You can’t blame Michael Rubsam for feeling like Rocky after climbing the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. The one great obstacle to his success as chair of the Planning & Zoning Commission had been removed. No longer is he Coleridge’s ancient mariner. It’s as if Camus had permitted Sisyphus to retire. Goodbye Landscape Ordinance and good luck at your next stop.
The commission finally passed Tuesday evening and sent to the city council its revised Landscape Ordinance. And when that unanimous vote (commissioners Lori Huey and Brad Growt did not attend) was recorded, a broad smile could be seen on Rubsam’s face as he raised both arms in the air.
"The landscape ordinance has been an issue for several years now," Rubsam told me after the commission’s two-hour, 24-minute meeting adjourned. "It’s been through many commissioners and we’ve had a lot of input, not only from the commissioners but also from the public. And I’m very pleased we’re going to move forward with this because I think it will streamline what we’ve been faced with granting variances in planning and zoning. It will clarify the rules for the builders in the future."
C’mon, Mike. Quit sounding like a government official. Tell us how you really feel right now.
"This is one of the best days I’ve had at the end of a P&Z meeting for a long time," he said, another broad smile lighting up his face.
The commissioners spent an hour going through the 21-page document making sure all five of them were pleased with every single word on every single page.
The most substantial discussion involved a section labeled "Exceptions" that read "In order to address atypical, site specific development/redevelopment challenges, the community development director and/or his/her designee is authorized to approve alternative compliance landscape plans when s/he determines that one or more of the following conditions are present" and then it listed four such conditions. Commissioner Timothy Kay wanted the commission to have that authority, not the "community development director and/or his/her designee."
Kay was also concerned about the next paragraph which said anyone "with standing" who didn’t like the staff’s decision to approve an alternative plan could appeal that decision to P&Z within 30 days. Kay wondered how anyone, outside the party who asked staff for the change, would even be aware a change had been made.
Although commissioner Dex Ellision said he agreed with Kay in theory he finally sided with the other three commissioners who said the driving motivation behind the revised ordinance was to keep P&Z from having to rule on all these requests. The commissioner also agreed that giving this responsibility to city staff would speed up the permitting process, something all developers everywhere clamor for (see the complaints of one such developer below). As for informing those "with standing" of a possible change, language was added so that once a change was requested, a sign reflecting that change request had to be posted on the property and the change could not be approved until at least 10 days after the posting of that sign.
That, and the word "Exceptions" was changed to "Variances."
The commissioners also recommended the council approve language amending the ordinances regarding impervious surfaces and postponed until their Oct. 11 meeting deciding the fate of two conditional use permits.
In the first conditional use permit case, the commissioners were concerned the north side of a proposed 9,000-square-foot retail center planned for the northbound frontage road of I-35, just north of the AMM Collision Center, did not contain the required masonry the city dictates must be on all buildings. The building’s owner, Dennis Artale, who said he hoped to lease a portion of the center for a restaurant and eventually construct a hotel just to the south of the center, said since all traffic would be driving north on the frontage road anyway, that side of the building wouldn’t be that visible. In addition, he said, a line of trees on the property line just beyond the building also obscured that side.
City planner William Atkinson said, however, everything Artale said was irrelevant. "The I-35 overlay standards have been in place for quite some time, prior to 2015," Atkinson told the commissioners. "To be honest it really shouldn’t be an issue that the four-side masonry on the north side needs to be in place. We go by our code and it’s a simple as that."
Needless to say, Artale was not happy with the entire process.
"This will end up raising the cost on the property in addition to the added wait time," he said. "I have never built anything in Kyle. This is my first experience and it hasn’t been a good one. I’ve built two retails in Buda off of 967 but I hadn’t built one here in Kyle yet. But it seems like the process takes a lot longer here. I don’t know if there is any way we can speed the process up because the small business person we have to get a loan to buy the land, the loan for the interim and all of that. It just adds more and more layers to the cost. Then we have to hope we can lease it out enough to make ends meet."
In the second case, involving a proposed 16,000-square foot blood bank across Kyle Parkway from Seton Medical Center, the commissioners were hesitant to act until the Board of Adjustments rules on the property owner’s request for additional parking places. That ruling is expected at the Board of Adjustments’ Oct. 3 meeting. The maximum allowable parking spaces for such a facility is 101. The blood bank, BioLife Plasma Services, is seeking 170, which their architect claimed, is the number needed to accommodate customer demand at all the other identical facilities the company has constructed around the country.
