Travis County Commissioners Court
March 9, 2010,
Item 7A
7-A, consider and take appropriate action on the following proposals to reuse the precinct four road and bridge office.
1, an onion creek greenway trail head.
2, an emergency medical services station.
3, farmers market.
and 4, city/county park maintenance facilities.
>> this is related to the onion creek vision plan.
so before we proceeded on to adopt that as our plan, I wanted to make sure I had this front and center before the court.
it is a change in policy and I'm recommending to the court that we be able to reuse the abandoned precinct four road and bridge yard.
you may remember back in 2005 the court authorized the construction of an east service center, which is the merger of satellite one, two -- one, two and four into one east service center.
so we have a west service center and an east service center for the road and bridge operations.
as part of that I told the court that we would sell both the abandoned satellite one and satellite four.
we currently have satellite one under contract.
the sale is pending litigation.
we're involved with an adjoining property owner, but we expect to see our way through that.
so this was the other part of it.
but in looking at, as we started planning the greenway, we realized that 65% of this site, precinct four yard, is in the floodplain of onion creek and also not only would it make a good piece of the greenway, but also has the old 183 abandoned bridge which could serve as part of the trail system.
so we started relooking at the east satellite four yard, about possibly reusing it both for park maintenance as a trail head for the greenway, but also in terms of sheds that are along the area as a possible venue for a farmers market for produce, produced locally in southeast Travis County.
then about that time danny hobby came to me and asked me if e.m.s.
could make temporary use of the satellite four yard because they were looking for an improved location for responses to southeast Travis County.
and they wanted to try this site out.
so I said well, first of all, we're going to sell the site, so just semply you can use it and so he set up and they've done some analysis on the site.
it's already got water and wastewater, telephone, telecommunications.
and from their analysis it would make an adeal site for an e.m.s.
station, a city-county e.m.s.
station.
he would be here to address that, but he had a prior scheduled meeting at a quarter until noon.
so he thought this might come up this afternoon.
so anyway, the idea that I have before you is really to not sell the satellite four yard, but to reuse it for other public purposes.
what you forego in not selling it is about half a million dollars.
and that is what we estimate that when the market comes back -- we're not recommending -- tnr is not recommending that we sell the site at all at this point in time because of the depressed nature of the commercial market.
but going beyond that we're recommending that it's got probably some public uses that are as valuable as that.
so we would want to bring this to the court for your consideration.
>> and I think especially the e.m.s.
station, judge, that's the most pressing.
and of course it does lend itself to the other two, a and b -- a and c.
and actually 1, 3 and 4, in addition to number 2.
and so -- and especially with the -- I think times are changing.
there is some dproatd that's going to definitely be coming there once the economy bounces back.
and so I think that it would -- it's a good recommendation to follow.
and I would certainly approve tnr's recommendation.
>> I'll need a week.
i guess I'm having a hard time visualizing an ambulance coming in and out and people picking up farm to market products on Saturday and Sunday.
>> the pad for the e.m.s.
is actually up on the higher elevation outside the floodplain.
and the farmers market would be -- first of all, farmers market as we see it would be kind of a weekend event, Saturday morning.
so it would only be a temporary use.
if it's on the lower level, so actually, we could probably segregate the uses, at least for most of the time.
i think overall we don't see a major conflict except if there's a call during the farmers market.
and we've got a little bit of an issue.
during the regular weekdays, we'll have an automated gate that the e.m.s.
would open when they respond to a call.
for us it also provides a 24/7 presence on the property, so we have somebody on the property in case we have an emergency response in the greenway, they're right there.
so we see some synergy there just having the station on the site.
but in terms of a conflict, which you asked about, when you have public present on the site and there's an e.m.s.
call, then you would have a conflict at the gate, a unit trying to get out while the public are trying to get in.
>> I think we ought to hear danny on the e.m.s.
and hold somebody accountable.
i guess the problem I'm having is when this strategy was brought to us years appeared years ago, it made sense to me because we were spending a substantial amount of new dollars on a consolidated facility, that's the east side service center.
the cost of which would be offset to some extent by selling the two satellite offices, 1 and 4, that we would discontinue using.
and we would take the proceeds of sale and apply it to the debt.
and if we didn't do that, at least in our minds, we could think this 10-million-dollar facility cost 10 million bucks, but we offset part of it by selling the other two.
i think we thought we would get about three million dollars, I recall.
now we're looking at two and a half is what you're saying.
