Legislature(2001 - 2002)
04/08/2002 02:05 PM Senate JUD
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 357-STATE LAND SALE REQUIREMENTS
4:13 p.m.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said SB 357 was an act relating to the disposal
of State land and interest in State land and providing for an
effective date. He said the State of Alaska received 105 million
acres of land through the statehood act. He said SB 357 would
require DNR to make State land available for sale. The land
would be available in adequate parts and available for over-the-
counter sales. He said SB 357 would also provide for open entry
lands, agricultural lands and purchase by installments.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said SB 357 would provide for the utilization of
municipal zoning surveys to be paid for by the person who was
acquiring the property. He said DNR would be required to place a
monument at least every five miles for each parcel.
He noted the ideas behind SB 357 had been around for some time
and had been discussed significantly during the two previous
sessions of the legislature.
SENATOR COWDERY said there had always been the argument that if
the land were opened up to the people it would cost the State a
lot of money. He said there was some discussion earlier about
waivers. He asked if waivers were legal.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said waivers could be put in the law so that the
State wouldn't be required to provide school services. He said
that would burden the land with that process. He said SB 357 was
fairly comprehensive in trying to remove as many of the State's
obligations as possible.
He asked Mr. Dick Mylius to provide testimony.
MR. DICK MYLIUS, Resource Assessment & Development Manager,
Division of Mining, Land And Water, DNR, said DNR recognized that
getting land into private ownership was one of the fundamental
responsibilities of DNR as set out in Article 8 of the
Constitution of the State of Alaska. He said SB 357 would modify
some of the existing land disposal statutes and establish two new
land disposal programs. He said the first new program would
include a short-term offering of 50,000 acres of subdivisions
that would be offered through three different first-come first-
serve disposals during the first year and a half of the program.
The second program would be a long-term open entry program
offering 200,000 acres per year. He said that new program would
be a more aggressive land-offering program than the State had
ever offered and would require a significant increase in the land
sales budget.
He said DNR supported some of the proposed changes to existing
programs. He said Sec. 3 of SB 357 would change existing law so
that when a person defaulted on a lottery land-sale contract the
parcel could be immediately offered for sale over-the-counter.
He said DNR supported that change. Sec. 4 would change existing
law so that when a purchaser in an auction failed to sign a
contract of sale or defaulted on a contract of sale DNR could
offer that parcel for sale over-the-counter. DNR also supported
that change. He said DNR also supported Sec. 5, which would
allow DNR to require the purchaser to appraise and survey the
parcel and pay for those costs. He said DNR had been able to do
this through existing regulations but the statute would clarify
their authority.
MR. MYLIUS said DNR did not support Sec. 6, which would create
two new land disposal programs. He said this was partly because
DNR had existing statutes that provided adequate and progressive
programs for the sale of State land into private ownership. He
said DNR's existing programs included the subdivision sales
program, the remote recreational cabin program and re-offering of
agricultural tracts. He said DNR offered nearly 50,000 acres for
sale in FY 02 and FY 03 under the existing programs. He said
DNR's existing budget allowed them to offer between 2,500 and
5,000 acres of new land per year. He said DNR was also
transferring over 20,000 acres per year to municipalities, many
of which also had land sale programs.
He said new land sale programs were not needed to increase land
sales. DNR suggested that the most efficient way to increase the
amount of State land being offered would be to increase funding
for existing programs.
He said DNR had several concerns with the new programs. DNR felt
the programs would not be workable because they would have
unrealistic deadlines and contained unmanageable and potentially
unconstitutional procedures for awarding land. He said the new
programs would fail to provide for the public interest.
He said SB 357 contained conflicting provisions regarding surveys
in compliance with municipal platting requirements. He said the
provisions that would allow individual appraisals and surveys for
parcels of land would result in hundreds of appraisals and
surveys that would overwhelm borough platting boards and staff
and DNR's appraisal and survey staff. He said the existing
programs allowed DNR to consolidate the reviews with the boroughs
internally, which was a much more efficient way of doing
business.
