May 6, 2009 

 

Now that Lake Rockwall Estates is annexed, the Council is turning its attention to an ordinance that will govern housing development standards in the neighborhood.  I’m not speaking for anyone but myself, but here are some thoughts on the issues.  My goal and intention has been to replace the dilapidated rental and housing stock that is prevalent in Phase II with safe and decent structures. 

 

 

No matter what you may read on some local blogs, not one Council member has ever advocated or sought approval of large multifamily developments in the neighborhood.  To the contrary, we have been careful to limit the number and size of multifamily housing possibilities.  I emphasis possibilities, because multifamily housing is market driven.  If there is no market for that type of development, no one will build it. 

 

 

We are considering limiting the number of multifamily development to no more than 250 units which could include a combination of single family homes on zero lot lines, duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes and townhomes. (Fiveplexes were considered and then eliminated from the discussions.)  There are some who think that anything other than a single family home means higher density.  I’m hoping that the whole argument is about density, because if that is the case I believe the case of duplexes, triplexes and perhaps quadplexes can be made.

 

 

Recent bank failures and bailouts were evidence that not everyone can afford the American Dream of homeownership.  (We at Helping Hands knew that years ago when new homeowners in large brick boxes began asking for help with their mortgage and utility payments.  Easy qualifying and down payment assistance meant the builder and mortgage company could walk away with dollars in their pockets but it didn’t mean the family could afford the house payments and maintenance.)

 

 

Housing single, elderly and low wage earners doesn’t mean housing projects of 30 years ago.  If we think creatively, and limit production, I believe we will have housing products that answer the needs of those with few other options. 

 

 

Two bedroom duplexes, one bedroom triplexes, and quads with one, two or three bedrooms, fill a rental niche for working folks who can’t or won’t qualify for homeownership.  Normally, density is projected at 3.60 persons per family unit.  However, one bedroom units in a triplex or fourplex drastically reduce the density levels for those units.  Plus they take up less land overall to develop so there’s more green space.

 

 

The other issue that the Council will address is building materials.  As you know, there are a lot of manufacture homes in Phase II of LRE.  We have citywide masonry requirements for the exterior of houses being built.  Those standards will be applied to any new home, stick-built or manufactured, that is brought in as a replacement to a mobile home currently on the property.  I’m hoping that in cases where our requirements will result in financial hardship for a prospective homeowner, we can allow Hardy Plank instead.  It is a long lasting masonry product that is being used at Park Place for that urban village look.

 

 

There are lots of other issues concerning LRE that the Council will be addressing in the near future, but residents are getting trash pick-up twice a week like every other resident in Rockwall for less than $15 per month.  Previously, residents paid up to $80 per month for private trash collection.  Priorities are being established for property maintenance and building inspections with health and sanitary issues leading the list.   We have to purchase the right to serve water in LRE and rates would be less than half the current price if the City can obtain the right to service the area.  Unfortunately, Aqua Texas doesn’t seem to want to sell us their lucrative contract. 

 

 

There is a lot of misinformation and a lot of baseless allegations about the Council’s actions on Lake Rockwall Estates.  If you have a question or concern, please contact a Council member directly.  You can reach each of us through our City email addresses. 

 

 

 

February 28, 2009

A couple of items of interest are on the Council’s agenda for Monday night’s meeting including a revision to our current animal control ordinance regarding “tethering” of dogs and cats.  I always thought of tethering as a good thing - like tethering your horse outside the saloon so it wouldn’t run away.  Seeing a bare circle of earth around a tree - meant that a dog had been tied up or chained too long…not, tethered.  Anyway, the staff is proposing that we do something about the dogs that are tethered too long.  (I’ve never seen or heard of a cat that allowed you to “tether” it, tie it up or chain it to anything.)

The first proposal that they brought to us last week prohibited tethering for any amount of time for any reason.  We sent that back as too restrictive.  The revision, which we will discuss Monday night,  allows tethering for a total of 60 minutes in a twenty-four hour period - still pretty restrictive. 

My son-in-law and daughter have a middle-aged rotweiller - Socrates - the nicest, most well mannered dog I’ve ever met.  When John is working in the garage, he puts one of those gigantic screws in the ground, clips a line to it and to the collar and lets “Socs” stay with him and watch the world go by, enjoying some sunshine and fresh air and John’s company.  The new ordinance wouldn’t allow John and Socs enjoy more than an hour together….  not, much time for cleaning out a garage. 

