Several hundred people attended a town hall meeting LCRA held this summer at Dripping Springs High School. LCRA is planning open houses in November to discuss its plan to provide the area with water utility services.

here has never been a better time for people wanting to get in on the ground floor of regional planning, water quality and growth issues in western Travis and northern Hays counties.

Roll up your sleeves and get involved, say the facilitators of three separate public efforts under way to tackle an array of topics related to development and its potential impact on the area's quality of life.

Since this summer, these three groups have begun to hold regular public meetings to address these issues:

• Regional Water Quality Planning Project is developing a framework for cities and counties within the Barton Springs Segment of the Edwards Aquifer to protect water quality and wildlife, particularly the Barton Springs salamander, a federally protected endangered species.
• Southwest Travis County Growth Dialog Process, a panel led by Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, will spend eight months gathering public input and forming recommendations on development and infrastructure in the unincorporated area of southwest Travis County.
• Hamilton Pool Road Community Forum, a community-based organization, was formed after LCRA's Board of Directors voted May 19 to delay until December a decision on building a water line to serve the area along Hamilton Pool Road. Led by independent facilitators, the group is working to craft a vision that can serve as a roadmap for managing growth in this unincorporated area.

	OPEN HOUSES LCRA staff will hold open houses to discuss LCRA's water utility plan for western Travis and northern Hays counties. Monday, Nov. 8, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., The Terrace Club, 2600 Highway 290 West, Dripping Springs. Tuesday, Nov. 9, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Lake Travis Middle School Cafeteria, 3322 Ranch Road 620 South.

The groups are focused on different aspects of the same broad issue, namely: How best to manage development and protect water quality in a region poised for growth? LCRA is supporting all three groups, and LCRA staff experts regularly attend meetings to provide technical expertise.

"That's really why we are involved, so we can be a resource for these groups and answer any questions they have as they deliberate these issues," said LCRA's Fred Crawford, who attends most of the public meetings as an LCRA Public Affairs liaison.

In addition to these efforts, LCRA also is continuing its ongoing process of soliciting feedback from residents and landowners. LCRA will hold open houses in November to discuss its plan to protect the area's environment and water quality by serving western Travis and northern Hays counties with water and wastewater utilities.

Why is all this activity happening now?
In the past year, there has been increased interest in development in this picturesque area west of Austin. This has created a growing concern among residents and landowners about how to protect the area's quality of life. As a steward of the lower Colorado River, LCRA also shares these concerns.

Below is a snapshot of each of the efforts under way, plus links to Web pages and other background material to help you get plugged into the process and find out more.

Regional Water Quality Planning Project
In December 2002, Hays County Judge Jim Powers and City of Austin Council Member Daryl Slusher convened a regional summit to discuss the impact increased development was having on water quality in the sensitive Barton Springs Segment of the Edwards Aquifer. The area covers northern Hays County, western Travis County and a small section of Blanco County.

As a result, a coalition of Travis and Hays counties, other municipalities and organizations formed a group to create a framework to protect the water quality in the region.

This ecologically sensitive area includes breath-taking views; the habitat of endangered species, namely the Barton Springs salamander, plus the golden-checked warbler and the black-capped vireo; and unincorporated land with few development controls.

The coalition committee members are Austin, Dripping Springs, Buda, Kyle, Rollingwood, Sunset Valley, the Village of Bee Cave, Hays and Travis counties, the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District and the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District.

Their effort is being funded by grants from LCRA and the Texas Water Development Board, plus in-kind services from a number of other entities. Representatives from LCRA and state agencies serve as resources.

The core group has formed a 27-member stakeholder committee to prioritize concerns and recommend solutions. The stakeholders are a diverse group: concerned citizens, landowners, developers, and representatives of environmental groups, business interests and government entities.

Among the biggest issues the diverse stakeholders face: trusting that the process will be fair to everyone, Terry Tull, executive director of the project, said during a recent interview.

"No one is going to get everything they want; it's a balance being sought," he said.

The coalition hired Naismith Engineering, an environmental consulting firm, to help develop the water quality plan using a consensus-voting approach.

The stakeholder committee likely will recommend a variety of measures that cities and counties adopt to protect the aquifer's more than 100-square-mile Barton Creek watershed, the source of Austin's famed Barton Springs. Among the recommendations the committee will consider are to: establish buffer zones, set limits on impervious cover and adopt best practices known to limit the effects of development on water quality and the environment, said Tom Brown of the Austin office of Naismith and a former deputy administrator of the Texas Water Development Board.

