Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 25
>> now, the bcp item is number 25, receive update and take appropriate action regarding the completion of the cal bone knees canyonlands cons vision plan and consider specific parcels for completion.
and we should consider those specific parcels in executive session if there are any, right?
okay.
good afternoon.
thank you for your patience.
>> hello, judge and Commissioners, thank you for taking this opportunity.
rose farmer, program manager for natural resources for the county and I am the pain main supervisor.
you may remember, judge, that several years ago you and this court asked for a status update on the bcp.
we have been working with our city of Austin and the lcra partners on this for several years trying to pull together this status report and that's why we're -- it's a consensus document that we wrote up, that we've been your backup information for today and we're sharing that with you first because you were the first to ask for this information.
following this we'll take it to our -- the coordinating committee for the bccp, that is our governing body and Commissioner hooker is the county's representative on that committee along with mayor leffingwell and a nonvoting member from fish and fish andwildlife so we'll take o them next.
wanted to go ahead and get started on this.
balcones canyonlands conservation plan real briefly and we'll get goo the numbers part of this.
this was a 30-year permit issued to Travis County and the city of Austin by u.s.
u.s.fish & wildlife service.
it was the first h.c.p.
in the nation.
we are there at the beginning.
that what it did, this conservation plan under fish and wild live life service provided a way for the city and the county and private landowners to have a streamlined way for them to approach compliance with their endangered species act issues.
if they had endangered species on their property and need to do mitigate this provided a quicker and easier way for those individuals to get a permit.
so the bccp permit allows take, in quotes, of habitat and requires replacement acres western the balcones canyonlands preserve.
the take in Travis County, we have 74% of the golden cheek warbler habitat.
so the permit area you can see on this map, it's basically west of -- of mopac.
the permit area itself is actually the dark blue, dark green area on here.
the dark color.
the lighter color in those blocks that are closer toward the center of the county, those are the preserve blocks that the permit area is not the preserve.
there's also the refuge area.
so the permit area is the areas that developers, landowners can take, and so that's the darker colored.
whereas the preserve blocks that they would like us to acquire land within those blocks and the balcones canyonlands national wildlife refuge block, those are outside the permit.
so who are the permit partners?
we've got the city of Austin, Travis County are the two permit holders.
we also have a memorandum of understanding with lower colorado river authority because they also needed some take and they wanted to be included in this permit or to work with us.
there are also private landowners that have their own individual t.n.a.
permits that their lands are included in the balcones canyonlands preserve and that was at the direction of u.s.
fish & wildlife service.
and we also have some informal partners, and we hope at the end before we finish this thing we need to formalize those relationships because they have land included in preserve ache rage but we don't have legal documents, including the travis audubon society and Texas cave management associations and there may be others.
>> is that association a governmental entity?
>> no, nonprofit.
>> okay.
>> so what species are covered by this permit, the golden cheek warbler, black capped -- we use the word carst when talking about cavey habitat.
with the city also have 25 carst species of concern and two very rare plant species that are also under our permit.
we also have a few other species that aren't officially listed as endangered yet but they were included in the permit that said if you happen to have these jolly seriouslyvie salamanders we'll include them.
the jollyville plateaued sail mannedder is a candidate for listing as endangered species.
fish and wildlife service is looking at that now so it could potentially be list understand the future.
we also have several rare plants.
the twist flowers, the photo on the lower right that is correct plant also is being looked at officially requested for fish and wildlife.
it doesn't have a threatened listing at the moment but it could in the future as well.
we're protecting these species wherever they occur within our preserve land.
so the permit requirements.
