He’s also already adept at speaking with concerned local governments about big possible projects that will, in one way or another, have an impact on their towns.
Commissioners in Cornelius had in recent weeks loudly voiced their concerns that progress on the proposed Red Line commuter rail, which heretofore had been stalled at the station, had begun to chug too fast as it passed through the town on the way to Charlotte from Mooresville.
In a move that put the cart slightly ahead of the proverbial iron horse, Morris addressed the Cornelius Town Board of Commissioners Monday evening in an attempt to allay board members’ concerns about finding themselves as the damsel in distress tied to the tracks while Snidely Whiplash bears down on them aboard a runaway train.
“This is somewhat out of sync with what we are doing with the rest of the project,” Morris told commissioners as he met with them in an hour-long pre-meeting session, which carried over into the board’s regular meeting. “You are actually farther ahead than any other town or (Charlotte). ... We appreciate your sensitivities, and that is why we’re are here tonight. ... This project lives or dies based on your support.”
Morris’ point was to assure Cornelius commissioners that the Red Line has found renewed life as a dual-benefit passenger and freight line, with the freight eventually extending north of Mooresville to beyond I-40 in Statesville. It has also found favor in Raleigh as an economic engine, with tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars worth of investment waiting for new tracks to be laid and new trains on the rails.
At the board’s previous meeting two weeks earlier, Commissioner Jim Bensman expressed concerns that, at some point, the town could be pressed into going along with funding mechanisms and any form of “joint planning authority” that might be used in the construction, operation and management of a new piece of rail for local passengers, regional freight, industrial and warehousing purposes.
Morris told Bensman, and the rest of the board, that, when the proposal for financing the upgrade of the old Norfolk & Southern Railroad “O” Line spur, transit stations and surrounding infrastructure are complete, all jurisdictions along the corridor will not only have their chance to weigh in, but also to determine whether the Red Line happens at all.
Those jurisdictions include, from south to north, Charlotte, Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson and Mooresville, along with Mecklenburg and Iredell counties. All of them, Morris said, must agree on all points, or the Red Line doesn’t happen.
And although the overall plan will be presented as one, cohesive proposal, the specific local elements will be as individual as the towns themselves. That means, Morris said in response to Commissioner Lynette Rinker’s question about whether the Red Line could effectively alter the town’s zoning, that while high-density housing or a freight campus might make sense in one location, it might not in another. Zoning districts the towns put in place along the corridor starting more than a decade ago need not be changed for the Red Line to go through.
“This is capturing what was going to already be created but not yet tapped,” Morris said. “It is going to create opportunities that are going to want to be exploited. This has been recognized and is being built into the plan. We have been working with your planning staff to look at what you are already zoned for and are only capturing those areas already in your plan, so there is no new zoning required.”
Value capture
As has been previously reported by the Citizen, the Red Line’s now $456 million estimated cost would be funded at the level of 25 percent committed by CATS, 25 percent by NCDOT and the remainder, some $225 million, from local jurisdictions. That’s not to say that the towns themselves would be on the hook for their share of that cost. Rather, the tax revenues generated by new development along the rail would be used to repay the capital investment.
That investment, most likely, would come from a private entity or entities as part of a private/public partnership, or P3. Additionally, some of it could be borne by private developers along the corridor, some of which have committed to cover the cost of transit stations around which they would build their projects. It all falls under the concept of “value capture” which, while new to North Carolina, has been in use in other states and in Europe for decades.
So have joint planning authorities, or JPAs, which are limited-purpose governments responsible only for specific purposes, such as multi-jurisdictional infrastructure projects. With no taxing authority, their powers can be limited to the construction and operation of such infrastructure.
It all makes local government officials nervous, but Morris says for the Red Line to become a reality, a JPA must be created as part of the process. The form it takes will be up to the unanimity of the parties involved.
“There are almost a half-dozen examples of models of joint planning authorities,” Morris said. “California is the most recent, and it is used in several different locations, mostly for transit uses, some that have private partners. ... A JPA can be constrained to the ultimate constraint to achieve what you want, and prohibited from stepping outside those boundaries.”
Any changes to those boundaries, Morris told commissioners, would require unanimous approval from participating jurisdictions.
All of that sounds simple on paper, but the devil, as always, is in the details. Bensman asked Morris what Cornelius’ obligation, for example, would be should CATS default on its financial commitment to the Red Line. Capital cost overruns are typical for transit projects — the Lynx Blue Line light rail from downtown Charlotte to Pineville, for example, came in over budget — so what if CATS finds its Blue Line extension costs are exceeding budget and it decides to shift its money from the Red Line to the Blue Line?
“I predict you will be the first of several towns that ask that question, if not all of them,” Morris told Bensman. “And that’s a question that should be asked.”
It was one of the many questions, Morris told commissioners, to which he and planners do not yet have an answer, but one that, like the rest, will be addressed prior to the end of the year and presented to each town for discussion.
Morris did say, though, that cost overruns will not be an issue with the Red Line. Private investors, he said, simply won’t get involved in a project that has any danger of not coming in on budget. And some potential partners are actually in the business of designing and building such projects. As a result, they would be in responsible for that budget themselves. That’s not too unlike the funding model for the final leg of I-485 from southern Huntersville to the University City area. Private contractors are financing the project upfront, and therefore have the impetus to come in on time and under budget.
“The way this project is being structured, there will be a total cap on the cost of the project,” said Morris. “This will be a not-to-exceed project, and the way it is funded will require it. This is not the kind of project that you can add money to it to get to the finish line. The level of scrutiny that has been applied to this project to date has been inordinately higher than any that has preceded it.”
Commissioner Dave Gilroy opined that freight seemed to be an industry that can take care of itself without being prodded, or assisted, by government. He asked Morris why it made sense for the state to take such a high interest in developing infrastructure for both freight and passenger rail now versus 10 to 20 years into the future.
“There are books written about towns that wish they had gotten out ahead of the curve and did not do that,” Morris told Gilroy. “You could have as much as half of the development on this corridor that you would otherwise have with the rail corridor in place. And once you develop half of that land, you can’t go back and re-do it after the fact.”
