Making growth pay for itself!

Category Archives: Cost of Growth

Cost of Growth in Central Texas

Will Austin Voters Open Up a Can of Whoopass?

Pete Winstead, bulldozing at Commissioners Court last Tuesday, for the Austin Chamber on the Schwab taxpayer dollar handout.
Pete Winstead, bulldozing at Commissioners Court last Tuesday, for the Austin Chamber on the Schwab taxpayer dollar handout.

Former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire sent us this note today, When deciding whether to grant tax incentives, the right answer comes from asking the right questions. Our elected officials should be asking these questions: How will this tax gift to Schwab make Austin more affordable for people who must pay taxes? Will those taxpayers be safer, healthier, or better off if you vote for the Schwab tax gift?”

To his credit, last Tuesday Commissioner Ron Davis asked Schwab, “Why haven’t you gone to the City of Austin since this project is in the city?” Of course, he got no answer. But we already know the answer, don’t we? Four of the seven City Council members are running in this election. Schwab wanted a no risk deal. In all likelihood, they’ve got their votes before new commissioners take office next year.

The public hasn’t even seen the contract yet, people! The real estate lobby, represented by Pete Winstead last Tuesday, and their minions in public office, are telling Austin residents in so many words to go to hell. Why? Because they can and because they cannot control their greed. But they do this at a risk.

The plunder of Austin is what gave rise to the 10-1 movement. We should know, since we started it.

But whether this turns into a true full-on voter revolt in November when we elect the new Austin City Council, is totally up to YOU – Austin voters.

STAY TUNED and GET INVOLVED now!
We have asked all the candidates running for Council and Mayor to tell us
how they would vote on the Schwab deal if it came to Council.

We will share the candidate responses next Tuesday with you and media at Commissioners Court.

If you can make it down to the Commissioners Court, please do.
That’s Tuesday at 9 am, join us there.
700 Lavaca, 1st Floor

Bring a can of whoopass with you, please. That’s a figure of speech so don’t get too excited, unless you have one of these:  ========>>>

If you feel like emailing the Commissioners, have at it: (please leave a comment below too — we love the entertainment!)
Sam.Biscoe@co.travis.tx.us
ron.davis@co.travis.tx.us
Bruce.Todd@co.travis.tx.us
Margaret.Gomez@co.travis.tx.us
Gerald.Daugherty@co.travis.tx.us

Taxpayer Handout to Schwab…3 days notice!

You know there’s something really wrong when the Austin Business Journal starts sounding like the Rag Blog. But when it comes to a taxpayer handout to Schwab — that the County and the Company have been hiding until the last minute — it appears that we’re all in this together.

Travis County Commissioners Court will hold a “public hearing” tomorrow on a $8.5M (over 10 years) subsidy that includes a $3.6M County grant to Schwab. They gave our community 3 days notice on this one. Whupdedoo!
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We love toll roads, don’t you?

We figured that subject line that we love toll roads might get ya! Austin Traffic and Growth Causing Nightmares

News Flash!

  • 30,000 more cars and trucks on
  • Mopac every day!
  • Mopac converted to I-35 West!

This is what happens if local and state officials spend hundreds of millions of our tax dollars connecting South Mopac to I-35 and expanding Mopac from Cesar Chavez to the Wildflower Center.

TOGETHER WE CAN STOP THIS BACKDOOR CONVERSION  
OF MOPAC INTO INTERSTATE 35 WEST – no toll roads please!

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Stop MoPACs Murder

In a rush deal — tomorrow — you could witness the Travis County Commissioners Court commit MoPacs MURDER. Here’s the anatomy:

  •     Connect the south end of Mopac to Interstate 35 – the “not-secret” final plan.
  •     Divert Interstate 35 traffic to Mopac – an additional 30,000 thousand vehicles.
  •     Bring MoPac to a dead stop all day long — it’s already maxed during peak hours. 
  •     Provide land speculators in northern Hays County with a bonanza.
  •     Pave over a portion of the state’s most vulnerable drinking water aquifer!
  •     Do it in the name of relieving traffic from northern Hays County by 2-3 minutes. 

