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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_GTAB_02.20.2012Minutes of the Meeting of Georgetown Transportation Advisory Board and the Governing Body of the City of Georgetown, Texas Special Session Monday, February 20, 2012 The Georgetown Transportation Advisory Board Special Session of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met on Monday , February 20, 2012 presiding. Board Members Present: William Maples - Secretary, Danny Meigs, Henry Boecker, Annette Montgomery Board Members Absent: Tina Geiselbrecht - Chair, Troy Hellmann - Vice Chair, One Vacant Spot Staff Present: Paul Brandedburg, Jim Briggs, Ed Polasek, Jana Kern, Bridget Chapman OTHERS PRESENT: George G. Garver - Mayor, Patty Eason - Councilwomen Dist 1, Tommy Gonzalez - Councilmen Dist 7, Bill Sattler - Councilman Dist 4, Terry Irion - Longhorn Jct. Attorney, Bruce Barton - Omni Projects, Inc., Mark Allen - Citizen, Gregory Hall - Hall Properties, Kegan Taylor & Kenny Diglesmith - Southwestern Students, Danny Miller - LJA Engineering, Brian Peterson - Citizen. Minutes Regular Meeting Mr. William Maples called the Special GTAB Board meeting to order on Monday, February 20, 2012 at 8:35 AM. Per the GTAB Bylaws Section 4.5 Call to Order. Board meetings will be called to order by the Chairman or, if absent, the Vice-Chairman. If the absence of both the Chairman and Vice -Chairman, the meeting will be called to order by the Secretary, and a temporary Chairman shall be elected to preside over the meeting. At this time Maples asked for nominations. Motion by Meigs seconded by Boecker to nominate William Maples. Approved 4-0-2 (Tina Geiselbrecht & Troy Hellmann absent) Board may, at any time, recess the Regular Session to convene in Executive Session at the request of the Chair, a Board Member, the City Manager, Assistant City Manager, City Council Member, or legal counsel for any purpose authorized by the Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551, and are subject to action in the Regular Session that follows. A. Discussion and possible recommendation to remove overpass, on the FM 1460 project, from the Overall Transportation Plan. -- Tommy Gonzalez Discussion: Gonzalez stated that with the growth of Georgetown and the surr ounding area the need for additional grocery capacity has been very important especially on East side of Georgetown not only to facilitate the growth on the east side but to help traffic flow from east to west. Some months ago Gonzalez met with the site selector for HEB to find out what it would take for HEB to come back to Georgetown. Gonzalez looked at their site plan and HEB settled on a site on FM 1460 and Inner Loop. In the process of getting that site plan developed and done a few hurdles came up. On e of the hurdles was a designed overpass for that area. It appears that this would be a major highway type intersection based on the Georgetown Transportation Plan. TxDOT had this in their plan and this has been sitting there since 2003 or 2004. When HEB looked at the site and there was an overpass sitting there this would limit the number of access points that could go into the grocery store. This would also limit the access points to another development of a 300 unit apartment complex that would be going in next to the HEB. With the overpass there, HEB would not be able to develop the site to make this site a successful site, and eventually what would happen is that Georgetown would be put back at the bottom of their list of development. If that happens who knows when the next time HEB would look at Georgetown for development. Looking at this and working with engineers from Longhorn Jct. and with the City to come up with an alternative plan to eliminate the overpass and allow for this project to move forward. This could be a $50M to $60M project for Georgetown, that could grow into a $100M project when completed with the rest of the properties in the area that would develop because of the HEB project. This would be a huge tax base for the City of Georgetown, a huge quality of life issue for the residents on the east side of Georgetown to have access to grocery and possibly other amenities. Right now the east side is served by Valero Gas Station. The reason for this special meeting is we have been working on this for the past 9-10 months and HEB is close to abandoning this site moving forward with other sites that they have around the state. Gonzalez feels that it is important for city staff to show HEB that the overpass has been moved and then we can proceed with getting the possible other approvals from TxDOT to make this happen. This is not a guarantee that if we do our part that TxDOT will do theirs. Gonzalez wants to make sure that it is not a City issue why this project could not come in. Bruce Barton - Omni Projects: stated that one of thing that they tried to do working with City staff and the Transportation folks is to come up with an alterative plan. At a meeting that was held a couple of months ago it was discussed that the overpass was really there because of the railroad easement. We also discussed the possibility of getting the rail easement removed. Then with the removal of the rail easement there would be not a need for the overpass. City staff and consulting engineers from Klot z Associates and LJA Engineering, met and to came up with an alternate plan for that intersection that would serve the traffic pattens that were shown in the studies even with the rail easement removed. Briggs stated the there was a meeting with Mr. Snead and the rail easement was discussed. Mr. Snead was most interested in what the final design would look like and how would it impact access to the properties. One of the issues with the rail easement is there is no connection point between the easement and the Transit oriented development. When we look at the intersection we question should the over pass be east & west or north & south but if there is a rail there it is obvious that we would have to deal with the rail due to the safety concern. Briggs believes that because of the rail that is why the initial overpass was north & south. There has been a lot of discussion and there needs to be a grade separation at that intersection for the long term. TxDOT came up with the design that was approved at CAMP O in 2007. Meigs asked if HEB was represented at this meeting and was told no but the the seller is. Meigs also asked Gonzalez you have had discussions with HEB why was this Board was not informed of this at their last meeting that was held on February 10, 2012 were we had discussions