STAND. COM. REP. NO.  685

Honolulu, Hawaii

                , 2009

RE:   H.B. No. 1047

      H.D. 1

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2009

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Water, Land, & Ocean Resources and Agriculture, to which was referred H.B. No. 1047 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO IMPORTANT AGRICULTURAL LANDS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this bill is to refine the important agricultural lands (IALs) law by providing that:

(1)  In a petition for a declaratory order designating IALs that also seeks to reclassify agricultural land to rural, urban, or conservation:

(a)  The agricultural land must be on the same island as the IAL, as opposed to the current requirement that the agricultural land be within the same county; and

(b)  The Land Use Commission (LUC) is required to evaluate the petition for compliance with the LUC's decision-making standards and criteria applicable to all petitions, in addition to the current law that requires the evaluation be based on the standards for amending district boundaries;

     and

(2)  Providing that all conditions imposed by the LUC in the declaratory order designating land as IAL shall run with the land.

     The Department of Agriculture, Office of Planning, the Executive Officer of the LUC, Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaii, and Hawaii's Thousand Friends testified in support of this bill. 

     Your Committees have amended this bill by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for style, clarity, and consistency.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, & Ocean Resources and Agriculture that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1047, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1047, H.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, & Ocean Resources and Agriculture,

____________________________ CLIFT TSUJI, Chair

____________________________ KEN ITO, Chair