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(dramatic music)

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- [Narrator] There are
more than 1 million acres

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of right-of-way lands

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overseen by the Texas
Department of Transportation.

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These areas are used by third-party
companies for utilities,

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saltwater pipelines, and
small low-powered antennas.

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The land can be accessed by
public or private organizations,

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with fee structures set for both.

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TxDOT and the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute

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aim to develop a system

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to gauge the value of these rights-of-way

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for leases of different
sizes, times, and locations.

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It will also evaluate if
organizations are violating permits

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by installing additional facilities,

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leasing them to private parties.

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- In order to meet the statutory guidance

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that we have of getting fair value

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and fair market value for our lease rates,

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it's important that we have a method

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of determining the value

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of the real property
that we're dealing with.

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- We looked at a variety
of different methodologies

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to value the right-of-way
and try to find out

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what would be most useful in
this specific application.

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And then we actually
traveled around the state,

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and we talked to district
personnel from TxDOT,

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who are actually heavily involved

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in leasing the right-of-way.

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And we also wanted to
hear from the industry

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about their concerns and ideas

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for improving the whole
leasing process with TxDOT.

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- So I think we developed
a a couple of methodologies

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that TxDOT could use to
get an approximate value

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and then to calculate some lease rates.

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I think one key finding

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is that there's a lot of data out there

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and it's very time
consuming to process it.

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So one of the data
sources that we looked at

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was property valuations
from the county assessors,

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but there's 254 counties in Texas

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and they all have different data formats.

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So we did this just to
show it could be done,

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processed some of those file formats,

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but we also provided a simpler methodology

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that TxDOT might prefer

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just due to the ease of implementation

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or ease of keeping that up to date.

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- We basically gave TxDOT a methodology

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on how to improve their valuation

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that they're currently doing,
and we gave 'em several tools.

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We have like a spreadsheet tool,

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and we have an interactive
map that they can also use.

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So those need to be
implemented on their servers,

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and there's a process on how to do that.

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But there's also a lot of work

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behind getting the actual valuation data.

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So basically right now
we're talking to TxDOT,

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you know, what would
be the next best step?

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Probably doing a pilot
in one of the districts

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at writing more of those leases.

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- I think we got a lot of
value out of the research

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as far as confirming our own sense

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of what appropriate methodologies were

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and then learning that

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what seemed to be a possible
source of good information

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was less attractive in reality

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than what we were actually looking for.

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- For say like the oil and gas pipelines,

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I think it gives TxDOT a justification

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for setting their lease rates.

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And so if the companies come back and say,

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"Why are you increasing it this year?"

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Then they have something
that they can show and say,

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"Well, this is how we calculated it."

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- Now TxDOT has a methodology

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that is more consistent
to value the right-of-way

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for different types of leases

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that they use on a daily basis.

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And it also increases the transparency

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of how the value for
that lease is achieved.

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So I think TxDOT using this methodology

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and the right-of-way evaluation framework,

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TxDOT should be more confident

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when they determine lease rates
for the variety of leases.

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- [Narrator] For more information,

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and to find the publications
for this project,

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please visit the TxDOT research library

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at the link shown below.