State Land Offers Untapped Potential
Agencies working on database to solve problem
Foster’s Daily Democrat On-line
Sunday, November 19, 2006
By NATE PARDUE
Staff Writer
npardue@fosters.com

New Hampshire has no system in place to track how much unneeded state-owned land could be sold, potentially losing out on a substantial revenue source.

Changes are on the way to remedy this.

The state’s Office of Energy and Planning is assembling a centralized database that will map all state-owned land and its various uses, from land under easement to "surplus land," or land that could be sold.

"We’re trying to find out what’s out there, how it’s restricted, what it’s used for. It seems like the right thing to do," said Amy Ignatius, executive director of the Office of Energy and Planning.

The governor’s office earlier this month requested all state-owned land on waterfronts be identified. Ignatius said the mapping effort takes the request several steps further.

"We’re trying to figure out what’s out there, what’s being collected, how usable it is, can we digitize it," Ignatius said.

Ignatius said the database will include surplus land, open space, easements, state parks and forests, and more.

The process is lengthy because several agencies manage land independently. They include the Fish and Game Department, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Environmental Services.

Ignatius said information the Department of Administrative Services collects each year will help the process.

Administrative Services breaks down the total amount of state-owned land by community and the value and acreage of each tract. But it doesn’t say how the land is used.

New Hampshire’s total land mass is about 5.7 million acres, not including water bodies.

The state owned 11 percent of the total, or about 650,000 acres, as of 2005, valued at more than $329 million. This is a significant increase from the 4.8 percent the state owned in 1995.

A 2005 house bill would have required the heads of state agencies that manage land to report all surplus on a yearly basis, but legislators killed the bill in committee.

Rep. Derek Owen, D-Hopkinton, co-sponsored the bill. He said he supported it because it would have helped the state find much-needed revenue.

"It may be money in the bank," Owen said.

The effort is even more important now in light of the governor’s recent recommitment not to support a sales or income tax, he said.

"We’re looking for revenue, and we need some money. We’re hurting," Owen said.

Along with the revenue earned from the land’s sale, government would receive more money from a private owner who would pay property taxes. The state also would save money on land management costs once the property was sold.

Owen said identifying the state’s land surplus will help determine how much money is at stake.

"If you don’t know where the land is, if it’s in the middle of the city or somewhere else, the values may vary," Owen said.

Any state land transaction is subject to a multi-step review process, whether it is to be owned or leased.

The Council on Resources and Development, an advisory board made up of 13 state agencies, can approve or deny a request to make surplus land available.

If approved, the recommendation is passed on to the Legislative Long-Range Capital Planning and Utilization Committee. The governor and Executive Council have a final say in the transaction.

Another option for state land is to manage it as a public-private partnership. An example is Mount Sunapee, the ski resort in Newbury.

Tim and Diane Mueller, owners of Okemo Mountain Resort in Vermont, signed the first lease given by the state to run Mount Sunapee in 1998.

Between July 2004 and July 2005, the state sold nearly $2.8 million worth of land, according to the Department of Administrative Services. The Department of Transportation is the state’s major holder of surplus property, with an estimated total value of $18 million.

The department estimates that 12 properties will be sold in Fiscal Year 2006, and 25 properties will be sold in Fiscal Year 2007.

Bill Janelle, administrator of the department’s Bureau of Right of Way, said there is no database tracking the amount of surplus land the DOT manages, but a system is being developed. Much of the department’s land information still is logged in notebooks, he said.

"It’s an old system. It’s not computerized. Within a couple of months, we should be able to identify what we consider to be surplus," Janelle said.

Available land is difficult to track under the present system, he said, because there are small, scattered tracts all over the state.

The department, for example, purchases land for equipment storage on highway projects. The land is no longer needed when the projects are complete.

DOT also might purchase a 4-acre land tract, for instance, but only develop 2 acres, leaving another 2-acre parcel available for potential sale.

Other departments don’t have to worry as much about tracking surplus land because they are more focused on conservation.

The Department of Environmental Services manages 10,000 acres of state land, 4,700 acres of which is in the Lake Francis area in Pittsburg. Other lands include hazardous waste sites, dams and parcels adjoining such sites.

Spokesman Jim Martin said DES likely doesn’t have much surplus land, but no total figure is available. The department also is in the process of compiling a complete land inventory.

Martin and Janelle both said the old system doesn’t prohibit them from finding information about land if someone inquires about a purchase, but it will take less time and be more readily available once the database is created.

"We have a full accounting of our properties. We’re not in the dark," Martin said.

Fish and Game manages about 60,000 acres, about 45,000 acres of which falls under the category of wildlife management.

The majority of wildlife management land — 25,000 acres — is in the Connecticut Lakes Natural Area in northern New Hampshire. The remaining 15,000 acres are under easement.

Assistant Fish and Game Director Dan Lynch said the land is easy to track because much of it is in large tracts. He said there isn’t much land available for sale because "it would be contrary to our mission."

"Our partners who call us up because they want to help fund land conservation probably wouldn’t contact us anymore," Lynch said, adding that any federal funds used to conserve lands would have to be returned if the land was sold for profit.

Once OEP finishes its centralization effort, Ignatius said the state will be able to access the information for many uses.

"It will be wonderful because we can use it for analysis, growth trends, usage patterns. We can identify where the natural habitats are, where the highways are, wind patterns for wind farms. There are endless possibilities," Ignatius said.