City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Time is 6 p.m. We'll call this September 14th, 2026. New Braunfels City Council meeting to order. We'll ask everyone in attendance to please silence or turn off all electronic devices. Ms. Wilkinson, will you please call roll?

Yes. Council Member Carter?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi?

Here.

Council Member Edwards?

Here.

Council Member Spradley?

Here.

Council Member Lebowski? Here. Council Member Shaw? Here. And Mayor French is not present.

Thank you. Council Member Spradley will deliver the invocation followed by the pledges.

Please stand with me. Gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you today with grateful hearts. We thank you for giving us this day and the opportunity to serve the people of New Braunfels. May your Holy Spirit guide our council and every city employee with the responsibilities entrusted to us. As we discuss and set the tax rate and the city budget, grant us the wisdom and discernment to make this heavy decision. Help us balance the needs of our growing city with our responsibility to be good stewards of our taxpayers' money. Give us courage when difficult decisions are necessary, humility to listen, sound judgment to place long-term interest of the city above our own personal interest. Lord, we pray for our citizens of our community. Watch over our families, our children, our seniors, our businesses, and all those who may be struggling at this time. Give our citizens who have joined us tonight the courage to speak openly and guide them with respectful words about the issues that matter the most to them. Lord, keep us mindful that we are here not to serve ourselves, we are here to serve the others. Open our ears so we have a clear understanding and compassion with every concerned citizen speaking this evening. Help us conduct all of our discussions with respect, civility, honesty, and a willingness to work together. May our decisions strengthen this city and preserve our quality of life for generations to come. For the ones who answered the call in our greatest time of need, we lift up all of our first responders. Lord, grant them courage, wisdom, and protection as they serve our citizens. Bring them all safely home to their families at the end of every single shift, and may your spirit comfort them after a difficult response. Lord, continue to bless our police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and dispatchers. Lord, we ask. for your spirit of protection over our military members, our sons and daughters, both serving here and deployed around the world facing the evils across the globe. Watch over their families during difficult deployments and bless all of our veterans who have answered this call of duty to defend our nation. Lord, we thank you for every blessing given to New Braunfels, for our prosperity, our citizens, and every visitor before visiting our beloved city. In all that we do, Lord God, may your spirit guide us to what is right, fair, and beneficial for the people we have been calling to serve. We ask all of this in Jesus' holy name, and we all say amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

So we'll start the night off first with, we got a presentation, a couple of proclamations. We'll start with presentation recognition of Texas Amateur Athletic Federation State Finals Summer Games athletes. Mr. Wilson, Parks Director.

Hello? Okay. Thank you, Council, for letting us be here today. We appreciate it. My name is Stephanie Shalar, Recreation Manager with the City of New Braunfels. We are here today to recognize these athletes standing behind you. We have athletes from our Dolphin Swim Team and our Rapids Track Program standing here in front of you. And they have been working hard all summer. While most people are outside playing, These kids were working hard swimming and running and doing all kinds of track and field events. One thing they did this summer was do a regional track meet and we hosted a regional swim meet. And when that took place, for swimming, 69 swimmers qualified to attend the state meet. And we had 18 track qualify for the state track meet. These meets are held by TAF, which is the Texas Amateur Athletic Federation. They're who govern all of our adult and children leagues that we have. Out of the swim team, we had 34 place in the top three. So place bronze, silver, and gold. That's really impressive. Thank you. And out of track, we had two place first, and that was in the pole vault competition. So those two. But really, we want to thank the coaches because their dedication and commitment to these children are amazing. And these are going to be your future leaders right here, right in front of you. So again, give them a round of applause for their accomplishments. And we have one extra surprise for you today, okay?

Yes, like Stephanie said, so my name is John Henry Perez, the athletic supervisor, and we submitted an athlete of the year, and we were able to get this award last week. So the person that was chosen for our region, or for our city, is gonna be a female athlete of the award, and it's going to Evelyn Vasquez. She placed first place. And like I said, she did place first place at the Summer Games of Texas pole vault gold medal, and that's amazing. So, again, good job, Evelyn. Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to try this.

I'm city councilman David Edwards. I'll get it there. You're doing great. Edwards. I'm hard of hearing without my cochlear undeath. So on the I use closed caption. So anyway, if you understand why I don't look at you sometimes, I'm reading and listening at the same time. And sometimes I'm having to reread it to make sure I understood what I think you said.

Okay.

All right, so proclamation, whereas Deaf Awareness Month is recognized each September as an opportunity to celebrate the contributions of deaf and hard of hearing in our individuals and promote awareness that deaf culture and encourage great understanding and inclusion within our communities. whereas deaf and hard of hearing individuals are valued members of families, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, civic institutions, contributing their talents, leadership, and service in countless ways. Whereas the City of New Braunfels is home to a vibrant deaf and hard of hearing community, including individuals, families, advocates, and organizations working to promote connection, accessibility, and greater understanding between deaf and hearing residents. Whereas hearing loss is often an invisible disability, and many individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing utilize assistive devices, communication tools, and accommodations that allow them to participate fully in everyday activities, professional settings, and community life. Whereas cochlear implants, hearing devices, captioning services, American Sign Language, assistive living technologies, and other communication resources help reduce barriers and promote greater accessibility and inclusion. Whereas raising awareness of the experience of death and hard of hearing individuals encourages understanding, respect, and consideration for the different ways people communicate and engage with the world around them. Whereas the city of New Braunfels is committed to fostering and welcoming inclusive community where all residents and visitors have the opportunity to participate, contribute, and thrive. Now and therefore, be it resolved that I, D. Lee Edwards, Councilman for the City of New Braunfels, hereby proclaim September 2026 as Deaf Awareness Month. in New Braunfels, and I encourage all citizens to recognize the achievements and constitutions of deaf and hard of hearing individuals and support efforts to promote awareness, accessibility, and understanding, inclusion throughout our community. I witness whereof I hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of the city of New Braunfels to be affixed this 14th day of September 2026.

Come on down. Really? Okay. All right. Thank you. I hope you all know we have a celebrity in our midst. We have Jeff Santa Claus right there. Thank you, thank you, thank you, everyone. I just really want to say something. I would like to say... What I would like to say... is just thank you to the community of New Braunfels, to the city. It's such a beautiful town, and we are so thankful to be recognized. The Deaf Community Awareness Month is fantastic. So thank all of you for your support, for support of deaf culture, for the deaf community, ASL, access. Thank you all. We love you. We love you all. Thank you, Edward.

Good.

Okay, we have anybody here for Constitution Week? Come on up. All right. the state of Texas, County of Comal, City of New Braunfels, whereas the Constitution of the United States of America, the guardian of our liberties, embodies the principles of limited government and a republic dedicated to rule by law, and whereas September 17th, 2026 marks the 239th anniversary of the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention, and whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent document and its memorable anniversary, and whereas Public Law 915 authorizes the issuing of a proclamation each year by the President of the United States of America, designating September 17th to the 23rd as Constitution Week. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Michael Capizzi, Mayor Pro Tem of the City of New Braunfels, Texas, hereby proclaim September 17th to the 23rd, 2026, be recognized as Constitution Week.

Thank you, thank you.

Good evening, members of the City Council and guests. My name is Kathy Zamora and I'm the Regent of the Captain James Jack Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I would like to extend our sincere appreciation to the City of New Braunfels for issuing this Constitution Week Proclamation. It is an honor to accept this recognition, which closely aligns with our National Society's fundamental mission of historic preservation. For well over a century, the Daughters of the American Revolution has dedicated itself to safeguarding the memory of those who fought for our independence and protecting the heritage they left behind. Acknowledging the United States Constitution is a vital extension of that preservation work. It is not merely an act of historical remembrance, but an enduring commitment to the legal and moral framework that guarantees our individual liberties and binds us together as a nation. By honoring this extraordinary document, we ensure that the legacy of freedom passed down by our ancestors continues to protect, guide, and inspire future generations.

I'm Pam Stivers, also a member of the DAR, and I brought tonight a few copies of the preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America that they make good bookmarks or whatever you might like to do with them, but it's the document that we've all heard many times. We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union and on and on and on. So And we hope that during Constitution Week, the 17th through the 23rd of this month, you'll take a minute or two to read this document and give it some thought and think about our rights and our responsibilities as Americans. So thank you very much for having us.

All right, we have another proclamation for hunger awareness, I believe it is. Anybody here for that? All right. State of Texas, County of Comal, City of New Braunfels, whereas hunger and poverty are issues of vital concern in the United States, in New Braunfels, and in Texas, where nearly one in five Texans, over six million, struggle with hunger, and of them, one in four are children, and one in seven are seniors, and nearly 50 million Americans face food insecurity and potentially do not know where their next meal will come from. And whereas the New Braunfels Food Bank is committed to taking steps to combat hunger in every part of our community and to provide additional resources to those in Southwest Texas who are in need, and whereas the City of New Braunfels is committed to working with the New Braunfels Food Bank as a part of the San Antonio Food Bank, a member of the Feeding America nationwide network of 200 food banks and Feeding Texas, the statewide network of 20 food banks, in educating people about the role and importance of food banks in addressing hunger and raising awareness of the need to devote more resources and attention to hunger issues, and whereas over 11,000 individuals are now relying on food provided by the New Braunfels Food Bank in any given month, and whereas the global uncertainty and the high cost of goods and services have had devastating health and economic impacts across the country. And it is projected that many more people could face hunger in the wake of the economic instability in recent years. And whereas the New Braunfels Food Bank's partner food pantries and other nonprofits within the San Antonio Food Bank's 29-county service territory in southwest Texas are committed to taking steps to combat hunger in their community as well as provide resources for those they serve together, nearly 140,000 individuals a week. And whereas the month of September has been designated Hunger Action Month by Feeding America in order to bring attention to food insecurity in our communities and to engage the public in action, including volunteer shifts, social media shares, and donations to fight hunger and feed hope in our community. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Michael Capizzi, Mayor Pro Tem of the City of New Braunfels, Texas, recognize September 2026 as Hunger Action Month.

All right, good evening, everybody. Thank you to council. I appreciate you. My name is Stanley Sorrell. I'm the Public Policy and Advocacy Manager at the New Braunfels Food Bank and San Antonio Food Bank. And on behalf of our Chief of Government and Public Affairs, Mario Obledo, he's currently in Washington, DC, meeting with congressional offices regarding the Farm Bill, and our CEO, Eric Cooper. We'd like to thank y'all, express our gratitude for making us a part of this council meeting and your support. as we fight hunger in our area. We also think the various partner organizations in New Braunfels that we work with to nourish our neighbors. In a time with the rising cost of housing, transportation, healthcare, utilities, food, et cetera, our neighbors are relying on us more than ever. And as stated, Hunger Action Month is a month where we just don't raise awareness of the issue of food insecurity, but we take action. And there are four main ways that we do that. Food, time, money, and voice. Food so food donations are critical in our mission to nourish our neighbors and you can also donate your time as well by volunteering and we have various opportunities to do so. Financial donations are valuable as we can turn every dollar one dollar donated into seven meals for neighbors in need. And voice you can use your voice to spread the word and that's a powerful way to have an impact across the community. And for more specific ways of how you can get involved with Hunger Action Month, you can check out our website, nbfoodbank.org, for the 30 ways and 30 days calendar. Thank you.

All right, at this time, we'll now open it to citizens communications. Our public comment period where our citizens are heard. In the interest of time and structure, this period is specifically for individuals to address the City Council on issues and items of concern that are not listed on this agenda. There will be no City Council action taken at this time. Citizens will be provided with the right to speak on posted agenda items, which we will recognize later when those specific items are called.

Good evening. My name is Esther Sandoval, and I am a lifelong resident of New Braunfels. And thank you, City Council, for the opportunity to speak. I appreciate it. Since applications are not open for the city's hall board and commission appointments, I really believe this is a good time to talk about who gets the opportunity to serve in these positions. I've attended some board and committee meetings and reviewed city, New Braunfels EDC, and planning committees. And one thing that stands out is that many of the same names appear again and again. When terms expire, members are also often reappointed without the seat being meaningfully opened to new applicants. That is not meant to diminish the service of people who have volunteered for years. Their experience and contributions are valuable. But we know New Braunfels has grown tremendously, and our pool of qualified citizens has grown with it. And we should be intentionally looking beyond the familiar names and encouraging new people with new backgrounds and new perspectives who have new viewpoints to participate in our city government. In July, our city council created a new three-member ad hoc committee. specifically to review board and commission applications and to submit finalists for consideration. So that gives council an important opportunity to examine how applicants are evaluated. So for example, the application asks whether someone has completed New Braunfels City University. City University is an excellent program and a great way to learn about local government. But completing it should not outweigh a person's professional experience, his leadership, community service, education, or experience serving another community. And we should also consider potential conflicts. before appointments are made. There could be conflicts. Someone whose business interests routinely place them before a particular board may technically be able to recuse themselves when necessary. But if recusals are likely to occur frequently, perhaps another qualified applicant would better serve that board. The goal should not be to exclude business owners, realtors, longtime residents, chamber members, or anyone else. The goal should be to expand the pool of qualified people to broaden the bench. When New Braunfels was half its current size, it was naturally a smaller pool of people available and willing to serve. But we all know that's no longer our reality. Today, we have thousands of residents with professional expertise, life experience, leadership skills, and a desire to contribute. We have folks who simply never have been invited into the process. So as this new ad hoc committee reviews applications, I encourage council to take several specific steps. First, when a term expires, publicly announce the opening and actively invite new applications instead of automatically reappointing the incumbent. Second, publish clear selection criteria for each board and explain how applicants will be evaluated. Those criteria should recognize professional experience. They should recognize community involvement, relevant education, lived experience, and service outside city hall, not just completion of city university or prior service in a city board. Third, maintain a broader applicant pool by keeping qualified applicants under consideration for future vacancies and notifying them when relevant positions become available. They need to know. Fourth, conduct targeted outreaches through neighborhood associations, civic organizations, schools, faith communities, professional groups, and local employers so that residents who are not already connected to City Hall, they too know to apply. Finally, consider term limits. or a limit on executive reappointments for at least some boards, with exceptions when specialized expertise is actually needed. That would preserve the institutional knowledge while creating regular opportunities for new residents to serve. With respect, I ask and urge the Ad Hoc Committee and the full Council to use this appointment cycle to make the process more open, transparent, and inclusive. Include others. Value experience, but don't treat prior service as an entitlement to continued service. Create opportunities for new people to gain experience and give qualified residents a fair chance to contribute. A growing city should have a growing pool of citizens helping shape its future. And so I was just inspired that we the people, to make a more perfect New Braunfels, need better and good representation. Thank you.

Jim Holster, District 3 resident. This is in District 3. Some of it was taken a day or two ago. Some of it was taken yesterday. This used to be green space. We often hear about developers, private landowners' rights. This is really a city project. Tax abatements were given. And as you can see here, It was a green space at one time. Oak trees were cut down. They're piled up there. More of it on the back. More to come, I suspect, because there's a second part of this development that no one at the city has ever given me a clear answer, not even my own councilman. The second phase of this, after they get the 300-unit apartment complex in there, and people are complaining in District 3 that live behind this because they're bulldozing behind their house starting at seven o'clock in the morning on a Sunday morning. a city project, seven o'clock on a Sunday morning. And when I left today, I could still hear them when I left here at 5.56 from the house. So green space is just a, doesn't mean a whole lot in this town. I am concerned about the future of the town, but I'm also concerned about the residents along here because this is a sloping property. Now, they have some steps in place. As I understand it, they're going to build some kind of a dam there to keep the water running into the houses that you see below because there's a creek that runs right there. And also this water, this dirty water is gonna flow right into the Comal, right? And so it is a concern and I don't know, it's something I'll try to keep you updated on it. Any of you wanna drive around the loop, just stop and take a look at it and see what's happening. But it is a city run project. Oh, there's a private developer, but the city gave tax abatements. instigated something through MBISD to give up all of their taxes on a $60 million project. Well, they get $25,000 a year. Don't you think that would better be spent, the taxes to the school? But anyway, the school taxes are complicated. I understand that. But I just wanted to give you an update on that and tell you what it looks like. I don't know if y'all did an inventory of how many trees were cut down. and how many more are gonna be cut down. The second phase of the project, which I cannot get a straight answer on, is if East Tanglewood is gonna be opened up, because they're gonna put behind the 300 units, they're gonna put, is it 100, I can't remember, so quote me on this, 100 duplex, they have a fancy name for them, other than duplexes. So it really has no end. This area will be changed, much like the rest of New Braunfels, and I understand the logic The logic is to create more sales taxes because people who don't own their homes spend their money differently than people who own their homes. And there is a different way to do that. So I'm hoping that you can get the EDC to look at other ways that you can provide housing for people. people who own houses, even at the lower income. Other cities have done it. For some reason, it's a foreign concept to us. So I just want to bring you up to date on this, and I'll try to keep you up to date on it. Thank you. Oh, maybe I could talk to him about that noise on Sundays.

