The city of Leander in October unveiled its first comprehensive capital improvement plan, which identified projects deemed by city staff as needed or desired over the next five years.

The plan is an outlook of the city’s infrastructure projects through fiscal year 2021-22, Finance Director Robert Powers said. For years the city has maintained master plans for several different departments, but this document is Leander’s first compilation of all the improvement projects, he said.

The plan covers the transportation and storm water, parks and recreation, water and wastewater, and municipal facilities and equipment departments. Powers said the need for capital improvement planning has been driven by large population growth over the past few years.

“Certainly on transportation and parks and rec [projects], more residents means more users for our facilities, more traffic and a higher need for safer intersections,” he said.

The five-year plan lists 165 projects estimated at $494 million. Of those projects, $68.9 million were approved and funded in the fiscal year 2016-17 budget that City Council adopted in September. The other projects could be funded in future budget cycles, Powers said.

One project approved by City Council is the Phase 1 extension of Metro Drive, which was funded by voters in the $70.9 million bond election in May. The $6.1 million project will extend Metro from the Capital Metro Park and Ride along US 183 to the Austin Community College San Gabriel campus.

The bond also allocated $440,000 for roadway improvements to Raider Way and Woodview Drive. Raider is a two-lane roadway in front of Rouse High School and Wiley Middle School, and Powers said the street struggles to handle school traffic.

“I’m sure parents who use that to take their kids to school will greatly benefit from [the improvements], as well as the school district buses,” he said. 

In the Parks and Recreation Department, $565,000 was allocated to Lakewood Community Park, which is slated to be constructed near Ronald Reagan Boulevard and Journey Parkway by the Cold Springs subdivision. Another $1.9 million has been approved to replace some of the grass fields at Robin Bledsoe Park with synthetic turf.

The five departments listed another 95 projects in the plan, which total $165 million, as infrastructure needs that could be completed within the next five years.

Powers said another one of those projects is building a fourth baseball field at Benbrook Ranch Park, which is estimated to cost $400,000.

Funding for the projects will come from different sources, such as operating revenues, utility impact fees, bonds and cost-sharing with developers. Powers said developers could move forward on a number of the wastewater and transportation projects in the plan that are currently unfunded by the city.

He said the city and developers frequently partner on projects. For example, if a developer is building a 500-home subdivision and plans to build a 12-inch water main line, Leander would ask them to double the size of the line to serve another future subdivision, Powers said.

“Rather than a developer building a 12-inch that can only serve that one subdivision, we may negotiate for 24-inch and we’ll pay the difference,” he said.

The city previously partnered with the Blake Magee Co., the developer of Palmera Ridge, a subdivision that has about 550 single-family lots. Amy Lynn Payne, the senior project manager for Palmera Ridge, said Leander paid a portion of the costs for the company to oversize a joint offsite wastewater line to serve the subdivision plus a portion of Leander’s wastewater basin.

“It’s very common that we do that in our large projects in our master plan communities, especially if they are more rural and a little bit further out on the edge of developments and we have to get those utilities to them,” she said. “Almost all of our projects we’ve had to work with cities and partner with them.”

The company is also partnering with the city on a road project for Palmera Bluff—a continuation of Palmera Ridge that will have about 450 single-family lots, Payne said. Leander allocated $4.2 million for the design and extension of San Gabriel Parkway from CR 270 to Ronald Reagan, and this time Blake Magee Co. will pay a portion of the costs.

Also listed in the plan are 70 projects totaling $330 million that do not have a funding source identified and are not anticipated to happen within the next five years, Powers said.

Two of those projects include the South San Gabriel River Park and a connecting trail, which were considered during bond discussions but ultimately were not added to the list of voter-approved bond projects.

“We’d still like to be able to do those projects, but until we identify funding, they’re going to have to sit out in the ‘future’ category,“ Powers said.

While the capital improvement plan lays out possible projects over the next five years, City Council will decide which projects get funded each year.

On Oct. 11, Moody’s Investors Service upgraded the city of Leander’s outstanding limited tax debt rating, which could help the city finance future capital improvement projects in the future, Powers said.

During the meeting, several council members cheered at the news of the upgrade.

“That’s a big deal,” Mayor Chris Fielder said.

Powers said Standard and Poor’s held Leander’s rating, but it upgraded the city’s outlook from “stable” to “positive.”

“That is a leading indicator of where they think city is heading,” Powers said. “So the next time that we are issuing some debt, that just makes it that much a shorter distance to cover.”