Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2984 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to the Kikala-Keokea housing revolving fund to provide low-interest home construction loans for Kikala-Keokea leaseholders and to fund related activities.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawaii and the Hawaii County Economic Opportunity Council.

Your Committees find that Act 314, Session Laws of Hawaii 1991, as amended, authorized the Department of Land and Natural Resources to negotiate long-term leases with displaced families from Kalapana on ceded lands in the Kikala-Keokea homestead area. Act 314 was enacted to assist those displaced by the continuing lava flows from Kilauea, which began in 1983 and led to the eventual destruction of Kalapana in 1991. Your Committees further find that pursuant to Act 144, SLH 2001, the Legislature established the infrastructure development fund, to fund the construction of roads, water lines, and other infrastructure, and the Kikala-Keokea housing revolving fund, to provide low-interest loans to Kikala-Keokea lessees for residential construction. Your Committees believe that it is time to initiate the final step in this endeavor by appropriating the necessary funding to allow the disadvantaged survivors of the destructive lava flows at Kalapana to end their displacement, and to begin construction on their own homes.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2984 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.