Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 1468 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to reduce from two acres to one acre the maximum size of a parcel of land that qualifies for mandatory lease-to-fee conversion under the Residential Leaseholds Law, and to clarify that the land shall be zoned for residential use.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawaii, Kamehameha Schools, Small Landowners of Oahu, and three individuals.

Chapter 516, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS), relating to residential leaseholds, authorizes the mandatory lease-to-fee conversion of residential leaseholds. The nature of today's residential housing development is such that residential housing is frequently a component of a commercially zoned mixed use project or agriculturally zoned project. Proponents of this measure have argued that mandatory conversion was intended to apply only to residentially zoned land, not to agricultural land or mixed-use properties. This measure would limit mandatory conversions to properties zoned for residential use.

Your Committee has amended this measure by deleting the qualification that the condemned property be of one acre or less, because it is the original purpose of chapter 516, HRS, to apply to residential properties of all sizes.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1468, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1468, S.D. 1.