him to pay the same amount that the other participants are paying on all of these projects. And to make that happen we need to revise the guidelines a little bit. And tom may want to bhai in on that as well.
>> needs to be doing what he's doing related to any boundary streets there. This does not give you an out on that.
>> that is correct. This is only covering slaughter lane. We ask that you revise the guidelines with the language noted in the backup memo. The backup on this particular issue in with the slaughter lane agreement.
>> for the record, what's the specific language change?
>> we are asking that the developer's proportionate share of the public-private felt will be based on the plan that is in place prior to the effective date of the county's bond referendum. Since he didn't have one, it defaults to the 50/50.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> if you will approve it, covers about half of that amount. He will -- he will in effect build slaughter lane, extend it from -- from -- joe? Darn you.
>> [laughter]
>> I kept looking at it going I'm lost. Get your boundaries checked. Slaughter lane coming in here. Wheelchair is up here -- william cannon is up here. What the agreement with the developer -- what the developer covers the piece of slaughter lane that crosses the green value. This piece here. What we need to do to extend it is get him across this piece of property here, written into the agreement. Then the rest of it, though, about the other half of it is not covered by a particular private party. So they say okay the county will be responsible for pursuing that. Well, we didn't budget for that big of a gap, we are going to continue to work for the city, because a piece of it falls through full purpose annexation for the city. Some of these property owners may sell off to developers, we would try to get them to participate at that time. But there's about a half a dozen private property owners that -- that own all of this in here. We will have to continue to work through that. We -- I would like to be able to get at least a two lane road punched through here. That's about what the county based its budget upon for its share. So we will have the four lane road here. Built with the private and public funds. And then I will be working with the city and the property owners to try to build at least a two lane road across here. I have also asked the city if they could provide some funding for the full length to help us. They indicated that it's a high priority project for them, they just don't have money now. If they go to another bond referendum I will approach them again for that. They appreciate that this part, particularly this development is the type of development that they want to see occur in this part of the county. That's written into the backup, too. Their desired development zone and destination type of park areas. So by approving an agreement today, we will commit county funds to split costs of stepping slaughter lane through this property. We will commit county funds to acquire the right-of-way in this corner, the developer will help us build that piece of road, too, because without it you can't get to his property. You can help us with that. We are stating that the county will be responsible for making the rest of this work. Those are the major points I think that I wanted to bring up on slaughter. Anything else, tom?
>> we will be responsible for making the words subject to funding constraints, a lot of other limitations. It's not a hard obligation. It's a we'll try to make it work if we can.
>> right, exactly. Okay, then slaughter if you want to vote on that one or go on into braker.
>> I think we ought to take action on this question.
>> move.
>> second.
>> discussion? Questions? That's consistent with the conversation that we had a few days ago, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Braker lane probably the most -- well, it is the most complicated one of all of these public/private agreements. The reason that it's complicated because there's a lot of moving parts to this thing. In the bond referendum, this is u.s. 290 east, this is u.s. 130, that's under construction. Down here I think it's open up here now. Harris branch parkway coming in over here. This is decker lane going down to the exposition center, down here. The bond information shows that we would go to this point, go around, come town, this interchange that's being built. Built braker lane from this point at harris branch, come down, pass through this floodplain, following the community park over here, tie in right here, they would be connected through here with that roadway there. We got into negotiation was the developers, there's multiple parties to this agreement. And they suggest that, you know, why don't we revise the alignment to avoid all of this floodplain and try to stay away from the park because that really complicates and costs to -- to mess around with floodplain and even trying to get easements or anything off of parkland, it's really difficult. This is the highland, going to be easier on the drainage, seemed to me yeah that makes sense, let's do that. At the time we were thinking that they would have all of the property owners at least in this area on board. Now, when I went to -- to the engineering study with txdot last June, we looked at all of the interchanges up and down u.s. 290 east. One of the things that came out at that meeting or that study was there was an interchange proposed here at decker lane, not one here at harris branch parkway. Well, didn't make any sense for the county to have a project plugging into -- into this road. So I said, you know, the county would really like to have its money spent here. We said that's fine, we will put the interchange here, you will not get one here. They had other reasons for not wanting one here. You can see the very fraint branch coming in from this interchange here, they actually extend across the decker lane interchange. Not a safe thing. People congested getting on and off 290, plus on and off of these high speed ramps. Technical is saying it's really better from the traffic engineering perspective to put the interchange here. They also said, you know, if we do that for you we are going to want to realign decker lane like this. We want to abandon this and let the county take over that roadway. I'm thinking to myself, we get an interchange, a brand new road, a cleaner alignment down to the exposition center because you don't have this oddball skew in your interchange. I thought that was not a bad idea. To further complicate that is txdot has not got this tied down yet. They are going to be -- to be plugging this into their transportation improvement program in January or February, that -- at that point they will decide is this going to be or not going to be a toll road. Staff told me if it's not a toll road that doesn't mean the interchanges go away, you still have to do something out there. It will happen at a slower pace. So whether or not they get engaged in building an interchange here, kind of depends on what happens with that. To further complicate that, when they took this out as an option, putting an interchange here at decker lane, the -- they upset the property owners around the quadrants here. Those property owners, my understanding is, they have been approaching txdot, lobbying hard to get this put back in, have the interchange at decker lane. They are not saying to take harris branch out, but two interchanges. I have even heard they have gone as saying they will pay for it. If they do pay for an interchange here at decker lane, txdot may say, where will, there's really no reason why we have to do this anymore. Depending on what happens with the overall program this road could be like this. Realigned back like this. Another complicating factor is that the developers don't own this piece of property down here. My understanding they are talking to that person, possibly about acquiring that, he may be developing it himself, but the original line was to come up like this. Now we have it like this. If negotiations on that fall apart, then we may want to consider realigning that a little bit to avoid taking too much out of that property, keeping our costs down. An awful lot of moving parts. This happens to be one where the city of Austin offered to pay one third of construction costs. We still have to do the interlocal agreements with them on that. All of those things going on. The goal was to get these funds tied to an agreement before the end of the year. All of my partners know that we have got some moving parts here. We are passing the railroad tracks here, whether we go over or under is to be determined by capital metro. All of that will come to clarity by March or April, when txdot will have gone through the tip process, tell me whether or not they have plugged this road into the tip, let me know whether it's toll or non-toll. So by March some clarity, we can decide where we go with the property owners as well. This is another property owner that with a r was not engaged. I have been talking to him and he's willing to sell us these properties. Not willing to donate, but he's not a developer, it's a piece of property, him and 21 other of his family members own. So it's -- that's -- that's another issue there.
