Texas Farm Bureau delegates overwhelmingly voted against the Trans Texas Corridor Plan. Testifying on Feb. 9, 2005 before the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security, Bureau State Director Albert Thompson asked to scrap the concept and start all over, giving citizens opportunity to voice opinions and the legislature serious oversight of future highway planning. It appeared to the Farm Bureau that the legislation had given TxDOT what amounts to a blank check worth about $180 billion and unprecedented powers.

Excerpts from TxDOT testimony handouts for the May 4, 2004 hearing before the Texas Senate Committee on Infrastructure Development and Security on implementation of TTC and HB 3588:

State Representatives Rick Hardcastle, Glen Heger, Lois Kolkorst, Garnett Coleman, and State Senator Todd Staples worked with Farm Bureau representative Warren Mayberry and Cattle Raisers Lobbyist Trey Blocker (eminent domain lawyer of Jackson Walker, Austin) first to repeal or revamp TTC legislation, but harsh political realities left no option but to fight for specific amendments. They chose 10 initiatives "and we feel like we have 7 out of 10" they reported at the Cooke County June 13 meeting.

• Ancillary Facilities*
• Access to and Across the Corridor*
• Utility of the Road*
• Loss of Access and Access to Remainder
• Environmental Mitigation/ Conservation Easement*
• Diminished Access*
• Quick Take*
• Water*
• Toll Regulation
• Expiration of Option to Purchase/Lease Back*

• Removes ability to purchase land for a garage, store, hotel or restaurant on the Trans-Texas Corridor ~ in other words, State/private developer cannot take even more land for their ancillary facilities
• Limits TxDOT's ability to purchase land to locate gas stations, convenience stores or similar facilities on a toll project.
• Limits that the gas station, convenience store or similar facility must be located in the median of the highway and can be no closer than ten miles from a junction of an interstate highway intersection with the Trans-Texas Corridor ~ at least some protection for locally owned businesses
• Allows TxDOT to offer landowners ability to receive a percentage of identified revenue or an exclusive or nonexclusive right to use or operate a segment or part of the project.
• Limits ancillary facility to gas stations, convenient stores or other similar facility (see the original list of ancillary facilities on introductory page)
• Removes the authority to license or lease the ability to build a facility for unrelated commercial, industrial, or agricultural purposes.
• Limits location of gas stations, convenience stores and other similar facilities to the median of the highway and no closer than five miles from entrance or exit ramps or an existing privately owned establishment providing similar services.
• Requires county approval for each franchise or license for an ancillary facility.
• Allows property owner to retain development right
• Places a two-year moratorium on ancillary facilities (however one year has already passed, so this is really meaningless)

• Requires that TxDOT restore the utility of a facility where the Trans-Texas Corridor intersects.
• Requires TxDOT to consider:
• financial feasibility;
• advice from county commissioners courts, governing bodies of municipalities, and metropolitan planning organizations;
• circuity of travel for landowners;
• access for emergency vehicles; and traffic volume,

… when determining access to the Trans-Texas Corridor by significant ranch-to-market and farm-to-market roads and major county and city traffic-ways included in the locally adopted long-range transportation plan.

• Requires TxDOT to offer to purchase a conservation easement prior to purchasing or condemning property, allowing a landowner to continue to live on and to farm/ranch his land. Makes condemnation a last resort for mitigation purposes.

• Requires the special commissioners to consider the decreased access to or from a landowner's property in determining damages to the property owner. [Three special commissioners are appointed in a "takings" proceeding]
• Requires the special commissioners to consider the loss of reasonable access to or from the remaining property in determining damage to the property if the real property is appraised at ag value and is outside the municipal limits or the extraterritorial jurisdiction of a municipality with a population of 5,000 or more.
• Requires TxDOT, in situations of severed property, to pay: the value of the property acquired, and damages to the remainder of including damages caused by the loss of reasonable access of one tract from the other.

The "Quick Take" provision allowed the State to notify a landowner, pay for the property, and require the landowner to vacate in 30 days. TxDOT said they had to have Quick Take or could not get bonds passed. Eminent domain attorney and Cattle Raisers lobbyist Trey Blocker said he had not been familiar with Quick Take and that it had never been used in the past.

• Allows for landowners to have a special commissioners hearing despite the "quick take" filing.
• States that the condemning authority must give 90 days notice to the property owner for a taking by early possession.

• Prohibits the pumping of ground water unless it is needed for construction, operation, or maintenance of a facility.
• Requires that water pumped from the right-of-way of the TTC is subject to local groundwater conservation district rules.
• Requires TxDOT to provide written notice after receiving a proposal or solicitation to construct a facility for the transportation of groundwater from the county
• The written notice must be provided to each groundwater conservation district, subsidence district, or other local water authority having territory in the county in which the groundwater is pumped and to the commissioners court of the county in which the groundwater is pumped or extracted

• Encourages TxDOT to acquire options to purchase property or to lease back property that is purchased or condemned but is not immediately needed for the TTC ~ this is part of the Advanced Acquisition program which is like a huge "futures" contract on land, locking in a price now for use in the future (in this case, possibly undetermined future). This encumbers property, freezes value, probably drops value on neighboring property (in the case of TTC which is NOT like any other normal highway project).
• Language is now added for the formerly open-ended option to expire in 5 years, with an option to renew for 5 years, and capped at 10 years.

• Requires the taxation of private developers on state right-of-way
• Provides that a developer who leases a commercial rail facility or highway facility is required to pay property taxes on that facility and is subject to local zoning regulations and building standards.
• Requires a developer who is licensed or leases a facility on the Trans-Texas Corridor pay property taxes on that facility if it is used for a commercial purpose.