BILL ANALYSIS �
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| SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER |
| Senator Fran Pavley, Chair |
| 2011-2012 Regular Session |
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BILL NO: SB 551 HEARING DATE: April 26, 2011
AUTHOR: DeSaulnier URGENCY: No
VERSION: April 7, 2011 CONSULTANT: Marie Liu
DUAL REFERRAL: No FISCAL: Yes
SUBJECT: State property: tidelands transfer: City of Pittsburg
and City of Martinez Marina.
BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW
The State Lands Commission (commission) is charged with managing
and protecting the state's tide and submerged lands for the
public trust. With legislative approval, the commission may
grant state tidelands to local governments for their use and
maintenance.
Article 4 of Chapter 4 of Part 1 of Division 6 of the Public
Resources Code (commencing with 6361) grants tide and submerged
lands to City of Pittsburg for the development of commerce,
navigation, fishing, recreation, and the other public trust
uses. These lands are to be held by the city for public trust
purposes under a number of conditions, including:
1.Pittsburg must submit its plan to develop and preserve the
granted lands to the Commission for approval by July 1, 2008.
2.Pittsburg may not lease any of the trust lands for terms
exceeding 66 years.
3.At the end of every third fiscal year, 85% of the excess trust
revenues that are not being reserved for future capital
expenditures will be transferred to the Kapiloff Land Bank
Fund.
Chapter 815 of the Statutes of 1976 and Chapter 387 of the
Statutes of 2002 grant certain tidelands to the City of
Martinez.
The commission is the trustee of the Land Bank Fund (LBF)
created pursuant to the Kapiloff Land Bank Act of 1982
(commencing with Section 8600 of the Public Resources Code. The
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LBF may receive funds for mitigation or from title settlements.
Additionally, the LBF can receive revenues from any party for
the purpose of providing management and improvement of real
property held by the commission for the public trust.
PROPOSED LAW
This bill would grant additional tide and submerged lands to the
City of Pittsburg and the City of Martinez. The new grant would
be an expansion of the current Pittsburg grant and would make
the following changes to the existing grant agreement:
1.Pittsburg must submit a trust lands use plan by January 1,
2017.
2.Pittsburg may not lease any of the trust lands for terms
exceeding 49 years.
3.Pittsburg must report to the commission every five years,
beginning in 2022, regarding the utilization of trust lands
for the five preceding years.
4.Require that at the end of every fiscal year beginning on June
30, 2012, Pittsburg to transmit 20% of all gross revenue
generated from the trust lands to the commission. Of this
amount, 80% would be deposited in the General Fund and the
remaining 20% would be deposited in the LBF.
The terms of the agreement for the Martinez grant would be
substantially similar to grant terms proposed for the Pittsburg
grant.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT
The City of Pittsburg, co-sponsor of the bill, states, "This
amendment will extend the area of the grant from the State Lands
commission to include the area to the west that was annexed into
the City of Pittsburg in 2009. The City is very interested in
developing our shoreline which includes old underutilized
industrial properties which we feel can be developed into
productive uses that will benefit the people of Pittsburg and
the region as a whole."
The City of Martinez, co-sponsor of the bill, states, "The City
of Martinez is undertaking a true public and private
partnership, to piece together the needed funding to do a major
renovation to their Marina?The reasoning behind this Legislative
land grant request is to control and fix the annual lease
payments made by the city of Martinez to the State of
California, while improving the revenue stream to the city of
Martinez Marina enterprise fund."
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION
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None received.
COMMENTS
New revenue sharing provisions to motivate grantees to use
granted lands for appropriate and revenue generating purposes.
For most past land grants, the commission has only required that
excess trust revenues shall be returned to the state, which
effectively has meant that the state never receives any revenues
from granted trust lands. Both grants proposed in this bill
however would allow the state to receive 20% of gross revenues.
The commission feels that these new revenue sharing provisions
will encourage grantees to appropriately develop tidelands while
assuring revenues for the General Fund and the commission's
operating cost for grant oversight.
The committee should note that the City of Martinez would like
to continue negotiating the revenue sharing provisions with the
commission, partly because these provisions affect the city's
repayment plan for a loan from the Department of Boating and
Waterways for a marina rehabilitation project. The committee may
wish to direct the author to keep committee staff appraised of
any potential changes to the grant agreements, particularly the
revenue sharing provisions.
SUPPORT
City of Martinez (co-sponsor)
City of Pittsburg (co-sponsor)
OPPOSITION
None Received
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