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In the four European countries visited, typical time frames for project development are longer than in the United States. True comparisons are difficult, though, because project development in the European countries includes the planning phase. While the emphasis in the United States remains on reducing the time required for project development, the scanning team found a number of practices States could adopt or modify to promote improved project development practices and results.
Several countries employ a project management approach, including the use of multidisciplinary project teams. Teams in the Netherlands are responsible for a project from planning through construction. Other Dutch management practices include:
In some countries, such as England, the project team is in a separate part of the transportation agency. The British use a framework document to facilitate coordination and communication by defining the respective roles and responsibilities of lands acquisition personnel and project team members.
Benefits cited as a result of using a project management approach include a shift in employee loyalty from functional units to the project as a whole, better communication and coordination among disciplines, more realistic scheduling, and earlier problem identification and solution.
England uses design-build contracting extensively in its program to reduce the time required for project development. While contracts include utilities coordination, right-of-way acquisition remains with the Highways Agency. Germany established an agency (the German Unity Planning and Construction Company for Trunk Roads, known as DEGES) to expedite new construction and rehabilitation projects important to the reunification of the country. The responsibilities of DEGES include land acquisition on behalf of the transport agency.
These practices suggest transportation agencies in the United States may benefit from considering further innovations in the area of design-build contracting, including expanding the design-build contract scope to include some or all right-of-way services.
In several countries, zoning and land use plans prepared at the local or regional level govern decisions about the location of transportation infrastructure. Transportation agencies normally have a role in developing the plans. Redevelopment and transportation infrastructure issues are considered at the same time. Land use planning and modal integration are major focal points for the transportation agencies and others. The processes in each nation provide for significant input from affected property owners, community members, and local authorities. The planning efforts lead to adoption of a detailed definition of the project before involuntary right-of-way acquisitions begin.
Norway's planning system operates at county, municipal, and zone levels under its Planning and Building Act. The zone plan is the most detailed and complete. Road decisions normally are made based on municipal, and sometimes county, planning. The planning process includes participation from an array of interested parties, including landowners.
Germany uses a plan settlement and approval process when projects may significantly affect private parties and there is opposition to the proposed infrastructure. The process includes a public hearing before an independent authority that balances public and private interests, including the needs of utilities. The specific procedures depend on the scope of the project. Two simplified processes are used when the transportation proposal itself is insignificant or there are no significant impacts or opposition, property owners have agreed to the necessary acquisitions, and consensus has been reached with others on matters of public concern. An approved plan sets the alignment and right-of-way for the roads.
The Tracewet (Route) Act has defined the decision-making process for projects of national importance in the Netherlands since 1994. Under this act, Rijkswaterstaat assesses and balances economic and environmental issues, includes significant public participation in plan development, and looks for agreement with local authorities on proposed projects. Projects must be consistent with local zoning plans, although such plans often are revised to achieve needed consistency. Amendments to the Route Act in 2000 are expected to permit the route plan to prevail over the local land use plan when local agreement and land use plan revisions are not achieved within a reasonable time. A benefit of the zoning plan requirement is that it prevents inconsistent land development from occurring while zone plan changes are pending and after revisions are adopted. It also fosters public acceptance of proposed projects.
In England, more location and design detail is added at each level of planning, with county-level plans being the most explicit. At that level, the plan typically identifies access points along major highways, or trunk roads. The Highways Agency has the power to direct the regional planning authority to deny or grant access with conditions. No general legal right of access to trunk roads exists in England.
A major benefit of strong local planning systems in the countries visited is the broad ability to make thoughtful and comprehensive decisions about future needs, including appropriate land use and transportation infrastructure. The system also improves project quality and public support, and creates the opportunity to save considerable time in the project development process. The success of European practices suggest that re-examination of corridor preservation is warranted in the United States, using the "1990 Report of the AASHTO Task Force on Corridor Preservation" as a starting point. The review should consider how States might benefit from lessons offered by the more holistic European approach to land use, environmental, and transportation planning.
To improve project quality and save time, European nations typically use the planning process to define specifically problems a project will address and how it will achieve intended results. The objective of this practice is to prevent scope creep, unnecessary work, and late plan changes. The scanning team found the most rigorous example of this in the Netherlands, where the order for property expropriation includes a description of identified transportation problems and a statement specifying how the project will address those problems.
