[0:04] Good evening, tonight's invocation be given by Rabbi Mendel Marisol of Trabad of Round Rock. Rabbi, come on up. Thank you for being here. Thank you. What an honor. Six o'clock in the afternoon or late afternoons are already dark. These people are sitting together to make the residents of Round Rock a better life. So thank you. Sovereign of the universe, God in heaven, who grants us the privilege to gather and serve our community. May this moment be one of favor in your

[0:32] side. Hashem, you, we ask you to bless this meeting with your divine wisdom and guidance.

[0:37] As we deliberate together, may we be uplifted by the teachings of our Holy Torah. Let us

[0:41] remember the words of our Rebbe who taught that the true purpose of life is to bring God's

[0:46] light into the world through our actions, words, and thoughts. May our work today be eliminated

[0:51] by the light, by this light, inspiring us to serve both the individual and the community

[0:56] with love, respect, and integrity. Grant us strength and wisdom like that of our forefathers.

[1:01] who with deep faith overcame challenges and built the world rooted in holiness and kindness.

[1:07] May we too pursue justice and peace with courage, dedication, and unwavering commitment.

[1:12] May our actions reflect the universal values of Shabbat-Misad-Buna'i-Noah,

[1:16] Seven-Noah-Hide-Laws calling us to uphold justice, honor human dignity,

[1:20] and to commit ourselves to peace and righteousness.

[1:23] Let these timeless principles guide our God-Year leadership with compassion and clarity.

[1:28] Bless all who serve here with understanding, unity of purpose, and their ability to lead with empathy and wisdom.

[1:34] May our efforts contribute to a world filled with goodness and light, and bring us closer to the day when peace and harmony will flourish, and your presence will be felt in all humanity.

[1:43] Amen.

[1:46] Thank you, Radha.

[1:47] Appreciate it.

[1:49] Call the 6 o'clock.

[1:50] See Councilman in order.

[1:52] And please call the roll.

[1:54] Mayor Morgan.

[1:55] Here.

[1:55] We approach in Stevens here councilmember Lee here councilmember Flores here councilmember Fleming here councilmember

[2:01] Otega here councilmember Montgomery

[2:03] All right. It's now with me for the pledges

[2:23] honor the Texas flag

[2:25] A pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God

[3:17] Citizen communication

[3:26] You say some wish to speak during citizen community communication regarding an item honor off the gentleman

[3:31] So after the complete and the required registration card, all comments must be no more than three minutes and the link per section two dash two six B five of the

[3:40] Round and I code of ordinance is 2018 addition. Any comments regarding I'm not on the poster. Jim may not be discussed, respond to by the City Council per state law.

[3:50] Is there anybody here to speak outside of the public hearing?

[3:56] All right. And just to kind of give everybody where we're going to go with this.

[4:02] We're going to go through all our stuff and they're right before the public here.

[4:05] We're going to take a couple minute break so we can make sure we hear from all of the

[4:11] speakers that have asked to speak.

[4:14] All right, proclamation, staff recognition, special presentations, E1, consider proclaiming

[4:18] December 11th as the Sertoma Day and the City of Round Rock, Mayor Pro Tem.

[4:23] Jim, won't you come stand up here?

[4:26] Whereas the Round Rock Sertoma Club was chartered on December 11th, 1975, and whereas the Round Rock Sertoma Club will celebrate its 50th anniversary on December 11th, 2025, and whereas the Model of Sertoma International is serviced to mankind, and whereas the primary philanthropy of the Round Rock Sertoma Club is speech in hearing health, and whereas the Round Rock Sertoma Club has raised and given back to the community over $750,000 during its 50 years.

[4:55] mostly through the sale of Christmas trees, participation in front of your day.

[5:00] 4th of July, and other city-sponsored events. And whereas, because of the generosity of the Round Rock

[5:06] Sertoma Club, many citizens, mostly children, can now hear through the purchase of hearing aids and

[5:12] medical procedures. Now, therefore, I, Kristen Stevens, on behalf of Craig Morgan, mayor of the city of

[5:19] Round Rock, Texas, do hereby proclaim December 11, 2025, as Round Rock Sertoma Day, and the city of

[5:25] round rock and I invite all citizens of round rock to join me in congratulating the

[5:29] Certumac Club for making a positive impact on the lives of people in our community.

[5:40] Thank you, Christian, I'd like to thank all city council.

[5:44] Certumac through the years has had the pleasure of a relationship with the city council, with

[5:52] the city parks and recreation department.

[5:55] We honor that.

[5:56] We cherish that.

[5:57] We hope that continues.

[5:58] I want to thank you for all you do to try the city for together will make Round Rock a better place to live.

[6:04] Thank you. Thank you, Jim, for all that you do.

[6:13] All right, staff presentations are for one

[6:15] because they're a presentation and department update from the general services, Chad.

[6:21] Good evening, Mayor Counsel.

[6:23] Good evening.

[6:27] As they're pulling the presentation up, if you don't mind, I like to have all the staff that's here tonight

[6:31] if they could just stand up and be recognized. This is the general services staff. You're going to see the

[6:36] fleet facilities and building construction staff here.

[6:48] Mayor Counsel, as you know, this

[6:49] is one of my favorite topics to talk about right here except for vacation and going hunting

[6:53] and fishing, but I love this department. We stood this department up in the city of

[6:57] Round Rock about 14 years ago and I'm super proud of this department and all the men and women

[7:02] in this department. I won't get into all the vision and mission

[7:06] statement just but some of the key words that I want to point out that you're going to see,

[7:10] you're going to see excellence in there, you're going to see exceptional customer service

[7:13] in there, you're going to see respectful with positive, all the men and women in this

[7:17] department, in order to be in this department, to lead the fleet facilities and build

[7:22] a construction, you must come in and do it with a smile on your face, and you're going

[7:25] to see that throughout this whole presentation.

[7:28] It's not about your qualifications, it's really about who you are as a person, and if you

[7:32] can handle getting that negative call every single morning or on the weekends or whenever

[7:37] it comes your way, because when Brooks calls me and then I call someone else, it's usually

[7:42] not about how's your morning, it's usually about no offense, it's usually about, this

[7:46] is broke, this needs help, this needs to happen.

[7:49] Can you get to it how soon, where is this, and the men and women that you see behind

[7:54] me, they're the ones that actually do it.

[7:55] They do all the work.

[7:56] I literally just get to show up and leave the department, I'm very fortunate for that.

[8:02] There's the team, as we know, that Letty Hernandez is actually the one that runs the department.

[8:06] She's the mom, and Cory and I just have coffee every morning, and talk politics.

[8:11] So we'll start off with the building construction team.

[8:15] Building construction team is led under Richard Will, Richard Will currently has his project management professional and you'll see six other employees there.

[8:24] Five of those employees also are earning their degree in project management.

[8:29] Have some shape or form or they have earned it already.

[8:33] So it's super important and you won't see that in many cities for

[8:36] For people to go and attain that accreditation to be a project management professional,

[8:41] really big.

[8:42] Next slide I'm going to show you exactly what they're doing, because this one blew me away

[8:46] when they put it together.

[8:49] 390 million.

[8:50] That's currently our total of projects going forward right now, 390 million of projects.

[8:55] This is projects that are either under design, projects that are under construction, about

[9:00] to be completed construction, but bigger than any other year in the past is 390 million.

[9:06] And they're doing it.

[9:07] We said we would do it.

[9:08] We promised you we'd deliver the GeoBonds, and we're doing it.

[9:10] And this team, that team of six that you're seeing, is doing all of that.

[9:14] They're following the dollar to make sure that the taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.

[9:20] We're getting what we asked to get, and they're following the architects, engineers, and contractors

[9:25] to making sure that they fulfill their obligation.

[9:29] I'm not going to get into all the projects.

[9:31] I'll let the department directors get into their individual projects.

[9:37] Facility maintenance is led under Eric Davie, the facility managers.

[9:41] You can see throughout the years this group of technicians has expanded, it's expanded pretty

[9:47] large to be honest with you and that we're now getting into a lot of trades technicians and

[9:51] we're asking our employees and we're growing them, we're growing them within.

[9:55] We're growing these employees within so they can take care of the city.

[9:58] We don't have license rates for this.

[10:00] We have HVAC control text. We have licensed electricians. We have all these licensed trades coming up, and we're teaching these, and we're sending them to school. And by doing that, they're staying with us, and they're, they're, they're bound to be a servant leader in the city around Rock, which is huge.

[10:20] This next group of individuals are custodial staff. You guys know that I really take pride in this custodial staff. They're doing jobs that most men and women don't want to do. These men and women are doing it with that smile on their face.

[10:31] and it's key that we have that small in our face when you're doing these jobs.

[10:36] During the COVID years, we've talked about they were the first responders that went into

[10:39] every building to disinfect it and they continue to stay here. Most of these men and women are

[10:44] ones that we had during COVID years and we're adding to this right now. We have a long tenure

[10:49] of custodial staff. It's led under Pam and under Mary and you can see it's a pretty large staff

[10:55] that we clean on a daily basis.

[11:01] The downtown maintenance technicians,

[11:03] you know that we grew this position right here.

[11:05] It started with Tristan Adams,

[11:07] who was our first maintenance technician.

[11:10] Tristan was one of our success stories started at Kastodium

[11:13] with the sports center,

[11:14] then became a maintenance technician downtown.

[11:16] You saw him downtown.

[11:18] Tristan is now a supervisor for facilities.

[11:22] You see Janard, you see him with a smile on his face

[11:24] and you see Juan is now leading that group.

[11:26] You guys told us that and you gave us clear direction you want the downtown clean and you want it clean clean daily

[11:32] And so with this new group under one you're going to see it clean daily

[11:36] There's actually one more that you're not seeing and he'll be here on Monday at NEO

[11:40] So we'll be completely full and you'll see him clean in every day

[11:47] Just one of the things I'm going to just let you kind of soak up that slide a little bit

[11:50] But one of the things I want to point out is we do have a

[11:53] Vendor that comes in and cleans besides our own staff and currently our square footage is 1.1 million square foot

[11:59] But if you look at it, the vendor is cleaning about 609,000 and we're clean about 762,000.

[12:06] If Kevin's in the back analyzing those numbers, please note Kevin that there is some overlap

[12:10] in the cleaning.

[12:11] So I know the numbers aren't going to add up to the 1.1, but we do have some overlap.

[12:16] So sometimes the vendor is clean and weakling because we'll clean during the days and then

[12:20] they'll come in and clean.

[12:22] Sometimes there are facilities that were the only ones that clean.

[12:25] So you will see that.

[12:26] But one thing I want to point out in this, we've started with this new vendor service first.

[12:30] They brought on what's called orange QC.

[12:33] Our current score with orange QC is 86.7%, that's huge.

[12:37] And what that means is you can be rest assured that Pam and Mary are daily going through all the facilities

[12:42] to make sure service first and our own custodians are actually cleaning the facilities like they should.

[12:48] There's any deficiencies, a report gets set up, I see the report.

[12:51] And then they're able to fix whatever was deficient.

[12:54] So current 86.7% is pretty that's pretty darn good way better than it ever has been in the past. It's a it's a good group that you're seeing

[13:05] Fleet maintenance shop. We have two fleet maintenance shops. The fleet maintenance shop is led under Rocky Booley

[13:11] Rocky comes to us with a long 10 year of experience in the industry

[13:15] The fleet maintenance shop as you see right here is full of men and women that also have the smile on their face

[13:21] and what I love about these men and women,

[13:23] and I'll show you the two shops we have

[13:25] or the main shop and then we have the fire shop.

[13:27] What I love about the men and women

[13:29] is not just the smile on their face,

[13:31] but when they see one of the police vehicles,

[13:34] or they see one of the fire vehicles going down the road,

[13:37] and they see someone's life get saved,

[13:39] they believe in their heart and they truly do.

[13:41] They're the ones that did that

[13:42] because they made sure that vehicle could get down the road.

[13:46] If there's a fire or a fire shop

[13:48] and you'll see these guys here in a second,

[13:49] They believe that that fire engine is going to that fire can make that response time and it's because of them

[13:55] And it truly is it truly is that we have one of the best fleet maintenance shops in the in the nation

[14:01] I'll prove it to you in just a little bit

[14:03] The fire shop I'm going to highlight these guys just a little bit you get Kurt Mullins leading the shop now Kurt

[14:10] Mullins two years ago was the fleet technician of the of the nation

[14:14] Deflite technician, we have him in our grass.

[14:19] Under Kurt Mullins' John Nivs, John Nivs is the lead technician right now.

[14:24] The lead technician right now, and John Nivs this last year, was the runner up fleet technician of the year.

[14:31] When we're going to some of these events, I was honestly worried that some of these guys would not come home

[14:35] because they walk away with job applications from other places and they walk away with potentially could be a lot more money.

[14:42] But they're here because they're invested into Round Rock and that's where they access the key with all these men and women

[14:47] They have invested into the city.

[14:52] I just want to point this one out highlight this real quick the the total fleet value that we're looking at is about 75 million

[15:00] When we look at the $75 million, $30 million of that is fire. Fire takes a lot of the budget and fire is pretty hard to work on. We have that shot dedicated just towards fire that Fleet Maintenance Shop. We have probably one of the best reports with the fire association out of the entire nation as well, and it's because we have such qualified individuals willing to work with fire and on the fire apparatuses. Most of our total value is actually

[15:29] police and fire when you look at the total value, we're roughly about 45 million of that 75 million total value.

[15:40] Letty and Corey put this slide together and I thought it was really interesting as when we

[15:44] stood this up so you can see where we've come from and you can see why we're asking for more

[15:48] technicians, why are we asking for more mechanics, why we're asking for more custodians.

[15:53] We started this at 560,000 square foot, we're currently sitting at that 1.1 that we talk about now.

[15:59] on fleet vehicles we were about 1300 for a long long time and now in 2025 we're

[16:06] looking at about 1840 is where we're at with vehicles and equipment.

[16:13] As I talk

[16:14] about this group of individuals in the back you they don't just come to work and

[16:18] they don't just do their job. They search out and figure out how to get the

[16:21] certifications and the qualifications they need to get better at their job and

[16:25] that's what separates them from any other organization. You look at this and you

[16:29] You see, I was a good point to the bottom left and you see the FNP with Danny just got his FNP.

[16:34] You also see Eric Dady and Kory Ahmed on both are holding their FNPs as well, the CAFOM.

[16:40] That's a certified automotive fleet manager.

[16:42] We have two individuals that have a tamed fleet manager status ready to take over for Rocky,

[16:48] ready to jump into some other city if they can.

[16:51] That's the level that we're at.

[16:52] They're ready, already.

[16:53] Succession planning for us is really huge.

[16:56] We look at the PMP.

[16:57] We've talked about that.

[16:58] You look at your ASEs automotive service excellence and you have 42 ASEs that have been attained and six of those are master technicians.

[17:07] The master technicians is not an easy task to become.

[17:11] We also have, I want to point out that your fleet right now as far as the 100 best fleets were number 15 in the nation.

[17:18] We also applied for leading fleets and were number 11.

[17:21] So at the two organizations, they are telling you right now they're telling the citizens here we have one of the best fleets in the entire nation.

[17:33] I mentioned succession planning before and it's really big for us that we grow our staff internally and we're able to just this year alone.

[17:41] We're able to grow Tristan Adams into that facility supervisor role.

[17:45] We're able to grow one into the downtown crew leader.

[17:47] Mary just took over the custodial supervisor.

[17:50] I mentioned John Niv's just took over the lead fleet technician.

[17:53] He followed Kurt Mohn's who was in it and Kurt became the superintendent.

[17:58] And then we have, oh my gosh, I just took a cramp on my last guy right there, a quick

[18:05] eye.

[18:05] I'm sorry.

[18:08] Tell me again.

[18:10] Hunter.

[18:10] Hunter, sorry about that.

[18:12] Hunter, I apologize.

[18:14] Hunter went from a mechanic to a public safety mechanic.

[18:17] And so what's really huge is that we can grow our employees into these into these next positions.

[18:24] And Mayor Counsel, this is your team that you see it.

[18:27] We always try to do a team building event and we try to get together.

[18:31] At least I don't know if we try, I like to try to do it quarterly.

[18:34] This was kickball.

[18:36] We really got to figure out how out of shape we all were when we did that.

[18:40] And it was a very fun experience to figure out how out of shape we were.

[18:44] Mayor Counsel, I'm very happy to end this right now and just let you know you do have one

[18:48] of the best general services in the entire state, if not the entire nation, and I'd be happy

[18:53] to answer any questions or take any comments.

[18:55] All right.

[18:55] Thank you, Chad.

[18:56] Any questions or comments?

[18:59] Councilmember Flores?

[19:00] No, just a thank you for the presentation.

[19:02] Thank you to all your team for being here and for the work that you do for showing up every

[19:05] day and keeping the city moving along, so thank you all.

[19:11] Mayor Pro Tem.

[19:12] Yeah, Chad, I'll just say echo Councilmember Flores' comments and just say, y'all are really

[19:17] responsible for stretching our taxpayer dollar to the fullest, whether it be putting together

[19:22] a good construction project, or keeping our facilities maintained really nicely, or

[19:27] fleet maintenance. I mean, we hear often when you bring up a new piece of equipment, how you've

[19:34] stretched the dollar, how you've made that piece of equipment last well beyond its lifespan. So,

[19:39] really, and truly, our taxpayers should be thankful to you because you are definitely making their

[19:43] many work for longevity wise. So thank you. Thank you all so much for what you do. It's an

[19:50] unsung job, but we really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I don't want to really much

[19:56] to add, except for thanks. And thank you to your team as much as

[20:00] We do appreciate all the work that y'all put in, long hours, and we are very grateful for that. Yeah, so thank you, guys, for giving us the tools we need to do our job. We really appreciate that as well. Thank you, Jen. All right. Thank you.

[20:13] All right consent agenda a lot of them. Listener the consideration are considered to be routine by the city council be enacted by one motion

[20:18] There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless requested by council member in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and

[20:25] Considered separately and by having questions or need anything removed

[20:28] All right G1 consent approved meant from the November 2020 2025 city council member g2 consider resolution authorizing merit execute and

[20:36] In agreement with the Presidio Network Solutions Group LLC for the purchase of Cisco branded products and related services.

[20:45] G3, you can say a resolution authorizing the renewal of the stop loss insurance coverage agreement with the United Health Care Insurance Company for the period of January 1, 2026 through December 31st, 2026 and authorizing the execution of any related documents.

[21:00] It's G4, consider resolution authorizing the renewal and rate.

[21:04] Confirmation of the city's long-term disability policy with Madison National Life Insurance,

[21:08] company EAM for the period of January 1, 2026, through December 31, 2027.

[21:14] G5, consider resolution authorizing the renewal and rate, confirmation of the city's short-term

[21:18] disability policy with Madison National Life Insurance, company EAMC.

[21:22] For the period of January 1, 2026, through December 31, 2027,

[21:26] are maintained and motion adopted consent.

[21:29] So move.

[21:29] Second.

[21:30] Motion made by Council Member Tegas.

[21:32] Second by Council Member Fleming.

[21:34] Any other discussion?

[21:36] And please vote the council.

[21:38] Council Member Lee.

[21:39] Yes.

[21:40] Council Member Flores.

[21:41] Yes.

[21:41] Council Member Fleming.

[21:42] Yes.

[21:43] Council Member Tegas.

[21:44] Yes.

[21:45] Mayor Pro Tem Stevens.

[21:46] Yes.

[21:46] Mayor Morgan.

[21:47] Yes.

[21:49] Resolution H1.

[21:50] Consider resolution.

[21:50] Authorized as a Mayor to execute a first amendment

[21:52] to the reimbursement agreement

[21:53] with Williamson County and Williamson Central

[21:55] for a praisled district to reimburse certain litigation costs related to late-side apartments,

[22:01] Round Rock, Texas, LLC, and to our versus WCAD lawsuit.

[22:06] Yes, Mayor and Council, this item is to approve a first amendment.

[22:10] We currently have a reimbursement agreement with Williams and County and WCAD.

[22:14] This is related to the Lakeside apartments, Round Rock, Texas, LLC, lawsuit against WCAD.

[22:20] That's for tax exemption status.

[22:22] And as we discussed on Tuesday, that's a public facility corporation.

[22:27] The city is opposed to that corporation becoming tax exempt.

[22:32] Therefore, we are participating in the legal costs in that lawsuit.

[22:36] Happy to answer any questions.

[22:38] Everybody understand that?

[22:42] Any questions?

[22:44] Any time motion to stop the resolution?

[22:45] Assembly?

[22:46] Second, motion made by Councilmember Fleming,

[22:48] I mean, say goodbye, Council Member Tega, any other discussion?

[22:51] And please, public council.

[22:53] Council Member Flores?

[22:54] Yes.

[22:54] Council Member Plemming?

[22:55] Yes.

[22:56] Council Member Tega?

[22:57] Yes.

[22:57] Mayor Pro Tempestidance?

[22:58] Yes.

[22:59] Mayor Moran?

[23:00] Yes.

[23:01] H2, consider resolution.

[23:03] Authorism Redics can agreement with WorldX designing for the purchase and installation

[23:07] of play equipment at Play for All Abilities Park, Phase 2.

[23:10] Rick?

[23:11] Good evening, Mayor and Council.

[23:13] Good evening.

[23:14] This is a fun item to present.

[23:16] That

[23:22] this agreement with Worlux allows us to create a brand new pod for the Play for All Park.

[23:29] It's probably one of our most popular parks, not just in Round Rug, the Central Texas.

[23:35] And we have the fortunate pleasure to expand this due to a grant that the Play for All Foundation

[23:42] received that will be coming back to the City of Round Rug.

[23:45] We've got Lee Buckland with the Play for All Foundation in the back.

[23:50] We've also got two members of Republic that we actually received the National Promise Grant through the Play for All Foundation back in the back as well.

[24:00] We've got Corey Johnson and then we've got Alfonso C. Fuentes back there as well.

[24:07] We also have Josh with Wurlick so we've got a lot of people and it takes a lot of people when you do something this grand in a community like ours.

[24:15] So, this agreement's in the amount of $536,468 for the site work, installation of all

[24:25] that equipment.

[24:26] Most of the grant will pay for the equipment that's going in.

[24:29] We're just going to be doing all the site work that happens through this process.

[24:33] With the Promise Grant, we're actually making sure that this is about a sustainable pod

[24:38] and really talk about sustainable recycling practices that you're going to see here.

[24:44] This is actually the play for all part that you'll see there and

[24:54] this is kind of the new addition

[24:55] You see they're going to have a replica of the of the Republic

[25:00] And they're going to really show how it goes through the process of sustainability.

[25:11] And that's going to be that truck. So we think it's going to be a nice addition to the park as well as teaching the kids in the community about sustainable practices. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have them. All right. Any questions, comments? Thank you to the public and all their work on that.

[25:29] that.

[25:33] All right.

[25:34] Anything else?

[25:34] The resolution?

[25:36] Second.

[25:37] Motion made by Councillor Matriga, second by the mayor.

[25:39] Pro-tune the other discussion.

[25:41] And please, please.

[25:42] Public council.

[25:44] Council Member Flomen.

[25:45] Yes.

[25:46] Council Member Ritega.

[25:47] Yes.

[25:47] Mayor Pro-tum Stevens.

[25:48] Yes.

[25:48] Council Member Lee.

[25:50] Yes.

[25:50] Council Member Plores.

[25:51] Yes.

[25:51] Mayor Morgan.

[25:52] Yes.

[25:52] Yes. H3 is a presentation regarding the resolution of

[25:56] proven the captain improvements plan progress.

[25:58] Am I in your report regarding roadway impact fees from the captain improvements advisory committee?

[26:06] Good evening, Mayor Council.

[26:09] Gerald Polbar from public works transportation infrastructure side.

[26:14] I am here this evening to give a short presentation.

[26:18] Our semi annual report for the CIC program.

[26:22] I just like to say right up front that.

[26:24] all as well with our program. We're a few years into it now so everything seems to

[26:31] be flowing like one would expect a maturing program to do. This report is to

[26:39] keep us compliant with the Texas government code and I would also like to

[26:45] point out that the report you received should also have the recommendation letter

[26:49] from the CAHC Council Committee when we met with them about a month ago now.

[27:00] My presentation is going to basically follow the same one you've seen the past.

[27:07] There's not anything particular new to it.

[27:09] We'll do a quick little overview, talk about our fee collection and then a little administrative

[27:16] talk.

[27:17] Our overview, y'all seen this slide before.

[27:20] four. We started 2019. We made a five year update in 2023 when we split from three

[27:31] service areas to four service areas to make sure that we kept everything within that

[27:36] six mile limit kept us compliant. These are our collection rates. These have been in effect

[27:44] the latest ones went to effect in January of this year so we're we're in good shape there.

[27:56] These are our four areas that we currently have as far service areas A, B, C, D while we ended up

[28:05] doing when we went from three to four we split B into make sure I said that right we split B

[28:15] to be in D.

[28:18] This will give you an idea of where our collections are at.

[28:24] We collected from April

[28:26] this year to September this year just a little over a million dollars in in roadway impact fees.

[28:33] Our total collections since inception if you add those up is just over sixteen million dollars.

[28:38] So, you know, that's at least enough money for one reasonable size project.

[28:48] As far as our offset program, we have one offset that we worked with Gulf RC Ventures,

[28:57] and that's for a section of Joe DiMaggio that they're building.

[29:01] We are going to be allowing them runway impact fee credits

[29:08] of just a little over 1.7 million on that particular job, the infrastructure that they're

[29:13] building for the city.

[29:18] Our distributions, we didn't have any distributions in 2025,

[29:25] but this gives you an idea of the distributions that we've had since adoption. I think

[29:31] that adds up to $6.5 million, which leaves us a little over 10 million on our ballot sheet

[29:38] at the moment.

[29:43] These are some examples. These were prior to 2025 but these

[29:50] roadway projects mirror our transportation master plan and all the different

[29:55] roadway projects that y'all have seen us working on around town.

[30:00] This is Area A and B, Area C and D,

[30:07] and the reason I'm standing up here tonight, as far as our local

[30:14] government code, which will keep us compliant with state regs.

[30:23] And as I mentioned earlier, we don't

[30:25] have any significant issues with our program right now. We will be doing some minor updates to it.

[30:34] fee study between now and the May I guess 2026 version when we come back the

[30:44] bridge track is one of those that we'll be looking at and getting

[30:47] incorporated between now and then and with that I

[30:56] think I got left in from

[30:56] last time but I guess I'm here to say that you have a report you have a letter

[31:03] and I think it's just a matter of y'all approving I'll take questions any

[31:10] questions for Joe you're telling motion to stop the resolution so we second

[31:15] motion made by their mayor pro-tem saying by a council member or taiga any

[31:19] other discussion and please follow the council may I pro-tem Stephen yes council

[31:25] member Lee yes councilmember florist yes councilmember clemen yes council member

[31:31] I'm going to retain it.

[31:31] Yes.

[31:32] Me and Morgan.

[31:33] Yes.

[31:33] H-4.

[31:34] Thank you, General.

[31:34] H-4.

[31:35] Consider a presentation regarding in a resolution approval.

[31:37] In the capital improvements plan progress.

[31:39] Am I in your report regarding the water and waste water from the capital improvements advisory committee?

[31:43] Good evening, Mayor and council.

[31:45] Similar to Gerald, this is for the water, waste water impact fee collections that we collect

[31:51] because we charge impact fees or capital recovery fees for new developments.

[31:56] We are required to present this report every six months.

[31:59] on November 5th, we presented it to the CIC, they had no issues, and now we're presenting

[32:05] it to Council. So I will go through it here fairly quick.

[32:12] In summary, this is for the last six months. So April 1st through September 30th, which

[32:17] is the last six months of FY25, is what we will be summarizing the new connections. Basically,

[32:24] its growth versus projections are capital projects and the impact these we collected. Are we

[32:29] progressing as we anticipated with growth and I'll show you kind of the new

[32:33] connections that we received over the last six months.

[32:39] So we continue to grow

[32:40] the blue bars here are the new connections to the water system as so you can

[32:44] see the new connections are continuing. This is over the last two years so we're

[32:48] roughly almost 39,000 water meters 39,000 connections. We are

[32:52] continuing to grow as we anticipate. The yellow line is our water usage out of

[32:57] of the lakes and then the green is out of the edwards aquifer you can see with conservation

[33:02] those numbers are kind of going up in the summer coming down in the winter but we're

[33:07] not seeing significant growth in the water usage even though our connections continue

[33:12] to occur.

[33:16] Let's do some of these so this is kind of a by-month I wanted to show you this this is our

[33:20] average daily water usage per month for the past five years but I want to show you the purple

[33:25] lines on top, that's our water reuse. That has become part of our water system, and we're

[33:30] trying to grow that. That is water that we've already paid for and used once. We take it to the

[33:35] wastewater plant and treat it, and they were reusing it for non-polarable purposes. We want to keep

[33:39] seeing that purple line continue to grow because that helps keep our rates low to our residents

[33:44] when we're using that water for a second time since we've already paid for it once. Okay, permits.

[33:50] I'll show you the single family permits over the last six months. Actually, it's gotten by year

[33:55] here now here, or the last year we had 503 single-family residential permits that we

[34:02] issued.

[34:03] You see that's been tracking over the last five years, 503 for single-family.

[34:08] Multi-family, last year we had 625 units, so we've identified that apartment unit uses

[34:16] about half of what a single-family home uses, so we charge half of an LUE for that half

[34:22] of a connection.

[34:23] So, that's why you'll see 387 LUEs, that's how many impact fees they paid, and then

[34:29] on commercial, 36 building permits issued in FY25, the number LUEs is calculated based

[34:35] on the water meter size.

[34:37] So, the bigger the facility, the larger the water meter, the more impact fees they'll pay.

[34:42] And the number of permits, it's if it's a large hotel or a small restaurant, it's still just

[34:47] one permit.

[34:47] So, that's always charged based on the meter size for those.

[34:50] How much money do we collect over the last year for impact fees, $4.8 million?

[34:55] A little bit less than we anticipated because we've had some of

[35:00] Some facilities that were built, and we kind of population continue to grow, but we had some vacant facilities that I think people have moved into. That's why the number of collections is less there. And also sometimes when a developer developer builds an impact the eligible project, we will keep them credits because they're building it and paying for it. They may not pay the impact fee, so that will keep the number down sometimes as well.

[35:27] Population rejections in Round Rock.

[35:29] We've anticipated about 139,000 but we're actually around 141,000 in the city limits and then our ETJ, we're around 202,000 people.

[35:38] So we continue to grow fairly steady as you see here over the past five years and we have to build our water wastewater infrastructure to meet that demand.

[35:46] And we want to stay ahead of that so we can continue to grow here and round luck.

[35:50] I won't go through these projects, but these are all the projects in the 10-year window of what we put into our feet calculation.

[35:57] So these are the projects that we need to build that add capacity to the system, and that's kind of what we use this money to pay for.

[36:04] We want new growth to pay for itself, and if we're doing that, then the people that have been living here for a long time are not having to pay for a water treatment plan expansion, it's the new development that's coming into helping pay for that, and that's the kind of the philosophy we want our financial philosophy.

[36:22] These are just all the projects in the 10-year window.

[36:25] These are the wastewater ones here.

[36:27] And then we also charge the water reuse.

[36:30] We put that into the calculation.

[36:33] Last couple of slides here.

[36:34] I want to show you this one.

[36:35] This shows you the rates in this area with other utilities.

[36:40] And it assumes if you're a house and you use 10,000 gallons of water in the month and wastewater use 6,000 gallons.

[36:47] This is what you pay in the City of Round Rock $78.8 for that month.

[36:52] We always just like to track that to see how we're doing.

[36:55] We're really proud of our utility and if we are operating efficiently and effectively

[36:59] and using our utility funds the right way and new growth is paying for itself, we can keep

[37:06] these rates as some of the lowest in the region and we're really proud of that.

[37:11] Here's the impact fee comparison.

[37:12] We used to have the highest impact fee in the state for new connections, but now you see

[37:17] So if you're an example with this means, if you're a house, a brand new house, and you want to tie into the city's water system, you will pay an impact fee of $4,912 for that house.

[37:27] If you want to tie into the wastewater system, it's 2,921 for a total of 7833, that is paid by the builder, and they usually put that amount of cost into the price of the home.

[37:39] And that money that we collect here is used to build projects in the water system and the wastewater system that adds capacity so

[37:46] that we can meet the demands.

[37:49] All right, that summarizes it.

[37:51] So, basically, we're progressing as we expected.

[37:53] Our growth is occurring as we expected.

[37:55] And we have the funds coming in that we can build

[37:57] the infrastructure so there's no perceived inequities.

[38:00] We will come before you every six months with an update.

[38:03] We do update the impact the calculations

[38:05] about every three years so that we can make sure

[38:07] that they're set accordingly.

[38:08] So, with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

[38:11] Questions?

[38:13] All right.

[38:14] Entertainer, motion off the resolution.

[38:15] So moved.

[38:15] Second.

[38:16] motion made by Councilmember Flores, seconded by Councilmember Ritagin, any other discussion?

[38:20] And please follow the council.

[38:22] Councilmember Lee.

[38:23] Yes.

[38:24] Councilmember Flores.

[38:25] Yes.

[38:25] Councilmember Fleming.

[38:26] Yes.

[38:27] Councilmember Ritagin.

[38:28] Yes.

[38:28] Mayor Proy Tim Stevens.

[38:29] Yes.

[38:30] Mayor Morgan.

[38:30] Yes.

[38:31] H5 Consider Resolution Authorism Mayor Dick.

[38:33] You know, I hope so.

[38:33] Water Agreement with Furn Bluff Municipal Utility District.

[38:37] Furn Bluff Mud is a on the west side of Round Rock, Office 620.

[38:42] They are a wholesale water customer of the city of Round Rock.

[38:46] Their agreement has expired and they want to continue to receive water from the city.

[38:52] So before you as a water supply agreement, it'll be for 40 years.

[38:56] The rates, we do a rate model for retail customers as well as wholesale customers.

[39:01] We have about 12 wholesale customers from Bluff mode is one of them.

[39:05] Their rate today, the base charge is $27,443, and their volume charges $3 per thousand.

[39:12] We deliver water at two locations to firm bluff mud.

[39:16] Here's 620 right here, Wyoming Springs.

[39:19] So the first is the meter right here at Park Valley, and then the second one is at Creek Bend and Wyoming Springs.

[39:26] That's the two delivery points, firm bluff paid for the meters.

[39:29] They are paying for calibration of the meters once a year to make sure that we are sending

[39:34] the water and they're reading correctly so they've been a good partner firm bluff so we would

[39:39] recommend approving this agreement to continue providing water to firm bluff for the next 40 years.

[39:44] I'll be happy to answer any questions. Questions? I'm going to turn the motion out the resolution,

[39:49] so move. Second. Motion made by Councillor Ategyo, second by Councillor M. Flemany,

[39:54] Any other discussion, and please vote the council.

[39:58] Councilmember Flores.

[40:00] Yes. Councilmember Fleming. Yes. Councilmember Aitega. Yes. Mayor Pro Tems, Stephen. Yes. Councilmember Lee. Yes. Mayor Morgan. Yes. H6, consider resolution, a term that patent destruction LLC provides the best value for the city for the West Transmission Main Valve replacement project and authorizing the mayor to execute a standard form of agreement. This is some improvements to our water distribution system. Basically, where we're located here, here's I-35, here's 1431. The blue lines on the map are

[40:29] water lines and what we're doing here is adding nine new gate valves.

[40:35] If you recall a couple years ago we had a major break here along 1431 and we were not

[40:41] able to shut down the water where we needed to and we were in potential of putting people

[40:45] out of water and we do not want to do that.

[40:48] So we've studied the area and we're going to be adding some gate valves.

[40:50] That allows us to isolate if there's a break in the system.

[40:53] We can isolate it so that we can repair it and keep all of our connections in play.

[40:59] So the three locations right here will add three valves.

[41:02] You'll see in the inset here, these blue, black and white circles, those are valves.

[41:08] And then there'll be three more at this location, and then three more here off the front end rows of 35.

[41:13] We've gone out to bid patent construction.

[41:16] We would like to award the contract to them for $1.4 million.

[41:20] This was a competitive seal proposal project.

[41:24] The estimate was two million, so we did get some good prices.

[41:27] Justice, I think Jeff Burkett is here from Pat and I have not seen him.

[41:32] There he is in the very back, representing Pat and so we recommend approval of this construction contract and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

[41:40] Questions?

[41:41] Councillor Fulhamie.

[41:43] I was just curious if there's other areas of concern in this city and the situation that we're going to have to address in the future or is this isolated area?

[41:50] this was a we've done a pretty very good job when you think of the city we have

[41:56] main water lines that kind of go all around the city so we have a looped system

[42:00] and what's good about that is we're sending water to every location in two

[42:04] directions so it's not like we send water to one location and it's a break this

[42:09] area has been suspect we don't have these kind of areas that I'm aware of around

[42:14] town we're always looking to make sure though but in this area we we did

[42:18] identified that we've had some valves. We had some valves there, but they were these older

[42:22] called butterfly valves. And it's hard to shut them down and get a complete seal. So we're

[42:28] going back in with these gate valves that will seal the line. So we want to make sure we're

[42:33] always looking for ways to make sure that we are resilient and can provide water in two different

[42:39] directions in case we have any issues. Okay, thank you. Here are questions. Anytime most of the

[42:45] resolution. So motion made by Councilmember Flores, second by Councilmember Tegga, any other discussion?

[42:51] And please vote the council. Councilmember Fleming. Yes. Councilmember Tegga. Yes.

[42:56] Mayor Parchment Stevens. Yes. Councilmember Lee. Yes. Councilmember Flores. Yes.

[43:01] Mayor Morgan. Yes. Each seven to the resolution authorize mayor Datescreen here on local

[43:06] grim with the city of Austin, city of Cedar Park and city of Leander regarding allocation of costs

[43:10] for design for the expansion and rehabilitation of a portion of the breastfeed creek, regional

[43:15] wastewater interceptor. Council, we're part of a regional system

[43:20] with the three other cities. The yellow lines you see here are regional wastewater

[43:25] interceptors. Basically, that means it's a large wastewater line. This line right here is

[43:29] a 60-inch line, which is 5 feet in diameter. When it was constructed from this location, basically

[43:36] where you're out here is 79, here's eight of your grams.

[43:39] So this line is following brushy creek, it's a 60-inch that goes from here all the way

[43:44] to the wastewater plant located right here off 79.

[43:48] We knew that this line needed to be upsized, so the item before you is an interlocal agreement

[43:55] between the four cities, Leander, Cedar Park, Austin, and Round Rock, to identify cost participation

[44:00] in two things.

[44:01] One, we need to do some rehabilitation to this line, there's some defects in the line.

[44:07] And secondly, we have to build a second parallel line along there.

[44:11] Most likely, we'll build the parallel line first.

[44:14] Have all the wastewater go through that line and then we'll come back and

[44:17] rehab this existing one, because wastewater's flowing 24-7.

[44:22] Our partners have all taken this interlocal agreement to their councils.

[44:26] And it identifies the percentage split, so Round Rock is 53.33% of the cost to do this work, and then there are other three cities are sharing that and that's based on capacity, waste water capacity that the four cities are sending through this line.

[44:41] So this is an interlocal agreement.

[44:44] We are selected an engineer that we're negotiating a contract with, so I'll be coming back before you in the next month or two for an engineering contract to start the engineering design work on these lines.

[44:54] So I recommend approval of this interlocal agreement with our three partners for the brushy creek regional waste forest.

[45:00] Questions? Your turn, motion, motion, motion made by councilmember Fleming, seconded by councilmember Lee and the other discussion. And please, public council. Councilmember Tega? Yes. Mayor Progyn Stevens? Yes. Councilmember Lee? Yes. Councilmember Flores? Yes. Councilmember Fleming? Yes. Mayor Morgan? Yes. A J, consider a resolution in terms of that cash construction company provides the best value for the city for the Kenny Fort Boulevard.

[45:26] 24-inch reuse water line extension project and authorize them

[45:29] in ASQ's standard form of agreement.

[45:32] I was talking about the water reuse system earlier in the presentation.

[45:36] So this is a line that we're going to be adding to the system.

[45:39] It's a construction contract.

[45:41] It's the dark purple line that we are going to build.

[45:43] It's going to be a 24-inch diameter water reuse line.

[45:47] It will start at the waste water plant on 79.

[45:50] It will follow a long, brushy creek

[45:53] behind Kalahari on the south side of Kalahari right here.

[45:57] It will not be in the creek, it will be outside the tree line,

[45:59] and then it will hit Kenny Ford Boulevard right here

[46:02] and head south and tie in right there at Forest Creek Drive

[46:05] and Kenny Ford.

[46:07] The other lines you see here, the lighter purple

[46:10] are existing water reels lines that are already in the system.

[46:13] You'll see a light purple line here down Kenny Ford.

[46:16] We did install this one with Kenny Ford's segment two

[46:18] and three road project that extended from Forest Creek

[46:21] to get us, but this will tie in all that so that we can then continue to market and promote water reuse to our system city.

[46:32] This dash line is a future line that we will send down a channel, go behind Clay Matson Rec Center near Dell computers and get us all the way past

[46:40] at a school in closer down here to 45.

[46:44] So really want to continue to promote water reuse in the city.

[46:49] We have 15 bidders for this project, which is very large for us.

[46:53] We would like to recommend a word to cash construction for $5.1 million.

[46:57] I will add that we have a grant from the Bureau of Reclamation that they will pay 25% of that construction cost.

[47:04] So that leaves Round Rock responsible for 75% of that number.

[47:08] tonight we have Travis Glass and Troy Jurtie here with Cash Construction. I appreciate them being here. Cash has done several projects for us.

[47:18] They have construction underway on projects around town right now. They're a very qualified contractor and I recommend approval of this contract to cash.

[47:25] Be happy to answer any questions.

[47:26] Questions?

[47:27] your time?

[47:28] Your time is up to resolution.

[47:29] Move.

[47:30] Second.

[47:31] Motion made by Councillor Natagia.

[47:32] Second by Councillor Romerlini.

[47:34] Any other discussion?

[47:35] And please follow the council.

[47:37] Mayor Pritchand.

[47:38] Yes.

[47:38] Councillor Member Lee.

[47:39] Yes.

[47:40] Councillor Member Flores.

[47:41] Yes.

[47:41] Councillor Member Fleming.

[47:43] Yes.

[47:43] Councillor Member Natagia.

[47:44] Yes.

[47:44] Mayor Morgan.

[47:45] Yes.

[47:46] Thank you all for being here.

[47:48] H9.

[47:48] Senator Resolution accept.

[47:49] Thank you, Michael.

[47:51] Senator Resolution accepted in the city's quarterly financial and investment report for the quarter

[47:54] in your ended September 30, 2025, Kevin.

[47:58] Good evening.

[47:59] Good evening.

[48:00] So the city's quarterly financial investment port

[48:03] for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025,

[48:05] which ended September 30, 2025.

[48:09] Start off with a financial update portion of this presentation.

[48:14] Starting with economic conditions and employment,

[48:18] remains stable through the month of September.

[48:20] Roundbacks on employment rate was 3.8%.

[48:23] Nationally, the unemployment rate climbed a little bit to 4.4% the highest

[48:27] expense since October 2021.

[48:30] The delayed September jobs report shows the US had 119,000 jobs for the

[48:35] month of September that did not include, however, some federal employees who

[48:38] accepted deferred resignation offers.

[48:40] Those decreases will appear in the October and November reports.

[48:44] It also doesn't include about 150,000 layoffs that were announced in October.

[48:49] So we'll have to watch the unemployment reports in the subsequent months.

[48:54] Locally, unemployment claims increased 13.4% through the quarter in September 2025.

[49:01] Consumer confidence remains volatile.

[49:03] The consumer confidence for Texas specifically reached the lowest level since 2020.

[49:09] It decreased on the 88.3.

[49:11] However, since September, it's rebounded up to 108.2.

[49:15] Again, just showing that volatility continues as economic uncertainties continue.

[49:21] First inflation, the CPI, we are seeing a slight uptick on to 3.0% for September.

[49:27] We're still below what the change in CPI was the last two years, but

[49:32] are now above where we were last September.

[49:35] Excuse me, we're now above where we were, so that is consumer price index.

[49:40] Moving on to our city actuals.

[49:42] So, again, this is the fourth quarter report for Fiscal 2025,

[49:45] however, these are unaudited totals in our subject to change.

[49:48] We're right in the midst of our year-end audit process.

[49:51] Sales tax actuals increased by 5.4%.

[49:54] So we saw some pretty solid growth in sales tax,

[49:57] which is the city's largest revenue source.

[49:59] Came in.

[50:00] Above projections to see why the sales tax without Dell, with Dell pulled out increased 3.2% again showing good underlying growth. Property taxes ended the fiscal year almost right at budget just slightly under projections at 91.2 million dollars.

[50:19] Moving on to some selected general fund revenues. We saw growth in almost all of these categories from last year. One of the point out license permits and fees have increased 22.8% driven again by just the development.

[50:31] that occurred during fiscal year 2025.

[50:34] We also saw growth as expected in contracts and other as a result of increased revenues

[50:40] for fire protection and some inspections.

[50:44] The utility fund revenues are demand-based seasonal or are affected by the weather.

[50:49] We ended fiscal year 2025 with revenues above 2024 for both water, wastewater and storm

[50:55] water as expected due to some retail rate increases adopted for fiscal year 2025.

[51:02] Moving on to our hotel occupancy tax and our venue tax revenues.

[51:06] We did see a decrease of these of 3.8% from the previous fiscal year.

[51:11] We have 4,957 hotel rooms.

[51:14] One additional hotel in our construction expected to open in 2026.

[51:20] I was asked Tuesday to speak to the occupancy tax revenues.

[51:23] Again, we do see a decrease of 3.8%.