The big question on the impervious surface issue was whether a swimming pool filled with water could be considered an impervious surface. In the end, the commissioners decided it was.
The Kyle Report
Showing posts with label P&Z Chair Michael Rubsam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label P&Z Chair Michael Rubsam. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
P&Z reviews pending landscape ordinance revisions
Six the seven Planning & Zoning commissioners (Lori Huey apparently was on vacation in Florida) along with Development Director Howard Koontz and three "onlookers" sat around the table in the Minerva Falcon Conference Room at City Hall tonight to ponder the latest reiteration of the changes being proposed to the city’s landscape ordinances, changes that the commission is scheduled to vote on Sept. 13.
This was the first time the commission has discussed this pending ordinance in nearly a year and since then several new commissioners have joined.
"We made quite a few changes to areas basically where we identified problems," chair Michael Rubsam said, directing his remarks, in large part, to those new members who were getting their first exposure to the proposal that has been under discussion, I’m told, for nearly three years. "A lot of variances come through. Primary among them was the diameter of the trees when they are freshly planted. The four-inch trees are not typically stocked (by sellers) very well. They’re much more expensive than smaller trees and their survival rate really isn’t that good overall. So we knocked that down from four inches to three inches. We’ve changed the way we measure them and where they’re located, the density, the overall numbers. What we’re really trying to do is simplify (the existing ordinance). It was done this way deliberately, initially, to raise the bar very high because it’s better to ask for as much as you want and grant variances to work your way down."
Koontz told the commissioners the revisions change the way the city looks at landscaping for new developments.
"One thing that we’ve gotten closer toward is incentivizing keeping trees on an undeveloped site," Koontz said, "rather than moonscaping the site and replanting new landscaping. You can actually go through and design with the site, move your building around, move your parking areas around to keep mature trees there and protect them during and after construction. You’ll have a nicer property when you’re done."
Koontz did, however, caution the commissioners by telling them "One thing that’s really important to point out about this entire landscape ordinance is the tree ordinance and the landscape ordinance only has applicability when somebody pulls a permit to do something. You have to have some sort of other type of development permit. You have to be installing a parking lot, building a building or putting in stormwater management — something to that effect. If you’re just Target and you have more trees than you need, you can cut down the trees that you don’t need. We don’t have a tree preservation ordinance. Nor do we have a specimen tree ordinance or anything like that."
During tonight’s two hour and five minute workshop the commissioners recommended only minor word changes and additions, but nothing that substantially altered any of the changes on which the commissioners had previously agreed.
The agenda during which the commission will consider whether to recommend the changes, as presented tonight, to the city council for adoption, will also contain a proposal for an ordinance that attempts to regulate the percentage of a homeowner’ property, other than the actual house itself, that is covered with an impervious surface.
This was the first time the commission has discussed this pending ordinance in nearly a year and since then several new commissioners have joined.
"We made quite a few changes to areas basically where we identified problems," chair Michael Rubsam said, directing his remarks, in large part, to those new members who were getting their first exposure to the proposal that has been under discussion, I’m told, for nearly three years. "A lot of variances come through. Primary among them was the diameter of the trees when they are freshly planted. The four-inch trees are not typically stocked (by sellers) very well. They’re much more expensive than smaller trees and their survival rate really isn’t that good overall. So we knocked that down from four inches to three inches. We’ve changed the way we measure them and where they’re located, the density, the overall numbers. What we’re really trying to do is simplify (the existing ordinance). It was done this way deliberately, initially, to raise the bar very high because it’s better to ask for as much as you want and grant variances to work your way down."
Koontz told the commissioners the revisions change the way the city looks at landscaping for new developments.
"One thing that we’ve gotten closer toward is incentivizing keeping trees on an undeveloped site," Koontz said, "rather than moonscaping the site and replanting new landscaping. You can actually go through and design with the site, move your building around, move your parking areas around to keep mature trees there and protect them during and after construction. You’ll have a nicer property when you’re done."