 

Road warrior SW Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daughetry is fast tracking MoPac’s Murder by moving for $15 million tomorrow to cement the project before Sarah Eckhardt and Brigid Shea get a chance to vote.

The money isn’t due for almost 2 years! Come find out which budget items will be shorted by $15M?!?!

Stop Daugherty from tomorrow’s big “screw you MoPac commuters” overreach.

Show up at 1:30 tomorrow at the Travis County Commissioners Court, at 700 Lavaca. There’s parking garage and street parking.

Here’s the agenda — join us if you can for Item 23. You can also sign and send this letter to the Commissioners.

Please keep getting others to sign in to our network (at our website) or on our Facebook page right here

Thank y’all — hold on to your hats, it’s going to get even more wild taking back our city and our region!

PS There’s lots of great information at this website about this topic — thank you Keep MoPac Local for all the hard work: http://www.keepmopaclocal.org

Welcome to Austin But Pay Your Own Way by Brian Rodgers

The following opinion editorial was published in the Austin American-Statesman on Wednesday, October 16, 2013.

At the behest of previous City Councils, the Austin Water Utility has sold its water and wastewater taps to developers at huge losses for the past 15 years — selling far below cost and at a fraction of that charged by surrounding communities. Who picked up those losses? You, the ratepayer.
Another 175,000 people will move into the utility service area over the next 10 years. Are you willing to subsidize them, too?

On Thursday, the Austin City Council will vote on whether to keep selling taps at a loss or to finally begin recouping the full cost as allowed by state law. There are two main options on the table. Option 4i, favored by the Real Estate Council of Austin and the Downtown Austin Alliance, requires ratepayers to subsidize $165 million of future capacity costs. Option 5, recommended by the Water and Wastewater Commission, provides no subsidy; future capacity is paid by future development. Please tell the City Council that you prefer Option 5.

Texas is business-friendly, but even the state recognizes that ratepayers aren’t a bottomless piggy bank to pay for infrastructure required to serve new private development. Hence, in 1987 the Legislature allowed municipalities to recoup the cost of new infrastructure “necessitated by and attributable to new growth” by charging impact fees to future development. Thus growth pays for itself when growth-related capacity in water and sewer plants, major lines and other facilities is paid for by new development.

However, Austin has never charged what the state allows. How bad is it? We currently lose an average of $3,230 for every water/wastewater service unit we sell. (A service unit is the equivalent use of a 5/8-inch meter, or a typical household. Larger meters are charged proportionately more.)

Option 4i will lose $1,140 for every service unit sold in the environmentally sensitive Drinking Water Protection Zone to the west, $3,800 for every service unit sold downtown, and $3,000 in the rest of the city. Overall, losses will total $165 million, which will be added to your water/sewer bill. Under Option 5, we will lose nothing.

Supporters of Option 4i say we need continued subsidies from ratepayers to meet the goals of Imagine Austin for a compact city. They want a 50 percent subsidy for their developments downtown, at the Domain, Mueller and the Riverside corridor. But these areas are on fire right now; developers are tripping over each other trying to build in these areas and don’t need our help. Yes, the impact fees will go up dramatically downtown, where developers previously enjoyed huge ratepayer subsidies. A million-dollar condo at the Austonian paid only $70 for its water tap under the old schedule. A condo at the 360 Condominiums paid only $58. That’s less than the price of a faucet in the guest bathroom. Under the ratepayer-preferred Option 5, the developer would pay $760 and $630 respectively – still a bargain.

Will Option 5 hurt affordable housing? No. Affordable housing is exempt from impact fees. Will Option 5 drive developers into outlying cities? No. The three fastest growing cities in the U.S. — San Marcos, Georgetown and Cedar Park — have been charging two to three times more than Austin with no effect on growth. Will Option 5 bump up homes prices? No. Prices are driven by supply and demand in the current hot market; the 42 percent increase in lot prices over the past three years is far more responsible for soaring home prices than a utility recoupment.