[51:27] When we look at our occupancy rates, we see potentially one reason for that decrease.

[51:32] We had occupancy rate of 64% this September, last September where we were at 72%.

[51:39] So where occupancy has dropped a little bit, added a slide to this evening's presentation.

[51:44] The chart on the left shows occupancy tax revenues from all brick and mortar hotels.

[51:48] Again, 3.8% decrease compared to last year.

[51:52] when we pull out Calahari, which is our largest hotel,

[51:55] both in terms of number of rooms,

[51:57] as well as occupancy tax generated.

[52:00] Calahari continues to thrive here in Round Rock,

[52:02] and we think it's masking a little bit

[52:04] of some underlying data that let me look more concerning.

[52:09] So again, the slide on the left, all hotels,

[52:11] slide on the right, all hotels, except for Calahari,

[52:14] that leaves us with a decrease of closer to 10%.

[52:16] So we do have some hotels that have,

[52:20] of some occupancy tax collections down 20, 30% from last year.

[52:24] We're seeing that mainly in our discounted and extended stay hotels.

[52:28] So I think it just shows that there is some market instability in especially that discount extended stay market.

[52:35] Staff will continue to watch it as we move forward into fiscal year 2026.

[52:38] We're in regular talks with both the city and

[52:40] the managers office as well as our sports management tourism department who interface regularly with our local hoteliers.

[52:47] Moving on to the quarterly investment report portion.

[52:51] The city's investment policy is conservative.

[52:54] It uses a laddered approach that meets safety, liquidity, and yield.

[52:58] Those are listed in terms of importance.

[53:00] We regularly update and review our cash flow projections.

[53:03] We have quarterly financial investment reports just like we are this evening, and

[53:07] we comply with the Public Fund's Investment Act or state law in terms of what we are allowed to invest in.

[53:13] We had a quarter ending portfolio balance of $549.1 million.

[53:17] dollars. This is down from $647.7 million last quarter. As we have been drawing down balances

[53:23] to make our annual debt service payments, which are due in August each year, as well as

[53:28] for continued investment in the many capital projects we have going on around town,

[53:32] which you heard a little bit about earlier from Chad. Moving on to our benchmarks,

[53:37] our investment policy calls for a weighted average maturity or WAM maximum of 540 days.

[53:43] for this quarter and in September 30th we had a weighted average maturity of 154 days

[53:49] again showing a little bit more liquid in terms of our investments. The one-year treasury yield,

[53:55] which serves our benchmark is 3.68% for the quarter and in September 30th, you see our investment yield

[54:01] there in the blue line of 4.168%. As we are in declining interest rate environment because we of our

[54:08] mannered investment approach, we tend to stay a little bit above the yields as the interest rates are declining.

[54:15] You see our maturity ladder there, due to market volatility in that uncertainty we talked about earlier,

[54:21] the ability to invest funds out into 18 to 24 months has been limited, so we do continue to remain a little bit more liquid,

[54:29] which we work with our investment advisor and will make changes as we move forward.

[54:33] All eyes are on the Fed meeting next week.

[54:36] the current federal funds rate is four, and we'll see if there's any for the rate cuts next week.

[54:42] Without that, I have to answer any questions you may have.

[54:44] Questions?

[54:46] I'm going to tell you most of the resolution.

[54:48] So moved.

[54:49] Second.

[54:49] Motion made by Councilmember Flores.

[54:51] Seconded by Councilmember Tague.

[54:52] Any other discussion?

[54:54] And please vote the council.

[54:56] Councilmember Lee?

[54:57] Yes.

[54:57] Councilmember Flores?

[54:58] Yes.

[54:59] Councilmember Lee?

[55:14] Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

[55:22] Aye.

[55:24] to you who serves as a city's investment advisor.

[55:26] Very small changes to the best and policy,

[55:28] so you're no material changer.

[55:29] Just some updates to the broker dealer list

[55:31] to reflect who we're currently working with.

[55:33] Happy to answer any questions.

[55:34] Questions?

[55:36] You're taking most out the resolution.

[55:38] So move.

[55:38] Second.

[55:39] Motion made by Council Member Atega,

[55:41] seconded by Council Member Fleming and other discussion.

[55:44] And please vote the council.

[55:45] Council Member Flores?

[55:47] Yes.

[55:47] Council Member Cleming?

[55:48] Yes.

[55:49] Council Member Atega?

[55:50] Yes.

[55:50] May I vote Tim Stevens?

[55:51] Yes.

[55:52] Council Member Lee?

[55:53] Yes.

[55:53] May I more again?

[55:54] Yes.

[55:55] H-11's resolution, cast and votes for the Williamson Central Prasal District Board of Directors.

[56:00] The W-CAD Board is governed by nine directors.

[56:03] One of them is our tax-assessor collector Hill, Williamson County, Larry Gattas.

[56:07] Three members are voted in through the public in general elections, and the remaining five

[56:11] directors are elected by the taxing entities within the county.

[56:15] The City of Round Rock has 205 votes out of 5,000 total vote citywide.

[56:21] those votes are distributed by an amount of taxable value.

[56:25] There are two board seats that are, that their terms are ending at the end of the calendar year.

[56:30] Those two incumbents are interested in running the again.

[56:33] They are two out of the three candidates for this item.

[56:36] Staff's looking for City Council to choose how to allocate the city's 205 votes

[56:40] among the three candidates for the two open board positions.

[56:43] Those will be four year terms beginning January 1st, 2026.

[56:46] All right. Any questions? I don't make I'll make the motion to allow a lot.

[56:54] Lease the birthment 103 votes and John likes 102. That was second. Second.

[57:00] Motion made by the mayor saying by the mayor of Pro Tem any other discussion?

[57:04] And please pull the council.

[57:08] Councilmember Fleming. Yes. Councilmember Otega. Yes. We approach him. Stevens. Yes. Councilmember Lee. Yes. Councilmember Flores. Yes. Mayor Morhen. Yes.

[57:17] Yes.

[57:19] H-12, considered resolution of program of fiscal year 2025, 2026, self-funded health insurance budget.

[57:26] This resolution adopts our fiscal year's doesn't 26 self-insured health fund budget.

[57:31] The timing of open enrollment in the plan year, which runs on an annual calendar year basis,

[57:35] necessitates we bring this budget to council separately from our city wide budget that you adopted back in September.

[57:40] The proposed expenditure budget for our self-funded health insurance fund is 24,785,000.

[57:47] These expenditures include claims costs for both health claims and pharmacy claims,

[57:51] funding to operate rock care, these cities employ health panic, and

[57:55] stop loss reimbursement to limit the city's liability for catastrophic claims and other administrative costs.

[58:01] You will see that the proposed health fund budget has expenses and excess of projected revenues.

[58:06] news, Fiscal 2025 was unfortunately a bad year for claims to be ending with more expenses

[58:10] than projected, which we are carrying forward in projections to Fiscal 2006 to remain

[58:15] fiscally conservative. Some drivers for that are just cost-trend inflation and increased

[58:19] pharmacy utilization. Staff will continue to closely monitor claims and program costs as

[58:25] the fiscal year progresses. One of the answer a few questions from Tuesday

[58:30] morning savings for being self-insured, that 6 to 10% range is still accurate, so those

[58:35] Those are the estimated savings to the city being self-insured rather than being fully insured

[58:40] going out to the market and paying premiums to an insurance company.

[58:44] The savings for rock care, which again is our employee clinic in particular.

[58:48] We have an annual cost of about 825,000 and the estimated cost of the plan providing the

[58:54] same services that other non-clinic providers would be between 907 and 990,000.

[58:59] So that's about a 1.1 to 1.2 to 1 return.

[59:03] I did want to point out one of the perhaps unique things about rock care is any covered employee or the dependents are able to go see care there with zero out of pocket.

[59:12] So while it's a 1.1 to 1.2% return to the plan as a whole, it is a great benefit that we are able to offer to the covered employees and their dependents.

[59:21] I did want to point out we work with Holmes Murphy as a city's benefit consultant who

[59:27] helps us with the health fund and I didn't want to point out that David Gibson with

[59:29] Holmes Murphy is here this evening should you have any hard questions.

[59:33] That I'm happy answering any easy ones.

[59:35] Questions?

[59:36] Councilmember Fleming.

[59:38] I didn't have any questions but I appreciate you getting that information and I do think

[59:42] it's a great benefit in knowing that they don't have to worry when they go in about out

[59:45] of pocket is huge.

[59:46] So I'm glad to know that it's still in line with a better offering.

[59:49] Yes.

[59:50] Thank you.

[59:52] Any other questions?

[59:53] Is there anything else to want to drop the resolution?

[59:55] So move.

[59:56] Thank you.

[59:56] Motion aye, by council Fayette,

[59:57] you guys say goodbye to their city.

[1:00:00] And please vote the council. Council Member Atega? Yes. Mayor Poole, Jim Stevens? Yes. Council Member Lee? Yes. Council Member Flores? Yes. Council Member Fleming? Yes. Mayor Morgan? Yes. Ordinances, I want to say, in order to adopt an amendment two to the fiscal year 2425 operating budget, first reading requires two readings. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Sorry. Excuse me for interrupting. This is our fiscal year 25 year-end cleanup budget amendment.

[1:00:30] Again, each year, if any funds end over-appropriate, with expenses over-appropriations, we bring

[1:00:35] those before the City Council for a year and budget them to clean up.

[1:00:38] The only fund we have that ended the fiscal year over budget was the self-fund health insurance

[1:00:42] fund due to the same cost drivers we just discussed.

[1:00:46] We do have available fund balance and excess of reserves sufficient to cover the overage,

[1:00:50] and I did want to answer a question from Tuesday morning.

[1:00:53] the change from 2024 actual to 2025 actuals that pushed us up over appropriations was an increase of 19.3%.

[1:01:01] So you can kind of see, it was an unfortunate bad claims here, and then we had growth from 2025 actuals to the 2026 budget that was just approved of 10%.

[1:01:10] Happy answer any additional questions.

[1:01:13] Questions?

[1:01:14] John Swerner-Flehrer.

[1:01:16] So knowing that it was more expensive, and you had the money there to provide for it.

[1:01:22] So are you all prepared for this again and kind of taking into account that might see another increase?

[1:01:27] They'll get about it.

[1:01:28] Yes, certainly.

[1:01:29] For this upcoming, through this upcoming year, we plan to do a deep dive on the health insurance fund.

[1:01:35] Looking at potential plan changes, potential premium shifts to make sure that this fund stays solvent known to the future.

[1:01:42] for this budget moment, there is sufficient fund reserves to clean up this fiscal 2025 overage.

[1:01:48] Thank you.

[1:01:50] Any other questions?

[1:01:52] Any time, most of the ordinance?

[1:01:54] Assembly.

[1:01:55] Second.

[1:01:55] Motion made by Councillor McFlaur, second by the Mayor of Pro Tem, any other discussion?

[1:02:00] And, please, public council.

[1:02:02] Mayor of Pro Tem Stevens?

[1:02:03] Yes.

[1:02:03] Council Member Lee?

[1:02:04] Yes.

[1:02:05] Council Member Flores?

[1:02:06] Yes.

[1:02:06] Council Member Clemming?

[1:02:07] Yes.

[1:02:08] Council Member Atega?

[1:02:09] Yes.

[1:02:09] Yes. Mayor Morgan. Yes. Thank you. Kevin. All right. Let's uh I think what we'll do since we got to that pretty quickly will let staff do its presentation and maybe take a couple minute break before the public hearing.

[1:02:25] I too, consider public testimony regarding an ordinance rezoning 29.69 acres out of the

[1:02:32] Willis-Donna Ho Jr. survey, abstract number 173 located on East Oatseller's Boulevard

[1:02:37] and their insects and North A.W. Grimes Boulevard from the Lied Industrial's Zoning District

[1:02:42] to the Plan Unit Development, number 159's Zoning District, first reading.

[1:02:46] Right?

[1:02:46] Good evening, Mayor and Council.

[1:02:48] Good evening.

[1:02:48] Item I too is a rezoning for a Plan Unit Development here.

[1:02:51] is a 29.69-nacre property at 206-01 East Old Settlers Boulevard.

[1:02:57] As you can see on the aerial map,

[1:02:58] the property is outlined in this red and white dashed line.

[1:03:01] To the south, we have the Chandler Creek Mud single-family subdivision.

[1:03:05] To the north, we have some commercial and light industrial development here.

[1:03:08] To both sides of the east and west, there is more light industrial development.

[1:03:11] And also a little bit further off to the east is the homestead

[1:03:13] at Old Settlers Park single-family neighborhood.

[1:03:17] This property was zoned light industrial in 2023.

[1:03:20] The applicant seeks to develop the northern portion of the property as a data center.

[1:03:25] Data center is not a defined use in our zoning and development code and

[1:03:29] necessitating the creation of a planned unit development.

[1:03:31] A PUD is a specially negotiated zoning district that applies only to a singular

[1:03:35] property due to unique characteristics of the use that seeks to go there.

[1:03:39] So we're able to negotiate with the developer to help mitigate some

[1:03:42] any incompatibilities or inconsistencies and to create a better product for

[1:03:46] the city than might otherwise be allowed by standard zoning.

[1:03:49] We have 158 or so PUDs in existence in the city.

[1:03:54] This is not a new process. It's been in place since the 1980s.

[1:03:58] We have a few other PUDs in Round Rock that already entitled data centers.

[1:04:02] The first of those is the switch data center, which is down on the Dell campus.

[1:04:05] They've already built one building. They've got the second one under construction.

[1:04:08] They have entitlement to build a third one in the future.

[1:04:11] There's also the SAV data center down off of Lewis Hanna Boulevard.

[1:04:15] They have built one building already.

[1:04:16] they were actually the first one to finish construction on a building in the first one to open.

[1:04:20] Their second one is also under construction. In the southwest part of the city the Amazon

[1:04:26] property. Right now they're kind of finishing up development of their last mile distribution

[1:04:30] facility on the northern half of that property. The southern half of that property is entitled for

[1:04:35] a data center if they choose to do it. We have no idea if they will or not. They haven't tilted or

[1:04:39] hinted at any plans of what they're going to do on the southern half. It might be more warehousing.

[1:04:43] housing, we just don't really know.

[1:04:46] And there's one more entitlement on Chism Trail or really in-between Chism Trail and the

[1:04:49] southbound frontage road of IH35, south of Old Settler's Boulevard, north of Chism Parkway.

[1:04:54] So kind of between the saltgrass stay-couse and the red roof in, there's a large vacant track

[1:04:59] on the south.

[1:05:05] There's no developer attached to it. No permits have been submitted for that, so we don't know if it ever will come through for development.

[1:05:13] Let's take a quick moment to address what is a data center. So it is a facility that houses computer servers and other equipment used for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, record storage, and other AI infrastructure. Really, in these days, it is the backbone of the internet and this digital connected world that we are in. They're essential for structure.

[1:05:31] streaming e-commerce data processing, they manage all that heavy web traffic.

[1:05:35] So almost any time you go on your phone to make a purchase through Amazon or you're sending

[1:05:39] emails or you're streaming something on Netflix, most of that web traffic is being routed

[1:05:43] through data centers somewhere in the country.

[1:05:45] But they have very unique characteristics to their use and to their land or to their development

[1:05:50] I should say that's worthy of extra scrutiny and so it also records some tailored development

[1:05:55] standards that will minimize some of those incompatibilities.

[1:05:57] The benefit of doing this through a planned unit development is it gives us, at the city,

[1:06:01] the ability to examine each and every one that wants to come to the city, look at its unique

[1:06:06] characteristics and write developments that apply strictly to that one.

[1:06:10] That also gives us better control over where they go in the city and how many are established

[1:06:14] in the city.

[1:06:15] If it was something that was just allowed by rights in the light industrial zoning district,

[1:06:19] then there could be a proliferation of it and it wouldn't require any sort of public

[1:06:23] process.

[1:06:24] by using the planned unit development process,

[1:06:26] there's going to be public hearing for every single one.

[1:06:32] The Round Rock 2030 Comprehensive Plan

[1:06:34] that land use designation for this property is industrial

[1:06:37] and the parcel is already zoned for light industrial use.

[1:06:40] The PUD proposes a data center with light industrial development

[1:06:42] so this is consistent with a guidance

[1:06:44] in the comprehensive plan.

[1:06:46] It would be a different story, though,

[1:06:47] if the developer sought to rezone a residential property

[1:06:49] to light industrial or to a light industrial PUD

[1:06:52] and it was adjacent to other residential

[1:06:54] because that would not conform to our land use guidance

[1:06:56] in the comprehensive plan but as it stands it's already an industrial property and so we're

[1:07:01] not changing that.

[1:07:04] Getting into some of the details of the planned unit development it breaks

[1:07:07] out the property into three different parcel areas so here are the permitted uses on the northern half

[1:07:13] so for reference we've got old settlers Boulevard on the north here Chandler Creek on the south here

[1:07:18] parcel area one is the northern half of the property this is the only location on the property

[1:07:23] where a data center could be built if a data center is not built and then it would just be other

[1:07:28] or light industrial development such as office, warehouse, freight, movement, those kinds of things.

[1:07:33] Partial area two, roughly the southern half of the property, including a very large overhead easement for some electric transmission lines.

[1:07:41] Light industrial development is permitted there.

[1:07:43] If a data center is developed on parcel area one, then a substation, an electric substation could be built on parcel area two.

[1:07:50] If there is no data center built on parcel area one, then the substation could not be built on parcel area two.

[1:07:55] it would just be more like industrial development.

[1:08:00] Partial area three to this out is an 80 foot wide development setback, essentially a development

[1:08:05] reserve, so no buildings, no structures, no parking.

[1:08:09] There could be some stormwater infrastructure if the developers saw it fit through their

[1:08:13] engineering studies.

[1:08:14] It also includes a 20 foot wide, excuse me, foot wide landscape buffer along the southern

[1:08:19] property line with compatibility measures there, including a wall and some landscaping

[1:08:23] that we'll get into.

[1:08:27] In parcel areas 1 and 2, we are looking to prohibit some uses that are currently allowed

[1:08:32] in the light industrial zoning district.

[1:08:34] So we can do that with this PUD because we can tailor all the development standards

[1:08:38] and all the permitted uses through this process.

[1:08:41] So all of these land uses that are listed here and I'm not going to list them all or read

[1:08:45] through the list, these are all currently permitted on this property.

[1:08:48] We're using the PUD as a way to take them out so that they could no longer be built if

[1:08:52] the PUD is adopted.

[1:08:53] So, it would still allow some light industrial development, again, office warehouse, some light manufacturing, everything that would have to occur inside of a building though, as well as the data center on parcel area one.

[1:09:04] Right, real quick. Well, you've got that list up there. So, right now, if we weren't to do anything, would any of this have to come before the council to get entitled or?

[1:09:15] No, there would be no public process or public hearing. It's strictly an administrative review process.

[1:09:25] Focusing on parcel area one, the development standards that we have in the PUD for this,

[1:09:30] the one that's most worth noting is that the data center must use a closed loop cooling

[1:09:34] system that minimize potable water use.

[1:09:37] So the way this works is that there's an initial draw from the city's water supply, in this

[1:09:41] case for a development, proposed development of this size, it's about 10,000 gallons, roughly

[1:09:46] the size of a residential swimming pool.

[1:09:48] They fill the system, they close it off, and they're able to recirculate that water for their

[1:09:53] cooling needs almost indefinitely. They need to do some topping off every couple

[1:09:57] years every few years is very rare.

[1:10:00] I'm sorry that they would need to do a full refill, but it allows them to just recirculate that and they don't have to have essentially a straw into the city's water supply, constantly pulling up fresh water for that. So really, the only, the primary use of potable water on site is for the restroom fixtures, sink, break room, and irrigation. So when you add it all up, we've been able to study one of the existing data centers in town already. Their annual water use is equivalent to just 12 to 15 single-family homes. And this is great because about five years ago,

[1:10:29] So that was not the case and this will be a very different conversation we'd be having today under the old technology of evaporative cooling

[1:10:36] That's when they had a large straw into the city's water main constantly pulling fresh water

[1:10:41] You're looking at hundreds of thousands of gallons if not millions of gallons of water a day

[1:10:46] Thankfully the technology has progressed to a point where the closed loop cooling is much more efficient for them

[1:10:52] And think it's much more efficient for us as well

[1:10:57] No minimum parking requirement for the data center, the developer will provide as many spaces as they need to accommodate anticipated employee count onsite at the planning and zoning commission meeting last month they stated that would probably be somewhere in the 30 to 60 range, including employees and onsite technicians.

[1:11:13] If the property is developed as something other than a data center such as office space or light industrial, it has to be parked per our standard code requirement.

[1:11:21] And we also have a restriction in here both in parcel areas one and two that loading docs for any light industrial uses

[1:11:27] Shall not face the southern property line. They have to be oriented away from the neighborhood

[1:11:31] But let me let me go back to

[1:11:33] If it's if you had a warehouse center right now that came in there

[1:11:38] UPS FedEx they can put the garages anywhere right?

[1:11:42] They would be

[1:11:43] Lied industrial legally they would be allowed to go ahead

[1:11:48] Street side landscaping is required to be planted a long old settler's

[1:11:52] boulevard outside the public utility easement outside of other easements as well.

[1:11:56] And so that's a formula consisting of a large species, trees and shrubs that are planted

[1:12:00] along that right of way to help beautify the site, provide greenery.

[1:12:05] And so we also have building design standards in the PUD.

[1:12:08] In accordance with the light industrial zoning district, but we also have some extra standards

[1:12:12] in here for building the sides that face old settlers boulevard to help prevent this from

[1:12:16] just kind of being a boring unarticulated box.

[1:12:21] Data centers are very secure facilities.

[1:12:24] These, they desire perimeter walls for that security.

[1:12:27] We have requirements for that in the PUD, allowing ornamental iron or

[1:12:31] other decorative view fencing if they so wish.

[1:12:34] They can also choose to do a masonry wall.

[1:12:36] They are required, however, to screen their mechanical equipment yards.

[1:12:41] So all data centers will have a mechanical equipment yard where they have generators,

[1:12:45] where they have shipping and receiving, loading areas.

[1:12:47] And so those have to be screened from the outsider, from public view by a wall with a minimum height of eight feet.

[1:12:52] and a maximum height of 20 feet.

[1:12:55] This also helps to mitigate some noise

[1:12:56] that might be coming from those loading areas

[1:12:58] or from those generators.

[1:13:03] Moving on to parcel area two,

[1:13:05] there's no minimum parking requirement

[1:13:06] if an electric substation is established down here,

[1:13:09] but again, just like on the other parcel area,

[1:13:11] if there's office space, if there's warehousing,

[1:13:13] other uses they have to be parked

[1:13:15] in accordance with the standard code requirement.

[1:13:17] And again, loading docs cannot face the seven property line.

[1:13:23] Any electric substation has to be enclosed

[1:13:25] with an opaque perimeter wall,

[1:13:27] Similar to the mechanical yards for a data center, it's a minimum height of eight feet

[1:13:30] at maximum height of 20 feet, that finished face of the wall has to be oriented towards

[1:13:34] the right away in adjacent properties, and we do have a prescribed list of the acceptable

[1:13:39] building materials for that wall.

