Update and correction: I have updated and corrected this item to reflect the fact that Mountain City Mayor Curnutt did not say the $500-per-lot payment from Anthem to Mountain City should be part of the ILA. She did say, as she pointed out in an e-mail to me, that this would be a part of a separate agreement between Mountain City and Anthem Development. I stand corrected on that point.
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A developer wants to place a comparatively high-end subdivision on land that’s part of Mountain City’s Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ). Problem is the subdivision has no guaranteed source for water. So the City of Kyle stepped in and said it will extend its water and wastewater lines north to the subdivision, sell the residents its water and carry its wastewater south to Kyle’s wastewater treatment plant. It also threw in a few other goodies. In return, Kyle would take control of Mountain City’s ETJ and eventually annex it into Kyle so the property taxes of those in the subdivision can help pay for the infrastructure extensions. To sweeten the deal for Mountain City, Hays County jumped in and said it would pay to build new roads for Mountain City if Mountain City paid for the materials needed to build them. A document was prepared reflecting all this and that document is called an Interlocal Agreement (ILA).
That’s a simplified synopsis of the deal, but it hits the important parts.
The residents of Mountain City, however, don’t like the deal. Not one bit. And, as evidenced by a town hall meeting held a week ago last night, these residents are divided into two camps: One that doesn’t want to give up the ETJ under any conditions and a second that is willing to give it up, but not under the provisions as outlined in the current ILA. It was that second group that showed up last night at Mountain City’s City Council meeting that ended with the council unanimously approving a motion to continue negotiating with Kyle and Hays County for what it feels is a better deal, although neither Mountain City Mayor Tiffany Curnutt nor Mayor Pro Tem Phillip Taylor wanted to express confidence that an agreement will ever be reached.
The residents who attended last night’s council meeting do not view the action Mountain City might take as trading its ETJ. They call it "selling" the land in question and they are after a better sale price. In fact, Mayor Curnutt said she and Taylor met with Kyle City Manager Scott Sellers, Hays County Commissioner Will Conley, Anthem developer Clark Wilson and others for "about an hour" yesterday to discuss with them "If we were going to sell – I think that’s a good term – the ETJ what would make it worth our while."
To that end, she said, an attorney representing Mountain City will, in Mayor Curnutt’s words, "take first stab" at drafting an entirely new ILA which will be presented to Kyle and Hays County officials. She did not refer to this pending new document as a take-it-or-leave-it proposal, however, just the next step in the negotiating process.
Now I’m not an impartial observer in this discussion. Because I am a resident of Kyle, I want what’s best for the city in which I live and my observations on last night’s discussion are going to be filtered through that lens.
For example, I’m going to mention one of the last ideas broached last night first and that is the ILA should state if, for any reason, the subdivision, presently known as Anthem, doesn’t come to fruition, the ETJ would be returned to Mountain City. On the surface, that might sound reasonable, but there’s a chicken-egg question going on here. I will argue that once Kyle begins constructing the water and wastewater lines extensions, the ETJ remains in Kyle’s possession regardless of the fate of Anthem. Besides, the owner of the property says development is going to take place on that land, whether it’s called Anthem or Antler or Antares or Antebellum or Antediluvian or Antepenultimate or even Anticlimax. Something’s going to be constructed on that land and soon and, whatever it is, it will need water. Now, if Anthem becomes a no-go before construction begins, I see no reason Mountain City can’t reclaim its ETJ, although I would hope Kyle leaders become reluctant to enter into any further ILAs over it. Let Mountain City deal with it.
Another provision Mountain City wants as part of a revised ILA is that only that part of the ETJ that will be occupied by Anthem would be part of the deal. That would mean, as someone explained it to me last night, that instead of a 10-foot wide swath of land separating the city limits of Mountain City and Kyle, there would be a 50-foot separation, a separation Mountain City said it would like to use for a hike and bike trail. That one sounds rather reasonable to me.
"We may have to incorporate some language to the effect if signs or other structures are built they would have to fall within Kyle’s requirements as well," Curnutt said. "For example they don’t allow the pillar signs. So they don’t want any 70-foot pillar signs. So we would have to mutually agree on whatever signs are placed there."
Then she mentioned something that I had a problem with and that’s the development agreement that currently exists between Anthem and Mountain City.
