Virginia Bills

Allows a licensed hunter to use tracking dogs to find a wounded or dead bear, deer, or turkey. The bill authorizes the hunter to have a weapon in his possession and to use it to humanely kill the tracked animal, including after legal shooting hours. The bill prohibits using the weapon to hunt, wound, or kill any animal other than the animal the hunter is tracking, except in self-defense. Current law prohibits a hunter from having a weapon in his possession while tracking.

Requires the assessing official in any county that experienced at least a 14 percent increase in population from 2010 to 2016 to specially and separately assess real property that is devoted to open space use and that contains at least 20 acres on the basis of the actual physical use of the property, if requested to do so by the owner. The measure is effective for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2018.

Authorizes the Department of Conservation and Recreation to accept, without consideration, certain real property in Scott County measuring approximately 1.85 acres in total.

Directs the Department of Environmental Quality (the Department) to convene a work group to (i) assist the Department in carrying out the 2017 recommendation of the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Advisory Committee that an aquifer storage and recovery banking system be developed and (ii) study and identify the components of a groundwater trading program. The work group shall report its recommendations no later than July 1, 2020.

Establishes parameters regarding applications for zoning approvals for certain wireless support structures. Applications for certain new wireless support structures that are 50 feet or less above ground level and for the co-location on an existing structure of a wireless facility that is not a small cell facility are exempt from requirements that they obtain a special exception, special use permit, or variance, though a locality may require administrative review for the issuance of any zoning permits or an acknowledgement that zoning approval is not required for such projects. Aspects of the zoning approval process addressed in this measure include periods for approval or disapproval of applications; a requirement that applications are deemed approved if not approved or disapproved within the applicable period; application fees; a prohibition against unreasonably discriminating between applicants and other wireless services providers, providers of telecommunications services, and nonpublic providers of cable television and electric services; and limits on the number of new wireless support structures that can be installed in a specific location. The measure prohibits a locality, in its receiving, consideration, and processing of an application for zoning approval, from engaging in certain activities. The measure states that it does not prohibit a locality from disapproving an application submitted under a standard process project on the basis of the availability of existing wireless support structures within a reasonable distance that could be used for co-location at reasonable terms and conditions without imposing technical limitations on the applicant. The measure also requires that any publicly owned or privately owned wireless service provider operating within the Commonwealth or serving residents of the Commonwealth shall, by January 1, 2019, and annually thereafter until January 1, 2025, provide to the Department of Housing and Community Development a report detailing, by county, city, or town, enhanced service capacity in previously served areas and expansion of service in previously unserved geographic areas that are provided access to wireless service. This bill is identical to