>> it's actually -- if we sold both we would be on target for what we said back in may of 2005.
we indicated to the court that we might be able to get -- generate about $2.3 million from the sale of both facilities.
the contract we have on one would generate about two million dollars if we can finally get it done.
with the sale of satellite 4 at 500 it would come in at about what we said, 2.3 million.
so again, I understand there is a -- foregoing half a million dollars by a recommendation, but we still will have the two million dollars from the sale of one.
>> it's also not keeping our covenant with taxpayers.
>> well, it's more --
>> that is more important.
>> yeah.
>> now, we may -- he may be able to get there with my vote.
but ignored for this to be a city-county park maintenance facility, what modifications do we need to make to the site?
>> I don't see any modifications to the site.
the maintenance facilities, one is a shop, which is a very similar type of shop that we have at any of our metropolitan parks for -- we basically store all our mowing equipment, tools, we'd eaters, stuff they would use in the park.
the maintenance shop is just set up for that.
it also has a show-up room for crews.
we could use that just as it is.
there's also another large butler building, metal building with concrete floor, for dry storage of materials, fertilizers, whatever.
so I don't see any major changes to the site for the park maintenance purposes.
the only new building -- that is really just a -- almost like a mobile home, is the e.m.s.
shop, which is -- I think it's just really a mobile home set up for a crew quarters.
and the e.m.s.
vehicle itself is just sitting outside, hooked up to electricity.
it doesn't require a whole lot to set up for the e.m.s.
other than that the sheds are the sheds.
we wouldn't be doing a whole lot to them but making them available and probably clearing out the parking area.
the other part of this recommendation is to move the fuel storage stations.
we have a fueling station there right now, which is active.
the sheriff's department comes out there, fuels their vehicles up.
they have asked, even before we put together this memo that that be relocated to the del valle minimum security area because that's where a lot of the deputies go anyway.
it would still be available for all county vehicles, tnr, packs or sheriff to refuel at that location over at the del valle.
so the functionality is still there, it just won't be at presing four.
>> lied like to -- I'd like to a chat with danny hobby.
i can do that before next Tuesday or next Tuesday.
>> that's fine.
not a rush on it.
i didn't want to make sure you Wednesday forward to adopt the plan without dpeelg with it straightforward.
>> I have a couple of questions to throw thaw that doesn't need to be answered today.
i think it's relative to danny.
one of them is if we're talking about trade-offs on selling the property or perhaps the need to buy other property if we're not going to locate the emergency medical services there, what would that cost be -- that trade-off be if there is another location to own and emergency services could be put.
and secondly if there's a fuel storage center there, do we have any idea of the environmental issues on the site that might indeed impact what we might be able to realize for the land?
>> the fueling probably not.
they are all above ground tanks.
there might be some issues of emulsions that were stored there from the road and bridge.
they would have to be moved out.
>> how far is this from Mustang Ridge?
>> it's on 183 versus --
>> is that what we were trying to locate?
an e.m.s.
site, Mustang Ridge?
>> that's a little further down towards lockhart.
>> I think it's a good three or four miles down.
>> does this meet that need?
>> I'd have to -- danny, I'm sorry danny couldn't be here.
he would probably be able to address that issue.
>> the other question for danny is whether he has worked with the powers that be in whatever community this serves.
we did something like this in minor, we moved a site from harris branch out to manor and they had -- but manor owned that facility.
>> I will convey all this to danny.
if you want to reschedule for next week, he can address those issues.
>> we need to reschedule and I think we need danny here.
we'll try to get to it earlier.
>> he was -- actually, he will be coming back this afternoon because he thought this would probably come up this afternoon.
so if you want to roll this for the afternoon, you could probably finish it up.
>> I want to take another week.
>> all right.
>> I'm not taking a week for danny, I'm taking a week for Sam Biscoe.
>> you're the judge.
>> move that we recess until 1:30.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 2:53 PM
