Lockhart to rename streets, renumber houses

By LPR Staff
Editor/POST-REGISTER

Several Lockhart residents and businesses, both the newly-annexed and in established neighborhoods, will soon be required to change their addresses.
In a referendum passed by the Lockhart City Council during their regular meeting on Tuesday evening, the council agreed to change the names of several streets that were rece

ntly annexed. The streets that will be affected are the portions of Blackjack (FM 20 East), Maple (Boggy Creek Road), Borchert Drive (Borchert Loop), Clear Fork (Old Fentress Road), Silent Valley (FM 2001), State Park Road (FM 20 West) and North Colorado Street (Highway 183). The portions that will be affected are those that were recently annexed into the city limits.
“We”ve done several annexations the last couple of years, and we held off until this point so that we could change all the names at once,” City Planner Dan Gibson said. “Also, there was a portion of Borchert Loop that didn”t sync up with the County”s 9-1-1 system, so we had to rename that to Borchert Drive.”
Gibson said relatively few address numbers would have to be changed, and that affected residents would have more than a year, legally, to make the changes.
“The ordinance itself doesn”t even go into effect until 60 days after it”s signed,” Gibson said. “So the people that are going to be affected are going to be contacted and have plenty of time to prepare for the change.”
Gibson also mentioned a proposal he brought to light several months ago to change several addresses in an established Lockhart neighborhood was complete.
The address changes, which will affect portions of South Main, South Blanco and South Church streets, were announced via mail this week to the affected residents.
Gibson noted some of the inconsistencies and redundancies in the original plan have been corrected, and invited affected residents to contact City Hall to view the map of the new address realignment.
In other news, Lockhart took a step forward in regional emergency management this week, entering into both mutual aid and automatic aid agreements with the Travis County Emergency Services District No. 11 (TCESD 11).
Under the agreements, the Lockhart Fire Department can request assistance from TCESD 11 in the event of a manpower shortage, structure fire or other emergency, while TCESD 11 may request the same from Lockhart. The agreements do not ensure assistance, but open up lines of communication and availability.
According to Fire Chief Jerry Doyle, except in the event of a house fire where assistance is required, neither department is obligated to provide support unless both manpower and firefighting equipment is available at the time of the call.
“This is a good step toward “regional thinking,”” said Mayor James “Jimmy” Bertram. “Of course, we have to think about home first and make sure that our people and property are protected, but we can”t focus solely on ourselves and ignore our neighbors.”
Bertram also suggested that Doyle explore mutual aid agreements with the surround communities” volunteer fire departments.
In brief news:
The council heard the current report on impact fee collection. After much discussion, they decided to continue to raise road impact fees for commercial construction. All other road impact fees, as well as water and wastewater impact fees, will remain the same.
They discussed enacting an ordinance that would require property owners to collect, mulch or otherwise properly dispose of mowed grass clippings to keep them out of streets and gutters.
The Lockhart City Council meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month in the Glosserman Conference Room at Lockhart City Hall. Meetings begin at 7:30 p.m. and are open to the public, as well as televised on Time Warner Cable Channel 10.