Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 15, 2010,
Item 17
Item no. 17 is to receive briefing and take appropriate action related to the community outreach listening session findings for the travis county central campus master plan.
>> good morning judge, commissioners,.
>> good morning.
>> backwards there.
>> thank you very much, my name is steven colston, the principal with broaddus planning, i'm with
>> [indiscernible] the planner for the travis county central campus master planning project. Today we wanted to share with you a little bit of an update on progress during the master planning project. Most specifically the outcomes of -- of something that we have been focused on very deliberately over the last few weeks, which is our public outreach session related to the -- to the input from the community for the master plan. We will walk you through a little bit of -- of how we went through the community outreach process, what some of our observations and kind of a recap on the discussions that we're -- that occurred and what our key take aways were from that discussion. And a quick update on what our next steps are. And we've -- we've added on to this for our questions and discussions a little bit of a prebriefing for you for follow-up conversation, a discussion about -- about a -- about a qualitative priority matrix related to some of the scenarios we'll be looking at for the long range downtown plan. For the project update, we're -- we're currently here in the middle part of june. We have the first blue dot that you see on the diagram in front of you represents the -- the outcomes of the public relations or excuse me the public outreach working session and including one of those sessions which actually involved a public hearing with the commissioners court. The -- the -- just to kind of give you a quick reminder overview of what we cover during the community involvement phases, we've -- we've organized during the -- during the phase 2, remember the first phase was for the -- was for the internal needs assessment phase which was primarily focused internally on understanding the priorities for space requirements and growth over the 2010, 2015, 2035 horizons for travis county. The phase 2 process is focused more deliberately on how we take the -- the assessment of those needs and practically apply them to facilities and space and real estate in the downtown area. And through that process, we actually started dealing with our tangible built environment in the community and we really want to hear what the communities thoughts and input are as we go through the development of this plan. So we have developed a -- a public outreach plan that engages the community at three major milestones throughout the process. We kicked off the phase 2 master planning process in february. We have organized a session, the first one with the big ear on there is the listening session that we had in -- in may. Then we actually have a series of community charettes that we have in the summertime frame, then after the first of the year reporting on the outcomes of the master plan. So probably one of the most robust phases for us in terms of the public outreach has been this initial one because that's where we're making first contact, if you will. And really deliberately engaging conversations in groups that will hopefully be engaging in a broader forum as we progress through the course of the project. So how -- how did the -- how did the outreach process work? Well, we covered a -- we covered a lot of different ground. Fliers, evites, you know, from a social media perspective, surveys, we engaged, physical surveys, engaging over 115 stakeholders, we had contact with the media over 275 media contacts posted about 120 fliers around town which we think was probably going to go up during the next phase of the process and we actually had on line responses to the survey with similar questions that we posted on the travis county central campus master plan website as well. So we're pleased with the -- with the aggregate level of response that we -- that we received over the course of the project. We basically -- walked everyone through kind of what's been going on, what has the county been focus on for the last year as it relates to the needs assessment piece and where are we going? We had a couple of folks contacted us and said, well, i've been on the website, i have tried to down load the plan and review it before i come to the meeting so i could, you know, give you a response on the plan. I said you didn't find it right. No, we couldn't find it anywhere. That's exactly correct. We really aren't coming out to roll something out to you without your input. We want to listen to you first. And make sure that we can craft the thoughts and feedback and communication that you share with us into the plan as it's developed. So it's a plan of fundamentally derived through very engaging process both within the county and -- employment and elected officials proper but also with -- through a collaborative process with the community. We asked about different attributes of the campus, problems, major concerns, priorities, key issues that we thought that the community -- that the community thought that might be best to consider. We had 14 different focus groups for this first session that we broke down into some key kind of almost one on one sessions where we bring in groups and staggered them over a series of days. The first group that -- i think that we presented in one of our prior forums to you, the list of who all of these focus groups were for your review. Each of you had an opportunity to augment the list of folks that went out in terms of correspondence. I have to give a lot of credit to our public outreach communications consultant,