and voted. What are the consequences of us changing what this Board voted on at the last meeting. Gonzalez answered that there are two issues. It appears that two different groups with TxDOT were working on the same property and they were not communicating amongst themselves. So when the plan recently came out it was not what HEB had been their site plan for. It was a solution based on trying to increase ROW on the property but did not take care of the overpass which would still limit the number of access points into the property. The property owners did not see this plan until about a week and half ago. There is some confusion and HEB has been working with a different set of plans. Meigs stated he is all for development and would love to have and HEB at that intersection, But, HEB is not here at the table today. What would be the consequences of changing the decision that was made by this Board at the last meeting? Polasek answered the issue that you are talking about is the contract that city staff his amending and the task order with the consulting engineer working with TxDOT to do the final design of FM 1460. The shift that is being discussed has not been approved to the schematic yet. The shift in the design is something TxDOT has requested that our consulting engineer draw up a possible shift to the east. If that is agreeable to the parties then it can be included in the environmental document. You will not be changing the amount of ROW, you are shifting it on the four properties. To date this has not been approved by all the property owners. The schematic that we are working on still is the 2007 schematic that was approved in the environmental document by TxDOT and the FHWA. Staff is working to finalize that schematic to g et 100% construction plans so TxDOT will start funding ROW acquisition. The shift would be part of finalizing the schematic that has been proposed by TxDOT. The contract includes some money for the consulting engineer to do the shift in the schematic. Round Rock has agreed to an inter local agreement to help fund the 100% portion. If TxDOT changes the schematic to the alternative design there is some concern at TxDOT that will start the environmental process over again because we would be going to a confined urban storm water drainage system and this might change the foot print of the road way. Brandenburg stated that we are all for development. The FM1460 corridor is prime for economic development growth. The issue is that you have, since 2007, an accepted plan that has been designed. That could be a very strong driver and pediment to develop that area with some of the adjacent property owners. City staff met with TxDOT and presented this issue to them. TxDOT concern was they did not want to have to go back and start redesigning everything and have to go back through the environmental. TxDOT did not want to jeopardize any federal funding as well at this time. If we start messing with the environmental this could be pushed out five plus years. So, at the meeting with TxDOT one of the discussion points was to move the overpass to the east. The problem that you have current Longhorn Jct. properties is that the HEB would need to be pushed back but they are limited on the left due to the drainage areas. We all looked at moving the HEB on the site and it just would not work. There was also an issue with access points. So TxDOT charge was to move the overpass approximately 100 feet to the east and try to one to two access points off of FM1460. Boecker said that if there is not an effective transportation mobility in that area there will be no economic development in that area period. Maples said it appears that the issue here today is there is grade separation or no grade separation with the easement. Briggs stated with the easement you will need a grade separation because of safety. Maples also said that the other issues were environmental approval and funding. We do not want to lose either of those. How does what was suggested today effect those issues. Changing the original design will that change the foot print and ruin the funding and envioriomental. Briggs said the issue is on the alternative design. One is, to narrow the ROW from rural to a full urban conception. With that, there was no accommodation for the drainage that was just created everything has to go in the storm pipe. With the TxDOT design it is a little wider ROW and it covered the drainage issue. Terry Irion - Longhorn Jct. Attorney stated that it was his understanding that the first step that needed to be taken before any consideration for changing the schematics was the feasibility of eliminating the railroads easement. If the rail easement is gone that makes all of the other options much easier to address. Even future grade separations, the grade separation could be on Inner Loop instead of FM 1460. It was his understanding that there was a very positive meeting with Mr. Snead and Mr. Irion thought that was going to be a part of your report today. Do you feel confidant that you can negotiate that easement for lease or you can't. He thought this Board would need to understand what the process of that before they make new recommendations. Briggs stated that he had communicated to the Board that there was a discussion with Mr. Snead. Mr. Snead would like see what the intersection is going to look like and review all of the information before he makes his decision. Greg Hall - Hall Properties (owner), about 7 years ago started negotiating with HEB on a different piece of property. That property did not work out and about 2 to 3 years ago HEB came back and asked about the property on FM 1460 and Inner Loop. When we reviewed the the 2007 schematic that TxDOT had there was no way there would be enough money to pay for easements let alone the roadway s along with a $70M bridge. In the event that we go with the old TxDOT design the cost of the ROW is going to be huge. Because if I can not develop my property that is backed up against the Inner Loop based on the designs that we have today most of the money that this community has put together today for roads will go to me in court over my easement alone. So the right hand and the left hand are just misaligned. If we have to redo environmental it could be another 8 to 10 years before it is complete. So we went in and designed a road with good leadership guidance using the transportation data provided by the city's engineer and in 2035 plan. The Inner Loop was suppose to have about 70K trips per day cut in half both ways, FM1460 was 20K trips per day cut in half both ways. If you take a look at the road