STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2346

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 3062

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Transportation and International Affairs and Higher Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 3062 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TRANSPORTATION,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to require the Department of Transportation and the University of Hawaii to complete negotiations and execute an agreement no later than July 1, 2015, to relocate the University of Hawaii Marine Center, and to terminate the current lease at that time if no agreement is reached.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Transportation and the Hawaii Harbors Users Group.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and one individual.

     The University of Hawaii Marine Center comprises seventeen acres that include harbor frontage under a gratis lease with the Department of Transportation.  Your Committees find that the land is essential to the development of the Kapalama containment terminal project.  This area is the sole remaining harbor lands that can be redeveloped for maritime use to meet the current and future expansion demands to ensure and preserve Hawaii's economic prosperity and quality of life.

     The Department of Transportation and University of Hawaii are currently operating under a long-term lease at gratis which has an unexpired term of twenty-four years.  The Department has previously committed to extending the lease terms to thirty-five years.  However, if the relocation negotiations for the University of Hawaii Marine Center that have taken place over the past seven years are amicably resolved for both parties, then the Department would be willing to cancel the lease.  H.C.R. No. 266, H.D. 1, Regular Session of 2006, which was adopted by both houses, requested the Department of Transportation and the University of Hawaii "to collaborate, on a priority basis, to effectuate the relocation of UH Marine Center".  The Department is currently planning and designing a new terminal facility for the site and has incurred costly expenses associated with plans and design.  Meanwhile, the Department has agreed to fund $17,000,000 for the relocation of the Marine Center.

     Your Committees understand that both parties are negotiating in earnest at the present time to come to an agreement.  Your Committees intend that those negotiations continue and are hopeful that an agreement can be consummated soon.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Transportation and International Affairs and Higher Education that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3062 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Transportation and International Affairs and Higher Education,

____________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair

____________________________ J. KALANI ENGLISH, Chair