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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-01-11-1:30PM-WORKSHOP?u'v'b _u ~ tl: ~1 BRAZOSCOUNTY BRYAN, TEXAS NOTICE OF MEETING BRAZOS COUNTY COMISSIONERS COURT WORKSHOP SESSION THE COMMISSIONERS COURT WILL MEET IN A WORKSHOP SESSION ON WEDNESDAY 11 JANUARY 2006 AT 1:30 P.M. This Workshop will be held in room 108 of the Brazos Center, 3232 Briarcrest Drive, Bryan, Texas for the purpose of reviewing the current subdivision regulations for Brazos County, and discussing possible revisions to update them. 1. Call to Order 2. Review of Brazos County's Subdivision Regulations 3. Adjourn The Brazos Center is wheelchair accessible. Handicap parking spaces are available. Any request for sign interpretive services must be made two business days before the meeting. To make arrangements, call (979) 361-4102. Office of the County Judge • 300 East 26"' St. . Suite 114 Bryan, Texas 77803 Fax: (979) 3614503 VOL 7lv PAGE I g COMMISSIONERS' COURT WORKSHOP SESSION JANUARY 11, 2006 The Commissioners' Court of Brazos County, Texas met in a Workshop Session at the Brazos Center 3232 Briarcrest Drive, Bryan, Brazos County, Texas, beginning at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 11, 2006, with the following members of the Court present: Randy Sims, County Judge, Absent; Lloyd Wassermann, Commissioner of Precinct 1; Duane Peters, Commissioner of Precinct 2; Kenny Mallard, Commissioner of Precinct 3, Presiding; Carey Cauley, Jr., Commissioner of Precinct 4; Karen McQueen, County Clerk, Absent. Attached is a list of the citizens and officials in attendance. Commissioner Mallard called the meeting to order to review the Brazos County Subdivision and Development Regulations. Commissioner Mallard asked those who wish to speak to please identify themselves. Commissioner Mallard went on to say that he has pulled subdivision regulations from several other counties and ordered a book on subdivision regulations from the Texas Association of Counties. He then posed a question concerning a change in lot size. Vol Page 1 1 T Commissioners Court meeting January 11, 2006 2 Don Plitt, of the Brazos County Health Department, asked if the County has considered raising the one acre minimum for septic systems because one acre is very tight. Commissioner Mallard said that he would like to see something saying drainage should reach a creek rather than just an adjacent homeowner's property. A College Station employee questioned, what constitutes a creek and what makes that creek good enough? This becomes a judgment call. The county may need to define the characteristics of a creek and set minimum standards. The Health Department said that Williamson County has gone to a two (2) acre minimum. Representatives of the two cities said that two (2) acres is what they are hoping to go to as well. The Court discussed rural lots that are later annexed. The cities say it is difficult to retrofit these lots to sewer specifications after being annexed. Some owners do not want to. Also discussed were package plants for rural subdivisions rather than separate septic tanks. The next meeting on this topic will be at the Brazos Center, beginning at 1:30 p.m., on February 15, 2006. Voles Page goo Commissioners Court meeting January 11, 2006 3 The Court also discussed setting a workshop after the Commissioners Court meeting for Commissioners only to discuss the vision of the subdivision regulations. Vol ? ~ Page a o I The foregoing minutes of the Commissioners Court Workshop held January 11, 2006, have been examined and approved in open Court this the lfrH- day of _4CX1 ( 201, in Bryan, Brazos I County, Texas. Duane Peters Commissioner, Precinct No. 2 Carey Ca ley, Jr. Commissi ner, Precinct 4 Attest: *rncQueen County Clerk Lloyd W ssermann Commissioner, Precinct No. 1 Kenny Malla Commissioner, Precinct No. 3 Vol 7 4 Page 9~0 a r BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT MEETING ON I 2000 AT_LLaQ_pM Name r anization/Depy`xtment 4r o a 14f ct- i ` J 8L -4 w~C►V ( :211j&e7 64-rY Or- LO~LC S7~Nl~a^ 6 L - I' ~C zv (o . (?q ~7Zti 11-5 1 5 (o 1- 6 ~N C" C- s: , VOL 7 w PAGE 203 BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT Subdivision Regulations Workshop January 11, 2006 VOL_ppGE a~~ BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT Subdivision Regulation Workshop January 11, 2006 In Attendance: Gary Arnold, Bill Ballard, Carey Cauley Jr., Carol Cotter, Joey Dunn, Candy Gallego, Alan Gibbs, Lindsey Guindi, Shelley Hobbs, Linda Huff, Debbie Lockledge, Kenny Mallard, Duane Peters, Don Plitt, Lloyd Wassermann. We'll go ahead and get started and call the meeting to order at 1:46; Brazos County Commissioners Court workshop on Wednesday the 11th, 2006. The meeting is being held at the Brazos Center on Briarcrest Drive. Basically, it's just a workshop so we won't be making any decisions today but the Commissioners Court wanted to attend because it has gotten interested in regulations. I appreciate everybody's attendance today and coming out to be here, trying to talk about things and get it going. I don't know if anybody had any initial comment; if not, why don't we just go around the table and everybody introduce themselves. Introductions. We had a pretty