HBA-CBW H.B. 1490 77(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 1490
By: Geren
Land & Resource Management
3/9/2001
Introduced



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Currently, a municipality with a population of 250,000 or less that owns
land within 5,000 feet of a shoreline of a lake can sell the land to the
leaseholder without notice or the solicitation of bids.  Under current law,
larger cities are required to accept  public bids on such property and
award the property to the highest bidder. However, many of these properties
are currently leased to individuals that have resided on the property for a
number of years.  Although the land being leased is owned by the city, the
improvements on the leased land are usually owned by the resident.
Therefore, the bid requirement puts into place a process that may cause the
current leaseholder to move from the property and sell any improvements.
House Bill 1490 authorizes a municipality with a population of 575,000 or
less to sell such land at the fair market value directly to the
leaseholder. 

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does
not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state
officer, department, agency, or institution. 

ANALYSIS

House Bill 1490 amends the Local Government Code to raise from 250,000 to
575,000 the population limit for a municipality to have the authority to
sell land within 5,000 feet of where the shoreline of a lake would be if
the lake were filled to its storage capacity to the person leasing the land
for the fair market value of the land without notice or the solicitation of
bids. 

EFFECTIVE DATE

On passage, or if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act
takes effect September 1, 2001.