Legislature(2017 - 2018)HOUSE FINANCE 519
05/04/2017 01:30 PM House FINANCE
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Overview: the Economy and Fiscal Policy: | |
| SB28 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| + | SB 28 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
SENATE BILL NO. 28
"An Act relating to the general grant land entitlement
for the Petersburg Borough; and providing for an
effective date."
4:55:22 PM
SENATOR BERT STEDMAN, SPONSOR, introduced himself. He was
going to turn it over to his trusted aide.
REPRESENTATIVE JONATHAN KREISS-TOMKINS, introduced himself.
MELISSA KOOKESH, STAFF, SENATOR BERT STEDMAN, introduced
herself. She read the sponsor statement:
Senate Bill 28 will set the total general land
entitlement for the Petersburg Borough (Borough) at
14,666 acres. This is an increase of 12,770 acres from
its current level of entitlement, and would bring the
Borough's land entitlement to a level similar to the
other organized boroughs in the state. SB 28 will
address the long-term economic sustainability of a
recently formed borough.
When the Borough formed in 2013, it received a general
land grant entitlement from the state of 1,896 acres.
Of the 1,896 acres, 457.47 acres had already been
given to the City of Petersburg. A substantial part of
the 457.47 acres is restricted to public, charitable,
or recreational use.
After deducting the 457.47 acres that went to the
City, the Borough's land entitlement is 1,438.53 acres
which is an area roughly 1/3rd the size of the
Anchorage International Airport. 1,438.53 acres simply
does not provide enough land to support economic
development such as rock and sand material sites for
roads, airports, waterfront land for tourism
development, or residential homes.
The Borough would select the additional 12,770 acres
from seven different areas around the Borough. All
selections would be made from vacant, unappropriated,
and unreserved state lands. No selections would
interfere with existing State, University, or Alaska
Mental Health Trust lands, including the Southeast
State Forest, or private ownership.
The Petersburg Borough recognizes we are in difficult
budget times. An increased land base is critical for
the Petersburg Borough to become more self-sufficient.
4:59:55 PM
Representative Wilson asked who currently owned the land.
Senator Stedman responded that "the state" owned the land.
Representative Wilson asked if the state was selling the
land to the borough.
Senator Stedman explained that during the creation of the
Statehood Act, it was decided that the state should be
split into boroughs. He remarked that some of the larger
areas were immediately "borough-ized", and other areas had
not officially become boroughs in the state. He shared that
the legislature had requested more flexibility in creating
the boroughs, because initially Petersburg and Wrangell
were one borough. He shared that the constraints had
relaxed ten years prior, allowing the communities to adjust
how they felt the boundaries should be drawn. He remarked
that the subject of the legislation was the expansion of
the Petersburg expansion. He remarked that in trying to
meet the obligation of the constitution, no boroughs had
been required to purchase the land from the state. He
stressed that all boroughs were treated the same. He
understood that there were some areas that would not be
capable of supporting a borough. He felt that the proposed
expansion would support the borough. He surmised that the
communities would not create boroughs, if they were
required to purchase the land.
5:02:29 PM
Representative Wilson surmised that the bill would allow
for the creation of "Petersburg services.
Senator Stedman replied that Petersburg had platting
authority. He stated that the Petersburg Borough would
control the development through their zoning ordinances, to
facilitate commercial or recreation development. He
remarked that there was a parcel that had previously held a
post office.
Representative Wilson wondered whether the bill followed
the model that granted other boroughs a certain number of
acres that would be privatized, or whether the acreage fit
the need in the specific area.
Senator Stedman replied that the bill aligned the
Petersburg Borough with other boroughs throughout the
state. He shared that most of the land was federal forest.
He stressed that the borough size might be large, but there
was very little private property within the federal forest.
5:04:58 PM
Representative Kawasaki asked whether it was a second-class
borough.
Senator Stedman responded that it was a full borough.
Representative Kawasaki wondered whether the borough
originally anticipating that they would ask for a future
larger entitlement.
Senator Stedman deferred to Ms. Cabrera.
Representative Kawasaki asked whether there was a
requirement that the land entitlements be contiguous or
within a certain area centered on the current Petersburg
Borough. He felt that there were selections that were far
away from the actual core area.
Senator Stedman replied that the selections were around
Petersburg. He stressed that there was no community between
Juneau and Petersburg, and the nearest southern community
was Wrangell. He pointed out that much of the unselected
space was the Juneau Borough.
