The process for City Council to call this bond election began in late 2020.
Each member of the council appointed one representative to serve on the Buda Bond Advisory Committee along with four at-large members. Each committee member must live within the city limits, and most of them already served on other commissions for the city, such as the parks and recreation or the planning and zoning commissions.
“The committee started off by looking at all the different master plans we have. They looked at our capital improvements plan, they took all that into consideration and then they did some surveys,” said Micah Grau, deputy city manager and support staff to the bonds.
To move forward effectively, the committee sought feedback from the community to craft the bonds and have a direction to move in, Grau said.In the community survey regarding what they would like to see more of, Buda residents responded with more entertainment and shopping, better roads, more trails, bike lanes and sidewalks, parks, playgrounds and open space.
Proposition A: transportation
The proposed projects under the transportation bond include road reconstruction, lane addition to roads, improvements to bicycle and pedestrian areas, and even a study on a future roadway, part of the 2019-22 transportation improvement plan.
Some $73.57 million would be allotted to this bond, of which two projects make up over half of that amount.
Reconstruction of Old Black Colony Road is the first listed item on the bond and will cost about $24 million. The project would add bike lanes, sidewalks and extra drainage to the current two-lane road. The construction would begin at
FM 1626 and run to Cole Springs Road, approximately 1 1/2 miles.
Another transportation project is the reconstruction of West Goforth Road at more than $20.9 million and will run from South Loop 4 to I-35. The reconstruction of this road will also be an expansion to add sidewalks, bicycle lanes and additional drainage.
The third most expensive project from the bond costs about $6.7 million. From the downtown master plan, Austin Street would be reconstructed to provide additional turning capacity at Main Street and Live Oak, add parking on at least one side of the street and attempt to alleviate traffic in the area.
Proposition B: parks and recreation
The parks and recreation bond has half the amount of projects and $16.09 million allotted. Half of that money would go toward one project called the Eastside Community Park land acquisition.
Also in prop. B is $7.5 million that would be allocated to this project to acquire a 70-acre plot of land southeast of Bradfield Park on the opposite side of I-35. An additional $500,000 would go toward construction costs.
The Garison Memorial Park development project has an estimated $20.4 million price tag. However, it would be allocated $6 million and will be split into phases, with only Phase 1 on this bond.
Phase 1 consists of development of parking lots, trails, water access headquarters and prairie land restoration, according to documents. The other phase of this project includes the construction of a nature center, for which the city is seeking additional grant funding outside the bond election funds, according to Grau.
“The priority now is to get the parks open; build the infrastructure; get the trails and sidewalks and parking and restrooms, those things that we need open now to make that park open,” Grau said.
Grau noted that while he cannot speculate as to whether either bond will pass, they were developed with the initial feedback from the community.