[1:13:41] Additionally, there needs to be a row of medium species evergreen trees planted around that

[1:13:45] substation wall.

[1:13:49] Moving on to partial area three, again, this is the 80 foot wide development setback along

[1:13:54] the southern property line, the first 25 feet of which is a landscape buffer, something that

[1:13:57] we call a compatibility buffer so that consists of an 8-foot tall opaque masonry wall along

[1:14:03] the property line. And then on the other side of that we have 25 feet for a landscape

[1:14:07] buffer where we require large and medium species evergreen trees. The evergreen component

[1:14:13] is really important here because if you have deciduous trees there for several months out

[1:14:17] of the year, they're going to be lacking the same screening impact that they would have if

[1:14:20] we were an evergreen tree. The remainder of parcel area 3 could include some stormwater

[1:14:25] infrastructure, but again no parking, no dumpsters, no buildings, it's essentially green space.

[1:14:34] Up to three driveways are going to be allowed for this property, but we look at those, we look at the design

[1:14:39] and the location of those at the time of the site development permit when that submitted for our review.

[1:14:43] But most importantly, we are restricting access to or through the neighborhood to the south.

[1:14:48] So there is a dead end street that comes into the southern property line.

[1:14:52] Under different development scenarios as possible that road would have been punched through.

[1:14:56] In this case, we're restricting that and so this project will not have a

[1:15:00] We have access to the Chandler Creek subdivision to the south.

[1:15:05] A little bit of a comparison that we've got here between existing data centers and was proposed. So first up, we have the SAV data center building one, which is the one you see here, 30 megawatt facility. They also have that's kind of on the south side closer to Louisiana. They're going to be building number two right here. It's currently underway. This is just a bit of an old aerial. That's a 54 megawatt facility. I try to draw some dimensional standards on here.

[1:15:29] So you can see a distance between the electric substation that was built on this property about 200 feet away from the nearest single-family home there building number two

[1:15:38] This is roughly about where that footprint is going to be little over 300 feet to the nearest home over here

[1:15:43] And then this 90 foot is just to indicate the distance to the property line and over here you just have

[1:15:50] The architectural drawing or the landscape drawing

[1:15:52] I should say of where the

[1:15:53] Masonry screening wall is located for that substation and then in the green is where the landscape plantings are going

[1:15:59] to be to help screen some of that.

[1:16:03] The switch data center, so we can recognize Del's,

[1:16:05] I like to call it their starship,

[1:16:07] building, I don't know what they call it,

[1:16:08] but the first building for a switch is on the left side

[1:16:10] over here, the second building is underway right here.

[1:16:13] We have 200 feet of separation from this home

[1:16:16] in Southern Terrace to the corner of the building right here.

[1:16:19] About 90 feet from a home here too,

[1:16:21] where we think the perimeter wall that is going to be built

[1:16:23] and then over here in Kensington Place,

[1:16:25] we have about 290 feet from the residential property line

[1:16:28] to approximately where the outer perimeter wall of building two is going to be.

[1:16:32] And this is how it looks from the Delway frontage right now with those freshly planted trees

[1:16:36] which obviously still small but they do grow.

[1:16:42] And I guess also it would be, if I can go back a little bit

[1:16:44] to show some of that development set back here, I don't have it dimensioned

[1:16:48] but I can have other maps later.

[1:16:51] So kind of how does that translate?

[1:16:53] How does that compare between savey, between switch to the proposal that we have here

[1:16:56] from sky box, while by requiring any data centers to be on parcel area one, you're guaranteeing

[1:17:01] at least 500 feet, but since the property line is somewhat a skew and not exactly on

[1:17:08] that same axis, at least 500 feet, getting over as of 1,000 feet of separation between that

[1:17:13] data center and the nearest single-family home, and it's even more than that for the Homestead

[1:17:18] adult settler single-family neighborhood to the east.

[1:17:24] Other considerations, power, I mean, I'm not going to sugar code it, these things use

[1:17:28] a whole lot of power. You know, a 50 megawatt facility might use the same amount of power

[1:17:33] as 20,000 single-family homes. We're not going to try and ignore that. The bottom line though

[1:17:37] is that this thing doesn't get built if the power supply is not there. This thing doesn't get built

[1:17:42] if it will hinder the reliability of the local grid. So that is the responsibility of Encore,

[1:17:48] the distribution manager and the owner of all the distribution lines in the area.

[1:17:52] It's the responsibility of Ircott and it's the responsibility of the PUC. I understand,

[1:17:56] been going back a few years, a lot of people might not have a lot of confidence in those

[1:18:00] bodies, but to their credit, the state legislature has plugged some of those holes, including

[1:18:04] most recently, so it's a very different regulatory environment now for large power users like

[1:18:09] these than it used to be just a few years ago.

[1:18:12] Additionally, if there are any upgrades required to that local infrastructure to serve this development,

[1:18:18] this development is on the hook financially for those upgrades.

[1:18:24] The city's noise ordinance will apply to this project both during construction and once it's open and operational, they have generators for backup power.

[1:18:32] Those usually need to be tested monthly. They have told us that they're only going to be doing that during the daytime.

[1:18:38] It's usually 30 minutes to an hour.

[1:18:41] And so, you know, looking at maybe 12 hours per month of, sorry, 12 hours per year when those generators going to be up and running.

[1:18:48] unless there's a power cottage, of course,

[1:18:50] when those generators will kick on.

[1:18:53] And as far as I'm aware, the city has not received

[1:18:56] any noise complaints on the savey

[1:18:58] or switch data centers that have been operational.

[1:19:03] When it comes to lighting, the zoning and development code

[1:19:05] regulates fixture height, especially when you get closer

[1:19:07] to a single-family neighborhood.

[1:19:08] It regulates light trespass to ensure

[1:19:10] that you're not unnecessarily illuminating

[1:19:12] neighboring properties or the right of way.

[1:19:15] And we also have shielding requirements.

[1:19:16] If it is determined that light is,

[1:19:18] There's too much light shining in one direction we can require that developer to shield those lights.

[1:19:23] So we don't have to worry about this being lit up like the Griswaltz house.

[1:19:28] Property taxes, I usually don't include information like this in a zoning scenario or a zoning case.

[1:19:36] And the planning and development services or department is really not part of our calculus when we're going through this.

[1:19:41] We're looking at the comprehensive plan.

[1:19:43] We're looking at the land use, we're looking at highs and best use for a property.

[1:19:45] We're not really concerned with property taxes, but in the interest of providing the fullest picture possible to the decision makers and to the policy makers, I think it's an important thing to highlight in this case, especially since we have data from the real world from an existing day.

[1:20:01] So, what we've revealed is that the Sabi data center has an extremely low cost to serve that property compared with the revenue that we get back from it. So, the first building at the Sabi data center is as large in terms of square footage as 100 single-family homes. It only requires the equivalent services of 15 single-family homes, and in the meantime, it returns money back to the city in form of property taxes equivalent to over 500 homes.

[1:20:29] So it is part of the city's strategic plan to be a financially sound city providing high value services.

[1:20:35] It's, you know, per on a per acre basis, it's tough to find something that provides more value to the city and to the general fund than a data center as we've seen here.

[1:20:47] So if approved, the planned unit development becomes the regulating document for development of the property.

[1:20:52] Anything that's not specifically outlined in the PUD just defaults to the base zoning and development code in the light industrial zoning district.

[1:20:58] district. If it's not approved, the existing light industrial zoning remains in place.

[1:21:03] So there would be an 8-foot wide landscape buffer along the southern property line in

[1:21:07] the PUD that proposes 25 feet. There would be a 6-foot tall wall along the southern property

[1:21:12] line as opposed to 8-foot tall as proposed in the PUD. All land uses allowed in the LI zoning

[1:21:17] district could be built here, whereas the PUD restricts many of those uses. And there's an

[1:21:22] 80-foot building setback from the neighborhood where there is effectively in the PUD a 500-plus

[1:21:27] billings setback. Additionally, parking and dumpsters would be allowed in that 80-foot building

[1:21:32] setback that is just a base code standard because the building setback only applies to buildings,

[1:21:37] not to other surface-level improvements. However, the PUD prohibits these in parcel area 3 here in

[1:21:42] that first 80 feet on the south.

[1:21:45] This went to the Planning and Zoning Commission last month and

[1:21:47] was unanimously recommended for approval. We did not have any speakers at the public hearing.

[1:21:52] Prior to the hearing, we exchanged emails with a resident of the Meadows at Chandler Creek mud,

[1:21:56] sub-division, they had concerns about a potential vehicular connection through the neighborhood,

[1:22:01] loss of wildlife, habitat, noise and light pollution, manufacturing pollution, and other impacts

[1:22:05] that just simply arise from development close to a neighborhood. And staff recommends approval.

[1:22:11] I'll be happy to answer any questions you've got. We have William Schaden of Skybox. The applicant

[1:22:15] is here as well as the civil engineer, CJ Ponson, and they'll be able to answer any questions you have

[1:22:19] regarding the operations of a data center and the engineering of the site. Okay. Any questions

[1:22:29] I just wanted to revisit the issue of electricity and I know that you said there's new state regulations

[1:22:36] that also protects the systems more but I know especially like when we had the big freeze

[1:22:41] and people with that electricity and I think it's probably still a fear of all of ours that will

[1:22:45] be in that situation again. So from what I understand if there's an issue with electricity it falls

[1:22:52] First, who are residents that the data centers would kind of go to their generators and not use their sources if it's going to impact ours at all

[1:22:59] Is that correct? That is my understanding, but I think also the applicant can answer that as well

[1:23:04] There is an new state law that I know that does takes off the high energy users. I if that's you know a data center

[1:23:12] And we can we'll get the applicant up in a second. Okay, other questions over here

[1:23:19] Questions over here

[1:23:23] Mayor Protein.

[1:23:24] Just a couple questions.

[1:23:26] So if it went back to light industrial,

[1:23:30] what is the building height limit on those kind of buildings?

[1:23:34] Just regular light industrial doesn't come back to us.

[1:23:38] I'm trying to think, so I think we have a requirement of just two stories,

[1:23:41] but there's not necessarily a number of feet attached to that.

[1:23:44] So sometimes light industrial building could be 50 feet tall for a single story,

[1:23:47] because they have high ceilings to account for storage or manufacturing activities.

[1:23:51] So, you could be looking at 80 to 100 feet in height potentially for a light industrial,

[1:23:56] just built in the base light industrial zoning district.

[1:23:58] But two stories?

[1:23:59] Yes.

[1:24:00] Two stories.

[1:24:00] With a setback of how far away from the property line?

[1:24:03] 80 feet.

[1:24:04] 80 feet.

[1:24:05] Um, those trees that are being required to put in, um, is there a height requirement when

[1:24:10] they're coming in just to make sure that, you know, you're not putting these little guys

[1:24:13] that are going to take 50 years to grow and promote stuff on them?

[1:24:16] Yes.

[1:24:16] We do require that all large species trees that are planted have been in a measurement of

[1:24:21] three inches of caliper, you know, the trunk at time of planting, but also a minimum height of 10 feet and a minimum spread of six feet.

[1:24:29] Last question, since we do have switch and say the on the ground and they've been here for a while,

[1:24:33] is there any data that shows that either one of those has increased or led to an increase in water rates or electricity rates for our customers?

[1:24:41] No.

[1:24:42] Thank you.

[1:24:43] Any other questions or comments?

[1:24:49] You want to come up and say anything about with regards to the, I'm talking to the

[1:24:53] applicant about the question about kind of state regulations and all that that have

[1:25:00] I'm kind of going into place. Yes, sir. William Shannon, Skybuck's data centers. I appreciate you all being here this evening. That's correct. So in the recent legislative session, it was Senate Bill 6, which passed, and there's pretty sweeping reform for these large load users like data centers. And it prioritizes reliability, right, for the customers across Texas homeowners. And for these buildings that are very large consumers, there's a lot of measures taken in an extreme event.

[1:25:29] And first, they have backup generation, so they're able to, you know, turn off and leave more electricity for homeowners and the like.

[1:25:35] And there's a number of other kind of protections that are being rolled out based on that legislation that was passed.

[1:25:42] I don't know if you know this, so if I understand it correctly, if on court is the one that would require you to build a substation, or is that get built no matter what?

[1:25:54] They would require it, so in layman's terms, the line running across that property is 138,000 volts.

[1:26:01] Think of a TV remote that has a volt and a half battery in it, AAA.

[1:26:05] So we have to take electricity at 143,000 volts and break it down through a substation to transform or switch gear

[1:26:13] to go into the building and ultimately power computing equipment that's taking voltages closer to like a TV remote or a home TV.

[1:26:20] And so that facility is really facilitating, taking a very high voltage from the existing line to break it down to basically a digestible level for the computing equipment inside this building.

[1:26:32] Does any of that, you know, there's a pretty big electrical substation right next to this piece of property between old settlers.

[1:26:41] I mean, just to the west, just to the west, does that play into any kind of factor with

[1:26:47] y'all?

[1:26:49] I mean, only that there is a 345 killable line that will be extended from that station

[1:26:57] to the east.

[1:26:59] And you know, there's just a lot of upgrades in the north Austin metropolitan area and

[1:27:05] and round rock up through Georgetown

[1:27:07] that are happening today.

[1:27:09] And so it's looked at holistically

[1:27:12] and ERCOT is the ultimate overseer of the grid

[1:27:15] in the state of Texas.

[1:27:17] But yes, that being there,

[1:27:18] I would say is part of a larger map

[1:27:20] and is ERCOT and on core looking at requests,

[1:27:24] like potentially the one that we would have in

[1:27:26] for this facility.

[1:27:29] They're very carefully considering

[1:27:31] all of the different major projects

[1:27:32] across the area to ensure grid reliability

[1:27:34] And a lot of the upgrades that are being made for these facilities are actually strengthening the grid in this area because there is just so much investment and they're able to get such heavy investment out of data center developers.

[1:27:48] Did it has just allowed them to really build out a very robust infrastructure in the process?

[1:27:54] Okay. All right. I think anybody else have any question? Councilmember Fuller. So for question for the applicant, if if by chance a substation is required is that's more than 100% by you. Is that, am I, is that correct?

[1:28:10] Yes, sir. It would either be us or a combination of us and on core.

[1:28:17] I don't know if you've this far along but has on court committed to the power on that project.

[1:28:25] They have not.

[1:28:26] So we are in advanced discussions.

[1:28:28] We have facilities under construction in Flueger, Bill and Hado.

[1:28:31] They tie into a broader kind of network in this, you know, call it 50 mile radius area.

[1:28:36] And so we have, you know, very active conversations with them and feel like there's a good path

[1:28:41] here.

[1:28:41] And started conversations with city staff months ago who've been wonderful to work with advancing this rezoning application kind of seeing, you know, skating to the park.

[1:28:51] You'd say and that there was going to be an excess of electricity here and we could bring a facility here that would be a much less dense development than what's approved today with light industrial and really a big tax based booster.

[1:29:05] And so we have been for months working through this.

[1:29:09] And as a developer, you cannot go forward with the data center unless you get commitment from Moncord that they can supply you.

[1:29:17] Yes, sir, that's absolutely correct.

[1:29:18] We don't build buildings without a commitment from Moncord and almost all of the time without a commitment from a major company as a tenant that's going to commit to a long-term lease, paying rent, paying operating expenses, and bringing a lot of investment to the projects that we're building.

[1:29:36] final question. Skybox, do you operate other data centers now? Where, how many?

[1:29:45] Yes, sir, we do. It's largely been born. We have a company called Skybox

[1:29:49] Critical Operations, which is an operating company for the facilities that we are

[1:29:54] building and customers because of the complexity of these facilities have

[1:29:57] basically requested that we

[1:30:00] We set up a company that, because we have built them, we know the ins and outs of how they work and operate. And so, that company is, I want to say around 50 employees. And it is all facilities that we have built. I think there's four or five of them at this point with a few that are under construction today. And it's a complex operation, but having built these facilities, we kind of have the inside track to really understand how to operate them day in and out.

[1:30:27] Do those facilities operate in Texas or the central Texas area or they do so we have three buildings in

[1:30:34] Hado, all of which are under construction. Two in Fluegerville, one that was recently completed,

[1:30:40] one that will be completed in the first quarter of next year. So we're extremely familiar with the

[1:30:44] area or how to construction is actually a graduate of Round Rock High School. So he's spent a lot of

[1:30:49] time out here on the ground. Our folks are in the field. I mean, our CEOs and the construction

[1:30:56] option trailer two to three days a week down here.

[1:30:58] Yeah, thank you.

[1:30:59] Yes, sir.

[1:31:00] Any other questions?

[1:31:02] Councilmember Taiga?

[1:31:04] I have one here.

[1:31:06] And this was sent to me before the meeting

[1:31:08] from a consistent or mine.

[1:31:10] They're asking about monitoring air quality.

[1:31:15] I don't know how that would pertain to this or not,

[1:31:17] because I'm not familiar how that works in this area

[1:31:20] for this particular project before or after

[1:31:23] are doing during the construction, is that something that you all take into consideration?

[1:31:29] Yes, there it is.

[1:31:31] And so where it comes into play is these buildings have backup generators that sit on the exterior

[1:31:36] of the building.

[1:31:37] So the technology companies have hundreds of millions of dollars of computing equipment that

[1:31:41] they want to be operational 365 days of the year 24 hours a day.

[1:31:46] And so those backup generators most of the time are diesel-fueled, and while they would

[1:31:51] not typically run for more than an hour each month being tested.

[1:31:56] If there was a severe set of circumstances and they needed to be turned on for a few days,

[1:32:03] the emissions are subject to CCEQ, the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality regulations.

[1:32:09] And so we have to model what those emissions could be for generally around a week.

[1:32:15] That's kind of the base assumption that if there was an event it would be no more probably

[1:32:20] than a week of those running in a year.

[1:32:22] What's the emissions associated with that occurring?

[1:32:25] And the EPA designates different, more densely populated portions of the United States's

[1:32:31] categories of where they want to limit emissions more, where there are a lot of people just to

[1:32:35] keep from pollution really proliferating around and so it requires, I would say, permitting

[1:32:44] that we have to run through the Texas Commission for environmental quality.

[1:32:47] And yeah,

[1:32:51] that's really the primary component of where that comes into play, but it's something that we look at very closely.

[1:32:57] Another question for you.

[1:32:58] Because we all know technology is changing so quickly.

[1:33:02] I mean, our iPhones are a good example of that.

[1:33:05] Yes, sir.

[1:33:05] Technology in your field, is that changing rapidly?

[1:33:10] Or at some point, I'll use an example.

[1:33:13] The water that's recirculated.

[1:33:14] Is that something that we are seeing now that at some point you won't even need that because you've got

[1:33:20] Technology that's going to replace that

[1:33:23] I

[1:33:24] Think

[1:33:25] The rezoning application before council is even in requires a closed loop system

[1:33:29] Which is where the technology is trended because it is so much more environmentally friendly and so less wasteful of water

[1:33:35] It's the style system that our firm has employed since day one and

[1:33:39] And when staff recommended or staff requested that we included in this zoning application,

[1:33:44] we're impressed that they had that level of knowledge and I would tell you more people are shifting that direction because they acknowledge the scarcity of water and they are also improving, improving the efficiency of how those systems work and they used to really not be close to as efficient as what they referred to as the non-close system, the evaporative system that was, you know, one that uses millions of gallons a day.

[1:34:06] But I think it's more that you have a more widespread adoption of the system that staff has required that we put into the rezoning application before Council this evening.

[1:34:17] Thank you.

[1:34:18] Yes, sir.

[1:34:18] Yeah, I think that, you know, in Brad's slide that, you know, I think what's yet to look at is that you're talking about the water usage of 15 homes on an annual basis.

[1:34:29] And then to equate that value, you're talking about an additional 500 homes to make up that value which means more roads, more traffic, more schools, you know, so I mean the tax revenue, I mean, one thing that, you know, we've always kind of pride ourselves on is that we have a good mix of business with residential, you know, as we always like to say, you know, 93% of our properties are residential property.

[1:34:58] 7%

[1:35:00] Is commercial? Of that 7%, almost 47%, 48% of the property tax revenue comes from those big, big companies. If we didn't have that, then their tax rate wouldn't be one of the lowest and central taxes or the state of taxes. So, you know, it, you know, there, we received a lot of emails about, you know, it doesn't have a lot of jobs, you know, but I think what people have realized with economic development, it also means capital investment. And so,

[1:35:29] So to try to get that right mix, you know, you put a warehouse there with a traffic, you

[1:35:39] know, UPS FedEx, you know, it'll never make up the difference that, you know, a big facility

[1:35:48] like this or facility like yours with the capital investment will do.

[1:35:52] Yes, sir.

[1:35:53] I mean, when we started in Hado 4 years ago, it was farmland and it has exploded, right?

[1:35:58] And it's homes, it's retail, it's, you know, there's thousands of workers on site daily on our project at this point so.

[1:36:05] Right. When I think that, you know, as, as, you know, that's been mentioned and talked about, you know, they're going to go out in the county if they're not going to be here in the city.

[1:36:17] So they're, you know, it still has the same issues with with electric. Then you have, you know, probably more issues with trying to find water.

[1:36:24] and then you also have no development standards out in the county.

[1:36:30] They can be built however whenever they won't and so you know if you can do

[1:36:37] things to try to have some control over it and make sure that you know it has

[1:36:43] the right mix with business and residential you know it is something that helps

[1:36:49] our citizens and benefits them with their property taxes and look number

[1:36:54] one thing we always hear is about affordability. And we always hear about, you know, taxes,

[1:37:00] profit taxes and stuff. And so, you know, when we can do anything to help maintain that

[1:37:07] low tax rate, then, you know, it's something that I think we all have to take seriously

[1:37:10] and look at. So, stay around. We're going to have a public hearing and stuff. And so, there

[1:37:17] might be some more questions in price set pretty close to the front. Maybe right next to

[1:37:22] broadly just in case because that way if someone asks a question or says something then we

[1:37:28] can maybe get the answer right away if need be.

[1:37:31] I'm happy to do that.

[1:37:32] All right.

[1:37:33] Thank you.

[1:37:34] Thank you.

[1:37:34] All right.

[1:37:35] So, you might want to take a quick two minute break.

[1:37:38] All right.

[1:37:39] What we're going to do for everybody in the audience.

[1:37:41] So I'm going to maintain the three minute time limit.

[1:37:45] Once it's three minutes, it's over.

[1:37:47] there's about 18 to 20 speakers I think on here we will have civil discourse in

[1:37:55] this chamber there will not be anybody yelling at us we're not going to yell at

[1:38:00] you and if it gets out of hand then you will be asked to leave if I've warned

[1:38:08] you or not and we've never had an issue before I don't anticipate one tonight but

[1:38:14] I want to make sure everybody understands what the rules are.

[1:38:19] So we'll take about a two or three minute break and then we'll read adjourn.

[1:38:24] So we'll recess at 7.40.