Representative Kawasaki noted that the Haines Borough had
3200 acres; the Fairbanks North Star Borough had 122,000
acres. He wondered whether 15,000 acres was a manageable
size.
Senator Stedman responded that it was the goal to have the
entire Southeast region divided into boroughs.
Representative Kawasaki hoped that the land become
contiguous in the boroughs. He wondered how Alaska Mental
Health Trust Authority (AMHTA) land, tribal land, and
federal land would be incorporated in the borough.
Senator Stedman replied that it was ideal to have
contiguous borough boundaries.
Representative Pruitt wondered how the initial entitlement
amount was determined.
Representative Kreiss-Tompkins thanked the committee and
indicated his support of the bill. He had to return to
House State Affairs.
5:11:46 PM
LIZ CABRERA, COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,
PETERSBERG, introduced herself.
Representative Pruitt wondered how the number of 12,770
acres was determined. He understood the initial formula.
Ms. Cabrera responded that the number was a simple
addition. She took the average of acreage of the existing
boroughs and their selection process.
Representative Pruitt asked if she was looking for total
acreage. He wondered if the size of the borough or a parody
in sheer acreage.
Ms. Cabrera used Sitka as an example which was a ratio and
the average of the ratio.
Representative Guttenberg asked if Marty Parson's was
online. He wondered about the original allocations and the
constitutional allocations.
5:15:19 PM
MARTY PARSONS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR - MINING, LAND, AND WATER
DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ANCHORAGE (via
teleconference), responded that the legislature would
identify the number of acres and provide the number to the
borough for selection. He stated that it had been changed
under AS 29.65.020, a formula was generated to take 10
percent of the vacant unappropriated unreserved land within
the borough.
Representative Wilson wondered whether there was a
requirement to put into private land.
Mr. Parson responded that once the land was conveyed to the
borough, the land use was at the borough's discretion.
Representative Wilson wondered whether the borough
determined the private investment.
Mr. Parsons replied that there was not requirement to
convey the land into private ownership.
Representative Kawasaki wondered whether the state could
keep the land.
Mr. Parsons informed the committee that the statute
required the state to show that the land was of
significance importance to the state, before it would
convey it to the borough.
Representative Kawasaki wondered there was an allowance for
boroughs to pick their land.
Mr. Parsons answered that there was not a restriction on
making the selections contiguous.
5:20:03 PM
Representative Ortiz wondered whether other boroughs in
Southeast had a home rule status.
Ms. Cabrera indicated Wrangell was home rule status. She
did not know about Ketchikan.
Representative Ortiz queried the differences between the
types of boroughs.
Ms. Cabrera replied that home rule boroughs could do
anything that was not prohibited by state law. There was a
charter to establish the borough's powers and authorities.
Representative Wilson thought Ms. Cabrera had more to say.
Ms. Cabrera indicated she did. She read a prepared
statement:
Co-Chair Foster and members of the committee. Thank
you for the opportunity to address you today regarding
SB 28 an act related to the general land entitlement
of the Petersburg Borough.
SB 28 sets the general land entitlement of Alaska's
newest borough, Petersburg, to be comparable to the
land entitlement received by all other boroughs in the
state. An amount equal to approximately
.79 percent of a borough's land mass, which in
Petersburg's case is 14,666 acres.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with our
community, the Petersburg Borough is located in
central Southeast Alaska and encompasses an area of
3,800 square miles of land and sea. The borough's
population center is located on the northern tip of
Mitkof Island, which is home to a diverse and prolific
commercial fishing fleet and three major seafood-
processing facilities. In 2013, the residents of
Petersburg voted to form a borough - for a number of
reasons, including having a greater say on land use
decisions in our surrounding area, having an
opportunity to Increase our municipal land base, and
many also felt it was Important for all area residents
to support our school system through local taxes.
About 12 months after borough formation, Petersburg
received a general land grant entitlement
certification from the state indicating we were
entitled to 1,896 acres under AS 29.65.010. However,
this amount was reduced by the 457 .47 acres already
received by the City of Petersburg, even though
certain tracts of the City's 457.47 acres is
restricted from development and only available for
public, charitable, or recreational use. After
deducting the 457.47 acres, the Borough's land
entitlement was 1,438.53 acres. To put this into
context, this is approximately an area roughly 1/3rd
the size of the Anchorage International Airport.
In making this calculation, DNR uses a statutory
formula - a municipality is entitled to 10 percent of
VUU land within its boundaries.
