Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, March 8, 2011,
Item 26
Item 26 is to consider and take appropriate action on request to partner with the city of Austin for the purchase of various tracts of real estate in southwest Austin and Travis County.
I saw mr. Walters here earlier as well as mr. Drenen, I think.
if you would come forward at this time, we'd be happy to get your presentation.
my request is that we get this laid out today.
if we need to take it into executive session for deliberation under real estate and legal, we can do that.
did the city of Austin put this on Thursday's agenda?
>> I did not see it on Thursday's agenda.
>> I should say that I chatted with the mayor before putting this on the Commissioners court agenda, and he indicated that if it wore on ours today it would be on their Thursday agenda.
if not this Thursday, maybe next Thursday.
not to steal your thunder.
>> okay.
>> by the way, we did give court members a copy of the green packet that you provided and we have been given a blue packet today.
>> judge, existers, I'm steve drenner with the firm of drenner gold and stuart wol, and I represent landowners who own approximately 582 acres in southwest Travis County and northeast hays county in three separate partnerships.
I'm going to walk you through a powerpoint that would show you those properties and the related issues.
I think you can follow along in that blue binder with the exact pictures that you would see in the powerpoint .
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I think this is an unusual opportunity to acquire with the Austin these 582 acres that both stand on their own as valuable conservation tracts but also taken with other tracts that have previously been purchased by the city of Austin would completely eliminate the possibility of development along and adjoining the extension of sh 45 if that is built.
let me make clear that I am not here as a propoint or oh poniant of that extension of sh 45.
I think this possible acquisition stands on its own regardless of how one feels about the extension of sh 45.
the properties, let me get this.
there we go.
this is existing, this is generally where we are in southwest Travis County where the green and the yellow are shown.
next slide will show you with the green existing green space that has been purchased by the city of Austin either in fee simple title or conservation easements.
in the past decade or so.
next slide will show you in yellow the possible acquisition tracts at this point.
this next slide I'm going walk you through and talk about each one of the three tracts briefly.
the slaughter 100 is labeled as tract 1, and that is 551.had 4 acres.
it's in the city of Austin's full purpose jurisdiction.
next tract is tract 2, what we refer to as the bliss fuller tract, 156.46 acres that is in the city of Austin's etj, 61 acres of that--16 acres of that already in a conservation easement held by the city of Austin.
the third track split on either side of the right-of-way for sh 45 is drag track, and that is 373.92 acres, the majority of that in the city of hays full purpose jurisdiction and a portion in the city of Austin's two mile etj.
not only is this land in the area that obviously is a sensitive portion of the recharge zone, but you have the two creek systems, two creek and little bear, impacted.
the the next slide, if you look along the sh 45 right-of-way you see access points designated as well as signal locations.
those are important because these tracts cover those access points and signal locations.
this next slide shows you an ongoing effort that lots of us have been involved in over the last few years which has gone under the heading of walk for a day, which is a trail system that would run from barton springs pool deep into hays county, a 32 mile one-way trail.
this shows you the location generally of that trail.
the next slide will show you kind of where it is proposed to come through in the general location of these tracts.
so that is, if you will, the existing situation as well as some of the facts that would be important in analyzing, I think, this acquisition.
the tracts themselves are, like many, like almost all the tracts in this area, sensitive in their own right.
this is the slaughter 100 tract, tract 1, the 51 acre track.
those areas show cefs.
this is tract 2.
that is the bliss fuller track, also showing critical environmental features.
and tract 3 thogeshowing critical environmental features.
as you see, mostly along little bear creek area.
the opportunity here is to really eliminate the possibility of what you see almost anywhere where you see major highways come together.
and that is large commercial development.
particularly retail development.
a couple of examples.
in Austin I'll show you in a second.
if you look at this map, it shows you generally where the big boxes in town are laid out.
most of those big box operators operate trying to, on a triangle theory, trying to space their development at major intersections throughout the city.
this would be, if this roadway goes through, this would be a perfect opportunity for that type of development.
in fact, that is why these tracts were assembled.
the examples of that, think, are numerous around town.
I'm going to show you two.
sunset vail--valley, which this particular development group and the walters in particular had worked on, is a classic example of that type of development.
again, the a major intersections and in particular in this case, in an area that didn't have quite the restrictions that the city of Austin had.
this is in Sunset Valley had the imper have I impervious cover is pretty much the same that the city of Austin has and would be taken off the books, about 4 million square feet.
