Travis County Commissioners Court

March 27, 2012 (Agenda)
Item 2

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Item Number 2 Is Another Public Hearing To Receive Comments Regarding The Draft Colorado River Corridor Plan And Recommended Amendments In Precincts 1 And 4.

>> move the public hearing be open.

>> second.

>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.

>> good morning, judge.
randy nicholson is going to walk you through.
if you recall we presented information about this plan to you mid-february and your direction at that time was just go ahead and set up a public hearing, receive more input and after that hold a workshop and make any changes necessary to accommodate what we can from those public hearings and then bring it back to court after the workshop for approval.
so randy will walk you through what we've got.

>> good morning, judge, randy nicholson, t.n.r.
the colorado river corridor plan is a conceptual plan that covers over 30,000 acres along the colorado corridor, colorado river corridor from highway 183 east to the county line and then from sh -- I mean from fm 969 south to highway 71.
so 30,000 acres.
we're looking conceptually at land use and transportation needs in that corridor.
and the plan outlines some of the strategies and the intensity for land development within that corridor.
currently the corridor has over 11,000 acres of mining interest, so the area certainly is subject to change over the next 15 to 20 years and so the purpose of this plan is provide a collaboration between the different entities that were involved in the preparation of the plan which is city of Austin, lower cool river corridor association, the t.n.r.
and county as well as the private property owners.
and so we feel like we've reached out to the property owners and incorporated a lot of their suggested changes in the plan which are outlined to the court.
later this next month, April the 12th on a Thursday, we'll have a work session with the court to go into very detailed aspects of the plan that may be brought forth from this public hearing.
so the purpose today is to, again, give the public an opportunity to weigh in on any of the issues that we've outlined.
we've posted this information on the website as well as comments that we've heard and through the meetings thus far.
and most -- I believe most of the comments we've tried to address in our backup to the court.
so pretty lengthy backup, but, again, we had a lot of good public input and hopefully at the April 12th work session with the court we can finalize the plan.

>> this is item number 2.
if you would like to give comments, please come forward.
if you would like to give comments in the public hearing on number 2, please come forward at this time.
give us your name and we would be happy to get your comments, and we have four more chairs.
four more golden opportunities to participate.
only one speaker?
mr. Mcdonald.

>> good morning, richard mcdonald.
I live in the corridor and I've kind of been speaking out against this thing from the very inception because I thought that it was wrong for the county to hire the same contractor that t.x.i.
was use to go develop their land to plan the rest of the corridor.
and I think that throughout the process both at the county and at the meetings that I've watched at the city where the developer of this plan has gone to the city of Austin planning commission, environmental board and stuff to present this plan.
it's not been made very clear, and I'm still confused who exactly paid for the plan.
I mean, did t.x.i.
pay for as much of the plan as then planning on doing?
when this whole thing was voted on, Commissioner Davis said the only concern he had was they were going to do what they said they were and I've been wondering about that ever since because the original plan -- well, to go back to the -- when the t.x.i.
hornsby bend permit was issued, t.x.i.
was coming up with a plan to monitor.
somehow that turned into a small portion of this plan where the majority of the money was given to the corridor river plan and not even as much as was requested.
I thought I had a piece of paper here that showed before this plan was approved, tom webber, the environmental guy, suggested that the monitoring should cost like 78,000 for the first year and 48,000 for the next year's, and then all of a sudden the county was given 60 or something thousand dollars to this corridor study and the monitor was getting like 27,000, which is a third of what we were told it was going to cost to do it proper limit and I know the county had to go back and get more money.
anyway, the point is is that it seems like that from the initial mandate to come up with the monitoring, which is phase 3 of the corridor study, most of the money went to the corridor plan, and according to documents, it seems like t.x.i.
was going to match that.
in other words, the county was putting in 60,000, the city was putting in 60,000, t.x.i.
was putting in 60,000 and they were different phases but they were going to be combined and brought back together to come up with a plan where both the t.x.i.
lands are some planning and so did the regular land that wasn't owned by t.x.i.
and so I've asked this at every meeting.
I almost sat down and said we were going into individual groups, but did t.x.i.
pay this money?
have they come up the plans they promised they would?
are they going to do what they said they were going to do?
and, you know, that's my first question.
and one of the reasons I said this because don bossy, who made this plan, got up at the planning commission at the city and said, no, t.x.i.
paid for a little bit of it, maybe 10%, not very much, because someone directly asked him who paid for this and is it common for a public-private corporation to pay for a study such as this when they own a good portion of the land.
anyway --

>> let's get that answered.
so what are the sources of funding for this plan?