>> [indiscernible] communications, who some of the folks said well i decided to come to this meeting today after i got the third telephone call from ashley saying please come to this meeting. So we really tried very deliberately to get input. The first session we had was with the civil and family groups. So what i'm going to be conveying to you is the feedback that came from each one of these different focus groups and the community feedback at large. So -- so my disclaimer is don't shoot the messenger. I'm kind of a mirror of your community. This is kind of the aggregate response that we heard in our community forums when we asked people to give us their thoughts and opinions about -- about the county and some of its facilities. One of the first things that we heard from the family and civil community was that -- that heman marian sweat courthouse is outdated and inefficient a challenge for configurations in the existing space that in general they thought that the facility in its current impression or in its current configuration is not leaving a very good first impression on the county. Whereas it should be a real point of pride. And that's not getting accentuated quite the way that it could. They talked a lot about the need for civil courts facilities and what the -- what the appropriate uses of a new civil courthouse might be. And i won't go through the long list, but you can see those in of course your backup. The second group was with the criminal justice community. Similarly, they shared with us that they felt that -- that the criminal justice center was inefficient in terms of -- of some of its configuration. The size of the courtrooms, the limitation of number of court rooms per floor. We heard a lot about the elevator when we talked about the criminal justice center and challenges for that as it relates to access within the building. The -- the -- one of the things in terms of convenience of location in the downtown area was -- was seen as a very positive and there was a general agreement that most if not all of the county facilities related to the cjc and criminal justice should probably remain in the downtown area. Wish list from their perspective were more focused on opportunities for having private engagement, for speaking with clients, i think this was between both civil and criminal. Increase -- increase footage within the grand jury rooms and more parking, which was -- which was kind of a constant throughout all of our discussions. And these -- i'll just remind you, each one of these groups are a composite, a cross-section of representatives. Not just individual representatives from one particular constituency group that fell within the category of family and civil and fell within the category of criminal, but it's not only representatives from -- from specific constituencies. We also met with the -- owe with the representatives from the chambers of commerce and the downtown business community. The -- the feedback from them was that the facilities were outdated and unattractive, that really this plan should create a sense of space and -- and a campus feel. That there should be some kind of standards for design that get integrated into the development of your new facilities and that the look and the
>> [indiscernible] from these facilities should really be enhanced. There seems to be support from this group for a jail facility maybe being more pumped at the del valle -- purposeed at del valle rather than downtown, they would love to see the county maximize the current real estate initiative to -- to its land holdings to its fullest extent versus taking more real estate off the tax rolls. They would like to see a change in travis county's current parking policy from the mindset of employees in the community to use public transportation and alternative means of -- of -- of getting around. We met with group number 4, law enforcement, herd that central booking seems to be inefficiently configured. It requires running between the two different buildings. The layouts make it difficult sharing central booking, 24, 27 hour housing is actually co-mingled with the comings and goings of the holding and transport related to criminal courts. Parking from their perspective was inadequate and concerned about maybe the downtown being too crowded but on the other hand he said but, you know, all things being equal maybe it is still kind of the best location for us to be addressing those.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners] less surface parking, but a way to figure out how to have more parking overall. Transportation options, to the extent that there were more opportunities for engaging in alternative means of transportation will be great. Is there a way to engage in discussions with the state that might help us sort of pool publicly owned parking in such a way that maybe government wouldn't have to build as much parking. Their current concerns about the space deficiency coupled with the view corridors, and i think was -- we're kind of puzzled with how we were going to address that issue. The county should use current space and building as efficiently as possible and there was a conversation about in each of these neighborhood meetings about wooldridge square park, the shape of the facility kind of lending towards deactivated edges and that the county should try to figure out how to help activate the edges. That a vibrant park really is equivalent to the surrounding -- the area surrounding it in terms of its vibrancy. From the private neighbors, we heard that there seems to be too much surface parking and it doesn't lend itself very well to a park and pedestrian kind of experience. The asset of the wooldridge square park doesn't seem to be very leverage understand that regard and kind of walking experience through the urban streetscape, but the travis county campus is not conducive to that in its current configuration. There was concern about there not being any parking for visitors and that there seemed to be no direction leading them to the right confineds of location for parking. I think that kind of fundamentally came back down to issues of way finding as well as how that ties into mass transit or alternative transportation means. They also communicated to us that they felt that the historic heman sweatt courthouse has become old, it's become outdated and it should be repurpd, reutilized and essentially become a positive asset of the community. To the extent that it can engage the community in a more robust