The lands available for selection are designated as
VUU or "vacant, unappropriated and unreserved" land by
the State of Alaska. These lands are either
"unclassified" or classified as "agricultural,
grazing, materials, public recreation, settlement, and
resource management'' but for the most part no
development has occurred on any of the VUU lands.
You may wonder why we received such a small land
entitlement to begin with. The majority of land within
the borough, over 96 percent, is managed by the
federal government as the Tongass National Forest. Of
the non-federal lands within the borough, 1.73 percent
is owned by the Goldbelt Corporation, 1.34 percent by
the State of Alaska, and .4 percent by the Alaska
Mental Health Trust and University of Alaska. Only .3
percent is in private ownership and a mere .04 percent
is owned by the municipality. When DNR applied the
land entitlement formula to the Petersburg Borough,
only a very small amount of land remained in VUU
status.
As we began to evaluate our potential selection, we
realized that our entitlement was not adequate for
what we were hoping to accomplish and that other
boroughs also received small land entitlements
initially and then were able to increase these through
the legislature. The most recent example was in 2010
when both Wrangell and Haines received additional
acreage, and in the late 1990's the Lake and Peninsula
Borough and Yakutat Borough also had their land
entitlement set through legislation.
Why is this Important to Petersburg specifically? As I
mentioned previously, just over 96 percent of our land
base is federally managed and of our non-federal lands
the major landholder are Goldbelt Corporation and the
State of Alaska. In short, while the borough itself is
relatively large, the majority of land is not and will
never be Included In the local tax base and most is
not available to generate economic return for our
residents or the State of Alaska.
The Petersburg Borough would like the opportunity to
move some these lands into private ownership and add
them to our tax base as residential or commercial
developments. We would like the opportunity to secure
new sources of rock for construction and maintenance
of our roads and other projects. In general, we would
like the opportunity to be more economically self-
sufficient. 1,400 acres simply does not provide
sufficient developable land to support these goals.
In our discussions with the Department of Natural
Resources, they explained that the agency generally
does not voice support for this type of legislation,
but neither does the agency oppose Petersburg's
request. We provided a general outline of the lands we
would select under SB 28 and DNR did not express any
concerns about these potential selections.
Lastly, the members of this committee know better than
most that these are difficult times. In our own small
way, we, in Petersburg, want to be part of the
solution, not a casualty of crisis. An Increased land
base is a key component to the long-term
sustainability of our municipality.
We respectfully ask for your support to move SB 28 out
of Senate Resources.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today
and I would be happy to answer any questions you may
have.
Representative Wilson indicated that by becoming a borough
they would be able to provide local police and other
community programs.
Representative Pruitt wondered if the money came directly
to Petersburg.
Ms. Cabrera replied that it was a payment that the federal
government gave to the borough. The payment was received
directly, and was calculated in a formula.
Acting Chair Guttenberg reported that amendments for the
bill were due by 5:00 p.m., Wednesday, May 10, 2017. He
reviewed the agenda for the following meeting.
SB 28 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| SB 28 Letters of Support 4.11.17.pdf |
HFIN 5/4/2017 1:30:00 PM |
SB 28 |
| SB 28 Maps Land Selection Areas 4.11.17.pdf |
HFIN 5/4/2017 1:30:00 PM |
SB 28 |
| SB 28 Sponsor Statement 4.11.17.pdf |
HFIN 5/4/2017 1:30:00 PM |
SB 28 |
| SB 28 Sectional Analysis 4.11.17.pdf |
HFIN 5/4/2017 1:30:00 PM |
SB 28 |
| Analysis_of_Alaskas_Per_Capita_Budget.pdf |
HFIN 5/4/2017 1:30:00 PM |
HFIN Fiscal ploicy |
| House Finance Presentation- State Budget and the Economy 05.04.2017.pdf |
HFIN 5/4/2017 1:30:00 PM |
HFIN Fiscal Policy |
| House Finance Presentation- State Budget and the Economy 05.04.2017.pdf |
HFIN 5/4/2017 1:30:00 PM |
HFIN Fiscal Policy |
| Revenue Overview - House Finance - 5.4.17.pdf |
HFIN 5/4/2017 1:30:00 PM |
HFIN Fiscal Policy |
| SB 28 Testimony Liz Cabrera Petersburg Borough.pdf |
HFIN 5/4/2017 1:30:00 PM |
SB 28 |