Barton Creek mall is a more consolidated example, but that is about 3.7 million of impervious cover.
that is the amount that we are dealing with here.
the other part of this from a conservation standpoint would be that you not only would eliminate the development that would normally go immediately adjacentant to sh 45, but you would eliminate the ripple effect of that.
because you would control access points if you so chose, you could eliminate other development that typically backs a little further away from those major intersections but relies on k an assess to those signals.
this acquisition together with what has already been purchased by the city of Austin would eliminate that possibility.
before we get to that slide, let me mention one other thing.
go backwards, if you will.
in terms of usability of the tracts, obviously, that would be up to, if you move forward with this, you and the city of Austin but these are areas that are potentially both conservation areas but also areas that could be used by citizens for park land.
not just conservation areas.
obviously, from an access standpoint would allow an extension off of walk for a day, the mainline of walk for a day, to extend all the way to 1626.
so you have the typical possibilities, park lands, trail possibilities, and certainly bike routes.
this slide shows you pricing and sort of the break down between the incremental pieces of that pricing.
total is $12,500,000.
we have an apricing on the 51 acre tract that comes in at better than 10.9 million.
price would be heavily discounted and developer would be asking for a charitable donation credit with the irs for remainder of that, and the rest of this is based on an appraisal on the bliss spiller track that is representative, we think, of a pretty moddest value on that tract.
and the gragg track was based on that bliss spiller am we understand that you will want some verification of that with the city of Austin.
let me close and tell that you this is something that we have been working on for some period of time.
we have some timing.
pressures with recovering market as you might guess, there are other possible uses for these tracts that if this is not going to be something that either the city or county does not choose to move forward with, that we would, we would immediately get behind.
but we do have the ability to make this happen with all three of those partnerships working together with the city of Austin and the Travis County believe as I do that this is an unusual opportunity to put into the conservation bank some very important pieces of land on their own, then from a strategic standpoint in terms of eliminating what would most surely happen at some point, the large commercial development that would normally go at intersections of major highways.
solemn close and I'll be happy to answer questions.
>> questions?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> I'm just all curious why the slaughter 100, you have any idea where the appraisal is so high when it says so many critical water features that seem to be a challenge to develop.
and it is almost 46.6 per acre.
>> yes, ma'am.
that is again city of Austin full purpose jurisdiction.
it's also covered by settlement agreement that the city of Austin did with gary broadly years ago.
it's allowed almost eight acres.
impervious cover.
it's for office just.
you still can develop the track, and with the office use on that, it allows you to do a better job than for instance retail development would do in terms of making sure that you stay away from the setbacks around the critical environmental features of but it's reflective of the office use and the amount of impervious cover allowed.
>> that was another question.
any or all of these lands, do they have entitlements.
that one obvious does.
>> that one does.
the others are really more reflective of the city, the bliss spiller track is not in the city of Austin full purpose jurisdiction.
so it's not subject to zoning.
it would be subject to the city's water quality ordinances and platting requirements but not zoning nor building permits.
then the gragg tract is city of hays, and the majority, and the other is bliss pillar tract, not subject to zoning or building permits.
>> is water and wastewater readily available for the development?
>> Commissioner, always when we are, this is what I do for a living, as you may know.
always in these sorts of areas, that is the first thing that you have to answer.
we think there are sources for both water and wastewater on all of these tracts, certainly the city of Austin tract stands on its own.
I have never had one that couldn't be developed at the end of the day.
>> I'm reflecting on the capcog assessment study and the water resource study.
that was one of the most depressed areas indicated in that study as far as availability of water.
>> right.
>> but I understand where you are coming from too.
>> uh-huh.
>> when were the appraisals done on this property?
>> let me give you an exact answer.
on the slaughter 100 tract, that was an appraisal done July 7 of 2008 by paul hornsby and company.
the ace appraisal on bliss spiller was ton April 13, 2009, done by a local bank by wf smith company.
>> and the appraisal on the grag g?
>> we based the value on that conservatively we think on the bliss spiller model.
might have a higher value but we thought we would be conservativ.
>> it's my understanding that the city of Austin watershed protection department does not consider this a high priority property.
have you heard anything along those lines?
>> I have had lots of conversations with different people in the city of Austin.
I think, and I'll let them speak tor themselves, of course.
I think there's two wakes to look at this.
one is in comparison to some other tracts that they may be interested in acquiring.
then again strategically in terms not only of the immediate conservation benefits of these tracts but also in what it keeps from happening.
in my conversations with those that will probably vote on this, I think that the second issue is at least as important to them as the first.
