Travis County Commissioners Court
March 30, 2010,
Item 20
18 we'll call up in had executive session.
19 is, we passed on consent.
part of the consent motion.
20, consider and take appropriate action on can to include potential city of Austin Travis County transportation cost-share projects in future county bond referendums.
>> good afternoon, judge.
with me is charlie watts from tnr.
about four or five weeks ago we came before the court to advice you that the city of Austin was in the process of develop, a list of bond projects for their strategic mobility plan.
their bond referendum is coming up in November.
we were approached by city of Austin transportation plan staff and asked if we wanted to sit down with them and develop a list jointly.
for those projects that cross jurisdictional boundaries, and there are quite a few, either par in the full purpose annexation areas or partially in the two-year near term annexation areas of the city and partially in the etj unincorporated areas.
what we developed is shown at the back of your agenda backup.
and you should have a map coming to you very quickly by charlie.
i'll quickly walk through the project is for you--projects for you.
one thing that you would notice on the spreadsheet, there's a list of three tiers of projects.
the first are the projects that we feel would have the best opportunity for getting placed, for competing for placement on a city bond referendum.
keeping in mind that the city has advised us they have several hundred requests in.
so it's going to be very competitive.
they have their own process similar to ours of going through and prioritizing and ultimately placing on their own bond referendum.
it's possible that one or none could wind up on that referendum.
the idea, though, is if any do, we would reciprocate when we do our referendum in 2011 and obtain funding for our portion of the project.
also in the right-hand columns you can see a delineation showing city of Austin Travis County developer.
the developer column is left blank except for the one city of Pflugerville team.
thinking is that the city and county would approach a developer if we get the projects funded and get a commitment from developer to go forward when it comes time to develop the county's bond referendum.
so if for example one of these projects gets on let's say the wild horse connector, makes it to the city's referendum this falling and passes, we would then approach the developer, get a commitment before we place it on the county's bond referendum.
if it doesn't work out that way we would roll down the list until we can find a developer to participate or come back to court and say do you want to do this 50-50 with the city.
the numbers reflect a 50-50 cost share or as otherwise shown if it's not a 50-50, an its because there's a larger portion of the project in the city or common.
so it's the prorata share but the full amount needed to build that project.
so on the map that you have before you, it's debt call to what we are showing here.
all of the projects are in the city's desired development zone.
that was one thing that we picked up on real quick.
they kept all their projects east of I 350 which is the desired development zone.
most are in the main area.
the conversations this mortgage with the gentleman from manor, he was referring to projects in this quadrant.
the projects in blue are already funded, county, city developer projects already underway.
the red projects are projects that we would like to have competed.
generally gap completion projects, projects that would complete an extension of a particular project or a gap in a particular roadway project.
and they are nal --all in areas where we anticipate existing traffic congestion problems or will have significant congestion problems in the future.
the ones in the manor area the gentleman this morning was alluding to, whisper valley, eastwood, wolf track, all of those would generate tens of thousands of vehicles.
these would help us get ahead of the curve, get planning down and get some of these built before the build out occurs.
you heard the developers say this could be a 15-20 year process.
it would be nice to have this in process.
otherwise we do end up with brody lane and we want to avoid that.
the projects are listed on your sheet.
we, like we said, the top tier are the ones we think would be most competitive.
if the city is successful in getting all of these on, we could come back to y'all and see if we can put these on the 2011 bond referendum for the county.
>> steve.
>> yes, sir.
>> good points you're bringing up, especially to the conversation that we did have with item 18 this morning.
i would like to make sure that the voting public understands these particular cost sharing events are to go before the voters, of course, this fiscal year 10 for November this year, calendar year 10 for the city, of course, we'll be looking at this in year 11 for our turn to place these.
however, in looking at these, we have a pretty good track record, I think, as far as the people, the private public partnership arrangement we have made in the past, especially when you have the entities of the developer, Travis County, along with the city of Austin.
i want to make sure that in these tier projects it's indicated that these arrangements may be made again, looking towards that end.
so I know you haven't brought up the people or anything like that but I think that is the direction that I'd like to maybe see it go in.
don't want to divorce ourselves from that type of scenario as we dealt with in the past.