[1:38:48] We'll reconvene at 7.46.

[1:39:01] All right, let me just ask this since we've had, we're starting when we are.

[1:39:09] or is there anybody that is waiting on transportation

[1:39:16] or being basically needed like they wanna speak

[1:39:19] and then they gotta get out of here?

[1:39:20] I mean, I just wanna make sure we're not,

[1:39:22] I don't want you to sit here and you're down to it.

[1:39:25] I didn't put these in any order,

[1:39:27] but if there's someone that's gotta get somewhere

[1:39:31] for whatever reason, I'd like to let you go first.

[1:39:34] Okay, so why don't we start with you?

[1:39:36] What, yeah.

[1:39:39] You don't want to go first? Okay, I'll let you go second. Tell me your name, and I'll

[1:39:44] Okay, I'll let you go second

[1:39:47] If I mispronounce your name, please forgive me

[1:39:51] What I need you to do is make sure you come up state your name and address for the record

[1:39:56] You once you're finished with your comments like said

[1:40:00] They go three minutes, but once you finish your comments, don't run off just right away because the council can't ask you any question because it's an agenda item. Okay. And so we'll work through this and go from there. So I'm going to, I hope I can read these. It looks like the first one up is Ruby Payne. Okay.

[1:40:28] I'll ask her.

[1:40:32] Good evening, Ms. Payne. Good evening.

[1:40:35] Mayor, Mayor Protein, Council Members,

[1:40:40] Roundup Office, residents.

[1:40:44] I am a resident of 24 years here in Roundup.

[1:40:50] I've seen a lot growth from nothing to a lot.

[1:40:57] And I was notified by my neighbor about this,

[1:41:01] because since I've been retired,

[1:41:03] I don't read everything that comes into my house,

[1:41:05] but I'm glad she brought it to my attention

[1:41:08] because I look at it like this location, location, location.

[1:41:14] And the sky box data center, it's a good project,

[1:41:21] but it's not for residential area.

[1:41:23] When I came to Round Rock, it was for residential,

[1:41:27] it was for taxes, and I worked in Austin,

[1:41:30] and everything worked out great.

[1:41:32] And so I've seen a lot, well, first of all, I saw my neighborhood being completed, being built.

[1:41:39] We have a lot of young people, had a lot of young people come and leave.

[1:41:43] Still have some young people coming.

[1:41:45] And I'd like to see that continued, but we wanted to be where it's beneficial to them to be here.

[1:41:54] And I was listening to the gentleman speak about where the box centers are located.

[1:41:59] And the one that I do know of, it doesn't sit in the middle of a residential area where

[1:42:07] we are of a Chandler Creek Boulevard behind us when you go down old settlers, that's residential.

[1:42:13] Behind us they just finished town homes.

[1:42:16] We don't need box centers next to where we live.

[1:42:21] There are other areas, we have a lot of open land between here and Taylor and further out

[1:42:28] going toward Georgetown and app that they can build whatever they want for their box

[1:42:34] centers, but not in our backyards. And I'm not going to go any further than that, but

[1:42:40] I wanted to make it plain that if it was in your back yard where you come out of your

[1:42:46] subdivision, do you want to see that? Thank you.

[1:42:50] All right.

[1:42:55] Miss Payne. Miss Payne, I have a question, a couple quick questions for you.

[1:43:01] So

[1:43:02] So I just want to make sure that you understand you that that parcel of land is already zoned industrial so it it's not compatible to change it back to like a residential or something I saw I saw that but I made a note on my notes where I guess the land sit there so long that it wasn't pleasing or are tempting for subdivid or contract to say let me build some homes there. I saw them build further up old settlers versus across

[1:43:32] there. I didn't know if there wasn't enough plot for the homes that they intended or what,

[1:43:36] but I just feel like that's not what we need there. So just I know you pointed at each of us.

[1:43:44] I have an Amazon Distribution Center right behind my house. So hundreds of Amazon trucks

[1:43:49] see it on Chisholm Trail every single day right by my neighborhood. So I sympathize. I do get it,

[1:43:54] but we do have to figure out the highest and best uses of land and currently that is zoned

[1:43:59] light industrial so we just have to make that decision. Unfortunately it's not

[1:44:03] zone residential. Can I ask you a question? Sure. Since that is zone as it is, is it

[1:44:09] instead in stone that it could never be re-zoned? I don't think that it would be

[1:44:13] compatible because you already have to

[1:44:16] industrial on both sides of it. You've got industrial on each side so there's never

[1:44:21] going to be a residential zone in area. And you've got commercial right across

[1:44:26] the street bordering old settlers in Kiffin Road. So I don't wear it, I wear it broadly.

[1:44:32] But there's other point. Would it ever be changed to anything that would be?

[1:44:35] It could be considered something else. And the reason I said that is because I do know of

[1:44:40] the one-of-the-box centers that they're talking about, the sky box, and it doesn't sit in the middle

[1:44:47] residue. It's not, it's bordering one perimeter of it. So I would take issue that it's sitting

[1:44:54] in the middle of it, but I will ask Bradley what anything else it could ever be.

[1:45:00] And in the switch data center does, but just like this up to neighborhood. I mean, I can always speak from what I understand. And I've seen, like I said, I've seen the growth from churches.

[1:45:14] Sure.

[1:45:15] And to your point, my neighborhood, you know, my neighborhood came out and spoke when that Amazon was coming in. I will say they have been a good partner to our neighborhood.

[1:45:26] and so we all want our Amazon packages, right?

[1:45:29] And so they get there nice and fast now.

[1:45:31] They're right behind us.

[1:45:32] So I do understand.

[1:45:34] How come then I'd lie to the big boys and Austin asked

[1:45:36] them for this?

[1:45:37] Yeah.

[1:45:37] Just asking.

[1:45:39] Bradley, a Brad asked, answer the Mayor Pro Temps question

[1:45:44] about her suggestion if you could move it.

[1:45:48] Change in a hypothetical situation in which a prospective developer wanted

[1:45:52] to rezone this property from a light industrial to single family.

[1:45:55] I don't think we would be able to support it.

[1:45:57] The comprehensive plan designates this for industrial use.

[1:45:59] It is bordered by industrial use on two sides, plus more commercial on the north side.

[1:46:04] Additionally, if a word to be developed as residential or single family,

[1:46:07] we would require them to make that connection through the neighborhood.

[1:46:10] So they would have more ways in and out and around.

[1:46:11] So it would increase traffic through the neighborhood.

[1:46:14] It would be a whole lot more traffic than any industrial use on this property.

[1:46:17] Would see on the old settler's boulevard anyway.

[1:46:19] Well, I know when we approved for the charter school, they were able that they wanted.

[1:46:24] they could have gone through the neighborhood and then that would have created an abundance of

[1:46:31] traffic. So that's one of the things we did fix in this putt or we were able to fix in this putt

[1:46:38] is the drive through connection and we all live in neighborhoods where we've got connections of roads

[1:46:44] just coming through where people are coming left and right and speed in and choose our neighbor's

[1:46:50] speed in, but there's always a lot of, a lot of times with traffic, people want you to have the connections.

[1:47:01] I'm glad you mentioned the charter school though, because that helped jog my memory a little bit about some of the history here.

[1:47:06] So the charter school would have had to connect down there as well.

[1:47:09] But when that proposal went away, then we had another proposal for light industrial.

[1:47:14] They actually started going through the site development permit process with us.

[1:47:17] As recently as June, we were reviewing that permit before it was dropped in favor of the

[1:47:21] rezoning application.

[1:47:22] They were planning on building four light industrial buildings on this property totaling

[1:47:26] about 365,000 square feet of light industrial uses with a building meeting the 80-foot set

[1:47:33] back along the southern property line right down there with parking all around it.

[1:47:38] And they wouldn't have to come, they could come back and do that right now if they wanted.

[1:47:42] Yes.

[1:47:43] Okay.

[1:47:44] All right.

[1:47:44] Well, so I was just wondering if it could put up that diagram again just that shows the

[1:47:50] MD land with the neighborhood at the bottom and then it had so this one because if we were

[1:47:58] to build like a residential in that area then there are back that new residential neighborhoods

[1:48:02] backing up to two industrials on both sides. So it's kind of the same situation which is why they

[1:48:09] had sewn that and that was before my time but they had sewn in industrial there because it kind of

[1:48:13] went in with both sides.

[1:48:15] So now we're just kind of having that issue

[1:48:17] that the new industrial is backing up to the neighborhood,

[1:48:20] which is why they're trying to be so strict

[1:48:22] on setting much farther back.

[1:48:24] And then that's going to be sending farther back

[1:48:26] than the existing data centers that we have.

[1:48:29] Just so hopefully you're not looking at it.

[1:48:33] And all of us went out to say B to tour it

[1:48:36] because I mean, I hadn't been to a data center before.

[1:48:39] So I wanted to kind of understand it better

[1:48:40] and just like, what does it look like?

[1:48:42] and how loud is it and you know there's not even noise inside like there's one room that's it.

[1:48:49] So a lot of these things that I was concerned about I wasn't seeing that are hoping that if it's

[1:48:55] got to be industrial it's much better industrial than it could be. So we're trying to make it better

[1:49:01] and then pitch structure guidelines to hopefully help. So I think that's why there's some confusion

[1:49:05] because we're like well there's industrial in both sites. I still want to show you all that again.

[1:49:09] All right. All right, Ms. Morin.

[1:49:15] Did someone before you start? Did someone in the back want to need to go to with the baby? I thought someone maybe. Okay. I just want to make sure. All right.

[1:49:26] Does somebody need to go? Come on up.

[1:49:30] I don't have any notes. So forgive me. I was here to talk and am I am I doing this? Okay. You're doing great.

[1:49:39] I'm Margaret Maureen and I am, I'm not anybody special, I'm just a registered nurse, I've been

[1:49:46] a registered nurse for more than 40 years and I've seen my share of suffering and that's

[1:49:52] one of the things that attracted me to this concept of the data centers and I only found

[1:49:57] that about this because it was in next door

[1:50:04] I'm not a young woman, and I still read my newspapers, and I never saw anything about this. So, you know, this is all surprised to me. Do you mind if I just ask the room of question real quick? How many people are here to protest the data centers? If you raise your hand? Okay. And see, we haven't even heard about this officially any place. We're just here in places like next door. So we would like to have an extended period of comment on this.

[1:50:29] this because so more people can participate and have more people informed about what's

[1:50:34] happening because I don't think that's happening right now.

[1:50:38] This is just off the next door app most of us have found out about that because I went

[1:50:42] around and took an informal poll.

[1:50:45] Anyway, so I've been reading on these data centers and excuse me, I'm in native Texans so

[1:50:52] I talk like one but I do read the business journals as well and two of my favorite are

[1:50:59] Bloomberg and Forbes, and I don't know if you all know this, but I assume you do.

[1:51:03] And this is one from Bloomberg.

[1:51:06] It was published just in September of 2025.

[1:51:10] And the title is AI data centers are sending power bills soaring.

[1:51:15] The subtitle is wholesale electricity costs are as much as 267 percent more than it did five

[1:51:23] years ago in areas with data centers.

[1:51:26] and that's being passed along to consumers.

[1:51:29] So this is a study, I read it,

[1:51:31] and this is a study that analyzed tens of thousands

[1:51:35] of cities with data centers.

[1:51:39] And I would encourage y'all to read this

[1:51:41] because this is a pretty reliable study.

[1:51:44] There are other good studies too,

[1:51:46] but this is one that caught my eye.

[1:51:49] So, because I think some of the things

[1:51:51] we're talking about tonight,

[1:51:52] don't bear out in what I'm seeing in the research.

[1:51:55] I also wanted to talk about the closed loop that they're talking about.

[1:52:03] I've done some reading on that too.

[1:52:05] I don't make myself as an expert, but many studies say that that's a fallacy,

[1:52:10] that there is no such thing as truly closed loop cooling.

[1:52:14] There is exposure to the environment, and there is still a significant amount of water use

[1:52:19] that I don't think we're really addressing tonight.

[1:52:21] Okay. You know, in areas that I read in one study, that areas with several data centers,

[1:52:29] people are being asked not to shower because the data centers need the water. And right

[1:52:34] now, I'm only watering my lawn one or two times a week because of the water restrictions.

[1:52:40] So I would like to, what does that mean?

[1:52:43] That means your three manages up.

[1:52:45] Okay. Well, I would just like to say one more thing.

[1:52:48] You sure can.

[1:52:49] Okay.

[1:52:49] Well, I did, I just because I'm an analytical person by nature, I'm a nurse.

[1:52:55] I thought, oh, all these places have data center and they're all having some problems

[1:52:59] with them.

[1:53:00] What places don't have data centers?

[1:53:03] You know, are there places around the United States that don't have any data centers?

[1:53:07] And surprisingly, I found dozens that don't have any data centers and have no plans to

[1:53:12] have data centers.

[1:53:13] And those are places like Scarborough, New York, and West University, Place, Texas, and there's

[1:53:19] a bunch of others, but I'm not going to read them to you because I'm my time's up. And

[1:53:24] what characterizes these places is they're largely populated by billionaires. Now we're

[1:53:29] not billionaires in Round Rock. We can't protect ourselves with wealth and power like these

[1:53:33] places do and are able to keep the data centers out of their communities.

[1:53:49] We're counting on

[1:53:50] softballs at this man with questions because that's what's going on and I'm sorry because

[1:53:54] y'all are looking at the tax base and I respect that because I don't want to pay more

[1:53:59] taxes either but I also don't want to get sick with cancer so thank you

[1:54:07] thank you.

[1:54:21] Thank

[1:54:25] you, Mayor, thank you, Council.

[1:54:28] My name is Jeanette Rousey.

[1:54:29] I'm a resident of villages of Chandler Creek, and we're in a municipal utility district.

[1:54:36] And the proposed skybox site sits less than 1,000 feet from my house.

[1:54:41] And I first learned of the proposed data center three days ago, when I read it in the community

[1:54:46] impact newsletter in my email and I never learned of the planning and zoning commissions

[1:54:51] November 5th public hearing on this matter and so in the minutes of that meeting that

[1:54:56] no members of the public attended I understand that property

[1:55:00] Members, within 325 feet of the site received mail notice. So my family and I fell 675 feet short of earning notice. And this does not inspire my confidence. Considering that a data center could have a longstanding impact on my community's health and property values, we deserve more reliable scientific evidence than one or two local comparisons before this goes

[1:55:29] forward. And I appreciate the city's prompt response to my email the other day and the FAQ

[1:55:36] that was posted on your website. But these failed to address a number of particular concerns

[1:55:41] around the hazards of data centers around this country and the speed that these are being

[1:55:46] imposed upon neighborhoods like mine. I simply ask that council slow down do its due diligence

[1:55:53] and act in good faith for the well-being of your neighbors. Thank you.

[1:55:57] Thank you.

[1:55:59] All

[1:56:03] right.

[1:56:04] Karen Chote.

[1:56:19] Karen Chote, 20 Fairview Drive.

[1:56:21] I've lived at my house for over 40 years.

[1:56:23] I live on the north side of the off-east old settlers.

[1:56:26] And I noticed that the presentation was mainly talking about the niceties that they were

[1:56:31] doing at the south side of the project.

[1:56:33] But the south side of the project is more towards other people's subdivision.

[1:56:37] But what about the area that's right facing old settlers?

[1:56:40] That's the north side of the project.

[1:56:42] What are you doing for that?

[1:56:43] And I have a question regarding the energy prices because from the energy

[1:56:50] information administration, when I looked it up today, they expect energy prices

[1:56:54] to go up, electricity prices to go up, 8.6%, especially in areas with data

[1:57:00] centers and stuff.

[1:57:01] And so I didn't hear that in the presentation, but it says they can go up even more.

[1:57:08] And so yes, I know you want to do a good job with property taxes, but it doesn't

[1:57:12] help with, it doesn't help us a lot if you save on property taxes but we get charged

[1:57:17] at least 8.6% more on electricity costs because we're going to have a high electricity

[1:57:23] usage data center in the area. And so that's my main concern. I'm also concerned about

[1:57:31] the water but from what they said it'd only be like one swimming pool so that wouldn't be

[1:57:35] so bad if that's actually true. But I want to say something else. A lot of y'all say,

[1:57:39] Well, it's already zoned for industrial use.

[1:57:43] I want to ask you, when was that?

[1:57:46] I didn't get any notice of that, and I have dealt with planning and zoning before,

[1:57:50] and they don't even pay attention to deed restrictions when they pass things.

[1:57:54] So I don't even know if the area that they're talking about had deed restrictions that would

[1:58:00] contradict it.

[1:58:01] They've told me in the past that, well, even though the city approves it, if it's a violation

[1:58:05] your deed restrictions, you can still sue them.

[1:58:08] And why in the world should residents have to dig into our pockets to sue

[1:58:13] against something that was against a deed restriction in the first place?

[1:58:16] Like I said, I don't know about it for this thing, but I do know that in the past,

[1:58:21] planning and zoning has not looked at deed restrictions before they've approved

[1:58:24] things.

[1:58:25] And so that's my concern, concern about water, concern about the amount of electricity,

[1:58:30] I'm concerned about the cost of electricity, and as that other person talked about, I'm concerned about noise, and also concerned about the possibility of cancer.

[1:58:40] So please take some more time to look at that and let us be more informed, I only found out about it because a neighbor sent me something about it.

[1:58:48] And so, you know me, I'm Karen, I come talk to you before, I'll come talk to you again.

[1:58:53] But anyway, thanks for having this, and I hope you can answer those questions.

[1:58:56] Thanks.

[1:58:56] Thank you.

[1:59:00] Yeah.

[1:59:01] Brad, come up real quick and then the applicant, I'm going to come back up.

[1:59:07] The question about the kind of the front aspect of it being closer to outsiders and, you

[1:59:13] know, any trees or whatever.

[1:59:16] Yeah, the putt does require a row of trees, medium and large species trees as kind of a buffer

[1:59:21] on the front side of the building.

[1:59:23] Okay.

[1:59:24] And then, where's the applicant?

[1:59:27] Oh.

[1:59:27] Right there. Can you come back up here and address how does the electricity, all right?

[1:59:38] How does it, because I thought I heard you say that when you get this, when this is approved by Encore,

[1:59:44] it can't have any impact on existing, you know, residential property or whatever.

[1:59:52] Yes sir so I mean just clarified yeah and so in Texas energy is

[1:59:58] deregulated.

[2:00:00] And so that was done in the late 90s. They broke up. The producers of electricity, the owners of transmission lines, and then ultimate end retailing groups. And so any of us in this room can pick who we buy our electricity from. That's a post deregulation world that we live in. And so it's a free market. It's a plight of and driven. And Ercat again is the overseer of the overall grid. And as they are considering applications for large load, they're looking very closely at how much electricity are we producing, and they're never going to over commit.

[2:00:29] and fall short, they want to keep things in balance,

[2:00:33] but in terms of the contracts and what you're paying,

[2:00:35] that's just driven by the free market in the state of Texas.

[2:00:38] Okay.

[2:00:40] So are you familiar with the article

[2:00:42] that was referenced that they were seeing an increase

[2:00:44] and were data centers all located?

[2:00:47] Are you familiar with that at all?

[2:00:48] I mean, not that we don't have to be,

[2:00:49] but are just curious.

[2:00:50] Yeah, and it's, you know, in a world where we've seen

[2:00:53] run away inflation over the past several years

[2:00:55] and it's, you know, energy prices,

[2:00:58] and it's been food and it's been steel.

[2:01:00] It's been different things.

[2:01:02] There's more variables to the equation, right?

[2:01:04] And so I think it's easy to point to data centers.

[2:01:07] There's large consumers of electricity and say,

[2:01:10] that's really the problem.

[2:01:12] I mean, think about the underlying inputs to produce electricity

[2:01:15] or largely oil and gas related, right?

[2:01:18] And so if oil goes up or oil goes down,

[2:01:21] that ultimately comes to an electric prices.

[2:01:23] And you know, that's one of many other variables.

[2:01:25] But I'd say that linking the two and saying this is a very black and white point A point

[2:01:32] B, and here's the connection.

[2:01:34] There's kind of some artistic freedom taken, right, in an article of that nature.

[2:01:39] Would you agree that there's different energy loads for, you know, you see a lot about

[2:01:46] magas, these big magasides.

[2:01:48] I mean, they're on 100, 200, 300 acres.

[2:01:52] I mean, they're clearly going to use much more electric than one on a smaller acreage.

[2:01:59] I mean, is that fair to say?

[2:02:00] Of course.

[2:02:02] And so, yeah, I mean, this one you're looking at, you know, in the 50 to 60 megawatt range

[2:02:09] where-

[2:02:09] Which is smaller than the other two that we already have on the ground?

[2:02:13] Correct.

[2:02:14] I mean, so-

[2:02:14] I mean, I'm megawatt-

[2:02:15] Yes, but if you go out towards the Samsung Fab and some of the bigger stuff being built

[2:02:20] out there. You're talking in the hundreds of megawatts. Right. And see, this is a much smaller

[2:02:25] scale version of what we're looking at here. Right. Okay. All right. Adam Thompson.

[2:02:33] Oh, Council Member Taig. Hold on a minute. And Brad, step up to please. I'm trying to

[2:02:40] get to understand this also because the concerns are will their electricity go up because of these

[2:02:47] or not because my understanding is they would be too separate billing for a simpler way of putting it that we will not be tagged on to their usage on our bills.

[2:03:01] Am I correct in that? Or is it, are they going to end up tagging us like they're saying because yeah, I'm concerned about my electric bill as well.

[2:03:10] Oh, yes or no, they are not directly related.

[2:03:14] So Texas being again a deregulated market, you can pick whoever you'd like to pay your

[2:03:20] month-to-month electricity with.

[2:03:22] These groups are buying from the overall grid, which in the state of Texas is roughly 85

[2:03:27] gigawatts.

[2:03:28] That's one big market that, you know, anywhere in the state, city of Austin is different.

[2:03:34] It's actually one regulated place where you have to buy from Austin Electric and they set

[2:03:37] their rates, but it's, you know, this is part of a much bigger system and for end homeowners,

[2:03:45] they are buying in a free market world where they can pick their provider and they can pick their

[2:03:52] rate and they can pick different formats of fixed over 12 months or variable rates or different

[2:03:56] things and that is, you know, a piece of the bigger electricity picture in the state of Texas.

[2:04:03] But for the data center, they are just taking electricity off.

[2:04:07] And they actually have to go and sign their contract.

[2:04:09] The same as any homeowner would.

[2:04:11] And it's obviously at a much larger scale, but they're doing the same thing, just at a larger scale.

[2:04:16] It's so citizen, when their contract comes up, then because I know mine is coming up in March,

[2:04:22] then I have to pay close attention to the rate and what I'm getting for in those wattage, then.

[2:04:28] because that's where I'm going to see an increase then probably and I have

[2:04:32] solar panels as well you know I'm really concerned about those kind of stuff

[2:04:36] then I'll notice then why that jump is because they would have to tell me I hope

[2:04:43] the truth when I ask that question to them am I am I correct in that because I want to

[2:04:48] make sure I understand it and I want to make sure the community understands that you

[2:04:51] know I think that you know I think to your your question to what he said I think

[2:04:56] that there's so many different factors in energy.