Does this microphone work? Oh, cool. Perfect. okay um i'm here representing texas privacy coalition i've been coming here now this is my third session the last session i was here i went through a couple of errors and misuse of the flock technology since then there has been another 60 reported cases of misuse and error using the flock alpr system And I do want to preface this topic is about AOPRs, this new generation that is currently going on. Anyways, I wanted to actually talk about, originally wanted to talk about the technology and the contracts, what's entailed with the data. But I came across this Facebook post from the New Braunfels Police Department. And this was the first instance of them communicating to the public on their Facebook about license plate reading. Yeah, and they caught criminals with it. Good for them. I'm actually happy that we caught these criminals. But it raised another question. what is up with their hot list? This is how many hits that have happened on the New Braunfels Police Department's hot list. So it's 4,550. We only have a story of one criminal that we caught. This raises some concerns of what are these hot lists? Why do we have 150 hits per day? Why are we tracking almost 800,000 cars every 30 days? And to preface, this could be multiple cars, but we're having 800,000 hits. I wanna bring up a point and I'm happy that Chief Flores is here. Back in March, just right there in that chair, he mentioned his goal was to be very transparent on how we use this technology. For context, I have made over 212 open record requests throughout the state of Texas on specifically this topic. I've used the same template across all of the requests. I'm currently working on 272, but 212 have been put on their way. What I'm always asking in these requests, they're the same requests across departments. I'm asking about contracts and costs, who has access, policy and controls, audit logs, camera inventory, evaluation and oversight. I decided, let me grade all the responses that I got. And this is how my grading was weighted. Here's the actual scoring matrix. I'm just gonna quickly speed through because I'm running out of time. There's also, this is the current breakdown, and you can see New Braunfels Police Department. It's pretty poor of a result using my grading metrics. They also decided to exercise their rights by reaching out to the Attorney General to withhold or wait until they reveal the information, which sort of dinged them also in points. But even there, I've had 39 agencies use the AG mechanism, and they can still report an A or a B, even a C score. But New Braunfels Police Department got an F. I also want to mention the AG is not a blanket shield to withhold information. Yeah, that's it. Here are the scores of other agencies that went this route of using the AG, the AG route of reaching out to the general attorney to see what they should or shouldn't reveal. You can see here New Braunfels out of the 39 was ranked 31. Regarding the completeness, this was sort of the big thing on their score. When I reached out, I pretty much got no information about the contracts and the costs. Policies and controls, that's just on the website, which is basic overview, but what's the internal handbook that the police department uses? Camera inventory, unclear. I actually have them pretty well mapped out because I'm in this area quite often. Authorized access, we have no clue who's accessing this. I've actually had to back engineer other open records requests and we're supposedly sharing it with 17 different agencies, but those are of agencies that I've received information from them that New Braunfels is sharing with them. No audit logs. And yeah, that's pretty piss poor in my opinion. on transparency and when when he stands here and says he wants to be as transparent as possible and i get a score like this this is very disheartening and i really want you guys to dig deeper and explore this thank you

Good evening, Council. My name is Debbie Flume. I'm a resident. My focus tonight, headwaters at the Comal. Let me be clear, I am not opposed to conservation, protecting the Comal River, or environmental education. My concern is financial accountability and the long-term obligation being created for MBU ratepayers and New Braunfels taxpayers. Headwaters grew directly out of MBU and was established as a 501c3 in 2017 and sits on 16 acres of land owned by the city of New Braunfels. So let's talk about public investment. According to MBU's own fiscal year 2022 financial operating plan, they budgeted over $14 million in capital towards Headwaters. Separately, the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation approved $3.5 million in public sales tax funds from 2021 to 2025. These two categories alone represent over $18 million in documented public capital commitments. But the capital investment is only part of the story. There is also recurring operating support. MBU's operations and maintenance budget provided Headwaters another $1.1 million in operating support from 2024 through 2027. If those annual operating grants are separate from the capital figures, the documented public commitment represented by those categories is over $19 million. This is why we need to stop looking at Headwaters one grant, one budget year, and one phase at a time. The public deserves the entire picture. The overall Headwaters project is now reported at approximately $29.3 million, with phase three alone costing $10.9 million. Headwaters has multiple climate control buildings, educational facilities, parking, and extensive grounds. These facilities will create permanent expenses. The bills do not disappear when construction ends. So where is the five-year operating plan? What will Headwaters cost annually to operate once all three phases are complete? How much revenue is expected from admissions, memberships, programs, rentals, conferences, retail sales, donations, and private grants? After all of this revenue is collected, how much money will still be required from ratepayers and taxpayers? Because we already know annual public operating support is occurring, when does this subsidy end? Or is it several hundred thousand dollars a year in MBU support now expected to become a permanent part of operating headwaters? There is also the question of utilization. If part of the purpose of this expansion is meetings, conferences, and events, how many events are projected annually? What occupancy assumptions were used? What revenue is expected? Who is the target customer and what rates will be charged? AND THEN WE HAVE THE PARKING. AN ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE OF NOVEMBER 2026 AT A COST OF $1 MILLION. HOW MANY PARKING SPACES DOES $1 MILLION PROVIDE? WHAT IS THE EXPECTED CAPACITY OF THE CONFERENCE AND EVENTS FACILITIES THOSE SPACES ARE SUPPOSED TO SERVE? Will this parking be sufficient for larger events or will additional parking and public investment be required? These are all basic financial questions. Headwaters is a 501c3. It can solicit private donations, grants, memberships, sponsorships, and program revenue. After more than a decade of public investment into Headwaters, we should know what the transition to financial sustainability looks like. We should be able to see in one document how much MBU is committed, how much New Braunfels EDC is committed, how much comes from private donors and foundations, what the completed campus will cost annually, what revenue it is expected to generate, and what, if any, public subsidy is anticipated. Headwaters may be a wonderful conservation project, but a worthwhile mission does not eliminate the obligation of financial accountability to MBU ratepayers and New Braunfels taxpayers. Thank you.

David Warmke, District 5. I've got a little bit of a hodgepodge waiting for my presentation to come up. It's not as linear as my presentations usually are, so it hops around a little bit, but it will be there. Yeah, go ahead. And I've changed my presentation style, so it just starts out with a black screen with a little dot, so I do that from Toastmasters. There we go. ADM mill redevelopment. About two months ago, I talked about a Christmas list of things. This is number one on the list. Then I have a tale for you, and it's a very complex intertwined tale. Tale of two developers. Tale of two leadership styles. and insights for a month of attending every city meeting. So I really like covering a lot of bases tonight in this one project. There's a meeting back on the 27th of this year. It was sort of a typical smoke and mirrors, a lot of beautiful photographs and no real data, no detail on buildings. I followed that up with a presentation a couple weeks later. Massive secretive LLC abounds, conflict of interest abounds. Insidious step-by-step acquisitions. So I've been through this before, so I'm not gonna go there. Traffic. Here's a TIA report that was filed with that. It says we have 12,500 trips a day that are gonna be generated. That's a lot of traffic. If you go to the Texas website right now, there are about 3,500 trips a day on that section road. That's a huge, huge difference. And I presented this and I've never gotten an answer. If you take all those cars and you parallel park them, you can go down 46 to Seguin, come back 725, go down 46 again, come back 725, come back to downtown, and then go to Cypress Bend Park. Now, the tale of two developers.

Oxbow Development, last month.

Dittlinger Mill Redevelopment, different name, new name, new developer, opened it up front. I went to the meeting, I was absolutely amazed. I presented these couple things and was, Really pleasant. He's probably a great track record. It was a sit-around tables and input, and after he said everything, I went up to him and I said, can I ask you some questions? He said, well, maybe. I said, well, the real question is, will you answer them? And he laughed and said, yeah. So he was very open and frank, and I showed him the traffic thing, and he says, you know, we're having the state do something on traffic. And I talked about the LLCs around, and he says, yeah, I know that. I know we have a former mayor that owns them. We want to. acquire all that land. He wasn't hiding anything. He was really open. It's really refreshing. One of the interesting comments he had was a parking garage. And they're going to need 250 cars down there. And he's not sure how it's going to be because the city, he thinks, may want to tag something on. I think that's a terrible idea. because you're focusing a lot of traffic in one spot. And I think building another garage someplace separate would make a lot more sense than tagging something on here and making an already congested area full of congestion. So here's the overview. And there's still some plans coming up yet. So it's open for some input. And that's what this part is about. I visited Traffic Advisory Board Traffic impound analysis. Bureaucratic, complex, tedious, and seemingly pointless. No input from board members. You have this TIA application and the city just process it, handles it, doesn't even present it to the board. There's one member on there that says, you know, I used to be on planning and zoning and we did something. Here we just approve putting on bumps on roads to slow people down. Roadway impact committee fee. Not a board, but a committee. Not an independent board. Two high-level city employees on that committee of five. Lots of leeway in a very complex process to set fees. Very good presentation on it, and there was a very good audit that was done. So the point of this, a tale of two leadership styles. I've seen here budget. I went to the audit meeting. Open, serving, communicative.

Fantastic.

And then some of the other meetings, bureaucratic, controlling, and secretive. There's two different styles going on here. And that second style is the thing that gets the city in trouble and gets people not happy. We need Open, serving, communicative leadership for this project. Not the usual bureaucratic, controlling, secretive style. This is gonna change downtown for the good and the bad. The question is how much of each. And it really needs to be something. It is so massive amount of traffic, we really need to look at it differently. Thank you. Thank you for your time.

All right, seeing no one else, we'll move on to consent agenda. All items listed below are considered to be routine and non-controversial by city council and will be approved by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless the council member or citizen so request, in which case the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered as part of the normal order of business. Citizens must be present to pull an item. The items would be item A through H, as well as the individual items of item I, approval of the first reading of an ordinance allowing the Construction Board of Appeals to hear appeals on fire code determinations made by the New Braunfels Fire Marshal's Office approval of the second and final reading of an ordinance requested by Will Baker of RBLTD to rezone approximately 0.3 of an acre out of the Starlight Terrace subdivision unit one block two lot nine from M1 light industrial district to R2A single family and two family district currently addressed at 1038 and 1042 Seidel Street and then Item K, approval of the second and final reading of an ordinance requested by Patrick W. Christensen on behalf of Karma Enterprise NBLLC to rezone approximately 2.7 acres out of the Bentwood Commercial Unit 3, Lot 3 from APD-SUP Agricultural Predevelopment District with a special use permit to allow retail development with specific uses to C1A, Neighborhood Business District, currently addressed at 2009 South Walnut Avenue. Ms. Wilkinson, have any items been pulled from consent?

Yes, sir.

F and H. F and H. Does council wish to pull any additional items from consent?

No.

Okay, so I'll entertain a motion on the items excluding F and H, and then we'll take up those two items individually.

I move to approve the consent agenda minus F and H, which will be moved to the regular session.

I second.

All in favor, raise your right hand.

We need a roll call, sir.

I'm sorry. Ms. Wilkinson, will you please call roll?

Yes, sir. Council Member Carter. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi.

Aye.

Council Member Edwards.

Aye.

Council Member Spradley. Aye. Council Member Lebowski. Aye. Council Member Shaw. Aye. And Mayor French is not present.

Motion carries. We'll now take up item F, approval of a... contract modification with River North Transit LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Via Transportation Incorporated for transit services to the New Braunfels Urban Transit District.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. City Council, Gary Ford, Director of Transportation Construction Services, also the City Engineer. I do wanna note that there is a incorrect number on page 92, the total of year one. So right in your agenda packet, it says $1,717,821. It should be $1,312,449, yeah. $1,312,449, again, That's completing this year, which we're a couple of weeks away, and we're within that amount of 1.3 million. And with that, I'll take any other questions that you may have.

Any questions from council? Who pulled, was it Mr. Warmke that pulled it out?

Yes, sir. Go ahead, sir. David Warmke, District 5. Just a couple simple questions. I assume this is Ride the Rio. It doesn't say, okay, I made that assumption. Now, the funds, they're federal funds that are being used for this. Is this federal money or actual city taxpayer money or what exactly is the source of funds on this?

So currently year one is through TxDOT transit funds and through ARPA funds. And then years two and three are currently, we're scheduled to use both FTA, federal transit funds, and then also state transit funds as well. And then in years past, we did use general fund dollars to fund the ACOG-ART, Alamo Regional Transit Service for about a decade.

Thank you. Question for you, metrics. The cost per mile to provide the service, or the cost per trip, do you have those?

It's not cost per mile, it's actually cost per service hour, and it's roughly around $53 per service hour.

So what is a service hour?

A service hour is actually the hour of when a trip is in use.

Okay, so a service hour is when there's a client in the van being driven somewhere. Is that correct? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That was all my questions.

Thank you. Any questions, comments from council?

No. Motion to approve. I'll second.

All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. We will now take up item H. Ms. Wilkinson, who pulled this one?

Mr. Warmke.

Mr. Warmke also, okay. Approval of a recommendation by the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation approving an annual administrative professional and asset management services contract not to exceed $455,386 with the city of New Braunfels for FY2027. Any comment or discussion from council? Mr. Warmke, if you'd like to.

David Warmke, District 5. An insight and then a question and a comparison. The background information here is 11 pages, which is essentially a scope of service. Very detailed and extensive. I won't read the whole thing, but New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation maintains an annual contract with the city of New Braunfels for administrative support, professional services, dah, dah, dah. And then it lists a whole bunch of services, including the attorney's office, the city attorney, and just tons of fees. Now, nonprofits, typically, their percentage of administrative costs is about 20%. This is about 5%. It is way less than the standard norm. And I'm wondering why it is so low.

Every couple of years the city undertakes an analysis that tries to get at the city's staff time and materials it takes to provide services to the Economic Development Corporation. So that is our best estimate of what it takes for the various services and departments that deliver.

So there's essentially a look at all of the hours that have been dedicated to 4B in New Brunswick, D.C.?

Yes, sir. I mean, it's an amalgamation of various departments, such as the city manager's office, city attorney's office, our department's time, transportation and capital services, construction services, excuse me. The fee was actually increased last year to represent an additional staff member that was brought on full-time in the TCS department to manage the extent of EDC funded capital projects. So that contract was increased last year.

That's an amazingly efficient number. 95% is almost an unheard of number if you look at nonprofits, so interesting number. Second thing for you, in there you all had your annual report. And a couple things on the annual report jump out at me. It lists y'all's expenditures, and then it goes down and does some itemized things. But it's incomplete. You have some items there that don't have a dollar value to them. New Braunfels National Airport Loan Forgiveness is one. There's no dollar amount next to it. You have one contingent continental automotive transfer agreement with, I'm sorry, with Worth and Associates Property Transfer. No dollar valuation on that. Is there a reason there's not a dollar valuation put on those?

No, sir. I can't explain that.

Thank you. It would be really good if they did. Second thing on the next page of that is a study, Administrative Performance Monitoring Contract Fulfillment. And it talks about the number of full-time employees, appraised value, and it has some really big-looking numbers on it. Looks like there is a tremendous amount of employees that are generated and a huge income. that these are numbers from 2024, a report from 2024, not from 2025. And that's an area that is pretty difficult to put numbers to. I certainly would like to see a better job of reporting on the true impact of what EDC does?

We conduct our audits on a rolling basis. And the fact is that various companies are required to comply at different times. And so we're always doing those audits in arrears at this point. The 2025 numbers are wrapping up. We are wrapping up those audits for 2025, and then 2026 will run into the next year. So that's why we're always reporting those numbers in arrears. But those numbers represent 2024 values and 2024 employment.

And there's a detailed audit available of the breakdown to level the employees.

Okay.

Yes, it's actually on our website. Thank you.

I have only two questions.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Tiffany Kelly, Citizen District 4. Okay, so the packet was missing information on, pardon me as I take off my glasses, the packet was missing information on the EDC. The previous item that was pulled had, if I remember correctly and recorded this correctly, a half a million dollar error in the packet. We had a gentleman speak earlier about the open records request and the delays and problems getting there. So as a citizen, I would like to implore the city council, our mayor, our city manager, and city staff to be very much more thorough in the packet. This meeting packet was over 600 pages. The previous meeting packet was over 500 pages. There are citizens that review these packets. I do. I got up at five o'clock this morning and reviewed the packets. I just think these discrepancies warrant some attention and detail, and we need more professionalism from our city staff as we've grown. We're not the little sleepy town we used to be. Thank you very much.

Seeing no one else, any other comments or discussion from council?

Motion approved.

I'll second.

All those in favor, raise your right hand. All those opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to individual items for consideration. Discuss and consider the first reading of an ordinance amending Chapter 130, Article IV, Division VII of the Code of Ordinances of the City of New Braunfels, revising drought stage designations and triggers, and clarifying other provisions resolving other matters incident and related thereto, repealing all ordinances in conflict containing a savings clause and declaring an effective date. Mr. Kelso.

All right, good evening, Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi, City Council. Speaking of mistakes, we did make a mistake. I believe we are all human in this room. We're all human, right? Mistakes do happen. And that's why we're back here before you to talk about the Drought Contingency Plan, Division 7. We had an error whenever we posted the agenda last month for the first and second reading. the content and material that was presented to you all was complete, and we explained all of the modifications. It was just a minor omission of one number, and it got past us all, and I apologize for that. And so we're here before you tonight to request approval of modifications proposed in division seven, which are included in these bullets here on the slide. You can see they're related to the trigger levels and events that we're changing. And so the big changes here are the additions of stages four and five, and then also increasing the flexibility for our customers to water through stages three through five. Instead of once every other week, we're proposing to modify that to once per week, just like stages one and two. And so with that, I can go into further detail, but here's a look back at the previous milestones and what's to come. If it's approved in the first and second reading, the implementation date that we had set previously, October 1st, would still be the date that all the changes take effect. And with that, I'm here to answer any questions you may have.

So essentially the information and the resolution is still, everything's exactly the same. It's just that the actual numbers that were in the document did not reflect what we discussed and what we passed.

There was one number in the caption that was omitted and that was division seven. And that's what we're coming back to represent. Trust me, whenever I was informed of this, I was not happy. Didn't wanna come back, but we felt like it was the best thing to do from a transparency and a legal perspective.

And I appreciate you doing that. I know it's never tough to, it's never easy to admit these things and have to come back up here and do this again too. But as you said, we are all human. So I appreciate that. All right, we'll open this item up to public comment. Seeing no one, any discussion or comment from council?