Several countries use broad feasibility reviews before right-of-way acquisition. Items considered in the Netherlands include land use, environmental effects, financing, and engineering. Germany does a similar review that incorporates a cost-benefit analysis of traffic and safety measures.
A European concept that caught the attention of the scanning team is the land consolidation process. Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands all use some form of this practice. Land consolidation allows pooling of fragmented land parcels and redistribution using more economically rational parcel configurations. Distribution is based on value, so owners receive land of the same value as the land they put into the pool. This procedure is used primarily in agricultural areas to reorganize properties where a project has an adverse effect because of a new alignment or significant widening. Germany also uses the process to implement a new urban zoning plan and its accompanying transportation infrastructure. In Norway, one owner's request can initiate the process, while in Germany and the Netherlands a majority of affected owners must agree to start consolidation.
Although this practice may seem foreign to Americans, European property owners are pleased to have more economic parcels and new roads. The highway agency benefits because it can reduce the number of highway crossings needed to service parcels separated by the road. Used on a voluntary basis, the land consolidation concept may offer promising opportunities in the United States to improve land use and property operating characteristics after a highway project is completed.
Realistic Right-of-Way Budgets and Schedules
Each of the European countries studied typically allocates enough time and money to permit appropriately timed and scoped acquisitions. Each country has its own version of the British principle: put individuals affected by a project in positions in which they neither gain nor lose from the project. This operating rule leads to an owner-oriented process, including broader use of flexible acquisition benefits and property management practices. One example is the British approach under which strip acquisitions with property effects unacceptable to the owner can be mitigated through full acquisition and resale of the affected property.
In all four countries, a high priority is placed on settlement of acquisition cases. A premium often is paid to accomplish settlements. A Rijkswaterstaat representative in the Netherlands referred to this practice as making an investment decision that takes into consideration the various costs and benefits of expediting a settlement.
Overall, the European approach results in better processes and outcomes for property owners than often occur in the United States. Property owners find themselves in at least as good a position as they were before the project and sometimes in a better situation. Settlement rates and abutter satisfaction rates are high, which helps to avoid project delays.
External Communication, Coordination, and Participation
Each country visited engages in extensive public coordination, and they each characterize the practice as valuable. The countries consistently encourage owner participation in design issues at early stages of project development. Several countries typically have the project manager or designer and the right-of-way team member conduct field reviews with affected property owners early in project development.
In England, designers are available to meet with property owners to discuss issues and impacts once the Highways Agency determines the preferred route. Before construction begins, the contractor holds a public meeting to discuss the work and its expected impacts.
Project teams in the Netherlands contact potentially affected owners early so their concerns can be addressed as the design is developed. The Netherlands is piloting a decision-making process for use on major projects called interactive planning. The goals of the interactive planning process are to speed up projects, gain more public support for projects, and find more creative transportation solutions through participative problem-solving sessions. Results suggest that a range of public participation models--including information, reaction, research, consulting, participation, and partnership--is needed to address the variety of circumstances affecting project development and implementation.
Broad public participation benefits the transportation agencies by helping to identify issues and incorporate needs and solutions into the original project design. This practice avoids many late plan changes and improves relationships with affected property owners, municipalities, and other parties.
Flexible Early Acquisition Tools
All four countries the scanning team visited have broad early acquisition authority. These early acquisitions provide the Europeans with great flexibility, saving time and money and reducing conflicts with affected property owners.
The British system permits voluntary acquisitions before a preferred route is announced. Once the preferred route is published, the system requires the Highways Agency to protect the route through discretionary and blight purchases. The British government acknowledges the potential for bureaucratic-commitment effects on the project decision-making process. It considers them minimal, however, and believes it is more effective to do early acquisitions knowing that the Highways Agency may have to sell unneeded properties if a project is canceled or relocated.
England also uses a compulsory purchase, or expropriation, order to open a process under which the Highways Agency can notify owners of the commencement of negotiations, or notice to treat. That notice triggers a right of compensation for owners, including up to a 90 percent payment based on an advance valuation estimate, and a three-year right of entry for the Highways Agency. The title transfers when the Highways Agency makes final payment. This allows the project to move forward without waiting for the resolution of land acquisition disputes.