[2:05:00] I mean, the energy process has been going up for the last couple of years. I mean, across the state, you know, all that, all, on court's responsibility is for all of the grid in the state of, or our cut is response for all the grid in the state of Texas, the load, and all that. And then on court, obviously works in conjunction with them. So, I mean, if you have more people move here.

[2:05:28] I mean, your energy costs could go up.

[2:05:31] I mean, people are flocking to Texas.

[2:05:33] So, I mean, I think that there's a lot of different factors.

[2:05:36] I think that, you know, the concern is, is that, you know,

[2:05:40] it's kind of like anything else.

[2:05:41] You don't put all restaurants in the same category.

[2:05:44] Data centers are all in different categories as well.

[2:05:47] I mean, you've got the big megasights.

[2:05:48] You've got smaller ones, you know, I think Dell is in the process

[2:05:53] of doing something with AI.

[2:05:56] You know, so I mean, it's a they're all different, you know, just like our houses, you know, some of us are paying more in electricity than others, you know, and we don't control that.

[2:06:05] I mean, that's the one thing that was out of our control.

[2:06:08] Well, that's what I wanted to understand because I want to be prepared and I want our community to be prepared and given them the right information.

[2:06:16] Yes, sir, so a data center isn't going to change the choices you have when you're picking your provider and what they will charge you ultimately.

[2:06:26] I'd recommend look at the different options of retailers out there because Texas being deregulated you may be able to get a better deal with another retail electric provider.

[2:06:37] and I've found that those groups, if someone sticks with them long enough,

[2:06:40] I will start increasing, and if you switch to another one,

[2:06:43] you may be able to get a better deal with that's, to me, for, you know,

[2:06:46] that piece of your life, I think that's a better way to come up with a good solution there.

[2:06:53] And, Bernard, yeah. Thank you, sir.

[2:06:56] Adam Thompson.

[2:06:58] Oh, Mayor Protum, sorry.

[2:07:01] Adam, go ahead, Adam.

[2:07:02] All the questions directed to Bradley and I can ask after you're done.

[2:07:06] Council members, Mayor, I'm Adam, you know, some of you know me.

[2:07:10] I just have questions I want to ask broadly because I don't know the answers to them and I think

[2:07:16] that they warned some clarification and further research.

[2:07:20] Question number one, closed loop system is a misnomer.

[2:07:23] That's necessarily the heat must be released in some manner.

[2:07:28] some of these systems use evaporative towers still some of these systems use

[2:07:32] forced air. I don't know what system they're intending to use. Regardless it's

[2:07:37] going to dump heat into the local area and that will have an impact on local

[2:07:43] climate. What kind of impact that does has I don't know but I do know that

[2:07:48] increasing the heat in an area can have a significant impact on the wildlife and

[2:07:53] And it also can have an impact on us.

[2:07:56] It can make the area of our neighborhoods

[2:07:58] hotter and cause more problems and increase heating costs

[2:08:02] or cooling costs rather feeding back

[2:08:05] into electricity concerns.

[2:08:07] So that's concern number one.

[2:08:09] Concern number two is these sorts of cooling systems

[2:08:13] that are associated with these data centers often produce

[2:08:16] what we call low frequency sound.

[2:08:20] That kind of sound doesn't really register

[2:08:22] Here on the decibel scale that you'll have in your, in our noise, the city noise regulations,

[2:08:32] we use the DBA system.

[2:08:34] These are sorts of things that wouldn't be applicable, but they can have an impact on

[2:08:39] people over a long period of time, even though they're not loud, they're constant.

[2:08:45] I don't know what kind of sound dampening can be done.

[2:08:49] I do know it's very difficult to damp low frequency sound it's because of its long wavelength. It's difficult to stop

[2:08:56] I'm not going to get into the physics by that is

[2:09:00] further

[2:09:01] For the council

[2:09:03] but

[2:09:06] Those are just broadly the concerns that I'm aware of

[2:09:11] That's it. All right. Thank you

[2:09:19] Crowley really quickly can you just speak to our process in planning and zoning when we're going to have a public hearing how those

[2:09:27] Announcements are made where they're made and how those compare to what the state of Texas requires us to do.

[2:09:33] Sure, we have several steps that we take whenever we have a public hearing.

[2:09:36] So for example, a rezoning will have multiple public hearings through its adoption process.

[2:09:40] The first at the Planning and Zoning Commission, the second one at City Council.

[2:09:45] And so for each public hearing, there are some state mandated requirements that we have to follow.

[2:09:49] that we actually go above and beyond, the state only requires a mailed notice to all owners of

[2:09:54] property within 200 feet of the affected property. We go to 325 feet. We want to capture

[2:10:00] There are a few more people in there. Additionally, if there's a residential neighborhood that has some kind of organization, whether it's an HOA or a neighborhood association or if it's a mud and they have a board, we send a letter to that board or to that president. We also send them an email for the contact information that we have so that they can disseminate that information to their residents. We also are required to post notices in the local newspaper of records, so the round rock leaders where those go out. We post signs. You may have seen our big beautiful ugly yellow sign.

[2:10:29] signs on this property at one point or another, we had them all around downtown for a couple

[2:10:33] of months as we were going through that process as well.

[2:10:37] I think I'm still probably forgetting something in there.

[2:10:43] Signs, mail notices, emails, newspaper, okay, that's it.

[2:10:48] Thank you.

[2:10:51] All right.

[2:10:53] Oh.

[2:10:56] I wasn't sure if you knew the answers to his questions about the heat and the frequency

[2:11:01] sound and what.

[2:11:02] I can't know.

[2:11:03] Are you familiar with that at all?

[2:11:11] This sort of sound we would typically be concerned about in light industrial would be that

[2:11:17] normal, normal frequency audible sound.

[2:11:21] So that's why I brought it up.

[2:11:23] It's a unique circumstance to the data center as opposed to what would typically be built

[2:11:27] there.

[2:11:28] That's all.

[2:11:29] And it would be 24-7, which if you can constantly hear the hum all the time, like that can actually

[2:11:36] have a legitimate health impact on people.

[2:11:39] I forgot that

[2:11:43] and I guess just from when we toured Sabi, I mean it was like one room

[2:11:47] that had the hum that was completely closed off and you didn't hear it anywhere else.

[2:11:52] I don't know if it's disseminating and we can't hear it or if that's the humming you were

[2:11:55] talking about.

[2:11:56] I just wasn't sure if you knew anything but I guess not.

[2:12:01] Well I mean I think the thing is that the thing is is that we haven't gotten any complaints

[2:12:07] from the neighborhood that's were switched.

[2:12:10] I mean, they've been there for two years

[2:12:11] and we haven't gotten an email or a complaint for noise.

[2:12:16] I mean, we, you know, someone made a comment about,

[2:12:19] you know, comparing, you know, other projects,

[2:12:23] but we only can compare what we have

[2:12:25] that way we can get our data.

[2:12:27] And that's where we get the 15 homes of water use

[2:12:31] because we can look at their water use

[2:12:33] and see how that average is out.

[2:12:34] So, you know, those are the things we have to compare.

[2:12:38] We do it on other projects.

[2:12:40] We compare when we're building somewhere else.

[2:12:42] We did what we do over on this side.

[2:12:45] So, I mean, that's the points we have.

[2:12:48] We can't compare to what they're doing in New York or Chicago

[2:12:52] or Dallas or Fort Worth.

[2:12:54] I mean, you know, so that's where those comparisons come

[2:12:58] to try to get some, you know, as much data and factual data

[2:13:02] in front of us.

[2:13:03] So, Simone Morton.

[2:13:13] Hello, City of Round Rock.

[2:13:15] I just want to extend my gratitude for the opportunity to speak about this today.

[2:13:21] I do have a question, if I can ask you all first.

[2:13:25] So outside of a data center, that would be a applicable facility to be built in this zone.

[2:13:31] Can y'all confirm any other type of buildings that could be applicable, like maybe like a grocery

[2:13:35] store, a shelter?

[2:13:38] her. There's there's a list of things.

[2:13:42] Hold on a little earlier. Go ahead and finish her and then we'll put it back up for you.

[2:13:46] Oh, I'm just curious what other type of buildings could be applicable.

[2:13:50] So you can ask that acts, a gun range, um, that clinics. Oh, you know, so just there's

[2:13:59] all kinds of different ones, but they wouldn't have to come to us for any entitlement.

[2:14:04] They could just build whatever they're going to build. Ah, I see.

[2:14:07] within those light industrial standards.

[2:14:10] Yes, this is I'm not a zone expert.

[2:14:13] A commercial or industrial expert.

[2:14:15] I'm not even an engineer.

[2:14:18] I'm not an architect.

[2:14:19] I'm just a 30-year-old girl working from home.

[2:14:23] And then that's not the point I'm trying to make.

[2:14:27] I definitely am not any of those things,

[2:14:29] but I do have a lot of passion.

[2:14:32] And I have a lot of empathy.

[2:14:33] And it's just, it breaks my heart that the world today is prioritizing things that are

[2:14:41] artificially intelligent versus the naturally intelligent that are here.

[2:14:47] And if there's so many other things and opportunities that could be had in this zone specifically

[2:14:53] to benefit the people, to better for the people,

[2:14:57] I personally think that should be taken.

[2:15:05] I understand that there's like a tax benefit for this, but is that what the people wanted? Or is that what, like, y'all want? Or?

[2:15:16] If you want to keep lower property taxes. I personally like taxes, because if it goes to things beneficial, like public transportation are, you know, public schooling.

[2:15:30] homelessness, that probably should be prioritized.

[2:15:34] That is all.

[2:15:35] All right.

[2:15:36] Thank you.

[2:15:42] Is it Paul Evans?

[2:15:49] Hi.

[2:15:50] I'm Paul Evans.

[2:15:50] Yeah.

[2:15:50] I'm a software engineer.

[2:15:53] I'm here speaking for the Pioneer Point Community.

[2:15:56] I'm a director on the H.O.A. Board here, and I've had neighbors come to me saying that they

[2:16:03] don't want this data center project there.

[2:16:06] I've had no coming to me saying that they do want it there.

[2:16:11] As I said, I've worked as a software engineer since the millennium, so I've seen the two

[2:16:19] year 2000s scare, I've seen the .com crash.

[2:16:25] I've seen those bubbles burst and these AI related investments, they're all coming from

[2:16:33] a central spot, and none of them are making money yet.

[2:16:37] Like, they're still trying to figure out how to make money.

[2:16:39] Like, the other day, I read the chat GPT

[2:16:43] is thinking about paying advertisements

[2:16:45] to try and get on your phone so it can write messages for you,

[2:16:50] whatever, I mean, what happened to humans writing messages

[2:16:52] to each other, right?

[2:16:55] So it's saying history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes,

[2:16:59] and

[2:17:02] it's a bubble and I would really hate for Round Rock to invest in all this or expect

[2:17:10] text revenue from this.

[2:17:12] When next year, if all these investors suddenly decide that they don't like AI anymore,

[2:17:18] the whole thing just comes crashing down and we've committed to this stuff for nothing.

[2:17:27] As far as the technology goes, we already talked about the power usage, I mean, 450 watts

[2:17:34] per GPU, 850 watts per computer. You're going to have thousands of those. Someone mentioned,

[2:17:41] I think, over 10,000 houses worth of electricity or something. We've talked a little bit about

[2:17:48] temperature, like GPUs need to be kept around 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Between 150 and 180 degrees

[2:17:56] Fahrenheit, otherwise they start going out components. You can imagine keeping a room cold for humans to go

[2:18:04] around there, like 74 degrees, it's going to take you more energy. But what really I think

[2:18:13] matches is environmentally like we were talking about the low frequency sound.

[2:18:19] We've just spent all this money on making old settler's park beautiful and low frequency sound

[2:18:26] can go a long way, a long way, and it just seems like a shame to put something that's potentially

[2:18:35] noisy 24-7 in the spot that people enjoy and we've invested a lot of money into. So, yeah,

[2:18:45] I think that's it from me. All right,

[2:18:53] Brian. Did just real quick, so I know, or we know,

[2:18:58] So what HOA associations got the notice?

[2:19:03] It will be for, so in the general rule of thumb is whatever neighborhoods that are captured by that 325 foot buffer we also send the notice to that HOA.

[2:19:11] So in this case it would have been the meadows at Chandler Creek mud as well as the homestead at Old Settlers Park.

[2:19:17] So it did go Chandler, it did go to Chandler Creek mud.

[2:19:20] Yes, okay.

[2:19:22] But any other zone in area?

[2:19:24] Yeah. You can see fine at point.

[2:19:30] So it it it it it it it go to

[2:19:31] Parliament there point. No, they were outside the 325 foot

[2:19:34] bus. So it went to the homestead homestead homestead old

[2:19:38] settlers part because it captured the 325 foot buffer captured

[2:19:41] just a few houses over here. So we sent a male notice to those

[2:19:44] property owners as well as a notice to that HOA as well as

[2:19:48] anybody within the 325 foot buffer along the southern boundary

[2:19:51] here in the mud. So it's up to the HOA it's up to them to

[2:19:56] to distribute it to their association.

[2:20:00] It is. Right. Okay. Philip Bohannick. If I said that correctly. Sorry about that. Good

[2:20:15] evening, Council. Mayor, thank you very much for letting us speak to you today on this matter. So I think I don't want to speak for everybody, but ultimately we're hearing like almost a million dollar increase in taxable base. Not going to be touching our water, not touching our electricity. It almost sounds like it's too good to be true.

[2:20:34] And so I think that that just creates a lot of concern because I understand that they are telling us it's not going to touch the electricity, but everything does feel like it is behind a bit of a black box when it comes to that and on the note of the taxable base, which admittedly yes, that is a huge benefit and I completely understand that a lot of the comps have been in the notes, which thank you for providing that ahead of time as well.

[2:20:56] have been to our homes, which again, most of us are homeowners here, and we have those concerns about our property taxes, and the

[2:21:03] compost of those 500 plus homes equivalent in taxable base.

[2:21:08] But at the end of the day, if this is zoned for light and industrial, what would be the comp for similar businesses that would

[2:21:16] fall under that zone, like otherwise Kasa, or I think as a construction company, to the east of it, what's the tax base for that?

[2:21:23] And then also what is the economic impact from jobs created?

[2:21:26] I understand that obviously the construction of the data center itself will have a lot of people coming in and out and working on that which is great.

[2:21:34] But then ultimately when it is built, data centers for my understanding are very notoriously not staff very heavily.

[2:21:39] It's not like it's going to be creating a ton of jobs in that regard compared to what Casa, you know,

[2:21:45] I know Casa obviously has fleets of folks in and out which is great.

[2:21:48] They're providing a service to the community that is important and is needed.

[2:21:51] And so ultimately, between yes, obviously, the taxable base is great, and they're not utilizing a lot of the services, so the base relative to cost is a strong ratio, admittedly.

[2:22:02] Are there still other factors that we consider with other things that could possibly fall under the LI designation that yes, might have a lower tax base, but have other opportunities to hire people who aren't specialized specifically for these flow number of data center jobs, I think is ultimately the biggest question I would have.

[2:22:18] And then really, I mean, is this, I don't know if there's any way to have a commission to understand better the impact that it would have on our electrical bills.

[2:22:26] I understand the deregulated market, but at the end of the day, it's applying to man.

[2:22:30] There's a lot of reliability concerns that people justifiably have over the last five years that I lived in Round Rock.

[2:22:35] We've had a lot of experiences between, I mean, it was a black swan event with the storm, but even every summer, we're getting emails from ERCOT.

[2:22:41] Hey, put your house at 86 degrees, please.

[2:22:44] And like that's untenable, is that going to be that affecting the data center that's right by our neighborhoods like are they going to have to adjust things first before they come to us. I think it's the biggest thing and like really it should be, you know, whatever can be done there to minimize any impact for us. I think it's the biggest thing there. So thank you for your time.

[2:22:59] So real quick so save these the number three this year. They'll be the number three high tax payer in round right, sure

[2:23:09] Chasco and

[2:23:10] Casa don't even

[2:23:12] make the top 10 and so you had similar buildings you'd have similar things like that and

[2:23:18] You know you what our job is to do which

[2:23:20] Makes it very hard and special needs in fill in fill properties. I mean round rocks getting there's less land

[2:23:28] I mean, it's just the reality that it's not like Georgetown Taylor where they have gobs

[2:23:33] of land.

[2:23:34] You know, and our job is in these last, you know, our last bit of land to get the highest

[2:23:40] and best use overall for our citizens.

[2:23:44] That may not be a certain service, I mean, just like in this case, it's less traffic.

[2:23:52] If you did try to put, let's just say 500 homes, that would be the equivalent of what was

[2:23:57] paid, you're talking about schools, you're talking about more roads, more police, more fire.

[2:24:02] These businesses use much less in services, even the cost of mechanicals and the chastcos.

[2:24:13] And so I just think that what we have to do in this and what makes it hard and what makes

[2:24:17] it tough is trying to figure out what is the highest and best use because on one end we're

[2:24:23] here and our taxes are too high, but we're setting this thing where we're about to give

[2:24:27] you, you know, a potential 100 million dollar tax and, you know, to help in the revenue,

[2:24:33] to help keep it, you know, right now, you know, round-rock residents, I gotta be clear.

[2:24:39] People in Chandler mud don't get city of round-rock, they don't pay city of round-rock taxes,

[2:24:44] so they're not getting, they may not get the benefit that our taxpayers are who we, you

[2:24:49] have to answer to, but you know, Round Rock taxpayers right now pay about 20% in

[2:24:55] their property taxes for the city. And they get the police fire.

[2:25:00] And all that. So I think that's the things that you have to take in consideration. I mean, I know you asked about the Comparables. I mean, you could put some things there and have an idea. So Casa is three million is what they, they, that's our assessed value. Yeah, versus 200 million. So you, plus, but they're, they're putting people on the roads. So more people, more, you know, so I think those are the things you have to kind of weigh in. Yeah. And so about

[2:25:29] I do, we all appreciate your comments.

[2:25:32] I mean, we appreciate everybody's comments.

[2:25:33] I mean, we're gonna listen and do what we think is the best thing.

[2:25:39] And so, it's all we can.

[2:25:43] No, I don't envy the decisions you have to make so I can plan to understand.

[2:25:46] Ultimately, I understand 200 versus 3 million, but then also jobs impact in some of the middle class,

[2:25:52] working class folks that might be benefiting from that versus the jobs that might be created from this too.

[2:25:57] So, thank you for your comments.

[2:25:58] Thank you all right oh yeah I just wanted to touch base on the unemployment to we had a

[2:26:09] report earlier tonight that showed Round Rock is below the trend on unemployment rate and when

[2:26:16] new businesses do come to Round Rock I know that's always a contingent like do you have workers here

[2:26:24] So, I mean, we have to have a diversity of businesses that come in that do offer a lot

[2:26:31] of jobs and some that don't require a whole lot of employees because we don't have them

[2:26:37] to give and then they have to bring in people which means we need more housing, which means

[2:26:42] we need more roads, which means we need more police and schools and all those things.

[2:26:47] So I think there has to be a balance that we are bringing in businesses that offer jobs

[2:26:53] and businesses that don't require all the services for that.

[2:26:58] So just a different way of thinking we need to be diversified in the businesses that are coming in.

[2:27:05] All right, is it Aaron Hartley?

[2:27:18] Hey all, thank you for your time.

[2:27:19] I live in old settlers of state right across the park.

[2:27:22] We've lived there for six years.

[2:27:25] A little background on me, I've been in energy for 15 years.

[2:27:28] I actually work to keep the grid on here in Texas and multiple other grids.

[2:27:33] My background has been from like oil and gas all the way through.

[2:27:39] I'm right now I'm doing best so I've done a little bit of everything.

[2:27:43] I have a different perspective on this than I've heard from everyone.

[2:27:48] I'm mainly looking at the air quality and the reason for that is I come from a hometown

[2:27:53] where the error there is so bad that if you raise a child a 35 years old it's

[2:27:59] equivalent to them smoking half a pack of cigarettes their whole life and so

[2:28:03] you can look it up right now there's still ranked number one is the worst

[2:28:06] error quality in the United States we moved here both for the recreation part and

[2:28:11] a healthy environment for our children and so I'm a little different than what

[2:28:16] you've heard before I'm not saying no to the data center but I'm saying maybe not

[2:28:21] there. The reason for that is as we've talked about the back of generators but we've also kind

[2:28:26] of glazed over it. The back of generators based on their own numbers are going to put out about

[2:28:34] 14,000 tons of air pollution and this is based off the 60 megawatts that they've said based on

[2:28:41] generators. Diesel are 30 or then natural gas usually about 1.5 times as much and so is it going

[2:28:50] be the cleanest one? No. Is it going to change the the air environment dramatically? No. But at the end

[2:28:55] of the day, we can only like do so much, right? And so y'all invested and listened to this,

[2:29:02] $220,000 into old settlers part. This facility is going to be less than a mile as the birds fly

[2:29:07] from the park. My kids are there playing. They've been in Brex since we got here. We love that park.

[2:29:13] We've all been there. I was there at the celebration for the kickoff and my question is

[2:29:18] is not should we do a data center, but can we, is this the right spot for it?

[2:29:24] And so, I would just kind of like question that, is it going to dramatically change the

[2:29:29] air quality there?

[2:29:30] Probably not.

[2:29:31] But every little bit helps.

[2:29:32] And this is something y'all can do to make this, do the little thing, right?

[2:29:38] And so again, like, what is the tonnage?

[2:29:41] What does that mean?

[2:29:41] So that means one car worth of exhaust for a year this facility is going to put out in

[2:29:48] a week when they're running those generators based on their own assumptions of running

[2:29:53] for one week.

[2:29:54] Now that assumes that the grid's great, it's only emergencies, it's only testing, the part

[2:29:59] that they're not taught.

[2:30:00] Meeting about, because I live in this space, is the grid is becoming more unstable. And it's

[2:30:05] not just us, it's PGM, it's ISO New England, it's MISO, it's SQP, these are all the other

[2:30:10] big grids across the country.

[2:30:13] And as it becomes more unstable, they're going to need those

[2:30:17] resources out of time, but I wanted to mention one thing. He did a good description of describing

[2:30:23] certain things, but SB6 is different than what he said.

[2:30:27] The airborne standards for Texas are most lenient in the country.

[2:30:31] We're only using the base national standards and certain parts of Texas are exempt, including Round Rock.

[2:30:37] And finally, the last thing is they do run these and they do, like, pay attention to emissions.

[2:30:46] I'm sure they're going to use Cat4, but they're still putting out VOC, NOx,

[2:30:51] sulfur dioxide into the air.

[2:30:53] And those are particulates you can't get back out.

[2:30:55] Thank you. Thank

[2:31:01] you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Driver.

[2:31:07] Simone Traverse.

