Travis County Commissioners Court
February 20, 2007
Item 20
20. Consider and take appropriate action on the following: a. Request from genesis capital advisors, llc, that Travis County sign an application for a revised preliminary plan that covers both a private tract and the county-owned balcones canyonlands preserve tract commonly known as the nootsie tract; b. Coordination with city of Austin and u.s. Fish and wildlife service regarding the request; and c, give public notice and set public hearing date of April 3, 2007 to receive public input pursuant to chapter 26, parks and wildlife code. In c we asked for the public hearing on April 3rd. The purpose of today's item is to give us an opportunity to lay this out, joe.
>> yes.
>> get questions from the court. Receive whatever comments there are and -- and await the public hearing.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> I’m rose farmer with natural resources. We wanted to bring this item before the court today because we were interested in -- in two things. Basically. And I’ll ask tom nuckols to jump in if he has additional comments on this. It's that we have a preserve tract that we call the nootsie tract. It was acquired with federal grant money as part of the balcones canyonland preserves and it was acquired in 2005. There is a development tract immediately adjacent to that. Which is called the parking north tract and jerry harris is here representing them, I will let him introduce the folks with him. And -- and the development that will be on this tract immediately adjacent to the tract will have potentially impacts on our preserve. We wanted to work together with them to negotiate, to some of the issues. Discussion of the issues. Had tract was originally platted in the '80's, at least had a preliminary tract with the city of Austin so there's some grandfathering involved. They are able to do a lot of impervious cover on the property and the drainage would potentially cross the preserve tract and so we felt like it would be interesting and necessary to get together to make -- to make some things better for water quantity and quality on the preserve tract. We have been successful in our discussions with them to try to do that. As part of this, would be a drainage easement that Travis County would issue to them to allow their drainage water to cross the preserve. But in allowing this, we are providing more protections for the water quality than would have been required under their original grandfathering. It's that they have approximately 80% impervious cover that they would have historically been allowed because this is -- this is some time ago. But that the county would like to require them to -- to do instead of just the two year flood retention, but also the -- the 25 and the 50 and the 100 year flood retention so they are agreeing to put in better flood controls and sediment controls than would have historically been required. The reason that we are able to have these discussions with them is because Travis County's tract is actually part of this same plat. And so before they are able to turn in their preliminary plan, today to the city of Austin, they need Travis County to sign-off as the landowner. They need us to sign-off on this preliminary plan. And so because of this we are able to negotiate some things that make the water quality and quantity better than our preserve tract.
>> have we got any kind of preliminary reading from the city of Austin as to its position?
>> actually, let me pass that on to jerry and to david.
>> lloyd harris, not the highly paid lawyer, lloyd harris.
>> thank you, rose, appreciate that very much. Judge, county Commissioners, I’m jerry harris representing the applicant in this case. I appreciate very much the opportunity to happen before you this morning and talk about the nootsie tract. Thanks to rose and the other staff who worked with us for a long time to make sure that we are doing the correct thing here. We have done one preliminary plan revised preliminary plan application to the city of Austin. Prior to time this piece was sold by the landowners to the county for the bcp. And it was received favorably at that time. So change, some things change including the market and therefore after the county bought the land, the 120 acres out of the 170 acres, we needed to do a revised preliminary plan again. Now, as rose said, the county's land is part of the preliminary plan, so you must act together. So I do not anticipate any real issues with the city of Austin. This was a -- an approved preliminary plan back in 1985. I anticipate that it will be approved again with the city's approval and with the county's support as part of the -- of the owner of the land in the subdivision. In working with this, we have used andrew evans as our civil engineer who has worked with the county's engineers up to this point in time. They have toured the site, to make sure that everybody is doing the right and correct thing here. Also with me is paul van
>> [indiscernible] who is a representative of nootsie limited who is the owner of the tract. Now we have done some really important things here besides agreeing to capture and treat and detain the five, 10, 25 and 100 year flood. We have also agreed to -- to spread that water out and instead of just releasing it from ponds and into a large outfall like you see we are going to use spreaders, that's part of the county's requirement. We are also going to use as many separate ponds as we possibly can to -- to make the ponds as small and spread out as possible. And this was one of the things that the scientific committee which we were privileged to appear before and -- at the time that they approved this. And we also were -- appeared before the citizens committee, which also approved it and I understand the coordinating committee also approved this plan. What we are doing here is on the county's tract, which is 120 some acres, it was in the original preliminary plan designated for 120 some acres of multi-family residential and it had a major roadway running down the middle of it. So one of the things on the revised preliminary plan we are doing away with I think lady of the lake road was planned to go through the preserve land. Instead we are cul de sac-ing lady of the lake road, providing a nice entryway into it so that the county staff can utilize it's. We are also agreed as part of the compensation as you will, for the granting of the formal easement. By the way, the water is going to run across the preserve tract, no matter what. That's the drainage pattern out there. And so -- so before the formal granting of the easement, we are going to build a -- a -- a wildlife fence between the development tract, which is about 50 acres and the county's 122 acres and you will have a nice gate that can be opened with a push button controls operatinged -- operated by the county staff. We have also agreed to certain things. All we are asking for today is for the court to grant permission for mr. Gieselman to sign the preliminary plan application, revised preliminary plan application along with this. We have agreed by plat notes on that, that -- that there will be no final plat submitted for our land until we have gone through all of the procedures that the county wants us to go through and including a public hearing under the parks and wildlife code and that -- that we have done coordination with the u.s. Fish & wildlife department and that we have posted money for the fence or have built the fence and one final condition we have agreed to is that we will not do a final plat on any of our property until we have posted the fiscal to cover the construction of the water quality detention ponds and the spreaders on our property. Those conditions were drafted by mr. Nuckols and they were agreeable to us. That's -- that's what we are here for today, we appreciate your time and attention. I will say that we -- when we sold the land to the county we did sell it to the county below appraised value.