Please tell the council to vote for Option 5. Welcome to Austin, but pay your own way.

Brian Rodgers, an Austin real estate developer, serves on the Impact Fee Advisory Committee and served on the Joint Committee on Austin Water Utility’s Financial Plan.

Paul Robbins: Dry lakes demand conservation

The question on a lot of people’s minds right now is, “How low can they go?”
Lakes Travis and Buchanan, which supply much of our region’s water, are not natural lakes. They are reservoirs completed in the 1930s and ’40s. At full capacity, they hold 2 million acre-feet. (An acre-foot is enough water for annual needs of about three average Austin homes.)

Today, barring a major rainstorm, they are about to fall to their lowest levels since they were created. In September 1952, the lakes reached 621,000 acre-feet. On Sept. 10, they were at 659,000 acre-feet and dropping by about 1,400 acre-feet per day. Those worried about the water supply are in the perverse position of “praying for hurricanes.”
People living near the lakes, as well as cities facing water shortfalls, have become resentful of the rice farmers in the Colorado River’s lower basin area. It must be remembered that these farms have been cut off from their water supply for the past two years, the first time this has happened in the history of the lakes. It should also be remembered that federal funding for the lakes partially relied on the congressional support of the agrarian region downstream.

And while there is considerably more wealth per gallon generated by cities and industries compared to farms, this wealth will not be especially meaningful without food. In 2011, farmers paid about $28 per acre-foot for raw water to grow enough rice to feed about 1.2 million people annually on a calorie basis. Meanwhile, Austinites were willing to pay $1,600 per acre-foot for treated water to grow their “crop” of grass.

Believe it or not, it can get worse. If you total current use from Austin and other cities, future water contracts to provide for Austin’s growth, industrial use, evaporation from the lakes, and agricultural use, and apply it to current lake levels and drought conditions, the Highland Lakes would be below zero.

It is time to start planning in earnest for the future. There are no longer enough resources to provide for insatiable thirst of all who come here. We will either face huge increases in cost or need to create a water-efficient economy. Conservation of both water and money are key.

Five of the most promising strategies need center attention.

• Full implementation of 2007 conservation plan: In 2007, Austin created an aggressive conservation plan with 19 strategies to save water. Today, many of these ideas are still not implemented or have their effectiveness compromised. Some, such as mandatory plumbing fixtures retrofits, have stalled because they are controversial. Others, such as mandatory irrigation audits, have no method to measure effectiveness.

•Reclaimed water: The use of highly-treated wastewater for non-potable purposes such as irrigation and cooling towers has been employed to great effect in other cities. Austin has invested more than $50 million in its own “purple pipe” system. This has the potential to defray as much as 50 million gallons per day of peak capacity, the same as will be provided by the controversial Water Treatment Plant No. 4. However, Austin’s overly strict hook-up policies, lack of marketing staff, and lack of customer-side financing are constricting the use of this new system.

•Polyethylene utility pipe: Austin is using polyvinyl chloride water pipe as its material of choice. This is extremely toxic to manufacture and is more prone to leaks than polyethylene pipe, which is almost leak-proof and sometimes cheaper to install. Austin needs to replace more than 700 miles of old cast iron pipe that is at the end of its life, and it should be using the best materials.

•No new water projects: When Water Treatment Plant No. 4 comes online, this half-billion-dollar facility will raise Austin’s peak capacity to 335 million gallons per day. This past August, the city barely used half of this amount. This unneeded expenditure, and others like it, directly compete with water conservation funding.

•Relocate water conservation programs: Austin’s water conservation programs are administered by a utility whose main mission is to sell water. This is a blatant conflict of interest. The water conservation programs should be moved to a separate agency unshackled to the water utility.

Conservation is the best option we have right now, and the least expensive. It is past time to make the hard decisions necessary to make it work to its full potential.

Praying for hurricanes is not a drought-management policy.

Robbins is the editor of the Austin Environmental Directory. The new edition is online at environmentaldirectory.info.