Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Water, Land, Energy and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 1473 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish a special advisor and smart growth council to ensure that state investments and actions support smart growth objectives.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism Office of Planning, University of Hawaii at Manoa Environmental Center, Hawaii's Thousand Friends, Sierra Club Hawaii Chapter, and American Planning Association.

Your Committee finds that smart growth is a national strategy developed in response to threats to economic viability and productivity from development patterns that neglect established communities, support dispersed growth, and encroach on productive farm lands and open space. This unfettered growth costs the public in real dollars through higher taxes and infrastructure, and brings with it related social costs.

Your Committee finds that the advisory aspects of this measure will be beneficial for Hawaii's leaders who face many of the smart growth issues found nationwide. Your Committee has amended this measure to make technical amendments to reflect the preferred drafting style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Water, Land, Energy and Environment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1473, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1473, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.