BUDA — At its March 25 meeting, Buda City Council listened to a presentation on the progress of The Colony at Cole Springs development project, presented by Royce Rippy, a representative of M/I Homes.
Development of The Colony at Cole Springs began in March 2024 and phase one is currently anticipated to be finished by the end of 2025. The first phase entails improving and realigning Old Black Colony Road and Cole Springs Road, as well as building a collector street for the community and a bridge over Onion Creek. The bridge is now complete and will have a tie-in with Cole Springs Road, but construction of that tie-in has to wait until the collector street is complete, explained Rippy.
In addition to the road construction, the amenity center site plan is under review and construction is set to begin in the summer of 2025, with completion being set the summer of 2026. According to the presentation, the amenity center will include a play area, as well as a pool and a pickleball court.
Following the presentation, council member LaVonia Horne-Williams brought up concerns regarding the project and compliance issues that have occurred recently, such as water rushing through the project site and a stop work order.
“This is no knock on you, however, people who live here in this community, it’s important that we are being respectful and we are maintaining the site based on the way it should be maintained as weather changes and the rain comes and different things happen,” said Horne-Williams. “I get that it’s sometimes difficult to control a contractor, but [I] would hope that at some point, during your monthly meeting or any progress meetings that you’re having with the city, that we’re addressing that promptly and that the city isn’t having to reach out multiple times. You guys came in with a great plan, you came in with a great attitude, we have a great partnership and we want it to continue that way. So, just making sure that the contractor understands that there are people who live in that area and they just need to be mindful of that.”
Council member Matt Smith addressed his own concerns about Onion Creek, with the amount of construction run-off that has collected in the creek.
“I want to acknowledge that there were discharges there, but we’ve cleaned it up and it looks good,” said Rippy.
Smith questioned if there were going to be any more changes to Onion Creek, to which Rippy responded by saying that there would be no more impact and the construction company is in compliance.
Council member Greg Bowles chimed in to ask what preventative or punitive measures have been taken on the subcontractors, in order to see that no other incidents occur.
“We’ve had stern conversations, saying this cannot happen again,” responded Rippy. “It’s a very challenging site that we’re building, very challenging and unfortunately there’s been a couple of incidents, but we have corrected them as soon as we could.”
“[The Colony is] going to be a beautiful asset to the city,” Rippy concluded.
Buda City Council will have its next meeting at 6 p.m. April 15.
