Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 1356 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to be matched by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for the installation of infrastructure in the Maunalaha subdivision on Oahu.

Testimony in support of the measure was received from the Chairperson of Land and Natural Resources, the State Council of Hawaiian Homestead Associations, and three members of the Maunalaha Valley Community Association.

Specifically, the measure appropriates $661,000 to be matched by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for the installation of a water line and attendant safety infrastructure for the area.

Your Committee finds that many families of Hawaiian ancestry living in the Maunalaha region of Makiki Heights have been living in the area for a very long time, some since the Great Mahele. Act 225, Session Laws of Hawaii 1981, authorized the Department of Land and Natural Resources to negotiate and enter into long-term residential leases with residents who met certain specified criteria. When the leases were offered in 1983, however, only thirty leases were executed and only a few lessees have been able to construct new homes.

The remaining lessees of Maunalaha live in substandard housing, and have not been able to upgrade or rebuild their homes since they are unable to qualify for loans due to substandard infrastructure and because they do not own the land.

Your Committee believes that the installation of basic infrastructure for the area is long overdue and that the residents of Maunalaha at very least deserve the installation of such basic infrastructure as a water line and fire hydrants in the area.

Your Committee has amended the measure by changing the amount appropriated from $661,000 to $680,000 to more accurately reflect the cost of installing the necessary infrastructure.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1356, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1356, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.