STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2703

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2747

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2747 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO SUBDIVISION DOCUMENTS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to require the Department of Transportation, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and Department of Land and Natural Resources to submit to the counties certain information on parcels located within a subdivision.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Transportation, Department of Land and Natural Resources, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, Department of Budget and Fiscal Services of the City and County of Honolulu, and County of Maui Department of Finance.

     Your Committee finds that section 264-43, Hawaii Revised Statutes, which exempts the Department of Transportation from county subdivision ordinances in acquiring, subdividing, consolidating, maintaining, and administering the state highway system, poses problems for counties.  For example, section 3.48.010(F) of the Maui County Code provides, in pertinent part, "The director [of finance] shall provide for the County maps drawn to appropriate scale, showing all parcels, blocks, lots, or other divisions of land based upon ownership, and their areas or dimensions, numbered or otherwise designated in a systematic manner for convenience of identification, valuation, and assessment."  The exemption makes it difficult for Maui County to maintain accurate records of subdivision parcel ownership, since the Department of Transportation is not required to furnish any information to Maui County about parcels that may have been transferred by the Department to private owners or vice versa.

     The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and the Department of Land and Natural Resources pose similar problems as the Department of Transportation to the counties in their respective land transactions in subdivisions.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2747 and recommends that it pass Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs,

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair