Mayor fears wastewater change could jeopardize Yarrington development

Mayor Todd Webster said last night he is concerned that a major change in the construction of a wastewater line extending to the southern border of Kyle "could put the entire Yarrington Road development in jeopardy," adding he was now anxious to meet with the developers to reassure them of the city’s commitment to provide the needed infrastructure to that area.

Under an original multi-jurisdictional agreement created to block the construction of a giant truck stop at the northwest corner of Yarrington and Interstate 35, the cities of Kyle and San Marcos agreed to share in an effort to provide wastewater infrastructure to that area, with the actual wastewater from that site going to San Marcos’s treatment plant. However, last night City Engineer Leon Barba broke the news to the City Council that, basically, the cities’ respective systems are not completely compatible and that Kyle, alone, would have to provide the needed wastewater services. Barba estimated those services could be operable by the end of 2018. Webster, however, said his conversations with the developers, PGI, indicated to him they expected the services to be ready a year earlier than that.

"If this raises questions with PGI about our commitment to provide wastewater services in a timely fashion, they are naturally going to wonder ‘What’s going on with this’," Mayor Webster said following last night’s council meeting. "From where I sit we should have had a conversation with them to prepare them and to affirm whatever our commitment is. Frankly, from where I sit, I didn’t have the opportunity to do that. Now I’m going to have to circle back with PGI and try to provide some reassurance to them that we’re not going to back away from our commitment to this."

According to a concept plan unveiled in mid-January, the development was expected to include a retail anchor store, restaurant pads, two hotels, a convenience store with an eight-pump gas station and several other retail sites.

The mayor stood by the statement he made during the council meeting that this decision to go it alone could actually jeopardize this development.

"The number one issue for PGI was us getting them sewer as fast as possible so that they could develop," he said. "I’m going to find out what we can do to provide some sort of temporary accommodations so that area can develop. We’ve done it before. It can be on-site septic. We could truck it out. I don’t care. But we promised them what we were going to do."

Webster said there was never any firm date established as a deadline for when the development would have wastewater services "but I thought it would certainly be earlier than the end of 2018. It’s just taken us a whole year to get where we are now — a year of working on it and suddenly we’re not going to go in that direction.

"I’m just frustrated right now," he said. "How you do things matters. It just feels wrong that we’ve gone in a completely different direction without telling them. It seems to me a year ago we were on a much faster time line than the end of 2018. We’ve spent a year negotiating with San Marcos about something that’s now never going to come to fruition. It should have been the end of 2017, not the end of 2018. We never seem to come out ahead on negotiations with our good neighbors to the south. In this particular instance, it didn’t work out in our favor again.

"You have no idea how many people are lining up to develop on that property and if we’re not careful they’re all going to go away."

Webster said his greatest fear is that these people might not understand what’s happening and might start "to question our commitment to following through on the promises we made. Given the history of that property owner and what has happened to them over the last couple of years, they could give up. It would be nice to have had those questions answered before we announced at City Council we weren’t going to be running the wastewater to San Marcos any longer.

The mayor said he personally was the intermediary between the city and the property owner.

"Those are my commitments that just got traded away," he said. "I made them on good faith based on what I was told. This is a developer that needs to be constantly shown we are following through on our commitments. We’re going to need some sort of answer on wastewater before the end of 2018. No question. That’s what I’m going to work on now."

Also during last night’s meeting:

• Special Programs Specialist Sarah Watson outlined a number of events the city expects to host this year including a music festival that will take place on the same dates as the second weekend of the Austin City Limits Festival which could either be a blessing (by coordinating with the ACL promoters, the Kyle festival could attract more prominent artists to appear than might have been otherwise possible) or a curse (ACL could suck all the air out of the room). She also talked about an "Art the Halls" program she said "provides an opportunity for artists in the area to submit and showcase their artwork at the Kyle Library and City Hall." The part of this I found most intriguing and satisfying was when she announced ‘This year we’re hoping to feature an installment through the Kyle correctional facility so the members that are in that facility will be able to feature their artwork." This art will be featured during August and September and will include, Watson said, a meet-the-artist session although she was not specific on where and how that meeting would take place.
• Council member Shane Arabie switched his vote from "no" to "yes’ on the second reading of an zoning ordinance to create a Public United Development on Creekside Trail, so this time it passed 5-2. I failed to get an explanation for his change of mind.
• The council decided not to change the name of Philomena Drive, the temporary name given to the extension of Goforth Road between Bunton and Kyle Parkway. Council member Becky Selbera recommended changing it to (I think) Alberta Lane. The reason I say "I think" that was her recommendation is because, for some reason known only to her, she refuses to use the personal microphone available to her when she speaks and, because she speaks in softer tones than all other council members, it is often extremely difficult to hear what she says, a frustration that is probably shared by those watching the council sessions from home. Whatever, her motion failed 4-3, with only council members Travis Mitchell and David Wilson joining her to vote in the affirmative.
• The council unanimously agreed to appoint Mitchell and Arabie to be the city’s representatives on the CAPCOG General Assembly.
• Capping a 42-minute discussion, most of which had absolutely nothing to do with the subject under consideration, the council unanimously adopted the policy I outlined Monday for the appointment of members to boards and commissions with one change. In fourth bullet item of that policy wrote about, instead of having "a second-round interview process conducted by city staff," that interview will now be conducted by the staff person with oversight jurisdiction of that committee, the chair of the relevant committee, the city manager and the mayor, or their respective designees. What was not stated specifically was whether those would be four separate interviews or whether an attempt would be made to juggle enough schedules to get all those individuals (or their designated replacements) in the same room at the same time for one interview. I’m guessing the council’s implication was that it would be the latter, but, again, it was not specified.