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Old agri land occupants can now own land
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Posted on May 11 2005
Local residents who have continuously used agricultural public land for 15 years can now claim ownership of it.
Gov. Juan N. Babauta recently signed House Bill 14-31 into law, mandating the Marianas Public Lands Authority to grant land title to qualified persons who demonstrate 15 years of continuous and actual occupancy of public land.
These are the individuals who failed to receive land title “despite being qualified because of his of her exclusion from the list of qualified persons established by MPLA.”
The measure, authored by Rep. David Apatang, Jesus Attao, and Arnold I. Palacios, also directs the MPLA to review all past and pending claims and grant such titles to qualified persons.
The new law also asks the MPLA to extend the time limitation for new claims from 12 to 25 years.
Babauta, in his May 5 transmittal letter to the Legislature, said the measure covers land used for agricultural purposes.
He said the law covers qualified individuals or surviving members of their family who were excluded from the list set by MPLA or its predecessor, the Marianas Public Lands Corp., despite the fact that they had demonstrated continuous and actual occupancy of such land for 15 years prior to Jan. 9, 1978, as required by the Homestead Waiver Act.
Babauta said that, by extending the deadline to 20 years, the law allows qualified individuals or surviving members of their family to file applications for agricultural land titles no later than Jan. 8, 2006.
The governor said the implementation of the new law would not affect the existing moratorium set by the MPLA for new applications for village homesteads on Saipan and Rota since Oct. 1, 2002.
MPLA earlier said the measure may further reduce the available lands for village homesteaders.
“I believe that qualified individuals should have the opportunity to establish that they were in fact utilizing public lands for agricultural lands…I believe that this measure will not adversely affect the village homestead program,” he said.
The bill became Public Law 14-66.