I'll second.

Ms. Wilk, can we please call roll?

Council Member Carter?

May.

Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi?

Aye.

Council Member Edwards? Aye. Council Member Spradley?

Aye.

Council Member Lebowski? Aye. Council Member Shaw?

Nay.

Motion carries. Moving on to item B. Discuss and consider approval of a resolution recommending that the New Braunfels Utility Board of Directors exempt capital impact and recovery fees per the MBU impact fee waiver policy in an amount of up to $500,000 for the park at Dogwood, a qualified affordable housing project in the city of New Braunfels. Mr. Jewell.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Members of Council, Jeff Jewell, Economic and Community Development Director. The low income housing tax credit program exists precisely because there is an economic gap between what it costs to construct quality affordable housing and what can be supported by rents that are affordable to lower income households. Construction costs, land costs, the other costs associated with developing housing, um don't decline simply because rents are restricted and that is the that is the genesis behind the resolution for tonight i'm going to give a little bit of background about the project itself and about the tax credit program because of that existing and persistent gap in the development of affordable housing congress created the federal low-income housing tax credit program in 1986, which is currently the nation's largest source of financing for affordable housing. It encourages the private sector to develop and invest in housing for moderate to low income families. Basically what happens is that investor dollars become equity to reduce debt on the development. With reduced debt, they can have lower operating incomes and thus lower the rents. LIHTC projects are high quality developments and indistinguishable from traditional mark and rate housing. Tenants go through a screening background check process. In the state of Texas, there are different types of credits, but this particular credit for the park at Dogwood is a competitive process. And so points are awarded to particular projects for how they rank, both proximity to schools, groceries, et cetera. There's a whole plan that the state puts out And New Braunfels currently has five other LIHTC projects. The last new construction project that New Braunfels saw in the competitive tax credit program was 2016 with the development of the reserve at Engel. The proposed developer for this project is the Park Companies. They're an experienced multifamily housing tax credit developer. This particular project, I just need to give a little bit of history about it, because it's been really in development for a couple of years. And it's that continued development process and conditions that were really outside of the developers control that led us to requesting council to consider this resolution this evening. The tax credits for this project were announced in July of 2024. and the project started its development process. Halfway through that development process, FEMA revised the floodplain maps and placed the land that the project was slated to be on within the floodplain. In order to address that concern, the developer had to go back, re-engineer the entire project, and seek a certified letter of map revision. So that whole process going back and forth with FEMA to change the floodplain took about a year. The project changed a little bit. Actually, they lost some units, so ultimately it became comprised of 76 units, a mix of one and two bedroom units. Most of those are two bedroom units. The project is 100% affordable and has relatively deep affordability with units set asides at 30, 50, and 60% of area median income. The total project costs about $22.3 million and the project initially had a tax credit equity commitment of $17.6 million. Here's some elevation renderings of what the proposed project looks like. Housing tax credit projects are indistinguishable from traditional market rate developments, and that's basically because if the program falls out of compliance, they have to be able to convert to market rates. So these projects end up being indistinguishable and can command market rate rents if it falls out of the tax credit program, for example. Wanna talk a little bit about the population that this project is proposed to serve. As I mentioned, it has units. All the units set aside are considered to be affordable and are rent restricted to households earning up to 30, 50, and 60% area median income. Just kind of give you a sense of what that means from an income perspective. The area median income for this area is $100,600 for a household of four. So what that means is that for a household of four, half of the four-person households in this area make above that and half of them make below that. So the rents are reduced to accommodate and be affordable to households earning up to a certain percentage of the area median income. So when we say it's 30, 50, and 60%, you can see how those rents end up getting settled out. We estimate, well, actually, the market study from the project estimates that there's about 3,600 potential New Braunfels households That is a much more conservative, much lower than our own consolidated plan, which is our own housing effort, which estimates that there's probably about 6,500 households in New Braunfels that could benefit and use and have access to these and would qualify for these. So that's everybody from a one-person household making 21,150 all the way up to a three-person household earning up to about $54,000 annually. So... The primary cause of the funding shortfall was a reduction in project tax credit equity. In between when the initial commitments were made in the summer of 2024, up until the most recent commitments, the project equity decreased from $17.6 to $15.7 million, opening up about a $1.9 million gap. They've pursued a partnership with the Housing Authority to grant the property a property tax exemption, which allows a project to maximize debt by reducing the operating expenses on it. So they've been able to maximize their debt on the project, but it still faces that particular funding shortfall, about $1.9 million. The maximum allowable credits are in the project. I believe the state has awarded the maximum allowable credits. So when you're going and looking for additional sources of funding, project cost reduction is the only viable route at this point. So the resolution that is before the City Council would recommend that the NBU Board of Trustees consider waiving the impact fees up to $500,000 on the project. The project has a total NBU impact fee bill of about 1.275, so the $500,000 reduction would represent about 39% of the total impact fees that are collected. The city by via ordinance can waive the city roadway impact fees. So the potential cost reductions of $776,000 will help close that financing gap. Again, they're continuing to pay $775,000 in impact fees, as well as close to $200,000 in park development fees to the city, as well as permitting and review fees to the city. The remaining financing gap is supposed to come from the developer, both reducing and contributing their development fee. And the fee reductions, as it's been proposed and underwritten, allow the project to achieve a more balanced source of financing, greater likelihood the project will close and proceed to construction. Project benefits. It provides 76 units of housing for a critical segment of the New Braunfels population. Close to 50% of renters in New Braunfels are housing cost burdened, meaning that they're spending more than what is recommended in order to make their in order to meet their housing needs. We've estimated, again, from the market study, 3,500 to over 6,000 households would be eligible for these 76 units. And with rents between 424 to almost $1,200 being reserved and set aside in those particular units. This also provides, this project provides benefits to the Housing Authority as well because it provides them with a non-federal funding source. Due to the partnership, they're entitled to 25% of that development fee as well as 25% of cash flow after the project is built and operating. And so with that, I'll answer any questions. I also want to point out that the developer representative Byron Bullcarter is here as well to answer any questions about the process or whatever, anything the council may want to know.

Council Member Schell.

So just to be clear, this property is already zoned for apartments. So it can either be at market or affordable housing.

The property is zoned for the proposed use. Okay. Yes.

So we're waiving impact fees through MBU, 500,000.

NBU adopted an impact fee waiver policy a couple of years ago. And the impact fee waiver allows for up to $500,000 in impact fee reductions for qualified economic development and affordable housing projects. Because this tool was available, staff was recommending that the resolution be considered by NBU to reduce their fees on the project.

Is this something that we could take back to the EDC to cover those costs as opposed to waiving the fees? Because we waive fees, we still have the taxpayers then take that burden. Is that something that we could take back and ask the EDC maybe to cover those instead of waiving those fees?

Project expenditures for affordable housing, of which this is a qualified affordable housing, is an allowable expense by the Economic Development Corporation. So it is, yes, it is possible to take them. As I mentioned, we looked, we felt that the most direct and transparent way in order to address the funding shortfall was to go to the entity that was actually assessing the fees and request that they consider a reduction in it. But if the council gave that direction, we could go back to the Economic Development Corporation.

I struggle with waiving, after we raise our MBU rates, then waiving fees. That kind of gives me the ick. So if there's an alternate method of covering those fees, because we're still gonna have to offset the infrastructure, the roadways, the sewage, all that stuff that's gonna go with development is still gonna be paid for. So if there is a way of taking it back to EDC and having that covered through that avenue, I would be more, this is in District 6, that's why I'm addressing this. That's why I'd be more inclined to be supportive of it going that avenue than just waiving the fees. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Sparrowley.

Thank you for the presentation. Looking at the application itself on exhibit B with the Department of Housing from the state of Texas, this was, I guess, approved July 25th of 2024. And according to what I read, it expired November the 1st of 2024. Can you talk to that?

I can answer that. The developer representative can also address that. The exhibit that was included in the council packet was the original reservation letter from the state of Texas awarding the tax credits to the project. Those have basically since been extended and rolled. The most recent action was taken at the beginning of this month where TDHCA provided another extension to that place and service date. So we do have that and those credits have continued to roll until this project is completed. set to be breaking ground if it moves forward sometime in 2026.

Do you have that document?

I actually have a copy of the email that was sent by TDHCA to the developer. The official letter wouldn't, I think they said something like six weeks, they wouldn't see it for another six weeks.

And when was the last time this was brought in front of city council, this item?

The city council approved a resolution of non-objection to it sometime in 2024, I think.

No, I think this came to council two or three weeks ago. Oh. And we pushed it back, right?

Yes, sir. Oh, that's right.

Did they have the letter at that time or is that why they pushed it back?

No, but the action was going in front of TDHCA. They went in front of TDHCA sometime around Labor Day. So I think that consideration by the city council was at the end of August.

Yeah, so- the developer didn't even show up that day, correct? And so without that letter of extension, right, to me that would make sense not to show up that day. And then the only thing in my packet is this information that is not even valid. I have no information that it's valid from the state of Texas at all. In no way would I send it to MBU Board for approval if I don't have the proper paperwork myself. We do need housing as this, but not like this. If you're asking for a half a million dollars, I think you should have all your ducks in a line. That's just me. I don't know how my other colleagues think, but that's just me. And also I agree with Councilwoman Shaw that $500,000 is a lot. If we have 100,000 citizens in the town and you're asking for $500,000, that's kind of a lot of money to go from one person. Anyway, I think we need to look at it at a different light rather than asking for all at once. Something else I read is that, MBU only approves up to $500,000 a year for all projects, not just one. They're asking for the whole kit and caboodle all in one single project. So if there was another one on the hills of this one, the answer would be no, because they took it all. So I think it needs to be re-looked at. And I do know the final decision is with the MBU board. And they can determine how much money they ultimately get. But if it comes to us first, I think we have the opportunity to craft it as we need to before it goes to NBU. That's all.

Does NBU sit with this set aside of a half a man? Is that a line item inside their budget that they keep in there as a reoccurring pool?

I believe it is, but I would let Mr. Kelso answer that. It speaks to that. I believe in their policy.

Once we get the paperwork issued online and so on, I think we're hearing methods of how to fund this to support it. We understand the need for this product because most tenants are being required to meet a criteria of three times revenue. In other words, if it's a $1,100 a month, they got to make $3,300 a month to qualify for it. This adjusts that so they're not as burdened in their percentage. Really, we want in housing 20% to 25%, 28%. of their income for housing. And so a lot of people in that 20 to 45,000 range can't afford it. And this is the only way to do it to where we're not building them. We're just assisting it to get built. Would you please re-explain the return of revenue that comes back to the housing authority so we're perfectly clear even though we're providing dollars on this end, we get a return of X number of dollars on the back end?

Sure. So the Housing Authority is a development partner in this project. So they are entitled to 25% of that development fee. I think if you asked Mr. Alvarez, who's the Executive Director of the Housing Authority, he could speak to how important that revenue is for them just over time. federal funding to housing authorities across the country has continued to decline. So they are facing fewer and fewer funding opportunities. So more and more housing authorities are exploring partnerships like this. So some of that fee would be paid at certain intervals as the project closes and proceeds. And then because they are potentially deferring that fee as well in that proportion amount, that they would receive some of that fee through the project cash flows after it's constructed and operating and stabilized. So that is one of the benefits. The other benefit is that 76 households would receive the benefits of the reduced rents.

One more follow-up question. Has the city already waived the park impact fees or the roadway impact fees?

No, sir, that's not, the roadway impact fees are via ordinance. There's an ordinance for qualified affordable housing. So those are administratively waived at that level. The park development fees are not being proposed to be waived.

Okay, thank you.

I just wanna make a couple of comments before I open this up to public comment. I think this is a good project, I like the project, and I wanna see it move forward. I think it has value, and all communities should make an effort to move these types of projects forward in some way, shape, or form. So I have no issue or concerns with the project itself. To Councilmember Shaw's point, I do have a concern with the impact fees. I think she brought up a very good valid point that not long ago we did raise rates. I was a part of that. I voted for it because I believed in it, still believe in it. It was for capital improvement projects. It was for aging infrastructure. It was to install new infrastructures. because we have some needs that we need to address and take care of, and I believe there's going to be, in the not too distant future, a look at rates again, if I'm not incorrect on that. So to ask the rate payer to pay an increased rate, with the knowledge that we have another look at rates coming again, We just voted on a drought surcharge fee tonight that we voted on before. And then on the same hand, on the same agenda, at the same meeting, to ask to waive a half a million dollars of impact fees that are designed to mitigate the impact of the cost of infrastructure being installed, I can't reconcile those. It's irreconcilable for me, to be honest with you. I think Council Member Shaw has a great idea. And we can talk about that a little bit more here in a minute, I think, after we open up to public comment. But I think the EDC is a very viable option for something like that too. So I'd like to look into that a little bit more as well. But if anybody has any more questions, if not, we'll open this up to public comment. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you.

I just wanted to say that I agree with Council Member Shaw that we should look at the EDC. I think this is a great project also. We need projects like this to help those who cannot afford and we need more housing to help those who cannot afford their housing. So thank you, Shaw.

All right, we'll open it up to public comment at this time.

And I just want to make a friendly reminder, just everyone, public comment, please address the council.

Thank you.

My name is Richard Kelsheimer. I'm a resident of New Braunfels, Texas. And what I'm trying to do here, and I don't disagree that it's important for us to provide for those people that are in lower income situations that need housing. So that's not in disagreement here. But I think one of the things that we fail to do is to understand the true cost of what the project actually cost. And that is, I believe, has a direct impact on whether or not somebody should give a half a million dollars of waiver of fees. If you look at this, what I'm concerned about is the residents of New Braunfels, Texas. Now this project basically is gonna take off the tax rolls, 150 to 300,000 per year in lost property revenue because of the project value is going to be reduced. And that revenue actually, over a period of 75 years, which is the traditional lease period for public facility housing, would amount to $11 to $22 million in total tax revenue loss. Okay, we're talking tax revenue loss. If we assume a 2% growth on that apartment complex growing over that same 75-year period of time, that could end up being $68 million in lost revenue to the city of New Braunfels because of the property. The city council is being asked to approve that additional $500,000 in capital infrastructure, letting the New Braunfels utilities provide that. That is going to show up with the rates, and that is going to be something that the residents are going to have to pay for. Sooner or later, they're going to end up paying for it. Now the city council already evidently has approved $304,000 in roadway impact due to city ordinance as was pointed out by Jeff. But in addition to that, this project is getting additional sales tax revenue that is not gonna be provided to the city. It's being lost because the materials to build the apartments is not gonna be taxed. Sales tax is not. That amounts to about 180 to $226,000. So this cost is just not a half a million dollars that you're talking about. This whole project is costing a ton of money. And I'm just saying that New Braunfels Utilities and the residents of this city should not have to pay that half million dollar cost, just so a developer can, in fact, make more money off of this project, even though the reason he's in the business building apartments for low-income housing is because he knows how to make money, okay? Therefore, I am saying no to having the New Braunfels utilities waive those fees In fact, well, I won't go there. Bottom line is, if you look at the Linden Ranch, which is currently being developed, 300 units, that's also going to be providing some low-income housing and providing money to the New Braunfels Housing Authority. office across the street from you. So the bottom line is that I think that we should consider the residents and the taxes and what we're going to give up to have this facility. That's my point. I appreciate you listening to it. And I would ask you to vote no on waiving those fees.

Thank you very much.

hi i'm eva pepitone and i'm in district 6 i'm a resident of new brumfels and my i don't have the stats that he does but i come from a very large city and i watch projects like this take down neighborhoods one after the other i've talked to the council before about a voucher program that allows even lower income families to choose neighborhoods that are maybe a little nicer instead of putting them all together. The impact on the local schools, for example, most of those families will be single parent households. Their parents will not be helping in school and they will not be home after school to help their children with homework. it overloads the school system. When you allow people options, and we have a lot of empty apartments in this town, they can move around freely, pick a school that maybe is nicer for their children. At each age range, a high school here, an elementary school parent there might have different goals. People with no kids might have a completely different set of goals. This putting a bunch of low-income people in a box in an area is not good for the area. And forward-thinking cities are using voucher programs to spread people out so rising tide raises all ships. However that saying goes, it helps people to be around other people who are doing well instead of putting everybody who's in poverty or low-income in the same place. space. Furthermore, you have teenagers with parents that aren't home in the afternoon wandering the neighborhood. Fisher Park already has a huge problem with homeless people bathing in the water feature that's supposed to be for children. I don't think we need to add bigger problems to that park than are already existing there. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

I'm Bob King, District One, been a taxpayer here since 2009 and a rate payer with NBU since 2012. Esteemed council members, I'm not here to debate affordable housing. I'm not here to question whether the park at Dogwood project is worthy. But let's talk about governance, accountability, transparency, and a massive conflict of interest that this council is being asked to perpetuate tonight. The request is to make a supposedly non-binding recommendation that NBU waive a half a million dollars in impact fees for a project being built for a for-profit developer. But let's be honest about what non-binding means here. You appoint NBU's board, you approve its rates, you regulate it, so when you recommend that NBU waive half a million dollars, nobody should pretend you're merely making a friendly suggestion. No, to quote Vito Corleone, you're making them an offer they cannot refuse. And this will not be an isolated request. The city's own strategic plan calls for the city to quote, coordinate with NBU to adopt an impact fee waiver policy. which they've done under a lot of duress. The EDC's appetite for controlling development has apparently exceeded both its own resources and the city's borrowing capacity, so now it needs to go after NBU's ratepayers also. So this isn't just about the park at Dogwood. It's about creating a mechanism for City Hall to pursue its policies through NBU and its ratepayers again and again. and every member of this council should be offended by this. You've repeatedly told unhappy NBU ratepayers who've been in this room, at this podium, that this is not the place for them to take their concerns, that they have their own board. You should take their concerns there because they're the decision makers. Well, you cannot have it both ways. If NBU's board is truly autonomous, then city staff and the EDC must not use this council to pressure it into implementing city hall's policy objectives. For if you do, how can you tell the next unhappy rate payer? We can't interfere. NBU is independent. Go to their board meeting. You can't say that anymore. If the EDC really believes this project deserves another half million dollars, it should fund it themselves and throw another priority overboard to make room for it. Or if you think this is a very valuable project and you think it needs the half million dollars, then you should go through your budgeting process and decide either what other expenditure goes or which group of taxpayers gets taxed more. You can debate and vote on it openly. That would be accountability. What isn't accountability is leaning on NBU to waive fees so that City Hall can pursue a social engineering objective without having the courage to appropriate the money for it. And let's be clear, this is not a charity. It's a privately developed apartment project led by for-profit interests. The EDC wants to improve a private developer's economics. Same song, umpteenth verse. NBU's rate payers are not City Hall's subsidy fund piggy bank. NBU exists to provide essential utility services. It shouldn't be a mechanism for hiding the cost of City Hall's redistributionist policies. So I'm asking you to not merely say no tonight. I'm asking you to say hell no and with prejudice. Make it clear to senior city staff and to the EDC. You're asking us to cross a conflict of interest line, and we're not crossing it. Don't put us in this position again, ever. That's what you should be telling them. If the city wants a subsidy, the city should fund it. If the EDC wants a subsidy, the EDC should fund it. Identify the trade-offs, debate it publicly, vote on it openly, and then own the decision. Don't ask NBU's rate payers to absorb this city hall policy decision that neither you nor EDC seems willing to fund itself. That's not independence. it's not accountability, and it's not good governance. To be honest, it's morally offensive, and the six of you, I think, know better. At least I hope you do. Thank you very much.

