Florida Senate - 2018                              CS for SB 806
       
       
        
       By the Committee on Rules; and Senator Baxley
       
       
       
       
       
       595-04000-18                                           2018806c1
    1                        A bill to be entitled                      
    2         An act relating to water management district surplus
    3         lands; amending s. 373.089, F.S.; requiring a water
    4         management district to publish its notice of intention
    5         to sell surplus lands on its website; revising the
    6         circumstances when a water management district must
    7         publish its intention to sell surplus lands; revising
    8         the process for selling certain lower valued surplus
    9         lands; defining the term “adjacent property owners”;
   10         providing an effective date.
   11          
   12  Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   13  
   14         Section 1. Subsections (3) and (8) of section 373.089,
   15  Florida Statutes, are amended to read:
   16         373.089 Sale or exchange of lands, or interests or rights
   17  in lands.—The governing board of the district may sell lands, or
   18  interests or rights in lands, to which the district has acquired
   19  title or to which it may hereafter acquire title in the
   20  following manner:
   21         (3) Before selling any surplus land, or interests or rights
   22  in land, the district shall publish a notice of intention to
   23  sell on its website and in a newspaper published in the county
   24  in which the land, or interests or rights in the land, is
   25  situated once each week for 3 successive weeks, three insertions
   26  being sufficient. The first publication of the required notice
   27  must occur at least 30 days, but not more than 360 days, before
   28  any sale is approved by the district and must include a
   29  description of lands, or interests or rights in lands, to be
   30  offered for sale.
   31         (8)(a) If a parcel of land is no longer essential or
   32  necessary for conservation purposes and is valued at $25,000 or
   33  less as determined by a certified appraisal obtained within 360
   34  days before the effective date of a contract for the sale, as
   35  specified in subsection (1), the governing board may determine
   36  that the parcel of land is surplus and may offer to sell it to
   37  the adjacent property owners. If the governing board elects to
   38  offer for sale the parcel to adjacent property owners pursuant
   39  to this subsection, the governing board must publish the notice
   40  of intention to sell must be published as required under
   41  subsection (3), one time only, and. the governing board must
   42  shall send the notice of intention to sell the parcel to
   43  adjacent property owners by certified mail and publish the
   44  notice on its website. For the purpose of this subsection, the
   45  term “adjacent property owners” means those owners whose
   46  property abuts the parcel.
   47         (b) Fourteen days after publication of such notice, the
   48  district may sell the parcel to an adjacent property owner or,
   49  if there are two or more owners of adjacent property, accept
   50  sealed bids and sell the parcel to the highest bidder or reject
   51  all offers.
   52         (c) If the parcel is not sold to an adjacent property owner
   53  pursuant to paragraph (b), the district may sell the parcel at
   54  any time to the general public for the highest price obtainable
   55  Thirty days after publication of such notice, the district shall
   56  accept sealed bids and may sell the parcel to the highest bidder
   57  or reject all offers.
   58  
   59  If the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund
   60  declines to accept title to the lands offered under this
   61  section, the land may be disposed of by the district under the
   62  provisions of this section.
   63         Section 2. This act shall take effect July 1, 2018.