Travis County Commissioners Court
January 30, 2007
Item 21
21. Consider and take appropriate action on the following requests:
>> a variance from requirement that each lot in a subdivision shall abut a dedicated public street, title 30-2-171(a), access to lots for a subdivision in precinct three, commander's point - final plat (not recommended by transportation and natural resources staff); and b. Variance from the requirement that an applicant include all land of the original tract in an application for plat approval, title 30-2-34(b)(d)(2) for a subdivision in precinct three: commander's point - final plat (not recommended by transportation and natural resources staff)
>> I just passed out a new graphic that I think better gives you a perspective on it and ana is going to walk through this. But -- but I want to first orient everyone to where this lot is and all of the ingredients to the reason behind the staff's recommendation. The shaded area on that map is -- is this subject tract that is seeking the variances. It is located on Lake Travis, that area up on top, that's totally blank, that's the lake. It's a lake front property. It is basically land locked. It has no access to a -- to a public road. The only ingress and egress is that green line, which is a -- which is an easement, a private easement to the lot. The other -- that easement connects to -- to roadways that have been dedicated but not accepted by the county for maintenance. The pink part over here, on the lower left-hand corner, are the roads that have been accepted by the county and are part of the county network. So you have a lot. Not only that is not on a public thoroughfare, it's not a -- not directly connected to a -- to a publicly dedicated thoroughfare and it's not connecting into a road system that's maintained by -- by the county or any public entity.
>> can you tell us why we have not accepted the --
>> it's like any private easement that comes to us almost routinely now for 911 naming, we have easements throughout the county, private easements and people live on these easements, but they are not part of the county road system. Typically when we are given a name we say this is only for 911 response, not picking up the maintenance, only to facilitate response. So we have all sorts of private easements around the country if like situations here. It's not necessarily untypical. In this case what this individual is asking to do is subdivide off that easement and according to our standards we would not authorize a subdivision on a road that does not connect to a publicly maintained thoroughfare.
>> actually, this is in the city of Austin's e.t.j., the code references are titled 30 as opposed to chapter 32. In Austin's e.t.j. Title 30 stipulates that all subdivision needs to take place on a publicly dedicated road. That is different than what's in chapter 82, I want to be clear on that. The variance here is because it is on an easement and it's not on something publicly dedicated. The principles behind it, to me there's a lot of commonnalty in this as opposed to -- to it has to be on a publicly maintained road or sthret with the perpetual maintenance easement, but this is different, this is title 30. The second part of this is that -- is that there's a tract immediately to the left of the shaded one, that's the out parcel. And they will remain land locked so we are not proposing to grant that variance. If the owner elected to -- to bring the green line and get over to the maintained road, I think that's between a quarter of a mile and a third of a mile that he would need to do. To bring up to standards. I want to point out also that the non-maintained roads to get from the pain obtained road to the easement, those roads are not paved. The easement is paved. But underneath it all to me still lies the principle that, you know, title 30 says -- says it has to have frontage on a dedicated roadway. Unless there is minimal impact. Minimal impact is not defined.
>> well, the applicant tried to make a case for minimum impact by just saying we will build two houses and have four or five cars I guess. Therefore the impact is minimal. What I read the backup it made sense to me. We are not talking about 200 vehicles, we are talking about a handful of --
>> one of the reasons why --
>> if we don't define minimal impact, how do we determine when it's been achieved.
>> I agree.
>> what's --
>> well --
>> the question --
>> [laughter] I know it sounded a bit rhetorical. But I was trying to figure out how do we make the determination?
>> that's a very good question.
>> [laughter] I want to point out that we are seeing this situation all over the county. Sometimes it might be one lot into two. Sometimes it's really, really large lots. But they are on an easement. I don't have the answer.
>> okay. Let me ask you this. I guess -- kind of a hopefully pointed question. So the road between the pink and green is unpaved. Is it private or is it a public road.