I thought we should go through those quickly so you understand how the status works what we're required to do.
requirement 1, we need to acquire and manage a minimum of 30,428 acres of habitat for these two endangered song birds.
we are required to protect 62 carst features or caves and that's within -- that also includes three cave clusters, but some of those 62 are within the cave clusters.
we also are required to protect those two rare plants where they occur on the preserve.
so let me go into depth a little more requirement number 1.
location.
we have to acquire the land within or adjacent to the preserve acquisition area blocks.
and I'll show you that picture again in a minute of those blocks.
we also have to acquire within the make row sites and there are seven macro sites and that's basically the same as watersheds, but there are four that are top priority macro sites that fish and wildlife service really wants us to make sure we acquire a lot of land in those areas.
then habitat quality is important.
out of that 30,428-acre minimum, they said you have to have at least 28,428 acres that you are managing for golden cheek warbler habitat and 2,000 for the black capped virio.
here's a map that shows those macro sites and they are big blocks.
and within those bigger blocks or bigger areas, there's the smaller, darker colored areas that are the actual -- where the preserve has to be and we call that the preserve acquisition area.
so back to requirement number 1.
in addition to what I just said, we also have configuration requirements.
it's not just the number.
you know, sometimes we just focus on the number, but it's like no, no, no, it's not just once you've gotten, it's plus configuration.
so it requires macro site minimum acreage.
so within each of those macro sites we have to have at least the minimum acreage.
for instance, in the bull creek area, I've forgotten the exact number, but let's say that we needed 4,000 acres as our minimum acreage.
then there's also a target acres.
so they said, okay, for your target acres, maybe it's 5500 acres you need for the target.
so when you add up all the target ache ragees for all the different macro sites you get to the 34,428.
if we just have a minimum number you can add it up and we never get to the 30,000.
we have to have the minimum, but we also need to try and get as close as we can to that target acreage.
if we're not able to get to the target acreage in each macro site we're going to have to buy it in another macro site.
one we got the minimum but couldn't get up to the target so we needed to look over and say the cypress creek macro site and acquire more land there because we couldn't get enough in the Barton Creek macro site.
the last is minimize frumentation.
we need to meet these minimum edge to area ratios of no more than 20%.
so the ideal shape for a preserve tract is a circle.
it has the least amount of edge.
so these species we're dealing with don't like edges and so we need to acquire land in as big blocks as possible.
so you can see on the slide here basically is these are species that like the interiors and not edges and so if you have lots of edges, there's, you know, power lines, roads, properties that are developed in the middle.
it reduces the amount of habitat that's good happen at habitatfor the birds.
our permit says we can't have -- we have to have a certain amount of acreage that's not any more than 20% of it is edge.
so we're trying to get as big blocks as possible.
but sometimes we have too much edge.
and the edge has to do with if the edges of the property are very fragmented, long fingers that stick out, that -- those acres don't really help us a whole lot if they are not in a kind of blocked shape.
or if, you know, they are properties we've been trying to acquire that we've not been able to acquire that are in the middle.
that substracts from the amount that's good quality habitat.
current status.
location.
I put check that we had acquired the land within our adjacent to the preserve acquisition area block.
and the next one check on macro sites.
we've done this.
we have acquired land within those seven macro sites and especially the four macro sites, four top priority ones.
habitat quality.
the status, we are still assessing.
if we have the needed totals, but our staff believe that we do.
we seem to have adequate high quality habitat to meet those permits.
the permit requirements.
the black capped virio is the most problematic saying do we have 2,000 acres.
that's a habitat that moves over time.
where is it, how many acres do we have and we think we have about 1700 acres right now but we can manage.
here's a chart showing where we are on that original 30428 goal, we need to celebrate we're almost there.
don't forget we still have configuration issues to deal with, but the 30,428 acres, we now have 29,975 acres.
as of -- as of the end of June, we had that number.
I will tell you that we have about 308 acres that are pending.
by October 4, 2011, we're going to have about 308 acres in addition to this number you have written on there.
and that's for properties that we've acquired since then or will be acquiring in the next month.
so looking back at the map of those blocks, without going into exactly what we own and what we are still trying to acquire, we have acquired almost all the land that we need within those blocks, but there are still some gaps.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners] configuration status conditions.
how about this fragmentation issue?
the status is we may need additional acreage above the minimum.
and we need that minimum to meet the configuration questions, because some of the unprotected gaps that we will need to make up for, we also have some irregular and fragmented boundaries.
the boundaries of the preserve aren't always straight lines, may be little fingers sticking out.
that doesn't help us all that much.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> in the larger document, there are numbers for each different macrosite.
some are less than 20%, some are more.