Koontz did, however, caution the commissioners by telling them "One thing that’s really important to point out about this entire landscape ordinance is the tree ordinance and the landscape ordinance only has applicability when somebody pulls a permit to do something. You have to have some sort of other type of development permit. You have to be installing a parking lot, building a building or putting in stormwater management — something to that effect. If you’re just Target and you have more trees than you need, you can cut down the trees that you don’t need. We don’t have a tree preservation ordinance. Nor do we have a specimen tree ordinance or anything like that."
During tonight’s two hour and five minute workshop the commissioners recommended only minor word changes and additions, but nothing that substantially altered any of the changes on which the commissioners had previously agreed.
The agenda during which the commission will consider whether to recommend the changes, as presented tonight, to the city council for adoption, will also contain a proposal for an ordinance that attempts to regulate the percentage of a homeowner’ property, other than the actual house itself, that is covered with an impervious surface.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
P&Z OKs strip center, lighting ordinance
After stumbling over a consent agenda on which they approved items they didn’t mean to approve (and will undoubtedly appear on the final record as not being approved), the five commissioners who attended tonight’s Planning & Zoning Commission granted a conditional use permit for a strip center adjacent to downtown and recommended the City Council adopt a lighting ordinance modified to reduce restrictions on non-existent parks and residential street lights.
For the third meeting in a row, the commissioners also decided not enough members were present to elect a vice-chair so that decision was put off until its Aug. 9 meeting when, presumably, it is hoped that at least one more commissioner will attend. Commissioners Lori Huey and Irene Melendez missed tonight’s meeting.
The consent agenda contained five items, one of which was pulled so that a response could be made to a citizen who had commented on it and P&Z operates under the same mistaken interpretation of meeting rules as the city council believing, incorrectly, commissioners can’t legally respond to comments made by citizens during Citizens Comments period.
Of the remaining items on the consent agenda, the city’s staff recommended the disapproval of two of them and the approval of the remaining two. Instead of making the motion to follow staff’s recommendations in regards to the items on the consent agenda, commissioner Timothy Kay moved to approve all four of the items. That motion, mysteriously enough, was seconded and approved unanimously. So, legally speaking, the commissioners approved the final plat for the Brookside Subdivision Phase 3 and the Dacy Village Subdivision Lot 5, Block B, although something tells me when the final script is writ, it will be recorded those two items were statutorily disapproved, because that’s what staff really wanted to the commissioners to do. Funny how those things work out.
The strip center that received the conditional use permit is the same 17,300-square-foot structure located between the southbound I-35 service road and old Highway 81, a block north of Center Street, that the commissioners ordered sent back to the drawing boards back on June 14 because the rear of the building looked too much like the rear of a building.
This time around Jaime Hernandez, the building’s architect and its project manager, offered an alternative that looked like a more decorative and additionally landscaped rear of a building. The commissioners thanked Hernandez for adhering to their whimsy and granted the permit.
"In an effort to provide more of an aesthetic feel on the rear of the building, we added some awnings to the rear," Hernandez told the commissioners. "We added sidewalk as well, all the way around to make that pedestrian connection, to make it friendlier. We also made the adjustment to have landscaping on all four sides of the building."
"I think that looks a whole lot better than it did the first time," chairman Michael Rubsam told Hernandez
The rest of the commissioners agreed, voting 5-0 to approve the permit.
Rubsam was the only commissioner ro raise concerns about the lighting ordinance, although the rest of the commissioners easily deferred to those concerns. The ordinance recognized five distinct lighting "zones," ranging from what was tabbed an LZ-0 zone that permitted no ambient lighting whatsoever to LZ-4, in which "high ambient lighting" was permitted.
It was that first zone that bugged Rubsam. It said this zone applied to "wilderness and protected wildlife areas, parks and preserves and undeveloped rural areas." Rubsam did not like in the inclusion of parks inside the cit limits because he felt completely darkened parks pose a risk to law enforcement types who must investigate all those shenanigans everyone knows takes place in these parks after the sun goes down. The problem is, however, Kyle doesn’t have any of these parks. As Planning Director Howard J. Koontz tried to explain, there will not be a single spot in Kyle that will be designated as an LZ-0 zone so the rule doesn’t apply. He said the only reason the LZ-0 zone is even mentioned is because "some day we might have a development agreement with someone where the city and the developer choose together to utilize that standard for a portion of or all of their site."
