STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2290

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2391

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Water and Land and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2391 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PUBLIC LANDS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to establish a two‑year pilot project to resolve user conflicts on public recreational lands by convening one working group within each county to identify and implement management strategies through the execution of a written agreement between interested parties, and to make an appropriation for the pilot project.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

     Your Committees find that more than eight million people visited Hawaii in 2013, and the Hawaii Tourism Authority has projected that there will be nearly nine million visitors in 2014.  The United Nations World Tourism Organization further projects a fifty percent increase in global tourism by 2020.  Moreover, a more active visitor population combined with the use of social media by visitors and the tourism industry will likely result in greater numbers of people exploring a wider variety of the State's public lands for recreational purposes.

     Your Committees believe that as Hawaii's population and visitor base have grown, there have been more conflicts over public recreational resources.  The informal agreements that were used in the past to resolve these conflicts are no longer working.  In many places across our islands, these conflicts have existed for years without resolution.  The shared jurisdiction over these public lands often stymies solutions.  Conflicts in a small coastal area may span a county park, state unencumbered beach land, aquatic resources, a historic site, and a county road accessed off a state highway.  No single agency, or division of an agency, is able to resolve such conflicts on its own.

     A working group would facilitate the identification of recreational land management solutions that are better suited for the unique challenges faced in the various sites that are currently the subject of user conflicts.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Scaling down the pilot project to one project, through one working group, on the island of Oahu only;

     (2)  Providing that the two at-large community representatives of the working group be invited by the Governor;

     (3)  Deleting the appropriation; and

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

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water and Land and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2391, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2391, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water and Land and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs,

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair

____________________________ MALAMA SOLOMON, Chair