Austin Western Growth to Slow
I wrote a blog post on another blog back in December, 2006 talking about growth to the west of Austin. At that time, it looked like the LCRA would take water lines farther out Hamilton Pool Road and Highway 71. The LCRA was projecting that by the year 2035 there would be an additional 45,000 households in northern Hays and western Travis Counties. It doesn't look like that will happen unless something changes dramatically.
The LCRA took water out Hamilton Pool as far as the subdivision of Belvedere. On Hwy 71, they took water as far out as the Sweetwater subdivision. From what I have heard from Mark Sprague of Residential Strategies and Austin engineer Hank Smith, the LCRA will not take water farther unless someone else pays for it.
So for the LCRA to make water available, developers or land owners will have to pay for a water intake line, treatment plant and pipelines to get water wherever it was needed. That sounds pretty cost prohibitive to me unless a group of developers and land owners got together.
I am very curious about projects that had been announced out Hwy 71. The Sweetwater Lazy 9 is supposed to build around 1800 homes on over 2000 acres just west of Bee Cave. They started on the main road not long ago and will continue to develop the infrastructure over time. From what I understand, the developer has not secured any builders yet. The reason for that is probably because production builders have cut new home starts back to almost nothing because Austin's market has slowed and their profits are terrible all over the country. Local custom builders have too many specs on the ground and you can bet that none of them will go in to Sweetwater.
The Reserve at Lake Travis doesn't have LCRA water, but they are moving ahead anyway. They have an agreement with a neighboring subdivision that has a few wells that produce enough water for both developments. Vizcaya is another high-end development that was announced a year or more ago. This is what used to be the large Covert Ranch. I can't find anything about this development and have no idea what they will do for water. Lakeway Highlands is a 1500 acre development that is roughly bordered by Lakeway and Bee Creek Road. The developer of that property does have a water provider and that development should be just fine. This development will eventually have around 1400 homes, over 300 condos, lots of green space and a marina.
So what is the answer for land owners and developers? One possibility is for the owners of this land to accept the fact that the land isn't as valuable as they thought it was because of the lack of available water. Unless owners decide to sit and hold until water is available, if that ever happens, they may need to sell for less. Without water, developers will not be able to do high density projects. What they can do is create developments said fewer, but larger lots. Builders should then build homes with large rainfall harvesting systems. They should install systems to re-use gray water.
What looked like a slam dunk for developers a year ago has really changed. It will be very interesting to see what happens as time goes by.