Travis County Commissioners Court
January 27, 2009
Item 18
Mike mcman here. 18. Consider and take appropriate action on a request by mike mcminn for alternative filing fees for a short form subdivision plat.
>> hi, mr. Mcminn.
>> is that your lawyer you brought with you, mr. Mcminn?
>> yes. Just a colleague, my mentor.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> I'm sorry.
>> can you lay the request out for us?
>> sure, anna bolin, Travis County t.n.r. It's my understanding that mr. Mcminn would like to have an alternative fee for his short form plat and just a little refresher for those who don't necessarily know the different types of plats, we have a short form plat is a plat without a street as opposed to a long form plat which is a plat that has right-of-way and streets in it. Just to remind the court, the court sets our fees and this most recent fee that -- that mr. Mcminn wants a -- an alternate fee for was set in I believe November of 2004. We set those fees the way we did after a study that was done by detroit and we looked, essentially what we did is we looked at -- you know,, we tried to find typical subdivisions and looked at the cost drivers associated with the review fees so for each type of application we looked at what steps we needed to take and we looked at what personnel does those steps and approximately how much time it takes to do those steps and we -- we tried to capture those costs in our fees. And mr. Mcminn called my office laying out his circumstance and essentially of course mr. Mcminn will be able to speak for himself as well, but just to let y'all know the background on how it came to us. He's asking for a -- for a reduction for an alternative fee and I suggested that it be brought to the court for the court's consideration.
>> can we just -- let's talk amounts. So if we apply our fee schedule, what would the amount be and what alternative fee does mr. Mcminn have in mind?
>> under our current fee structure, the fees for this seven lot short form plat would be $6,114. It's a combination of I believe $150 flat fee and $852 per lot fee. That would be -- that would be the fees that would apply, I would like to add for the average most short form plats are three lots. I looked since the beginning of 2004, we've had a range of one lot short form plat to 24 lot short form plat. On average, though, throughout the years it's been short form plat the number of lots have been 3 lots. So his is more than three lots, but his seven.
>> in the case it was 24 hots, we charged 24 times 852.
>> yes, sir, that was the adopted fee.
>> mr. Mcminn?
>> yes, sir. I had a prepared deal but we have already gone over a lot of what I had in there, that's fine. The client that I'm working with on this particular piece of property, we sat down and discussed what their goals and plans were with the property. And the goal is to -- to subdivide it primarily to allow housing for -- for predominantly family members, won't be entirely, but predominantly family members. I had prepared them just based on experience in subdivision, I have been doing this for 25 years now, for something along the order of one thousand dollars in subdivision review fees from the county. And when I came down to get the fee schedule, they e-mailed me one, I couldn't read it. I came down to the office to pick a fee schedule up. The two numbers in question, the two ways you can calculate this are short form process which we qualify for because we're not building streets. I came up with the November of $6,229 you may not be including the septic review fee, that's the difference between my number and her number there. But if we were to do a long form process, come before you twice with the preliminary and final, I have a number of $877, which is in line with what I had shipmented based on what I would have expected the fees to be. So when we came to those numbers and that conclusion and realized we were a $5,000 difference, I started questioning what is the rationale there it doesn't make sense if we are building roads that it's basically 20% of what it would be if we're not building roads. I talked with the staff in Commissioner eckhardt's office, I talked with the staff in your office, too, judge Biscoe and Commissioner eckhardt called me back later in the afternoon and we talked and she seemed to understand my concerns, felt that I -- not putting words in her mouth, she felt like it was worthy of discussion, you all are taking another look at that based on this type of a scenario. I have a proposal here and part of what I looked at, when I talked with -- with -- joe over in t.n.r., the septic review fees have a graduated schedule. There's $25 allotted for the first four, and thereafter.
>> [indiscernible] something like that makes sense to me because your up front run covers primary effort by staff to review the project, there may be additional time but on something like this one that we are proposing it's a fairly simple straightforward subdivision from my perspective. I do have he-- I will pass that around. I do have a proposal here with numbers that are based on such a schedule. And it's using the $852 fee -- pass those around. Fee for the first three lots and then I threw a number in there of $25 a lot for the other lots. I'm just throwing this out for y'all's discussion. This would bring the fees down to $2,921, that does still include the septic review fee.
>> your bottom line total, absent the septic review fee, is 2,921.
>> yes, sir.
>> > again, that's just another -- another spread sheet. I just threw together last night when I was looking at this, thinking I need to come to the table with something to offer as a suggestion, at least I felt like I needed to.
