Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Water, Land, and Agriculture, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 98 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to request the Department of Land and Natural Resources to create a task force to assess the status of Ahu O Laka in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, and to address other issues related to the site.

Your Committee circulated a proposed amendment to this measure that replaces its contents with language that urges the City and County of Honolulu to proceed with caution in reviewing developments on steep hillsides with potential rockfall hazards.

Testimony in support of this proposed amendment was submitted by the Department of Land and Natural Resources, the University of Hawaii Environmental Center, a City and County of Honolulu city council member, the Nu`uanu/Punchbowl Neighborhood Board, the Law Offices of Philip S. Nerney, LLLC, and nineteen individuals.

In recent years, there have been several rockfalls in the Nu`uanu valley, killing one person in 2002. Currently, there is a private landowner who intends to develop a nine-lot subdivision above existing homes on a very steep terrain. The community believes that this development will put homeowners below in further jeopardy and subject their properties to even greater flooding. Your Committee finds that caution should be used in developing this area. Accordingly, this measure urges the City and County of Honolulu to proceed with caution in reviewing developments on steep hillsides with potential rockfall hazards.

Your Committee notes that the issue of building on steep hillsides with potential rockfall hazards is a pervasive problem, and your Committee further finds that this issue should be addressed statewide in the future.

Your Committee has therefore amended this measure by adopting the proposed amendment.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Water, Land, and Agriculture that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 98, as amended herein, and recommends its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.C.R. No. 98, S.D. 1.