good meeting last time when a lot of you were here kind of visiting. We brought up a lot of different ideas and things that we had talked about. I've been trying to pull information; I have pulled subdivision regulations from a lot of the different counties and every one of them is different, of course, but they all seem to have similarities in what they are doing. I believe that a lot of that has to do with TAC (Texas Administrative Code) has come up with a pretty good document. The book is 300 plus pages so I'm having it sent rather than print it off. I think our regulations are pretty good, as well, but we're trying to get a little bit more. Mainly it's because the more high-density development that we're seeing (both commercial development and residential development) as I understand now from some of the engineers and developers that an acre or a little bit less than an acre is what they are doing. That is where the cost break is. I have seen some of them; I looked at one a friend of my son's bought that is basically a $30,000 lot but is a little bit less than acre but it's enough to get their aerobic system on and it falls within those classifications where they can get their job done. That is kind of what we're seeing and I guess part of that is to be talked about and it would be up to the commissioners at some point in time to decide if that is the way we want to go with development. Do we want to change lot sizes, do we want to require more of a minimum or less of a minimum, go with more city style development where it's going be the smaller lots that they're having. I know that both cities are looking at certifying for sewer in the rest of the county and are they going to be able to handle the package plans or sewer ability or whatever that development. So that's all things that we've got to plug into this equation. So hopefully the cities will know a little more as we go along and see what their desires are and what they want to do. Especially in the EPJ, I know there are things; it's whatever is more stringent. So if the cities want to plug in more so that we can VOL 7/ PAGE 1 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. deal with development like that and the EPJ; that's for function. Then we still have some areas, mostly North and South, that I believe is 3.5 miles distance out that would still be totally under the county's regulations. One thing I kind of wanted to tackle today, which is probably the biggest issue, is drainage. Something that we really haven't tackled; it's kind of there and it's assumed. What happens now is; they do their development and engineering and it's really not checked off on and then it's up to the TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) if there's a violation to come back after the fact and do it. I think that you all know that after the fact problems are pretty tough to cure or deal with. We certainly want to probably try to address that so we can deal with that up front and make sure that what goes in is not something that's going to be kicked up in a bunch of lawsuits and problems in the future. I think that we do have a page downloaded from TAC and it talked about it. It basically says that on drainage, "The counties may impose specifications for drainage and storm water runoff in subdivisions to manage flow and coordinate with the areas general storm drainage pattern." One of the things that concerned me; I don't understand that if you ask somebody to put in a detention pond on their place (on a large lot) they funnel it over to a detention pond and then there's a discharge area. But that discharge area is going to cross into somebody else's property. So my question is; we're now diverting all this natural sheeting-off run-off into one spot and all of it's being metered out at a slower rate (not just a big flood running through there); can we do that and send that drainage across someone else's property if it's not immediately going into a creek? State law states that you can't change the flow of water whether that's by (inaudible) it or increasing it or decreasing it or changing the direction other than on or off the adjoining property. So that is some of the reasoning (inaudible) the additional run-off from the development. (inaudible) We've had numerous issue, actually a project that we are in the middle of right now where we have required the developer to get a down-stream easement or acknowledgement or something that says, "We're ok with how this change is about to happen." You mean acknowledgement from the adjacent land owner, or easement or something? Correct. What we are looking for is some type of definable channel that (inaudible) get that it's ok so that in the event that there is some type of (inaudible) or some type of a channel that does go up into the developed property for discharging into it, then there may not be any need to get that. (inaudible) We are also working together to get new drainage (inaudible) Bryan/College Station. We are requiring a pathway; they have to go to a definable channel. That was kind of confusing because you can see a track where this was the hill and everything sheets off but you have to have a retention pond somewhere along this area. Now it's being funneled out to a