City in talks to slow, or possibly stop, residential growth

inForney
By Rachel Madison Staff Writer
​​​​​​​Nov 18, 2022

Residential growth in Liberty Hill may soon be slowing down significantly, or even coming to a halt. 

At a joint workshop earlier this month, the Liberty Hill City Council, Planning and Zoning Commission and City staff discussed their mutual concerns that the City does not have enough water for all of the residential development that is poised to come to town.

The amount of water available to the City comes via living unit equivalents (LUEs). An LUE is the equivalent of one home using 200 gallons of water per day. 

Public Works Director Jay Holmes said a snapshot of the City’s current water situation, as of Nov. 9, shows a total production capacity of 1,890 LUEs based on the city’s current wells and its Leander water contract. The number of LUEs in use is 1,670, but Holmes said that number is not accurate. Because of this, the City Council directed staff to make finding out exactly how many LUEs the City has available the highest priority.

“We are starting to get some preliminary numbers of our LUEs, and it’s not pretty,” City Administrator Paul Brandenburg said. “That means our timing has to be very right for it to work to close the gap we’re seeing.”

Council member Angela Jones added that it’s very important to her that the Council receives a living report of what the available LUEs are at any given time, which is why the process of staff going through and finding out exactly how many LUEs the City actually has is so important.

Brandenburg said in the past, City officials have worked under a “go ahead and find the money” attitude when water and wastewater improvements have been needed to increase capacity, but because of the price tag of many of the City’s current projects, that’s not an option anymore. For example, the project of expanding the City’s wastewater treatment plant from processing 2 million gallons per day up to 4 million gallons per day is costing the City approximately $17 million, while a well redrilling project for six wells is costing more than $7 million.

“We are moving forward, but we have tough decisions to make,” Brandenburg said. “Some things have to be done differently, and we have to decide what we are going to encourage and discourage, and who gets the front of the line for development and who gets the back. There’s not much to go around with water.”

Over the last several years, the council has approved several development agreements with both residential and commercial developers—but some of those agreements state that the developments cannot be constructed until there is enough water available. 

P&Z Commissioner Jon Mathiason said he doesn’t want to use the word moratorium to describe what he thinks the City should do, but when a developer comes in wanting to develop a 500-home subdivision, he doesn’t understand why the City has been approving those development agreements. He said instead, the City should be attracting low-water-use commercial businesses.

“Those should come first before residential gets the stamped approval when we do not have the water on hand,” he added.

Council members agreed with Mathiason. Council member Chris Pezold said City officials need to continue having these “brutal conversations” on how to move forward with limited water resources.

“Our system is flawed from the start,” he said. “We need to review everything. That’s what it’s going to take.”

Jones said when the Council receives a report on a new development, it tells them if the City has enough water and wastewater for the project, and until now, the agreements have continued to move forward as long as the developers understand that the water and wastewater is not available to them. But she is ready to take another look at that entire process.

Jones added that the Council isn’t confident that City staff has been keeping up the accuracy of how much water and wastewater availability the City actually has.

“This is why we need a living document,” she said. “We’re not going to just blindly trust that we have what we need.”

P&Z Chair Steve Messana agreed that the process is broken right now and lends itself to people banking property, but not actually being able to develop it for upwards of 10 to 15 years depending on when and if water becomes available.

“We’ve also got to be looking 15 years down the road,” said P&Z Commissioner Chris Cormack. “Not planning 15 years ago is why we’re here today. I can’t fathom how big the city will be in 15 years.”

Mathiason said his advice would be for the City to stop all residential growth until January 2024, when the City’s comprehensive plan, which is currently being rewritten, is set to be completed.

“I think we should do a moratorium until then,” he said. “Then we can work with the Economic Development Corporation to designate areas of the community where we would like to see commercial parks with low water use, other than let it get eaten up. I believe if we become a bedroom community, we will never catch up on the taxes needed to pay for services like police and fire.”

“We don’t need to be seeing any more municipal utility districts or development agreement requests until we get a firm understanding of what’s going on,” Pezold added. 

Brandenburg said as part of coming back to Council with that accurate number, staff will also include potential solutions to address their concerns. This information is expected to be presented to the City Council during its regular meeting on Dec. 14.