The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) In addition to the findings and declarations in Section 53398.50 of the Government Code, the ability to capture property tax increment revenues to finance needed seaport and harbor infrastructure projects will provide direct benefits to the state. When harbor agencies are better funded to further the objectives of the state, its seaports and harbors, and the public trust and enjoyment of those trust lands by the people of the state, local economies and the local environment will also be improved.
(b) A seaport or harbor or its operation frequently generates large local tax benefits directly as a result of the possessory interest taxes paid on the value of leased port and harbor real property.
(c) The tax increment increases in possessory interest taxes that will result from the improvement of seaport and harbor infrastructure should be captured, whenever possible, and reinvested to support the state’s significant interest in the successful operation of its seaports and harbors.
(d) The unique nature of the state’s public seaports and harbors, including the nature of the statewide interest in their operations, requires special rules if these ports and harbors are to be allowed to participate in a seaport infrastructure financing district.
(e) The seaport infrastructure financing district is specifically developed to include publicly owned property, to improve that public property, and to achieve the public goals of improving the state’s waterborne commerce, enhancing economic prosperity, and financing the costs of environmental mitigation and improvement.
(f) This chapter is intended to maintain and enforce the state’s retained rights, statewide interests, obligations and sovereign duties in its seaports, harbors, and tidelands, including protecting these same assets from local control or excise, while simultaneously creating an opportunity for public financing authorities to participate in facilitating investment in the state’s public seaport infrastructure and finance projects that will have the anticipated effect of not only providing statewide benefits, but also local benefits such as boosting local employment, local secondary economic development, local environmental improvement, and increased local tax revenues.
(Added by Stats. 2015, Ch. 793, Sec. 11. (SB 63) Effective January 1, 2016.)