HAYS — What was meant to be an opportunity for public discussion among residents, county planners and developers regarding Hays Commons — a proposed development in the small city of Hays — did not pan out to be as productive as intended.
An applicant sponsored meeting was held at the Hays County Government Office on Dec. 19 by LJA Engineering to present the preliminary plat for Hays Commons and receive public comment.
LJA is working with Hays Commons developer MileStone Community Builders. LJA Project Engineer Brian Faltesek attended the meeting, along with LJA Vice President Daniel Ryan, who attended virtually. MileStone Entitlements Manager Shani Armbruster was the only MileStone representative present.
Those in attendance — a handful of Hays residents and council members — first voiced concerns that the meeting was being held in violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act.
While LJA did post notice in the Dec. 7 and 14 editions of the Hays Free Press under an “applicant sponsored meeting,” several Hays residents said that neither they nor their neighbors received any notice in the mail of the meeting despite being adjacent to the proposed development. Additionally, notice of the meeting was not posted on the Hays County government website.
Marcus Pacheco, Hays County development services director, said that the notification process rests entirely on the applicant’s side and the county is not involved. However, before a subdivision plat can be filed for approval, applicants must go through a county administrative review and later, a technical review to “check all the boxes” and ensure that all requirements were met, including notices and applicant sponsored meeting requirements.
Hays Commons has been in development for nearly 10 years now. As such, residents and city leaders are adamant that developers take into account all of their concerns, most recently regarding MileStone’s municipal utility district (MUD) request and preliminary plat plans.
Currently, the proposed plat includes 20 single-family lots, two multi-family/condo lots, three parkland/open spaces lots, one commercial lot and three utility lots on approximately 290 acres of land, with 240 acres across the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone and 42 acres across the transition zone.
Plat plans outline that water and wastewater services would be provided either by the city through a MUD, using already strained local wells for water and implementing land application (the spraying or injection of sewage sludge into the soil) over sensitive Edwards Aquifer zones, or by the city of Austin.
During a Nov. 14 council meeting, Hays City Council unanimously voted to deny MileStone’s MUD request. During the Dec. 19 applicant sponsored meeting, Armbruster said that MileStone had submitted a service extension request with Austin in late November, but that this process “takes quite some time” and that they had not heard back. For this parcel, the request includes 60,000 gallons water per day for wastewater use and 120,000 gallons per day (about 90 gallons per minute) for water use.
Hays council also denied MileStone’s preliminary plat as presented during a Nov. 30 special council meeting, but it doesn’t appear that the city’s votes have changed much on MileStone’s end as they moved on to the county for approval instead.
“We denied the MUD and denied the preliminary plat. Then, we find three days later, that they’re coming to the county with virtually no change to the preliminary plat that was voted down by the city of Hays,” mayor pro tem Roxanne O’Neal said.
“Why are we looking at a plat approval dated June when as recently as October, something different was presented?” resident Darlene Starr added later in the meeting. “The developer is still in negotiations with the city of Hays asking for things that look completely different from what they’re showing you [the county]and asking you to sign off on.”
Concerns regarding proposed lot sizes leading to high development density, the amount of impervious cover (human-made surfaces that don’t absorb rainfall,)lack of karst feature buffer zones between homes, a wastewater storage facility on site and the removal of heritage trees have also been brought up many times.
At the meeting, Ryan also briefly mentioned a second separate project outside this plat that is within the Austin ETJ (extraterritorial jurisdiction,) thus falling under different rules and regulations as the Hays Commons plat, which is within the Hays ETJ. In total, this would add 280 lots to the area, along with hundreds of gallons of water per day for wastewater treatment, which would be served by land application if services with Austin are not approved.
Ultimately, many of those in attendance felt that they were still — even after dozens of meetings — left with unanswered questions and inconsistencies regarding the development, in part due to the lack of MileStone representatives present.
“The entirety of this evening, we have not heard one definitive statement from your organization. It’s, ‘It appears to be, it could be, it might be, we’re gonna try, we don’t know, don’t hold me to the number, this is an estimate, we’re thinking about it, we’re considering it,’” said resident and former Hays mayor pro tem Lydia Bryan-Valdez. “We have a beautiful home right now, beautiful lives, a wonderful community … It’s a little bit of heaven and y’all are going to turn it into a big pot of hell. We are in a David and Goliath situation. We stand to lose everything we have, including our health … It’s trickery every step of the way; it’s bad business. Why would you do that to the city of Hays? This is Texas. You can do things in good faith and make leaps and bounds of progress … Y’all are going to do the worst things you could possibly do for the name of profit.”
Hays City Council will next meet on Jan. 9 and continue to deliberate Hays Commons.
