Travis County Commissioners Court

July 3, 2012 - Item 17
Agenda

>> Number 17, consider and take appropriate action on the following is regarding Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan.
A, proposed resolution and support of the shared values and framework of policies as common ground to guide collaboration with the city of Austin as it begins to implement its newly adopted competence I have plan.
And b, to publiclyly express to the court's appointed task force members who helped guide development of the plan.

>> Good morning, judge, Commissioners court.
Brian nicholson, TNR Planning.
This morning's agenda is kind of a status report as it relates to the Austin's comprehensive plan, newly adopted in June 14th of last month.
And so we have two items. We want to brief the board on that plan and the status of that and then also to recognize the court's appointees that were involved on that plan.
Also we have representatives from the city of Austin, guarder will sell and amanda is behind me to bail me out because I get in trouble real quick.

>> Thanks so much for being here.

>> But this item has been to the court on several occasions.
Initially in December of 2010 the court did approve a resolution that gave some guidance the of the court to the plans and preparations so the city had just started their initiation of the plan's development so it's been a two-year journey with the city staff and the community who prepared the plan.
And you always say that planning is about the journey.
At the end of the day you do have a document and a guidance document for future resource allocations and how the community is going to spend their time and energies.
But it's also about the journey and how you get there is just as important as to the end product when it comes to planning.
So city of Austin has had an extensive two-year effort to pull together the plan and the community, and again, the court's representatives played an important part in that.
So what we have today for you is a suggested resolution that would bring attention to the areas where the staff recommends looking at collaborative efforts and implementing the plan.
A plan is only as good as the tools and the processes and the collaboration that occurs not only with municipal agencies and county agencies but also in this case a lot of the regional effort that will have to bring this plan to fruition.
It also kind I think -- I believe sets somewhat of a foundation that as we move forward this year completing some of our thoughts in terms of the court's long-range planning and bring forth the transportation plan, the court also sets some -- is important in our plan that collaboration is going to be important with every plan that is, you know, a component of this region.
So with that real brief overview, I'd like to just ask gardner, are you here, to run through with the court.
We have a handout that we passed out this morning and if gardner could just brief the court on that.

>> Good morning, judge and Commissioners.

>> Good morning.

>> Gardner stole, city of Austin planning and development review department.
I've been involved from this project from its beginning which is close to four years now.
Citizens of Austin have been involved in this project for more than two years, as randy mentioned.
On the early hours of June 15th, 1:30 in the morning, city council, after about a four-hour public hearing, unanimously adopted the imagine Austin comprehensive plan as input before that, a lot of folks worked on this plan.
The task force spent countless meetings.
I think we counted over 100 meetings of the task force.
The planning commission was very diligent and worked on this plan meeting after meeting after meeting.
The task force recommended its approval.
The planning commission unanimously recommended it to be approved and the council adopted it.
But Austin is a big city with many diverse viewpoints about the future of Austin.
And we heard that throughout the process.
The challenge was to capture that diversity and still say something.
One thing that there was broad consensus about was we did not want to create a shelf plan.
We wanted to create a document and a proceeds s we wanted to fulfill Austin's charter amendment of 1985 which says that the comprehensive plan should be a continuous and ongoing program.
So now the hard work begins, which as randy mentioned is using our regulatory powers, our spending powers to advance the goals the citizens articulated in the plan.
In addition to our regulatory powers and spending powers, perhaps even more important is the partnerships that are needed to implement this plan.
We live -- we live in a rapidly growing city, but an even more rapidly growing region.
And immediately around our region are territories that are under your jurisdiction.
So I think on top of the list of those partnerships is to work on the partnership with you all, Travis County.
So we're really happy to be here.
I think we've been here four times before.
We really participate -- thank you for your input into this plan and your staff's input.
I would have to mention joe geiselman, whose wise advice I often listen to.
Most of the time.

>> [laughter]

>> We feel the same way.

>> And our task force.
Our task force was very engaged.
Our task force always challenged us to get better.
And they were here and they might want to say a few words also to you.

