Bill Text: TX SB971 | 2013-2014 | 83rd Legislature | Comm Sub

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Relating to the purposes, designation, and funding of a transportation reinvestment zone for port projects; providing authority to issue bonds; authorizing an assessment.

Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 5-2)

Status: (Passed) 2013-06-14 - Effective on 9/1/13 [SB971 Detail]

Download: Texas-2013-SB971-Comm_Sub.html

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By: Williams S.B. No. 971
(In the Senate - Filed September 28, 2012; March 12, 2013,
read first time and referred to Committee on Transportation;
April 8, 2013, reported adversely, with favorable Committee
Substitute by the following vote: Yeas 9, Nays 0; April 8, 2013,
sent to printer.)
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR S.B. No. 971 By: Uresti

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to the purposes, designation, and funding of a
transportation reinvestment zone for port projects; providing
authority to issue bonds; authorizing an assessment.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Chapter 55, Transportation Code, is amended by
adding Section 55.010 to read as follows:
Sec. 55.010. PORT AUTHORITY TRANSPORTATION REINVESTMENT
ZONE. (a) In this section:
(1) "Port authority" means a port authority or
navigation district created or operating under Section 52, Article
III, or Section 59, Article XVI, Texas Constitution.
(2) "Port commission" means the governing body of a
port authority or navigation district.
(3) "Port project" means a project that is necessary
or convenient for the proper operation of a maritime port or
waterway and that will improve the security, movement, and
intermodal transportation of cargo or passengers in commerce and
trade, including dredging, disposal, and other projects.
(b) In this section:
(1) the amount of a port authority's tax increment for
a year is the amount of ad valorem taxes levied and collected by the
port authority for that year on the captured appraised value of real
property taxable by the port authority and located in a
transportation reinvestment zone under this section;
(2) the captured appraised value of real property
taxable by a port authority for a year is the total appraised value
of all real property taxable by the port authority and located in a
transportation reinvestment zone for that year less the tax
increment base of the port authority; and
(3) the tax increment base of a port authority is the
total appraised value of all real property taxable by the port
authority and located in a transportation reinvestment zone for the
year in which the zone was designated under this section.
(c) The port commission of the port authority, after
determining that an area is unproductive or underdeveloped and that
action under this section would improve the security, movement, and
intermodal transportation of cargo or passengers in commerce and
trade, by order or resolution may designate a contiguous geographic
area in the jurisdiction of the port authority to be a
transportation reinvestment zone to promote a port project and for
the purpose of abating ad valorem taxes or granting other relief
from taxes imposed by the county on real property located in the
zone.
(d) The port commission must comply with all applicable laws
in the application of this chapter.
(e) Not later than the 30th day before the date the port
commission proposes to designate an area as a transportation
reinvestment zone under this section, the port commission must hold
a public hearing on the creation of the zone, its benefits to the
port authority and to property in the proposed zone, and the
abatement of ad valorem taxes or the grant of other relief from ad
valorem taxes imposed by the port authority on real property
located in the zone. At the hearing an interested person may speak
for or against the designation of the zone, its boundaries, or the
abatement of or other relief from port authority taxes on real
property in the zone. Not later than the seventh day before the
date of the hearing, notice of the hearing and the intent to create
a zone must be published in a newspaper having general circulation
in the county in which the zone is proposed to be located.
(f) The order or resolution designating an area as a
transportation reinvestment zone must:
(1) describe the boundaries of the zone with
sufficient definiteness to identify with ordinary and reasonable
certainty the territory included in the zone;
(2) provide that the zone takes effect immediately on
adoption of the order or resolution and that the base year shall be
the year of passage of the order or resolution or some year in the
future;
(3) assign a name to the zone for identification, with
the first zone designated by a county designated as "Transportation
Reinvestment Zone Number One, (name of port authority)," and
subsequently designated zones assigned names in the same form
numbered consecutively in the order of their designation;
(4) designate the base year for purposes of
establishing the tax increment base of the port authority;
(5) establish an ad valorem tax increment account for
the zone; and
(6) contain findings that promotion of a port project
will improve the security, movement, and intermodal transportation
of cargo or passengers in commerce and trade.
(g) Compliance with the requirements of this section
constitutes designation of an area as a transportation reinvestment
zone without further hearings or other procedural requirements.
