Freeport-McMoRan and the city are wheeling and dealing again. This time the
stakes are smaller, but this current deal, scheduled for a vote next Thursday,
is again arousing skepticism and alarm. Concern is that the deal may abet the
creation of Freeport’s proposed planned unit development (PUD) above Barton
Creek.
The centerpiece of the current proposal, fashioned in April and May between
officials from Freeport and the water and wastewater utility, is the
installation of a $4 million water system on a 700-acre tract of property owned
by Freeport – Lantana. Located within the city limits at the intersection of
William Cannon Drive and the Southwest Parkway, Lantana is separate from, but
adjacent to, the southernmost portion of Freeport’s proposed 4,590-acre PUD
atop the Barton Springs contributing zone. The city is required to provide
water services for properties within the city’s water service area – such as
Lantana – but many believe that this request for water service to the small
Freeport tract is an attempt to extend city water service to the adjacent PUD.
(The proposed agreement does not include wastewater services.)
In the proposed water service arrangement, Freeport is offering to pay the
up-front costs of the system, if the city promises to reimburse the company in
three annual installments, following estimated completion of the project in
October, 1996. The money will be repaid with revenues from water sales; the
water utility won’t issue revenue bonds to pay for it, as would normally be the
case for a project of this size.
The financing scheme could permit the completion of the water system in two
years instead of seven, say enthusiastic water officials, allowing for a
quicker expansion of the water company’s revenue base, estimated at an
additional $2.3 million annually.
Others aren’t as jubilant. The proposed water lines will allow build-out of
an estimated 5,000 acres, including expected growth west of Lantana, in the
nearly undefiled landscape north of Oak Hill, over the ecologically sensitive
Edwards Aquifer. According to Mitt Tidwell, a water and wastewater engineer for
the city, the upgraded system will provide enough water for approximately
10,000 residents. But those familiar with the project fear that the size of the
lines could permit additional hook-ups to service some of the proposed PUD
north of Lantana.
“I suspect oversizing,” says Stephen Adams, Councilmember Jackie Goodman’s
appointee to the water and wastewater commission, which could offer no
recommendation for council action after a June 6 stalemate. “Staff did say it
would provide additional water to other areas in southwest Austin. So if [the
water’s] going southwest, why couldn’t it also go north?”
If it does go north, Bill Bunch, of the Save Our Springs Legal Defense
Fund, fears it could aid development of the PUD’s com-mercial portions, located
primarily along the northern portion of the Southwest Parkway. The water would
be essential to the proposed Barton Creek Community, he says, since Freeport’s
existing Water Control Improvement District, located in the northern portion of
Freeport’s property, doesn’t have the capacity to supply the commercial,
southern portion. And without commercial development, as Jim Bob Moffett noted
from the witness stand during the recent trial, the residential areas can’t be
built.
Tidwell maintains that the water system isn’t designed to serve the PUD. To
do so, he says, pump stations would have to be built to get the water from
Lantana over the more elevated Southwest Parkway, an action requiring council
approval. That is, unless Freeport pays for the pump stations entirely –
without reimbursement from the city – a scenario that would require the
approval of only the water utility director and not the city council.
Of course, the city can legally serve only the land within the utility’s
service area. To serve the PUD, the city would have to expand its service area,
which would require council action.
Both scenarios are a possibility, says Goodman, especially if a member of
the so-called enviro-liberal voting bloc is booted from office by a Freeport
sympathizer next May. Mayor Bruce Todd, Councilmembers Ronney Reynolds and Eric
Mitchell, plus one more councilmember, could expand the utility’s service area
to include more of the PUD, or could agree to have the pump stations
built.
Councilmember Gus Garcia, considered the swing vote on Freeport
agreements, is “inclined” to vote for the proposed Lantana water system. “We’re
obligated to provide water. The question is, is [the line] too big and who’s it
going to service? But that probably won’t come out until the [July 13] meeting,
when people who know more than the rest of us come up and ask questions.”
As in previous agreements between the city and Freeport, complaints abound
that the current proposal, first reported by Daryl Slusher during his KOOP
radio program last Tuesday, has not seen enough public exposure. Lanetta
Cooper, Councilmember Brigid Shea’s appointee to the water and wastewater
commission, voted against the plan because “we had not had adequate [citizen]
input.” Max Nofziger’s appointee also voted against recommending the plan to
council. Todd’s appointee was absent.
Reynolds said he had expected the item to come before council on June 29,
although only he and Garcia said they had been briefed on the plan by water and
wastewater officials. Reynolds will likely approve the arrangement, but
complains that it should be unnecessary, since in the last Freeport/city deal,
shot down by the council on February 23, the city would not have had to
reimburse Freeport for the proposed Lantana water system.
Todd said he knows nothing of the plan. Mitchell won’t speak with this
reporter (or any other). Nofziger and Shea could not be reached by press
time.
n
Prior to the 4-3 vote approving the appeal of the Freeport v. City of
Austin federal court judgement – (Todd, Reynolds, and Mitchell against) –
Goodman, often criticized for her unresponsive demeanor, asked numerous
questions about the appeal’s financial impact.
David Donaldson, an attorney arguing the case for the city, replied that
the appeal would cost no more than $50,000, and that’s only in a losing
situation. No further appropriations to the law firm of George, Donaldson,
& Ford will be required for the appeal.
If the city wins however, it could avoid paying more than $500,000
in legal fees and damage claims, as well as overturning the lower court’s
ruling against the city’s interpretation of House Bill 4. Nine additional
developer lawsuits against the city have been filed on similar grounds and are
waiting in the wings; without an appeal, those developers will have a better
chance against the city by using the Freeport decision as precedent.
There is no council meeting today (July 6). n
This article appears in July 7 • 1995 and July 7 • 1995 (Cover).