Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 192, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to include accreted lands in the definition of state public lands. The measure also allows a private property owner to file an accretion claim to regain title to the owner's eroded land that has been restored by accretion.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Sierra Club Hawaii Chapter, Life of the Land, and four individuals. Testimony in opposition was received from one individual. Comments were submitted by the Board of Land and Natural Resources.

Your Committee finds that this measure will stop the unlawful taking of public beach land under the guise of fulfilling a nonexistent littoral right supposedly belonging to shorefront property owners. The measure will help protect Hawaii's public lands and fragile beaches by ensuring that coastal property owners do not inappropriately claim newly deposited lands makai of their property as their own.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 192, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.