>> understood, Commissioner.
public-private is the preferred way to fund these projects.
the developers in the area we have been talking to about creating this regional pot of transportation infrastructure funds, they have been looking at the list with us.
we have been meeting with folks from minor and tex dot and city of Austin am they are still awaiting a prioritized list but this is generally what we would like to see happen.
they will put money into a pot, we would like to see, that the county would use to leverage prior ty projects on the list.
the way it's shown now is what Travis County and developers would like to see.
the develop would like to see the wild horse connector built first.
we have other higher priority needs in that area as well.
tus canny is one that we would consider a higher priority.
for those that the developers will benefit from, that would be our first tack.
if the city approves, we are going to be knocking on their doors to get a commitment.
similar to what e we did in 2005.
we had half a dozen projects and were successful in negotiating agreements with most but two did fall by the wayside.
couldn't get an agreement established.
so those monies went to a tier two project.
>> exactly.
>> and that one is underway.
i envision a similar thing happening this time as well.
>> okay.
>> how do we get over, there may be no answer for this, in which case I'd just like to highlight as a factor that exists.
how do we ensure against circumstances in which hypothetically there are ten developers or parties to whom we are going for contribution and eight come on board in the last and say oh, great, eight come on board and I'll just wait you ou.
>> that has happened.
>> and has happened.
>> and it has happened, you're correct.
well, we can come back to the Commissioners court and say okay what do you want to do with this?
do you want to, and the way our participation agreements have been written for these other 2005 projects is if the county and the developers can't come to agreement on getting the project completed, it's the county's choice whether it wants to opt out at that point.
and we have had a couple situations where, that we're still trying to work through to get the developers to participate in the full length of a project.
we have some gaps.
and those haven't fallen apart yet.
i'm thinking we are going to get it worked out but it sure would relieve a lot of answer if --angs if we knew up front that everybody was going to be on board.
you're right, some could wait out the rest of the pack but I'm hoping with peer pressure with their developer buddies they will bring them into the fold.
>> I only bring it up because many have expressed a believe that private market can fix this but that can be the fatal fall.
>> there could be.
it is a risk but it is one that we are able the manage so far.
>> by approving this we send the list to the city of Austin and it reviews our list as it puts together its list.
then if they choose a joint, a project on the joint list, then we are sort of commiting that we will try to fund it also.
>> correct, judge, not a contract chal obligation, more of a moral thing.
if they are successful, then we should follow behind them and do the same thing.
>> questions, comments?
>> what is the incentive for the development here?
if we have already said we are going to jointly look with the city and county?
>> we have had some conversations with the developers on the regional funding concept and these are the roads we are talking about.
mr.
aarons was correct and said hey, we need to take a look at the big picture and they suggested a pot of money to help build the regional roads.
>> steve, we had some conversation on this before.
i'm wondering with regard to working with these specific developers in this kwan quadrant over by the manor region, it is so starved for infrastructure.
there has been some discussion in the county and campo to developer transportation sheds to alleviate concerns that there will be money in the pot that will be used for some other project that doesn't benefit them.
have we identified the transportation sheds that are going to be affected by this pool of money so that we can answer that question to developers?
look, it may be used over here and you may not think it's related, but we have clearly demonstrated this is a transportation channel.
>> that was very important in the conversations that we have already had with the development community in this area.
they want to know how we are going to spend the money.
they want us to prioritize it.
when we do submit the list to the transportation planning group, again, we will sit down and agree upon or prioritize spending that money and that will alleviate that concern for thempt at least --for them.
at least they seem to think if we prioritize that is how the money will be spent.
>> as we move forward with the Travis County comprehensive plan I would like to put in a plug for establishing those kinds of transportation sheds throughout the county so that we can continue exactly this kind of intergovernmental public private collaboration on planning so that we can, it's understandable the private community says, you know, what are you going to do for me with this cash.
i understand that desire to know.
we can prove it up.
>> and we have.
there are other areas like minor that are just as ready to explode, in your precinct, Commissioner.
>> exactly.
>> this is the pilot project we are taking but once we get established it's something I can see being used throughout the county.
>> I have no problem with it.
i wanted to make sure that, that is why I brought the point to mr.
williams when he came in with the park springs nab hood group and others groups that have been playing an integrate part in this process.
i guess my final question, I like to move approval of this as soon as possible, is to make sure this list gets to the city of Austin and say--
>> second.
>> okay, thank you, judge.
a cost sharing effort.
however, in the light, lime light of that, when we would probably get a good case from the city of Austin in this cost sharing effort that these are the projects that we can kind of go with as far as the recommendation coming from Travis County.
when can we probably have some good inkling of their intent as far as what we are presenting to them on these priorized projects steve?
>> I would think a good indicator is if it makes it through the bond referendum list.
they will be working on short listing projects from here until November.
they should have it all ready to go in September, October time frame.
so we should know.
if our project is on their list, it's probably going to be okay and we can start conversations with developrs at that point.
>> okay.
>> any discussion on the motion?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 2:10 PM