>> we had four portions -- four sources of funding, city of Austin, Travis County --

>> how much did city of Austin contribute?
that's what you want to know, right, mr. Mcdonald?

>> I want to know how much t.x.i.
contributed.

>> let's go through the four partners and indicate what keep contributed.
one of the four is t.x.i., right?

>> t.x.i.'s funding is not known to me.
they -- they prepared a plan as it relates to the rio davita segment of this corridor which is a separate plan so I cannot tell you how much t.x.i.
spent, you know, with with their corridor planning along sh 130.
I can tell you what the county has spent as well as the other public entities involved.

>> okay.
do that.

>> so Travis County had a total of 109,093.
of that 11 through is in-kind contribution from the county, 98,093 is cash funding.
city of Austin provided 60,000 in cash funding and 10,000 in in-kind funding.
lcra provided $5,000 in funding, 8,000 in kind.
so the total funding from all entity 192,093.

>> can you describe for us the t.x.i.
project and how it fits with this colorado corridor plan?

>>

>> [inaudible].

>> say that again.

>> from the outset this project was conceived of as a three-phase project, one phase being the colorado river corridor project, another phase being the environmental monitoring, and I can't --

>> the third one t.x.i.
is planning for their land they own.

>> but in terms of the -- in terms of the colorado river plan and the three-party agreement regarding t.x.i.
and monitoring, those are separate things and the colorado river plan pre-dates -- the colorado river plan effort pre-dates us ever knowing t.x.i.
was going to mine the real estate that's just north of mr. Mcdonald's property.
correct?

>> not necessarily.
I think that we contemplated right from the beginning and so t.x.i.
was an integral component in the colorado river corridor plan because they own so much of the plan.
we kept the planning study separate from the environmental monitoring study so we would retain the integrity of the environmental monitoring plan.
so that monitoring plan is a partnership of Travis County, lcra and the city of Austin.
there's no -- there's no t.x.i.
funding in that part of the project.

>> in order to keep that --

>> correct.

>> -- the integrity of the monitoring as clean as possible in case --

>> that was always clear right from the out set.

>> in case residents and the county need to use that monitoring as evidence of future degradation.

>> and the total funding for the monitoring effort has varied over time depending what we discovered as we proceeded with the project.
I think initially we came out with a proposal that would have been -- that was a little bit under what we needed.
we came back to the court for additional funding.
we funded the first year in its entirety and we will be coming back to the court for subsequent funding of years 2, 3 and beyond.

>> does that address your concern?

>> we're not really talking about the monitoring, we're talking about the corridor plan.
what I'm saying there was phase 1, which was the corridor plan and phase 2 the scope of work for preliminary land planning on the t.x.i.
properties.
in other words, they were going to do the same thing with their properties and come up with a plan on how they are going to reclaim them.
that was phase 2 and they were going to pay for that.
and you're saying that it's not -- and I specifically asked at the input, the public meeting has phase 2 been completed and molded into this plan because since they own 40% of the property, they were supposed to plan their land reclamation.
have they done that.
the only thing I've seen in the plan is those current cartoons of the current reclamation and how they are going to do that.
last meeting we had here it was brought up are they really going to do that, has this been memorialized and stuff like that in the plan.
and that's my question.
did t.x.i.
do what they said they were going to do.
did they pay boston ferris the 60,000 because he said they didn't.
he said they only paid for 10% of the plan.
and you said that that phase 2 had been combined with the plan and stuff at that meeting.
so I'm just trying to figure out because it's been almost kept a secret did t.x.i.
pay their share of this plan plan and did they do what they said they were going to do.