>> I think that was -- that was wise of you. My concern and I think we discussed this over the phone some, my concern is doing an ad hoc alternative process. I hear -- but I understand your concerns about larger numbers of lots. It might be something that -- that -- t.n.r. Should review for a graduated schedule. I would be reluctant to doing it, to -- without having that review to be sure this would actually cover our costs, based on history it looks like. If we were to do this we would set a precedent that would also affect at least in terms of what's occurred in the past, there have been 15 short form plats with seven or more lots since 2004. So -- so we can probably consider there are going to be five or so per year. That would set a press department. I would like -- precedent. I would like to make sure we are doing the right thing before we set such a press precedent.
>> if I may, I understand what mr. Mcminn is saying comparing it to the long form plat application. I would just like to say a combination of -- if he were to do a combination of a preliminary plan and long form plat application, a little bit of why that fee is different than what he is seeing on short form. The preliminary plan fee is based on a per acreage -- based on per acres. That was the way that we best were able to tie it to a cost driver, the number of acres at that stage made sense. On the long form plat, there is an acre component. There is a lot component. It's much -- it's much smaller, it's $44 per lot. Then there's also a linear foot for the -- for the roads that are being put in to deal with the set review and inspection. So -- so then there's a flat -- flat -- excuse me, a flat plat fee. And so -- so there were different drivers, different things that went into the review and that seemed to be the best way to capture it. I can also tell you that over the years I think that I have been a part of -- of at least 3, 4, 5, different looks that are plat fees and we always try to figure out what's the best way to charge it. Sometimes when -- when there was a larger fee based on per acres, acreage, you know, that seemed to be onerous to a lot of people. To find that right balance is an art form that -- that, you know, we all strive for.
>> do we think that -- that -- that our short form plat fee is comparable to what the other jurisdictions in central Texas charge?
>> I will need to look to see what the other jurisdictions, how they currently charge. I don't know that it is. I don't know that it's not. I don't know that the other jurisdictions that they capture in their fees we try to capture costs, I don't know to what extent they are subsidized by their form of the general fund. I also don't know if their reviews are as complex as ours are. So honestly I don't know. We certainly could look.
>> do you recall whether we made a comparison in 2004?
>> yes, sir. We did.
>> we did.
>> let me ask you if we can just get -- so if you have -- if you have seven lots, you got one lot we spend so much time reviewing it, to get the job done. So if you have seven, do we treat each one of them like it's a new one or -- is that -- it's all part of one plat. All of the lots, you know, we look at it as a whole. All of the lots we look at, you know, and each lot is unique. That's -- there is somewhat of a challenge for us when -- when we look at fees,, you know, some plats are very easy to review. Then there are other plats no matter what we charge we are never going to recoup the money on a controversial plat. So we take ail of that information into account when we try to look to -- to set fees. What I would recall is that we did hire an on site consultant to help us evaluate our review process, all of the steps that we take and try to figure out how we cover what it costs us. To pass that cost on to -- to applicant's basically. So we painstakingly arrive at the numbers, but sometimes you have -- you know, you know, unexpected impact. I'm sort of in a quandary about what to do myself.
>> > if I take my road frontage, multiply by $1.25 per linear foot, I am looking at another 1284, plus 877, 2161 less than my proposed number by almost $800.
>> I'm prepared to do a long form process and go through the readings, but t.n.r. Said I couldn't because I'm not -- not building roads. I will pay the $1.25 fee and a third of what's going to charge me to do a short form. There's no logic. I will pay that $1,200, there's no review involved.
>> I'm having trouble with this, I don't feel comfortable with what you are suggesting. The reason why I do not feel comfortable is because there have been -- whatever reason t.n.r. Has set up guidelines. They based it on -- on whatever -- whatever practice they felt was best for Travis County. Flow, this is outside of t.n.r. -- now, this is outside of t.n.r.'s guidelines. Something we do every week, we come in look at different plats, approve different plats, whether short form, long form, whatever. But we are in the business of doing that. Of course there are moneys associated with it. And what I'm thinking is that there maybe someone else out there to say heck, well heck with the t.n.r.'s regulation, the heck with the guidelines, and this is my circumstance. And I would like to present it as I said. And see if that will be acceptable. And of course if we end up doing that, then we will have to probably end up doing a case-by-case basis instead of just a general overview of what we need to do now. I think what we can do is probably look at the overall structure of the practice that we are dealing with and see if there may be room for improvement. But as far as I can see this morning, I -- I don't see that. Now -- I understand, I sympathize with what you are saying here. But it would be a precedent setting situation, in my mind, that means that all of the plats out there may have short form, may have same, similar concerns that you have this morning. And then what do we do? So -- so my concern is -- is to -- to -- to allow t.n.r. To proceed as they are doing, but again I -- I need to hear from t.n.r. On this and in other words if -- let me ask this question, t.n.r. Have we ever done anything like that before in the past?
