Legislature(2001 - 2002)
04/25/2001 03:30 PM House L&C
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 227-LAND SURVEY STANDARDS CHAIR MURKOWSKI announced that the final order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 227, "An Act instructing the State Board of Registration for Architects, Engineers, and Land Surveyors to adopt minimum technical standards relating to the practice of surveying." Number 2129 JOHN MANLY, Staff to Representative John Harris, Alaska State Representative, came forth on behalf of the sponsor of HB 227 and stated that Representative Harris introduced this bill at the request of one of his constituents who is a realtor in Valdez. He explained that the main intent of the bill is to require the Board of Architects, Engineers and Land Surveyors to adopt minimum standards for land surveys. Therefore, the land survey ordered in Fairbanks, for example, will have the same information on it as the land survey in Ketchikan. He said he is not personally well acquainted with the problems that may arise, but he is sure that it does present a problem when someone orders an as-built survey and it doesn't include an easement or a pipeline that goes through the property. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked Mr. Manly if he knows the position of the [Alaska] Professional Design Council [on the bill]. MR. MANLY answered no. He said the bill passed through the two surveyor members of the board and was given a relatively positive response. Number 2255 JIM COLVER testified via teleconference on behalf of himself in opposition to HB 227. He stated that some of the realtors are concerned about what is contained in an as-built survey. He said it is mainly going to be driven by the title companies and whether they perform an ALTA (American Land Title Survey) survey or a less-than-an-ALTA survey. He said his main concern is that with this field changing so rapidly with global positioning [systems], regulations are going to have to keep being amended to comply with future standards. He said he thinks there will be bureaucrats instead of professionals determining the practice of land surveying. Under existing statute AS 08.48.101, paragraph (a)(1), the language says the board may adopt regulations to carry out the purpose of this chapter, including paragraph (5), publishing a code of ethics or professional conduct for those persons regulated by this chapter. He said he thinks a lot of this can be accomplished through the existing statutes and through ethics and professional conduct regulations promulgated from that statute. He noted that there is a standard of practice that the surveyor generally looks to, which was been developed by the Alaska Society of Professional Land Surveyors. This is taught in schools and is preparation material for those taking the land surveyor's exam. MR. COLVER responded that that is one of the discussions the surveying community is going through right now - whether or not to require continuing education. He relayed that some of the surveyors [in the Matanuska-Susitna area] have commented that if the regulations were to be adopted, they would be comfortable going with the Alaska Society of Professional Land Surveyors standards of practice. Number 2405 REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD shared that in 1988 it was declared that the surveys were all off in Rabbit Creek Heights. He said he wasn't able to sell his land for more than ten years because there was no way to obtain financing. He asked if that sort of thing could continue, if nothing is done. MR. COLVER answered that that was resolved through legislation a few years ago. He stated that in any practice there are mistakes made, and every profession has ways of policing its membership. He expressed that he doesn't know that government does a good job when the destiny of professions is placed in the hands of career bureaucrats. He added that he does not know that this bill would stop [errors like those at Rabbit Creek Heights] from happening. TAPE 01-68, SIDE B Number 2472 PATRICK KALEN, Land Surveyor, Alaska State Board of Registration for Architects, Engineers and Land Surveyors (AELS), Division of Occupational Licensing, Department of Community & Economic Development, testified via teleconference and stated that he has worked with legislation in the past for the surveyors and has some understanding of the situation. He remarked that he is also one of the land surveyors on the board of registration who would be charged with writing these regulations. He stated that that could be an arduous task, because the driving forces - the lending institutions - are the problem with as-built surveys not being uniform. If the value of the property is really high, banks will always call for ALTA survey standards; however, in the low-budget survey the banks call for an as-built survey where there aren't any standards. MR. KALEN noted that the bill is very close to what Florida did. He stated that Florida has about 15 pages of standards, and one of the novel features is that Florida fixed the as-built problem by absolutely requiring that surveyors do a boundary survey. CHAIR MURKOWSKI asked whether the full board has not had the opportunity to review this, which is why they haven't taken a position. MR. KALEN stated that she was correct. He stated that this was a surprise to some [of the board members]. The two surveyors on the board have an idea of where to go with it, but they haven't heard much from the affected realtors and surveyors about how they would react. He noted that the board would probably have to talk about what would be some of the primary things in the regulations. REPRESENTATIVE HAYES asked Mr. Kalen whether the board's position is that they would like to wait, discuss the bill through the interim, and provide technical assistance to Representative Harris if there are any problems. MR. KALEN responded yes. Number 2179 BARBARA HUFF, Legislative Director, Teamsters Local 949, came forth in support of HB 227. From discussions with Teamster representative surveyors, she said the concept is that this bill does not draft the regulation that would be left up to the board. [The Teamster's] surveyors think it is a good idea to have at least minimum standards set for the entire state of Alaska, instead of the Municipality of Anchorage and Fairbanks. REPRESENTATIVE HAYES asked Ms. Huff what the harm would be in letting the bill wait for the interim, having the AELS board actually take a look at it, and getting consistency all around. MS. HUFF replied that she does not think there would be a problem. MR. COLVER stated that if the problem is with the as-built surveys, he would recommend including minimum standards for as- built surveys in the title. REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD stated that neither his as-built survey nor the original survey from when the property was first sold was deemed legal. He said it seems to him that if a little more money were spent at the beginning, it might be advisable. He asked Mr. Colver if his suggestion would take care of the problem for the people in Rabbit Creek Heights. MR. COLVER remarked that there is no other problem that he knows of in Alaska that rises to the level of [the Rabbit Creek Heights] problem. He stated that he doesn't know whether the implementation of any kind of legislative standard would have prevented that from happening. [HB 227 was held over.]
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