>> what's the status of phase 2?

>> it's incorporated in this concept plan is everything -- t.x.i.
representatives sat at the table with us at all the planning meetings that we've had.
so we've incorporated their knowledge and their expertise as relates to what they think the future economics of this area are in terms of land use planning and land use intensity.
and so, you know, I can only tell you -- tell the court that they were at the table during all the planning.
I do not know -- I know what we've asked bossy to do and they've done that for us.
they've integrated what -- t.x.i.
has indicated to them was the economics of this corridor for them in terms of land use planning.
they've taken that knowledge and built it into the plan so we've benefited significantly by understanding what t.x.i.'s intent is in this corridor.
and as mr. Mcdonald indicated, as I told the court last time, we understand they intend to as a concurrent reclamation which allows to restore to agriculture uses and other uses, we've taken I think valuable information from t.x.i.
and built it into this plan.
and they agree with the way we presented it to the court at this point.
so we kind of get wrapped around the fact that we have a concept plan that is constantly being implemented as we speak and so it makes it a little bit apples and oranges when I tried to present to the court.
so the clear issue for the court today was just is the concept plan, and we heard from the public on the concept plan.
mr. Mcdonald's' comments does not really deal with any of the land use intensity, the transportation modes.
I haven't heard any comments that would help the court make their decision about with the plan's adoption or approval, in my opinion.

>> but mr. Mcdonald, are you asking how much did t.x.i.
contribute financially and/or in expertise to the development of this plan?
is that what your question is?

>> yes, did they pay for the plan like they said they were going to and did they -- provide information that they said they were going to.

>> let me break that up into two.
first of all, I don't think we had an agreement with with them to pay for our plan, but we did have an agreement with them to share the product of the -- of the expertise that they were purchasing.
which was bossy on their reclaimed mine site and on what they intended to do with their -- the site that's north of your property.

>> right.

>> so am I correct about that, that we have gotten the benefit of whatever their expenditure was on bossy, that they shared that information with us for the development of our plan?

>> yes.
very much so.
they are a commercial enterprise, as mr. Mcdonald points out, significant land holdings.
so we were glad that they came to the table and agreed to meet with us and talk through all the issues.

>> so they shared the product of their purchase expertise in bossy and then it's true we also purchased expertise from bossy with county taxpayer money.

>> yeah, way beyond their -- t.x.i.'s land holdings are 5,000 to 6,000 acres, we look at 30,000 acres.
certainly there was economies in scale for them to look at that at the same time.

>> does that help in terms of clarifying?

>> yeah, I think I understand that.
but to me it goes to the fact that one of the main results of the study that t.x.i.
helped to create and pay for is that rio -- and I brought this up before is that one of the high priorities of the study is to declare rio davita and the intersection of harold green boulevard and state highway 130 or whatever as the village center.
in other words, this plan is lobbying to get campo to clear that and this plan, my understanding is you are going to create a transportation mode at that intersection.
okay, well, that intersection is way far from where everybody lives and what you are doing with that transportation mode is promote ago development that t.x.i.
has that's maybe ten years down the road, and I guess my specific question is there ever going to be any bus service and transportation service and county infrastructure out there at hunters bend where the people live, because the transportation mode and the future village center concept being -- according who this plan that they are pushing to be out there -- I mean has anybody gotten off state highway 130 at harold green at night?
I mean, there's nothing out there.
there's nobody.
it's t.x.i.
land.
according to geiselman, that project is ten years down the road so why is this such a big issue with this plan to put the center of eastern Travis County over on t.x.i.'s future development.
why aren't those resources going to the people who live out there, the libraries, the bus stops, you know, because this is what this plan is doing.
the main -- my point is that t.x.i.
paid for the plan and the main goal of this plan is to transfer the center of infrastructure to their pre-developed land or undeveloped land at this point, and I think that's way down the road and I think that this is going to prohibit the intersection going to the people that live out there.