Good evening, Council and Mayor Pro Tem. Asia Edwards, resident, District 6, former city council person, used to sit where Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi does. And I love that y'all brought up the reserve at Engel from 2016. That was my project. Ten years ago was the last time a single affordable housing unit for low income was built. A decade ago. So you see up here, 76, 78, yeah, great, that's a drop in the bucket, but if that's what we can get done today to help our poorest residents, the people making 30% AMI are not the same as looking at, oh, there's all of these vacant apartments sitting all over the place. Sure, there are, market rate, $2,000 a month apartments, That doesn't help the people making between $21,000 and $45,000 a year. That does them zero good. And those apartments, those developers are the big for-profit developers, right? That's very different than looking at a project that's funded with LIHTC funds and other public-private partnerships, grants, waivers, all of those things. It's a very, very different animal. So it's... a little frustrating on my part as somebody who has devoted my entire adult life to affordable housing to hear some of the comments of, well, they could just go live in a fancy apartment. There's plenty. Or, oh, well, if we do this, it's going to bring crime. Well, I think if we talk about what we should be ashamed of ourselves about, I think it's maybe categorizing people that that 30 to 60% AMI, I think it might be categorizing them as people who automatically bring crime. I think that's a pretty crappy thing to do. And that's pretty elitist. And that's pretty callous. And if the city can spend and invest $500,000, whether it's the waiver or if it's going to EDC, as Councilwoman Shaw brought up and that Mayor Pro Tem spoke about, if it's going to the EDC, then great. Whatever it takes to make sure that the people, our neighbors, the most in need have something, shelter, basic shelter. We heard the proclamation earlier with the gentleman for the food action, thank you, the action plan, right, well. Thank you. Food scarcity and housing scarcity go hand in hand. You saw the stats. 50% of their income is going to housing when it should be between 28% and 33% max. So what do you think is getting lost in there? That's food. That's clothing. That's school supplies. That's child care. That's all of these things that are being sunk into housing costs when there's something we can do about it. So as we talked about earlier, making this proclamation for an action, this is action. This is what you can do. This is what each of you can do.

Councilwoman Carter over there, that's what you can do too, is doing something.

And I don't care what the funding mechanism is. But so I just, I urge you to think about what you're willing to do or give up or whether it's $500,000 in MBA impact fees. I personally, if this ends up, if at some point in time being another rate increase, I'm totally fine paying $5 more a month so that 78 people have a roof over their head and they can afford to put food on their table and shoes on their feet. So as you can tell, I'm very, very, very passionate about it. I have no dog in this hunt other than it's in my backyard and I'm still for it. I make no money off of this. I just firmly believe that It's our job as humans to take care of other humans. And if they need us and we can, then why shouldn't we? And what does that make us as a society if we say, so sorry, because $5 that I'm going to have to absorb is not worth it to help you get a safe roof over your head.

So thank you, guys.

Mayor Pro Tem. PZ, council members, city staff, esteemed members of the community. My name is Brad Porter. I am a resident, District 1. Let me be real clear right off the bat. I do support affordable housing. I don't have a problem with helping people who need to afford a place to live in New Braunfels. What I have a problem with is asking the people who already live here and are already paying MBU bills to subsidize the cost of bringing additional development into our community. The proposed asks NBU to waive half a million dollars in water and wastewater impact and recovery fees for a 76 new unit development. These fees exist because development creates additional demand in our utility and infrastructure. The developers are entitled to apply for relief under NBU's impact fee waiver policy because they qualify as affordable housing. The policy requires a process. The project has to meet the affordable housing criteria. The city has to adopt a resolution requesting the waiver and NBU staff and board then decide whether to grant it. Some of this is redundant, I apologize, but we're gonna go over it anyway. If NBU does not waive the 500,000, exactly what happens to the project? Does the developer put additional equity into it, reduce, defer its developer fee further, find another financing source, or does the project simply become financially infeasible? That gets right to the heart of whether the 500,000 is generally necessary to build the 76 units or whether the public is being asked to impose and to improve the developer's financing terms. So my question is very simple. Why should the existing rate payers of New Braunfels absorb a cost that is being created by new development? If this project cannot financially work without eliminating a half a million dollars of its infrastructure costs, then I believe the first responsibility should be to find that $500,000 somewhere within the project's financing structure and not reach into the pockets of the people who are already here. And according to the city's own agenda documents, there are other pieces of this deal that deserve scrutiny. The New Braunfels Housing Authority is entering into a partnership in which the affiliated housing authority will own the land, making the project exempt from property taxes. The housing authority is also entitled to approximately 25% of the development fee, roughly $635,000, plus 25% of future project cash flows, as Mr. Jewell already explained. So before you ask MBU customers to give up another $500,000, I want to know, why isn't that $635,000 being used to close the project's financing gap? The city's own documents say the housing authority is considering assigning that portion of the development fee to the primary development entity to help close the shortfall. Interestingly, the project has already changed its ownership structure specifically to obtain 100% property tax exemption through NBHA. That exemption increases the project's borrowing capacity by approximately $850,000. And let me be clear about something else. Affordable housing does not mean the infrastructure required to build it becomes free. Water isn't free, wastewater capacity isn't free, treatment plants aren't free, pipes aren't free, and capacity isn't free. And when we weigh those costs, somebody ultimately bears the burden. If the developer can't pay and the project can't pay, then the public pays one way or another. I don't believe it's fair to the thousands of New Braunfels residents who are already paying some of the highest utility bills ever seen. No shade, Ryan. I'm asking council to establish a simple principle. If new development creates the need for additional infrastructure, new development should pay the increment cost of that infrastructure. If council believes affordable housing deserves public assistance, then let's have an honest discussion about where that assistance should come from. Grants, state and federal housing programs, private financing, developer contributions, housing authority resources, or other dedicated affordable housing funds. But please don't make the default funding source every existing NBU customer. And if you're going to approve this waiver, I want you to answer these three questions publicly, not tonight. Exactly how much revenue will NBU forego because of this waiver? How will NBU replace that revenue without increasing rates on existing customers? And what portion of the project's remaining financing gap could be covered by the housing authority's approximately $635,000 development fee interest? I support affordable housing. I do not support making existing residents subsidize infrastructure costs of new development, especially when other sources of funding haven't been exhausted. However, having said all that, if NBU charged the ratepayers a one-time fee for the $500,000 It would cost each of the residents, which is 70,000 people currently, about $707.14, a one-time fee of 7.14. That's not a big deal. So I'm not worried about that, but it's the principle, right? The EDC, New Braunfels EDC is not legally limited to handing money to traditional businesses. The city explicitly lists affordable housing as an allowable use of EDC funds.

Mr. Porter, I'm sorry, your time is up.

Shoot, all right. Please send this to EDC and have them fund it. Thank you.

David Warnky, District 5. I'm kind of a big picture guy. And, you know, there are two sides to this affordable housing. If you look at the food bank that was here earlier, it does a wonderful job. They built some stuff, I think it's called Apple Quartz, that is really wonderful and works. But they're not a for-profit corporation. If you're a for-profit corporation, you see, I can get a $17 million tax credit on a $22 million investment. Wow. That's good return on the money. And therein lies a problem. You have this industry that's been built. You have developers that have no tie to the city. They're here for one thing, to make money. You know, you drive by Loop 337 and you see the third of a mile scar that appeared in the last couple weeks. I did that the other day. And I felt sick all the way to San Marcos just looking at that. So what do you do? Write a song. So I've got a song for you. It's called New Braunfels City Hall. The taco was stopped here on the nomadic trail. The Spanish came here, called it home. The Germans came here, called it a new home. Developers came here, they just call it gold. They call it Comal, they call it Las Fontanas, they call it New Braunfels. A conservative town built on the banks of the Guadalupe River, built on the water between two rivers, built on a spring. Cool water, crystal clear water, they call it Comal Springs. A town with rich heritage, a town blessed with hill country beauty. A town growing, growing, growing, growing, and growing. A town right for the picking of gold rush developers. The talk was stopped here on the dramatic trail. Spanish came here, they called it home. Germans called it a new home. Developers, now they just came here, called it gold. Now this town lately, well, it's been up for sale. City leadership, the chamber, all worse than them Benjamins. One-stop shop for developers, it attracts all kind. The good, the bad, the ugly. Now lately, low-income housing, that's been the goal. Big tax breaks, loose regulations, greed describes as altruism. Carpetbaggers from the south here to flatten and raise the city. The school district all grieves, gladly giving our town away. Sell the land, wipe off those majestic oak trees, flatten the hills, build fake housing projects, ROI is king. Keep it quiet, generate lots of fuel goods, smoke and mirrors. Grease the gatekeepers, they'll rubber stamp the deal. Easy stuff. They call it New Braunfels, I call it beautiful. I call it progress if it could be saved. They call it New Braunfels, I call it home. What will they call it when it's leveled and paved? New Braunfels City Hauled. That's an homage to Kent Finley. Thank you. Thanks for listening.

Seeing no one else up here, we'll open it back up for discussion on the dais. Council Membership.

All right. First of all, I want to clear up a few things. A, a Linden is not low income. It's an 80% product and a percentage of it. It's moderate. And when you talk 80% of the AMI being on the 70, we're talking someone that's making in the 50,000 range. So that's some of your school teachers. That's some of the people that work for us. When we start to talk about low income, Yes, there's a variety of it, but this project and projects like this are a hand up, not a hand out. They make them pay a percentage of their income so that they can support and move forward. It's not a permanent subsidy. It's not like a cotton allotment from the federal government paying farmers not to grow cotton. Over a period of time, every 10 years, 70 doors, 80 doors will produce 100, 200, 300, 400 families that will go through there and elevate. And to the point about scattered site, this is precisely what we're doing. This project, Dogwood, is on one side of town. Linden's on the other. Scattered site historically shows that it elevates the people in there to be better, to make more, to integrate in the community. And the information is over and over and over out there. It is undeniable. Because they've shown that when you do it in moderate numbers, you'll get it. It's where you put three, four, 500 all together in one district, one school where you have the potential of a slum. But when you scatter 30 here and 70 there, it doesn't impact the same. So the other thing to remember is is that we don't wanna be in the business as a city of building it from start to finish in scratch. That's why public-private property, public-private partnerships exist. We pay a small portion to help get the workforce to where it needs to be with the cost of car, transportation, and daycare, a single mom needs a place like this or a single dad raising a kid or two kids. It's very difficult now with the cost of everything. So this is a moderate price. Yes, do I like it to have men? Do we need to go back and look at the numbers? Yes. But I think it's projects like this that we have to give sight and validity into it so that we can keep our workforce going. And don't forget, these people work in small business so that they can keep their doors growing and conditioning. So it's not just like we're letting them sit on their tail and not do anything. They still gotta come up minimally in the small number, $5,000 to $6,000 a year. and the rest of their life, and with the cost of HEB. So, and look, I've been through corporate war in 1977 where I went from having a good income to having to move into a little single wide in the middle of nowhere in South Carolina for 125 a month with a newborn baby that the insurance was just 600 eating everything we've got. I know what it is to have to dig out of that to make something. And that's what these projects do is give normal people the ability to dig out. and become more and not need it. So I think we need to find a way to support it. I'll support the EDC method if we need to go that way. But it is something I believe we need to do.

Council Member Lebowski.

I agree with you. And my question to Mr. Jewell is, How many of these type of apartments do we have here in this town?

We have five housing tax credit projects that comprise about 409 units across the city. Two of those are seniors, for seniors only.

Okay, the other question is how many apartments do we have in New Braunfels that accept the vouchers?

I'm not sure about, and I know that we have about 200 vouchers. So there's a voucher system that's administered by the Housing Authority. And so there's probably about 200 to 250 voucher holders. So those folks are finding housing either in single family units or duplexes or apartments.

But it's not all in one area. It's all spread out through town, correct?

Yes, ma'am. Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

If there's no more discussion, I'd like to make a motion.

Before we move on to that motion, I just want to say that there was a couple things that I heard that I want to speak out against that just kind of... I can't keep quiet on it. I heard some things like because somebody is considered low income that... they won't be home with their children. Teens will be roaming the neighborhood. The area will go downhill. I reject the premise that because somebody doesn't make the same money I make or the same money that Deputy City Manager Matney makes or Mr. Henson or Ryan Kelso, that they're less of a parent or that they will, run down the neighborhood or that they won't be home in school at night with their children. That's not who we are, that's not who this city is, and that's not who New Brunswick is. I was that person 20 years ago. I was considered low income. I went into the trades, okay? My wife was a shift worker. I was a good dad. My wife's a good mother. We took care of our daughter, we kept up our house, we did what we were supposed to do. And sometimes all you need is just that little hand up. And that's what I believe this is, and I believe we should support it. I don't support the funding mechanism necessarily, but I do support Council Member Shaw's plan and idea for it, and if we can make a motion, as you suggested, that gets us to that point, I will support that. Absolutely.

Okay. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion that we disapprove this item as is with guidance to staff to look at the EDC and any other budgetary avenues to fund this program.

And I will second that.

Can I ask for a quick clarification? Is that up to $500,000 or is it $500,000 or what?

I will leave that on the staff because I'm not sure what their boundaries are. If 500,000 is all that they can, I'll leave that on staff to come back with the best way forward with that.

Okay, so just, I'm gonna repeat back and just clarify the motion. So the motion is to deny, as stated tonight, with the direction to staff to take this to the EDC and or any other avenues to close this funding gap and bring it back to us for approval.

Yes, sir.

So we had a motion by Council Member Shaw, a second by Council Member Lebowski. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. All right, we'll move on to item B. I'm sorry, item C, I believe we're on item C. public hearing and presentation of the impact fee financial audit as required by Chapter 395 of the Texas Local Government Code. Ms. Viatrick.

Hi, good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council. Becky Viatrick, Assistant Director of Finance. I'm gonna give a short presentation on the roadway impact fee audit process, and then I'm gonna turn it over to Lupe Garcia from Whitley Penn, the audit firm, that's gonna give the results of the audit. So just to provide a little background here, Senate Bill 1883, which amends Chapter 395 of the Texas Local Government Code, was adopted on June 20th, 2025, with an effective date of September 1st, 2025. SB 1883 requires all political subdivisions to conduct an independent financial audit before increasing impact fees or adopting new impact fees. And I just wanted to point out here, the audit must be performed by an independent CPA or public accountant who has not provided any other services to the political subdivision or related entity during the preceding 12 months. So just to cover the timeline, the legislation was passed June 20th of 2025, like I stated, and then the effective date was September 1st, 2025. At that time, city staff met and that consisted of our transportation and construction services team, our internal audit team, and our finance department to discuss the requirements. Subsequent meetings were had with finance and our internal legal teams to discuss the guidance. We determined that an independent audit was needed from a third party auditor. We then went into our firm selection process, which consisted of reviewing qualifications for several different audit firms, as well as visiting with our benchmark cities to see which of them had conducted an audit or started the process of this audit. Then the audit was performed and a final report was issued. So to understand the legislation and dig a little deeper, the legislation established new requirements related to the roadway impact fee audit. Some of the requirements of the audit were not clear with the legislation, specifically the period of performance for the audit and the need for the third party financial statement audit. Some of the audit firms that we met with felt that the annual comprehensive financial report, or our ACFR, which is our financial statement audit, was sufficient in meeting their criteria of SB 1883. After further discussion with our internal legal team, we determined that the third party independent audit was necessary. So we proceeded with reviewing qualifications for audit firms and also determined that the period of performance should begin on the date of the city's most recent roadway impact fee study, which was adopted on January 27th, 2020. How we selected the audit firm. Like I said, we really looked for audit firms that either had experience and already conducted roadway impact fees, as well as had governmental auditing, review of impact fees, and specifically transportation or roadway funding, and that could complete an agreed upon procedures audit. Some of the qualifications we looked for were relevant experience and that they had an understanding of the city's needs. The city moved forward and engaged in the audit with Whitley Penn on January 29th of 2026. Any questions for me before I turn it over to Lupe to go over the results of the audit?