When I was a young social worker in Florida, I was glad when people “tethered” their dogs.  That meant I could stay far enough away to avoid being bitten (except once when a Chihuahua bit me on my toe on a front porch.) 

On the other hand there’s Daisy.  She’s a short-haired pointer that lives up the alley - tied to a rope that’s just long enough for her to run out of the garage, but not reach the alley.  That’s Daisy’s excercise pattern - running out of the garage and barking at people and cars passing by.  Then there is the large mixed-breed bulldog, sitting in dirt, on a short chain to his dog house.  He’s suppose to be a guard dog, but he’s pretty ineffective on the chain.  There’s no fence in the yard, so if the family wants to keep calling him their own, they’ve got to contain him.  You can drive past a house close to downtown and see two or three pitbulls tied up or chained to a tree or doghouse.  There’s a larger wooden pen nearby, for the puppies.  These are the dogs, the ones that are tied up and chained, the ordinance revision is trying to address.

The question of the day - how do you write an ordinance that proactive code enforcement officers can use without going too far? 

 

February 19, 2009

Tuesday night the second vote was taken on the annexation of Lake Rockwall Estates, passing on the same 6-1 vote as before.  

Filing has begun for Council seats that are up for election this year.  So far, the Mayor, Matt Scott, Glen Farris and David Sweet have filed for re-election.  Anyone interested in running for a Council seat may pick up a packet from the City Secretary.

 

February 3, 2009

Last night, the Council voted 6 to 1 to annex Lake Rockwall Estates.  The audience was packed with speakers both for and against annexation.  I counted 18 speakers, 6 against annexation and 12 for.  Former Council members, Ken Dickson, Dale Morgan and Stephen Straughan eloquently argued their positions (Dickson against, Morgan and Straughan for).  Dr. Bruce Paton read a clever take-off on the Emperor Has No Clothes, urging us to annex.  Some of the most compelling comments came from residents of the area, pleading with the City to take them in and help them clean up and regulate their neighborhood.  A couple, on the stick-built house side of the lake, were opposed to annexation because of an increase in their property taxes. 

The oppostion is concerned, and rightly so, on the cost to City to provide services to the area.  Actually, the only new services that the residents of Lake Rockwall Estates will get are trash service and City police department enforcement.  Aqua Texas, a for-profit and expensive water company, already serves the area.  Aqua Texas has a dated water treatment plant (I’m sure you’ve smelled it if you’ve driven past it on Horizen at County Line Road).  I hope the City will be able to get them to upgrade that facility very soon.  The County has maintained roads in the neighborhoods and they are generally better than some in older city neighborhoods. In the past three years, the City has offered limited code enforcement and animal control services to the area.  What a difference we’ve already made!

The vote was easy to me…I’ve always felt it was the right thing to do - long overdue in fact.  The area was a doughnut hole, surrounded by the City limits and deliberately left out.  Almost 1,000 children live in the neighborhood, some in unsafe and unsanitary conditions; taunted at school even though it’s not their fault where they live. Councilmember Matt Scott, who was very sick, came in for the vote.  Matt has favored annexation since he was first elected.  He worked on the Council sub-committee with Mayor Cecil and myself - putting in long hours of planning on how to mitigate costs and deliver services.  Coming from P&Z, Glen Farris, also saw the need to annex especially in terms of controlling development.  That’s what annexations are always about - development standards in areas that border the City.

However, some on the Council had a harder time with the vote.  They got a lot of negative input from folks who had supported their campaigns.  David Sweet was passionate and eloquent as he explained how deligent he’d been in determining his position and consequent vote on the matter.  Cliff Sevier warned the residents that annexation wouldn’t lead to a new water system or new roads or hardly new anything for a long while.  The Mayor, Bill Cecil, said he’d spoken to more than 200 people about the annexation and that he calculated support for annexation from 2 out of 3 people.   The Mayor also reminded the audience that this is only the beginning of a journey together - that there will be a long road to recovery of their neighborhood.  Mark Russo was the lone dissenting vote.  He voted from his heart, citing the promises he made to current residents when he asked for their vote during last year’s campaign.  The elation when the vote was taken was palpable. 

We will vote again on February 17.  I don’t believe we’ll have the same dramatics, but you are always welcomed to come and listen.

 

 

December 31, 2009

John King Blvd. 