[2:31:20] Hey guys. Hello. I'm Simone Traverse. I love off-broken

[2:31:24] shoe drive and round rock. I've been here before, but I try and not come too

[2:31:28] often, because I like to try and decompress in the evenings and the stress is

[2:31:32] me out. So just a quick note, and this is I think Pro Tem, you answered it earlier,

[2:31:39] We are about providing public notices for these sorts of public hearings.

[2:31:44] I 120% I'm sure you guys are following the law.

[2:31:48] I don't think that's ever been a question, right?

[2:31:51] I think when you guys have a City Council meeting with this many people that didn't know it was happening,

[2:31:58] perhaps what we're asking for as citizens is for you guys to maybe live up to our expectations,

[2:32:03] to go above and beyond what you're required to do by the law.

[2:32:06] And maybe when you see this, you can take that as a learning moment and say maybe my city

[2:32:13] doesn't think that I'm telling them about these events.

[2:32:17] Even though you are, there's multiple different places we can find this, but they're obviously

[2:32:22] not getting to the people that want to know about these things.

[2:32:25] We have that amazing social media platform, puts out TikToks as the funniest crap on existence,

[2:32:31] right?

[2:32:32] We all laugh.

[2:32:33] We love it.

[2:32:34] Why not engage them and say, hey, once a week, can you do a post about public notices?

[2:32:40] I'm sure they'll make it the funniest thing ever, and you can fill this room all the time.

[2:32:44] With concerned citizens who actually have questions about what's going on.

[2:32:48] So that was just a side note.

[2:32:50] Thank you for letting me share that just a thought for you guys, so I'm here because as other

[2:32:57] people have mentioned, the community is under year-round water rules.

[2:33:01] And residents like myself have been told we can only water our lawns two days a week, yet somehow we are now considering bringing in a data center.

[2:33:10] This would be perfectly fine if data centers were transparent, right?

[2:33:16] But Texas already struggles to track the water use from data centers.

[2:33:21] The Tribune reported earlier this year that the legislature sent out a volunteer survey to water centers or to data centers on their water usage.

[2:33:31] and only one third of them responded with what their water usage was.

[2:33:35] Why would they? They're not required to tell the bad news, right?

[2:33:38] This is a voluntary survey. So we don't have a lot of trust that's been built up

[2:33:43] that these companies are going to be transparent about that water usage.

[2:33:47] So if these projects, you know, this particular one moves forward,

[2:33:52] we need quarterly, publicly available reporting on all water and energy usage.

[2:33:58] No exceptions, no proprietary loopholes, our community deserves to know exactly how much

[2:34:05] of our strain water supply is going to these private corporations.

[2:34:09] And I realize that the gentleman in his presentation and you guys with your research very well put

[2:34:14] together stated that it will use 15 homes yearly water usage.

[2:34:22] So if they have verifiable data, and I understand my times that, but if they have that verifiable

[2:34:28] data from their other local centers because I believe they have one other one in Austin.

[2:34:33] Great.

[2:34:33] Present it.

[2:34:34] Let us see that data that's been verified that this is all we're going to use.

[2:34:38] This closed loop system works great.

[2:34:40] It's the future.

[2:34:41] We're going to be around forever.

[2:34:43] Let's see the data.

[2:34:44] They have another center right down the road.

[2:34:46] If they can prove that they're only using these 15 homes worth of water, I think most of

[2:34:52] this room would be on board with you guys.

[2:34:54] But what has been built up over time is a distrust in these businesses because

[2:35:00] They are not transparent with that information. So, you know, if you guys can solve for that, I think you'd have a lot more of the community on board.

[2:35:10] That's what I got because my time's up.

[2:35:14] Do you guys have any questions? No, I don't comment. I think that, you know, and I've seen to your point about your round restrictions. Your round restrictions are not put in because we

[2:35:29] We don't have the water.

[2:35:30] I mean, of all the cities in this central Texas area, Round Rocks poised with their water

[2:35:36] build out than any other city that's about to have to drop hundreds of millions of dollars

[2:35:41] to get where our visionary leaders of the past got us to hear.

[2:35:47] So that's implemented more for just conservation aspects of it.

[2:35:52] It's not because we're running short on water, we're not going to put something in the system

[2:35:57] that we think is going to drain that system without doing the homework.

[2:36:02] I think the question that I have is, you know, one data center may use in water

[2:36:09] because it may be bigger versus what one will use that smaller, you know,

[2:36:15] it's not an apples to apples thing.

[2:36:17] So, I think you can do the math on that pretty easily.

[2:36:19] It's just algebra.

[2:36:20] Well, I mean, we can agree to disagree on it.

[2:36:23] But I think that's the-

[2:36:27] But any amount of data on this would be helpful.

[2:36:29] And right now all we have is the word and the prayer of the future potential things that

[2:36:36] we could use from someone who is trying to get something from you.

[2:36:40] We're not stupid.

[2:36:41] You're not stupid.

[2:36:42] All right.

[2:36:44] Thank you.

[2:36:44] Thanks, guys.

[2:36:48] Third Joe Gonzalez.

[2:37:03] Hi, everybody.

[2:37:04] To the honorable mayor and members of the Round Rock City Council.

[2:37:08] So my name is Sergio Gonzalez, I'm an IT professional, or 25 years of experience.

[2:37:14] And I reside in the homestead at Old Settler's Park, a community immediately jazzed into

[2:37:19] the proposed skywalks, Old Centre's bus site.

[2:37:23] I stand before you tonight, not just as a resident, but as an advocate for the long-term health

[2:37:27] and stability of our community.

[2:37:30] We recognize the economic desire to host the center, it has been widely covered.

[2:37:34] I understand the numbers.

[2:37:37] But we must ask at what cost to our quality of life?

[2:37:43] The core concerns of the neighbor have shared regarding the proposed data center involved

[2:37:46] pollution, health risk, increased services costs, and potential property devaluation,

[2:37:51] and this has been covered in the news and has been shown across the nation.

[2:37:57] While the data centers in Round Rock, City Wealth page attempts to mitigate some of these

[2:38:01] fears by citing log traffic impacts on the use of closed-loop cooling systems, several critical

[2:38:05] issues remain on that rest. The specific quality of the city's communication does not fully cover

[2:38:10] the documented public health consequences, stemming from data center operations. Cancer has been

[2:38:17] mentioned. Cancer has been occurring in increased rates in certain places because of data centers.

[2:38:22] It has been studied. Nor does it acknowledge the full financial burden placed on rate payers.

[2:38:28] The challenges posed by this industry are national, but they're especially impactful here in Texas.

[2:38:33] Nois pollution is one of the most impactful general concerns.

[2:38:37] In Granbury, Texas, residents near a bicon mine reported experiencing excruciating migraines,

[2:38:45] hearing loss and panic attacks due to the noise from calling fans.

[2:38:49] This noise, someone has mentioned it, is often a low frequency visceral home that is difficult

[2:38:55] to block and can stress cardiovascular systems.

[2:38:58] While Round Rock requires compliance with the seeding noise ordinance, this continues

[2:39:02] industrial scale noise often proves incompatible

[2:39:05] where residential areas.

[2:39:07] Furthermore, water scarcity is a high impact Texas concern.

[2:39:12] Although the PUD mandates a closed loop system,

[2:39:16] experts warn this is a fallacy

[2:39:17] because the closed loop system is wind the servers.

[2:39:21] There is an external calling second loop

[2:39:23] that requires something to extract that heat

[2:39:27] into the environment.

[2:39:28] It usually combines settings with evaporating,

[2:39:32] depending on what the system does.

[2:39:34] So it's not per se a closed loop.

[2:39:39] And this could potentially generate a case

[2:39:45] in which millions of gallons of water

[2:39:47] have been can be lost.

[2:39:48] And this has been documented in data centers

[2:39:50] that use closed loop.

[2:39:52] Given that Texas is water stress

[2:39:54] and does not typically prevent data centers

[2:39:55] from using drinking water,

[2:39:57] this strain is particularly acute.

[2:40:00] Increasing cost and I know I'm running out of time. Power must be generated from somewhere. And investments have been recently made in order to power large scale consumers. And this has been documented in that haircut is going to invest. And this this eventually has to be paid by taxpayers by consumers by everyone.

[2:40:29] So I appeal to you, Council members, to put the health and long-term financial stability

[2:40:34] of your constituents about short-term economic gains.

[2:40:37] Numbers look fine, but in the end, we all worry.

[2:40:40] This technology is not just offering tax revenue to the cities, but the technologies that

[2:40:47] are currently being invested is in AI, which is actually after jobs.

[2:40:51] It's currently replacing jobs, and its aim is to actually replace human jobs.

[2:40:56] So just very ready to consideration.

[2:40:59] Thank you for your time.

[2:41:01] Thank you.

[2:41:08] Lily Trevino.

[2:41:24] Thank you, guys.

[2:41:25] Hello.

[2:41:26] I come here as a lifelong native Texan who fell into this pretty out of nowhere.

[2:41:34] I think I heard a lot of people today saying that they found out about this less than a week ago,

[2:41:41] two nights a couple a couple days ago. And again, from sites like Nextdoor and

[2:41:47] Facebook posts, not from the city, although I believe you guys, that you did

[2:41:51] your best. It looks like maybe the HOA people didn't forward that, maybe

[2:41:57] something to investigate of what happened with that lack of communication or

[2:42:01] miscommunication there. Everybody's had wonderful points tonight that I don't

[2:42:07] repeat. My main concern, I come here speaking for Texas water that we have such a precious

[2:42:16] and unique ecosystem here in Texas. The Edwards aquifer, you know, I grew up always pretty much

[2:42:22] living in Barton Springs and going to the little visitor center there, they used to have

[2:42:27] this great thing you could go in and learn about the aquifer. And I remember just being obsessed

[2:42:33] when I was a kid. When we take all that water out there, it's going to, there's no fixing it.

[2:42:40] There's no repairing the aquifer. There's no, I mean, we have some recharge technology, but that's very,

[2:42:49] it's not foolproof and it's not long-term sustainable. So I want to

[2:42:55] bring this up so that we can look holistically at data centers across Texas. I know that we have

[2:43:02] of over 300, at least maybe almost 400,

[2:43:05] depending on what article you find

[2:43:06] across the state of Texas already.

[2:43:09] And they mostly follow between the DFW

[2:43:12] to the San Antonio Corridor,

[2:43:13] which sits again right above Edwards Aquifer

[2:43:16] and the Trinity and the other systems

[2:43:18] that we have here in Texas.

[2:43:20] And inevitably, that's where the water is coming from.

[2:43:23] And we saw it here last year right in our backyard,

[2:43:27] Georgetown, the effects of flooding

[2:43:30] that is coming in, even like everywhere,

[2:43:34] it's happening everywhere, right in our backyard,

[2:43:37] due to poor soil conservation, too much runoff,

[2:43:42] concrete, endless, you know, waves of concrete

[2:43:46] that the water just doesn't have anywhere else to go.

[2:43:48] So I understand the financial incentives,

[2:43:52] but I hope that Round Rock will choose to stand out

[2:43:55] in a way that is different and unique.

[2:43:58] the rest of Texas we've got plenty of data centers we have at least nine or so already in the area

[2:44:07] so why why one more but we probably won't get any change on this right now but let's

[2:44:12] remember and take this seriously for the future that you see now how your citizens are ready to

[2:44:18] get up and show up when they're able to and make their voices heard and nobody wants this in their

[2:44:25] back yard. Thank you.

[2:44:35] Gary Odom. Good

[2:44:49] evening. I'm Gary Odom. I'm a 20-year resident of the

[2:44:52] Estates. It's a Siddler's Park neighborhood in Northeastern Round Rock.

[2:44:57] I'm certainly planning to talk about some things night in many of this.

[2:45:00] It has been covered, but I need to set the record straight on some of the things we've heard tonight. The explosive growth in data centers here in Texas and around the country is for AI. It's not for streaming Netflix. It's not for sending emails. It is explicitly to support the growth of AI, which may be approaching a bubble that will burst and leave an industrial wasteland of data centers.

[2:45:21] Texas Energy Demand, electricity demand, is expected to double by 2030. That's five years from now. That's being driven by data center growth.

[2:45:33] Yes, Sky Boxing Webber has to connect to the grid at their expense.

[2:45:37] The grid is going to power generation, whether you buy it direct through a TXU or through

[2:45:42] a reseller, it's still coming from the same place and the requirement to generate more

[2:45:48] power is going to be very substantial.

[2:45:52] And guess who pays for that?

[2:45:54] All of us do.

[2:45:55] Ray payers are going to pay for that because it can't be attributed to a Sky Box or a Savi.

[2:45:59] It's for the underlying infrastructure, and we will all pay for that, do not be misled.

[2:46:06] I think it's been made clear tonight that, well, you appreciate big business more than you do residents because they pay more taxes.

[2:46:15] But we are the ones living here and having our quality of life affected.

[2:46:19] Several people have talked about citizen participation and notices.

[2:46:22] You complied with the law, kind of, citizen engagement can be had if that's what you really want.

[2:46:32] These folks are all here because we've learned about this and I'll ask a couple of days

[2:46:35] when we manage to get organized, hundreds of e-nails came our way, all these speakers have

[2:46:39] signed up because we care about our community and we want to have input.

[2:46:44] You may have met the letter of the law, you haven't met the spirit of the law, the sign

[2:46:49] facing old settlers at this property.

[2:46:51] I went to look for it after I first learned about this from the Community Impact

[2:46:55] Story. Couldn't see one. I parked my car on Kippin Road. I played Frogger with my

[2:46:59] life, crossing old settlers on foot, and walked the length of that property twice.

[2:47:05] Before I noticed a sign laying face down in the driveway stub, there at 2601.

[2:47:11] Being a good citizen, I set it upright, so theoretically it's visible. But it's

[2:47:15] positioned in a driveway stub, unless you're looking 90 degrees to your right,

[2:47:19] While you're driving 45 miles an hour or more, that's a speed limit there.

[2:47:23] Negotiating an S-curve, you don't know that sign exists.

[2:47:26] And if you want to read it, you have to park and play Frogger like I did to walk up to it and see a generic URL to go for public notices.

[2:47:34] That's not how you get people engaged and involved.

[2:47:37] And we're entitled to that.

[2:47:38] We need a voice, we need participation.

[2:47:43] The city's great about doing PR after the deal is done.

[2:47:46] You're not so good at getting citizens engaged up front.

[2:47:48] and we deserve that. Thank you.

[2:47:59] David Leibwood.

[2:48:06] David Leibwood. Going once.

[2:48:19] Is it Omar or is

[2:48:25] it Omar? Thank you for your try. Sorry, I didn't want to butchered. Yeah, it's okay.

[2:48:32] Hi, Mayor and City Council. I'm on the table so I live in Round Rock West. I have a PhD

[2:48:41] in industrial engineering and I work as a research scientist in tech and my concerns first

[2:48:50] there's an indication that the data center building Oregon in 2011 is increasing the cancer

[2:48:57] rates in the area and that's the reason it's increasing the pollution within the water even though

[2:49:05] the close systems are there, they still use water and return it back to the community and through the

[2:49:13] vaporization they are increasing the pollution levels in there. So my first question is are there any

[2:49:18] studies about the water returning from this data centers that how polluted they are or are they

[2:49:24] increasing the pollution levels? Secondly, the data set that they are going to use about 15 houses

[2:49:32] of water, I find that misleading if it's not a dry apply because I think within the data

[2:49:39] it says they will tap the water as necessary and I don't think that's included within the

[2:49:45] data that they have shared so what is the real water requirements for these data centers,

[2:49:50] it would be great if we can get real values on that. We have heard about electricity from

[2:50:00] So many people, I think we heard the word salad about it, how it's free market, and there are many contributing factors into it. It's true, but that's why we have scientists. What is the main, what's the individual contribution of these data centers to our electricity prices? I think that would be great to know and how much is it going to be

[2:50:29] offset by the property taxes versus how much are we going to pay extra for them?

[2:50:37] So I think there's a not enough data to understand their impact and it would be great if

[2:50:46] you can learn more about them.

[2:50:48] Thank you.

[2:50:49] I will say the water data that we got that's from our own folks.

[2:50:53] We know what they used in a year.

[2:50:55] Not the ones that's coming, but the ones that's on the ground.

[2:50:59] That's where we got the 15 homes.

[2:51:01] We know how much it produced for the year,

[2:51:05] and then we equated that to how many homes,

[2:51:09] what they use.

[2:51:10] So it's not the, I just want to make sure it's,

[2:51:12] it's not sky box, it's giving us that data.

[2:51:16] Okay, so can we have confirmation that this,

[2:51:19] this is the total water usage,

[2:51:22] not just the cleaning stuff that they are using,

[2:51:26] but does it include or exclude the top enough?

[2:51:31] I will ask.

[2:51:32] Thank you.

[2:51:33] Yeah, no problem.

[2:51:34] Do we know?

[2:51:36] Do we know if that includes anything?

[2:51:39] Okay.

[2:51:40] Everything that, sir.

[2:51:42] Everything that was metered to the property.

[2:51:45] So everything.

[2:51:47] All right.

[2:51:50] Marino Grady.

[2:52:08] I'm here to add my voice to my neighbors.

[2:52:12] disagreeing with this proposed data center that's coming in.

[2:52:17] Texas has extreme drought and unstable power grid.

[2:52:21] We have extreme heat here.

[2:52:22] This seems like a very, just in general, a terrible place to put data centers.

[2:52:27] And, you know, this is potentially the fifth data center that's going to be coming into

[2:52:31] Round Rock.

[2:52:32] You know, we're squeezing 10,000 gallons of blood from a stone.

[2:52:37] I'd also like to return to something one of my earlier neighbor said she was speaking

[2:52:42] about the survey that went out.

[2:52:45] So there actually was a survey that the Water Board tried to get some information in

[2:52:49] 2024 from the 70 existing data centers that are, you know, were already built in Texas.

[2:52:56] Only about 30% got back to them even though there was a, you know, a minimal fine because

[2:53:02] because it was required by law to respond,

[2:53:04] but they chose to pay that fine,

[2:53:06] instead of being transparent with their numbers.

[2:53:09] So this actually affects the future planning

[2:53:11] by the water board.

[2:53:13] So that leaves them in the dark

[2:53:15] and knowing how much water we're going to need.

[2:53:18] This goes back to what a lot of my neighbors have been saying

[2:53:20] about this closed loop,

[2:53:22] where we're not really sure that, you know,

[2:53:24] you can say a lot of things about how

[2:53:26] it's not going to need additional water.

[2:53:28] We actually don't know.

[2:53:30] You spoke about how we have data from those two existing data centers that are in-round

[2:53:36] rock.

[2:53:37] Those have only been here for about two years, I believe.

[2:53:39] So we don't really know how much water they're going to need as they age.

[2:53:43] We're not going to need no, you know, two years isn't a lot of data and two centers also

[2:53:50] isn't a lot of data.

[2:53:51] We really don't have these numbers and I'd really, you know, just like to add my voice to

[2:53:57] say that we really aren't a big fan of this, especially near all these residential areas.

[2:54:07] You know, you say that this is our use zone for late industrial use, but when you say things

[2:54:12] like vet centers, I think a charter school was mentioned, those things add value to the community.

[2:54:18] Sure, they add more traffic, but it's not an empty box filled with quiet,

[2:54:28] And it's adding value to the community, it's not just something that's probably going to be empty in 10 years, so I think that's a really big part of what we are here to say.

[2:54:39] Thank you.

[2:54:40] So let me ask you questions.

[2:54:42] So, you know, I was setting up here when the charter school came up and there were people that were speaking against it because they didn't want to draw the road draw through.

[2:54:50] So what what what does someone want there? I mean, do you want a gun range? I mean, would you want a gun range in that?

[2:54:57] That I mean and where I got more I'm going with it is

[2:55:00] Property owners have the right, and we have the right if we want to buy the land. Right? I mean, I mean, these, these, you know, Texas has always been a property right state and allows people to sell their property at the, the, the highest and the best use. And so, you know, we've had the, like I said, the charter school, we had a number of folks come in, they didn't want the charter school. So if it's not the charter school, and if it's not the data center, then, I mean, what is it? I mean,

[2:55:29] I mean, something deserves to go there because they own the land.

[2:55:34] I mean, again, we all as individuals have the right to go by any private property up that we want to make sure that nothing goes there if we wanted.

[2:55:43] But that's not realistic.

[2:55:45] And so I just, I struggle with what does, what does the neighborhood want?

[2:55:50] If they don't want the charter school, if they don't want, I promise you, if we had UPS or Amazon looking at this site,

[2:55:58] We'd have same amount of people just like we did on the east sub in this happen.

[2:56:04] It's, it's, it's, they calls pollution, you know, they got tons of cars on the road in and out.

[2:56:09] I mean, so I just, I struggle with what would you want there?

[2:56:13] So I'm not really speaking to this other things, I'm speaking to this data center that we're here to talk about.

[2:56:19] So personally, I think a charter school would be great, you know, we're educating children.

[2:56:23] That's value to the community, I think, you know, it would be really easy to be mayor of a bunch

[2:56:27] of empty boxes that give you a lot of money, what we're asking for is investment in the

[2:56:32] community. A gun range, that employs people. People are there having fun, learning how

[2:56:37] to safely use weapons. I mean, you're going to find pushback from anything, you know, probably

[2:56:45] that's going to go there. I'm here to talk about this data center, which I think is a uniquely

[2:56:49] the poor use of this land, a poor use of Texas land.

[2:56:54] And I think just the, there's really great horrible things about the data center.

[2:57:00] All right, thank you.

[2:57:02] Thank you.

[2:57:08] Sir Macmillan.

[2:57:11] Sir Macmillan, okay, sorry I didn't,

[2:57:25] how are you?

[2:57:26] For the opportunity, I'm great.

[2:57:27] My name is Sir Macmillan.

[2:57:30] I'm a homeowner at Chandler Creek neighborhood, and my house is actually the house.

[2:57:35] at the very end of the dead in street

[2:57:37] that completely lines the field.

[2:57:40] I also was here for the charter school

[2:57:42] and I was one of the people that didn't want

[2:57:45] the road to be opened and I still feel that way.

[2:57:47] But I would much rather have a charter school now

[2:57:50] or a gun range, so we'll go that route.

[2:57:55] I do have a few things to say

[2:57:57] just to address some of the comments.

[2:57:59] As far as the notices of the hearings,

[2:58:02] I'm probably the only one besides my husband

[2:58:04] who even saw the sign. So there was one sign put at the very end of the dead and road that was

[2:58:11] literally in front of just barriers, right, that we have concrete barriers. Our house is the only

[2:58:19] one you actually have to turn down the street to go to anyone's house. Our neighbors right on the

[2:58:23] right of us, they just kind of like pull right into their driveway. So no one turns down that road

[2:58:29] to see any of the signs.

[2:58:31] There were no signs put at the beginning

[2:58:33] of any of the interest to our neighborhood.

[2:58:35] In fact, the only notice I got in the mail

[2:58:37] was for the November 4th hearing.

[2:58:39] This hearing today, the only reason I knew about it

[2:58:42] is because I was emailing, and I believe Brad here

[2:58:45] was the one that actually emailed me the information

[2:58:47] of where this one was, because the actual hearing

[2:58:50] in November was downtown rapper on the other side,

[2:58:54] and that's where that one was located if I remember correctly.

