H. B. 2577
(By Delegates Love and Riggs, By Request)
[Introduced March 12, 1993; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.]
A BILL to amend and reenact sections five and six, article one-a,
chapter twenty of the code of West Virginia, one thousand
nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to the public
land corporation required to conduct sales of public lands
by competitive bidding, modified competitive bidding or
direct sale and to hold a public hearing before the sale,
exchange or transfer of land; when the public hearing is not
required; competitive bidding and notice requirements before
the development of natural resources on certain lands.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That sections five and six, article one-a, chapter twenty of
the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one,
as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1A. REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT AND PROCEDURES.
§20-1A-5. Public land corporation to hold public hearing before
sale, exchange or transfer of land.
(a) Prior to any final decision of any state agency to sell,exchange or transfer land, the public land corporation shall:
(1) Prepare and reduce to writing the reasons and supporting
data regarding such the sale or exchange. The written reasons
required under this section shall be available for public
inspection at the office of the county clerk at the county
courthouse of each county in which the affected land is located
during the two successive weeks before the date of the public
hearing required by this section;
(2) Provide for a public hearing to be held at a reasonable
time and place within each county in which the affected land is
located to allow interested members of the public to attend the
hearing without undue hardship. Members of the public may be
present, submit statements and testimony and question the
corporation's representative appointed pursuant to this section;
(3) Not less than thirty days prior to such the public
hearing, provide notice to all members of the Legislature in
whose district the affected land is located, to the head of the
governing body of any political subdivision having zoning or
other land use regulatory responsibility in the geographic area
within which the public lands are located and to the head of any
political subdivision having administrative or public services
responsibility in the geographic area within which the lands are
located;
(4) Cause to be published a notice of the required public
hearing. The notice shall be published as a Class II legal
advertisement in compliance with the provisions of article three,chapter fifty-nine of this code and the publication area shall be
each county in which the affected land is located. The public
hearing shall be held no earlier than the fourteenth successive
day and no later than the twenty-first successive day following
the first publication of the notice. The notice shall contain
the time and place of the public hearing along with a brief
description of the affected land;
(5) Cause a copy of the required notice to be posted in a
conspicuous place at the affected land for members of the public
to observe. Such notice shall remain posted for two successive
weeks prior to the date of the public hearing;
(6) Appoint a representative of the corporation who shall
conduct the required public hearing. The corporation's
representative shall have full knowledge of all the facts and
circumstances surrounding the proposed sale, exchange or
transfer. The representative of the corporation shall make a
report of the public hearing available for inspection by the
public or, upon written request of any interested person, provide
a written copy thereof and to all individuals previously
receiving written notice of the hearing within thirty days
following the public hearing; and
(7) If the evidence at the public hearing establishes by a
preponderance that the appraisal provided for in subsection (c),
(d), section four of this article does not reflect the true, fair
market value, the public land corporation shall cause another
appraisal to be made. If the evidence at the public hearingestablishes by a preponderance that the sale or exchange of land
does not meet the criteria set forth in subdivision three,
section three of this article, the public land corporation shall
not proceed with the sale or exchange of said land without
judicial approval.
The representative of the corporation conducting the public
hearing shall make the results of the hearing available to the
corporation for its consideration prior to the board making
decisions regarding the affected lands.
(b) No sale, exchange or transfer of land subject to the
provisions of this section may be made before the thirtieth
successive day following the public hearing required by this
section, but in no event shall the sale, exchange or transfer of
such lands be made prior to fifteen days after the report of the
public hearings are made available to the public in general.
(c) Sales, exchanges or transfers of public lands by the
public land corporation that are ten acres or smaller in area
and/or have a fair market value of ten thousand dollars or less
may be conducted without public notice and public hearing as
otherwise required by this article. Fair market value shall
still be determined as provided for in subsection (d), section
four of this article, and the size shall be determined by a
survey prepared by a West Virginia licensed surveyor.
§20-1A-6. Competitive bidding and notice requirements before
the development of natural resources on certain
lands.
The corporation may enter into a lease or contract for the
development of minerals, gas or oil on or under lands in which
the corporation holds any right, title or interest:
Provided,
That no lease or contract may be entered into for the extraction
and removal of minerals by surface mining or auger mining of
coal. With the exception of deep mining operations which are
already in progress and permitted as of the effective date of
this article, extraction of coal by deep mining methods under
state forests or wildlife refuges may be permitted only if such
lease or contract provides that no entries, portals, air shafts
or other incursions upon and into said land incident to said
mining operations may be placed or constructed upon said lands or
within three thousand feet of the boundary thereof. Any lease or
contract entered into shall reserve to the state all rights to
subjacent surface support which the state is seized or possessed
of at the time of such lease or contract. Notwithstanding any
other provisions of the code to the contrary, nothing herein
shall be construed to permit extraction of coal minerals, oil or
gas by any method from, on or under, any state park or state
recreation area, nor the extraction of coal minerals by strip or
auger mining upon any state forest or wildlife refuge. The
extraction of oil and gas from under state parks and recreation
areas may be undertaken only if any lease or contract allowing
the extraction provides that there shall not be surface
disturbance nor degradation from drilling activities, and that
equipment, machinery, tanks, buildings, structures or otherappurtenances incidental to the drilling operations, shall not be
placed nor constructed upon the surface of said lands or within
three hundred feet of the boundary thereof, except for completely
underground pipelines for which rights-of-way may be granted.
The corporation may enter into a lease or contract for the
development of minerals, oil or gas, where such lease or contract
is not prohibited by any other provisions of this code, only
after receiving sealer bids therefor, after notice by publication
as a Class II legal advertisement in compliance with the
provisions of article three, chapter fifty-nine of this code.
The area for such publication shall be each county in which such
lands are located. The corporation may also solicit sealed bids
by sending a request to bid to prospective bidders. The
minerals, oil or gas so advertised may be leased or contracted
for development at not less than the fair market value, as
determined by an appraisal made by an independent person or firm
chosen by the corporation, to the highest responsible bidder, who
shall give bond for the proper performance of the contract or
lease as the corporation shall designate; but the corporation
shall have the right to reject any and all bids and to
readvertise for bids. If the foregoing provisions of this
section have been complied with, and no bid equal to or in excess
of the fair market value of such natural resources is received,
the corporation may, at any time during a period of six months
after the opening of the bids, lease or contract for the
development of such natural resources in such manner as it isdeemed appropriate, but the lease or contract price shall not be
less than the fair market value of such natural resources
advertised.
NOTE: The purposes of this bill are, to provide that notice
be given to those legislators in whose district proposed land
transactions are to take place, to correct a subsection reference
in the article, to allow land transactions of small areas and\or
of little value to proceed without public notice and hearing only
and to allow extraction of oil or gas underlying state parks by
slant or offset drilling so long as the surface is undisturbed.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.