Travis County Commissioners Court
June 12, 2012 - Item 22
Agenda
>> Let's go to a quick one, 22, consider and take appropriate action on the following regarding the Wells Branch Phase 2-a Subdivision in Precinct 2.
A, whether to improve substandard roads located at Rick Whinery Drive, Emmett Parkway and Quiet Pond Court to comply with county standards.
B, assessing all or part of the cost of the improvements pro rata against the record owners of the real property along these roads.
C, set a public hearing on August 14, 2012 to receive comments on the proposed improvements and assessments; and,
D, mailing informational letters and copies of the public hearing notice to affected property owners.
I thought we should just lay this out so there would be an understanding of what we were doing.
Otherwise I think it's pretty straightforward and pretty simple.
>> It is.
Good afternoon.
>> It sounds a lot more complicated than it is.
>> [laughter]
>> It sounds complicated, perhaps because this is the first time we're using this method in our substandard rules.
Substandard rules is a program we've had for years, and as you know what we do now is require participation from our property owners and these property owners came to us to ask for us to upgrade their roads because they they're considered substandard, particularly sidewalks is what really made the difference.
And so we always ask for participation from the homeowners.
They felt like they couldn't afford it right off, and they discovered transportation code 253, which allows us to assess them the value of the repair after they -- and they came to us in January asking for a 25-cent participation, and if we would assess them the value of that 25% over a five-year period, which is what that transportation code allows.
And so
>> [inaudible] with the tax office, the county attorneys, and the auditor's office to figure out exactly what to do.
And what resulted is that our staff assessed a $210,000 cost to repair those three roads, one whole road and the other two are partials.
It amounted to about $53,000.
We have a contribution by the kb homes and the mud has 8 parcels.
It's about 66 parcels and the mud has about 8 parcels which left them with 58 parcels.
That assessment would be about 600 -- a little over $600 -- to be exact $665.45, I think it is per property owner.
And then that amounts to about $133 per year with the assessmenter year each year.
So the law sirs several triggers, one of which is that you declare the road a public safety hazard so that we could start -- accept that as a substandard road.
We then have to have various things that occur, two public hearings, two notices in the papers, one public hearing.
Then we send out ballots and we have specific time frames and we identify those time frames in your agenda.
You will see we have to have the first notice -- public notice is the 14th of July, the second one is the 29th of July, and then the actual hearing issues which we asked to set today, is the 14th of August.
At that later -- the tax office will then send out ballots and then we will assess -- get those ballots back and they will tally the ballots on the 13th of September and then they'll be here on the 18th to give the results.
Assuming everything works, the intent is that I don't doubt that the homeowners will vote for it because in the assessment, when they came to us to ask to be part of the substandard rule, there are more than half that agreement to be in the program, so I don't doubt that we'll have approval from them.
Once we get that we intend to do it -- we have it scheduled in our work plan for next year, and our road and bridge crew will go out and repair these roses and sidewalks in a series -- based on particularly ones that are worse and then throughout the five years.
We intend to assess them every August.
We worked with the auditor's office to see how we could get that
>> [inaudible] and get the receivables back and hopefully they'll pay within the month and we'll follow that throughout the year, the five years.
>> If I may give a quick narrative history on this.
This is a cluster of roads inside wells branch that were never accepted for public maintenance, although the other roads, most of the other roads were accepted.
We do have one other issue with a road further that hp is on.
The residents wanted to show their good faith in a desire to move forward with this by having a petition that showed more than half of them were interested in this.
Initially they were coming with pots and pans and torches, mad at us, but through the work of the county attorney's office actually we found this other provision making it possible to stretch out the payment over time, and they -- the residents have been exceedingly helpful and proactive in figuring out how to do this.
So although it sounds complicated, I anticipate that a majority of the homeowners will write one check for the entire amount and be done.
Those who want to stretch it out over the five-year period may, but I feel that it's highly probable that a majority of the residents will simply write one check, or maybe two, and be done with the assessment.
>> I have three or four quick questions.
So 50% of them plus one must support this?
>> That's right.
>> And if 50% plus one vote in favor of it, we impose the assessment on 100% of them, the residents.
>> That's right.
>> They all get assessed.
>> Okay.
And the work will be done next year?
>> In five years, in a five-year period starting next year.
>> Oh, so we take five years to do the work?
>> Yes.
>> It's a lot of work to go repair all of the sidewalks in the subdivision.
It will just totally siphon off all of our resources to do that kind of work, to do it immediately.
Since they're paying off over five years we felt it would be appropriate to fix it over the five-year period as well.
We'll prioritize it, though.
We'll fix the worst places first and give them a schedule so they'll know that we're going to be out there.
And one other thing, you don't accept the roads right now.
We wait until after the vote, and if they vote to do it then we would accept the roads and that gives us the ability to go out and start working on it.
>> But steve, the time frame for fixing the roads is not connected to the pay-back period.
It's just that that's your time period.
>> That's true.
>> I wanted to make that clear.
And the only reason we're stretching the assessment out is they don't have a homeowners association that would have negotiated this on behalf of the residents.
>> Absolutely.
>> So if there had been an hoa it could vote even without a 50% buy-in by all the residents.
>> The 49%, in my hypothetical, may well conclude that I didn't vote for this and I'm not paying.
What kind of enforcement authority do we have?
>> We are going to -- actually julie will answer that one.
>>
>> [inaudible] prior to you assess -- assess it equally across the board, so it doesn't matter how they voted.
The vote would bind all those property owners that would be affected.
And if somebody refuses to pay, a lien would be put on their property until it is paid.
So there will be a filing in the official public records to show that there is this assessment that would need to be paid, and it would run with the land until it's paid.
>> So we have like a lien?
>> Yes.
>> So if an erascible resident like john hilly refuses to pay up, we have a lean on the property?
>> Yes, sir.
>> All right.
Those are my questions.
>> That's a lot better than when my grandfather refused to pay his assessment on sand gabriel and they just paved around his house.
That's at sand gabriel and 28th street back in --
>> -- san gabriel --
>> If we schedule this work in the right way we may leave ourselves that option.
>> [laughter] Commissioner Eckhardt moves approval of all four items, all four parts.
Second by Commissioner Huber.
Eckhardt?
>> And a big fat thank you to the residents for putting this together.
Wells branch has been tremendous.
>> I want to say democracy at work but I'll wait until after the vote.
All in favor.
That passes by unanimous vote.
Thank you all very much.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Subscribe for updates