Pennsylvania Code › Title 25 - ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION › Part VII - Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority › Chapter 963 - PENNSYLVANIA INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT AUTHORITY ASSISTANCE › Section 963.5 - Financial assistance criteria

Current through Register Vol. 54, No. 28, July 13, 2024
(a) The Board will consider the following
				criteria when considering applications for financial assistance:
(1) Whether the project will improve the
				health, safety, welfare or economic well being of the people of this
				Commonwealth.
(2) Whether the
				proposed project will lead to an effective or complete long-term solution to
				the problems experienced with the water supply, sewage treatment or stormwater
				system to be aided, including compliance with State and Federal statutes,
				regulations or standards.
(3) The
				cost-effectiveness of the proposed project in comparison with other
				alternatives, including other institutional, financial and physical
				alternatives, known to the Board at the time of its funding decision.
(4) The consistency of the proposed project
				with other State and regional resource management and economic development
				plans. These plans may include the State Water Plan, the official sewage plan
				for the area served adopted under the Pennsylvania Sewage Facilities Act
				(35
				P. S. §§
											750.1-750.20), the
				Comprehensive Water Facilities Plan, when available and the State's Economic
				Development Strategy.
(5) Whether
				the applicant has demonstrated its ability to operate and maintain the project
				in a proper manner.
(6) Whether the
				project encourages consolidation of water or sewer systems if the consolidation
				would enable the customers of the systems to be more effectively and
				efficiently served.
(7) Whether a
				stormwater project is sponsored by more than one municipality and is located at
				strategic locations determined by the basin-wide studies undertaken under the
				Storm Water Management Act, or other joint municipal or county
				efforts.
(8) The availability of
				other sources of funds at reasonable rates to finance all or a portion of the
				project and the need for Authority assistance to finance the project or to
				attract the other sources of funding. The Board may require the applicant to
				participate in financing a project when it determines that the applicant has
				the financial capability to do so. The extent of applicant participation in
				financing a project and the reasonableness of interest rates on alternative
				sources of financing will both be determined by the effect that a project's
				financing will have on user rates, relative to users' ability to pay. To the
				extent that data availability permits, the Authority will consider the
				relationship between an applicant's projected user rates and ability to pay and
				compare it with systems in comparable socio-economic circumstances. Comparisons
				will be made separately for sewerage systems, water systems and stormwater
				systems.
(9) A project will not be
				considered for financial assistance which will have a detrimental impact on the
				Commonwealth's air, land or water, or on the natural scenic, historic or
				aesthetic values of the environment, unless the environmental harm can be
				satisfactorily mitigated.