spot so you're trying to find a spot. What if there's not already a creek that's fairly flat and there's not a creek there; so now you're going to VJO ~ VAUr ~2* 2 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. divert that flow and that's going to create erosion even though it's not meting out at the same but it's still focused here instead of across the whole. If they can design it to fan it back out. I don't know if that's going to stop development if the adjacent land owners says, "It's not happening." It might. (inaudible) Sometimes there's a street nearby or culvert or bar ditch can take that water rather than directly on to somebody else's land. I envision our subdivision pop in because we've got so much area and they'll put that one in right over here and there's nothing else around them. If you're developing, the need for water retention is not nearly there. High density project handle their water, they handle their flow. My understanding right now is that we're not enforcing retention pond. That's right. With Meadow Creek the engineers reported and met our standards. We couldn't require them to do that. Most of these are right an acre or less. Not of ours is less than acre. Even an acre is pretty tight with an aerobic system. It's all on the table and we need to think about what we're going to do. At some point, we have to decide if we are going to require sewer and at that point they will say we have ten lots we can't package plant. I assume that for a small development a package plant would be prohibitive. Maybe they could size them from little to huge. Maybe it's not prohibitive where they can actually put in a package plant or the city's looking at maybe growing that utility out into the county-run incorporated area so that they can be picking up some of the sewer. They can put in a lift station a whole lot cheaper than putting in a package plant. You're talking about a $20,000.00 item. VOC4 PAGE a0) 3 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. I would assume that most homeowners would rather have a sewer I have seen some, especially people from the city who have moved out into the county and they like to run six or seven loads of laundry on Saturday. You can't do that. We've also seen recently a number of pre-applications from people who want to develop out in the county by putting ten or twelve duplex or fourplex units on a piece of land. In that way, they're not going to have the one acre minimum per unit or per dwelling. I don't know where you draw the line on how many dwelling units can go to a septic system or when a waster water plant kick in. Then your drainage situation is going to be; because we were talking about the one acre sites verses you have a one acre site but they are basically putting an apartment complex on there. You have more of a drainage issue. They don't get a building permit from us so it's kind of whatever they want out there. Usually our Health Department is probably a catch-all on that because they have the sanitary sewer set-up and if it doesn't fit then that the first place where a snag would come in. It should also happen with the engineering of it and hopefully we're going to start addressing drainage. I assume there are engineering standards for drainage for whatever your density is going to be. It's all got to work. (inaudible) I know Commissioner Wassermann has had this issue in the South end of the county with a housing development out in the county and they are just running it through an unnamed creek and it's really not a creek, but now it's going to be because they are going to be discharging all the water from the package plant. They are effective homeowners downstream that really haven't been addressed. I would say that in our drainage we are going to have to some way to make sure that it gets to a creek area that can handle the flow. We have even talked about if that should be FEMA flood plan. Is that something we should carry in our drainage ordinance? We cover it in out drainage ordinance. (inaudible) It's basically all upstream so that's probably where we need to address the issue of drainage. At that point we are going to have to deal with some way where there's not a creek running on the property. A designated creek area in that development. It's got to find some sort of easement to get it there. VOL 7(m PAGE 90K 4 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. If even if you don't want to go into the (inaudible) guidelines, we already have written out how we are telling people you can't just dump or discharge or somebody's property. We already have that written out and you could use that wording. You may just take our chunks that you want. (inaudible) There is another document that has guidelines and it's going to have engineering formulas. (inaudible) Is it a joint ordinance? It's not an ordinance, we have and ordinance that refers to the manual. This manual is the joint manual for Bryan/College Station. It has the teeth of the ordinance but it's not. It make it a little easier, for example; if somebody had straight pipe that are five feet deep but someone has a bend that makes it four feet deep, it allows us to make those engineer judgments without having to go through a huge barrier. We probably