dialogue about the historic aspects of the county and the things that happen there i think was very much of interest to them. And that ties back to the last comment of needing better civic space for county users. They said it would be really great -- i think as we look in our community, the state capitol complex and the austin city hall set the bar pretty high recently in terms of what our community's expectations is for government facilities. And that's portrayed in the comments we heard back, which we would really like to see more civic spaces for county users in general and that the public feels more engaged and has access to use and enjoy them. We met with representatives from the historic community, and one of the comments was how can you call this a campus master plan? There's really no campus to what you're describing here in terms of identity, streetscape, the feel, with the exception of the heman mayor john sweatt courthouse, there's little in wait of facilities. The park has potential it, could be restored. The county could place some active uses around the park and that would be really wonderful. The notion of a lack of parking and transportation alternatives kept coming back to the old notion of folks, jurors being able to ride the dillo down to -- down to auditorium shores and back i think was a benefit that folks seemed to be missing. The streetscape and what's built and that it should be designed in such a way that it's compatible with the historic structures. The alternative uses again for hms courthouse that could engage the community in a more meaningful way and the way it portrays in terms of county development. We listened to representatives from social services, which was interesting. As we went through the group, the ones that came back to us and -- it was actually representative of this group that probably articulated comments in general more effectively than i am this morning, which was essentially their comment about lack of pride in the facilities. They said travis county should really instill a sense of greatness throughout the architecture. The new facilities should be reflective of the values of community and government here. And that the county should really be trying to set the bar in terms of design, energy efficiency, quality and openness of facilities. The last bullet on this page talks about that the county intends tore very transparent in its actions and that the facilities should likely reflect this as well. One of the things we learned is that the downtown location is a convenient location in terms of having a core group of areas -- of programmatic areas grouped together. However, the buildings aren't attractive and their conditions are less than ideal. Guadalupe and lavaca we discovered is a transit group corridor over the transit plans as it relates to bus rapid transit, ultimately urban rail, which is a great thing for us particularly with the acquisition of 700 lavaca, which creates even a bit more after challenge to create a core campus area with facilities a bit more spread out. To create connectivity throughout transportation routes along here. We're at a good location as it relates to public transit along those lines. But in terms of the county supporting those alternate transportation modes, shower facilities, etcetera, in your buildings would be really great. The county facilities should try to integrate -- i don't think they're necessarily purposing that the county does this, but should become mixed use destinations that would get integrated into some of the development that would help revitalize the park. Andrew mcintosh more partnership -- and more partnership between the city, the county, capital metro as the plan moves forward.
>> do you know whether the shower facilities are recommended for county employees or the general public or what?
>> for employees. For employees. For employees who might be bicycling to work or running to work or something like that, they could shower in the existing building.
>> we had two public listening sessions, one which was i believe advertised or communicated broadly and was held on a saturday morning in the commissioners courtroom, and that was -- at the back end of this process was a public hearing with you, so that's something that you've already heard. In the first public listening session we heard that the downtown campus really was not cohesive in terms of image and identity. A request to respect the view corridors, to consider building below grade, to the extent that costs would allow. That the heman marion sweatt courthouse building should become a center point for image and identity in the community. And security -- they recognized that it was necessary for some facilities, but please respect the neighborhood as you go through that process. From a general comment, there was a thought that the landscape could be used to kind of create an opportunity to tie the campus facilities together in a way that could get more public appeal and pedestrian esthetic. It's kind of a low hanging fruit, if you will, in terms of creating some connectivity. The campus, as it now stands, tends to be a little bit after dead zone after five p.m., weekends, and opportunities for engaging the community could look at there being some opportunities for improvement there. New buildings should be great and not mediocre. Recognizing, of course, that the public may not support the expenses. So they shared both ends of that. From our session with you, it was very well attended by the austin bar association, as you may recall, who conveyed very deliberately their need for a new civil courthouse that was family friendly, had meeting rooms and conference rooms, and also it rated their priority, interest and initiative to preserve the heman marion sweatt courthouse as a major civic icon in our community. Our online survey results shared with us that mixed use in the downtown area was a priority. Affordability a concern and ranged highest -- ranked highest among biggest issues. Parking was named as the worst attribute of the central campus area. Civic pride was depicted as -- across the board as an issue with