Service promised to developer put on hold
HUTTO — A planned housing subdivision outside the city’s fringes may not get the water Hutto officials once promised developers they would receive.
A decision earlier this month by the city to not provide water to developments beyond the certificate-of-convenience-andnecessity water-service area now may have come back to haunt the City Council.
The Kirk Tract, a residential and commercial development in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, had submitted a service-extension request, or SER, for water several months ago and been told by staff the city would be able to provide water to the subdivision.
“ Our schools are strapped. Our roads are strapped.
Our utilities are at full capacity.”
— Hutto Mayor Mike Snyder On Thursday, Dec. 19, council members said that may not be happening.
“It’s not that I have an issue with you guys or residential, but nobody in Hutto is asking for more residential,” Mayor Mike Snyder told the developer’s representative. “Our schools are strapped. Our roads are strapped.
Our utilities are at full capacity. We’re raising rates everywhere, and if I don’t have to vote personally to bring more homes into the city and there’s no ill effects in that decision, that’s an easy one.”
A certificate of convenience and necessity, or CCN, “gives a retail public utility the exclusive right to provide retail water and sewer utility service to an identified geographic area,” according to the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
The council voted to postpone the item until the Jan. 16 meeting.
The Kirk Tract is on the south side of Hutto north of and adjacent to FM 1660 and just west of CR 134. It will border the future East Wilco Highway and provide 272 single-family homes plus 11 acres of commercial property. The developer has been working with the city to develop the land for more than two years but only recently began discussions about water.
Ryan Quinn, of Quiddity Engineering, said the owner intends to request voluntary annexation into Hutto. The tract is in Hutto’s wastewater CCN but in Jonah Water’s potable water CCN.
Quinn said they have applied to be released from the Jonah CCN because Jonah cannot service them without a major investment from the developer.
“It is at the edge of their boundaries and due to the lack of infrastructure they currently have in the area it was cost prohibitive to receive service from them,” Quinn said, adding the estimated cost to the developer would have been about $40 million.
Quinn said that if the city does not approve the request to provide water, the land would just “sit there.”
Council members were sympathetic to the developer’s plight but were caught between two difficult decisions: either deny water to a company that had been working diligently with the city for two years, or go back on the decision they just made to preserve Hutto’s water for those who develop inside Hutto’s CCN.
Receiving a SER from staff is not binding. The council has final word on whether developments receive utilities.
But the issue brought up another concern: How many SERs are currently being held by developers, and have they been figured into the city’s future waterresource calculations?
The council asked city staff to provide more information on the number of SERs that have been processed and the impact they could have on the city’s water utilities.
“We just got done talking about we are not going to approve development outside of our CCN. I understand you had this a while back, but at the same time you guys could have brought this to us earlier,” Councilman Brian Thompson told Quinn.
Councilman Dan Thornton took a different approach.
“We can say no, but you’ve been working in good faith for 10 months since we told you we could do this. That should be a consideration,” he said to the developer.
Mayor Pro Tem Peter Gordon said he was a little more willing to approve the water connection because of the benefit the proposed commercial space would bring to the city in tax revenue.
Council members said they hope more information on the SERs would be available at the January meeting.
