BILL NUMBER: SB 1169 INTRODUCED
BILL TEXT
INTRODUCED BY Senator Kehoe
FEBRUARY 22, 2012
An act to amend Section 2831 of the Fish and Game Code, and to
amend Section 1 of Chapter 644 of the Statutes of 2007, relating to
wildlife resources.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 1169, as introduced, Kehoe. Natural community conservation
planning.
The Natural Community Conservation Planning Act authorizes the
Department of Fish and Game to enter into agreements with any person
or public entity for the purpose of preparing a natural community
conservation plan, to provide comprehensive management and
conservation of multiple wildlife species. The act requires a plan to
identify and provide for those measures necessary to conserve and
manage natural biological diversity within the plan area while
allowing compatible and appropriate economic development, growth, and
other human uses. The act requires each natural community
conservation plan to include an implementation agreement governing
specified matters.
Existing law exempts from specified provisions of the act any
natural community conservation plan or subarea plan initiated on or
before January 1, 2000, or amendment thereto, by Sweetwater
Authority, Helix Water District, Padre Dam Municipal Water District,
Santa Fe Irrigation District, or the San Diego County Water
Authority, which the department determines is consistent with the
approved San Diego Multiple Habitat Conservation Program or the San
Diego Multiple Species Conservation Program, if the department finds
that the plan has been developed and is otherwise in conformance with
the act. Existing law deems certain lands designated as open-space
lands as of January 1, 2008, to be dedicated land under the City
Charter of San Diego.
This bill would deem those lands designated as open-space lands as
of January 1, 2013, to be dedicated land under the city charter.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Section 1 of Chapter 644 of the Statutes of 2007 is
amended to read:
SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:
(a) The basis for the lands currently designated as open space by
the City of San Diego is a Multiple Species Conservation Program
(MSCP) for the City of San Diego.
(b) In 1997, the City of San Diego signed a 50-year agreement with
the Department of Fish and Game and the United States Fish and
Wildlife Service to conserve approximately 55,000 acres of open space
within the City of San Diego under the MSCP. Included in the MSCP
are designated and dedicated open-space parcels. The City of San
Diego has identified in excess of 15,000 acres of city-owned parcels
that were intended to be dedicated open space under the city charter,
but have not been converted from designated to dedicated open space.
Dedicated open space cannot be sold or exchanged without a
two-thirds vote of the people. The In 2007,
the Mayor of the City of San Diego and, by a unanimous vote,
the city council, have passed a resolution to
support this effort to convert those parcels from designated to
dedicated open space. Approximately 6,600 acres were converted
to dedicated open space with the filing of documents with the County
of San Diego Recorder/Clerk prior to January 1, 2008. Approximately
10,000 acres remain on a list established by the City of San Diego in
2006 of places eligible to be converted to dedicated open
space-lands. The San Diego City Council voted on January
23, 2012, to support the effort to convert additional city-owned
open- space parcels from designated to dedicated open
space.
(c) Therefore, in keeping with the desire of the City of San Diego
to ensure that the lands currently designated as open space cannot
be sold or exchanged without a vote of the people, and consistent
with the Natural Community Conservation Planning Act (Chapter 10
(commencing with Section 2800) of Division 3 of the Fish and Game
Code), these lands should become dedicated land under state law and
the City Charter of the City of San Diego.
SEC. 2. Section 2831 of the Fish and Game Code is amended to read:
2831. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, lands
designated as of January 1, 2008 2013 ,
as open-space lands in a document entitled "Declaration of the
Dedication of Land" approved by a resolution of the San Diego City
Council in the same manner in which the city council processes
approval of dedicated open space, reserving to the city council the
authority to grant easements for utility purposes in, under, and
across dedicated property, if those easements and facilities to be
located thereon do not significantly interfere with the park and
recreational use of the property, and filed with the Office of the
City Clerk for the City of San Diego, and, if required, at the Office
of the County of San Diego Recorder/Clerk, are dedicated land under
the City Charter of the City of San Diego.
(b) Upon filing of that document in accordance with subdivision
(a), the Office of the City Clerk for the City of San Diego, and, if
applicable, the County of San Diego Recorder/Clerk, shall make the
document available for inspection by the public upon request.