SB2933 HD1

THE SENATE	H.B. NO.	2933
TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2008		S.D. 2
STATE OF HAWAII		H.D. 1

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that electric clothes dryers use over ten per cent of many households' total energy demand. Reducing the use of clothes dryers in the state could substantially decrease the amount of electricity that households use, and thereby reduce the amount of fossil fuels used to generate electricity.

The legislature further finds that simple clotheslines make efficient use of two abundant resources, sun and wind, to dry clothing. For aesthetic reasons, however, many homeowners associations' prohibit or render ineffective the use of clotheslines to dry clothes by association member homeowners. The legislature further finds that, while aesthetic concerns may have been acceptable 20 years ago, it makes no sense today to restrict smart energy-saving behavior given Hawaii's high energy costs, overdependence of fossil fuels, and climate change issues.

The purpose of this Act is to allow the use of clotheslines on any privately owned single-family residential dwelling or townhouse.

SECTION 2. Section 196-7, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending the title and subsection (a) as follows:

"§196-7 Placement of solar energy devices[.] and clotheslines. (a) Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, no person shall be prevented by any covenant, declaration, bylaws, restriction, deed, lease, term, provision, condition, codicil, contract, or similar binding agreement, however worded, from installing a solar energy device on any single-family residential dwelling or townhouse that the person owns[.] , or erecting and using a clothesline for the purpose of drying clothes on the premises of any single-family residential dwelling or townhouse that the person owns; provided that rules that facilitate the placement of clotheslines shall not be unduly or unreasonably restrictive. Any provision in any lease, instrument, or contract contrary to the intent of this section shall be void and unenforceable."

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.