Before many city employees and council members settled down for a long winter nap, they brought Lakeway’s building ordinances up to date at Monday night’s regular council meeting.

Shannon Burke, director of building and development services, said that a revision was due to assist in the department’s day-to-day operations that include code enforcement of residential areas and oversight of development projects.
“We believe that the Building Ordinance is overly generous in allowing for lapses in construction and hinders our efforts in limiting nuisances associated with construction,” Burke wrote in a memo to council members.
City officials will now have more leverage in requiring construction jobs to progress at a reasonable pace with an amendment that eliminates the 12-month requirement for project completion and authorizes code officials to cancel a permit if work stops for 30 days or more. The revised Building Ordinance also accelerates the timelines for repairing or demolishing damaged or destroyed structures and replenishing vegetation on the site within three months of a disaster or fire.
Stemming largely from issues the city encountered with a vacant residence on Vanguard, will be subject to more stringent maintenance requirements that crack down on litter and trash accumulation, landscaping and continuation of utilities on the property to discourage vandalism and trespassing.
Property owners or mortgage lien-holders are liable for violations of the Building Ordinance no matter what agreements are in place.
Council member Dee Ann Burns Farrell asked when the city could step in to enforce the ordinance.
“At what point can we take action?” Burns Farrell said.
“As soon as they violate the ordinance,” Assistant City Manager Chessie Blanchard-Zimmerman said.
The city also copied rules from its Development Ordinance prohibiting multiple residential driveways to multiple streets into the Building Ordinance amendments.
Other revisions include a requirement for sod to be installed rather than hydromulch on areas disturbed during construction and elimination of breezeway requirements for detached structures excluding garages or hangars.
The new ordinance also clarifies that lattice is not acceptable as a screening fence and air conditioning compressors, heat pumps, fuel storage tanks, free-standing electrical equipment and other similar items must be screened. In addition, the ordinance details that property owners bear the responsibility of cleaning ditches and culverts on their land.
Wind turbines are prohibited, and the city implemented additional regulations on solar panels.
Harry Savio, executive vice president of the Homebuilders Association of Greater Austin, thanked the city for presenting the proposed ordinance changes to the Lakeway chapter of the organization.
“Hopefully, there will be a minimum amount of difficulty. Whenever you make changes, there is always someone who doesn’t hear about them,” Savio said.
Council members also met in closed session with City Attorney Patty Akers to discuss the city’s authority to regulate marina development in its extraterritorial jurisdiction.
The council took no action as a result of the closed session.
Crosswater Marina attempted to start construction Aug. 25 on a marina site near Graveyard Point on Lake Travis in the city’s ETJ, but Lakeway immediately issued a stop work order because the developer did not hold a valid city permit. The city previously expressed issues with traffic, parking and noise that a marina there would generate.
“We have one or more of these problems with the existing marinas, and they occasionally cause distress for our citizens,” City Manager Steve Jones said in a Sept. 10 article in the Lake Travis View.
Graveyard Point residents Susan Brown, Bob Weest and Diane Crumley Dee have spoken to council members at previous meetings and aired their concerns again, despite not being privy to the council’s closed session discussions.
Weest noted the developers’ continued absence from council meetings when they discuss marina-related items.
“I haven’t seen the developers in a long time. They never show up to offer anything. They never are here to answer any questions,” he said. “I hope you all will take that into consideration as to how the good residents of this community are basically kept in the dark by these people.”
He wondered what a purported Crosswater traffic study produced and said he thought Hurst Creek Road is too narrow to support the business.
“It’s not a good place. Nobody I know of wants it, but yet … three or four years later we are still going over this stuff,” Weest said. “I hope that there will be some resolve to it.”
City Treasurer Al Tyson said Lakeway’s revenues for the year are almost exactly what the city budgeted. The budget predicted $979,989 in revenues, and $979,867 has been collected.
The city’s fiscal belt tightening has produced a favorable variance of $158,385. Lakeway’s actual expenses for the fiscal year thus far are $1.2 million, but it budgeted $1.35 million.
“Expenses were kept under control and were less than budgeted,” Tyson said.
Lakeway had $2 million in its general fund, $877,984 in its capital reserve fund and $831,715 in its parkland fund as of Nov. 30.