Surplus Land Bill Passes Senate Committee in Close Vote

By Rylan Gervase posted 06-26-2019 04:28 PM

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This afternoon, AB 1486 (Ting) passed out of Senate Governance and Finance Committee on a tight 4-3 vote. The bill was supported by Chair McGuire and Senators Beall, Hertzberg, and Wiener. Opposing the bill were Senators Nielsen, Hurtado, and Moorlach. During her remarks, Senator Hurtado specifically mentioned that calls and letters from Fresno Mosquito and Vector Control, Kern County Cemetery, Tulare Mosquito Abatement, and others as factors in her decision to oppose AB 1486.

AB 1486 also emerged from committee with significant amendments. Among the amendments adopted in committee were:

To provide some protection against potential revenue losses, the Committee amended AB 1486 to eliminate the restrictions on state agencies and specify that nothing in the bill requires a local agency to sell surplus land or receive less than fair market value for its property.
The Committee amended AB 1486 to expand the uses of land that would not trigger a designation of surplus land and to specify that the local agency determines what land it needs, rather than leaving unspecified the entity that determines when land is no longer needed for an agency’s use.
The Committee amended AB 1486 to delete the provisions that rezone surplus land as residential and to allow local agencies to make findings that restrictions on residential use are needed to protect the public or local agency operations.
To encourage compliance with the Act while avoiding the negative consequences of this provision, the Committee amended AB 1486 to reinstate the provision of existing law that says that transfers cannot be invalidated and instead include an alternative penalty structure that also allows a local agency to cure an inadvertent error.
The Committee amended AB 1486 to instead designate HCD as the official keeper of the list of interested parties and to require electronic notification instead of mailing when a surplus parcel becomes available.
The Committee amended AB 1486 to exclude RDA properties from the Surplus Lands Act.

AB 1486 now moves to Senate Housing Committee, where it will be heard on July 2. CSDA and coalition of local agency associations will continue opposing the bill.

If you have any questions, please contact CSDA's Legislative Representative, Rylan Gervase at rylang@csda.net.

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