>> you will find that on page 17 of the report.
the one that stands out as having too much hedge to area at this point is the north lake Austin macrosite.
>> the north lake Austin macrosite was a problem from the very beginning.
as it was designed in the permit, it had two big blocks.
so it is difficult to have a lot of core center if you started out with two big blocks in the first place.
plus you also end up with property like slider ridge that are very bisected and have a lot of edge.
so even though we get the acreage, it doesn't help as much because of the shape of the property itself.
so we want to have a conversation with fish and wildlife service about that, of how many acres extra do we need to meet this ...
this configuration question.
so needed for completion.
our best guess, just based on what I told you, we think we need about another 792 to 992 acres to make up just for the configuration.
we don't know this for sure.
we are putting our best pitch, because how it works with fish and wildlife service is you don't go in and say, at the beginning, how much do we need.
it is really more a: we make our case and we take it to them and say here is what we believe will meet the terms of the permit, is it enough?
they will say yes or no.
this is our best guess today of what that will be.
moving on to the carst.
17 of the features currently have no protection.
45 of the 62 have some protection but may not be fully protected.
45 of those -- some of the 45 only have a space around them that was a requirement of the setback.
when they had a development, they had a setback of 300 feet or whatever.
but nobody is actually going in and doing cave surveys or protecting them from fire ants or things like that.
we have a lot of caves that need a lot of work and protection.
our next year, our biggest push will will be to try to protect the caves.
so our estimate of what the need will be, protecting 17 caves plus some additional protections for the 45 caves, not all of them, but some of them needed.
so about 350 acres we're going to need to acquire for cave protection.
so adding that all up, all the various ones, we come out with approximately 1600 to 1800 acres, total, is what we believe we will need to finish this out.
the cost for completion.
we estimate the cost to be somewhere between about 24 million and 54 million.
I realize that is a big stretch.
but these are difficult things to try to calculate, because a lot of it depends on are we buying the property in fee versus are we getting a conservation easement?
what is the location of the property?
next to Lake Travis, and it has a high price.
is it far away in an area that has a much lower price.
also sometimes, the city of Austin buys some of the properties as well.
so that could reduce the acreage that traffic county would have to buy.
also timing of -- you know, it depends on what is going on in the economy at the time.
also it is unknown of how much land above the minimum required that fish and wildlife service will require us to acquire.
that is our best guess.
Travis County funding sources, this is a reminder.
you probably know this already.
our biggest source of fund suggest from tax benefit financing.
this is an arrangement put in place by an agreement, interlocal shared vision agreement between city of Austin and Travis County that we have been working under.
Travis County promised that a small sliver of percentage of funds that are coming from the improvement values on properties that are benefitting from the b.c.p., that that would be transferred to this fund and used for land acquisition and land management.
so in fy '12, that amount for tax benefit financing that would come to the program is $10.2 million.
that is in the recommended budget that is not approved yet.
that is the portion needed.
once that funding amount goes down, that is the amount that is needed to continue managing the land.
others, are public participation fees, for those mitigating through the permit.
they pay a mitigation fee.
so we receive those fees.
they're split 50/50 between Travis County and the city of Austin 10 years ago, they were large, helped us acquire land.
today, they're fairly small.
you can't buy too many acres of land with the funds we're getting.
it depends on the development going on at the time.
as the economy picks up, that will pick up as well.
we have contractual funds that we get from developers.
some of the developers get their own 10 acre.
say they have 100 acres of land they are supposed to manage and they don't really want to do that.
they approach fish and wildlife service and say can we contractually work with Travis County, deed this land to the county and give them money to manage it.
so we have funds that developers pay us to manage their responsibility under their 10 a permit.
and we also are getting a small amount from general funds still.
in the fy 12 budget, we're moving more of our funding away from the general fund to be paid out of that tax benefit financing.
that was as was anticipated when this permit was issued.
it was anticipated that more and more, over time, funding for this program would be paid out of tax benefit financing and paid less out of the general fund.
>> what is the general fund amount for fy '12?
>> my recollection is that our budget proposal is down to about three hundred thousand of general fund.
it is down from last year.
>> why is it I have a million dollars.
>> why is it I have $1.2 million in my head?