need to look at that so that there are some opportunities to look at them. Everything is different so you need to have some leeway to make sure it works. That is where the engineering they will have to look at that. So we will need to draw up some sort of guidelines for drainage. I guess both cities are using the same or similar guidelines? It will be about two more months before we have a draft document completed. We are working toward getting that. We can get what we have so far. If you would, I think that would help because we'd like to get on board with whatever you come up with. It gives you more flexibility so if something is written that is more city oriented and not county oriented but it would allow you to make that decision. (inaudible) That was TCEQ all the way. They got their discharge permit in the `90s, for a mobile home park. Then they renewed and updated it. TCEQ basically gives that permit. They look for a perennial stream or waters of the US. (inaudible) Vkll PAGE a y 5 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. Right now without that plant being built, that creek or low spot is probably as dry as the county but on a rainy year or a rainy season it's saturated. That's going to add to the run off. It was already destroying private roads. (inaudible) He told them he would give them the money but if he improved it himself then he had the liability. Yes, I was there. But through the subdivision ordinance you can force him to have to deal with whatever the downstream... (inaudible) ..when is the stream a good enough steam to discharge into? Yeah, what are you going to call a creek? Are there standards for that? You have defined drainage way. We're taking a stab at it. ...a judgment call; something like a Carter Creek, obviously that's good enough. On the other end of the spectrum you can see there's nothing there and obviously that's not good enough. The question becomes these in-between areas. We have one project that the swale was actually where the cows walked. I don't think it was really a drainage channel. The engineer tried to tell me that that was my channel. That is the challenge. What we can do; what we have done to some degree in College Station is define something called "primaries" and that's where we have gone through and mapped and redefined these breaches and creeks (we have them in bold along with pictures) as a primary and it has certain characteristics about it... I think it would be too big of a task to try and define all of that. I think it's got to be some rule of thumb to evaluate those. (inaudible) What's a drainage ditch, and what's not? Right. So one of the ways the state would look at it with regard to plan permitting was to compare the water with the State. VOL-7 ~ PAGE 210 6 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. It showed up on the USGS map. I don't know that they come out and investigate every permit but that's what they go by. An engineer putting the information together has to submit a copy of that showing where the discharge is. That's what the State went on. An engineer sealing it, there's some maps that are defining it (inaudible) and maybe even some photographs. (inaudible) I think we have a pretty good handle. I think that's great that yall are working on that process where it's kind of outside the regulations but it is referenced by it so that is something we probably need to look at. We'll reference something along that line. Was there something else on drainage? First thing; we're trying to make sure if we can deal with it and I think Bill confirmed that, yes, we can. It's kind of in this booklet that I'm going to get. Isn't it nice that we've got something to go by Oh yeah. It was huge so, that's the problem We talked a little bit about the enforcement of the (inaudible) drainage and I was asking her how they enforced... I always try to make sure they still want something from me before I get everything. A lot of times we are able to use building permits. We can say, "You can go forward and we'll get you a letter of credit or something like that." (inaudible) I've very careful what I allow to be credited verses a bill. Then if they don't perform and they try to come in get a building permit and they haven't complied within the letter of credit or bond then they can't have the building permit until you... (inaudible) Is that kind of how yall do yall's? Yeah. Have yall ever called a bond? We tried. For sidewalks. (inaudible) It was only sidewalks which is why I try to really limit what I allow the bond. For example if you allow them to bond part of the street, they start construction, somebody get's hurt, the ambulance can't get there; that's part of my rationale. (inaudible) VOL 7G PAGE Z// 7 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. It got down to the final week so they re-issued a letter of credit. We don't have a lot of bonded, we do have some that are bonded but not a whole lot and that's the reason I was asking the question. Even in the county they have to have some sort of road in place. If they are doing houses, they can't get the construction trucks and especially the concrete trucks in there. I guess you could today, it's so dry. (inaudible) Does this requires that the have the roads