The Council received an email from the City Manager, Julie Couch, today announcing that John King Blvd., the 205 by-pass, is open.  I want to congratulate Ms. Couch, Chuck Todd, city engineer and Brad Griggs, director of Parks, Recreation, Streets and Roads for all their efforts on this project. 

I also want to thank Mayor Bill Cecil for his leadership.  He was elected on an agenda of solving the traffic problems and one of his first acts as Mayor was to urge the Council to put the Bypass to the public for a vote.  The bond issue, for $44,000,000 passed.  Next, Mayor Cecil and the Council insisted that the project be finished in four years - an unheard of schedule.  Ms. Couch and her staff have successfully completed the project on schedule and under budget.

I’ve driven the road and encourage you to drive it too.  I expect that development along that corridor will follow shortly. 

 

Budget

 

October 1, 2008

 

We managed to pass a budget late yesterday afternoon.  David Sweet offered the compromise that was adopted.  I appreciate the time David took out of his busy schedule to research the options and put together a plan.  David’s plan moved the police position into the General Fund, while moving the same amount in police department expenditures to the Seizure Fund.  He then proposed to fund seven fire department positions, designated for the two new fire stations, for six months not four. 

 

I had hoped that two other expense items would be moved into the General Fund.  If the State approves our application for the Main Street Program - a program that promotes economic development as well as historic preservation in downtowns –then we are committed to three years, at a cost of $300,000, to fund and house a full time staff member devoted to the program.  The first year funding for nine months at a cost of $93,000, remains funded out of reserves.

 

The second expense I had hoped would be moved is $70,000 that is coming out of Hotel Motel Taxes for the City’s costs for Founders’ Day and Concerts on the Lake.  Most of that was funded out of the General Fund last year and I think that’s where is belongs again this year.  Taking $70,000 out of HMT funds has reduced, by that amount, the money that civic organizations can use to promote their events outside the City.  Two organizations are hosting conferences this year, doing exactly what the HMT funds are designated for, promoting the motels and hotels in Rockwall.  Their funding, like almost every other organization that applied, had to be reduced to accomodate the City’s events.  

 

While I didn’t get everything I had hoped for, I supported the compromise David offered and was glad that we were able to move forward into the new fiscal year. 

 

Because I’m concerned about the City’s reserves - how they are built, maintained and used - I’m looking forward to working with other Council  members and staff to develop policy that will guide future budgeting processes. 

 

  

PD 32

 

You may have read the recent Dallas Morning News article or seen the report on Channel 5 about the development of the 62 acres between Horizon Road the Harbor.  The City (that’s you and me) has more than 20 million dollars invested in the public side of The Harbor.  Whittle Development has more than 60 million invested.  It only makes sense that the property adjacent to it be developed in a comprehensive manner too.  That’s why the City has hired Coy Talley to develop a plan for a mixed use development there.

 

Property values have soared since The Harbor opened and developers are buying every square foot they can.  The worst thing the City can do is nothing.  The City is not developing the land…it isn’t a developer.  But planning and zoning is our proper function.  We are doing the best thing we can by getting a comprehensive development plan in place so that the property will be developed in a way that not only promotes Rockwall, but reflects our excellence.

 

Annexation  

 

Council is holding public hearings on annexation on two pieces of property.  During annexation hearings, I’m always surprised by the accusations about our motives for annexation.  Since I’ve been on Council we have never undertaken an annexation action to get new property taxes.  Every annexation has been about future development.  Over development or poor development is bad for the City.  Our infrastructure will not support high density development on the remaining large tracts of land that surround the City.  I’d be thrilled if the undeveloped land that is being annexed remains exactly like it is today, especially historic areas like the Zollner and Wallace family farms. However, people have a right to develop their land…the City has a right to set the standards for development. 

 

Annexation of Lake Rockwall Estates (LRE) has become a hot button issue for the Council.  When I was interviewed for the seat that had been held by Mayor Cecil, I was asked how I felt about the annexation of LRE.  I said that I felt it was a long overdue action and that it was the right thing to do.  I haven’t changed my opinion and feel even stronger about it now.  The cost of annexing the poorly developed area has and remains the central issue to the effort.  That’s why I’ve worked for three years to form a broad base of community support that can help mitigate the costs.  Redevelopment of the mobile home side of the neighborhood is one of the keys to a successful annexation plan.  There are lots of ways to mitigate the costs — and that’s what we should be focused on as we move ahead to clean up and regulate a blighted area where almost 1,000 school children live.   I’ll be glad to discuss the specifics with you if you would like.