The other part of the ordinance Rubsam had a problem with was a section that read "Street lighting, other than at the intersection of roadways, shall utilize half-night photo cells or timers to turn off lights halfway between dusk and dawn." Rubsam didn’t like the notion of turning these lights off completely. He was OK with them being reduced by 70 percent, but not completely off.
Rubsam maintained that bad guys "love the dark. Anytime you start turning off streetlights, you invite crime. Another thing is some of our more elderly residents don’t see all that well at night, When they pull into a residential neighborhood, the streetlights are very helpful for navigation for these people."
Rubsam said 50 percent lighting would be perfectly acceptable for him. "When you’re talking about crime deterrent, any light is helpful in deterring crime." That’s why he could go as low as 30 percent, but "I’m not crazy about turning them off."
As a result, the commissioners voted unanimously to go along with Rubsam’s motion to recommend the city council pass a lighting ordinance as presented with the exception of "Page 9 where we would remove the word ‘parks’ from the LZ-0 no ambient lighting section and also on the street lighting section on Page 18 where we change the sentence to read ‘street lighting other than at the intersection of roadways, shall utilize half-night photo cells or timers to reduce light output by up to 70 percent halfway between dusk and dawn’."
Koontz seemed to have some specific "targets" in mind when he presented the proposed ordinance.
"This makes an expectation of lowering the required light when you have spaces that are not being used after dark," Koontz told the commissioners. "So you’ll notice there’s recommendations in there for light to be cut by 50 percent output after a certain time in the evening. There’s really no reason that the Target sign needs to be putting out 1,500 lumens at 2:38 on a Tuesday morning. There’s nobody shopping at Target at 2:38 on a Tuesday morning. You can dim that down a little bit until such time as you get more traffic which is right around daybreak."
Later he said he was really OK with the lighting at the Target center. In fact, he appeared to cite it as an example of the right way to handle municipal lighting.
"In centers like that where they already have a package consisting of plans, site work, materials suppliers and vendors, that’s probably to make sure that’s compliant with wherever they go," Koontz said. "They replicate the same sites everywhere. If you’re interested in seeing what it looks like, set your alarm for about 3 or 3:20 and then drive up to Target and see what it looks like up there."
At one point Koontz also maintained that "single family residential is exempted from this ordinance entirely so you can do just about what you choose as long as it doesn’t become an issue for neighbors." That statement, however, seems at odds with the fact that the ordinance says the default zone for the LZ-1 zone requiring "low ambient lighting" is "rural and low density residential areas, including residential single or two family." And later in that same description is says the areas for low ambient lighting "typically include single and two family residential communities." The one caveat is that it applies to those areas "that desire low ambient lighting areas," but it does not describe how to ascertain whether an area really does have such a desire. In addition, Koontz interpreted this section to apply to churches and such that might be found in areas zoned R-1, but not the individual residences themselves. Of course, the way it is worded, a successor to Koontz could have a completely different interpretation.
For the third meeting in a row, the commissioners also decided not enough members were present to elect a vice-chair so that decision was put off until its Aug. 9 meeting when, presumably, it is hoped that at least one more commissioner will attend. Commissioners Lori Huey and Irene Melendez missed tonight’s meeting.
The consent agenda contained five items, one of which was pulled so that a response could be made to a citizen who had commented on it and P&Z operates under the same mistaken interpretation of meeting rules as the city council believing, incorrectly, commissioners can’t legally respond to comments made by citizens during Citizens Comments period.
Of the remaining items on the consent agenda, the city’s staff recommended the disapproval of two of them and the approval of the remaining two. Instead of making the motion to follow staff’s recommendations in regards to the items on the consent agenda, commissioner Timothy Kay moved to approve all four of the items. That motion, mysteriously enough, was seconded and approved unanimously. So, legally speaking, the commissioners approved the final plat for the Brookside Subdivision Phase 3 and the Dacy Village Subdivision Lot 5, Block B, although something tells me when the final script is writ, it will be recorded those two items were statutorily disapproved, because that’s what staff really wanted to the commissioners to do. Funny how those things work out.
The strip center that received the conditional use permit is the same 17,300-square-foot structure located between the southbound I-35 service road and old Highway 81, a block north of Center Street, that the commissioners ordered sent back to the drawing boards back on June 14 because the rear of the building looked too much like the rear of a building.
