I had the opportunity to hear and learn from staff of the State Lands Commission<\/font><\/a> today, and it was quite an educational experience. <\/span>The Commission’s scope is broad, covering energy resources, environmental management, land boundaries, land leasing, and oil spill prevention, among other areas. <\/span>The Commission is composed of three members: <\/span><\/span>the Lieutenant Governor, the State Controller and the State Director of Finance.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n One of the State Lands Commission’s tasks is to ensure that land held in the public trust is used appropriately. <\/span>By enacting laws whose roots go back to Roman times, the state legislature has granted tidal and submerged lands to cities in trust. <\/span>The cities were then required to develop harbors for commerce to benefit the citizens of the state. <\/span>Long Beach has three types of public trust lands that are overseen by the SLC: <\/span>the harbor lands (port), other tidelands (along our waterfront), and oil lands (the revenue from which we share with the state).<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n One thing I learned is that the public trust doctrine means that public trust lands can’t be used to generate only local or municipal benefits. <\/span>The trustee – Long Beach, in our case – is holding the lands in trust for the state, not for its own benefit. <\/span>Thus the State Lands Commission is vigilant to guard against moves like a recent ballot initiative in San Diego that would have allowed redevelopment of part of that city’s port – also state public trust lands – as a sports stadium. <\/span>(The initiative failed.) <\/span>Closer to home, this aspect of public trust doctrine is why we can’t take Long Beach port revenues for use in the city’s general fund (though it doesn’t mean we don’t dream about it).<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n As I mentioned, a key role of the Commission is to ensure that the uses of public trust lands are appropriate. <\/span>For waterfront land, this means the use has to be water-dependent or water-related, or directly supportive of that kind of use. <\/span>For example, shoreside hotels, restaurants, and associated parking lots are allowed, because they are used by those using the water. <\/span>Other allowed uses are open space, ecological preservation, recreation, and scientific study.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n In Long Beach this question has arisen with the development of Queensway Bay and the Pike. <\/span>Some of the development on the north side of Shoreline Drive was challenged as not directly water-related. <\/span>Several years ago the State Lands Commission agreed that this was so, and solved the problem by exchanging this land – which is not all that close to the water, after all – for other tidelands along the Los Angeles River. <\/span>More recently, a court found this exchange invalid, leaving the land use – stores and businesses already built – once more in question. <\/span>Here’s an article<\/font><\/a> on that action, if you’d like to know more. <\/span>The Commission staff today reported that they are negotiating with the City to identify other lands for an exchange, so it appears, to my relief at least, that there is a pathway out of this dispute that does not involve tearing down what we have recently put in place.<\/span><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5952"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5952"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}