>> Do you want to hear from us?

>> Very much.

>> First of all I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to serve on behalf of the county on the task force.
It was quite an experience.
It was very intensive and it was something that I'm not sure I'm ever going to do again, so please don't ask me.
But I do appreciate the opportunity to have been through the process and I know that the four members of the task force that came from the county were all very engaged in the process.
That wasn't true of everyone on the task force but you were represented very heavily by your representatives and it was -- it was an interesting perspective I think we were able to bring to the table because all four of us have ties to the city and the county and I'd like to think we do our best to represent the interests of the county in this, but also to understand what the requirements of the city and all areas of the area are.
I'm not completely satisfied with the plan, but I understand that we have to start somewhere and I think that's where we are now.
It isn't perfect, but I think that if we all continue to be involved in the process and try to improve it over time that it will have been a worthwhile effort.
So thank you for the opportunity to serve in this capacity and I hope that we have done you proud.

>> Very much so.

>> We appreciate your willingness to serve.

>> Thank you.

>> I'm ira yates and I too also appreciate the opportunity to have served especially since this actually came to a conclusion.
Many times the citizens serve and there are no conclusions.
And the beauty of this document is that it is an ongoing document, it's not a solid thing, it always has to evolve and incorporate those things in the future that we need to adjust to because of changing times.
Everything from allocations of resources in your county duties, direct growth and accommodate growth and whether it's affordable housing and where that occurs or affordable wages or when that's transportation, where that's highways, rails or pedestrian, the county in my observation over the 30 or 40 years is absolutely important in that whole process because that's where much of the growth is occurring outside the city ready to be taken in by the city.
So it's just -- I like to be reminded and to remind people that so many of these systems work together, and in the transportation area there are alternative modes of transportation.
One of the contentious parts of this imagine Austin plan was transportation, and there are very valid reasons why the transportation system turned out the way it was, in particular the southern portion having to do with state highway 45.
It has to do with many, many things, past policies that have been adopted since 1979, and also the changing times today and competition and market demands.
If we're going to have rail and we're going to have mass transit, we can't be subsidizing other means of transportation, in other words, highways.
And so it's a market and business decision in my way of thinking.
So many people talk about the environment, and certainly that's important.
It's cheaper to keep water clean than to build water treatment number 4, again at billions of dollars.
It's the collective in this plan that is so cool because it does talk about affordable housing.
And we spent so much time on that and that means affordable wages.
You've got to have people coming here and vitality.
So it works as a total plan.
And it's so involved that I'll just be quiet and let you all do your work, but it has been a pleasure and mostly because it came to a conclusion.
We have done this three or four times over the last 20 years, reached that last meeting and everybody just parted ways and never finished.
And that's the beauty of this right now because we now have something that you all can -- the entire community can work together, embrace and move forward with.
Thanks.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Judge, what the staff asked in morning was maybe direct legal staff to review our draft resolution, polish that up a little bit and bring that back to court and forward that on to city council in terms of the court's willingness to work to implement the plan in that effort, collaborative effort.
And secondly, again, just to recognize not only carol and ira that's here this morning, but jack and mark lynn couldn't be here this morning but they were also two members that served the court well on that task force.
So again, just to recognize their contributions and appreciate their efforts.

>> Commissioner?

>> I just wanted to specially thank the city of Austin and the representatives on the task force.
You mentioned there were over 100 meetings and there were probably some meetings that went on, subcommittee meetings that went on beyond that.
This was a huge time commitment for all members of the task force including all our members of the county.
I just want to thank the community at large for what they put into this and the city of Austin staff.
I also wanted to say at relates to our discussions today and partnering and collaboration with the county, as the conference of urban counties has pointed out the greatest part of growth in the state of Texas is in the unincorporated areas.
And with counties having relatively no land use authority, what happens is unfortunately as continue grow, they inherit the problems that came about as a result of the growth.
So I think that -- I really look forward, at least this Commissioner does, to working with the county to help look to the future -- I mean working with the city to help look to the future from the standpoint of hopefully with a collaborative effort avoiding some of the problems that we've already experienced as we grow in the unincorporated areas and that the city ultimately ends up with the problems as they expand the municipality.
So I think it's a dynamic opportunity and I really look forward to it and I'm really glad of this accomplishment and thank you especially to our representatives.

