Commissioners approve new subdivision regulations ordinance
Gonzales County commissioners unanimously approved a new 149-page subdivision ordinance on Monday, Oct. 28, the first new regulations regarding permitting and platting the county has adopted in more than 12 years.
The previous Gonzales County Subdivision rules were originally adopted July 23, 2007 and were last amended in 2012 — 12 years ago.
The adoption of the subdivision ordinance came after some tense exchanges between Precinct 2 Commissioner Donnie Brzozowski and developer Henry Schmidt Jr. about whether the court was rushing too fast into adopting the new rules.
It quickly devolved into Brzozowski telling Schmidt that he didn’t have to conduct business in the county if he didn’t like the rules, and Schmidt indicating that he and others may resort to using the ballot box to voice their displeasure.
County Permitting Director Jimmy Harless presented the document to the court, which was drafted by attorney Eric Gomez of the Braun & Gresham law firm in Dripping Springs following three separate workshops with commissioners and the public.
Road and Bridge Secretary Carly Russell and Permit Office Records Management Coordinator Carol Sandoval questioned commissioners about the fees that would be charged for installing culverts and how the money would be collected.
“There's going to be different fees, and we want them to get paid, and we don't want to put Carol through a lot of grief,” Russell said.
Russell told the court her understanding was commissioners had discussed charging a $50 permit fee for residences, farms and ranches that do not need a culvert installed. However, the price would go up to $500 if a 20-foot culvert is needed and $1,000 for a culvert larger than 20 feet.
Sandoval asked how the commissioners would be letting her know which fees to charge, to which Precinct 3 Commissioner Kevin La Fleur said “Let the commissioner go out there and look and say, “This is what we need.”
Brzozowski said the individuals should come into the permit office and fill out the necessary permit form. Sandoval can email to Russell and the commissioner for that precinct to go out and review to determine if a culvert is necessary and then they would let Sandoval know how much to charge for the permit.
“Then are we holding septic permits until we get this all figured out, because that’s what I’ve done before?” Sandoval asked
Harless said the permit office could hold up a septic permit only for “as long as it’s reasonable.”
“Let me caution you that if it's takes too long, and I've got a family with children that need a septic, then I’m going to give out the septic permit because that's a health and safety issue,” Harless said.
“It trumps everything else, in my opinion. But I think we can continue to do the way we do it, to keep a handle on it. What I don't want is a family with children that have moved in that don't have the septic permit. However, the whole idea is that the hammer (to hold over the head to get a driveway fee paid) is the septic permit.”
Harless said the new subdivision ordinance talks about the issuance of the final plat as well as all the requirements that must be met prior to final plat approval.
“The preliminary plat is not required by the state anymore,” Harless said. “We can highly encourage it, because it speeds up the process, but we're not required. We can't require that, but there's steps in there that talk about some of the things that need to be accomplished, mainly on the county construction requirements on the roads.
“It talks about our road frontage minimum requirement going from 50 to 100 feet, which should basically do away with our flag lots. It talks about a minimum distance between driveways. It gives driveway standards off of a county road. It talks about the minimum lot sizes. It talks about public streets and county maintained streets if the county decided to do that in the future and it talks about water availablility.”
Harless said the ordinance does give the county the ability to grant variances for anything that is not already quoted in the local government code.
“It does say that this court has the ability to grant an exception or variance or to grant me permission to allow that to happen, because it's your order, it's your ordinance, right?” Harless said.
For the most part, prices and permit fees on the subdivision side stayed the same, though septics went up and a few other items also went up, Harless said.
“There are certain sections in there that give me, as the designated agent, the ability to apply some common sense,” Harless said. “For example, multiple entrances onto a property when you can't cross the river, or you can't cross the creek, that kind of thing. So it gives me the authority to look at it and say, ‘Well, that's stupid. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.’ We can bring it to the court.
“It allows us to look at each individual case on an individual basis, but it prepares us for the future, especially with future big subdivisions coming at us, maybe 10 years, with curb and gutter, paved roads, small lots,” Harless added. “We're going to struggle with that if we don't get a handle on it. That's what this does.”
Schmidt, who was also appearing before the court that day for plats regarding two phases of development in the Thompsonville area, asked if the court had even taken much time to review the lengthy, new document.
“Do you agree it requires a lot of variances in order to submit a plat?” Schmidt asked. “You guys already have a lot of authority right now that's not being utilized in the current code. Now we've got 150 pages of extra stuff.
“And do you want additional roads to maintain or not? Now you tell us we have to build up the roads to county specs, but you don’t want to roads anyway. Do you want the roads or do not want the roads?”
“Why do you think the county would want to take on additional roads?” La Fleur asked. “I know everybody's gonna say because they pay taxes. Everybody pays taxes, even people who live in the city.”
“The reason we did that is because, in my area there, there's a lot of people who come in and buy a place, and they just blade a road through there, and then they sell the lots off of it,” Brzozowskl said. “Then those people took the money and drove off and left those people sitting there with a dirt road.”
Brzozowski accused Schmidt of making a comment in court in a previous meeting that the reason he and other developers like Gonzales County “is because our laws are a little weak or light.”
“You made that remark in court one day and I’m sure it’s on tape. The reason you come here is because our laws are a little weaker. You can get more done,” Brzozowski said.
“I said there are things that need to be amended, that is correct, but you go from one extreme to the other,” Schmidt answered. “It's 150 pages here. There's no way you guys read this. Everybody knows that if you go from one extreme the other, that doesn't solve the problem.”
Brzozowski said the county wanted to put into effect an ordinance now because “we don't want to sit around here and wait another year or two so the people of Gonzales County can get taken advantage of and the county gets taken advantage of.”
“My next question to you: If you don’t like the way we’re handling this, maybe you shouldn’t do a development here,” Brzozowski told Schmidt. “You guys not happy here? I mean, y'all been pretty busy. I mean, if you're not happy with our rules here, nobody says you got to play here.”
Schmidt reminded Brzozowski he is an elected official and asked if the latter was telling him “Maybe if I don’t like it, I should check a different box next time I vote, is that what you’re telling me?”
Schmidt chastised Brzozowski for how he spoke to Jessica Daidone of Langford Community Services on another agenda item earlier in the meeting and told him he needed to “calm down” to which Brzozowski told Schmidt he needed to “calm down” as well.
Michael Tuch questioned why there were things that were written into the ordinance that didn’t seem to pertain to anything that’s happening in Gonzales County right now.
Harless responded, “It's not always what's happening today. It's what's going to happen 10 years from now. That's the problem.”
Precinct 4 Commissioner Collie Boatright said the county was trying to plan for the future and learning from what neighboring Caldwell County has experienced “so we’re trying to be ahead of it.
“Yes, this is probably quite a bit of change, a lot of information and a lot more stuff that we're going to have to work our way into,” Boatright said. “But you know, we’ve got to start somewhere, to try to get ahead of it and try to look out for the county in general.”
“We’ve got to have something to work with, and we have to have something that's in place at this particular time,” Boatright added. “If we wait a month or two months, and then 10 other things pop in, they’re grandfathered in because they came in before we had an ordinance in place. We understand there are things that are probably going to have to be changed, and it's going to be a little bit of trial and error there.”
Harless said the court can place the ordinance on the agenda “at any point” for corrections or changes.
“I try to apply some common sense to some things,” Harless said. “If I see that it doesn't make sense what the requirements are requiring them to do, I don't have a problem with coming back to the court and letting you address it again.”
Commissioners eventually voted unanimously to accept the subdivision ordinance as presented.
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