information. We have ways that people could score it and actually write in their comments as well that the building seemed old and worn and that there was an interest in preserving hms. Other responses talked about issues for after use of facilities, the campus feel and notions of sustainability and green development. So from us is we kind of went back and shook all these things out and realize where had things started to fall into consistency of piles, we identified some key takeaways. One was just related to campus. Creating a campus in general is going to be a challenge with wait the facilities are configured. And that we heard a consistent image that the buildings -- consistent message that the buildings seemed a little bit worn and ugly. The esthetic quality should represent the pride of community. The environment, the natural environment, collaboration in government, and really kind of the transparency of the county government as well. And then we should really look for more partnerships between the city, county, cap metro, various groups as we move forward. We've learned that historic preservation was a key concern. I have very much an interest in preserving view corridors, respecting adjacent neighborhoods and keeping the heman marion sweatt courthouse as a focal point. Wooldridge square park needed to be engaged more deliberately and the edges needed to be activated. That we're in a transportation wonderful kind of environment over the long-term, but that the biggest priorities were for a civil courthouse now. In terms of access, the parking situation was perceived as pretty terrible. And not very visitor friendly. So the key message i think that we would convey to you kind of having kind of looked at this and analyzed a lot of it, is that the county facilities master plan, the central campus master plan needs to address very deliberately the core mission programmatic nuts and bolts, offices, courtrooms, storage space, etcetera, of county government, and that's what the needs assessment very deliberately portrays and quantifies in the phase 1 effort. But what we heard from the community is that the common vision for the facilities beyond that is much more broad. That they would like to see the county contribute to the context of the urban downtown area, facilitate gathering and collaboration, after hours uses, inclusion, considering inclusion of other mixed uses within the development, and that the county should really aspire to set the bar pretty high for the quality and aesthetics of the campus overall.
>> when i went through the presentation i looked at it -- i did notice a lot of input that came from several sources. And it came to me at that time that looking at the input that you received during this process, it just appeared to me that there is going to have to be significant cooperation with all the other governmental entities, especially if the county does not shift on some of these things that are being asked for us to do. Transportation, parking. A lot of things we don't have any control over that may lend itself to a good relationship with that governmental entity as we shoot forward looking for some kind of plan. Transportation is another big deal. Apparently these have to-- theed to be -- need to be looked at and addressed, but we come up with an accurate master plan, it just appears that there has to be significant input to see if the cooperation level -- you mentioned wooldridge park, for example. The county don't have ownership of that.
>> we have a real good friend who owns it, commissioner.
>> [ laughter ]
>> another real good friend who has a long-term lease on it.
>> [ laughter ]
>> but it just -- i didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead.
>> i was going to say as we were talking about various folks and they say why doesn't travis county do something about wooldridge square park? And we say that did you know that the park is actually owned by the state of texas and is managed and operated by the city of austin? But it's surrounded by county facilities, so everybody perceives that it's the county's responsibility.
>> correct.
>> and they're like oh really?
>> that's right. And you really break down the covering of a lot of these issues and it gets really down to independent governmental entities that have a role to play in this whole concept. So i think basically -- and it's going to play a role as far as how much it's going to cost too. And i think as we move forward there has to be significant cooperation with the other governmental entities. If the community -- not only the community, but all the stakeholders that we have visited in on these particular issues have voiced and echoed their concerns with those concerns there have to be a chiz he willing away of -- chiseling away of these things to make sure we get -- that we can really see the real image as far as what we're trying to do. And that means the governmental entities have to be on board. Parking is still a significant problem downtown. You come down here to take care of court business, you've got to parking meters all over the place and all these other kind of things. It's not visitor friendly, but we don't have control of parking, travis county doesn't. So there has to be some cooperation all across the line if we're going to proceed accordingly. And as i stated, as we chisel away a lot of these things we can really see the true image of what the master plan really should reveal. So that is my take and my spin on this is the request that things -- that folks are making, these requests cross governmental lines and then again how -- how -- what is the interest level of these governmental entities? You mentioned cap metro, the city of austin, you mentioned the state of texas. All these different folks involved. City of austin. What's their interest in what we're doing here, especially after we have -- have brought forth input from the citizens that are concerned looking at this? So that's a real -- make a tough question, but it's something that we're going to have to chisel away at so we can see the real true image of what the master plan is going to look like.