Tull said the group likely will produce a draft of the measures sometime in December and finalize the recommendations in February.

While the group has no means to require the participating municipalities to implement its recommendations, Tull said the group's proposed measures would carry a lot of weight.

"They'll be vocal," Tull said of the stakeholders. "A true consensus, that's a potent thing."

Web site: www.waterqualityplan.org
Contact: Terry Tull, executive director, e-mail: regionalplan@zeecon.com/.

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Southwest Travis County Growth Dialog
Increased interest in development in western Travis County has created growing concern among the area's residents and landowners about how to protect the area's quality of life.

"The initiation of an open, honest and inclusive discussion on this area's future is needed and timely," says a planning document for a newly created community planning process called Southwest Travis County Growth Dialog.

This process was formed to develop recommendations that can assist the county in guiding development in the largely unincorporated area of Travis County for the next 20 years. The area is bounded by the Travis County line to the west and south, by Lake Travis to the north and by the City of Austin and City of Lakeway extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) boundaries to the east.

Among other things, an advisory panel plans to identify key public and governmental service changes or initiatives to support the general vision of the area, and solicit feedback from the public. By May 1, an advisory panel is scheduled to report its findings and recommendations to Travis County, which is leading the effort with LCRA serving as a co-sponsor.

"Obviously there is a great deal of growth pressure in that part of the county, and I think it's important that the community have feedback about the growth, an opportunity to learn about it and about its implications," said Joe Lessard, a former assistant city manager for the City of Austin who serves as coordinator of the process.

The panel is in the process of selecting 19 members to a stakeholder group, including concerned homeowners, other area property owners, development interests, environmental interests and other organizations, Lessard said.

The group also will wrestle with the implications of a new state law that gives certain counties additional powers to manage development, said Bob Moore, executive assistant to Travis County Precinct 3 Commissioner Gerald Daugherty. In 2001, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 873 to allow infrastructure planning in certain urban Texas counties, including Travis and Hays counties, though SB 873 does not allow counties to use all of the same rules that municipalities use in regulating subdivisions.

"We're trying to create an overarching view of what needs to be considered as we know those acres are being platted out," Moore said.

Web site: www.co.travis.tx.us/tnr/swtcgrowth/default.asp. See this Sept. 8 document summarizing its mission.
Contact: Joe Lessard, coordinator, lessard89@austin.rr.com.

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Hamilton Pool Road Community Forum
This group was formed after LCRA's Board on May 19 delayed until December a final decision on building a water line to the Hamilton Pool Road area, an unincorporated area in western Travis and northern Hays counties where local governments have limited jurisdiction over land use.

About 100 people attended the initial meeting of the group in July. Since then, 19 core group members have been selected to guide the process. All of the people live, own property or regularly travel on Hamilton Pool Road.

LCRA agreed to pay for independent facilitators to spearhead the community planning process through its December Board meeting. The members are trying to come up with three "deliverables" by then, said Dr. Juli Fellows, an independent facilitator guiding the process.

These include: a description of the Hamilton Pool Road area's shared vision for the future; a "visual" or map that shows desired characteristics of general areas of Hamilton Pool Road; and a list of strategies the group would prefer to overcome barriers to their vision.

"One of the strengths of our group is we are neighborhood-based and consensus driven," Fellows said. The other two groups encompass larger geographic areas and have direct linkages to governmental entities with legal authority. Since water quality is being addressed by the Regional Water Quality Planning Project, the Hamilton Pool Road group can focus on other issues.

"In a sense, we complement each other," Fellows said. The Hamilton Pool Road group can offer the county and regional efforts a neighborhood-consensus vision for the future. In turn, these efforts offer the HPR group the potential means of achieving its vision.

Fellows said residents have asked whether LCRA's financial contribution to pay the facilitators makes them beholden to LCRA.

"The facilitators are ethically and professionally bound to a set of guidelines for neutral facilitations," she said. "Once the group is formed, we are required to serve at the discretion of the group and if at any point they believe we are not being neutral they can fire us. The issue certainly has come up and the proof will be in the pudding" when the process is complete, she said.

Web site: www.hprforum.org (note: site discontinued)
Contact: Dr. Juli Fellows, DocJuli@aol.com.

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