This time around Jaime Hernandez, the building’s architect and its project manager, offered an alternative that looked like a more decorative and additionally landscaped rear of a building. The commissioners thanked Hernandez for adhering to their whimsy and granted the permit.
"In an effort to provide more of an aesthetic feel on the rear of the building, we added some awnings to the rear," Hernandez told the commissioners. "We added sidewalk as well, all the way around to make that pedestrian connection, to make it friendlier. We also made the adjustment to have landscaping on all four sides of the building."
"I think that looks a whole lot better than it did the first time," chairman Michael Rubsam told Hernandez
The rest of the commissioners agreed, voting 5-0 to approve the permit.
Rubsam was the only commissioner ro raise concerns about the lighting ordinance, although the rest of the commissioners easily deferred to those concerns. The ordinance recognized five distinct lighting "zones," ranging from what was tabbed an LZ-0 zone that permitted no ambient lighting whatsoever to LZ-4, in which "high ambient lighting" was permitted.
It was that first zone that bugged Rubsam. It said this zone applied to "wilderness and protected wildlife areas, parks and preserves and undeveloped rural areas." Rubsam did not like in the inclusion of parks inside the cit limits because he felt completely darkened parks pose a risk to law enforcement types who must investigate all those shenanigans everyone knows takes place in these parks after the sun goes down. The problem is, however, Kyle doesn’t have any of these parks. As Planning Director Howard J. Koontz tried to explain, there will not be a single spot in Kyle that will be designated as an LZ-0 zone so the rule doesn’t apply. He said the only reason the LZ-0 zone is even mentioned is because "some day we might have a development agreement with someone where the city and the developer choose together to utilize that standard for a portion of or all of their site."
The other part of the ordinance Rubsam had a problem with was a section that read "Street lighting, other than at the intersection of roadways, shall utilize half-night photo cells or timers to turn off lights halfway between dusk and dawn." Rubsam didn’t like the notion of turning these lights off completely. He was OK with them being reduced by 70 percent, but not completely off.
Rubsam maintained that bad guys "love the dark. Anytime you start turning off streetlights, you invite crime. Another thing is some of our more elderly residents don’t see all that well at night, When they pull into a residential neighborhood, the streetlights are very helpful for navigation for these people."
Rubsam said 50 percent lighting would be perfectly acceptable for him. "When you’re talking about crime deterrent, any light is helpful in deterring crime." That’s why he could go as low as 30 percent, but "I’m not crazy about turning them off."
As a result, the commissioners voted unanimously to go along with Rubsam’s motion to recommend the city council pass a lighting ordinance as presented with the exception of "Page 9 where we would remove the word ‘parks’ from the LZ-0 no ambient lighting section and also on the street lighting section on Page 18 where we change the sentence to read ‘street lighting other than at the intersection of roadways, shall utilize half-night photo cells or timers to reduce light output by up to 70 percent halfway between dusk and dawn’."
Koontz seemed to have some specific "targets" in mind when he presented the proposed ordinance.
"This makes an expectation of lowering the required light when you have spaces that are not being used after dark," Koontz told the commissioners. "So you’ll notice there’s recommendations in there for light to be cut by 50 percent output after a certain time in the evening. There’s really no reason that the Target sign needs to be putting out 1,500 lumens at 2:38 on a Tuesday morning. There’s nobody shopping at Target at 2:38 on a Tuesday morning. You can dim that down a little bit until such time as you get more traffic which is right around daybreak."
Later he said he was really OK with the lighting at the Target center. In fact, he appeared to cite it as an example of the right way to handle municipal lighting.
"In centers like that where they already have a package consisting of plans, site work, materials suppliers and vendors, that’s probably to make sure that’s compliant with wherever they go," Koontz said. "They replicate the same sites everywhere. If you’re interested in seeing what it looks like, set your alarm for about 3 or 3:20 and then drive up to Target and see what it looks like up there."
