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The General Assembly added PPTA legislation to address the public need for timely development and operation of certain projects within the Commonwealth that serve a public need and purpose. Their addition of this legislation was intended to encourage investment in the Commonwealth by private entities and to offer opportunities for more timely or less costly transportation projects that impact the Commonwealth.
In order to participate in a PPTA project, the County must adopt its own policy, as per the Code of Virginia. Prior to December 2017, the County had a combined Public-Private Education Facilities Infrastructure Act (PPEA)/PPTA policy that was adopted in 2005, when both PPEA and PPTA legislation were part of Title 56 in the Code of Virginia.
Since the initial adoption of that policy, several changes have been made to the legislation that authorizes PPEA/PPTA, including moving PPTA policy provisions out from Title 56 to Title 33.2 which addresses transportation. This separation required a major overhaul of our current PPEA/PPTA policy. In order to address those changes staff suggested that we address each of the provisions separately. The Board approved a PPEA policy on December 12, 2017. We are now presenting a separate PPTA policy for the Board’s review and approval.
Highlights of changes that exist in the Proposed PPTA policy, include:
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In those cases where the County is soliciting proposals for a PPTA project, and the project involves State agencies, we are now required to make a finding of public interest for the qualified PPTA project, prior to soliciting the proposal. The PPTA clearly defines the minimum requirements for the finding of public interest. If the solicited PPTA project is approved, the County must certify in writing to the Governor and the General Assembly the validity of the initial public interest finding, prior to approving the Comprehensive Agreement for the project.
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For any PPTA project under consideration that involves a State agency, the locality is required to ensure competition throughout the procurement process by developing a public sector option and determining the cost of that option for comparison purposes.
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An independent audit to determine the accuracy and validity of the PPTA proposal is required prior to entering into an agreement for any project with a proposed construction cost that exceeds $50 million. The private entity is required to pay the cost of the audit.
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For clarification purposes, there have been revisions to the definition of a qualifying transportation project. The current definition states that a "Transportation facility" means any road, bridge, tunnel, overpass, ferry, airport, mass transit facility, vehicle parking facility, port facility, or similar commercial facility used for the transportation of persons or goods, together with any buildings, structures, parking areas, appurtenances, and other property needed to operate such facility; however, "transportation facility" does not include a commercial or retail use or enterprise not essential to the transportation of persons or goods.
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The State Code now requires that any PPTA comprehensive agreement include, in consultation with the Virginia State Police (VSP), a provision requiring funding for adequate staffing, as defined therein, by the VSP for general law enforcement services during both development and operation of the qualifying transportation facility
The State code allows localities to charge a reasonable fee to cover the costs of processing, reviewing, and evaluating unsolicited PPTA requests. The previous policy required an initial processing fee of $5,000 with an additional proposal fee of $10,000 should the project proceed beyond the initial review. In the event either of those fees was insufficient to cover all of the direct costs incurred by the County for the review and evaluation of the proposal, the County could charge additional fees to ensure that all cost incurred by the County were covered.
The proposed policy includes an initial fee of 2.5% of the reasonably anticipated cost of implementing the proposal, but that fee shall be no less than $5,000 and no more than $50,000, regardless of the anticipated cost. The policy allows the County to accept a $5,000 minimum fee for the initial processing, with the balance due and payable prior to proceeding beyond the initial review stage and similar to the PPEA policy, authorizes the County Administrator to refund all or part of a proposal review fee during the initial consideration or detailed review phases.
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