BILL REQ. #:  S-0110.1 

Read first time 01/17/2003.   Referred to Committee on Technology & Communications.

     AN ACT Relating to use permits for telecommunications facilities on state lands; amending RCW 79.01.392; adding a new section to chapter 79.01 RCW; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   The legislature finds that advanced telecommunications services are essential to our modern, information society. The legislature further finds that telecommunications companies, when constructing and upgrading the networks that provide these services, must cross state lands to reach all state residents and that, for the benefit of these residents, the state should permit such crossings in a nondiscriminatory, economic, and timely manner.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 2   A new section is added to chapter 79.01 RCW to read as follows:
     (1) The use of state lands for telecommunications facilities must be granted by use permit.
     (2) The term of a use permit must be at least thirty years.
     (3) The total charge for the use permit must be an amount equal to the diminution in the property value of the land caused by the location of the telecommunications facilities. The diminution in property value must be based on the appraised value of the land in its current use at the time of application of the use permit.

Sec. 3   RCW 79.01.392 and 2001 c 250 s 13 are each amended to read as follows:
     Upon the filing of the plat and field notes, as provided in RCW 79.01.388, the land applied for and the valuable materials on the right of way applied for, and the marked danger trees to be felled off the right of way, if any, and the improvements included in the right of way applied for, if any, shall be appraised as in the case of an application to purchase state lands. Upon full payment of the appraised value of the land applied for, or upon payment of an annual rental when the department of natural resources deems a rental to be in the best interests of the state, and upon full payment of the appraised value of the valuable materials and improvements, if any, the commissioner of public lands shall issue to the applicant a certificate of the grant of such right of way stating the terms and conditions thereof and shall enter the same in the abstracts and records in his or her office, and thereafter any sale or lease of the lands affected by such right of way shall be subject to the easement of such right of way. Should the corporation, company, association, individual, state agency, political subdivision of the state, or the United States of America, securing such right of way ever abandon the use of the same for a period of sixty months or longer for the purposes for which it was granted, the right of way shall revert to the state, or the state's grantee.
     Use permit payments for telecommunications facilities must be calculated according to section 2 of this act.