At one point Koontz also maintained that "single family residential is exempted from this ordinance entirely so you can do just about what you choose as long as it doesn’t become an issue for neighbors." That statement, however, seems at odds with the fact that the ordinance says the default zone for the LZ-1 zone requiring "low ambient lighting" is "rural and low density residential areas, including residential single or two family." And later in that same description is says the areas for low ambient lighting "typically include single and two family residential communities." The one caveat is that it applies to those areas "that desire low ambient lighting areas," but it does not describe how to ascertain whether an area really does have such a desire. In addition, Koontz interpreted this section to apply to churches and such that might be found in areas zoned R-1, but not the individual residences themselves. Of course, the way it is worded, a successor to Koontz could have a completely different interpretation.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
It’s all about the buffer, ‘bout the buffer, not the water
There’s a rather large subdivision called Anthem planned for an area along RR 150 northwest of Kyle and directly west from Mountain City. It will contain homes ranging from 6,000 to 13,000 square feet. Looking at these plans makes me think Anthem will make Plum Creek seem like a dwarf. The average size of a house in Plum Creek is 2,184 square feet. Anthem is not located within the municipal limits of any city, but is in Mountain City’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ).
Originally, Anthem planned to get water from Electro Purification, which proposed to pump five million gallons of water per day from an unregulated portion of the Trinity Aquifer. Most of that five million gallons was contracted to a water reseller, Goforth Special Utility District. The city of Buda also contracted to get some of the water from the EP wells.
However, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that would expand the boundaries of the Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer Conservation District to cover that portion of western Hays County where the EP wells are planned, thus reducing the amount of water EP could pump on a daily basis to a level where it could possibly provide only the amount contracted by the Goforth SUD.
So various entities went to work to solve the problem of how to replace that water EP was supposed to provide to Buda and Anthem. Buda proved not to be a problem, but the plan for Anthem has run into steep opposition from the residents of Mountain City.
Acting as a third-party mediator, Hays County got together with the city leaders of Kyle and Mountain City and negotiated the framework for a deal, called an Interlocal Agreement (ILA), in which, among other things, Kyle would agree to provide water and wastewater services to Anthem. However, those "other things" has the citizenry of Mountain City in an uproar.
According to the deal, Kyle would provide the water and wastewater services only if Mountain City surrendered jurisdiction to the territory where Anthem would be located to Kyle. There are other provisions. One, Hays County would provide the labor to rebuild roads in Mountain City (Mountain City would have to pay for the materials). Kyle would also provide water and wastewater services to a section of Mountain City it wants to convert into a commercial corridor. Such a corridor would provide Mountain City with sales tax revenues. However, at the present, that area is served by wells and septic tanks and thus can’t be developed commercially. In addition, Kyle would "make available water and wastewater master meters to Mountain City, billable at the out-of-city rates as defined in Kyle’s Code of Ordinances, which will allow Mountain City to develop its own water and/or wastewater utilities to service its citizenry." Kyle, of course, would make Anthem part of its ETJ (and perhaps even officially annex the area) and receive the resulting property tax revenues. (Mountain City would not receive property tax revenues from Anthem if it kept the ETJ; those moneys would go to the Municipal Utility District created for the subdivision.)
Last night I attended a meeting at the Plum Creek Golf Course building hosted by Mountain City to discuss the proposed ILA. Also present were Kyle Mayor Todd Webster; Hays County Commissioners Will Conley, whose district covers the proposed EP wells, and Mark Jones, whose district incorporates Kyle and Mountain City; and about 40 or so residents of Mountain City, which may not seem like that many but is actually the equivalent of about 1,800 Kyle residents coming to a city council meeting and we all know that’s not likely to happen in the history of this planet. The feeling I got was that all 40 of those residents were against the ILA because they did not, for one reason or another. want to give up the city’s ETJ. Some of those folks didn’t want to give up the ETJ under the terms proposed in the ILA – they felt Mountain City should be able to negotiate "a better deal" – but the most prominent reason given for this recalcitrance was they wanted to maintain the ETJ as a "buffer."
I got to thinking about that following the meeting, even consulting my trusted Webster’s II for a definition of "buffer" other than "a device used for shining or polishing." The definitions that apply are 1. "One that protects by intercepting or moderating adverse pressures or influences" and/or 2. "Something that separates the entities, as a neutral area between two conflicting powers."
I thought about that a lot and the more I thought about it, the more I kicked myself for not asking one of those citizens exactly what they wanted this buffer to protect them from. It certainly can’t be from encroaching development because Anthem is going to be developed adjacent to Mountain City regardless of whose ETJ it is located in. So what is it that these folks felt the need to have Anthem serve as a buffer for them? What did they fear?