>> what action do we need to take today to preserve our opportunity to take the appropriate action whenever txdot lands on right here?
>> well, the agreement right now is structured around this configuration, my partners know that -- that this could change and if this does change, their limits of their project are from here over to here. And it's -- if this gets added in by them acquiring the property, then we can amend the agreement to do that.
>> so that's actually from decker lane, 3177 to -- to --
>> to this is the --
>> whatever that --
>> property line.
>> property line there.
>> okay. That's about 2,000 feet.
>> right, right.
>> okay. So we have got that tied in. And the language says okay the county will be responsible for completing this piece, completing this piece. And how we do this is dependent upon what comes up with txdot and how these negotiations go down here.
>> steve, remind me. On decker lane, as it hits 290 east, is there anything to the north of there in terms of a road that it connects into?
>> the -- this is all just an open field. The campo plan shows decker lane extending up, parmer lane coming in up here, it kind of comes to a six legged intersection with 130 and parmer lane. Which is not a not a great thing. 6 legged intersections don't work very well. Right now there's nothing out there.
>> because other than the bar, which is right there, it's got a fun little name.
>> this is it.
>> this is it, I was thinking the scoot in. This is it.
>> this is it. Is this it?
>> we all know what we are talking about. That is also when that light got put in there that was very dangerous because you are coming down over a hill for somebody all of a sudden oh, my goodness we have a stoplight there. So whether this is tolled or untolled. It doesn't make any difference, on the frontage road piece we are definitely talking signals, this is a really dangerous way. The other one is much more direct, you have a connection to a major road, a major employer with -- with applied materials off of harris branch and harris branch you on you on you know, perpendicular is better than the hypotonuse things.
>> tying up into the harris branch connection at south of 290?
>> this piece right here.
>> yes.
>> I've had a few conversations with greg
>> [indiscernible], mr. Shapiro talking to his family. They are saying this would add real value to your property, would you consider a donation, that sort of a thing. He thought about it he's now inclined to want some compensation, I don't think it's of the nature where they are going to go out and hire land planner, mega mall type of stuff. I think we can work with them, get a reasonable fair market value on that. He hasn't said no to building it. He understands that it will add value. First of all is txdot going to plug into this program? If they do, I will start to mr. Shapiro. He would like some preciseness to it. Txdot said if you want us to, we can go ahead and do some preliminary engineering, have that ready for you by February or March so we can tell mr. Shapiro exactly what we want from him. That will help clarify that in the first six months.
>> but even if we build a new decker, the intersection at 290 will remain there, at old decker?
>> there will be only -- if this stays, this we build this, you don't have an interchange here, you will be able to go up here and turn right or you can come down here and turn right. You will not be able to cross over. So I don't know that you need a light for something like that. That will be a txdot call. If you head west on 290, can you turn left on to the new decker.
>> no. Get all of the frontage roads, come down here.
>> that will be the new decker, though. Yes, txdot is talking about the new decker road.
>> cleaner shorter route quite frankly.
>> I believe it is. For coming from Austin, 3,000 feet less that you have to drive to get to the exposition center. It stays out of this mess with all of these high speed ramps. That -- all of the weaving and lane changing going on, that's not a good thing to do. It could happen still.
>> this new alignment, none of this is in the floodplain area, stuff like that. Before originally a lot of it was. All in a up in -- all that up in there is floodplain.
>> showed it crossing the floodplain twice and then veering up this way. That's how the bridge is a multiple box culvert. We really should stay out of the floodplain.
>> can you show us where the east metro park is just so that we have a good fix on that.
>> east metro is -- it's way over here. Down below manor, manor is up this way.
>> got it. Just trying to get my bearings, thanks.
>> it's not a very pretty package. It does have moving parts. But we have put a lot of things into the agreement to kind of check it if -- for example, if capital metro decides you must have an overpass instead of an underpass, you must have a choice to say this is costing too much, we can terminate. If the value of the property that we have to buy costs too much, we put a limit on that in the contract. We said if it goes over this amount, the county has a choice of backing out at that point or the developer can put the money up to pay the difference.
>> or capital metro can be a participate as well if they decide that they would like to have an overpass or underpass as they have done on many of these greamghts in Williamson county northwest Travis County area.
>> thank you.
>> I would like to move approval of 25 c. At this time.
>> I will second that Commissioner.
>> so the city is committed to $2 million?
>> the city has allocated $2.7 million to the project and depending on what happens with the capital metro, we may have to ask them for another 300,000. But they have allocated it. It has to go through the interlocal and approval process with them.
>> okay. So what I hear you saying, though, is that all of the parties are aware of the various moving parts so the likelihood of -- of an amendment at some point in the future is greater than usual.
>> yes, sir. I believe that's a true statement there.
>> okay.
>> any more discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, December 19, 2006 8:51 PM