"If Kyle were to adopt the development agreement as it stands or perhaps make it more stringent – whatever that means – but if they’re going to do that, it has to be outlined," the mayor said. "It may be better for them but we don’t consider it better." For example, she cited, Kyle Mayor Todd Webster "had mentioned all the homes in Plum Creek … are not our standards of masonry. Hardy plank, in our own minds, is not considered masonry. So that was one thing we talked about. Hardy plank is not going to work for us."
She also said the "timing was really weird" on when the property would be annexed. She said, according to the terms of the ILA as it is presently written "Basically, the minute we sign the ILA then the development agreement goes away and Kyle can write whatever it wants. So we want some language that says they are going to adhere to these rules when they write their development agreement. We would like to see a draft of that."
Here’s my problem with all that. No city should be allowed to dictate to another city how it should construct homes or the contents of any development districts or anything else about the way that city operates. You can dictate the rules for your own municipality but I have grave concerns when one municipality thinks it
has the right to dictate the rules for another municipality.
She also said she wanted to see maps of where the water and wastewater lines would be located before she would agree to any ILA..
In addition, she said, she wants "clarification" on Mountain City’s ability to "tie in" to Kyle’s water lines. She said she wondered if that allowed Mountain City residents, on an individual basis, to decide whether they would prefer to pay to have access to Kyle water. "That’s pretty much not the case," she told the council and the audience. "It would be pretty much all or none. We would have a main tie-in and the city of Mountain City would be responsible for paying the City of Kyle whether it’s in-city or out-of-city rates. That’s negotiable. Their out-of-city rates are 130 percent of what they currently charge their city residents, which is high to begin with. But just for clarification, it would be one main tie in. It could be used as an alternate source or for something if we ever decided to stop providing water. That’s not at all in the plans, but the City of Kyle would have the ability if we gave them the authorization to start providing water."
Curnutt said Mountain City would have to address what she referred to as extremely expensive infrastructure improvements before it could connect to Kyle’s water supply and will probably have to make those improvements sometime in the future anyway because of aging. "Our water costs are going to go up regardless," she said. "It’s a very old system."
To help defray the costs of these improvements, Curnutt wants an agreement with Anthem that stipulates Wilson will pay Mountain City $500 for every lot sold in Anthem, which, of course, is strictly between Anthem and Mountain City.
Mountain City, for some reason known only to it (perhaps it has to do with the possible increase in traffic on its streets), wants all entrances and exits to Anthem be located on RR 150, with another one possibly located on the northeast edge of the project, away from Mountain City, and that there be absolutely no street connection whatsoever between Anthem and Mountain City. According to current plans, there is only one way in or out of the subdivision but, from what I’m hearing, the project is big enough that state law requires at least two, because, if one was blocked for any reason, there would need to be a way for emergency vehicles to access the area. The problem is, however, the area of the project that fronts 150 is relatively small, meaning the two access points would have to be so close to each other to result in major traffic problems along that stretch of 150, particularly when you consider that stretch of highway is scheduled for major renovation, i.e. widening, as part of the area’s transportation plan.
To give you another idea, of how clueless elected officials around here are when it comes to PIDs, Mayor Curnutt said Wilson is, of course, working on a PID to present to the Kyle officials. When someone asked her what a PID was, she replied it was a "Public Infrastructure District." Yipes!
There also seems to be some disagreement about what Plum Creek plans to do with the land it owns north of Kohler’s Crossing and east of 2770, basically across the street from Mountain City. According to a Plum Creek web site, this area, known as Uptown, will eventually contain "mixed-use multifamily development, restaurants, retail and office uses, the central administration offices of the local school district, a new City of Kyle library, and urban civic space in the form of plazas and an amphitheatre." Taylor, however, swore to the audience last night Uptown is not zoned for multi-family.
That’s the highlights of the discussion on the one item that was on Mountain City’s council agenda last night. Fortunately, I got to hear it when I did because, knowing that Kyle officials don’t believe in open, transparent government as much as Mountain City seems to, I’m willing to bet all mention of Monday’s meeting from Kyle’s point of view will be discussed in executive session.
After the meeting I asked both Curnutt and Taylor whether they were confident that an ILA would ever been signed. "As long as it was agreeable to all parties concerned," Taylor said. I basically repeated my question by asking, on a scale from one to 10, how confident they were a document could be written that "was agreeable to all parties concerned." They both replied, in unison, "I don’t want to go there." That, to me, did not exude a whole lot of confidence on their part a deal would ever get done.
So there’s that.
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