that we designed - 7 lanes road designed for the expansion to 10 lanes can't handle 70K of cars in one direction. The reason that Longhorn Jct is not fully developed today is because of the miss information b y this huge overpass that nobody can even give me a design on over I35 but has squandered our chance to have everything including the premium outlet mall on our tract. Because of that we were very pro active and what we did was go to TxDOT and asked them if we design a road that solves the transportation issues of the estimate traffic in 2035 and it dismantles the separation requirements due to a train would you be interested. TxDOT said absolutely. Then we came to the City and said we would like to have a chance to design a road with the transportation diagnostics that goes back to 2035 and would like for you to look at this road and tell us what is wrong with it. Don't tell us what TxDOT doesn't like because we already understand that. We want the City to look at it and tell us why it would not work. 75K and 25K trips per day. If we fail with TxDOT then we fail. But give somebody else a chance that isn't stacked under bureaucratic concepts. What we need to do today is cut this giant down to size that we can begin to work with. The first step is we recognize, under the law and guide lines of the rail road, as long as there is an easement, for perhaps a train, this reminds me of the Palin road to no where, the road goes nowhere it doesn't do anything, but it is an easement it is dedicated to the rail road and it does have value to somebody. My point is we have a chance to economic develop this thing and the investments has made the city a ton of money into the infrastructure. We now have a company that could bring a huge income during a really bad economic time. When you bring an HEB you don't just bring in HEB you bring all the revenue that could be generated in the shopping center. If this gets dismantled then this will be going to Round Rock again. I am a little discouraged because I do not believe that there is a person in here that could challenge the fact that we have designed a road way that can handle that traffic in 2030. All that we are asking for you to do today is be reasonable enough to recognize that the rail road crossing if it is removed that we can put in an at grade intersection and guarantee people like an HEB that we are not going to take anymore of their intersection because if we did we are going to go over to the other side of the highway . Also please recognize that ROW right now was cheap. But ROW will not be cheap if we start destroying economic develop. We have a chance to make a huge impact on the east side of our community. Barton wanted to make sure that everyone new that they were just not out here cowboying this. Our engineering staff, Danny Miller of LJA, met with Rebecca Brey of Klotz and with city staff and based upon that meeting we designed a road according to what we were told. We tried to design that road so that it stayed in the designated ROW that has already been approved environmentally. We know there are a couple of issues with access, and we will work on that, but we have concerns about the blind site on the hill but what we didn't have was the construction plans becau se they have not been done, and we did not know how much of the hill would be taken or if any of the hill would be taken. I thought, that as of Friday, that we had pretty much come to an agreement, that is why we are here today, with city staff that if there was a grade separation it would end up being where it was discussed with the County on Inner Loop. My point is there has been a lot of work on this. We have been working with city staff. We have followed the guidelines that were give to us. And we thought that we had come to a general agreement on the road design. Without the grade separation as long as the rail easement goes away. Meigs said that is a big if.It would be nice if we could snap our fingers and have the rail easement go away. But, it is a fact that the rail easement is there. Hall said I would like to make a recommendation that if that is the issue why don't we set it up so if rail is removed then this design could be acceptable. Meigs also stated that he wanted to know what the emergency of this meeting today was. There was a Board meeting on February 10, 2012, the next Board meeting will be on March 9, 2012 why was this not brought to either one of those meetings. Gonzalez replied this has been worked on for a very long time. This is not the urgency of HEB it is our urgency not to lose HEB. If we brought this to the next GTAB Board meeting then to Council we could be looking at another 45 days before a decision would be made. We would like for HEB to be here in Georgetown and not el se where. The Longhorn Jct. people have talked with Mr. Snead with the design, it is not completely different. Yes, Mr. Snead will want something in return but knowing his easement is a dead easement, it only makes sense for him to seek something better. Will it cost the City something? More than likely, but when you are talking about a $60M to $100M in development that's the urgency. We don't want this to sit. I represent the east side. This is something that we need for the east side. I do not want to lose this potential project. If this can be done we have people ready to sign on the dotted line. We need this project. Boecker asked if there could be meeting with Mr. Snead to present the alternatives to him and if we change the design would it truly affect the funding. Briggs said they plan on having another meeting with Mr. Snead relative to this issue. We kind of want to know who was planning on being there so we could discuss access points associated with his part in the four corners. We can put the op tions out there. I think it would be reasonable that TxDOT would slide to the east which would not effect the environmental. If the rail is gone and something can be done at grade then that is a potential option. Motion by Boecker, seconded by Meigs to direct staff to pursue more investigation and negotiations on the possibility of removing the rail easement that exists in the SE Inner Loop ROW and determine if the overpass could be removed from the approved FM 1460 design schematic while maintaining the environmental approvals and funding. Approved 4-0-2 (Geiselbrecht & Hellmann absent) Motion by Meigs to adjourn meeting. Approved 4 -0-2 (Geiselbrecht & Hellmann absent) Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 AM. Approved : Attest: _______________________ ________________________ Board Member Name Secretary