(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] There are more than 1 million acres
of right-of-way lands
overseen by the Texas Department of Transportation.
These areas are used by third-party companies for utilities,
saltwater pipelines, and small low-powered antennas.
The land can be accessed by public or private organizations,
with fee structures set for both.
TxDOT and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute
aim to develop a system
to gauge the value of these rights-of-way
for leases of different sizes, times, and locations.
It will also evaluate if organizations are violating permits
by installing additional facilities,
leasing them to private parties.
- In order to meet the statutory guidance
that we have of getting fair value
and fair market value for our lease rates,
it's important that we have a method
of determining the value
of the real property that we're dealing with.
- We looked at a variety of different methodologies
to value the right-of-way and try to find out
what would be most useful in this specific application.
And then we actually traveled around the state,
and we talked to district personnel from TxDOT,
who are actually heavily involved
in leasing the right-of-way.
And we also wanted to hear from the industry
about their concerns and ideas
for improving the whole leasing process with TxDOT.
- So I think we developed a a couple of methodologies
that TxDOT could use to get an approximate value
and then to calculate some lease rates.
I think one key finding
is that there's a lot of data out there
and it's very time consuming to process it.
So one of the data sources that we looked at
was property valuations from the county assessors,
but there's 254 counties in Texas
and they all have different data formats.
So we did this just to show it could be done,
processed some of those file formats,
but we also provided a simpler methodology
that TxDOT might prefer
just due to the ease of implementation
or ease of keeping that up to date.
- We basically gave TxDOT a methodology
on how to improve their valuation
that they're currently doing, and we gave 'em several tools.
We have like a spreadsheet tool,
and we have an interactive map that they can also use.
So those need to be implemented on their servers,
and there's a process on how to do that.
But there's also a lot of work
behind getting the actual valuation data.
So basically right now we're talking to TxDOT,
you know, what would be the next best step?
Probably doing a pilot in one of the districts
at writing more of those leases.
- I think we got a lot of value out of the research
as far as confirming our own sense
of what appropriate methodologies were
and then learning that
what seemed to be a possible source of good information
was less attractive in reality
than what we were actually looking for.
- For say like the oil and gas pipelines,
I think it gives TxDOT a justification
for setting their lease rates.
And so if the companies come back and say,
"Why are you increasing it this year?"
Then they have something that they can show and say,
"Well, this is how we calculated it."
- Now TxDOT has a methodology
that is more consistent to value the right-of-way
for different types of leases
that they use on a daily basis.
And it also increases the transparency
of how the value for that lease is achieved.
So I think TxDOT using this methodology
and the right-of-way evaluation framework,
TxDOT should be more confident
when they determine lease rates for the variety of leases.
- [Narrator] For more information,
and to find the publications for this project,
please visit the TxDOT research library
at the link shown below.