>> let me find my spectacles here.
>> please do.
>> if I can -- this is my very last slide.
if I could just finish this, then we can have a more general open discussion about this and a lot of things.
so I always add this at the end just to remind everyone that you buy this land, that you have to manage the land.
the permit requires us to intensively manage it.
that originally the preserve land probably would have been about twice as much acreage as what was settled on, because the permit holders promised to manage it intensely.
be aware that the preserves are surrounded by subdivisions.
there is a lot of pressures on them, both from things like ferrel cats and raccoons and ferrell hogs, people feeding deer, trespass, dumping, erosion, there are pressures from the surrounding areas, it takes management and law enforcement.
those are also paid out of tax benefit financing.
and if you have questions we can talk the budget bill and I can answer questions as well.
>> in the current budget, there is in the ncp division, about $583,000.
there is also about $50,000 in another division called environmental services.
that is dropping to the general fund to $241,000 in the preliminary budget.
the rest of that, and we mentioned in the hearing earlier, we're transferring 4.75 to the fund that are currently in the general fund.
that is included in the budget.
>> so the $1.2 million I had in mind was five years ago?
>> I'm not sure.
there is in the b.c.p.
fund -- hang on a second -- about ...
let's see.
sorry.
it's a big budget.
>> we may have $1.2 million somewhere waiting to be used.
>> in the b.c.p.
fund, right now, ignoring the allocated reserve, there is about ...
8 or $900,000.
I will have to subtract out the allocated reserve to get the exact amount.
it is close -- it is close to a million dollars.
>> what is the difference?
the b.c.p.
fund is that theative -- tif fund.
>> we were corrected and told this is not truly a tif.
I was told, no, no, that is an additional tax.
it is not.
it is a dedicated amount.
>> the difference is this is a specified percentage; is that right?
>> tax increment nancy is something, say you want to redevelopment an area in the downtown area.
in fact, there is a tif in the water creek area, where this is a special.
there is a dedication of tax revenue related to that.
>> you set a baseline here, you develop the value.
and that baseline is your dedicated revenue.
in this case, we didn't set a baseline here, we took a percentage on increased value of improvement, correct?
>> it is related to the increased value of improvements on the omn portion, you can't do that portion.
>> right.
>> that is under the contractual arrangement with the city.
>> in either circumstance, it is not an additional tax, but it is a dedicated revenue slice-off for a specific purpose that dedicates those landowners.
>> I would like to go back to the judge's 1.2 million number.
that sounds about right to me, if you add the amount of money in the general fund for this program and you add the staff and management -- not land acquisition, but if you add the funds to run the program, you come up to about 1.2 million.
>> that is correct.
that is correct.
with about 240,000 left in the general fund.
that is over the fund.
>> when I heard you say we needed 350 acres more, I was about to declare a county holiday.
then you said we need 16 to 800 acres more?
>> yes.
>> and we have been acquiring about how many acres a year?
>> some years, 2,000 acres, some years 50 acres.
it depends on willing sellers and timing.
sometimes properties took us 10 years, 12 years to acquire.
so we have been steadily acquiring land along the way.
>> once we acquire the targeted acreage, we go to fish and wildlife and assuming they sign off on it.
>> yes.
>> thereafter, our only responsibility would be the maintenance of the preserve?
>> that is correct.
>> which would be funded through the tax benefit finance arrangement.
>> that is correct.
>> in perpetuity, right?
>> that is correct.
>> any other questions, comments?
thank you for the briefing.
we asked for it five or six years ago we asked for it.
>> several years ago.
>> seemed like only yesterday.
>> we is been working on it hard with our partners that whole time.
>> when rose said it is a consensus document, it was a difficult consensus document.
>> I understand.
tell them all that the Commissioner gave you a big pat on the back after they heard the report.
>> thank you, judge.
>> you are correct, judge.
it is about 1.2 million between the two funds.
>> it is hard being right.
I was hoping you would tell me I was wrong and in fact the amount, judge, is $75,000.
I would have been really happy.
>> [laughter]
>> ok.
thank you much.
ms. Porter, we're down to one item.
that is the executive session items.
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