Questions about size of proposed Police Department
HUTTO – The City Council asked consultants for the proposed Justice Center to take a step back and scale down its recommendations after being presented with options costing from $56.4 million to $149.6 million.
Some of the reductions revolve around the size of a new police facility.
Council members during the Thursday meeting were told the costs included a 10- to 20-year phasing-in for completing the build-out but did not include land acquisition.
In other business, the municipality’s elected representatives heard an update on city codes.
The Justice Center took center stage, however.
“You’re always going to get your biggest bang for building now versus later. You guys are fastgrowing in population,” said Denny Boles, president of Brinkley Sargent Wiginton Architects. “That’s why this is not uncommon to do a phased project. Twenty years will be here fast. Ten years will be here even faster.”
Boles and his associate, Gina Irwin, presented an overall vision of the project which included facilities for the Police Department and Municipal Court, training facilities, an indoor firing range and a driver training course.
The plans also included an emergency shelter and a dispatch center built to withstand a tornado without losing operations.
Hutto added the Justice Center to its capital- improvement project list in 2024, and getting the feasibility and planning study done in June was the first step.
The city has not funded the initiative, but the capital improvement plan shows an estimated budget of $53 million including land. While city planners estimated the facility would cost about $400 per square foot, the consultants said with inflation, by the time the project goes to bid in 2027, prices would be closer to $1,000 per square foot for some areas of the facility.
Hutto’s current police station is overcrowded and in need of renovations, officials have said. The space is just less than 10,000 square feet.
In the presentation, consultants recommended a police department of 45,588 square feet, more than four times the current size. Dimensions for the entire facility ranged from 53,492 square feet to 136,183 square feet depending on the option.
After hearing the report, council members agreed the project may have to be cut down, questioning the need for many of the training facilities and emergency- management sites. They also asked the consultants to trim the recommended size of the Police Department.
“Ten thousand feet right now is woefully insufficient for the officers we do have today. I just want the citizens to think about that, too. I think going from 10,000 to 20,000 they would need to do phase two almost immediately,” said Mayor Pro Tem Peter Gordon.
Gordon recommended the consultants come back with a modified Police Department plan of no less than about 35,000 square feet.
Hutto Municipal Court Judge Lucas Wilson appeared before the council to advocate for not cutting the court out of the project. The judge cited safety, efficiency and economic reasons for having the Police Department near the court.
Currently, court is held at City Hall and defendants who are paying court fees also do so at that location.
“The No. 1 issue is security for us because this is not a secure facility,” Wilson said. “We do have defendants who are charged not only with moving violations but also assault charges, public intoxication, those sorts of things. They’re coming into the facility, they’re coming to our windows. When we have court in the Council Chambers we only have one door that keeps them from our office situation.”
City to update development codes
At a joint meeting of the council and the Planning and Zoning Commission on Thursday, officials got a look at proposed changes to the city’s unified development code.
They include a reduction of zoning districts, stronger landscaping rules and encouragement of low-water landscaping, and requiring some new utility lines to be underground instead of on poles.
“We’ve been working on this for over 18 months,” said Development Services Director Ashley Bailey. “This was a labor of love to bring our unified development code into compliance with our Hutto SOAR (comprehensive) plan so we can be a city that looks as good as we need to and it really goes back to our goals and priorities.”
Chance Sparks, with engineering and consulting firm Freese and Nichols, presented highlights from the code changes. He said the document is a broad modernization effort.
The project also updates the city’s engineeringcriteria manuals to work “seamlessly” with the UDC and establish Hutto-specific design processes.
“This brings into alignment a number of things that have changed over the last decade or so, particularly in state law, and brings you better into compliance. It also recognizes how Hutto has changed over the years as you deal with new challenges,” Sparks said.
A public hearing on the updated code changes will be scheduled for a future meeting. The draft of the UDC can be viewed at huttotx. gov/ DocumentCenter/ Index/323.