finished or do they allow them to just have...? Not if they're going to build it. We won't accept construction of it and they can't plat... Right, for two years. No, they can't file a plat if they do not have the roads. We can inspect it in an accepted construction. But they are still responsible for two years? After we accept construction. Yall are actually doing a maintenance bond. What you're physically doing. We have a (inaudible) bond, it's like a warranty, so if they didn't do it right. If it was not that they didn't do it right, it was a maintenance thing, so we are always having to argue. After we get through, before we file the plat, unless they have bonded we go out and construction inspect it. Go through all the test reports and actually accept construction of it. Then before the maintenance period starts, they have to have a maintenance bond in place. And that's what we want. If it takes them three months to get a maintenance bond, their maintenance period doesn't start until that maintenance bond begins. I just love that. So that kind of gets them to go ahead and hurry up to get the money. (inaudible) The retention ponds require maintenance, how do you enforce that maintenance? Because we code enforcement that will send letters. Maintenance on the detention? VOL PAGE 21d- 8 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. That's the homeowners association. Right. I guess it would have to be on a case by case basis. You don't have anybody going out to check all these detention ponds once a year, do you? I think if there's a complaint. That's what I mean. So, it's complaint driven? I assume that would be the same with us. Obviously something is not working right and so there's flooding and some manner of damage that's being done so we would address it at that point. Who sues for compliance? Or request compliance. I think we try to get them to comply and if they don't we'll mow it or do whatever and then (inaudible). Or whatever repairs. Ours have mainly been for mowing, upkeep. They look unsightly. I don't know that we have had to have anything done for operations. Once it's constructed it's probably maintained (inaudible). (inaudible) People don't notice them so much until there's some flooding or they grow up and some neighbor, esthetically, want it kept up. And we try. We're trying to figure out a way; we don't like retention ponds. They are messy and so hard to maintain. They are just problematic. So we are trying to figure out a way to reduce the number of retention ponds. Make sure that they are only where they really need to be. (inaudible) More of a regional situation rather than trying to have every lot. We're trying to get bigger ones or better, but we're also trying to figure out a way to waive the requirements when it's just not really needed. (inaudible) You can really damage people's property down-stream or really change their (inaudible). I think we need to (inaudible) because the probably going to be really more for us than you guys because in the city you have the thoroughfares and the streets and there is some VOL_Z~ PAGE 213 9 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. water drainage already built into the (inaudible) where we are going to have more land in between developments. (inaudible) It's not the homeowners association for the property, it's the adjacent property. And then how to you make them responsible for the easement, as well? Would you do that? It depends on whether it's an open bid or you're going to be running a pipeline. (inaudible) But that's a good point. Sometimes the downstream property owner isn't formally part of the plat or formally part of any document other than they may issue a letter that says, "I'm in favor of this." (inaudible) It's an encumbrance on them, but at that point you're somewhat liable to keep it (inaudible) damage to the upstream property. I don't know that we would get involved (inaudible) but they are more legally liable. (inaudible) The problem is; you have three owners later that is not somehow attached to your property (inaudible) easement and that letter gets lost. What other items do we have? That was the main thing. Is there anything on the health department side that you can think of that we need to look at? Is the one acre aerobic system working ok? (Discussion about duplexes in the county. Questions and interjections are listed below. The majority of the responses were inaudible.) • Yall get to see that first. That's part of people buying or getting their plans approved; they have to come before the health department. So that's where yall can try to fix that or..? • Is there anyway we can run that up before? Can we say; for this size lot you can have a 1,000 square foot house? o I don't know about that. o We can't regulate the size of a house. o Yeah, that's the problem. VOL ~<P PAGE 2141 10 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. • Where do catch this? How do we make sure that this septic system is checked off before we build the house? Make sure that the permitting process is ramped up so we can catch that before it's already done. • Where do we catch it? • Do you have a square foot requirement? • And the biggest problem is you can't deal with remodels and add-ons and all that