Financing Agreement for Albany-Shaker Road And Watervliet-Shaker Road Projects
CDTC's Wolf Road study and Albany County Airport study set the stage for the Town of Colonie - Albany County joint Generic Environmental Impact Study (GEIS) of the airport area. The study confirmed that expected growth in the airport area would precipitate the need for capacity additions to the highway system. It called for a careful staging of development, demand management by new development to reduce peak hour travel by 25% from typical rates, and for a public-private partnership to advance several major highway projects.
The follow-up Airport Area Transportation Financing Task Force created by the Town refined the financing arrangements of the GEIS. The Exit 3 improvements were put entirely in the public sector's hands for financing, and other projects were judged best implemented directly in conjunction with development (Wade Road extension, Wolf Road service roads and others). The Albany-Shaker Road (ASR) and Watervliet-Shaker Road (WSR) projects are TIP projects A275, A294 and A372. These were retained as mixed public and private financing through the use of mitigation fees due to the nature of these projects (meeting both through-traffic and local development needs but largely precipitated by identifiable local development).
Largely on the strength of the town's and county's initiative in the GEIS and financing plans that respected CDTC's public-private financing policy, CDTC's members added the Albany-Shaker Road and Watervliet-Shaker Road projects to the TIP in 1993 with the assumption that the standard funding splits of 80% federal, 15% state and 5% local funding shares would cover half the cost of each project. Based on development projections, it was assumed that mitigation fees and contribution of private lands for right-of-way would cover the balance of the cost. CDTC participants recognized that all the mitigation fees may not be in the bank prior to letting the project, and that it would probably be necessary for the county (as owner of the two facilities) to advance some of the project costs with county funds or bond proceeds and be reimbursed by mitigation fees as development occurs.
In recent years, mitigation fees have been collected and used for preliminary planning and design work. The intersection at Watervliet-Shaker and New Karner Road was broken out from the corridor project and advanced with federal, state and local funds. (The expectation of CDTC participants is that the intended public/private financing balance will result once all phases of the projects are complete.)
Recent concerns over the pace of mitigation fee receipts and Albany County's responsibilities for advancing funds to cover project costs while awaiting fee collections has led to exploration of alternative funding methods. (While the development plans in the area and the mitigation responsibilities assigned to specific projects seeking town approval are keeping pace with expectations at the time of the GEIS adoption, the amount of fees collected, unspent and in escrow is currently modest. This is partly because funds are not completely realized until the completion of individual projects and partly because a good portion of the mitigation responsibilities -- such as British American's -- are being kept in a tally sheet rather than in escrow until the ASR alignment is selected and right-of-way credit is determined.)
For the projects in the corridor (A275, A294 and A372) the project costs total $24.0M. Of this, the TIP requires that the public share of 50%, or $12.0M ($9.0M federal; $1.8M state; $0.6M county). The 1997-02 TIP lists a private share of 50%, or $12.0M (apply available mitigation fees, supplement with public funds and reimburse with mitigation fees as collected).
Note that the 100% public financing of the project A294 (Watervliet-Shaker Road / New Karner Road intersection) and the application of mitigation fees against preliminary planning and design costs for A275 and A372 would adjust the public/private split of financial responsibilities of remaining phases of these projects.
The CDTC-NYSDOT-County-Town TIP Agreement
Under federal law, CDTC may finance projects at any federal participation level up to 80%. Thus, no outside approval would be needed for CDTC to use federal funds to cover up to 80% of the private share of the projects at the time the funds must be obligated, and replenish these funds to the TIP as mitigation fees are collected. With this in mind, CDTC adopted the following provisions to govern the financing of these projects:
In addition to CDTC approval, NYSDOT, CDTC, Albany County and the Town of Colonie need to jointly concur on financial responsibilities, mitigation fee transactions and future betterments. This practice does not require formal NYSDOT main office or federal concurrence.
In the 1999-04 TIP, the five-year outlay of federal aid reflects an estimate of mitigation fees in hand at the time of obligation. Actual outlay will be determined by actual mitigation proceeds per the process described above.