Okay.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and members of City Council. It's my pleasure to be here tonight to present to you the results of our procedures on the city's roadway impact fee program for the period covering fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2025. As was just previously covered, this is required, this is a new requirement that's now required by Chapter 395 of the Texas Local Government Code for any local government entity that's considering increasing existing impact fees or adopting new fees in your established service areas. The procedures we performed cover four main areas. The first is governance and compliance. This includes actions taken by city council, taken by the advisory committee, as well as the requirements of the timeline specified by Chapter 395 and the amendments by Senate Bill 1883. including the city's impact fee studies previously undertaken and any updates to those studies. Secondly, we looked at the city's financial reporting. We started with your annual comprehensive financial reports, which are audited documents that include your roadway impact fee revenues and expenditures. Those are already covered by those opinions expressed by your financial statement auditor. Before we moved forward with our procedures, we ensured that the populations that we were analyzing and selecting our samples from, agreed to those audited financial statements to ensure we had the full population of revenues and expenditures for the roadway impact fee program. The third phase of the procedures we performed, which was the most time intensive phase, was the transaction level testing. We selected transactions over that six year period, over all your service areas, assessments, those fees that were assessed and collected during that period of time, and how those fees were expended on allowable expenditures in your roadway impact fee program. We developed attributes that we tested each of those transactions against. Namely, were the fees that were assessed and collected approved by city council? Were they properly calculated? Did they agree back to the permitting documentation that was initially filed? And was the impact fee that was collected, was it used for an allowable use within that service area? In addition to the revenues and the expenditures, there's also several other areas that local government code requires us to test. That includes any credits, interest earned by the roadway impact fees, any updates to your capital improvement plan, the collections by service area, unspent balances, any allocations, waivers, or refunds. So there was sampling that occurred on each of those areas as well. This was an agreed upon procedure because in Texas Local Government Code, they spell out exactly what they want us to test. There's no discretion, there's no scope that we have any ability to set. It's already spelled out within Texas Local Government Code 395. We perform the procedures that state law requires, and the report includes the results of those procedures. Overall results are illustrated here on slide number four. We tested 90 roadway impact fee assessments, 90 roadway impact fee expenditures, and a total of 15 refunds. Our testing did not result in any exceptions. When we compared the supporting documentation, the approvals, the calculations of any of those transactions, they all met the attributes that we tested them against. We did not note any miscalculations or any errors in the calculation of any of the impact fees. The refunds were properly supported and calculated that we did test. Over that period of time, we did not note that there were any waivers granted during fiscal year 2020 to 2025. Overall, over this period of time, the city collected just under $15.8 million in roadway impact fee revenues. The city expended just over $7.5 million in expenditures. And over that time, the city earned over $1 million in interest on your roadway impact fee revenues. On the right-hand side of the slide, you have the impact fees revenues by service area. Service area three generated the majority of your impact fees at 6.97 million, followed by service areas six and five at 3.96 million, and service area five had $3.2 million in impact fees assessed and collected. key takeaways here on this slide. The fee assessments, the expenditures, the interest transactions and refunds met the attributes that we tested them against. The current impact, Improvement plan, you have 33 projects totaling $8.53 million across those six service areas. And there's an exhibit in the report that reports your unspent balances as of September 30th, 2025. And that was $13.85 million. So that's not just unspent balances over the six year period of 2020 to 2025, but that's impact fees from inception to date. The report does include that the city did identify $287,000 that was expended outside of that 10-year deadline. The city has implemented a process to track those impact fees to ensure that they're being spent within that 10-year window. Although the city identified this amount as being spent outside that 10-year window, there were no requests for refunds for any of the impact fees during that time. At this point, I'll open it up to any questions you may have about the report or the results of the procedures we performed.

Any questions? Council Member Schell.

The impact fees, does that primarily come from development? Yes. It's not the citizens paying, this is all through development?

Yes, it comes from the development within the city over that period of time.

And then do the areas correlate with the districts? You say District 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Is that the districts as well? Does that correlate?

No, ma'am. They do not correlate with the council districts.

Okay.

No, ma'am. Not exactly.

Okay. Thank you.

It is also the maximum allowed by Texas state law, correct?

Yes, so the fees that the city assesses are in your study and they're under the maximum that's allowed by state law.

So it's the maximum we can charge the developer to help their part to build roadways.

Anybody else? All right, thank you both. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to item D. Discuss and consider approval of the second and final.

Mayor Frotem, I'm sorry. This is a public hearing for this item. There is a public hearing for this item.

So we have to open it up for public comment. Yes, sir. We'll open this item to public comment. I apologize.

Thank you for a very thorough audit. It's an interesting document. I had one question, not about the audit, but about the data. In the years 2020, 23, 24, 25, we're about 2 million and change. And then the year 2021 and 22, we're 3 million to 3.5 million. What happened those couple years? Does anybody know? Why the fees were so high? They scaled up and then went back down.

It really just depends on the level of development that's occurring in the city in that particular year.

So you think it's just more development there? Yes. Okay. Okay, thank you.

Seeing no one else, we'll move on to item D. Discuss and consider approval of the second and final reading of an ordinance adopting the FY2027 operating budget and plan of municipal services. Mr. Werner.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, members of council, Jared Werner, assistant city manager. I've got a very brief presentation, just one or two slides on the budget and our process, several slides on the tax rate. As you all know, we've gone through a whole host of presentations, we've got hundreds of slides, and if the city council, for any reason, would like us to pull those up, certainly can do that in our discussion this evening. But some highlights on the budget, and again, just to kind of plug our www.newbronfels.gov slash budget once again. All of the presentations that have been presented thus far, of course the proposed budget, and some additional information required by state laws included on that landing page for the budget. But just some highlights so far as we'll talk about this evening. Proposed tax rate by the city council is equal to the no new revenue rate. We'll go into that a little bit more. For fiscal year 27, tax year 26 saw the lowest level of property value growth since fiscal year 2011. That growth was entirely driven by new construction while we saw for the first time in a very long time existing taxable values declined slightly. As we have the past couple years, we've tried to tie initiatives in the budget, not just the general fund, but across the entirety of the budget document to the strategic plan. Pleased to present that we were able to tie $13 million, that's recurring and or one-time investments that we can tie back to one of the city's five strategic priorities. All of our team members are scheduled to receive a 3% cost of living adjustment. I want to give some credit to the city council because as you know, as part of your budget deliberations and going to the noni revenue rate, as well as adjusting some of our sales tax revenues that provided a little bit more capacity. And one of the priorities that you all had as a city council was trying to increase the originally proposed 2.5% cost of living adjustment up to that 3%. That's currently what's included in this budget. And as the slide says there, our swarm personnel are also, in addition to that 3%, eligible for a step increase if they're eligible. As we talked about during our five-year forecast discussions and during several of our budget workshops, had some significant challenges as it relates to the city's self-insurance fund. The city is self-insured for providing healthcare to the city's team members and their dependents. That result, we have enjoyed a very long period of sustainability and solvency in that fund, but like many cities across the state, saw some significant cost pressures there that really intensified at the end of last fiscal year. That resulted in a 25% increase in employee premiums alongside a 25% increase in the employer contribution. Next, the fiscal year 27 budget includes 25 positions across all departments and all funds. Again, credit to city council, you all increased that primarily through adding additional public safety positions as well. As we talked about, the fiscal year 27 budget secures the funding for the 12 firefighters that were added two years ago through grant funding. However, as we discussed, city manager's office and the fire department leadership work collaboratively on establishing some additional contract revenue that arrived just in time for those costs to be absorbed in the general fund next year. And the reserves are maintained at both the city council policy level and city council target level. Last thing that I wanna highlight here is that as part of your scenario where you added some additional funding to the budget, one of the larger items than that was a $300,000 annual increase for citywide street improvements through additional concrete work to meet our ADA modifications associated with that effort. We know that's a large priority, not only the city council, but the citizens. So I wanted to highlight that as well, even though it's not on the slide. Again, part of the reason for the brief presentation this evening is, as you all know, this is the sixth time that we've met in a public meeting to discuss the budget starting on August 11th. That then was followed by four separate workshops. You can see the titles there that we focused on. But again, I want to give credit to the City Council for asking in-depth, thoughtful questions. Again, I think we all enjoyed going through that together. And so, But again, I wanted to just state the fact that we're at the end of what's been a very involved and intensive process. Also, walking through that tax rate and budget adoption timeline that kind of is in the background as we move throughout our budget process every single year on August 11th, where we announce the dates and times of the hearings as part of that overall budget presentation. On August 19th is where you add that recorded vote. on the no new revenue rate that allowed us to then put notice in the paper on august 22nd for the public hearings on the on the tax rate and budget on september 10th we held on the public hearings and held those uh force first readings on the ordinance to adopt the budget and tax rate i just want to mention that those were adopted unanimously by all seven members of council last thursday and then this is the last step that we have this evening We have second reading of the budget and tax rate, as well as ratification of the resolution to ratify the property tax revenue increase. Next slide, please. Sorry, Gail. There we go. I think it's working now. Again, the proposed tax rate for fiscal year 2027 As it says there on the slide, that's 41.56 cents. Again, that's equal to the no new revenue rate. As we discussed multiple times, the no new revenue rate is the calculation as required by the state that generates what rate is necessary to generate the same level of revenue on existing properties that were on the tax rolls both in last year and this year. It excludes new property from that calculation. And so, as I said at the very beginning of this presentation, with us seeing the first decline in existing values in quite some time, that is why the no new revenue is slightly higher than the existing rate. You will remember in several of our budget discussions, we talked about a whole host of tax rate scenarios. We talked about median homestead taxable properties. We talked about average homestead taxable properties. We compared scenarios in both Comal and Guadalupe, because as part of our analysis of the property values this year, we felt it painted a little bit of a different picture, whether or not you were in Comal or Guadalupe, whether or not we were looking at the median value of the average, and kind of tried to paint a broader picture about what was happening with taxable values in the city of New Braunfels. However, though, at our last workshop, just to try and simplify that down to one calculation, considering the combined average of Comal and Guadalupe, average taxable value, you can see there, with the adoption of the no new revenue rate, that results in an approximate $13 in additional tax revenue that would be due for average homestead properties. As we talked about with the no new revenue rate calculation and then the result being $13 more per year or roughly $1.08 more per month, what that tells us is that the pressure on commercial properties slightly affected that decline in existing values more so than residential properties. And again, this is just one example. However, you may remember that we plug that there's great resources through both the Comal and Guadalupe Appraisal District where you can actually go to a website that you can punch in your personal home address. It will tell you exactly how much your tax bill is slated to go up, not only based on the city of New Braunfels, but on your school district and on your county taxes. And really that is the best place to go get an accurate picture of what your property tax bill is slated to look like for the following year. I made mention of this, Mayor Pro Tem and City Council at last Thursday's budget and tax rate hearing, but you may remember last fiscal year there was a new statutory requirement to report a taxpayer impact statement on our agendas where we discussed the budget. And throughout this fiscal year, we've included the taxpayer impact statement for fiscal year 26 based on last year's budget. The state law is silent on whether or not that is to be a median market value or a median taxable value. So the figures from last year were the median market value, whereas when we calculated it this year, it's the median taxable value. The information is correct. However, I do see how that could be somewhat misleading and difficult to understand. And so the good thing is that if the budget and tax rate is approved this evening, it will only be required to move forward with the updated taxpayer impact statement, again, which is gonna be based on taxable median homestead values. Tax rate comparison we think is always good to look at. As a reminder, this list of 26 cities is the same list that we look at not only for tax rate comparison, it's what we do our market compensation studies on, it's when we are evaluating internal human resource policies or doing staffing analyses. This is a city council approved list. So this list does not change year after year. The average across all these benchmark cities is approximately 50.8 cents. When comparing the New Braunfels proposed tax rate, the proposed tax rate for fiscal year 27 is 9.9 cents or approximately 19.5% lower. And one of the things we tracked this year that we really didn't in the past is how many of the cities are actually proposing a tax rate increase, regardless of what may be happening with their certified taxable values. And what we saw is of the 26 cities, 15 have proposed a tax rate increase for fiscal year 27. That is a significant change from what we saw in years past. Of those 15 cities, the average increase is about 2.2 cents, okay? And then my last slide that I have here for you this evening is just another reminder about the overall property tax bill for taxpayers, right? This is based on a NBISD Comal County example, as we've talked about in the past, if it was looking at Comal ISD in Guadalupe County, because the homestead exemptions are a little bit different in those taxing entities, these numbers may shift slightly. But in general, school district taxes are roughly 53% of the overall tax bill. the county in this case being 20% with the city of New Braunfels then representing 27%. Before I turn it back over to you, Mayor and Council, again, we have three items this evening. The first of which is the second and final reading of the budget. As your agenda report states, what's included and attached in your packet, not only is the budget as a whole and the ordinance, but also the budget order. The budget order captures any of the changes that we are recommending to be ratified with the approval of this budget. As we talked about last Thursday, the majority of those modifications are tied to the budget scenario that you as a council worked on during this process. So it implements that increased cost of living adjustment, not only in the general fund, but across all funds in the organization where we have staffing costs allocated. And as you see from that budget order, it kind of knocks in a domino effect then of your enterprise funds and special revenue funds, so on and so forth. The other changes that are not associated with your scenario are ones in which it's one time costs that were originally anticipated to occur before the end of September this fiscal year. But the team has come forward and said, hey, that cost is actually gonna roll forward in the next fiscal year. So we're rolling that allocation so that that budget allocation is aligned to when we actually expect the funds to be expended. And so again, we have three items tonight. I'll have little to add on the next two, but of course I'm available to answer any questions of council or the public. And as I said earlier, as you all know, we've got hundreds of slides to refer to in the event that we need to. So happy to do so. And I'll pause for questions.

Thank you, Mr. Warner. If you don't mind, can you just go over again the reason why we're at the no new revenue rate, but yet we're raising the rate? Can you try to explain that in layman's terms?

Happy to do so. Again, the no new revenue rate is the rate calculated to generate the same amount of revenue on properties that were on the tax rolls last year and on the tax rolls this year. So when you have a slight decline in existing value, it then takes a higher, slightly higher rate to generate the same level of revenue. Did I nail it?

I think so.

Okay.

Because it's based on valuation.

Yes, and it looks, one thing I may not have mentioned, it doesn't look just at residential properties. It doesn't look just at industrial. It looks at industrial, commercial, raw land, residential that qualifies for a homestead, residential that doesn't. And so it's across the entire portfolio of taxable property in New Braunfels.

But also we adopted a tax rate lower than that last year.

Yes, the last two years. The last two years we've adopted a rate either at or slightly below the revenue revenue rate. In the years before that we adopted rates that were above the revenue revenue rate but lower than the voter approval rate.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

So to dispel some of the stuff that's going out in the public, number one, We are seeing a lowering in the values of the homes and commercial. More and more people are fighting it using outside companies. And so we're seeing a dynamic impact across the board. So the reductions that we've seen in prior years wasn't us taking a reduction in the tax rate. because we were trying to reduce it. We were just stabilizing it because the values were going up, so the reductions were put in place. Is that not true?

That is true. Right. Yes.

And the next thing is, this budget was hard fought between all of us here. We had proposals to take the rate up higher to get more things done because we definitely have shortages in some of our areas. The police department is having to put in a five-year plan for officers and so on to get things done. And even though we did get additional things for them, In order to get where we're going, we would have had to take the rate up higher to the public. And currently, the Attorney General's office is making a very dim view of any city going above the no new revenue rate and has really gone after about 120 of them. So there were compromises. The second thing that everybody did a good job on the dais and the staff did is it's a no fluff budget. There was not a lot of worthless stuff in there. We didn't have to go into cuts. And I think everybody did a good job agreeing the distribution to get 3% across the board to try to get our staff up, even though we'd have liked to have taken it to three and a half. I think there was a lot of work put in by all parties involved. to achieve this budget. I want the public to be aware of it. We tried to chase cuts on a number of different things, but you can't pay for a new facility and not maintain it. You know, you can't operate these things with less people and give worse service. And we've got some critical areas we're going to have to adjust and look at during the year.

Yes, sir. And again, those were all televised public meetings available to go back and take a look at if anyone would like to see that. Again, that deliberation, collaboration, and final product that we got to.

All right, we'll open this up for public comment.

I make a motion, budget adoption. I move to approve the second and final reading of the ordinance number 2026-50, adopting the FY2027 operating budget and plan of municipal services including the budget order.

And I second.

We have a motion by Councilmember Edwards with a second by Councilmember Lebowski. Ms. Wilkinson, will you please call roll?

Yes, sir. Councilmember Edwards? Aye. Councilmember Spradley? Aye. Councilmember Lebowski? Aye. Councilmember Shaw? Aye. Councilmember Carter?

Aye.

And Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi?

Aye.

And Mayor Francis not present.

Motion carries. Moving on to item E, discuss and consider a resolution of the City of New Braunfels ratifying the increase in revenue generated by the 2026 property tax rate included in the FY2027 annual budget.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Members of Council, very little to add here. Again, as you said it, this is approval of the resolution ratifying that increase in revenue. As the agenda report states, you can see the number that is projected for increased property tax revenue. And what's interesting about this is that its number is almost identical to the amount produced from new value. Again, that's an illustration of the no new revenue rate working just as it should. With that, I'll turn it over to any questions there may be.