I plan on attending Mountain City’s next City Council meeting, which is scheduled for Monday, June 22, to see if I can learn the answers to these questions. I would also like to ask those who say they want "a better deal," exactly what, in their estimation, would provide "a better deal." In fact, I was somewhat surprised no one running the meeting posed that question last night.
But, between now and then, I can let my imagine run wild. Back in the late 1950s, when I was still in my mid-teenage years, my family moved from Houston to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. And although I was always told things were quite friendly between the United States and Canada, I quickly learned Canadians, in general, hated Americans. I searched for the answer as to why and learned that it stemmed to the post World War II era. A significant portion of Canada’s economy back then (this was before they discovered oil in the tar sands out west) depended on its sale and exporting of wheat. As part of the Marshall and other plans instituted after World War II, America gave away wheat to countries needing it. Canada had a tough time selling its wheat while America was giving it away and, as a result, its economy suffered. Canadians never forgave America for this.
That got me to thinking if there could be a similar type of grudge between Mountain City and Kyle and what the folks really wanted was a buffer that protected them from "those evil Kyle land-grabbers." There was a time when Mountain City was the most vibrant municipality in this part of Texas. It was the principle transportation hub of its day, meaning it was on the primary stagecoach line. All that changed in the 1940s when the railroad came to the area. Mountain City felt the train should run though its town and that a depot should be located there; however, state Senator Fergus Kyle used his political connections to get the tracks laid further east, completely bypassing Mountain City. That, in effect, ended Mountain City’s days as a regional center of commerce. So, I’m wondering, is Mountain City still bitter about that all these years later? I don’t know, but I hope to find out next week.
I did have the opportunity to ask Mayor Pro Tem Diane Hervol, who also attended last night’s meeting, what she thought about it all.
"There’s a lot to be determined," she said. "I think we’re farther apart and perhaps some more negotiations, more discussion is needed between the two cities."
She said she was optimistic some kind of an agreement will be worked out and she was "hopeful" it would involve the ETJ coming under Kyle’s control. "I just need to understand what the terms for those cities will be."
Incidentally, there’s a standing item on tonight’s Kyle City Council agenda to "Consider and take possible action to amend, extend or rescind the ILA with Mountain City and Hays County."
Michael Rubsam, chairman of Kyle’s Planning and Zoning Commission, also attended the meeting and said afterwards "I think the Interlocal Agreement can be in the best interests of the people of Mountain City once they work out the details. I believe there’s quite a few people in there that don’t understand about the MUD." He said he was disappointed that those points weren’t clarified for the Mountain City residents who attended the meeting.
Originally, Anthem planned to get water from Electro Purification, which proposed to pump five million gallons of water per day from an unregulated portion of the Trinity Aquifer. Most of that five million gallons was contracted to a water reseller, Goforth Special Utility District. The city of Buda also contracted to get some of the water from the EP wells.
However, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that would expand the boundaries of the Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer Conservation District to cover that portion of western Hays County where the EP wells are planned, thus reducing the amount of water EP could pump on a daily basis to a level where it could possibly provide only the amount contracted by the Goforth SUD.
So various entities went to work to solve the problem of how to replace that water EP was supposed to provide to Buda and Anthem. Buda proved not to be a problem, but the plan for Anthem has run into steep opposition from the residents of Mountain City.
Acting as a third-party mediator, Hays County got together with the city leaders of Kyle and Mountain City and negotiated the framework for a deal, called an Interlocal Agreement (ILA), in which, among other things, Kyle would agree to provide water and wastewater services to Anthem. However, those "other things" has the citizenry of Mountain City in an uproar.
According to the deal, Kyle would provide the water and wastewater services only if Mountain City surrendered jurisdiction to the territory where Anthem would be located to Kyle. There are other provisions. One, Hays County would provide the labor to rebuild roads in Mountain City (Mountain City would have to pay for the materials). Kyle would also provide water and wastewater services to a section of Mountain City it wants to convert into a commercial corridor. Such a corridor would provide Mountain City with sales tax revenues. However, at the present, that area is served by wells and septic tanks and thus can’t be developed commercially. In addition, Kyle would "make available water and wastewater master meters to Mountain City, billable at the out-of-city rates as defined in Kyle’s Code of Ordinances, which will allow Mountain City to develop its own water and/or wastewater utilities to service its citizenry." Kyle, of course, would make Anthem part of its ETJ (and perhaps even officially annex the area) and receive the resulting property tax revenues. (Mountain City would not receive property tax revenues from Anthem if it kept the ETJ; those moneys would go to the Municipal Utility District created for the subdivision.)