>> So is this intended to be the main public education piece?

>> It is intended to summarize the main directions of the plan.
We find that people don't have time to read 200 pages so we tried to put it on two sides of a page.
We also have, judge, we have an executive summary that we're busy working on which we will provide to you that will be about ten pages.
So we're trying to maximize the public's access to the directions of the plan so they understand it and can use it.
I might mention a few things.
When I mentioned that this is a continuous and ongoing program, that means that there are specific steps that we are taking to implement this plan.
The city manager has already created the capital planning office and it has been directed by city council to use the plan for the capital program.
They did -- the first run was for the 2012 capital program.
The budget office is working with us to integrate imagine Austin principles into the city's annual budget.
The charter requires an annual report and we hope to get you all involved in that.
And the annual report is supposed to do two things.
Number one, it's supposed to detail what's been done to implement the plan in the past year.
And it's also supposed to provide direction for the coming year.
You can't implement something as broad and comprehensive as this plan in one year.
So we need some direction from our elected officials and the annual report is the vehicle we'll be use to go get that to say these are our priorities for implementation on the coming year.
We want to make sure we involve you if we're invited to look at our annual report when it's draft form and get your input into that.
The -- that starts immediately.
As I mentioned, the hard work starts now.
We're going to be putting together the outline for the annual report and the plan has metrics, it has priority programs and metrics that are intended to be used to see whether we're being successful and what still needs to be done in order to move in the direction of the plan.
So we really look forward to hopefully at least once a year touch base with you all.

>> This is available on the city's website in.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Okay.
As well as the executive summary?

>> Yes, sir.
Yes, it is.

>> I wanted to thank you for the document.
I know that there were two major hurdles with regard to the neighborhood plans and 45 southwest, but I just wanted to say how grateful I am to our appointees for their diligent work, their strong voice with regard to the e.t.j.
And I think it's remarkable that after a two-year process on a plan as broad as this that we did come down to just two major issues at the end, but they are major issues.
All the times the community has mentioned and that I owe to you as well as mark and jack who couldn't be here today.
I am grateful to the city for recognizing how important that collaboration is.
And in our own land, water and transportation plan that will come out soon, we really so much look forward to that greater degree of collaboration and a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness.
Since we are married to basically the same tax base, the -- to the greatest extent we can we need to find those efficiency and collaboration to get what we need in this rapidly urbanizing region.
Thanks so much for this herculean effort which will be ongoing, I recognize that.

>> Great job.
We appreciate it.
So your request is that we kick this to legal and ask them look at the resolution and the other aspects of the plan.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Especially as to possible county action?

>> Yes, sir.

>> And can we do that in one week or two weeks or --

>> Two if you would like.

>> I would like one week.
I don't believe in that legal black hole that a lot of people complain about.

>> [laughter]

>> I would be remiss judge and I gave you a handout this morning, health and human services did provide some guidance and they reviewed the plan and I handed it out this morning and I'm sorry I didn't get that in as one of the exhibits.

>> That's a good point.
Along with our land and transportation plan, our inter face with regard to our annual plan with regard to health and human services we're already looking at riding shotgun on such things as our 'em pedestrianments to -- impediments to fair housing studying and I some of the other things.

>> Thanks again.
My role wasn't real active but I was part of it anyway.
We'll have it back on next week.

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.

July 3, 2012: Travis County Launches New Video Playback System

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On July 3rd, 2012, Travis County began leveraging free resources by posting Commissioners Court meetings on Youtube. Previously every video clip was edited separately and hosted on the county's video server. The old system also required RealPlayer to view the video clips.

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