>> thank you.
>> any other questions or comments? Two things. One is that we do have a work session on parking scheduled for july 8th. Okay. Now, we got goodin put from downtown persons, associations, organizations, etcetera. Did we reach out to the neighborhood associations county-wide? Here's what i recommend. There are those questions that are set forth, five basic questions. Why don't we send those to the neighborhood associations and ask them to provide input? That basically is what many of the persons who attended the public meetings responded to, right?
>> right.
>> and the problem with us, our problem is that we cannot compel responses, but if we reach out more aggressively, we just may get feedback. And i would feel real good if we at least reached out to neighborhood associations, ask them to get with their members if possible, try to respond and tell them that we plan to incorporate this information, the responses into our planning. And my guess is that if we get 25 to 50% of them to respond, it would be a good thing.
>> okay.
>> can we do that? If we can get the names and addresses from the -- there is an austin neighborhood associations entity, right?
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> and i just would mail it to them and ask them to respond if possible.
>> we can actually do that perhaps through the online tool and have them kind of indicate two they are. We can talk a little bit how that might be done on the web. It's actually done through a web-based survey. We got responses from every zip code in the county, so that was good. We did get a little bit after cross-section beyond just the immediate downtown area.
>> i think at some point it would do the commissioners court good to be able to point to a document that was sent to various neighborhood associations on a date certain.
>> yes.
>> so i'm with you on that, but a more direct request might be what we need.
>> okay. We'll work on it.
>> anything else?
>> i wanted to throw a couple of things out there with regard to wooldridge square park. There is already discussion with city of austin parks department with regard to wooldridge square park and possibly allen park, the county park that sits inside the city limits. So we may be able to work out something there. The other thing i wanted to point out from all of the responses, and i do want to be clear that we shouldn't shoot the messenger here, broaddus and associates and steven has done a great job as well as the county staff at gathering all this information. I think we're hearing loud and clear that we do have an image issue with -- our image appears to be soviet block chic. But i also wanted to throw out there that i think what the community -- the community is asking for beauty and quality and that that does cost something, but it doesn't mean it has to be lavishly responsive. I don't want folks to react too strongly and the pendulum to swing too far in a recollectionnary direction because i think we have to take responsibility for the image that we are portraying as well as the level of collaboration that we have had historically with both the private and the public neighbors. I think that we're looking to have a higher degree of collaboration and integration.
>> this is great information. Thank y'all very, very much.
>> thank you. Our -- you asked, judge, that we share with you a brief draft of the evaluation matrix that we have begun to prepare for consideration of the scenarios that we're looking at for the development of the downtown plan. And we have -- catherine is going to walk you through that today and we shared the larger document for you to have an opportunity to review and provide comment and feedback on.
>> okay.
>> essentially this document will establish the criteria by which we grade our scenarios that we're developing. So it's important that we get the priorities right and make sure that they're all in there. And it tends to pull in the quantitative information as well as the qualitative information that we heard from the community. Essentially our first blush takes a stab at four criteria categories, space program, adjacent sis, site planning and urban design, and then also cost, efficacy and economy. Just to quickly run through some of the criteria that we've developed for each of those, this is very much a work in progress, so we would appreciate your feedback on this.
>> by when do you need feedback on this so we don't drag this out?
>> what we would like to do, commissioner, is give you a week or so to take a look at this, comment, and if there's anything in particular that you would like to add or delete, with the hope that we can bring it back on the 22nd for adoption.
>> okay.