>> let me say something here.
I hear what you are saying.
thank you, mr. Mcdonald, for coming down and anybody else that want to come down on this and, of course, we've had several meetings out there.
thank goodness I was able to attend some of them.
and we basically were trying to look at the comprehensive plan,, of course, Commissioner Gomez is also a representative of this particular plan basically because it also involves precinct 4.
and it's a very complex, complex, complex issue because of the fact that you have several governmental entity involved along with with the residents, and thank good, mr. Mcdonald, I think I seen you at those particular meetings and whether anything came up to t.x.i., you've been right there.
if you will, address that -- because he brought up some point and I think we have probably looked at that, staff, as far as the connectivity of some of these road situations.
you know, right now what's already on the books, and I think that must be illustrated, is that we have -- have money funded, we've already started doing the a and e on a road, gilbert lane extension, which is also called the secondary access to Austin colony, which is part of a relief factor that congestion within that particular subdivision was a nightmare.
of course, the voter of this county decided to do-make that the top priority issuance of bond and the fact of about $3.7 million to have secondary access in that particular area, sandifer, westfall, something like that coming into hunters bend so you would have something like a horseshoe.
a horseshoe meaning the end of that horseshoe is intersecting 969 where people could have a circular situation of getting in and out of their congested area.
that is part of this whole -- it's included in some of this stuff, but there are other things you brought up, mr. Mcdonald, that need to be addressed and that is transportation costs.
transportation is a part of the plan.
and when we met at daly middle school we were divided into different sections where we could talk about this comprehensive plan and, of course, there was a situation where there were groups broken off and, of course, persons had subject matter and it was a good meeting and good overview that staff had brought, and also with the input from the community which is very critical and important.
but to your question, though, your question you talked about transportation.
can you basically tell me exactly, staff, in the overall view of the transportation thing, especially looking at you mentioned campo, those particular transportation settings that is even on the books of campo.
can you basically go through that?

>> the gilbert lane is not a campo arterial.
we are also are working on advance funding agreement -- I'm sorry, pass-through finance agreement txdot with fm 969 from decker lane to hunters bend road.
which would serve these folks.
in the campo plan also, some of the roads that mr. Mcdonald is referring to, the connectivity to harold green, that is something that-like hundreds of other arterials, is included in the plan.
and when it gets built with how it typically evolves is a development happens, the developer is responsible for building road to get access to this property for those folks who are going to live there or work there.
and if a bigger facility is needed, then like we've dealt with many public-private projects, we'll partner with the developer to build a larger capacity roadway.
harold green, the connection, seems to me that's the way that would evolve.
as development occurs, the road would get built piecemeal at first and then we would come back in with capital programs and fill in the gaps.
the harold green conclusion is one I've heard, the Austin colony folks would like to see happen.
I think it's a good road.
it's a matter of funding at this point and the normal protocol is for the development to help pay that price.
also, you know, city of Austin is looking at the entire corridor from city limits, 969 to webberville.
they are communicating with us and looking fog long-term improvement to that stretch of road.
as far as bus service, I think Commissioner Gomez could probably tell you this particular part of the world is not in the service area of cap metro.
and those areas in precinct 2 that are served by cap metro voted to do that.
that didn't happen.
so I'm not sure what the long-term solution there is.

>> but I think right now there is transportation available, I think it's cars.
and I think cars do serve that area.
am I correct, Commissioner Gomez?
that's on Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
I think residents need to hook up and find -- that's necessarily something been around for a while and folks do have -- have used that particular rural transportation system in the area.

>> I understand that.