two years down the road. • Didn't you have to have a permit to alter? • In general, the installers are trying to help them out and trying to figure out what will work and what won't work and let them know. • I'm just trying to figure out a way to trigger that so people out in the country can build their own house. There's nothing that covers everything but if there was some way to try to pick up on what is the best way to try to catch that up front. • Do we need to look at something other than a flood plane permit, as far as the permit process? For construction permit of some sort. • Like a building code for the county? • Not necessarily a building permit `cause there's not telling what they're gonna build. I'm saying some sort of permit so that if they are going to build something on a lot and they have to come let us know so we can say, "You have to do this and this and get your flood plane, you have to get your septic system." • We could give them like a guidance document or general... • I have no idea what you would call it but something so that you can say what you need to do. Not everybody knows what you need to be doing out in the country. Most of the builders... • This would not only go through the developers. This is not just a developer/subdivision type problem. • A process where we can catch it as quickly a possible so that legally (inaudible) problems. Especially a homeowner buying a lot and they go out a find them a builder and they start construction on it. • How many problems are we have that somebody buys a piece of ground, an acre or two, and call a building (I assume they are not going to actually construct it themselves.) the builder know enough that out in the country they are going to be able to say, "They are going to be able to sue with this." • We're not seeing a lot. • These regulations, do they need to be in the subdivision ordinance or in the health department? o I would think the subdivision. I'm not certain. • Do yall have any set-backs, side set -s? o Yes. For rural subdivision. • How about the county? o No we have rural subdivision. • Under the engineering guidelines for lot sizes, "Minimum lot sizes shall be two acres per lot a private water well and septic systems. Green easements and road riding easements are being excluded from (inaudible) There shall be 100 foot radius between (inaudible)..." VQL 7(o PAGE aJ5 11 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. • What is your position on the new technology that shows you can remove a lot less acreage? It is my understanding that not involving treatment or discharge. • Ok, as far as a septic systems side we need to look at lot size and set-backs. If somebody wanted to come in with something you could find some way to set the tone with the Commissioners to come back and show that that's going to work. But I would say for standards (inaudible). • This is the way you control, the controlling factors like septic, size-wise. (inaudible) Superior wastewater collection methods. So we're thinking of that plus from the city's angle, we are thinking about future growth and basically as minimal as you can, size-wise to accommodate (inaudible). The question that we're looking at is: What is the goal and how do we match the goals of the three entities, the cities and the county. What is the goal? Does the county not want to see package plants or other things where you want to see it? You have to empower the (inaudible) to do more of the one or two septic systems. It just to me to be a question that you start looking at your subdivision. • To me, I think a perfect world, obviously the developer are trying to shrink up their lot size because that's what's affordable but it makes no sense to me to get away from individual septic tanks until the package comes. What I don't know is the cost variances. But again, how many lots do you have to do to make it for this package plan and so now this is the economical standard. You have to go 50 lot development or 100 lots, or 200 lots, or 10 lots. I don't know what that number is but that's because then whatever we come up with it's going to be picked at by development communities. They are going to come in and say whatever, so we have to pull the economics in here as well. That's just my thought on it, but we've got four other folks here that have their thoughts on it. I would prefer, in a perfect world, I would rather people get away from septic systems because I'm sure there is a great percentage of people that don't want to think about it; "It's in there, it's working and once a year, I'm gonna have it checked." They still have to put tablets in it on a regular basis. o Just three times a year. • Just three times a year? I was thinking it every month you were having to go out there... And so you're really paying for that pretty seriously so why not have some sort of homeowners association and package plan? • How strong are the cities going to go into the sewer business? To the point where you are doing package plans and whatever works? You have the billing capabilities and the utility department and all that? • What I am seeing, I assume it's like electricity, you only have so many customers per mile or so many customers per whatever, you're having to run that sewer