By: @Aaron Avery
The California Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) Draft Updated Guidelines for implantation of the Surplus Land Act (SLA), released February 23, subvert necessary, negotiated protections secured through the legislative process, and conflict with plain statutory language and legislative intent. These draft guidelines threaten special districts' authority to appropriately and efficiently engage in statutorily authorized transactions involving their lands.
In response, CSDA has launched a Take Action Page and Call to Action. CSDA highly encourages all special districts impacted by newly proposed Draft Updated Guidelines to review the information on the CSDA Take Action Page as well as the Draft Updated Guidelines, and to submit written comments to HCD.
CSDA’s Take Action Page contains a modifiable template comment letter for use by special districts, as well as an option to simply authorize an automated form letter for CSDA to submit on your behalf. PUBLIC COMMENTS are due by March 25, 2024.
As discussed in more detail on the Take Action Page, the Draft Updated Guidelines include several issues of concern that ignore, unlawfully expand upon, or misstate current law as it pertains to special districts and the SLA, including:
- Misapply the SLA to Agency’s Use land and improperly purport to apply the SLA to Exempt Surplus land.
- Misapply SLA penalty provisions while making changes in conflict with statute.
- Allow third parties to issue notices of alleged violations of the SLA directly to public agencies with no basis in statute, exposing local agencies to unaccountable interference with operations.
- Subject local agencies to a subjective open-ended definition of “Good Faith Negotiations.”
Additional information from HCD about the Draft Updated Guidelines and the SLA can be viewed here.
If you have any questions, please contact aarona@csda.net.
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