Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred H.B. No. 2529 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to require each county to:

Hawaii's Thousand Friends and numerous concerned citizens testified in support of this bill. The Department of the Corporation Counsel of the City and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting of the City and County of Honolulu, and Kamehameha Schools opposed this measure. The Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaii provided comments.

Your Committee believes that any steps our Legislature can take to protect against future landslide or rockslide tragedies are of utmost priority. The Nuuanu tragedy that brought this issue to the public's attention involved an urban parcel that abuts a hillside lot, part of which is conservation land subject to state, not county, control. Further discussion is needed to clearly delineate state and county jurisdictional issues, including whether the state should be required to assess unstable conditions on conservation lands.

The Committee on Water, Land Use, and Hawaiian Affairs requested that your Committee consider the approach of this measure along with another bill that seeks to address the same danger, H.B. No. 2530. Your Committee did so and opted to move this measure forward.

Your Committee has amended this bill by:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2529, as amended herein, and recommends that it be referred to the Committee on Finance in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2529, H.D. 1.