{"id":222341,"date":"2016-03-04T06:06:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T20:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=222341"},"modified":"2016-03-04T06:06:35","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T20:06:35","slug":"encroachers-must-pay-up-or-vacate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/encroachers-must-pay-up-or-vacate\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Encroachers\u2019 must pay up or vacate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-222341 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/encroachers-must-pay-up-or-vacate\/dpl-pix-teregeyo\/'>DPL-pix-(Teregeyo)<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-222344'>\n\t\t\t\tMarianne Teregeyo \n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/encroachers-must-pay-up-or-vacate\/dpl-image\/'>DPL-image<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-222349'>\n\t\t\t\tSaipan Tribune received this document and a tip alleging that former Department of Public Lands secretary Pete A. Tenorio had property encroaching on public land last month. The document has not been officially verified by DPL despite email requests.\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Department of Public Lands Secretary Marianne Teregeyo in recent weeks has been issuing notices to vacate or make payment for encroachment on public lands, calling this the biggest issue the department is working on now as encroachment violations serve \u201cno benefit\u201d to the people of Northern Marianas Descent.<\/p>\n<p>Teregeyo, since her short time at the post, has been writing letters to \u201call the people on public lands that have not made any payments while they\u2019ve been using public land.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve been actively checking all our encroachment listing and making sure our people\u2014our Northern Marianas Descent\u2014are actually going to benefit from that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Teregeyo describes an immediate agenda to reporters after the Senate unanimously confirmed her to the post of DPL secretary yesterday afternoon. <\/p>\n<p>This includes a comprehensive land use plan to oversee public land use and movement on the thousands of homestead applicants pending in the CNMI.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, Public Lands is going through and \u201cthinning down\u201d a list of 3,183 homestead applicants, as some have already had houses issued to them through the local housing corporation and some have wed.<\/p>\n<p>DPL stopped accepting applicants in 2006 and the DPL secretary is prohibited from issuing homesteads without infrastructure funded.<\/p>\n<p>Teregeyo revealed yesterday that she issued revocation letters to six homestead applicants since her several weeks in office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere has been no activity on the property for 19 years. That\u2019s why they have been revoked,\u201d she explained. Homesteads require that in three years applicants build on their property.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHomesteads are a top priority for many of our NMDs. It\u2019s a matter of getting infrastructure funded for homestead. I have already met with a lot of the legislators, both Senate and House, and have talked to them about the great need to fund infrastructure. I also met with several individuals on the requirements for homestead because I am prohibited from issuing homesteads at the moment without infrastructure. So it plays a big role,\u201d Teregeyo told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Encroachment<\/p>\n<p>On the issue of encroachment, Teregeyo was asked if this was a \u201cwidespread\u201d issue but she could not immediately confirm this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have observed some and we are working to address them,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>Saipan Tribune obtained a document last month that appeared to show private property of former DPL secretary Pete A Tenorio encroaching on public land.<\/p>\n<p>Tenorio on Wednesday, when Saipan Tribune asked if this needed to be clarified, explained that it\u2019s a \u201cminor\u201d encroachment and that he had private land at the same time being used for public \u201cright of way\u201d that he wanted \u201cexchanged\u201d with this; however, he did not find it proper to use his office at the time to advertise or facilitate this exchange.<\/p>\n<p>An email sent to DPL on Wednesday to confirm Tenorio\u2019s explanation and another email sent early last month to verify the land document have not been responded to.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026The biggest thing we are working right now,\u201d Teregeyo said yesterday, \u201cis sending out notices and billings to people that are on public lands that have not made any payments utilizing public lands and have no benefit for people of NMD. So we need to collect on that so at the end of the fiscal year, we can transfer the amount of money to\u201d the Marianas Public Land Trust.<\/p>\n<p>One corporation, she disclosed, has agreed to vacate.<\/p>\n<p>Governor\u2019s support<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, for his part, was asked yesterday for the specific issues that he wanted Teregeyo to address.<\/p>\n<p>Torres said \u201cspecial attention\u201d is needed for land compensation, easement, and competitive bids for government properties that are currently being occupied by hotels and golf courses. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose are priorities. And we need to work continuously\u201d on them, Torres said.<\/p>\n<p>On homesteads, Torres said he wants this \u201cpushed\u201d so they could \u201cgive as many homesteads as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to do that within this year. I want to open up the Pagan homestead and our give our homestead to our applicants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On investor development, Torres said the administration with DPL will be \u201cbusiness-friendly\u201d and working to \u201cstreamline\u201d the permitting process to make it is convenient as possible for current and future investors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer [environmental enforcement] background will help asses and expedite processes when we are doing our homestead on what kind of regulatory\u201d aspects need to satisfied, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am sure that here background will give a significant boost to the department\u201d and is \u201can asset to new investors,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Department of Public Lands Secretary Marianne Teregeyo in recent weeks has been issuing notices to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":222344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[175,470,67,38],"class_list":["post-222341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-dpl","tag-northern-marianas-descent","tag-people","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}