Existing law contains the Windsor Park Environmental Justice Act, which establishes a program for the relocation of persons residing in the Windsor Park neighborhood of the City of North Las Vegas whose residences have been damaged by the sinking of the ground beneath the residences. (Chapter 531, Statutes of Nevada 2023, at page 3538) Under the Act, the Housing Division of the Department of Business and Industry is required to establish and administer a program by which the owner of a single-family residence in the Windsor Park neighborhood who owns the residence on July 1, 2023, may exchange the residence in the Windsor Park neighborhood for a new residence constructed in accordance with the Act. (Section 9 of chapter 531, Statutes of Nevada 2023, at page 3540) This bill makes revisions to the Act.
Section 1 of this bill clarifies the boundaries of the Windsor Park neighborhood for the purposes of determining the owners of single-family residences or vacant lots who are eligible to participate in the program. Section 2 of this bill: (1) requires that to be eligible to participate in the program, an owner of a single-family residence or vacant lot in the Windsor Park neighborhood must have owned that single-family residence or lot on December 31, 2023, rather than July 1, 2023; (2) authorizes a person who is the owner of a vacant lot in the Windsor Park neighborhood and who was the owner, or is the descendant of the former owner, of a single-family residence on that vacant lot in the Windsor Park neighborhood to participate in the program by exchanging the vacant lot for another vacant lot in an area as near as reasonably practicable to the Windsor Park neighborhood; (3) authorizes a person who resides in the Windsor Park neighborhood to establish that he or she is the owner of a single-family residence or a vacant lot in the Windsor Park neighborhood and, thus, eligible to participate in the program, by executing an affidavit, under penalty of perjury, and presenting certain other documentation to establish inheritance of the property; and (4) provides that for the purposes of determining the amount of property taxes levied on single-family residences acquired pursuant to the Act, the assessed value of such residences must be determined as if such residences were not new improvements. Section 3 of this bill: (1) requires that in addition to transferring the proceeds of certain bonds to the Division, the City is required to transfer the interest on those proceeds to the Division for the purposes of the program; and (2) removes the requirement for the Division to pay moving expenses and restitution to owners of single-family residences in the Windsor Park neighborhood from certain Community Development Block Grant funds transferred to the Division and, instead, authorizes those funds to be used by the Division to pay relocation expenses for certain owners and tenants. Section 4 of this bill provides that money appropriated from the State General Fund for the purposes of the Act reverts at the end of the 2025-2027 biennium rather than at the end of the 2023-2025 biennium.