El Paso County moves forward on Eastlake project
El Paso County Commissioners are looking at putting more money into transportation projects and are making sure current ones are paid for – though there may have to be some long-term adjustments.
“The Eastlake Project which is one of the county’s comprehensive mobility plan projects that we have with Horizon City, it will address some of the transportation needs they have,” said El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar after the vote last week.
Commissioners unanimously approved paying about $5 million for the latest parts of the overall $20 million Eastlake expansion. Specifically, this phase will be working with what’s known as a Transportation Reinvestment Zone, or TRZ that Horizon City set up to pay for it over 20 years, with interest.
“As we all know, the county is growing significantly to the east. We’ve seen Horizon City’s growth grow exponentially. And with the more commercial projects that they build,” Escobar said, “the more capacity that there is, the more of an urgent need there is for Horizon to address their transportation needs as well.”
The idea behind a TRZ is to make the growth in an area with such projects pay for itself, with any tax revenue increases in the area kept separate to foot the bill. County leaders were hoping to do the same thing with a TRZ they set up back in 2012, but recent changes led them to scrap it.
“Well, there was (a Texas Attorney General) opinion that challenged that idea,” Escobar said. “Basically the law says you can’t divert tax funds to a particular area. So they have to be distributed essentially throughout the county.”
The county could try to move forward with it’s own TRZ anyway as the opinion is an interpretation by the AG that could change. But commissioners weren’t willing to risk it.
“We also realize that when you have an AG opinion and you violate it, you open yourself up to lawsuits,” Escobar said.
The county has other transportation revenue sources, like the $10 vehicle registration fee. Monday, they’ll be looking at dealing with about $32 million dollars worth of bonds for projects going forward using that source with the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority. The regular County Commissioners meeting will be held Monday morning, starting at 9:30 at the downtown county courthouse.
