The Fort Ord Reuse Authority (FORA) is responsible for the oversight of the economic recovery from the closure and reuse of the former Fort Ord military base. FORA's efforts are guided by the Base Reuse Plan, first adopted in June 1997, and the 2005 FORA Fee Reallocation Study. These documents establish the circulation and roadway network related to FORA, identify the impacts from new development, and prompts the annual development of a Capital Improvement Program. FORA's Capital Improvement Program includes transportation improvements that are "on site" or within the former base, "off site" and "regional".  The latter two categories include some overlap with the projects in the Regional Development Impact Fee program.  The FORA zone is the only part of the county in which the TAMC impact fee does not apply, and the FORA fee revenues are allocated to projects by its Board of Directors, rather than the Transportation Agency Board.

With the planned sunset of FORA in 2020, the FORA Board established a Transition Task Force to plan for how transportation improvements, along with several other issues, will be addressed Post-FORA by reviewing the potential options for how the goals of the Base Reuse Plan can be fully implemented by other agencies and local jurisdictions after FORA.  At its November 4, 2016 meeting; however, the FORA Board approved a recommendation from the Transition Task Force to work with the State legislative offices to seek an extension of FORA to 2037 while concurrently continuing to plan for the dissolution of the Authority in 2020.  The intent of a legislative extension of FORA would be to maintain the Authority to allow it sufficient time to complete the CEQA mitigations of the Base Reuse Plan, manage critical habitat, and retain the area's property tax increment funding.  If a legislative extension is not passed at the State-level, FORA's responsibilities will need to be passed on to other agencies.

Under either scenario, there is an argument to be made that integration of the FORA zone into the countywide Regional Development Impact Fee program would be advantageous.  In fact, the Transition Task Force has identified the Transportation Agency as a likely successor to assume the regional and off site components of FORA's Capital Improvement Program, with on site projects becoming the responsibility of the underlying local jurisdictions. During the past year, the Transportation Agency staff has been working with FORA staff to update the transportation-portion of FORA’s Community Facilities District fee and reevaluate the transportation improvements contained in the Capital Improvement Program.  This update process provides an opportunity to identify the post-FORA Capital Improvement Program obligations and provide policy options to the relevant agencies to manage the collection of fees to retire the obligations.

The Transportation Agency's Regional Development Impact Fee is coordinated with the FORA Community Facilities District fee to assure that new development pays its fair-share for transportation improvements but is not double-charged for mitigations. Essentially, new development located within the former Fort Ord is required to pay the FORA Community Facilities District fee and not the TAMC Regional Development Impact Fee.  If FORA were to sunset, or the Transportation Agency were to take on the obligation for the off site and regional projects currently in the FORA program, the Regional Development Impact Fee could relatively easily integrate a FORA zone to collect regional fees for those transportation improvements.  A five-year update to the Regional Development Impact Fee is scheduled to begin in 2017, which would provide a near-term opportunity to integrate projects from the FORA Capital Improvement Program into the TAMC fee program.

To ensure these issues are discussed in full with the Transition Task Force, and to guide discussions between Transportation Agency and FORA staff regarding off site and regional transportation improvements in the FORA capital improvement program, Agency staff is seeking the Board's approval to request a seat for the Transportation Agency on the Transition Task Force.  Staff also seeks direction on the Agency's potential role in FORA's transition planning.