[2:58:57] So that being said, I can understand the frustration of everybody in this room that had no idea that this is going on and I don't care if you, you know, live over 300 feet or 350 or whatever from this, you're impacted by this.

[2:59:11] Okay, and I have a lot of touch points that have been addressed so I'm not going to beat a dead horse with this.

[2:59:18] But I feel like one of the big things that people aren't talking about

[2:59:23] besides the impact to wildlife that is in that field,

[2:59:27] which by the way houses hawks and owls and

[2:59:30] beautiful bobcats and all sorts of insane, beautiful wildlife,

[2:59:35] is the fact that there is about to be a substation built

[2:59:38] right in our backyard, okay?

[2:59:42] Parcel 2, I get that Parcel 3 is 80 feet whatever, right?

[2:59:47] But an eight-foot tall wall is not going to hide some substitution that is towering over the houses, right?

[2:59:58] And in fact, there's a substitution that's literally...

[3:00:00] The two streets away. In fact, North Crossing Trail in the same neighborhood, which all talked about. So, now we're going to have two of those right next to each other, which absolutely is insane and talk about noise, low hum, high humming, whatever. There are so many studies that have gone on about the potential dangers and harm of what comes from these substations. Okay. The lecture of magnetic fields. And again, the low hum. I feel like that's

[3:00:29] to be the worst. Thank you for your time. That's all I have.

[3:00:39] Justin, thank you, Julie.

[3:00:48] Good evening.

[3:00:48] Good evening, all again. I know you all might remember me from the original zoning of

[3:00:52] this property. I'm really proud of all of my neighbors and fellow citizens that came out

[3:00:58] to voice their concern with this data center. The reactions and the combativeness that I've

[3:01:05] received from you guys is a little disappointing. I feel like you guys have made up your decision

[3:01:10] prior to this hearing. And this is ultimately just a facade for us to feel like we have a voice

[3:01:15] and being able to change your opinion or what you plan on doing. Everyone has made wonderful points.

[3:01:23] All of the points that I was going to make has been made. Obviously, I live very close to the

[3:01:27] lady that was just here. That parcel two is right there, right? We're definitely going to see

[3:01:33] that. The low humming, we're going to hear that. I'm also working IT. I don't know what room you were

[3:01:39] in that was had the low humming, but there's, I've been to multiple data centers and they

[3:01:43] are very loved. And that sub, that low frequency does travel miles, so everybody's had fantastic

[3:01:49] points about it affecting parks in the residents. Obviously, we were talking about the electricity

[3:01:57] options here. Clearly we have deregulation, everybody can choose what they want, but if there's

[3:02:03] a bigger strain on the grid altogether, those prices are going to go up, so that's a new

[3:02:08] point and it's a bit insulting to say that. Any questions from you guys? Any questions?

[3:02:17] No, I don't have any. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Tom.

[3:02:26] Eva Shakir.

[3:02:42] Sorry about the yoga pants. I came so last minute. I just heard about this.

[3:02:47] Yeah. All right. So Mayor, council members, I'm going to read a little statement. So my name is Eva Shakir.

[3:02:57] and I live in the homestead at Old Settlers.

[3:03:01] I live actually in the first house

[3:03:03] by the roundabout when you first enter.

[3:03:08] So basically, I'm here tonight

[3:03:10] because this decision affects every part of our lives,

[3:03:13] our peace, our homes, our children, and our future.

[3:03:16] Across the US, whatever data centers are built

[3:03:19] next to neighborhoods, families,

[3:03:22] experienced falling property values,

[3:03:24] constant low frequency noise,

[3:03:25] vibration and feeling that their community has been transformed into an industrial zone.

[3:03:31] That is the reality we're asked to accept.

[3:03:33] While I understand the financial benefit, this facility would run 24-7 with industrial

[3:03:38] cooling equipment, generators, and substation directly behind our homes and next to old settlers

[3:03:44] park.

[3:03:45] No mall or landscaping can truly protect a neighborhood from that level of industrial activity.

[3:03:50] It violates the spirit of Round Rock of 2030 vision, which was created to prevent exactly

[3:03:56] this type of incompatible development next to families.

[3:04:00] And I know this land is zoned industrial, but that does not automatically make a data

[3:04:04] center appropriate or responsible use for it.

[3:04:08] I would literally accept a gun range, and I live right there, like I'm okay with that.

[3:04:14] So not all industrial users carry the same impact, a data center brings around the clock

[3:04:21] noise, vibration, massive noise pollution, just heat, exhaust, and all the stuff that

[3:04:28] the other neighbors mentioned.

[3:04:30] And the need for a substation for more intensive than the light industrial uses that the zoning

[3:04:37] was originally meant to support.

[3:04:39] and our steel zoning was never intended as a blank check to place a high-intensity 24-7 facility directly beside established neighborhood.

[3:04:49] So, I also want to address the closed-loop cooling claim.

[3:04:52] Close-loop does not mean low-water usage.

[3:04:55] These systems still require constant replacement water due to evaporating.

[3:05:00] Equation, drift, and chemical blowdown, especially in Texas heat. Collinant closed loop makes it sound harmless, but it's essentially a marketing term that minimizes really the daily water conception, while we, the residents, continue facing water restrictions. And for all those sacrifices are quiet, and our safety, and our property values, our water, our quiet of life, quality of life, we receive almost no permanent job, no community benefit, and long term strain on our infrastructure.

[3:05:29] Round Rock has already multiple data centers, we're not rejecting growth, we're simply

[3:05:34] being asked to sacrifice neighborhood quality of life for project that does not belong

[3:05:39] here.

[3:05:40] We're protecting the family's whole life here.

[3:05:43] I have just one last thing I want to say and ask a question.

[3:05:47] In Texas even though with a deregulated market, everyone still depends on the same on core grid

[3:05:52] and major upgrade required but required by large data centers are paid for through regulated

[3:05:58] delivery fees shared by all Texans in that service area. Switching retail providers does

[3:06:04] not avoid these costs because higher air-caught charges, wholesale prices and on-course infrastructure

[3:06:10] fees get passed through to customers to all the customers. In short, Texans cannot switch away

[3:06:16] from cost impacts of heavy power usage. So my question to Skybox, can you state clearly that Skybox

[3:06:24] will pay for all current and future OMCOR transmissions, distributions and substation upgrades

[3:06:30] required to support your facility, including any system wide improvements that OMCOR

[3:06:34] wouldn't normally recover through regulated delivery fees charged to us residents.

[3:06:46] Any questions? Thank you.

[3:06:52] Shadeer Kumar and

[3:07:01] Council members, so my name is Suthir and I am a resident in Homestead.

[3:07:07] I know most of the people spoke about the pollution, the sound pollution, air pollution.

[3:07:14] So basically, if we look at the noise pollution, we get around somewhere between 50 to 65

[3:07:21] decibels, which is too much for a human to handle it.

[3:07:24] And pollution about like 14.4 kilograms, if a generator runs for 24 hours.

[3:07:31] So which is again more of a carbon monoxide getting into the atmosphere.

[3:07:34] So, when we speak all of this, we totally forgot about the safety hazards.

[3:07:41] When we have a generator scattering a data center, I work in, I used to work in a data center,

[3:07:47] I have 10 patients of experience in data center.

[3:07:49] So, we stock a lot of diesel, so somewhere between 7,000 to 10,000 gallons of diesel.

[3:07:56] So, in any point, if there is a fire accident, so we do have a lot of residential around the

[3:08:02] area, so which can be a disaster where we cannot avoid those things.

[3:08:08] And coming to another safety concern, we spoke about water.

[3:08:12] So the water doesn't do the cooling by itself.

[3:08:15] It needs to have a chemical component to add it to it so that it cools the water.

[3:08:20] And there are chances about chemical accidents as well.

[3:08:24] So those things, and the other part is about the batteries for the back of what they use

[3:08:31] is lithium ion batteries.

[3:08:32] Those are also more prone for chemical accidents.

[3:08:34] So, these are most of the safety hazards

[3:08:38] I would like to bring in to the council here.

[3:08:40] All right.

[3:08:41] Thank you.

[3:08:41] Anybody have questions?

[3:08:49] Tonya Frigga-Roa.

[3:09:02] Hello, council.

[3:09:02] Thank you so much for taking our comments.

[3:09:05] A lot of the stuff that I came here to say was already set.

[3:09:09] So, I won't repeat it, of course.

[3:09:11] What I'm very concerned about, what's very worrisome to me,

[3:09:14] is that there's a lot.

[3:09:17] And there's no ways for us to see how many data centers are being built constantly.

[3:09:22] And this whole data center boom is so fast happening so quickly.

[3:09:27] We're not, I'm barely learning about all this myself.

[3:09:32] It feels like a modern day, gold rush and for tech companies.

[3:09:35] And for a lot of people are going to get very rich, okay?

[3:09:39] But not the working class, local communities and

[3:09:41] the neighborhoods around in them will suffer the consequences for generations to come.

[3:09:45] You guys might not even see those consequences yourself, but I will, and so are my children.

[3:09:53] And you guys have worked so hard to keep our water levels well.

[3:09:58] You guys are very...

[3:10:00] I'm proud of it. I know you are. And it just sucks that you see that you guys are not even considering that in your plan at all. You guys have worked really hard. And I know many of you are up for re-election in 2026, including the mayor. And I think we will remember this. We will all remember what you decide tonight. Thank you.

[3:10:31] L-I-N-G-U-T-A-T-L-A.

[3:10:34] Looking, what, Vanille, starts with a V, first name, L-I-N-G-U-T-L-A, Gatla, Address is 2720 Cresment Cove, how about that?

[3:10:52] No?

[3:10:56] Richard Parsons.

[3:11:11] Thank you.

[3:11:12] Good evening, Mr. Mayor. My name is Richard Parsons.

[3:11:15] I live at 2301 Winthropy and I am president of the Kensington Neighborhood Association.

[3:11:24] The Kensington Neighborhood shares a fence with switch corporation which has built the

[3:11:32] first data center here in Round Rock.

[3:11:37] I am late to the meeting so I have missed all the presentations and most of the speeches but

[3:11:44] I just want to give you a different perspective and speak to the neighborhood that is in discussion tonight.

[3:11:55] Kensington neighborhood as president, I was able to sit with five vice presidents from the switch corporation.

[3:12:04] They flew in, we hosted them at Grace Presbyterian Church and on Garry School Road and we had a vigorous Q&A and we didn't just have a Q&A, we also had action items and we established a relationship with that company, with that corporation and to this very day, we still have a relationship with them.

[3:12:31] If we had a complaint, they answered it.

[3:12:35] For instance, when we had a summer of three-digit temperatures, all summer long over a hundred,

[3:12:43] they would email me and tell me that they were going to be there at 4 a.m.

[3:12:50] And I would notify my neighborhood to expect that and so we were not surprised.

[3:12:55] We were ready and able to facilitate anything that would happen.

[3:13:01] And that's the kind of relationship I would encourage the neighborhood to establish,

[3:13:08] because whatever happens here tonight, because I'm neutral on this because I missed everything.

[3:13:14] I had another engagement, but I would encourage you as a neighborhood to establish a relationship with this corporation.

[3:13:22] And since you're going to share a property line with them,

[3:13:27] we are stones throw away literally from Switch.

[3:13:30] And they are very, very good to my neighborhood.

[3:13:33] They have even sponsored our neighborhood night out.

[3:13:37] And different things that they want to be a part of our community.

[3:13:42] And that's kind of a relationship that why I have a relationship with them

[3:13:47] because I want to incorporate other things that they will do here.

[3:13:52] They want to be good neighbors.

[3:13:54] I'm only saying this because regardless of what happens here,

[3:13:57] there's another perspective to another layer of involvement.

[3:14:02] And that is community whether they come here or not.

[3:14:04] If they come here, you need to not have an adversarial necessarily a relationship with them,

[3:14:12] but a relationship built on communication and cooperation.

[3:14:16] That's all I have to say, thank you.

[3:14:18] That

[3:14:24] is all the cards I have.

[3:14:29] Anybody that has not spoken, that wanted to speak,

[3:14:33] that did not fill out a card.

[3:14:36] Come on up.

[3:14:41] Oh, but you...

[3:14:44] I believe it's Mr. Ann, right?

[3:14:48] You have spoken, so...

[3:14:50] Yeah,

[3:14:53] there's a question about what would be a good alternative

[3:14:56] for that space that you asked a couple people.

[3:15:01] My friend Pamela, she did a lot of the organizing and she wasn't able to be here today. That's her husband back there, Gary, who spoke earlier. One of the things that she wanted to bring up was that she's a long time resident. She said in the old round rock plan that could have that was meant to be a commercial zone. So her recommendation was to rezone it back to commercial just to answer that question that you had earlier. So do some sort of shopping center there.

[3:15:29] seems like some ever you know we all like to go shopping so the people in that

[3:15:33] community would probably enjoy that at least a little bit better and if you

[3:15:39] can rezone it to a PUD you can rezone it to anything right so that's just to

[3:15:47] answer that question. Thank you. Thank you.

[3:15:54] After you after you get through

[3:15:55] speak no ma'am after you get through speaking we just make sure you fill out a

[3:15:59] Yellow card in the back just so we have it for record. Sure, I hope I'm quick here.

[3:16:06] My father back during the rolling blackouts. He was on oxygen. He had dementia.

[3:16:16] And he he went downhill and ended up in long-term care facility rehab for two weeks long-term

[3:16:25] care facility and he died three months later from a fall.

[3:16:30] So, you know, who knows, you know, if there's another one, I'm not sure, you know, we hear all these words, I'm not sure exactly how they're going to take care of all.

[3:16:39] I didn't realize there were so many data centers that have already come to this area.

[3:16:46] Like so many people have said were,

[3:16:50] you know, how come I'm just now hearing about all the data centers and how they're already in this area?

[3:16:58] Look, since 2021 probably.

[3:17:02] So here comes another rolling blackout possibly and who takes priority?

[3:17:11] Who takes priority?

[3:17:12] I don't even know what the data centers, I don't know what the AI is all about.

[3:17:17] I just had to reconfigure my Gmail yesterday because I got the message that AI is coming into

[3:17:25] your Gmail now to access, they've run out, what is it really all about?

[3:17:36] You know, if I have to pay a few hundred dollars extra for property taxes, you know,

[3:17:40] I'm living on Social Security, I'll make it happen.

[3:17:46] But find out the details about this encore and how and what's what's going to happen

[3:17:52] if there's another rolling blackout.

[3:17:55] I was pretty upset about my father,

[3:18:01] thank you.

[3:18:01] Thank you.

[3:18:02] All

[3:18:28] right, Bradley.

[3:18:29] All right, is that all the speakers?

[3:18:34] All right, I'm closing the public in

[3:18:38] any questions for Bradley.

[3:18:43] Brad.

[3:18:43] I don't want to keep going, Brad.

[3:18:45] Brad.

[3:18:46] Tired.

[3:18:46] Sorry.

[3:18:48] Any questions?

[3:18:52] All right.

[3:18:52] Well, then I will entertain a motion to adopt the ordinance.

[3:18:57] So moved.

[3:19:00] Second.

[3:19:01] All right, I'm motioned by Councilmember Flores,

[3:19:03] We're saying by Councilmember Ritega, any other discussion?

[3:19:07] And please vote the council.

[3:19:10] Councilmember Lee?

[3:19:13] Yes.

[3:19:14] Councilmember Flores?

[3:19:15] Yes.

[3:19:16] Councilmember Clemen?

[3:19:18] Yes.

[3:19:19] Councilmember Ritega?

[3:19:20] Yes.

[3:19:21] Mayor Pro Tem Stevens?

[3:19:23] Yes.

[3:19:24] Mayor Morgan?

[3:19:26] Yes.

[3:19:26] I'll entertain a motion.

[3:19:28] Dispense with a second.

[3:19:28] Read it.

[3:19:34] No motion.

[3:19:38] Okay.

[3:19:38] So then we'll have a second reading at a future meeting.

[3:19:47] All right.

[3:19:48] I-3.

[3:19:49] Consider public testimony regarding an ordinance amended zoning and development.

[3:19:52] out in the co-chapter 10 section 10-21C4D code of ordinances 28-10,

[3:19:57] regarding zoning protest procedures, 1st,

[3:20:01] So, let me, we, people, if they want to leave, you can. So, the first reading got approved, but there will be a second reading at an upcoming meeting. So, our next meeting, it'll either be at our next meeting of the first one in January. We'll make sure that everybody that was on the emails, get the dates of what that date will look like. So, that's what, that's what happened.

[3:20:26] So, it doesn't mean it's still on the table is what an essence it means, all right?

[3:20:34] All right, go ahead, brother, sorry.

[3:20:36] This is an amendment to our zoning and development code to reflect a recent change or

[3:20:41] a house bill that was adopted by the state legislature this past legislative session that took

[3:20:45] effect on September 1st, altering the requirements and thresholds for protest petitions related to certain

[3:20:50] zoning changes. So, we have to make a change to our code because state legislature made a change

[3:20:56] to state law. So that's the gist of this amendment. But the, so this will amend Section 10-21

[3:21:02] of our code to replace some outdated language now under current code and a current language

[3:21:07] that is now being replaced when a rezoning application is brought forward by an applicant

[3:21:13] and the number of people around can organize to protest that rezoning application. If they get more

[3:21:19] than 20% of the land area either affected by the rezoning or within 200 feet of that rezoning.

[3:21:27] If they get more than 20% of that land area, the owners to protest against it, then it

[3:21:31] requires a three-fourth supermajority vote by city council in order to pass that.

[3:21:37] However, we have to replace some of this language because it is now outdated, and this was

[3:21:42] a response to some of the housing affordability costs that the state legislature, this is

[3:21:46] why they're addressing that.

[3:21:47] So, the language that they have passed and that we have to adopt into our code is that for any zoning change that increases residential development or is considered comprehensive, a valid protest requires the signatures of owners representing at least 60% of the land area of either the affected track or the area within 200 feet.

[3:22:05] So, increasing that threshold from 20% to 60% but still, even if a valid protest petition is filed, the governing body can approve it by a simple majority vote.

[3:22:16] So the legislature has, on one hand, made it harder to protest and then has removed the teeth from the validity of that protest.

[3:22:25] So the existing 20% protest threshold and three fourth supermajority remains in place for all other zoning requirements.

[3:22:31] This is for only a rezoning that increases residential development or is considered comprehensive.

[3:22:37] This once the Planning and Zoning Commission last month and there were no public speakers staff recommends approval.

[3:22:42] questions. All right. This is a public hearing opening. Public hearing for

[3:22:47] eye three. Anybody wish to speak on eye three. Seeing none. Public hearing is

[3:22:51] closed. I'm going to take a motion to adopt the ordinance. So move. Second.

[3:22:56] Motion made by Council Mayor Tegas. Second by the Mayor Pro Tem and the other

[3:23:00] discussion. And please follow the council. Council member floors. Yes. Council

[3:23:06] Councilmember Fleming. Yes. Councilmember Atega. Yes.

[3:23:09] Mayor Pro Tem Stevens. Yes. Councilmember Lee. Yes.

[3:23:14] Mayor Morgan. Yes. I entertain motion to spend with the second

[3:23:17] reading. So moved. Motion made by Councilmember Atega.

[3:23:21] Say I'm by Councilmember Flores and the other discussion.

[3:23:24] And please vote with Council.

[3:23:28] Councilmember Fleming. Yes.

[3:23:30] Councilmember Atega. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Stevens. Yes.

[3:23:34] Councilmember Lee. Yes. Councilmember Flores. Yes.

[3:23:36] Yes.

[3:23:37] Mayor Morgan.

[3:23:38] Yes.

[3:23:38] I-4.

[3:23:39] Consider a public testimony regarding an ordinance of Mending Zone and Development Code, Chapter 4, Section 4-4-8.

[3:23:45] Code of Ordnance is 2018.

[3:23:46] Addition.

[3:23:47] Regarding driveway space and first reading.

[3:23:50] This is another amendment like the last one.

[3:23:52] We're making a change to our zoning and development code in response to a change that was made elsewhere.

[3:23:56] In this case, the elsewhere is the public works department, the transportation division, amending the city's transportation design and construction standards or the DAX.

[3:24:05] regarding driveway spacing, specifically as driveway spacing for common lot-town home

[3:24:09] developments, multi-family developments, and any non-residential development. Currently

[3:24:14] in our zoning and development code, it states there has to be at least 200 feet between

[3:24:17] driveways or 200 feet of separation from an intersection to the nearest driveway. The

[3:24:23] DAX was amended recently to increase that spacing to 250 feet, so we're just striking out

[3:24:28] 200 and adding 250 feet to the zoning and development code. Again, like the last one, this went

[3:24:34] the Planning and Zoning Commission last month for their recommendation and we had no public speakers.

[3:24:38] All right. Any questions?

[3:24:41] All right. This is a public hearing. I'll open up public hearing for I-4.

[3:24:45] Anybody wishing to speak? Seeing public hearing's closed,

[3:24:50] I entertain a motion to adopt the ordinance.

[3:24:52] So move. Second. Motion made by Councilor Tegas,

[3:24:56] same about the Mayor of Pro-Tam and the other discussion.

[3:25:00] council. Governor, Council member, Ottiga, Mayor Four to Game Steevens, Council member Lee, Council member Flores, council member Fleming, Mayor Morgan,

[3:25:10] Anti-emotion, dispensed with the second widen. Second motion. May by council, employers and by Council member Tegba and the others' discussion. Peace pt.

[3:25:19] council. Mayor Britain stevens, Council member Lee, Council member Flores, Council member Fleming, Council member Ottaga...

[3:25:29] Yes, ma'am Morgan.

[3:25:31] Yes, all right.

[3:25:32] Jay council comments regarding items of community interest.

[3:25:34] Councilmember Lee.

[3:25:36] Good night, round out.

[3:25:38] Councilmember floors.

[3:25:40] I wanted to congratulate our city manager,

[3:25:42] Mr. Bennett, for one year of service.

[3:25:46] You've done a great job.

[3:25:47] You've filled in admirable and appreciate your leadership.

[3:25:51] Good night, round out.

[3:25:53] Councilmember Fleming.

[3:25:54] I'd like to wish our mayor happy birthday.

[3:25:56] coming up. Good night, Ron Rock. Thank you. Councilmember Tega. Yes, also I'd like to wish the mayor a happy birthday coming up. Are you still young?

[3:26:07] But birthday is a different day. Good night, Ron Rock. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, happy birthday mayor. Also happy birthday to my husband who I've yet to see today. So

[3:26:18] Anyways, good night, Ron Rock. It's still not ceiling.

[3:26:22] All right, I don't have anything. A lot of the lake is tomorrow night and Saturday nights

[3:26:29] encourage all the community to come out to the Lake Pavilion and help us kick it off.

[3:26:37] And so everybody be safe, have a happy holiday, and with that, good night. We're standing

[3:26:43] adjourn.

City Council on 2025-12-04 6:00 PM

Agenda

Transcript