CDOT and DORA Partner to Improve Appraisal Licensing for Right-of-Way Agent

February 14, 2014 

Update: September 5, 2014

For the joint (CDOT / DORA) improvement effort described in the article below:  obtaining these licenses would have required 300 hours of course work and 3,000 hours of CDOT staff experience time required for the licensing process. So, eliminating this requirement has saved the equivalent of approximately $80,000 of staff time.  Additionally, the coursework required to do this would have cost another $5,500.

Update: August 29, 2014

The success of the partnership between the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) to improve the licensing of Right-of-Way (ROW) agents is featured on page 18 of the August 2014 report entitled: "Pits and Peeves 2.0, Progress in Motion Report -- Cutting Red Tape in Government: “Making government more efficient, effective and elegant”, which is available here: Cutting Red Tape in Colorado State Government

More details about this improvement effort are listed the summary below.

Background and details of the improvement

Governmental entities and private industry sometimes need to acquire private property for public use. Right-of-Way (ROW) Agents, also known as land agents, negotiate with the owners or their representatives to purchase their property or obtain the right to use it.

CDOT identified a concern to DORA:  it appeared that CDOT Right-of-Way Agents would need a state license to prepare value findings greater than the state limit of $5,000; and that these Agents would also be required to comply with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), requirements which could potentially result in increased delays and costs in this level of appraisal. CDOT shared this concern with DRE.

After a thorough review of federal rules and state statutes, DORA’s Division of Real Estate concluded that CDOT staff members are actually NOT required by law to have this license, nor are they be required to comply with USPAP. DRE staff listened very carefully and attentively to issues raised by CDOT, and as a result of this collaborative effort, the additional regulatory burdens on CDOT were relieved.

The outcome was very positive.  CDOT thanked DORA for this partnership, including the statement, “Thank you for hearing us out here at CDOT Project Development/Right of Way Services, for thoughtful consideration and careful review of this request, and for penning this GRAND response that will certainly assuage long-held staff concerns and benefit our overall program.” This improvement effort is one example of our statewide effort for greater coordination among state agencies, in support of making Colorado state government more effective, efficient and elegant.