(h) The port commission may:
(1) from taxes collected on property in a zone,
including maintenance and operation taxes, pay into a tax increment
account for the zone an amount equal to the tax increment produced
by the port authority less any amounts allocated under previous
agreements, including agreements under Chapter 312, Tax Code;
(2) from a tax increment account for the zone, repay
any loan or other debt incurred to finance a port project under this
section;
(3) by order or resolution enter into an agreement
with the owner of any real property located in the transportation
reinvestment zone to abate all or a portion of the ad valorem taxes
or to grant other relief from the taxes imposed by the port
authority on the owner's property in an amount not to exceed the
amount calculated under Subsection (b)(1) for that year;
(4) by order or resolution elect to abate all or a
portion of the ad valorem taxes imposed by the port authority on all
real property in a zone; or
(5) grant other relief from ad valorem taxes on
property in a zone.
(i) All abatements or other relief granted by the port
commission in a transportation reinvestment zone must be equal in
rate. In any ad valorem tax year, the total amount of the taxes
abated or the total amount of other relief granted under this
section may not exceed the amount calculated under Subsection
(b)(1) for that year, less any amounts allocated under previous
agreements, including agreements under Chapter 312, Tax Code.
(j) To further the development of the port project for which
the transportation reinvestment zone was designated, a port
authority may assess all or part of the cost of the port project
against property within the zone. The assessment against each
property in the zone may be levied and payable in installments in
the same manner as provided for municipal and county public
improvement districts under Sections 372.016-372.018, Local
Government Code, provided that the installments do not exceed the
total amount of the tax abatement or other relief granted under
Subsection (h). The port authority has the powers provided to
municipalities and counties under Sections 372.015-372.020 and
372.023, Local Government Code, for the assessment of costs and
Sections 372.024-372.030, Local Government Code, for the issuance
of bonds by the port authority to pay the cost of a port project.
The port commission of the port authority may contract with a public
or private entity to develop, redevelop, or improve a port project
in the transportation reinvestment zone, including aesthetic
improvements, and may pledge and assign to that entity all or a
specified amount of the revenue the port authority receives from
installment payments of the assessments for the payment of the
costs of that port project. After a pledge or assignment is made,
if the entity that received the pledge or assignment has itself
pledged or assigned that amount to secure bonds or other
obligations issued to obtain funding for the port project, the port
commission of the port authority may not rescind its pledge or
assignment until the bonds or other obligations secured by the
pledge or assignment have been paid or discharged. Any amount
received from installment payments of the assessments not pledged
or assigned in connection with the port project may be used for
other purposes associated with the port project or in the zone.
(k) To accommodate changes in the limits of the project for
which a reinvestment zone was designated, the boundaries of a zone
may be amended at any time, except that property may not be removed
or excluded from a designated zone if any part of the assessment has
been assigned or pledged directly by the port authority or through
another entity to secure bonds or other obligations issued to
obtain funding of the project, and property may not be added to a
designated zone unless the port commission of the port authority
complies with Subsections (e) and (f).
(l) Except as provided by Subsection (m), a tax abatement
agreement entered into under Subsection (h), or an order or
resolution on the abatement of taxes or the grant of other relief
from taxes under that subsection, terminates on December 31 of the
year in which the port authority completes any contractual
requirement that included the pledge or assignment of assessments
collected under this section.
(m) A transportation reinvestment zone terminates on
December 31 of the 10th year after the year the zone was designated,
if before that date the port authority has not used the zone for the
purpose for which it was designated.
(n) Notwithstanding any other law, the authority granted by
this section may be exercised only by a port commission and may not
be exercised by another governmental entity, political
subdivision, or special district that has the powers of a port
authority or a navigation district. This subsection does not limit
the authority of a municipality under Section 222.106 or a county
under Section 222.107 to fund a transportation project described by
Section 222.108(d)(2).
SECTION 2. Subsection (d), Section 222.108, Transportation
Code, is amended to read as follows:
(d) In this section, "transportation project" includes:
(1) transportation projects described [has the
meaning assigned] by Section 370.003; and
(2) port security, transportation, or facility
projects described by Section 55.001(5).
SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 2013.
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