>> hold on, hold on a second.
and the input that -- that that -- the example the 969 situation that staff spoke of, that's a big deal.
of course, one of the complaints that we've heard in that area was the -- the terrible shape that fm 969 is in.
the twisting, the turning.
it's a state road.
it's a state highway.
however, what we ended up doing was looking at ways how we could facilitate to make sure fm 969 is made safe.
not only with 1626.
we looked at pass-through financing to ensure that we could make those corrections to a lot of safety concerns that you have brought up.
and, of course, this is all within the scheme of things.
what we're talking about is a 30,000-acre situation with the city of Austin involved, lcra, Travis County, and, of course, the -- the businesses such as the t.x.i., such as the residents.
and I think that all the meetings, and I can ask ralph this, in all the meetings have all the representatives been present at these meetings as far as what we're talking about?
I know I saw some of them.
the lcra, city, da, da at some of the meetings we've had.
and, of course, I want to try to make sure we get all the necessary comments that's available to make sure we are addressing all the concerns brought to the table and that's the way we should do it.
I'm looking forward to all the comments you are bringing today in this public hearing.
thank goodness you are here to bring those concerns.
but again, in the scheme of things, we want to receive those comments and we are going to try to provide as we go through this process even with the workshop or work session.
what we're saying we're welcoming your comments and we're going to try to see if we can work toward some type of end.
thank you.

>> well, the one thing that I keep harping on and that is I don't think the people of the area are being told clearly that the priority of this plan, less than a two-year priority is marked in ed under the priorities here is to designate that intersection as the village center and all this stuff like that.
all these people don't live there.
the people live two or three miles away.
and you talk about the public meetings, well, Commissioner Davis, that item, that item that showed that as a party was according to randy was a mistake, they left it off.
this is my thing from the public meeting.
that item wasn't on this thing.
and I called randy up the next day and said I just realized that, you know, he said it must have been a clerical error that that item describing that we were going to -- the party of this plan is to move the village center of our area over to where nobody lives was left off the documentation that people were handed at the public meeting.
and I don't think it was an accident.

>> I don't think -- can I speak?
I think it's a trance identify node is what you are referring to.

>> no, I'm talking about the item that said it's a priority to get campo to designate harold green rio davita as the village center.
it's not on that piece of paper because it's not on that piece of paper, that's my point.

>> can we ask you all to try to get with mr. Mcdonald after today?

>> sure.

>> I know about it.
I'm saying let the rest of the people in Travis County know that our downtown is going to be moved over to t.x.i.'s development because now we have kind of a downtown getting together here.
I mean, we've been complaining now we've got a dollar general and now we've got -- you know.

>> I think the concept of a town center would be a lot larger than just an intersection.
you would be looking at rio davita and Austin colony being that center.
so it's just not one intersection.

>> can I ask mr. Mcdonald something?
mr. Mcdonald, as I'm looking at the campo center's concept, which is what the river -- the colorado river plan is trying to mesh with, in order for us to have the discipline as a community in all of our planning efforts so that we really bring these things to fruition.
my question to you is as I look at the center's concept, there is a small center designated by the campo plan based on future population concentrations at 71 and 130.
but what I'm hearing you say is that the community would like to -- believes that the better town center is further north on 130 at harold green.
is that --

>> no, I'm saying that this plan as one of its priorities is to get campo to designate --

>> campo already has.
the campo center is memorialized in the 2010 center's map.
so this river plan is attempting to mesh with an already established --

>> right.
now that --

>> long range plan.

>> now the village center are at 969 and 71 and 130.
and the plan wants to move that village center, and according to the information I got was that at least 50% of all public spending and infrastructure will be spent at the village center.
and so I'm saying that this plan is just promoting rio davita over the interest of the people that live out there and where they live because they live both sides of 969, they live at hunters bend and 969, and why are we --

>> let's give mr. Mcdonald a written response to that and I'd like to see it too.
and send it to the court.
it may be that we don't agree on this ever.
but I think we ought to give him in writing what we think our response is.
thank you, mr. Mcdonald, for bringing that to our attention.
mr. Reeferseed.

>> thank you, mr. Mcdonald.
appreciate you coming down.

>> since i-30 is a toll road, I do echo and applaud mr. Mcdonald's concerns.
I obviously have a tiny, tiny nugget of information.
everything I've learned is from mr. Mcdonald.
and -- but his concerns about funding questions, he's a great example of citizen, grass roots activism and should be facilitated and more infor for all concerned citizens and just briefly remindss, a mentor of mine, soon to be Austin mayor clay dafoe.

>> anything regarding the corridor?

>> no.

>> anybody else to give comments during this public hearing?
move the public hearing be closed.

>> second.

>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.

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