Round Rock council extends agreement with Meadows at Chandler Creek MUD to negotiate infrastructure responsibility

A municipal utility district and the city of Round Rock will have about six more months to negotiate responsibility for the maintenance and replacement of water, wastewater and other utility infrastructure.

The Round Rock City Council approved a measure granting this extension in June, just before it was set to expire.

The action taken

The measure gives the city and MUD until Dec. 31, 2026, to renegotiate the agreement, the city's Public Works Director Michael Thane said.

Why now?

The 40-year-old agreement was set to expire June 26, Thane said in a June 23 packet briefing ahead of the June 25 meeting. He said that under the 1986 agreement, the city of Round Rock has been responsible for all water and wastewater line maintenance and repairs, as well as meter reading and utility billing. Because these lines are within a MUD, the city does not own those utility lines, he said.

Much of this infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life, he said, presenting a large cost to the city. Replacement of these lines would cost around $100 million, a 60-40 split between water and wastewater lines.

In their own words

"It's very difficult to treat it like a regular wholesale customer because we have a lot of points of entries here, so we have to meter all those," Thane said. "It may be a hybrid of what we have for existing wholesale customers with the MUDs versus this one. I think we need to protect our rate payers a little bit on how we move forward with this."

What's next?

With the approval, a future contract will be brought back to Council after an agreement is reached.