By Eleni Himaras, Staff Writer

It may not be about golf, but the West Lake Hills City Council doesn’t want to see much change about the nearby Brackenridge tract of land owned by the University of Texas.
The council voted to publicly oppose the university’s plan to develop the tract, which includes the famed Lions Municipal golf course, at last week’s meeting, though the venerable course wasn’t mentioned at all.
Council members debated outright opposition to the development versus a request for a lower density plan than the current one which would accommodate up to 13,050 new residents.
“I think you undermine your argument when you flat-out oppose it,” Mayor Dave Claunch said.
Councilman Andrew Schwartz agreed, saying that he doesn’t like when residents come before the council to oppose something done on private property because they didn’t like it. This had a similar air, Schwartz said. He said asking for a lower density development made sense because West Lake Hills has a powerful argument in trying to keep excess traffic off of its streets.
“This is what we want to tell our residents we stand for, and it’s going to have more mileage with them,” Councilman Spencer Stevens said, arguing for the more stringent proclamation.
The council agreed that either proclamation was unlikely to have a large impact on UT’s decision but voted unanimously to oppose the current development in its entirety.
“I don’t like the concept of [telling them what to do on private property], but I still don’t think they should do this,” Schwartz said before voting on a motion to oppose it.
Westlake residents who use Red Bud Trail to access Austin drive by the Brackenridge tract when they reach Lake Austin Boulevard.
Later in the meeting, the council voted to become the first city to charge Austin Energy a franchise fee, like they do for the cable, telephone and gas companies. West Lake Hills charges the various utility companies for use of the city’s right-of-ways while they do maintenance work.
“When I got here, I was surprised the city wasn’t charging any franchise fees,” City Administrator Robert Wood said of the recent practice.
Wood said that while Austin Energy doesn’t pay franchise fees in any of the municipalities it serves, across the state it is more of a common practice for municipalities to charge electric companies. His estimates say that a 3-percent franchise fee on Austin Energy could mean an extra $150,000-$200,000 for the city.
Either party may unilaterally pull out of the agreement.
Wood said in some cases, utility companies pass the franchise fees along to customers, but that at this point Austin Energy’s billing software doesn’t allow that type of function.
“Their software does not allow them to charge any specific area more than another,” Wood said.
If Austin Energy did acquire newer software that would allow the utility to charge an additional line item fee based on address, it could eventually pass the surcharge on to the customer, said Wood. He said he thought the utility would be unlikely to invest in that upgrade unless several cities follow the example of West Lake Hills to charge the fee.