Legislature(1997 - 1998)
04/28/1997 03:58 PM Senate RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 17 DNR APPROVE PLATS IN UNORG.BOROUGH
CHAIRMAN HALFORD announced CS HB 17(RES) to be up for considerati
MR. WALT WILCOX, Staff to Representative James, sponsor, said HB 17
brings all of the unorganized borough under DNR's purview for
platting of real estate. It also clarifies the meaning of
subdivision and makes it standard throughout the statutes. It is
supported by the surveyors and DNR.
MR. WILCOX asked Mr. Savage to explain the first part of the
proposed amendment.
MR. CRAIG SAVAGE responded that he interpreted that to mean the
State would not be charging itself for review of plats of its own
land.
MR. WILCOX reviewed the remaining three amendments.
SENATOR TAYLOR asked Mr. Savage to explain the purpose of the last
amendment which deletes all references to State plats.
MR. SAVAGE responded that that is one of the reasons they have been
working so hard to get a definition of subdivision - to make sure
that it refers to the actual division of a piece of land rather
than any survey. If you exclude open-to-entry that are done by the
State or on behalf of the State, that opens up a tremendous amount
of area that really isn't subdivision so much as it is boundary
delineation.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if the amendment is adopted, does that mean
open-to-entry, remote parcel, or homestead plats are, in fact, not
subdivisions and it's clear in the bill they do not have to go
through that review process. MR. SAVAGE replied that it was the
contrary. (B) is an exclusion from the definition of subdivision
and if they remove open-to-entry plats and other State parcels,
they become included in the definition of subdivision.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD commented that the remote parcel program, the
homestead program, and the old OTE program, although surveyed long
ago, were subdivisions of State land within State land and those
already go through the DNR process. The surveys have to be done
according to the survey instructions and everything that came with
whatever program they came from. Why should that be dealt with in
this bill, he asked.
MR. WILCOX responded that it would be deleted from being dealt with
in this bill under the amendment. MR. SAVAGE said the reason the
open-to-entry plats or remote parcel plats were originally excluded
from subdivisions in part was in response to some of the
requirements that were placed on them by DEC, like soils testing,
and that sort of thing, on extremely large parcels in extremely
remote areas. And one of the things they are trying to do in this
bill is standardize the word subdivision throughout the State
statutes. Senator Halford is correct in that the open-to-entry and
remote parcel plats are already under the supervision of DNR, but
throughout State statutes there's a difference between the open-to-
entry and remote parcels and subdivisions.
MR. PAT KALAN, Alaska Society of Professional Land Surveyors, sa
the open-to-entry program is very obsolete. There hasn't been one
for 12 or 14 years and the State indicated there was a single
remote parcel left which could be dealt with. He said the
amendment clarifying the definition of the word subdivision was
good.
Number 210
MS. JANE ANGVIK, Director, Division of Lands, asked if they
intended to exclude cadastral plats that are created by the State.
MR. KALAN said they already do that; they go to the municipalities.
A control plat doesn't create a boundary so he couldn't see that
there was any affect.
SENATOR TAYLOR asked if this legislation was an attempt to bring
under the control of the Department of Natural Resources any
subdivision occurring in a remote parcel which is not encompassed
within the boundaries of a borough or city. CHAIRMAN HALFORD
answered yes. He said there was an existing statute saying that
DNR is the platting authority for the unorganized borough. He
didn't know if that meant a filing authority or an approval
authority.
MR. GERALD HAYES, Chief Surveyor, responded that currently DNR has
platting authority only for vacation of easements and changing of
existing boundaries within the unorganized borough. The change
under this bill would place creation of new parcels within existing
surveys under a platting authority. Apparently, they don't have to
be approved by any authority. MR. WILCOX explained the reason this
came up in the area of unorganized portions is that the University
was subdividing land with no access and no oversite. They are
required to abide by State law, but there is no one to enforce that
in unorganized boroughs.
SENATOR TAYLOR asked if it became revenue neutral by charging fees.
MR. WILCOX replied yes.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if the sponsor considered a statutory
requirement amplifying the existing easement availability instead
of creating a new platting authority, because he agrees with the
thing she is trying to stop, but he worries about creating a new
approval authority that, if the budget isn't what somebody wants,
they stop approving. It increases the user fee and he's not sure
what the net result is. He agrees there should be buildable,
physical access to property.
MR. WILCOX said that Mr. Kalan has some horror stories of
subdivisions that weren't recorded and subsequently a portion of
them financed and people were disenfranchised of their rights to
the property. He asked Mr. Kalan to comment on some of the
problems occurring from not having oversite.
MR. KALAN said the biggest one is that people could create lots
without provision for a legal access. When there was the idea to
give DNR some power to file plats, they wanted to keep it real
simple and make some rules so that it didn't get out of hand.
MR. WILCOX said that Representative James shares the Chairman's
concern about giving any more authority to DNR, but couldn't come
up with another way to deal with this issue.
SENATOR TAYLOR asked if the primary purpose was one of access or
designing lots that comply with somebody's preconceived notion of
what a lot should be.
MR. WILCOX responded that last year the legislature took away the
DEC's platting review authority and this isn't someone's idea of
what a subdivision should be. The legislature's statutes and
subsequent regulations promulgated by the agency would drive the
requirements.
MR. KALAN said he heard them mention the idea of standards and they
specifically forbid DNR coming up with engineering standards, but
rely on the judgement of the surveyor. They don't have any one set
of rules. This covers airports and rights-of way for anything that
would involve making a road or airport foundry and they expect
there would be quite a few of the parcels created.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said the 45 day approval requirement is good. The
question is how that actually works, but they would work with the
sponsor to try to understand and incorporate the amendment and see
if there is any simple self enforcing way to make it either
approved or not in case there is a budget shortfall and DNR can't
review them and they are approved automatically.
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