BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 236
Page 1
SENATE THIRD READING
SB
236 (Beall)
As Amended June 24, 2015
Majority vote
SENATE VOTE: 36-0
------------------------------------------------------------------
|Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Transportation |15-0 |Frazier, Achadjian, | |
| | |Baker, Bloom, Campos, | |
| | |Chu, Daly, Dodd, | |
| | |Eduardo Garcia, | |
| | |Gomez, Kim, Linder, | |
| | |Medina, Nazarian, | |
| | |O'Donnell | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: Authorizes the City of San Jose to summarily vacate a
public staircase. Specifically, this bill:
1)Authorizes the City of San Jose, until January 1, 2018, to
SB 236
Page 2
summarily vacate a public service easement located between two
specific streets if it finds that the vacation will protect
the public safety or otherwise serve the public interest and
convenience.
2)Authorizes the city to reserve and except from the vacation an
easement to construct, maintain, operate, replace, remove, and
renew a non-vehicular pathway for public use.
3) Makes legislative and findings that the need for this special
law is justified because of the "unique circumstances" facing
the City of San Jose with regard to the public service
easement.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Authorizes a local agency to summarily vacate a public service
easement under one of the following conditions:
a) The public service easement has not been used for its
intended purpose for a prolonged period;
b) The date of the public easement dedication is at least a
year prior to, but less than five years from, the date of
the proposed vacation, and the easement has not been used
continuously since that date; or
c) The easement has been superseded by relocation and there
are no other public facilities located within the easement.
2)Prohibits summary vacation of a public easement if there are
SB 236
Page 3
in-place public utility facilities that are in use and would
be affected by the vacation.
3)Sets forth procedures local agencies are to follow to vacate
or reserve easements.
FISCAL EFFECT: None
COMMENTS: The author introduced this bill to allow the City of
San Jose to enact a curfew and other regulations on what is
known as the Grand Staircase in the Communications Hill area of
the city. The Grand Staircase is a 200-step staircase that
leads through a residential area to the top of the hill. The
staircase was designed to be a highlight of a walkable community
envisioned to include residential, commercial-retail space, and
industrial parks, all linked with trails and serviced by public
transit. However, thanks to social media, the staircase has
become a destination recreational facility, drawing people from
throughout the city for outdoor workouts, including pre-dawn
fitness boot camps. The popularity of the staircase also
attracts illegal activities such as drug use, public drinking,
litter, vandalism, and other misconduct at all hours of the day
and night.
The City of San Jose is sponsoring this bill so that it can
impose a curfew on the staircase with the hopes that it can curb
excessive activities that annoy nearby residents during
late-night and early-morning hours.
The staircase is dedicated as a pedestrian access easement,
private ingress and egress easement, emergency access easement,
and public service easement. However, according to city
attorneys, these designations do not allow the city to impose a
curfew on the staircase. The city is seeking to vacate the
SB 236
Page 4
public service easement but reserve an easement for something
akin to a park trail, for which it has the authority to impose a
curfew.
Committee concerns: This bill presents an unorthodox solution
to a frustrating neighborhood problem. The City of San Jose
would like to be able to keep people off the Grand Staircase
during late-night and early-morning hours but the city has found
few tools with which to accomplish this. For example, existing
law already authorizes local governments to summarily vacate
public easements but only under a few very specific conditions,
most notably that the easement has not been used for the purpose
for which it was dedicated or acquired. In the case of San
Jose's Grand Staircase, this is most definitely not the case.
The staircase, which was dedicated as a pedestrian easement, is
used extensively for pedestrian traffic.
Also, a local agency can impose temporary closures or curfews on
public easements if it finds that doing so is in the interest of
public safety. In the case of the staircase, the city suggests
that such a finding is not supportable because, for example,
there are no records of heightened police activity on the
staircase to suggest a threat to public safety.
Furthermore, the city has signs posted to notice enforcement
against nuisance activities such as excessive noise, littering,
loitering, obstructing the stairs, and vandalism. These
ordinances are insufficient to curb the activities that are
vexing the Communications Hill residents such as loud
conversations in the middle of the night just a few feet from
front doors of nearby residents.
The solution presented in this bill is not a perfect one.
Keeping the public from accessing public right of way should not
be taken for granted. However, city officials have few other
SB 236
Page 5
options in the case of the wildly unforeseen popularity of the
Grand Staircase. The city is struggling to manage this
attractive nuisance and this bill provides some relief.
Analysis Prepared by:
Janet Dawson / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093 FN:
0001233