Any questions, comments? We'll open this up to public comment. Seeing none.

Motion for ratification of the tax resolution, individual item E. I move to approve resolution number two, 2026R71, ratifying the property tax revenue increase reflected in the fiscal year 2027 operating budget and plan of municipal services.

I second.

We have a motion by Councilmember Edwards with a second by Councilmember Spradley. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. Move on to item F. discuss and consider approval of the second reading of an ordinance adopting the 2026 ad valorem tax rates.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Members of Council, last item here. The agenda report states, again, one last time, the fiscal year 2027 proposed tax rate is equal to the no new revenue rate. That's a tax rate of .415, 613 per $100 of taxable valuation. This item was, again, presented to City Council last Thursday and approved unanimously. And with that, I'll turn it over for any questions.

I'm just gonna ask you to restate the cost for the average homeowner.

Yes, sure. Again, for the average homeowner, that increases $13 annually, roughly $1.08 per month.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments before we open it up? We'll open this up to public comment. Seeing no one.

Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi, I move to approve ordinance number 2026-51, levying a property tax of .415613 per $100 of assessed taxable valuation comprised of .193921 cents for debt service and .221692 cents for operations and maintenance. I'll second.

We have a motion by Council Member Spradley with a second by Council Member Shaw. Ms. Wilkins, will we please call roll?

Yes, Council Member Spradley.

Aye.

Council Member Lebowski. Aye. Council Member Shaw. Aye. Council Member Carter. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi.

Aye.

Council Member Edwards. Aye. And Mayor French is not present.

Motion carries. Move on to item G. Discuss and consider the first reading of an ordinance to amend section 126-346 and section 126-369 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of New Braunfels to establish prohibited parking and loading zones on Zip Road, Climb Meadows, and Legend Pond. Mr. Ford.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council. Long Creek High School parking restrictions, a little bit of background. The high school stadium opened actually last Friday, the first game, Dragon Stadium, and city staff, including city engineering, the police department, MBISD, both their SROs, admin, and representatives from the high school itself, and SROs worked a traffic control plan really over the last three to four months. So we've been working hand in hand with our group to handle really what we anticipate to be any traffic disruptions to the area. The goal really is to preserve traffic operations before, during, and after events, but also minimize the impact to local residential neighborhoods. So as you can see here's the site of the high school and then the stadium still under construction, but it's completed But it's right kind of in the middle of some neighborhoods So our overall goal was to minimize the impact the neighborhoods and that's what we're doing So site conditions again bordered by Long Creek and legend Heights Park Place and legend point neighborhoods there in various stages of completions legend pond and pointer established neighborhoods for quite some time and And then the school district, NYSD, has really substantial improvements planned and underway with the opening of the new high school and also the actual stadium itself. So they're planning to install additional sidewalks on Zip Road adjacent to the site, some driveways turn lanes, they'll be widening Klein Meadows. Right now it's relatively narrow for bus operations, so they'll be widening Klein Meadows. And there's new traffic signals at Klein and Klein Meadows. It's an all-way stop. Same thing for Klein Meadows and Legend Pond. So coordinating with the school district, those are all planned. They have their plans approved. However, they're waiting till after the football season to actually get this under construction. So they delayed construction till after the football season. The plan itself, again, really proud of the team. Carly Farmer's here, she led the team. Really have a number of folks to really come with the plan to make sure we're addressing operations. So again, before, during, after events, there's officer control, traffic direction at many driveways, intersections. There's restricted movements, again, to get the traffic out from the residential areas. And there's some parking restrictions. That's what we'll be talking about tonight. Again, the overall goal is to minimize impact on residential areas as well. The other thing too on the traffic control plan, you see this graphic. This is from the MBISD website. Really, MBISD has been communicating the plan to parents, visitors, and the community itself. So it's their responsibility to do that in partnership with the city and the SROs. Regarding the valuation for the parking restrictions, reviewed existing and proposed conditions, what's going on now in addition to the future ISD improvements. We estimated kind of the parking behaviors as you saw in the graphic. There's a lot of really residential streets that are really close to the stadium, so it may be more convenient. for folks to park on a residential street versus in a parking area. So we identified those areas and then identified the areas where we needed to restrict parking. And we got input and approval from police and NBISD. So Carly and I went out there with our police officers, kind of walked or visited the site and identified the areas for these parking restrictions. Next slide. Just real quick, Zip Road, three-lane section with the two-way left turn lane and right turn lanes with campus. This does have narrow shoulders. And then Klein Meadows, it's a two to four-lane section with turn lanes. This is a roadway with future traffic signals. And a key thing that this one also has home fronting, and I'll get to that here in a little bit for our consideration. Next one's Legend Pond, two-lane section with turn lanes at Klein Meadows. It also has narrow shoulders south of Klein Meadows, future traffic signal. And this is where we did an extensive traffic calming program earlier this year and got that in place to address some of the cut-through traffic that was going through there. And again, there's homes fronting north of Klein Meadows, and there's also a cluster mailbox. So those are the considerations that we took into account when we proposed with this parking restrictions. Next slide, please. So for parking restrictions itself, and I'll have a graphic that shows all this, Zip Road restrict parking on both sides, Klein Meadows restrict parking on both sides, except between Klein Road and Legend Pond Elementary School where homes front. Again, we wanted to maintain resident parking and not restrict that parking there. Ledge and pond, restrict parking on both sides of the road from London Avenue to Klein Meadows, and then restrict parking on the east side between Klein Meadows and the cluster mailbox. Again, we wanted to maintain resident parking, but also provide a loading zone for the mailbox, that way people can come in and out. And this kind of really is in line with the pavement markings that are out there and the traffic calming that's out there as well. Next slide, please. So overall, you see the no parking restrictions that is highlighted in red. So again, most of Klein Meadows, other than the areas where the homes are fronting to maintain that residential parking, Zip Road, that's right adjacent to the site. We wanna make sure that's clear for any emergency operations, for when the visitor buses come in, visitor teams come in, and any other support that the high school stadium needs as well. And then you see on segments of ledge and pond. So again, what we wanted to do is make sure that these intersections are clear, parked vehicles, that way it's safe to maneuver. Same thing for pedestrians. There's a lot of pedestrian activity, so we wanna make sure that there's plenty of light on site for pedestrians at these two intersections. And then you see that little sliver of green, that's the loading zone. That's where the cluster mailbox is at. And then again, that allows the residents to pull in, get their mail, and then get out. So as far as implementation, the parking restrictions were installed before the first home game, which was last Friday. Working with Chief Flores, we received a temporary traffic authorization that's allowed by our code, so that's good for 90 days. So we went ahead and got that in place knowing the timeline and that we wrapped up the overall traffic plan a few weeks before the actual first game. So now we're taking this for a permanent ordinance. So we do recommend approval of the parking restrictions and our Transportation Traffic Advisory Board unanimously recommended approval again here last month. So with that, I'll take any questions and I'll go back to the map just in case you all have any questions. But again, I'm gonna reiterate our partnership with the school district, with the police department, and with their SROs. Having a traffic plan in itself is a great thing, and we're actually looking to model that for the Unicorn Stadium as well. So we don't actually have a formal plan, but again, this is a good way for us to kind of address those issues right up front and have a documented plan, and then the following parking restrictions. Council Member Sparely.

Thank you very much for the presentation, sir. So I'm just curious, what is the SRO's responsibility? And we have a SRO at this high school? Right. Okay, and I know we have rovers that go from place to place, but what is their responsibilities as far as it goes to traffic

So they actually help and they work with the school district during events. So they have the team that comes out during events to have officers at key locations during events. So that way they're managing traffic versus our police department's managing traffic.

But they don't do traffic enforcement during the normal...

The SROs do not, but again, having that relationship with our police department, so if there's a vehicle that's parked that needs to be moved, then they can call them up and then get that in place. Again, a big part of that is really having that communication line open for the SROs and then for our police department. The other thing I want to mention, too, is that what we plan to do is a debrief. So over the next couple of weeks, we'll be reaching out to the team, saying what went well, did we see any issues, and then how do we move forward and make an adjustment to anything on the plan or even the parking restrictions itself. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Schell.

Thank you for getting ahead of this. I think if I recall correctly, meetings passed, we've been going back and adding these kinds of things to projects and neighborhoods and kind of doing retrospect. So I really appreciate, as a city, we get ahead of this. So it's being put in place as we're building. So we don't have to retro react. So I really appreciate you being proactive. Thank you.

Council Member Edwards.

I think it's a good plan put together. I think we have some issues that we need to address in our policy and ordinances. School districts more and more are having a direct impact on our roadways and so on. Comal Independent with Highway 46, Oak Run, Veramendi, where we're getting backups. When we calculate parking and the need for traffic, We have to look at what is anticipated as the number of parents waiting in line to take their students. We've got, you know, as... The pollution issue moves toward us out of San Antonio. Idling vehicles that sit there long term, this is all a contributing factor. So I think we need to have some foresight that on new school construction, how much additional parking lot do they have to have to get those waiting parents off our street so that we can work under the traffic pattern. Or what are the school districts gonna have to do to adjust or compensate to help us with traffic control and or lights? Because we can't take their whole burden. I mean, we would do it to a developer. So we have to look the same way as the schools because they create high impact traffic at specific hours. So just a note.

Yep.

And thank you for that. We've actually been updating our ordinance and working with the school districts, both Comal ISD and MBSD, for them to do that. For example, that's why I mentioned that this school is actually putting in two new traffic signals. And those are fairly expensive, but they're doing that to address the impact of the school. So again, same thing for school zone flashers and things. They've been picking up over the last few years to address some of those early on in the planning stage.

Council Member Lebowski.

Yes, and thank you for your presentation. And yes, he took the words right out of my mouth on the schools and parent pickup. I do my grandma duty every day from 3.30 to 4.30. And I go from Oak Run, Carl Schurz, to Kenyon High School. And at Oak Run, you have cars waiting from Oak Run all the way to Randolph Brooks. The worst one is Kenyon High School, both 1102 and the access road of 35. The access road of 35, it goes all the way to, no, it's past Home Depot, that hamburger place, P. Terry's. Yes. And parents are picking up kids at the Buffalo Wing Place. And I mean, it's, I'm surprised there's no recs. And I've also tried it on 1102. For new schools that are coming in and building, we really need to work with them and have them give us their, you know, what is their plan on the pickup? Because pickup and drop off, it's awful. And I'm there to witness it because I'm doing this every day.

On her coattails, you live over there somewhere, right? You mind telling us what you've seen? Have you seen that?

I can't wait. Yes, it is in my district. I'll tell you another area that it's, Settlers Crossing, where the middle school's at, is another one that's very congested when it's pickup time. Cars are outstaged on the roads too, so to kind of piggyback on what the other council members have been saying without using a lot of words, I do support making sure that we're doing exactly what you said we're doing, is working with the school districts to get in front of this and have something codified where we, you know, there's a plan that, they have to think this through, develop it a little bit more than they have been with these new schools coming online. But yeah, that is in my district. I know it's very congested over there. So glad that y'all are getting ahead of this, jumping on it. And I did have one question though. So where's the funding coming from? I know you said we're partnering with the school district. Are they the ones funding, or are we funding part of it? Is it a joint effort?

It's a joint effort. So what we did is we went ahead and funded the signing install, because that's something that we can control a lot better regarding the timing of it, and also kind of the signs, the signposts, things like that. So again, the timing of it was really why we picked that up, because typically we would work with the school district to fund that. But again, like I said, they're funding a lot of the other major improvements, you know, in excess of a million dollar improvements where we're picking up a portion of it. But the cost associated with that, due to the timing and us getting that in place quickly, we picked that up through our department.

Okay, and so you said on the temporary parking restrictions, did we install signs also for those temporary parking restrictions already?

Right, yes. Okay, all right. Yeah, we got ahead of that before the first game.

Okay, and if you would take a look at that, the middle school over there by Settlers Crossing, that's a,

Yeah, schools are our biggest traffic challenge during that 45 minute peak period, yeah.

For sure. Thank you, good job. Thank you. Thank you, Carly. Council Member Carter, did you have something you wanted to say? All right, we'll open this up to public comment. Seeing no one.

Motion for approval. I second.

I believe this is a show of hands. All those in favor, raise your right hand. All right, motion carries. That takes us to item, well, I had a request for a 10-minute recess, if everybody's okay with that. We'll take a quick 10-minute recess. So we'll be back at 9.05. Getting back to order.

Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi, if you don't mind, I would like us to consider moving item J for the next item because the MBU staff's been sitting here the whole entire time. There's no need to keep them waiting.

Council, does anybody have any objection to moving item J up?

Provided they're ready to go.

Mr. Kelso, are you ready to go? All right. So we'll move on to item J. and then we'll come back to H and I. So discuss and consider a resolution authorizing acquisition by use of the power of eminent domain of a 0.7402 acre permanent utility easement out of the AM, as is our survey, abstract 98, Comel County, Texas, being all of lot eight, block four, resubdivision of Villa Rio, According to the flat of record in volume 129, page 312 of the deed records of Comal County, Texas, located at 470 Rio Drive, New Braunfels, Texas, 78130, assigned Comal appraisal district property ID 67480, owned by the Via Rio Subdivision Recreation Committee, operated by the Spanish colony. Property Owners Association, DBA, Villarreal Subdivision Recreation Committee, which is necessary to advance and achieve the public use of expanding and improving the New Braunfels Utilities sewer system to meet existing and future needs and ensure reliability. Mr. Habe.

Council members, I'm Mike Short, Director of Engineering at MBU. I have Bruce Haby here. He's our Real Estate Manager at MBU. And tonight we'll be talking about the eminent domain, enacting that for a resolution to move forward with acquiring easements for this project. The project is, first we'll go through public use and necessity of the project, the project timeline. Bruce will talk about the offer, condemnation overview, the legal requirements. projected condemnation timeline, and staff recommendations. The project is essentially to replace an existing bar screen, we call it the Rio Bar Screen, currently conveying flows from the North Keeler Interceptor and the IH35 Interceptor project to the Rio lift station. The project will provide needed improvements to improve flow conditions on existing infrastructure, and it'll provide flexibility in the depth of the Rio Bar screen. Currently, we need to lower that Rio Bar screen so that we can affect the I-835 interceptor project. In addition to that project, we'll be including odor control on it to eliminate some of the smells from that area. And so we certainly have determined that this project is needed for the public benefit. The design, the project is currently under design right now. We're soon to complete that design. We'll move forward with procurement of that project. The construction will take about 18 months. Our notice to proceed will be in 2027, on June 2 of 2027. And then we anticipate completion to be done in December of 2028. And again, this project will be done concurrently with our IH35 project. Bruce will now talk about the offers that we have made on the project. Bruce?

Let's see here. Mayor Perkins, city council members, thank you for moving us up on the agenda. I appreciate that. Again, our offer summary for the Spanish County POA, as you can see on this map, this outlined in red is the development. And so all those people that live within that area can access the river. This is the lot that they can, gives them recreational use. and access to the river. And so we have a significant amount of infrastructure on this property. We've placed on this property since the 1960s and unfortunately we never documented that and that's what we're here to fix. And so there's a significant difference in what our consultant feels is the value of the property and what the POA feels is the value of the property. a lot of it has to do with the deed restrictions on this lot that it can only be used for residential purposes and so our initial offer was thirteen thousand one hundred dollars and eventually after some of the design was completed and we realized that we were going to have to fence off a small portion of the northern section of the property to fit the bar screen structure and odor control facility. We gave that information to our appraiser and he raised the offer to $32,500. Unfortunately, the POA feels like their offer was 10 times more than that. And they went to 160, and then they felt that we still didn't provide them with the things they wanted, and then they went to 260. And so we're at 32,000, they're at 260, and so we're way far apart. And also, the last correspondence we received from their attorneys was they rescinded all their offers, and they're no longer willing to negotiate with us. And so basically we're at a point right now, we need to proceed with this process. And so this is the eminent domain process that we kind of gave, that where the modified offer, which is our initial offer, and the final offer has all been completed, that we've gone through this briefing stage with our MBU board and with you at the city council meeting a few weeks back, or maybe a month back, And now we're in that approval phase right now. We'd recommend that you approve the resolution that we provided you authorizing the eminent domain. And then, of course, the condemnation phase after that, where a petition is filed, and then each party can object to the value of the award, and they can go to court. And either a judge or a jury can determine it, or they can settle with the award that the commissioners come up with. That's the judicial phase. But right now, we're in the approval phase where we're recommending a resolution authorizing the power of Interval Lane because the power comes from the city. It's not MBU's. We don't have that authority. And so here, again, we've met the legal requirements. Our initial offer letter was provided many, many months ago. Our final offer letter was sent on January 6th, which far exceeds the 14 days needed for the filing of the petition. And then here's this project timeline, condemnation timeline. June 25th, we briefed our board, the MBU board. On July 27th, we briefed you guys at the city council. On the 27th, we obtained approval from our board recommending that we go through this process. And we're here today to seek the authorization. And then if we obtain that, and then the next steps are filing the petition, having a commissioner's hearing, and then payment of the award or any other litigation that the landowners want to take place. And so our staff recommendation, of course, is to approve the resolution authorizing the power amendment domain. And if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer.

Council Member Shaw.

So for clarification, just for the public's knowledge, when you do eminent domain for this project, they'll still have access to that land. You're just gonna refine the structure that's there and upgrade that sewage lift, correct?