In Norway, NPRA uses construction permits to authorize entry to do work while the acquisition process is pending. A negotiated advance payment accompanies the permit. Germany permits the voluntary purchase of land at any time, although this usually occurs after the planning process ends. Like Norway, Germany frequently uses a construction permit process to gain possession before title and compensation are final. The Germans have a process that can compel transfer of possession, but it applies only where there is a strong need for immediate use of the property. In both cases, the owner receives estimated compensation at the time of the transfer of possession.
Rijkswaterstaat in the Netherlands can do voluntary acquisitions at any time. Expropriations can begin after the first decision of the minister to approve the route plan and do the project.
Another early acquisition tool used in Norway is a strategic acquisition fund that facilitates purchases when project budgets or acquisition schedules are not yet firm. Some U.S. States have tried this method. Like Norway, they found the process useful but limited by a chronic inability to maintain funding.
Use of early acquisition practices in the United States similar to those observed in Europe could save significant project development time. The scanning team proposes that State highway agencies support consideration of amendments to Federal laws and regulations to authorize broader use of the techniques. The objective is to develop a system of early acquisition that protects the integrity of the project decision-making process, yet permits projects with limited right-of-way impacts to move forward as categorical exclusions or with some other type of qualified exemption from National Environmental Policy Act constraints on pre-approval acquisitions.
User-Friendly Right-of-Way Plans
Right-of-way plans observed in Europe are clearer and easier to interpret than plans in many jurisdictions in the United States. In Norway, for example, zone plans are the basis for acquisition. Norway also does minor acquisitions without plans. The Netherlands negotiates with property owners using a general schematic showing existing and proposed right-of-way lines and macro-level design information. Parcel-specific acquisition information is shown on a land interest plan that excludes engineering information. The Netherlands does not require final design to move forward with voluntary acquisitions, but detailed plans are used when involuntary acquisitions are done by expropriation.
In England, an engineering schematic, land interest plan, and occasionally a model are used at public hearings. The land interest plan shows only the area to be acquired, field reference numbers, and boundaries of the acquired properties. It is the plan used for property owner negotiations and for recording at the registry of deeds. No longitudinal baseline is used on the plans and no reference points are plotted in the field. A unique GIS center point is used for the parcels acquired. The Highways Agency uses as-built plans of the roadway to locate points in the field after a project is completed. Detailed construction or survey plans may be used in litigation if needed.
Countries using land interest plans report that plan simplicity is not only acceptable to owners, but makes it easy to explain acquisitions to them. Negotiators typically use engineering schematics to explain construction impacts.
One important element that facilitates use of these simpler plans is the national standardized mapping, land registration, and survey system in each country. Nonetheless, European practices suggest that there are opportunities for cost savings and simplification that could be exploited by those States now using highly detailed and complex right-of-way plans for negotiations and acquisition documentation.
Right-of-Way Databases and GIS Systems
Several countries have projects under way to develop systems for managing data relevant to right-of-way functions. Norway has an integrated GIS system for right-of-way work that includes property data by parcel, environmental data, property maps, and geo-referenced images of corrected vertical photographs. The system can combine data types and produce three-dimensional images. Norway makes the system available for public use at the highway agency and the software is commercially available.
England is developing a database system called the Terrier that will include deed descriptions, GIS data, and government survey grid information for each of the approximately 100,000 parcels the Highways Agency owns. England also has a property management database for all properties and is developing an Acquisitions Information and Estimates System that will tie into the Terrier.
The scanning team found such systems useful and recommends that State DOTs explore opportunities for developing a system for their use.
The scanning team observed several other project development practices that merit attention.
Norway has standard right-of-way acquisition limits. Its minimums are one meter from the backslope of the ditch and three meters from the edge of pavement. This simplifies the design and acquisition processes.
England handles construction-period mitigation and improvement work for property owners as a form of compensation. This accommodation work is treated as an element of payment whether the work is done directly by the Highways Agency contractor or by the owner's contractor. The limit of accommodation expenditures is the value of damage to the property. This formalization helps avoid double-payment cases in which owners are compensated during acquisition for damage the agency's construction forces subsequently cure.
Germany's land consolidation system provides for conveyance of the right-of-way for roads to the municipality for free, in recognition of the enhanced property values created by the future road system. The Netherlands sometimes uses special legislation to create fast-track planning and approval processes for projects of high national priority.
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| Figure 9. Joachim Pestinger (left) meets with German
delegation members Peter Weitershagen, Hans Mundry, and Hans Stumpel. |
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