>> all right. So under the space program category , each scenario will need to accommodate projected 2035 space needs, allow for anchor tenant expansion beyond 2035. We've preliminarily identified anchors as large special needs facilities like civil courts and criminal courts and the commissioners court that need special space. Central booking being another one of those. And it's very difficult to move an anchor once you've set it down, so we need to make sure that we're not just looking to 2035, we need to really be sure that our plans allow for expansion beyond that window. We would also like to accommodate projected parking through 2035 for both employees and we also got feedback about including visitors and jury parking. Each scenario should include building amenities and campus amenities that were laid out in the space program. And also enable optimal functional way outs for criminal and civil court floors since those are kind of special cases. Adjacent sis, getting a little bit more qualitative in nature. We'll grade the plan and the scenario on how well it achieves functional, efficiencies, especially department to department. How well it achieves functional operational adjacenties within the building. Our high traffic departments locate odd ground floors? Are they the most public -- the most public faces within and are easily accessible to the street? We also -- another criteria will be how well do functions, support or enhance adjacent neighbors. So this is really speaking more towards the neighborhood-wide -- building the neighborhood. Are there certain functions that don't want to be next to wooldridge square park or the governor's mansion for security reasons or enhancement reasons? Related to site planning and urban design, some criteria that came back, building forms should contribute to the urban environment, create street edges, and the second bullet really provides opportunities for civic buildings to have kind of an iconic stance, so there's some structures that may be more landmark in nature. How well do the scenarios respect the capital view corridors and respect the scale of adjacent neighbors? Another criteria encouraging the campus, all buildings within walking distance, is it a walkable campus, how accessible is it? Does it accommodate urban and neighborhood amenities that we heard feedback from, like retail, restaurants, convenience, gathering spaces, plazas, and how well does the scenario provide for these civic amenities? Also other kind of site planning issues, does the scenario provide setbacks for civil and criminal courthouses for security reasons? And then also how well does it contribute to the pedestrian experience? Related to cost, efficiency and economy, how well does -- does the scenario achieve highest and best use of the real estate? Are efficient circulation factors and departmental layouts used in order to minimize the overall space that's required? So we're really talking towards efficiency. Also related to implementation and phasing, is the solution workable at each planning horizon? And then finally, a bullet point related to just overall capital costs for how much does the scenario cost overall?
>> so what i believe you received as part of your backup was essentially the qualifications matrix that kind of rubric which is the score sheet that we use to practically apply to each one of the different scenarios, so an open dot, a closed dot or a half dot that would -- and then what the grading criteria are that are associated with those. So those would be the items that we would like your consideration of.
>> when do you want this back?
>> again, if we could -- what we would like to do is bring the item back to court on the 22nd for approval.
>> 29th.
>> 29th.
>> for next week it would be tomorrow at 5:00. Who has seen the evaluation matrix besides the court?
>> the steering committee was given a preview of the criteria.
>> remind me who is on the steering committee.
>> all of the judges, the clerks.
>> the dafer r. Dafer r.r. -- t, county attorney. They all have it in the backup that they have received, but they have not had an opportunity to make a comment to us yet.
>> and when is their deadline?
>> it's the -- if we want to try to do action on the 29th, we'll -- i think friday. Friday.
>> or monday.
>> we would ask that they provide leslie and melinda feedback regarding the evaluation matrix.
>> so we can get any changes made.
>> they've already -- many of them said at the meeting last week that gave the overview, but the matrix was not included in that.
>> that's right. The matrix wasn't included.
>> would you like more time?
>> i don't think our schedule calls for actual approval of the matrix until july 1st, but we were just wanting to float it out for comment and coming back to the court with it. If you would like to give it a few more weeks, we can do that.
>> not necessarily a few more weeks, but if the backup deadline is tuesday at 5:00, which we would have until midday wednesday, we really need it by the time of the agenda-setting meeting. I don't know that we have to have all of the comments in final shape. I guess i'd allow a couple more days if possible.
>> if we made it tuesday at 5:00? Next week?
>> and the same for the court.
>> sure. That would be great.
>> court meaning this court.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> i think the last thing that we have was next steps. And first bullet on there was finalizing the draft scenario evaluation matrix, which i think we've just covered. The next one will be continuing with the development of three different scenarios. And actually i have begun to start working with melinda and leslie on identifying key dates for a commissioners court work session, engagement with the county officials, the steering committee representatives, the county staff and the public charrette. So those will be the things that are coming up as very exciting items on the horizon for us as well as a little conversation about parking.
>> [ laughter ]
>> we'll bring it up again.
>> thank you.
>> anything further?
>> thank y'all very much. Good work.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 2:35 PM