out there, it's going to become uneconomical. • It seems to me that we need a little of bit of both. The cities feel the need to grow, higher property cost per acre. There is still the need for the rural development because we're seeing so much of the edict of the development of one-acre subdivisions that is so economical and so developer right that it's happening so frequently, we're going to eat up all of our space in other ways. • The rural fire systems are actually doing that now? Wellborn and Wixon? VOL 26 PAGE 214 12 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. • The counties desire is to make it easy to do with one lot just a little larger to accommodate set-backs. • Does anyone know your magic number? How many lots has to be per acre? o It depends on your discharge. You're system is designed on your expected discharge. • Can you do it with 10 houses, 25 houses? Or can we say, "If you're going to put in a 10 lot development, you have to put in a package plan?" We're gonna make it odorous for them to do that. o I think it would be in the hundreds. • The counties desire is to make it easy to do with one lot just a little larger to accommodate set-backs. • You're passing the cost on to whoever is going to own it but yet they are not having to maintain that system. I think on the back-side cost. They need to understand that this is what you are paying for in the buying of the house but you're not having to pay for this on a continuous maintenance problem. I don't know if somebody could look at that. I could see how a developer would look at it like, "Well, I'm having to charge too much." And they are not going to let them pay for that, but on an average, this may be more economical to go with a package plan. • It's not something that the county does. All package plants are through the TC. • How close are sewage lines to Benchley or to (inaudible)? o Basically we have sewer up 2818 and Highway 6 and then the other one is Highway 47 the (inaudible) • Is that sewer behind the lake? o No sewage up there. It's over 2818, at the business park. It's all sewer there. We're putting our new plant Thompson's creek. o That's off Leonard road. o Yeah, but the drainage pattern is about the same. It will be along time but all that flow will eventually go through our new plant. What can happen is; if things develop at the upper region, you can do a package plan. On our east side we have the same problem. It really needs to go to the Navasota River, but the only way I can see that is it is going to develop is that it's going to have to work it's way South and East but you can do that with a package plan. • To answer part of your question (not the rural part of it) what we are seeing is a high density in ETJ and we're thinking we need to get up to speed with all our stuff to be able to (inaudible). It's a high-density, small lots, lift station plant. That's what's about to blow up and these guys will have to answer to rural development whether we want to see the rural stay rural, acre and a half, two acres, or whatever we want to make them. (inaudible) That's what we would be forcing. Outside the ETJ would be rural settings, two and a half or whatever size lots. • It's not forcing totally the small. It's forcing either small or big. If you want the rural, it's going to be rural. If you're going to be tight, you're going to be tight, and there's no in-between. VOL 7 a PAGE 2 17 13 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. • And that's forcing the county to deal with some of this higher density thing (inaudible). • I can see this is going to begin to mushroom but I think that's probably an area where they will say, "Well, this is a pretty good niche here, we can make this work for the development center so that it fits and yet in the long run, it may not fit." As the city grows all these things are septic systems and they are not sewers. You're not going to get 100% participation on any of it. Just because some of them are diehards to deal with. • Well there's a lot of them watching this one out in College Station to see what's going to happen. If it spills out then it's Katy-bar-the-door. • At Indian Lake they are proposing a package plan but right now I think we're trying to work something for a lift station if our sewage proposal... • They may change their density on that. They re-platted a bunch of that. • That's trying to find out the vision of the county is. What these guys want to know is where are we headed with this and I can see where we're headed. • I haven't heard any argument to say that's it's probably not a better idea to try to look at a package plan. What I don't know is the economics of it. Where it's going to work, what's it going to take? Is it going to take a 1,000 unit development for a package plant to work? I don't think that's true. That's too big. Not many people can deal with that. I think a package plan can be designed but now we're hearing that going through the State, TCEQ, is like a (inaudible). • Nantucket did one. They were one of the first. • About how many people will a package plan serve? o You can buy any size package plan. It's not a standardized size. o You do have to have enough people paying in to it to make it feasible. I don't know what