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Picketers surprise CP council

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Citizens showed up with signs of protest to voice their neighborhood concerns at Thursday's Cedar Park City Council meeting.

Many residents of the Town Center subdivision turned out at the meeting with signs to protest a possible plan to extend Bull Creek Parkway west and build a railroad crossing. Thomas Mortensen spoke on behalf of the group of concerned citizens who own homes at the west end of Bull Creek.

Mortensen said it came to the attention of some citizens that the city planned to construct a railroad crossing and turn “Bull Creek Parkway west of Main Street into a residential connector route.”

The homeowners are concerned with the idea and are upset that they were never informed of the possible plan, which has been on the books since 2001, when they purchased their homes in the last 18 to 24 months.

“For most of us, knowledge of this plan would have led us to not purchase these homes as other optional locations were available in CPTC (Cedar Park Town Center) and surrounding developments,” Mortensen said.

The citizens asked the city to abandon the plan altogether or at the very least request a plan to reevaluate the project and include “an opinion survey of all affected Cedar Park residents.”

Kiosk signs

Also addressing the council during citizen communications, Harry Savio, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin, voiced a complaint about the city's new kiosk signs.

While the signs “have potential to get buyers and potential future citizens to their locations,” the signs are hard to read in some areas, Savio said.

He asked the council to consider working with home builders to change the styling of the signs to larger lettering and changing the font and coloring so the signs are more visible.

He also said the grandfathering clause for off-premise signs was creating a problem because people need some kind of sign to point them in the right direction. Savio asked the council to consider the opportunity to open a proposal where the city and home builders work together to find some off-premise sign options to meet everyone's needs.

“If people can't see where to go, then they're not going to go at all,” said Savio.

The issue of signs was also brought up by Garrett Martin, director of land development for Portrait Homes, which has built three townhome communities in Cedar Park.

Martin asked the council to reconsider multi-family “for sale” signs being categorized with multi-family “for rent” signs because there is a distinct different between the two.

Multi-family “for sale” communities are much like single family communities, said Martin, which is why “they should be treated with the same signage rights.” Like single family communities, multi-family ones have kids who play community sports and families who attend civic events. They also have a lower turnover rate than “for rent” communities and they become active voting members of the community itself, he said.

“For these reasons, hopefully you'll see that multi-family “for sale” communities need to be successful and for them to be successful, they need to have the same signage as single family communities do,” said Martin.

The council discussed off-premise homebuilder signs in their regular agenda portion of the meeting. They have been working with the kiosk contractor to determine what can be done with the signs.

“All parties are working together and I'm confident we're going to come to a resolution on this issue,” said Mark Lewis, Cedar Park Building Inspections Director.

Possible solutions include making the type size and font bigger on kiosk signs where the speed limit is higher.

The grandfather clause for off-premise signs and all penalties for violating the off-premise sign resolution have been suspended until the city can determine the exact guidelines and work with homebuilders to find solutions.

Briefly...

Several items were tabled at the meeting, including an ordinance to rezone 17 acres of land from general retail (GR) to multi-family (MF) on the west side of North Vista Ridge Boulevard at Colonial Parkway. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended the item be tabled until their Aug. 4 meeting. Discussion on the proposed master contract for the BCRUA's regional water treatment and distribution project was also tabled. ... A resolution was passed to allow 4A to form an agreement with Corvalent, a company out of Morgan Hill, Calif., which makes motherboards and other boards for personal computers. Š H-E-B presented the city with a $5,000 check for the fireworks displayed at the Fourth of July celebration. ... Cedar Park City Manager Brenda Eivens gave a presentation of the year in review which included all events and developments the city experienced in the last year. ... Mayor pro tem Stephen Thomas and Place 6 Councilmember Cobby Caputo were absent from the meeting.

E-mail jennifer@hillcountrynews.com

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