>> [laughter] I will be glad to answer any questions. But we do have charts and boards and andrew is here to speak on any engineering concerns and so we are at your disposal.
>> what is the alternative if -- if the -- if the county as a land holder in this -- in this plat, doesn't agree, what you -- what's your recourse?
>> we could go ahead and submit a revised preliminary plan on our property. But it raises some issues about -- about grandfathering from the standpoint of mostly it's an impervious cover. We are really intending about 65% impervious cover. So that the 80% is irrelevant to us. But -- but we would mainly like to maintain the 65% impervious cover requirement. Plus one other thing is that -- of that 122 acres of multi-family that was parts of the preliminary plan on the -- what is now the county property, we want to -- to move the furniture around by taking only 17-acres of that and putting it up on the 620 part of our property and taking a -- light office and retail 17 acres and putting it over on the county property and it makes no difference to the county because they are never going to develop their property anyway. And whether it's office or retail, it's the most valuable really depends on the market swings. Sometimes offices up and mooum is down -- multi-family is down.
>> by our agreement you all get more wiggle room on density and impervious cover?
>> yes. Well, not density so much because all of the deposition community is already there. Density is already there. But we get to move this use over here, that use over there because the market is a little better for multi-family at the current time. Otherwise we will just ahead and build our project and -- and do the -- do the ponding, the best we can. We wouldn't be required to build the fence that the county wants along the property line. So -- so this makes it much more smooth in the operation of things if we cooperate together and -- and do the plat like both of us would like to have it done.
>> judge, I mean, you know, according to our staff, I mean, the quid pro quo here is very beneficial for us for that reason I move approval.
>> second.
>> any questions? One, what is the public benefit of the county's agreement to 20 a?
>> if -- if the county did not agree to this, we believe that water that would be coming across the preserve would be damaging is the -- with only the -- the retention of the two year flood is their requirement is that there's going to be a whole lot of water and it's going to come fast and it's going to have sediment and that this is coming down through the bcp land and it would -- would potentially have -- have tremendous impact on the endangered species for which we acquired that property. And so -- so tom nuckols recommended that the drainage easement in this case that the county would like to have, would actually benefit the preserve, that this is a legal way that -- that we have some controls over to try to protect our preserve land. This is like a benefit to the public from protecting these properties for which we have this permit that requires us to protect them, so that would be a benefit to us.
>> greater water quality protection?
>> yes.
>> greater environmental species protection?
>> yes.
>> that's two.
>> interspecies for both golden cheeked warblers that are nesting in these canyons that the water would be flowing through. Also we have the black capped vireos that potentially may be using the uplands that could be affected, also endangered karst species that may be reflected by this water quality and quantity issue. I would say another public benefit is that they have agreed to pay for this 8-foot deer fence, the entire length of their property as it bounds our property. It's very beneficial to us because we are assuming apartments, businesses, various things along the front and it's a real cost to us when we have to build 8-foot fences. Yes, they are deer againsts, but also intended for keeping people on the people places to protect the preserve land. That's very beneficial to us as well.
>> 1985 they owned 170 acres. The county later bought 120.
>> yes.
>> so other than the easement how will the 120-acres that the county owns in this part of the bcp be affected?
>> we believe this agreement makes it better for the preserve. It will help to protect the preserve land.
>> they are not building anything on our owe. They are not doing any construction, cutting any trees, anything in the preserve land at all.
>> by signing the request for the preliminary plan, in a, we also commit to -- to assist with the coordination in b? City of Austin u.s. Fish and wildlife, right? Won't they want to know the county's position on that.
>> I’m sure they will. Let me reiterate his point of this has gone through the -- the committees in the bccp, it has been approved by the coordinating committee that Commissioner Daugherty is on with mayor wynn. They have heard about this issue.
>> when was that by the way?
>> that was February the 7th. That was approved by the bccp coordinating committee. That committee was advised by the citizens advisory committee and the scientific advisory committee for the bcp and all of those committees have now approved it, fish and wildlife service staff were at all of these meetings and heard this discussion and were -- were basically in agreement. I will tell you that because this property was acquired with federal grant money that we are required to officially write letters to the albuquerque office, not the local fish and wildlife service, but to get official approval from fish and wildlife service is one of the requirements because -- because again you are giving away a right on the property that was acquired with federal money. But we believe that -- that we have talked with the local fish and wildlife service staff and we believe that this is something that they will consider beneficial as well. Will approve it.
>> okay.
>> this will necessitate a public hearing under chapter 26 for us to determine whether the easement as a take --
>> that's correct.
>> has a debt mental impact on the -- detrimental impact on the endangered species and whether there's any reasonable alternative. Is there a negative impact on the species by this take?
>> no. We believe that it will be a positive. Actually help to protect them by doing this.
>> the motion includes a, b, c, d?
>> yes.
>> a, b, c.
>> yeah, all of it. Yeah. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you very much.
>> have a great day.
>> thank you. Good to see you again.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 8:00 AM