>> is the question have we ever taken an alternative to the approved fee structures?
>> yes.
>> not to my knowledge.
>> okay.
>> that -- that's the question that I -- that I'm looking for an answer. And if we have -- you know, but from what I'm hearing that we haven't. I think that I heard Commissioner eckhardt who is the -- the Commissioner of -- of this particular location where this plat short form plat is -- is being brought before us today, and -- and I'm just -- I'm wrestling with this, but I don't feel comfortable at all with -- with what you are suggesting. So that's where I'm coming from, at least you know where I'm coming from on this.
>> I see where you are coming from. But again I go back to my original question when this first came to my attention. I don't understand the rationale I can go one routes and do it for $4,000 than the other route. I don't know how to have you ever that to my client and again they are doing this primarily as a family subdivision situation.
>> I understand.
>> and this -- this difference in numbers may affect their ability to do the project.
>> I understand. And don't think that I'm not sympathetic of what you are telling me this morning
>> [multiple voices] I really am. I'm just trying to find a nexis as far as what we have done in the past, as far as what you are requesting now, what kind of impact will that have on other person that's may have the same concerns as your client have. The same similar situation could come before this court again. And so -- so if -- so that's why I asked, forward the question to t.n.r. Staff, have we done this in the past as far as an alternative situation as far as dealing with our fees, the answer to that was not to their knowledge. So I can't remember being -- since I've been here as a Commissioner, a similar situation as what we're talking about this morning. So -- so that's my concern. I hope that you understand.
>> oh, I do. And if doing basically five a year, I'm guessing that's probably a fairly small number compared to the number of subdivisions that you do review. I have been surveying in Austin, Travis County 25 years this coming March, I think this is the fourth, maybe fifth one that I have done that is totally within Travis County's jurisdiction, no city involved. So I know that it's -- in my scope of business this is a rather unusual circumstance. The other one that's I have done have been like I'm talking here two or three lots at a time.
>> mr. Mcminn you have been very, very reasonable throughout all of this, laid it out in a very clear way. I would like to say t.n.r. Also has been very reasonable in providing information on this. This is what I would like to do and I don't know if it's going to help you out in this circumstance a great deal depends on the time frame. I would like to ask t.n.r. To use your circumstance as a case study and run it through and see if it is appropriate to create a graduated circumstance for short form with lots of lots, with more than the average number of lots. I don't know if they can do that in a time frame that will help you out. But I -- but I think that -- that the circumstance that you bring to us and your willingness to discuss it in a really rational and open way is a huge help to us from a governmental perspective. T.n.r., what do you think a time frame would be on -- on taking a look at that to see if it would be appropriate to do a -- a graduated scale for short form above -- above the average.
>> I would say we should be able to get back in two weeks.
>> okay. And I'll be honest. I would be inclined to go with whatever they say because for the very reasons that Commissioner Davis stated, I have a good deal of confidence in our t.n.r., that they are reasonable and rational and aren't trying to stick it to the -- to the folks. And that I also am concerned about procedurally the creating a slippery slope whereby we end up with a political procedure rather than a policy procedure for our fee schedule. And -- I knew that you would based on our previous conversations I knew that you would
>> [indiscernible]
>> so I would move that t.n.r. Review the appropriateness of a graduated fee schedule for short form plats above an average number of lots. I don't know whether it should be an --
>> I don't know if we are posted for that. Why don't you request staff to do it.
>> I would ask staff to do it and ask for two weeks to bring it back.
>> what would our response be if mr. Mcminn were to take his paperwork, put at the top, long form process requested or something to that effect. We would look at it and decide it's not appropriate for a long form review?
>> yes, sir. It doesn't have the -- doesn't have the streets and that's what we would look at.
>> that's the definition, if it has roads in there it's long form. No roads, short form.
>> yes, sir.
>> > otherwise you admire his creativity on that, you know, even if he named it mr. Mcminn's long form subdivision, he would still be viewing it as a short form.
>> okay.
>> okay, there's a request that we look at the possibility of a graduated schedule. And report back to the court under an appropriately worded agenda item.
>> okay.
>> I would appreciate that.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank y'all.
>> thanks.
>> thank you very much. Joe, since we have you there -- 21 --
>> 21 needs about 10 more minutes. I'm told that john is -- just got the paperwork, he's about 10 minutes -- needs about 10 minutes more. If you want to do another agenda item and pick him up next after that.
>> did we put 26 a and b on the consent motion? .there's ms. Flemming. 24.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:03 PM