“We are transitioning to maintenance mode,” Public Works Director Scott Kriston said. “We are basically at the point where our tax base isn’t growing with new developments, and there aren’t new revenue sources coming in. So now we have to take a pot of money that isn’t growing and use it to start rebuilding.”
One way Highland Village plans to reconstruct and rebuild its aging infrastructure without having to use its general fund revenue, which includes sales tax and property tax revenue, is through bond packages.
In November 2017, Highland Village residents approved a $7.15 million bond package that included two propositions—$2.86 million for street improvements and $4.29 million for parks and recreation improvements.
MAINTAINING STREETS
The street improvements earmarked for bond money include the reconstruction of 23 residential streets that were identified as failing or at the end of their life cycle.
“There are 126 asphalt roads in the city,” Kriston said. “We look at all the streets within the city and score each street using the pavement condition index, which is a scoring mechanism that we use that is developed by the National Highway Institute.”
The ones that had the lowest score were placed on the bond.
Kriston said the streets, which are roughly 30 years old, are grouped into four construction projects with the first group—Oak Forest Drive and Winding Creek—starting construction in the fall/winter and finishing in 90 days.
The second round of streets—Rosedale Street, Ranier Court, Snowdon Court, Sheldon Court, Dickinson Drive, Baird Circle and Donna Circle—are in the design phase and will begin construction after the first group.
In 2019 work is expected to start on Catesby Place, Rockland Drive, Hickory Ridge Drive, South Clearwater Drive, Scenic Drive, Springway Drive, North Clearwater Drive and Pecan Street.
In 2020 Arbor Court, Park Lane, Creek Place, DuVall Drive, Raintree Drive and Greensprings Street is expected to be under construction.
Weather permitting, Kriston said the goal is to have all 23 streets completed by summer 2020.
Kriston said during construction at least one lane will be left open.
“With any construction project there is going to be some inconvenience, but it doesn’t last forever,” he said. “There may be a couple of hours in a day where we do have to shut a road down, but we will give residents notice.”
Highland Village resident Michael Clark, who lives on Raintree Drive, said he is in favor of having his street reconstructed but worries that the street will be back in bad condition due to the additional traffic he sees coming from the newly reconstructed I-35E/Garden Ridge access road completed last year.
“If you’re coming from the north headed south you have access to Highland Village Road, but if you’re headed north you can’t get to Highland Village Road without cutting through the neighborhoods, and now all of this new traffic is tearing these neighborhood streets up,” he said. “It’s going to be a burden to Highland Village taxpayers to maintain their streets.”
FUTURE BOND
Kriston said there are an additional 25 streets that are identified as deteriorating rapidly, which he said he hopes are funded through a future bond that will likely be called in 2023.
“Streets are expensive,” he said. “In order not to use up all of the money in the general fund we need to use bond money. The general fund has to pay for [the] parks [department], streets, firefighters, police, administration and more, so all of it can’t be used on reconstructing streets.”
City Manager Michael Leavitt said the city allocates around $300,000 in the general fund a year for street
maintenance.
“But $300,000 won’t go far when you are talking about major street programs,” he said. “We would love to do all of the streets that are nearing its life cycle at the same time, but we also want to be able to issue debt without impacting the taxpayers’ rate.”
Additionally, Leavitt said with a small city staff it would be difficult to manage all the needed road projects and have them done in a five-year time span.
“It’s better to plan it out in phases instead of one great big [bond],” he said.
Leavitt said the next bond will be for large reconstruction projects.
“Our bonds will be strictly for total reconstruction,” he said. “I don’t see us issuing any debt in the near future for any new buildings or facilities. That has not been identified at all anywhere in our capital improvement plan, and council has not put that out there. Any debt that we issue will be for total reconstruction of streets, storm damage, water and sewer.”