>> my last question is for staff.
when I did the calculations, I don't know that I did, yeah, all of that acre age averages out, if I'm correct, to about 21.5,000 per acre with the bliss spiller and gragg being at 18.8 plus and shaughter being at 28.6.
my question for staff is does that fall within the parameters of property that we generally are look to go acquire?
>> for undeveloped acreage, generally we have paid between I'd say 4,000 and 12,000 per acre.
in the onion creek water shed and open space acquisitions in the eastern part of the county.
and in the western part of the county, prices paid by the county for open space have ranged generally speaking, approximations, between 10 and 20,000 an acre.
>> why is that?
why is the land more valuable on the west side than the east side?
>> there are a whole number of reasons.
for the same, not to oversimplify it, the issue, for the same reason that land in 78701, that zipcode, is more available than land in 78748 or 78757.
it's a matter of what the market the willing buyer and willing seller, a willing buyer is agreeable to paying and what the market forces will command for value.
>> the reason I pose the question is because the listening audience, they are hearing what you are saying.
of course, they want to know where.
it's a lot of variables.
I think those ought to be laid out.
when you start laying out the purchase and the cost of land on one side of the county versus land purchases on the other side of the county.
and those variables--
>> one unique characteristic, what I have talked about are prices that the county has paid for open space.
and one thing to remember is that there have only been a couple of purchases.
the vast majority, 80 percent or more of the purchases that the county has made for open space property that were approved by the voters in the 2005 bond election, 80 percent of those acquisitions, not acreage by individual conveyances or purchases, have been made in the east.
much of those have been floodplain.
generally speaking, floodplain is less valuable.
the marketplace perceives it to be less valuable than nonfloodplain land.
there are a lot of different variabless involved, Commissioner.
but that is something to bear in mind, is the floodplain versus buildable land issue.
>> any other questions?.
the conversations I have had regarding this matter were with mayor.
I indicated to him the county has already spent more than three million on 45 southwest acquisition.
and I indicated to him that I thought if the county were interested in a partnership, it would not be with us paying 50 percent of it.
it would be with us paying substantially less than that.
I don't know that the council has formally provided feedback, and the mayor indicated that is why he would put it on the council agenda.
so I think that our next move really is to get the payer--mayor to get the feedback from the council so he can indicate to us where the city council stands.
this looked like an opportunity that we may want to take advantage of.
there are factors to be looked at.
cost is of course one them.
feen --even if we don't do 45 southwest, you would think this would be a prime acreage for open space conservation acquisition, but I don't want to get too far down the road.
partnership requires at least two.
the city of Austin is the other one.
so I think where we are now is letting them provide feedback about where they stand.
I understand that there is a little bit of difference between city of Austin staff and city leadership and how that shakes out depends on them.
not that our staff is a hundred percent behind us.
but they normally end up there.
no matter how they start out.
>> judge, may I make one point.
when the right-of-way acquisition that the county did for sh 45 on behalf of the state since it's state road, during that entire process, and that was quite a few years ago, the county acquired in addition to the right-of-way required for the road proper, acquired conservation easements as buffers alongside that.
and perhaps you remember, maybe the other court members are not aware, but I just wanted to point out that I believe we purchased a swath of land 400 feet in width approximately.
typically state highway needs anywhere from 160 to 250 in width.
initially it was a 200 foot width right-of-way that was going to be, in the initial design, and that was kicked to 400 feet.
there was a lot of back and forth between the state and various stakeholders and so forth about whether or not there should be a buffer fan so, what the width of that buffer should be.
ultimately it ended up being approximately 100 feet on either side.
so there was a total purchase of approximately 400 feet in width.
I just wanted--
>> did we deed all of that to the state?
>> yes, sir.
>> we deeded not only the right-of-way but also the buffe.
>> that is correct, we did.
>> all of it.
>> that is correct.
>> I wasn't sure of that.
>> either we deeded to them or purchased it in their name at the actual closing.
I don't recall.
>> .
>> what we learned from the mocan right-of-way, it's easy to deed property to the state and very difficult to get it back.
any other questions or comments?
thank you all very much.
thank you for your patience.
we missed that eleven o'clock target by 30 minutes or so.
I think that I should notify the parties to the agreements hearing today to come at 2:30 rather than two.
that will give us an additional 30 minutes.
we did get items 39 and 26 postponed.
so don't worry about those.
otherwise, when we come back at 1:30, we'll try to get as much done as possible.
by the way, for those county managers who are able to postpone items until next week, without doing harm to any interest, if you would let me know that over lunch, we'd appreciate that.
with that I move that we recess until 1:30.
>> second.
>> all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote..
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March, 2011 2:19 PM