>> dedicated but not accepted by the county for maintenance. So somewhere in between.
>> so is green somewhere in between, too?
>> no, green is not even dedicated. It just a private easement.
>> the backup says the green is paved.
>> it has a driveway, yeah.
>> just a paved driveway?
>> well, not in flash standard, it wouldn't meet any county standard.
>> what's the importance of a city standard.
>> just that that is their wording, it's similar to our frontage requirement wording. Just that it has -- before title 30 it's my understanding that it did not -- title 30 says it has to be a dedicated public road. It also allows for the possibility of getting a variance and having a private street subdivision. I don't know if that answers your question.
>> I think the principle is that at some point perhaps not this owner, but downstream, individuals who now have homes on these private easements are going to be expect being someone to maintain the roadway and/or build it in this case if it's not built you are going to be asking the county to -- to come back and say would you approve the plat, certainly you understood at the time that we needed to get all weather access to our lot. Over time it builds upper session there is a county obligation to provide an all weather service to that lot since we approved the plat. Our -- our position, our policy up to this point is that part of the cost of subdividing is building the infrastructure to what you are building. Crank that into your investment decision. So you know before you buy lots, before you understand that -- that we are going to have to do some improvement in order to build on this piece of property. That includes water, wastewater, road system and everything that goes into development. So if we begin to start approving new subdivisions on unimproved easements. We are building up some expectation that perhaps somewhere down the road a Commissioners court will come along and improve what heretofore hasn't been approved. So in -- in -- I iterate there because -- we have a lot of private easements in the county. We have always, whenever they asked us to give it a name, we are real clear on the record, we are though the secreting any obligation to the county. We are doing this entrepreneurial for 911 response. In this case we are going down that slope where we are saying well maybe, maybe down the road literally the county will come in and pave the roadway.
>> what would in -- in this paradigm, the idea that you don't want to approve a subdivision plat unless the infrastructure is built necessary to support it, what would these -- what would this land holder have to do. Purchase the -- the property on which the easement is? And then build out the road?
>> he probably already has some right to the easement. He would have to upgrade the roadway to county standards in order to provide that lot an all weather roadway.
>> there are two structures, two homes on this lot currently? Correct?
>> according to the -- it does appear that way on the map. Existing tract currently has two homes located on it. The owners have legal access to the ingress, egress. The john doe --
>> this is an old subdivision that was around the lake before the county had standards. So it's --
>> do you have any reason to think that we would need to do this today or could I have some more time with this thing?
>> no. More time is fine. I'm --
>> I would really like to -- there are a couple of questions that I -- that I need to speak to the applicant about.
>> I guess what I read, I had a hard time -- I can see the public policy. I'm not sure that I can see the public benefit. If the benefit is that -- that we avoid the impression that at some point we may come in and -- and improve the road, there being a whole lot of cases where we have put our foot down, not done it. When I was Commissioner here, somebody came down on the road here for 10 years, we finally as part of the substandard road programs we finally got to it and it was cleared. That was -- it was a substandard roads policy which was a new one and an exception to all of the other stuff I guess.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> somewhere down the line somebody will buy the lot unsuspecting that all these other things haven't been done and won't be getting done. We jumped into that and said wait a minute whrks this gets done it will get done right and anyone buying it downstream will know it's been blessed by the county. So the thinking in our policy is that we're trying to protect consumer from being caught in an awkward situation after they've purchased a property.
>> and the real problem is that we've just got so many of these. It hark ens back to what do I do with somebody that puts an inlegal mailbox out on the road and there's 30,000 of them all other the place already. If you don't mind, junk, I would like to -- if you don't mind, judge, I would like to pass on this thing.
>> I don't mind. One week or two?
>> let's take two weeks in the event that I have a difficult time sitting down with them. I'll work with you on this deal.
>> 13th?
>> yes.
>> okay. Joe, that does it for you?
>> I think so.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 6:55 AM