HB 352 - SUBDIVISION PLAT APPROVAL:UNORGANIZED BOR REPRESENTATIVE JEANNETTE JAMES, SPONSOR OF SSHB 352, read her sponsor statement and a supporting letter from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) aloud: "This is a relatively simple bill. Basically, it is to assign a platting authority for subdivisions that are done outside organized boroughs where there may or may not be platting or planning authority in place and even in those municipalities where they have no planning authority. This would allow the DNR to be acting as that planning authority. Currently all plats are filed with DNR but they do no review and they have no authority to do any review. Currently no legal authority reviews plats in the unorganized boroughs for compliance with state Laws. This means that there is not agency review of access to each lot, the outcome is that there are landlocked lots created. Currently `paper plats' are allowed to be recorded without being surveyed, HB 352 corrects this oversight. This legislation requires the Department of Natural Resources to review plats for compliance with state law. There are several definitions of street and subdivision in various statutes, this legislation defines them as requested by the Department of Natural Resources. And I have a statement here by the Department of Natural Resources which I would like to read into the record. The letter from Harry Noah to myself regarding this bill. The Department of Natural Resources supports the Sponsor Substitute for HB 352, which includes the addition of the definitions of `streets' and `subdivisions'. We also understand that the Alaska Society of Professional Surveyors also supports HB 352. They specifically requested that the bill include the definitions of `streets' and `subdivisions' as in the sponsor substitute. These two definitions are needed to establish a common definition of street and subdivisions for use by all state agencies that are involved in permitting and approval of subdivisions. The lack of a common definition has made it difficult for surveyors to meet the requirements of all state agencies. This bill will greatly benefit anyone purchasing or having property in the unorganized borough or third class boroughs. There is more and more subdivision activity in our outlying areas. The passage of this bill will ensure that land offered for sale in these areas meets the applicable laws, reduces the chances of clouded title, ensures proper location of sale parcels, and ensures that all subdivided parcels have legal access. And that is what has prompted me to file this bill because this summer, I was involved with a plat outside of a platting area in my district, and I had a little struggle to be sure that they would include buildable legal access to these lots. And it wasn't required of them and all they had to do was file their plat with DNR. About noon today, I did get a position paper from the Department of Transportation and they had a concern about it and they also provided me with amendment number two. I do have an amendment number one as well." Number 394 REPRESENTATIVE CON BUNDE said, "The fiscal note, while it's not substantial, I would like to encourage looking at the idea that the beneficiaries of these plats pay the cost of the review by DNR." REPRESENTATIVE JAMES said, "That's my amendment number one, and I was aware there was a fiscal note. I never had any intentions of having a fiscal note. I said this should be revenue neutral. So I have an amendment that will do that. To talk about the amount of money, their guesstimate of how many of these plats they would be doing in a year, how much the costs would be....It's about $350 per subdivision, per plat, and that should make us revenue neutral and I will be getting a new fiscal note as soon as this amendment is adopted." Number 414 REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE moved to adopt amendment number one. There were no objections. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES addressed the second amendment from the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities saying, "(They) have concerns because of the rule that they're working under right now, that's working quite well regarding right-of-ways and transferring leasehold interest at state owned areas. At the end of the bill it would add `this does not apply to plats prepared for the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities for the purpose of creating or adjusting right-of-way boundaries or transferring lease hold at state owned airports.' And this is to not interfere with what they've got going right now, and I have no objections to that amendment." REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE said, "I assume when they (DOTPF) are adjusting right of way boundaries for transferring leases, they have surveyed that property." REPRESENTATIVE JAMES said, "I don't think they do anything without surveys." REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE moved to adopt the second amendment. There were no objections. Number 451 JEFF OTTESEN, CHIEF OF RIGHT-OF-WAY AND ENVIRONMENT, DIVISION OF ENGINEERING AND OPERATING STANDARDS, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC FACILITIES, testified in support of HB 352 saying, "Yes we do survey all right-of- ways. We do survey and we do create a plat document which gets recorded and records that line in perpetuity. The dilemma we have, and we've been having it with the boroughs too, is that a subdivision is normally a voluntary activity on the part of the land owner and when we're involved in condemnation, we're basically trying to coerce somebody to sign a subdivision that they object to and we're having to go to court to actually acquire the property and we're put in a situation where you can't survey the property, you can't get on it, you can't get them to agree to sign a document that conveys a document, when their very objection is they don't want to do this. So we simply can't proceed with condemnation and acquire the property which has been surveyed and platted in advance. We have to acquire the property with the court's permission and then go ahead and do the survey and do the recording. A number of the boroughs, as they came out with their individual platting ordinances were running us through the same problem." Number 481 REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY moved that HB 352 be moved out of committee as amended with individual recommendations. There were no objections. CHAIRMAN OLBERG clarified that there would be a new zero fiscal note attached to HB 352, which will become a committee substitute when the amendments are incorporated. There was a brief at ease from 1:35 p.m. until 1:37 p.m. CHAIRMAN OLBERG brought forth HB 398.