That's correct. As a matter of fact, we've had infrastructure on this property for almost 60 years, and we've worked with the HOA. We never documented it, and that's why we're here today. Right. But I'm not going to say that during the construction phase, when we're constructing the new bar screen, there's going to be a few months where they're not going to have access. because it's just going to be too dangerous during the construction activities. But after all this is finished, it's going to go back to the way it was. They'll be able to access the river, use the little boat ramp. None of that's going to change.

With far less smell.

Yes.

I live right over there, so I can attest to the smell.

Yes. If you talk to some of the landowners in this area, they're going to tell you about the smell. And that's what we want to do. And it's interesting that they're slowing this process down because we asked them to sign a possession use agreement and they rejected that. And it's like Mike said, some of the permitting, we're not able to acquire some of the permitting because we don't have the land rights. Right. And that's why we're here today.

Can you go back to that slide for the process, just for the public's awareness? We approved this today. That doesn't mean it's automatically complete. It still has to go through the judicial phase.

The condemnation phase, which is the filing of the petition, is the next step. Our attorneys will follow that. And then the court, the district court, appoints the special commissioners. and you have the ability, they appoint five commissioners, and you have the ability to kick two out, and so you'll have three, and then from the three commissioners, they'll have a hearing. They'll establish the hearing probably in a few more weeks after that, and then each commissioner, and then, well, you have the commissioners, they determine, they get our side, And then the landowner can present their case of value. And then what comes from the commissioner's hearing is the award, which is the value that the commissioners feel is the value of the property rights plus the damage to the remainder.

Okay, I just wanna make it really clear, because eminent domain is a very scary thing to a lot of people. It's approved and you're just gonna have your land taken away from you with no voice. I just wanna make it clear that there's still this process and the landowner will still have that chance to have their voice heard through that judicial phase.

Yeah, and if the landlord doesn't feel that the ward gave them just compensation, they can go to the judge and protest it.

Okay, I just want to make that clear for the public because it's a scary term. So thank you for clearing that up. Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, we've exercised all due diligence up to this date. You know, it starts with negotiation. It goes back and forth. When that doesn't work, then you take it to the hearing between the commissioners. If they don't like it after the commissioners' hearing and don't agree with what the settlement issued, then that can go to the final process with the judicial side. So, I mean, we've been very diligent all the way down to get this accomplished. So there's been a protection of personal property rights at the same time. We're not being held up to try to get us to overpay for something and waste the citizens' money on something that shouldn't be worth it.

Council Member Lebowski.

My only question is, is when you start the process and you start working in that area, will you be notifying the neighborhood and the neighbors that, you know, that, you will be working in that area and will you work with them on traffic and stuff?

Oh yeah, I'm sure we could do that. Yeah, we certainly will do that.

Okay.

Council Member Spradley.

Yep, thank you for the presentation. Do you mind going to the slide where it shows the neighborhood? Oh. I guess where the smells are coming from.

Yeah, what I wanted to show was, you know, it's all those other homes that don't have the river frontage which benefit from this lot.

So the eminent domain's not taking the entire yellow block, correct?

Yes, it is.

The whole thing, okay.

The whole thing, all 32,000 square feet. Okay. We have infrastructure.

But it's not gonna be fenced off or anything like that. And so my other question is, when y'all start the construction, what time of the year do y'all anticipate that to happen? The winter would be the best because I'm pretty sure the residents there would be during the summer, right? So. And you work with her to schedule or work that out between them? It's yours? It's her district, and you can smell it?

Yeah, it's across the river, right? My other question is not only the timing of the year, but also the timing of the day, because a lot of people complain about night work.

Oh, yeah, I know.

It would definitely be a day project, but we are scheduled to start construction of June of 2027. So it would be... Sir, please step up to the mic.

Speak in the mic, please. Thank you.

It would start work June of 2027. And then it's 18 months. 18 months. 18 months? Yes.

Wow. Remind me... Remind me, when we looked at it before, that really we're kind of cleaning the lines up and the layout of the utilities, where before we were really cutting across in another location, right? I mean, there was some realignment involved in this. Isn't that correct?

an interceptor that comes to the RioLift station that we're cleaning that line up. We're resizing that line, rehabbing that line. And on site, we are certainly cleaning up the easement issues that we've always had on that property. Right. Yes.

Yeah, so this is kind of a cleanup too. And then after it's done, they still have the use of the surface except for the restricted area.

That's correct. Of just the bar screen area itself. Right, right.

So it's not a complete taking. It's just us getting to where we need to be with some restricted covenants on what they can do on the surface. That's correct.

So that's a year and a half. Will y'all be working with the residents in that area, especially with river access? Because that's a long time.

Yeah, the duration of the Rio list station itself, that bar screen, it'll be relatively quick. However, we have that interceptor line that we have to take to the site as well. So that entire duration will be about 18 months.

Whew.

Okay.

I mean, some of the discussions that we've had about those 18 months, maybe seven months of those would have me total restriction. And then once constructions after maybe eight or nine months, maybe we could allow some access to the river. I mean, we're still open to these concepts that we're looking into. Okay. And this is going to be discussed at the commissioner's hearing as a damage to the remainder. I'm sure the lenders are going to bring this up.

I think it would be thoughtful if we push the project back at least until the beginning of the school year rather than the middle of summer. That's just my thought. I don't live there, but if I did, I'd want access to the river during the summer for sure. But if you push it back till, when does school start? Someone that has. August. August, yeah. August, just a thought.

And that June is just an estimate date for notice to proceed. It could change.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. I think if you pushed it towards the beginning of the school year, it would really work because you're talking about nine months that you mentioned that you would be working hard on that one. And that's during school time. And that would go all the way through either February or March. And you mentioned, you would not have the neighborhood as mad at you.

The issue with this particular project, though, is that interceptor line upstream has to tie to this project, and there's some timing restrictions on that one as well. There's some businesses in the hotel that we don't wanna impact them as well. So we will see how we can slide this project to make everyone.

Shutdowns and service interruptions that you gotta consider and whatnot, right? Yes, yes. And with, I mean, with an 18-month project, kind of doesn't really matter where you started at. At some point, you're going to be interrupting somebody's play time somewhere along the line.

Yeah, we will try to find that optimum spot where we're not upsetting a large number of folks.

Like Mike has said, the I-35 interceptor pipeline going up the river, that's another six to nine more months of construction. And everybody's wanted us to work during the winter months. But we got to get the bar screen first. And that's going to take 18 months. And so we're not going to be, you know, it can't all be done during the winter.

We got to get past the eminent domain part of it first though, right?

Yeah.

All right, any other questions or comments on council? All right, we'll open this up to public comment. Seeing no one, we'll entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second it.

I believe this is a show of hands, Ms. Wilkinson. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll go back to item H. Presentation and discussion of phase one of the curb management study. Mr. Ford.

Get the presentation going. Yeah, we wanna provide an update on curb management phase one. And first of all, what is curb management? And it's allocating on-street and off-street curb use efficiently and safely amongst many uses and actually amongst many requests. Examples of curb uses include multimodal transportation from travel lanes, turn lanes, sidewalks, it's actually bike lanes in some cases, parking, both managed, free, permit parking, Commercial loading and delivery, that may be longer term in the morning or maybe quick, like Uber Eats or something like that. Bus and specialty parking, passenger pickup and drop off, Uber, Lyft, Ride to Rio, special events, primarily in downtown when we do full closures, commercial access and use, and then streetscape and sidewalk amenities. So in some cases, businesses may wanna use that curb space for specific uses and may be allowed to do that. So what is the plan for? Really, it's to guide the guidance on management curbspace, because it covers really just about every department in the city, from TCS to economic community development, parks, public works, solid waste, so on. So again, and with any request, we're balancing those requests among many departments. So really, hopefully this will lead to a little bit more efficient management of that. The other thing too is establish our current curb usage. What do we have out there? set a baseline, and then what are the opportunities for the curb uses as well, and then relying really on national best practices. Some cities have gone through this before, so they've gone through this. How did they have this set up? What are some of the lessons learned? So right now, the study started in April, and it's through spring of 2027, and I'll be presenting phase one, and the next item is funding for phase two. So the current area that is primarily in the downtown core bordered by the Comal River and the downtown, and then really identified some curb spaces. Really, they don't have to be marked, but really a defined area. So we have over 1,400 curb spaces. 41% of them are parking by permit. Then free parking, 552, managed parking, a few water recreation loading zones, and then some loading spaces itself. So again, you have all those mixed into this core area. Regarding off-street parking, that's a big component as well. What off-street parking opportunities do we have? So we have collected a number of ones, over 3,000, 3,100 off-street parking spaces. Most of them are private parking, so there's no public parking, followed by free parking, free time limited, private paid parking, and then employee parking spaces. So again, identifying those areas in the study area itself. So what we did is really collected some baseline data on usage. So again, just a snapshot of time, June 11th through 13th, Thursday through Saturday, we did some drone flights in an area just to identify really the peak times and then also the average length of stay. The average length of stay for on-street was just a little under two hours, whereas off-street was about two and a half hours. And then the peaks that we saw during this time period, on-street was actually around 8 p.m. on June 13th on a Saturday night, and then off-street a little bit earlier, 6 p.m. So Saturday evening was the highest usage. And then you kind of see here kind of a heat map with the utilization. So red means that's where it's mostly utilized, and then green goes to utilization is a little bit low. So again, this sets the baseline so we know kind of what we're dealing with and what the opportunities are to balance the needs for parking, but also the other uses and other requests as well. As part of that, definitely public outreach is a big part of that, so we had a survey go out, we made presentations to the downtown board, downtown association to get their input, and a number of feedback themes that we received is that we really need to standardize the curb use process. That's kind of part of the reason why we're doing this study, it's because typically they'll call Mandy, or they'll call somebody else, where did we start, and then we're kind of trying to manage that, or it's an engineering matter, Carly and her team's reviewing it. So again, we want to make sure that there's a clear uniform process. And then there's also a strong desire for what you call special event parking. So if Wine and Sanger Fest or Sanger Fest is coming up or Walsall Fest or the Spooktackler, actually how do we kind of really kind of more efficiently manage that and get folks in and out? Another feedback was wayfinding between free areas, public parking areas and private lots. How do we be more consistent on that without not doing too much sign clutter in the downtown area? And then managed parking is great, but I think we know that we need to maybe improve some of the communications as well from where the free public options are versus the managed parking and the pricing and so forth. And then curbside loading zones, again, is it something that we manage in the morning? Is it something that we allow a certain time of day? And then how do we manage the Uber, Lyft, Rio in certain areas? So again, also one of the questions in the public feedback is what are the opportunities for the curb usage? So you see outdoor dining was a big part from the survey folks, in addition to passenger loading. So again, a lot of that's curb to curb. So there's a lot of passenger loading at various times. So is there one spot where we do passenger loading for rideshare or for transit? And you can see all the way that down to EV charging stations was one of the comments. So the next step is phase two. So we have the baseline data, have some general feedback. So really is looking at the curb capacity. What are the opportunities? Have some recommended priority programs and policies. Again, public outreach is a big component of that. And then organization improvements. We'll take that information in and then we'll work the different departments to see, okay, ideally it's a centralized process, centralized location where requests come in and we manage the curb usage as well. And then once we get the curb management study done, we'll take it for a formal adoption. So that was pretty quick, but I'll be able to answer any questions. And also Elizabeth DuPont's here, our transportation planner, who's been leading, helping leading this effort as well.

Mr. Ford, thank you very much for the presentation. I think this is going in the right direction. But recently there's been a lot of discussion concerns about parking buses. And our current ordinance says no bus parking whatsoever. So if we're going through this, how do we remove that ordinance?

That's a prime example, because if those requests come in, then we need to identify, hey, we have an older ordinance we have to update, but also where's the ideal location for that bus parking, and then making sure we clearly communicate that this is allowed in a certain area, and especially where that area, we don't know. So again, those are prime examples of why we wanna do this study to identify that need, which we don't have an ordinance, our ordinance is outdated to address that.

So the ordinance by this virtue would be superseded?

That's gonna come back into the recommended programs and policies that it says, hey, y'all need to update y'all's ordinance here. One example too is the parking by permit, right? So a lot of that has been more convenience or we have identified that to update that more on a more of a priority or a certain criteria level versus it just being somebody not wanting parking. So those are the items that we need to identify. So after the study's done, we'll have a number of ordinance for us to come back in and revise. based on council's feedback.

Okay, and also I'd like to mention that if we're gonna move forward with temporary bus parking or large vehicle parking of whatever the source is, that it shouldn't be free, right? And it shouldn't be, how much does it cost to park a day downtown? $10? Maximum of $10. Yeah, a bus should not be paying $10.

Right, so again, that's the program.

I think we need to assess the value of that. And I have an idea for the free parking. So you go downtown and you scan the sign to say, hey, I'm gonna park here, and you put in your information. If there was some kind of a notification on that system that says, would you like to park for free? And then it gives you a direction to go somewhere for free, maybe, right? Because right now there is no, I mean, I know where to park for free, but if someone's just visiting, they probably don't know where to park for free. Just a thought. I don't know if we can do that.

Yeah, that's definitely some of the feedback we received is to actually have a better experience to identify, yeah, here's your free spot if you wanna go maybe a few places away or a parking lot. So that's something that's been identified and then we'll be working on.

And then lastly would be the ADA parking. I know we're, is this gonna be encompassed in this as also?

It is, because there are some requirements now with some new regulations to provide, you know, accessible parking in the public right-of-way, and that's something that we should provide anyways. Okay.

Thank you very much. Mr. Ford, if I could add to that really quickly. Our project on San Antonio Street starts this evening, and we're adding, I believe, three ADA accessible spots with that project on street.

My concern on the bus, now I do have concerns on the bus parking downtown because of the fact that as we speak now, I believe they're changing parking downtown to diagonal in one side of San Antonio. Am I correct on that?

No, we're keeping, for the updated parking that we're doing on San Antonio, due to the railroad operations, we're keeping the same parallel parking and the same number of travel lanes. But what we're doing is adding that buffer for people when they park parallel, for them to have a little bit more space to open up their door, get out and get around, versus right now it's up against traffic. So again, yeah, so that's the plan. So we... Yeah, we've abandoned, I think we provided an update to council, but we've abandoned the angle parking just because of the impact of the railroad operations.

Fabulous, okay, that was a concern. I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, same thing. But also with him, with Spradley, I do agree that we should not be charging $10 for buses for the event parking. And I believe it also should be a limited time, like not, not once a month, like I think it should be like maybe once every two months or once quarterly, but because of the fact that we've got more than one business that has bands that play downtown. And if we had every business that had a bus parking downtown, there would be no parking for our residents or our guests.

Right. Yeah, and again, that goes back to the competing needs of the curb space.

Yes. Thank you. Good presentation. Thank you. Thank you.

In other cities, they don't make accommodations for those buses in their parking system. They have to go off-site or they have to go to private lot. They drop off their vans or crews. Now, in some cases, hotels, we will have... bus parking because of either tour bus or whatever. And a lot of times we're located near a civic center or bar. But I can tell you there's a lot of cities that don't make accommodations for entertainment buses.

But there are cities that do. But there are cities that do. There are cities that do and there are cities in between. Right. He already mentioned that there are cities that's already been through this process. And I've been to cities where tour bus is parked right outside a venue. Awesome.

Yeah, you know, they have a unloading zone and then they go two, three blocks to put the bus where they are. I mean, a lot of tours have been done.

A lot of cities also do have blood donor buses that do park downtown and breast awareness, you know, to check your breast for breast cancer. But, I mean, I just, you know, I know that they park downtown also.

Yeah. One of the things that's been a critical issue is trash collection. It's twofold, it's not just whether or not we use centralized, which would be the preference per block or per area, but that means acquisition of an area to do and a way to get transportation. But I think we have to look at the LDO or some where as we begin to redo downtown or older structures, We may have to look more like big cities, New York, Chicago, whatever, where if I take one of the buildings downtown and I renovate it, I have to look at making an indention or a setback or something inside that building to contain my trash inside my property because my property line a lot of time doesn't extend to the parking or the alley behind me. So we really have to look at it twofold. I think one of the problems we had with one of the developments down there is that there just wasn't a method for us to accommodate it. And so we really have to look at design factor both from a city standpoint, but a design factor with the building.

I agree with you 100%. We are continuing to look at solid waste solutions in downtown, both leasing spaces for shared dumpster use working with downtown businesses. And we've even looked at some, some other options that could be long term solutions.

Well, it goes along with what we talked about using central parking areas. You know, in Savannah and in Charleston, they cannibalized the backs of the businesses, like the ones on Seguin to Comel. And so the property owners would give us the property, and then we would install the parking lot and the lighting, which helped their business because they had direct parking, but it helped the off-streets. while the trash could be put in there because it was under our control. But here we don't have that agreement. One of the problems to get in lease is getting a landowner to grease the leases space for a dumpster.

Yep, that's been our list to evaluate. And there could be some spinoff programs and policies. Once we complete the studies, you know, okay, yeah, we need to do more research on that or kind of have that long term plan.

All right, anything else? Open this for public comment. I will open this for public comment. All right, seeing no one. All right, thank you, Gary. Then we'll move on to item I. discuss and consider approval of a contract modification with Kimley Horn and Associates for phase two of the curb management study.

Right, and this is really to move forward with the curb capacity, another round of public outreach, come up with those recommended programs and policies, and then some organizational improvements. So again, phase two is 68,000. We'll plan to kick that off as soon as the approval and carry that on through next year. And I have a project schedule real quick. So again, kick that off here later this month, have analysis this fall, another round of public outreach, and then have a final draft report for council presentation and approval in the spring of next year. And again, we do have Kim Lee Horn as one of our consultants and nationwide expert in curb management that's going through some of the nationwide best practices.

That's it. Any comments from Council Member Shaw?

