Travis County Commissioners Court
October 14, 2008
Item 9
9. Consider and take appropriate action on the proposed timber creek floodplain buy-out plan.
>> as he know we have been in the process for several years of buying lots and dwellings within the floodplain of timber creek. These are actually in the flood way. Very high probability that they will be flooded in the 100 year or even less event. We have been successful in using federal fema dollars to do that up to this point. Have purchased 47 units. Mainly mobile homes. And lots. We have been involved with the corps of engineers and the lcra, city of Austin, in a study of the colorado river basin. And onion creek subbasin about four, almost five years now. And have -- the corps of engineers has concluded that timber creek is a viable target area for buyout. So the studies have been completed. It -- and the project has been authorized but not -- no appropriations have been made by the u.s. Congress for the buyout. In the latest federal legislation, which has the acronym of worda, it was special wording put into the federal bill that would allow Travis County and the city of Austin to proceed with the buyout of -- of properties with the -- with their matching money. In this case there's always a -- in this case a 35% match by the local governments. We have our match authorized by the last bond election, 2005, so we have money available, we have actually issued cash, it's in the bank. We are ready to proceed but for -- we are waiting on this authorization to be passed. So what we're seeking today is court authorization to proceed with using county authorized bond money to start the buyout process. There is somewhat of a risk. In that -- in that right now we don't have -- the federal funds, the 65%, authorized by congress. But we know that that risk is probably nominal, at some point. Perhaps not this year given the circumstances and the markets. But at some point the federal government will authorize their portion of the 65%, continue the buyout after we have completed using our funds and then proceeding on to use federal funds to construct the improvements, which would include parkland improvements, restrooms, trails, that sort of a thing, in the -- on the properties that we buy out jointly.
>> joe, let me ask you a question. What happened in the advent
>> [sic] that you have persons that -- that may not be willing to participate in the buyout? What -- owe what happens in that regard? Even though we understand that the money is made available to purchase the remainder of those lots out there at timber creek, however there are person that's say well, I just don't want to sell. What happens in that regard? Does the -- is there any circumstances that will -- how would that work? In other words, would we have to go through a process? I just really want to kind of lock it down to -- to see if we don't jeopardize our standing with -- with the federal government, fema.
>> [multiple voices]
>> when we have used the fema money it's been purely a volunteer program.
>> I understand.
>> if the property owner didn't want to participate it was all right. Actually our problem is not that people don't want to be bought out. We have people calling us weekly to be bought out, a certain sense of urgency. We have been putting them off because we haven't had the authorization to proceed. But in this next phase, we would recommend to the court that we proceed on the basis of a voluntary buyout. Go ahead and get people who are willing sellers, ultimately, however, this -- this -- we will have authorization or the corps of engineers will have authorization to acquire through imminent domain. When we finally get down to it. Any property owner who is not willing to sell, we will go through an imminent domain process to acquire the properties.
>> the reason why I possessed that question, because -- posed that question, because I recall to the best of my ability to recall events that when we first started looking that the program to buy out those particular residents, there was some complaints from some of the residents that said okay, I can't find anything out there to match what you are offering and putting on the table to me today. In other words, if I'm going to look for relocation home, then I'm not able to purchase a home for the amount of money that you are putting on the table. So that's why I posed the question because we have been dealing with this for a while. And -- and since we have been dealing with it for a while, the -- the overall properties that need to be purchased have not been purchased and I always try to look at those circumstances of why they had not been purchased because of reluctancey of the first thing that I just started. Then secondly the money being made available which may have been a second. There has not been a match, per se, to allow this transaction -- transition of purchasing property to go as smooth as it should. Of course we should go smooth through the process. That's why I'm posing all of these questions because I haven't been able to land on a concrete answer from when we first started this initiative.
>> actually, I think our records would show that we have already purchased 47 who willingly sold and found other places. We know that we have lists of people who are ready to sell today if we had the money. I'm not so sure that the -- what you are hearing is more a strategy to get more money for property. Because --
>> could be, I don't know.
>> not knelt that there's not other property equivalent available on the market. It's just various owners look at selling differently. I think at this point I would say we have any number of willing sellers who with -- if they had the money they were -- they would be able to find other similar properties to -- to relocate to. There is, has been in the past also some relocation assistance. We are changing, when we go into this program. Fema's guidelines are somewhat different than the corps of engineers. So we will be going when we start these processes, we will necessarily be going under the corps of engineers processes for acquiring properties. So that -- that is a difference. In part because -- because they -- this program is carried out with the ultimate possibility of -- of condemnation.
>> I saw condemnation --
>> also, as parts of our backup is, you know, because we have so many willing sellers, how do we start processing them? We believe, staff basically has said that we would put our criteria in flood elevation. First take those willing sellers who are -- who are further into the floodplain. -- the probabilities they will be flooded are higher than perhaps somewhere further back, higher up in the floodplain. We are using the attached table that is attached to the backup basically ranks all of the properties, according to the flood elevation. So the top of the list, deeper in water, the bottom of the list is more outside the floodplain. Just one way of -- very simple way of determining the urgency of -- of buying someone out. But we also overlay with that that they are a willing seller. We would go that --
>> do the homeowners know if they are on this list, if they receive flood damage in the next heavy rain, that -- that it's likely that the county will not authorize authorize reconstruction for repairs?
>> I would think everyone in this particular neighborhood because we have been pretty active in the neighborhood for gosh now I think '97 is when we started buying, almost a decade now. At least the -- the property owners, historical property owners clearly know where they are. What you might have are renters that do not know the situation that they are in.
>> we are $3.9 million of voter approved funds.
>> that's right.
>> if we spend our 3.9 million before federal action is taken, will we still get credit for that being 35% and the feds owe us 65%.
>> that's right. The authorization enabled that we get credit for what we spent. We are safe in that regard. We're not at risk of not getting our money counted as a match.
>> [ phone ringing ]
>> I move approval of --
>> second.
>> of staff's recommendations on the use of this 3.9 million and i, too, have run into some of the folks who are most vocal when they first started coming to the Commissioners court. They sold their property and they did find some other places to live in. So -- it's worked well. Thank you.
>> any more discussion of the motion?
>> judge, lastly, on that how long will it take -- since -- after this particular motion have been made and seconded if the court decides to approve it, how long will this action take place? Since we have so many willing residents or property owners, not say residents, property owners that would be willing -- this will actually take -- to be implemented, how long it will be implemented as far as the time line is concerned? If the court acts today, when will they be able to see a realization of the action that we are taking here today? How long? Ballpark.
>> we do have a consultant jeff ward who has been assisting us in the acquisition process. We expect to use him again. He's very, very quick and -- we believe we can probably get him, his contract changed and in process certainly within 30 days. How long it will take him to start buying properties out, he has to go through the appraisal process, make offers, negotiate. And in particular on the number of ones in the queues, it could take six to 12 months for him to work through all of the willing sellers.
>> in terms of actually buying out you should expect to see some buyout before the end of the year.
>> okay.
>> but whether or not he'll be able to get to all of them, I think that will take more time.
>> okay.
>> questions, comments? All in favor of the motion? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 1:38 PM