He said the proposed AS 38.14.010 would allow DNR to sell land
that was unclassified or classified as forestry, agricultural,
settlement and recreational. Existing programs allowed DNR to
sell agricultural and settlement lands. He said DNR didn't feel
that forest or recreational lands should be considered for sale
because the public supported retaining these types of land in
State ownership. He said past experience had shown that sale of
timber lands would automatically create a large number of people
opposed to timber harvest in their area. He said subsection (c)
of the proposed AS 38.14.010 on page 4 of SB 357 would exempt
land sales from the provisions of AS 38.04 and AS 38.05, which
protected public access, public resources of the land and access
to subsurface resources and had requirements dealing with
retaining State ownership of minerals.
MR. MYLIUS said the proposed 38.14.040, beginning on page 5,
would require purchasers to appear in person in order to acquire
a parcel. He said this was similar to a previous requirement
that had been found unconstitutional by the courts.
He said the budget and revenue projections reflected in the
fiscal note were very rough and would need to be refined as SB
357 moved through the process and into the Senate Finance
Committee. He said the cost, revenues and general summary were
those that were used in 2000 when the existing land disposal
programs were being considered in SB 283.
SENATOR COWDERY asked how much land DNR had sold to the public in
the previous eight years.
MR. MYLIUS said there wasn't really a land disposal program until
the previous two years. He said over the previous two years, DNR
offered approximately 25,000 acres. He said DNR was proposing to
offer another 20,000 acres, which were mostly parcels that were
previously subdivided and came back to DNR or were never sold.
He said approximately 2,400 parcels had been offered that fiscal
year and 350 of those had been sold.
SENATOR COWDERY asked how much defaulted property had been resold
to the public.
MR. MYLIUS said it was difficult to say because land that had
been defaulted on was lumped in with other types of offerings.
SENATOR THERRIAULT asked for the location of the language
requiring personal appearance in order to purchase land.
MR. MYLIUS said that was in the proposed Sec. 38.14.040 beginning
on page 5. The actual language was in lines 1-3 on page 6. He
said that provision was very similar to a previous requirement
that intended to give local residents a preference in land sales.
He said some people who couldn't attend a land sale because it
was held during the week filed suit and it was determined that
land had to be sold with equal access to all Alaskans.
SENATOR COWDERY said that same subsection said, "The sale price
of the land shall be the fair market value of the land as
determined by an appraiser selected from a list of appraisers
approved by the department under AS 38.14.160." He asked who
those appraisers would be.
MR. MYLIUS said DNR had a list of appraisers who were licensed
and certified to appraise State lands and wanted to do so.
SENATOR COWDERY asked if the appraisers looked at property values
in the vicinity when they did their appraisals.
MR. MYLIUS said they did.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked how to modify Sec. 38.14.040 to bring it
into compliance with the court's determination regarding
appearing in person in order to purchase land.
MR. MYLIUS said he would delete the language regarding appearing
in person.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked if he would place a period after "chapter"
on page 6, line 1.
MR. MYLIUS said he would. He said there were several ways to do
land sales without requiring the personal appearance of the
purchaser. The first was to do sealed bid options. He said
there were also lotteries if more than one person wanted a
parcel. He said there was also the option of an outcry auction,
in which people could have an agent present. He said outcry
auctions were inefficient because each parcel needed an
individual auction.
TAPE 02-14, SIDE B
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR moved Amendment 1 placing a period after the word
"chapter" on page 6, line 1 and deleting "who appears in person
to purchase the land at the site or sites designated by the
department for the sale of land" in lines 1 through 3. He said
that would hopefully bring that into compliance with the
constitutional concerns raised by Mr. Mylius.
There being no objection, Amendment 1 was adopted.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked if there was anybody else who wished to
testify on SB 357. There was nobody.
SENATOR COWDERY moved CSSB 357(JUD) out of committee with
attached fiscal note and individual recommendations.
There being no objection, CSSB 357(JUD) moved out of committee
with attached fiscal note and individual recommendations.
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