STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2161

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2793

       S.D. 1

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2793 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE HAWAIIAN HOMES COMMISSION ACT,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to allow the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to suspend administrative rules for the purpose of awarding a lease to a native Hawaiian who has waited for a lease award for twenty years or more.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Hawaiian Homelands, Sovereign Councils of the Hawaiian Homelands Assembly, Kewalo Hawaiian Homestead Association, Nanakuli Hawaiian Homestead Community Association, Waianae Kai Hawaiian Homestead Association, the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, and one individual.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from one individual.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Aupuni o Hawaii.

     Your Committee finds that there are over twenty thousand applicants for Hawaiian home lands lease awards, nearly one-third of whom have waited twenty years or more for a lease award.  As individuals who applied for lease awards age, lease awards on some of Hawaii's most desolate, remote lands, on large houselots, may no longer be suitable for those senior citizens.  Your Committee also finds that the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is exploring various types of housing, including multi-generational and senior housing, and to allow for the suspension of the administrative rules to make viable housing options accessible to applicants who applied for lease awards no less than twenty years ago.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

     (1)  Amending the effective date to allow the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to suspend administrative rules until June 30, 2017; and

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2793, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2793, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Hawaiian Affairs,

____________________________

BRICKWOOD GALUTERIA, Chair