Legislature(1997 - 1998)
01/30/1997 01:07 PM House RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 17 - DNR APPROVAL OF PLATS IN UNORG BOROUGH Number 270 CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN welcomed Representative James and invited her to present House Bill No. 17, "An Act establishing the Department of Natural Resources as the platting authority in certain areas of the state; relating to subdivisions and dedications; and providing for an effective date." Number 309 REPRESENTATIVE JEANNETTE JAMES, sponsor of HB 17, presented the bill. "Some of you who've been around awhile may have seen this bill before," she said. "It's been around and around and around. And it was last year House Bill 80, and it just died in the rush of adjournment." Representative James said the bill had been around for six years or so before she joined the legislature. She advised that Pat Kalen, who had been instrumental in drafting the legislation throughout the process, was on teleconference to answer questions and comment about the bill. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES explained, "This is a bill that would require the DNR to be a platting authority in the unorganized borough or anyplace where there is no platting authority operating. Currently the DNR does file the plats, but it has no authority to review the plats to see ... if they are qualifying plats, that the monumentation is in, that there is existing legal access and other requirements that would be needed to have a valid plat ... to eliminate future problems." REPRESENTATIVE JAMES continued: "The general fund start-up cost of $21,300 that's listed in the fiscal note is subject to being amended. However, I think that that would be a proper place to amend that. In other words, it could be reduced. It would be in the Finance Committee. After the initial start-up costs, this should be self-paying because the fees that are charged ... for the review of the plats will be covering the cost of reviewing the plats." Number 408 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES explained her interest in the bill stemmed from a situation in her district four years earlier, when the University of Alaska, doing a subdivision of one of their sections in an area having no platting authority, had provided no legal access to those lots. "And when I disagreed with that, we were able to finally solve the situation by negotiations," she said. "But they had no requirement to provide legal access to those lots. And there was no platting authority and no one to be able to review the plats." Thus she had seen the necessity for change. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES noted that HB 17 also changed the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities monumentation requirement so that monuments required for straight roads would be half the number required on curves. This would be less costly for the department when putting in rights-of-way. "It also adds three departments to subdivision definition, which ... was in HB 80 and some way or other it was removed," she explained. "What we've tried to do in this piece of legislation is to have the subdivision definition be the same ... in any one of the various departments. And I have a listing here of what those departments are. ... It's Lands and Surveying and DEC. So that now if you look for a subdivision definition in the statutes, they'll all be the same." Number 564 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES emphasized that there were no objections to the bill and offered to answer questions. CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN asked if there were questions. Number 592 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON noted there were three amendments in the packet and asked if Representative James wished for those to be numbered Amendments 1 - 3. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES indicated she had provided those and that was her desire. Number 615 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON moved that Amendment 1 be adopted and asked unanimous consent. Amendment 1 to HB 17, 0-LS0138\A.1, Luckhaupt, 1/22/97, read: Page 4, lines 22 - 24: Delete all material. CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN asked Representative James to explain Amendment 1. Number 648 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES said, "... DEC is not going to review subdivisions in the state anymore. And this was a line in ... the bill that said the commissioner shall require that a plat submitted for approval bear the certificate of approval of any other state agency having subdivision plat approval authority. And there is no other agency, and so that takes out the requirement for DEC. That's what it's related to, and DEC has no problem with that." CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN noted there was already a motion and asked if there were any objections. There being none, Amendment 1 was adopted. Number 682 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON moved to adopt Amendment 2 and asked unanimous consent. Amendment 2 to HB 17, 0-LS0138\A.2, Luckhaupt, 1/22/97, read: Page 1, following line 13: Insert new bill sections to read: "* Sec. 3. AS 34.65.100 is amended by adding a new paragraph to read: (6) "subdivision" has the meaning given in AS 40.15.900. * Sec. 4. AS 38.04.910 is amended by adding a new paragraph to read: (13) "subdivision" has the meaning given in AS 40.15.900." Renumber the following bill sections accordingly. Page 7, following line 23: Insert a new bill section to read: "* Sec. 10. AS 46.03.900 is amended by adding a new paragraph to read: (36) "subdivision" has the meaning given in AS 40.15.900." Renumber the following bill sections accordingly. Page 7, line 25: Delete "sec. 7" Insert "sec. 9" CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN asked Representative James to explain Amendment 2. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES said, "[W]e had reprinted this bill from exactly the way HB 80 was last year when it was in the other body, and ... somehow or other in the process, these three descriptions in the various places for subdivision ... [were] eliminated from the bill. So we didn't see that ... when we got the original bill. So it's putting them back in so that all of those three areas have the same definition of subdivision." Number 754 CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN asked if there was discussion or any objection. Hearing no objection, he noted that Amendment 2 was adopted. Number 764 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON moved to adopt Amendment 3 and asked unanimous consent. Amendment 3 to HB 17, 0LS0138\A.3, Luckhaupt, 1/22/97, read: Page 6, lines 14 - 19: Delete all material. Insert "reinforcement bar with appropriate identification cap set points from which the right-of-way may be defined, not exceeding 1,320 feet or, when line of sight permits, 2,640 feet; all recovered" Number 782 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES explained that Amendment 3 related to the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities and monumentation along rights-of-way. "And when it's a straight line, ... they only have to do half as much monumentation as they do on a curved line, so it's saving money and not putting unnecessary monumentation along a right-of-way," she added. REPRESENTATIVE GREEN noted that Amendment 3 eliminated lines 14 to 19. He asked Representative James if it read the way she wanted it to. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES replied she believed it did. "It's reduction in the amount of monumentation," she stated. Representative James reminded the committee Pat Kalen was on teleconference to answer questions. Number 862 CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN inquired whether Representative Green wished to get additional input. REPRESENTATIVE GREEN indicated he was okay with the amendment. CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN asked if there was further discussion or any objection. Hearing no objection, Co-Chairman Ogan noted that Amendment 3 was adopted. Number 882 CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN opened up the meeting for public testimony. He called upon Pat Kalen to testify. PAT KALEN, Chairman, Alaska Section, American Congress on Surveying and Mapping; and Chairman, Legislative Committee, Alaska Society for Professional Land Surveyors, testified via teleconference from Fairbanks in support of HB 17. He stated, "The surveyors have worked in the subject area quite a bit. We had a bill ... that nearly passed the legislature in 1990 to develop a thing called the Survey and Mapping Advisory Board that was made up of surveyors from all over the state and ... the private sector and the public sector, and had representatives from the Alaska Federation of Natives and all the major state departments that would be affected in this area. And we noticed that a couple of years ago, that ... [Representative James] ... was the first person to notice that you could do anything you wanted to in the unorganized borough. Her problem was concerning legal access. And she was absolutely correct that people could make ... land descriptions in these new subdivisions without providing legal access." MR. KALEN explained the problem was a little deeper than that. People could draw up any kind of deed they wished without being required to go to a lawyer or surveyor. "And some very strange animals have been filed over the years," he stated. "And surveyors and lawyers get to see them after people discover there's something the matter, that ... they should have done." Mr. Kalen indicated no rules applied to subdivisions in the unorganized borough, saying "excepting such as DEC used to be able to say they had authority, but they didn't have any way of enforcing what they said you had to do." MR. KALEN mentioned he had worked with Representative James and her assistant, Walt Wilcox, on HB 17. "The three little changes I was aware of, and I support them wholeheartedly," he stated. He noted it was much more cost-effective to place monuments out where they could be seen than to "hide them off in the woods," which actually raised survey costs. Mr. Kalen commended the sponsor and asked that the committee move the bill. Number 1088 CAROL CARROLL, Legislative Liaison, Department of Natural Resources, testified in support of HB 17. She said she hoped Jane Angvik, Director of Land, would arrive in time to answer questions. She noted that if there were questions she herself could not answer, a Division of Land employee was on teleconference. MS. CARROLL stated, "The Department of Natural Resources does support this bill. We think that it will certainly go a long way to clearing up some title, making it easy for citizens of Alaska to make sure that the plot that they have purchased in the subdivision is indeed theirs and it doesn't infringe on any other ... land." Number 1145 CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN asked whether HB 17 had been scrutinized carefully to preclude technical problems or future litigation. Number 1157 MS. CARROLL replied, "Yes, the Division of Land has looked at this. They've looked at it for the last couple of years since ... Representative James has been interested in this bill. And we do not see, to my knowledge, any technical problems. I have not seen any come before the department, at least, in the bill analyses that they require." Number 1192 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN referred to the fiscal note and said, "[Y]ou indicate that through regulations, you will increase the fee from $200 to $300, that will cover ... future costs ... that you incur in the department. Is it your understanding, or is it your message to us, that it appears to be that; if it should be more, you will, through regulation, make sure that that fee is covered?" Number 1219 MS. CARROLL responded, "We intend to make this program revenue- neutral." CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN asked if anyone else wished to testify, then said he would entertain a motion. Number 1245 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON made a motion to move HB 17, with the three adopted amendments and attached fiscal note, with individual recommendations. He asked unanimous consent. CO-CHAIRMAN OGAN asked if there was any objection. Hearing none, Co-Chairman Ogan noted that HB 17, as amended and with the attached fiscal note, moved from the House Resources Standing Committee.
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