I'm going to assume the $140,000 was factored into this current budget that we've already been talking about.

That portion is in the rest of our budget this year, yes. So that's continuing our current fiscal year budget that's carrying on through the next fiscal year. Thank you. Yeah.

Any other comments or questions from council? We'll open this up to public comment. Seeing no one.

Motion to approve. And I second.

All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. And we will now move to 3A, Presentations. Presentation and Discussion on the City of New Braunfels Roadway Impact Fee Study, Land Use Assumptions and Impact Fee Capital Improvement Plan. Ms. Faust and Mr. Kelly.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi and Council. Thank you for having us here tonight to talk to you more about the roadway impact fee program. We're here tonight to continue the 2026 roadway impact fee study adoption and update process, much like the budget process that you've been going through. There's a series of steps that we must follow in order to continue charging roadway impact fees. You heard a little bit about it earlier tonight when we talked about the roadway impact fee audit, which is a requirement for us to continue the program. We came to you on August 17th and did a presentation that talked about the roadway impact fee program. And we're here tonight to talk a little bit further about the maximum assessable fee, the land use assumptions, and the capital improvement plan. One of our residents alluded earlier to the fact that we have a roadway impact fee advisory committee that's also meeting. Those two things are happening concurrently because they will give you a formal recommendation later in October for what they believe you should do, but ultimately this council is responsible for making the decision about what those maximum fees and the study are and also the collected fees that we will decide to move forward with after the study is adopted. everything that we've done to date and everything we'll do through the roadway impact fee adoption process is very public and very transparent we have a website newbronfels.gov rif all of the presentations to the impact fee advisory committee and to you all will be made public there along with the study and the audit that we talked about earlier this evening But in order to further that discussion and make sure that you all have the background information that you need to make that decision later in October, we do have our consultant Pete Kelly with Kim Lee Horn here tonight. He's going to give you a presentation that gives you some further background into the program and then we'll meet again later this month to talk about the potential collected fees and then in October and November to take action on the study and on the adoption of those fees. So I'd like to introduce you to Pete Kelly and he'll give you that presentation.

Thank you, Bernadette. Pete Kelly with Kimley Horne. I'll jump into the presentation here. In our last meeting, we talked mostly about what impact fees are, eligible costs for those, and some of the finer points of the state law that governs impact fees, which is from Texas Local Government Code Chapter 395. We'll do a brief recap of that tonight and then spend most of our time talking about the elements of the roadway impact fee study. Every element that we talk about tonight will be covered in greater detail in the draft report that's available online. So tonight will just be a brief summary of some of those things to explain how those calculations are performed. And then I'll talk about the next steps. As part of the review of our discussion from last time, impact fees are a one-time fee for new development, so they're not a recurring fee and they're not for residents to pay. They're a mechanism for the city to recover infrastructure costs required to serve future development, and they're a legal way to collect a flexible fee for infrastructure. There are certain things that can be paid for with impact fees and things that cannot be paid for through the impact fee program. Primarily the items that can be paid for through the impact fee program consist of the construction of the cost of capital improvement projects. meaning impact fee program capital improvement projects, and the costs that are associated with that, such as survey and engineering fees, land acquisition costs, debt service to fund those projects, and also the planning studies, including the cost of the impact fee study itself. Essentially, the main things that cannot be funded with impact fees are projects that are not on a CIP, repair operation and maintenance of existing facilities, upgrades to serve existing development, and administrative cost of operating the impact fee program. So that covers our recap of some of the discussion we had last time. We're gonna dive into the elements of the roadway impact fee study and talk about those one at a time and get to the maximum accessible fee at the end of the presentation. The main elements of the roadway impact fee study consist of establishing service areas, projecting land use assumptions, calculating service units, the capital improvement plans, and ultimately the maximum fee. And again, all these elements are within the draft study that's online. The first step is to establish service area boundaries. As another refresher, Chapter 395 requires for roadway impact fees to be administered within the corporate limits of a municipality, so within the city limits only, and within an area no larger than six miles. And so that, since the inception of impact fees in New Braunfels, that's required multiple service areas, in this case, six service areas. And these service area boundaries do change from time to time as property is annexed into and out of the city limits. But largely the property, excuse me, the service area boundaries have remained the same from the previous study. So we have six service areas. With the service areas established within each service area, we're required to do land use assumptions and an individual capital improvement plan for each service area. The land use assumptions is the first thing I'll talk about. So land use assumptions establish the growth to determine what infrastructure is needed to serve that growth over the next 10 years. So that 10 year horizon is one of the requirements of state laws. We don't look past 10 years. As far as how we establish those land use assumptions, we look at the projections for population and for employment during that 10 year time period. So that establishes the rate which new infrastructure is required to be built. The way that we put together the land use assumptions, it's based on input from city staff. historical growth projections and known development. But I wanna emphasize the primary data source we used for the land use assumptions for the roadway pack fee study was known development. So projects that have a concept plan or are in the process of developing at the moment where we have the most readily identifiable information served as the primary source of our land use assumptions. This map was the starting point of identifying and calculating our land use assumptions within each service area. As you can see in the legend, the red parcels are parcels that were marked as undeveloped or candidates for being developed, redeveloped into a future use. And the blue parcels were marked as developed. In other words, parcels that are not being considered as candidates for future development for the purposes of these land use assumptions. The results of that exercise are shown in this table here, showing the growth within each service area over the next 10 years. I'll briefly talk about the categories of land uses you see in this table. So we've condensed the land use categories down into five simplified land use categories. Those consist of your residential and your non-residential uses. In the residential uses, we have single family dwelling units and multi-family dwelling units. And in non-residential, we have basic service and retail square footage. For those uses, we use square footage as that is the primary variable used to calculate demand when we get to that step. So basic includes primarily industrial uses, but can also include agricultural uses. Think larger buildings, but fewer trips per thousand square feet. In the sort of intermediate category, we have service, and service encompasses institutional and office uses primarily, where you have daytime workers showing up in the morning and leaving in the evening. And retail uses consist of retail, shopping, dining, and entertainment, essentially everything that's not covered by those other two land uses. So among these five categories throughout the city of New Braunfels, we projected just over 6,700 single family dwelling units over the next 10 years, just under 2,000 multifamily dwelling units over the next 10 years. And for the non-residential uses, 4.7 million, just under, excuse me, 4.8 million basic use, square feet of basic use, and just over one million square feet of service use, and just over 4.9 million square feet of retail use. With those projections calculated into dwelling units and into square footage, the next step required by state law in our process is to convert that into a standardized service unit. And as defined by state law, the service unit is the standardized measure of consumption attributable to an individual unit of development. In other words, if we look at the road network as a consumable and finite resource, we have to measure how much of that resources being consumed by the demand or the traffic being added by new development. And so the unit that we use is the vehicle mile and that's just a product of the trip rate per unit of development multiplied by the trip length. So we can't look at just raw trips, how many trips a development might generate. We need to look at how far those trips are gonna travel as well so we can understand how much capacity those trips are consuming on New Braunfels road network. So that's why we use the vehicle mile. This next slide explains a little bit how those vehicle miles are calculated for the demand. These are two example land uses. We have the single family home and also a shopping center. So at the top, remember I mentioned two variables that was trip rate and also trip length. For trip rate, we use a nationally recognized source, which is the Institute of Transportation Engineers Trip Generation Manual. which contains trip rates during the evening peak hour for a whole variety of land uses. In this case, for a single family home, that data shows that a single family home generates 0.93 trips per home in the evening peak hour. And we also look to another national data set, but has local data for Texas. to see how far those trips typically travel for a given use. And for a single family home, we got three miles per trip. And so multiplying those together, we get a demand of 2.79 vehicle miles per home. Looking at a non-residential example, we look at 1,000 square feet is the individual unit for non-residential uses. So we look at 1,000 square feet of a shopping center. We have our trip rate and our trip length similar to how we derived those for the single family home. And we can see that it's more than double the amount of vehicle miles for just 1,000 square feet of a shopping center. So the bigger that shopping center is, the more vehicle miles that's gonna generate in comparison to a single family home. So this is done for those five land use categories that we saw on the land use assumptions table to convert those into how many vehicle miles of demand are expected in each of the six service areas over the next 10 years. All right, that concludes the land use assumptions and service units elements of the study. We next look at, now that we know what kind of demand we're expecting over the next 10 years, what kind of infrastructure is needed to plan for that demand. And here I wanna make a short distinction. I've been using the term CIP often in this presentation. There's a difference between the impact fee CIP and the city's five-year CIP in that the city CIP is typically a program list of projects that is prioritized and there are set dollars often assigned to those. The impact fee CIP looks out 10 years and it is not a program list. It is a list of eligibility of whether or not, which projects can receive impact fee dollars when those are collected by the city. So I wanna make that distinction. We're talking about the impact fee CIP tonight. The impact fee CIP, based on state laws, required to be based on an adopted plan, and we use the adopted thoroughfare plan for that. And after we take a look at all the roads on the thoroughfare plan that are not yet built to their ultimate classification, we divide those into segments, and each segment is costed out based on the amount of design, construction, and other costs that are required to build out those road segments. We also categorize those projects into different categories depending on whether or not it's a entirely new road that needs to get built or whether or not it needs to be widened. We also have some access management projects included. We also have some projects that were previously funded or constructed but still have additional capacity to serve future growth and those are eligible to be included on the impact fee CAP. I'm gonna walk through quickly the impact fee CIP for each service area and highlight a few highlight projects and the cost of the overall CIP in each service area. So service area one, The total cost of the CIP is just over $34.5 million, and that includes 13 roadway projects. When I say projects, that's individual segments that may be multiple segments for one stretch of road, just the way they're measured out, and 10 intersection projects. So some of the notable projects in service area one include Hill Country Drive, or in other words, the FM 1863 extension to Veramendi. So that comprises projects 1H, 1I, and 1J. You'll see the dash Greenland on the map and also intersection improvements at intersection 1-1. See the intersections are green and gray boxes on the map. That's at State Highway 46 and FM 1863 for intersection improvements there. In service area two, we have 12 individual road segments that we costed out to a total of $55.6 million and also 10 intersection projects. Again, these are all projects that are adding capacity to be built out to the ultimate thoroughfare classification. Some of the notable projects in service area two include the widening of River Run Road, that's projects two A and two B, and also the intersection improvements at Fair Lane and Common Street. There's a realignment planned there, that's intersection two four. In service area three, we have 25 unique road segments, costed out to a total of over $132.8 million, and 15 intersection projects are included in that as well. Some of the other notable projects in service area three are Orion Drive, and also several segments that make up FM 1101. We also have two notable intersections in service area three. Also along, one along FM 1101 and Cowald Lane and then at the intersection of FM 306 and Hunter Road. If y'all have questions about any of these, I can look at the study and give you some more detail and information on any of these projects. In service area four, we have 19 roadway projects and two intersection projects, totaling a cost of $60.8 million in that service area. And some of the notable projects in service area four include the widening of Soames Road, 4C and 4D, and also Ron Road projects 4R and 4S on the map. In service area five, we identified 24 road segments and 11 intersection projects to receive improvements. Among those, some of the notable projects include the extension of the existing zip road in projects 5S and 5T, and also intersection improvements at Walnut Avenue, two along Walnut Avenue at North Park Ridge and also at Settlers Crossing. So those are projects 5A and 59. Let's see, oh, clicker, oh, there we go, okay. In service area six, we have 35 road segments and 12 intersections receiving improvements for a total CIP cost of just over $123 million. In service area six, a few of the notable projects include Singer Hall Road. There's three segments of Singer Hall Road that are notable. Six AB, AC, and AF. Those are all widening projects. And also the intersection of Singer Hall Road and Mary Boulevard. the intersection of State Highway, excuse me, State Highway 46 and Sanger Hall Road. Also along State Highway 46, the intersection at Alves Lane and the intersection of Lakefront Avenue and Frye Height Road. Okay, any questions on the CIP and how that was developed before we move on?

I just have one question. I think we might all be thinking the same thing. Why is this not aligned with city council districts?

I'd have to take a look at the districts and see how the sizing of those. But one of the reasons that the service areas are aligned the way that they are is to, there's advantages to having a balance of projects in each service area and also making sure each service area is no larger than six miles. The service area boundaries were established over 10 years ago and our goal was to maintain consistency with the previous study so that the impact fee program, the administration keeping the funds in the same accounts makes it easier to administer moving forward.

Might be interesting to look at what these costs would be if it was aligned with city council districts. I don't know, just a thought.

Are mostly based off like land area, is that true? Primarily based off of land area? Yeah, we look at often- Whereas I think council districts are based off of population. Right. So they would never truly align then, is that pretty true?

can provide a little bit of context since i've been involved in this for quite some time but yeah you're exactly right the six districts are based on land area really with 35 is the dividing point and then you have three primary areas um you know north of 35 or west of 35 and then three on east of 35 but the key component of it is that six mile maximum distance and be able to maintain that whereas It's a little bit challenging on the council districts kind of snake in and out or adjacent and not may necessarily meet the six mile distance. So again, we've had this, we made one adjustment after the first year, but over the last three updates, the last 15 years, they've been pretty consistent.

It probably would never align, I mean, truthfully, with that six-mile area you're talking about and then with the population requirements for these districts.

Good explanation. And we're a political district, and this is a geographical district. Our districts can be changed, but for the purpose of the impact fee, you want that area to be stable. So we can be realigned, which we've done a couple of times in the last 20 years.

There's actually nothing that aligns with City Council District. Police, fire, nothing. Anyway, thank you.

I'll move forward to the maximum assessable fee. So there's a lot of steps that go into calculating the maximum fee and that's in the maximum assessable fee table in the draft report. But we wanted to highlight that the main calculation that happens to arrive at the maximum assessable fee is the division of the cost of the impact fee CIP needed to serve growth divided by the growth in new service units over the next 10 years. So that's the main thing it comes down to. There is a financial credit calculation that was performed to determine the impact of ad valorem taxes and remove those out. So that's one of the steps that's required by state law. That's documented in the study. We'll show how that impacts one of the example service areas in the next couple of slides. We also wanna emphasize that with the maximum accessible fee, that is the ceiling at which council can choose to collect impact fees moving forward. Council may set at your discretion a rate lower than the maximum fee for impact fee collection. With that being said, I wanna walk through, this is a condensed version of that maximum accessible fee table. So there are some lines that provide a little bit more detail, maybe in between some of these lines showing the calculations, but this is kind of the highlights that I wanted to walk through. So this is service area one as an example, showing how these calculations are done. We start out with a total cost of the impact fee CIP at just under $34.6 million. And we take out the costs of that CIP that would be needed to address existing deficiencies or to address growth beyond the tenure window. So that gets trimmed down to just about $13.6 million right there. And then, The next step on line three, this is what I mentioned before, there is a credit calculation that's required and that can be done through a detailed financial analysis or it can be done through essentially multiplying that 13.6 number by .5 or cutting it in half. So as you can see, by pursuing the financial analysis, that credit is a little bit less than half. So you're able to recover more than 50% of that number by doing that analysis. But that gets us to the recoverable cost of the CIP, which is $8.8 million. And we divide that by the growth in service units, which is 5,709 in service area one. and we get a maximum assessable fee of $1,549 per vehicle mile. Just to show you how that calculation shook out across the six service areas. This shows all six service areas with the total CIP compared with the recoverable cost of the CIP and the growth in service units within each service area. So you can see how in service areas where the CIP cost is high and the service unit growth is low. That yields a higher maximum fee. For example, in service area four, we have a higher CIP cost and a fairly modest growth in service units within that service area. And that's why that maximum fee is a bit higher than the rest. The rest of them are within that 1,100 to 1,500, 1,800 per vehicle mile range. Looking at how these changed in comparison to the 2020 adopted roadway impact fee study, we did see increases across all six service areas and some more pronounced increases in service areas two, three, and four. Across the board, we saw there's dramatically increased construction costs since that study was completed. When you combine that with the growth forecast was more aggressive in service areas two, three, and four in that study. Looking at the latest data that we had, we felt it was appropriate to project a less aggressive growth forecast for those service areas in this study. And so that difference with the rise in construction costs together produced a higher increase to the maximum fee in those service areas. Okay, talking about next steps. So we held the audit report tonight along with this presentation. We'll be meeting again, as Bernadette mentioned, with the Roadway Impact Fee Advisory Committee tomorrow to discuss their recommendation on the study and on proposed collection rates, which will be coming back to them to get their final recommendation in October. We'll also be coming back to council here in a couple of weeks to talk about your recommendation on collection rate and also to set the resolution for the public hearing in October. We'll have two ordinance readings for that. With that, is there any questions? Council Member Shaw.

So just for clarification, this is for moving forward, right? Like for future projects within those districts?

Yes, ma'am. Any development that plats after the effective date of the new ordinance would be subject to these fees. Projects that are already platted and in progress would be under the current rates, the current impact fees that are being assessed.

In those first couple slides you showed, like the areas that were not developed in each district, that's what you're talking about, that land? Those first few slides had like the color schematics, like the red areas were undeveloped.

Yes, I wanna make sure to make one clarification about, let me go back to that map. So this map was a tool to help us project out growth. It's not binding in the sense that if someone does develop one of these blue parcels, they would still be subject to impact fees if they're increasing service units, okay.

That's a lot of information, thank you.

You're welcome.

All right, any other questions or comments from council? Do we need to open this to public comment?

You don't have to because there's no action. You can if you want, but you don't need to. Thank you.

All right, thank you, appreciate it. All right, Ms. Wilkinson, is there any further business to be brought before this council this evening?

No, sir.

All right, the time is 1012. This meeting is adjourned.