that break even number is. Is there any way to find that out? • But you don't always factor in the real cost of maintaining a septic compared to the up-front cost of building a package plan. It seems like an off price. It's a cost that's incurred to the end user. The developer likes that. You get into your house X amount thousand cheaper. Ten acres or ten lots that they don't have to pay for the sewer. For the builder or developer the sewer system or your package plan.is not tagged into the cost. And the maintenance of it. • Even after it's annexed and having to be retrofitted, it's not the tax payer it's the (inaudible) that have to pay for whatever capital improvements are put into place for the green sewer. For whoever wants it; some do, some don't. We found that out at Nantucket. • As far as development goes at Meadow Creek, that size development; a 79 acre tract, 300 plus homes, curb and gutters, storm drainage, but we're not going to maintain anything, it's going to be a homeowners association maintaining their pond. Is that they type density development that yall are wanting to see? With a package plan on it? • They require daily maintenance. o City would love to maintain those for you and just send a bill. o Everybody wants to have service but nobody want to pay for them. VOL (e PAGE k 14 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. • If the cities are wanting to get involved then that's where you make sure it's maintained properly. Everything is put in as it should be. Then you got people that are in that development and have saved up $10.00 a month for the last twenty years to pay for it. I think that is something that has happened in the past and anything in the future will hopefully do a better job in preparing for that. Get it into our ordinances. • It may be of interest as to how a right of way is defined, the open-channel sections. But even some of the details and specs on the asphalt and base and how that's tested. Probably the more that we can get, the better. For example, we have areas based on a fire code where we have a secondary access for the fire trucks and we use the one-forth seal coat which is (inaudible). I think there are some points of commonality that would be good to double check. Looking at yall's standard street section, I think there is a little bit of difference between yall's and our rural street section. It's not significant but it's enough that it makes it a bit of an anomaly when our engineers were trying to put together a set of plans. If it's a standard thing and we can both on agree on it, I think it makes it easier for everybody. • Something else that I didn't bring extra copies of this but this was kind of an internal draft of different processes. Just to put that in your hands; those last three columns are (inaudible) in the EPJ and as far as some different processes. There are a lot of acronyms and probably difficult to read. Without going into detail about that, this may be something that's useful between Gary, Brian, and I about how we process different utilities in the EPJ and specifically what type of inspection happens or what are the responsibilities divided between us. Right now, for example, we get an entire set of construction plans for water, sewer, streets, and drainage. For example, in that first row we are talking about breaking the utility sub-plans then the street and drainage sub-plans. So we don't even really comment on your streets and drainage and confuse this issue. We would just comment on water and sewer and then yall comment on streets and drainage to not confuse the issue. One thing that I left off of here is (inaudible), I think we have authority to regulate out in the EPJ but I think it may be more appropriate since yall are looking at streets and drainage in general, that yall administer the flood plane in the EPJ. So some of these responsibilities are worthwhile to hash out how these processes are going to go. Any other comments? I think we have some pretty good things. The next thing to do is try to see when we want to try to get together again to try to crunch some things together. Do we want to try to meet within the next month? Do we want to wait that long? Gary, how long do you think it's going to take to run through this? We're going to have to have a meeting to answer some questions about our vision. I think we'll probably do that next so probably it will be a least a month. VOL_7~o PAGE 219 15 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations. I think we're getting some valuable information. I think we're having some real good conversations here to try to get together on a lot of stuff. I can see a lot of things happening real quick. I think yall can too. Do we want to try to set it up for a month from now? I think it's pretty important that we try to address this thing now before it becomes a problem. I would think that it would be a problem for the developers as well. They are going to start running aground. So if we can fix some of this before... Discussion for next meeting date. It was decided to meet at the Brazos Center on February 15`h at 1:30. Discussion about a workshop date. End of tape. VOL76 PAGE 9,)0 16 of 16 Brazos County Commissioners Court Workshop, Subdivision Regulations.