Last night I attended a meeting at the Plum Creek Golf Course building hosted by Mountain City to discuss the proposed ILA. Also present were Kyle Mayor Todd Webster; Hays County Commissioners Will Conley, whose district covers the proposed EP wells, and Mark Jones, whose district incorporates Kyle and Mountain City; and about 40 or so residents of Mountain City, which may not seem like that many but is actually the equivalent of about 1,800 Kyle residents coming to a city council meeting and we all know that’s not likely to happen in the history of this planet. The feeling I got was that all 40 of those residents were against the ILA because they did not, for one reason or another. want to give up the city’s ETJ. Some of those folks didn’t want to give up the ETJ under the terms proposed in the ILA – they felt Mountain City should be able to negotiate "a better deal" – but the most prominent reason given for this recalcitrance was they wanted to maintain the ETJ as a "buffer."
I got to thinking about that following the meeting, even consulting my trusted Webster’s II for a definition of "buffer" other than "a device used for shining or polishing." The definitions that apply are 1. "One that protects by intercepting or moderating adverse pressures or influences" and/or 2. "Something that separates the entities, as a neutral area between two conflicting powers."
I thought about that a lot and the more I thought about it, the more I kicked myself for not asking one of those citizens exactly what they wanted this buffer to protect them from. It certainly can’t be from encroaching development because Anthem is going to be developed adjacent to Mountain City regardless of whose ETJ it is located in. So what is it that these folks felt the need to have Anthem serve as a buffer for them? What did they fear?
I plan on attending Mountain City’s next City Council meeting, which is scheduled for Monday, June 22, to see if I can learn the answers to these questions. I would also like to ask those who say they want "a better deal," exactly what, in their estimation, would provide "a better deal." In fact, I was somewhat surprised no one running the meeting posed that question last night.
But, between now and then, I can let my imagine run wild. Back in the late 1950s, when I was still in my mid-teenage years, my family moved from Houston to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. And although I was always told things were quite friendly between the United States and Canada, I quickly learned Canadians, in general, hated Americans. I searched for the answer as to why and learned that it stemmed to the post World War II era. A significant portion of Canada’s economy back then (this was before they discovered oil in the tar sands out west) depended on its sale and exporting of wheat. As part of the Marshall and other plans instituted after World War II, America gave away wheat to countries needing it. Canada had a tough time selling its wheat while America was giving it away and, as a result, its economy suffered. Canadians never forgave America for this.
That got me to thinking if there could be a similar type of grudge between Mountain City and Kyle and what the folks really wanted was a buffer that protected them from "those evil Kyle land-grabbers." There was a time when Mountain City was the most vibrant municipality in this part of Texas. It was the principle transportation hub of its day, meaning it was on the primary stagecoach line. All that changed in the 1940s when the railroad came to the area. Mountain City felt the train should run though its town and that a depot should be located there; however, state Senator Fergus Kyle used his political connections to get the tracks laid further east, completely bypassing Mountain City. That, in effect, ended Mountain City’s days as a regional center of commerce. So, I’m wondering, is Mountain City still bitter about that all these years later? I don’t know, but I hope to find out next week.
I did have the opportunity to ask Mayor Pro Tem Diane Hervol, who also attended last night’s meeting, what she thought about it all.
"There’s a lot to be determined," she said. "I think we’re farther apart and perhaps some more negotiations, more discussion is needed between the two cities."
She said she was optimistic some kind of an agreement will be worked out and she was "hopeful" it would involve the ETJ coming under Kyle’s control. "I just need to understand what the terms for those cities will be."
Incidentally, there’s a standing item on tonight’s Kyle City Council agenda to "Consider and take possible action to amend, extend or rescind the ILA with Mountain City and Hays County."
Michael Rubsam, chairman of Kyle’s Planning and Zoning Commission, also attended the meeting and said afterwards "I think the Interlocal Agreement can be in the best interests of the people of Mountain City once they work out the details. I believe there’s quite a few people in there that don’t understand about the MUD." He said he was disappointed that those points weren’t clarified for the Mountain City residents who attended the meeting.
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