Legislation enacted in 2007 created Transportation Reinvestment Zones (TRZs), a tool that allows local governments to raise funds to help pay for transportation improvements using the property tax mechanism.
Legislation passed in subsequent legislative sessions has made significant changes to law, facilitating the use of the tool by local governments. The local governing body designates a zone in which it will promote a transportation project. Once the zone is created, a base year is established and the incremental increase in property tax revenue collected inside the zone is used to finance a project in the zone.
This project will:
- identify and summarize the changes in the TRZ legislation that have been enacted since the law’s inception;
- assess the extent to which local governments have pursued TRZ implementation and identify lessons learned; and
- identify impediments to implementation and findings to improve the current TRZ legal framework.
The research is also updating the 2008 TTI-developed modeling tool used to assist in the analysis of TRZ value capture potential.
Check back for the publication of this study to come out late August and in the meantime see TTI’s Researcher article published in 2013 on TRZs: Texas Legislature Redefines Transportation Reinvestment Zones.