STAND. COM. REP. NO. 558-22

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2022

RE: H.B. No. 2442

H.D. 1

Honorable Scott K. Saiki

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2022

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Housing, to which was referred H.B. No. 2442 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO BUILDING INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to update the cost valuations of work on certain privately-owned or privately-controlled buildings, dwellings, or structures for the work to qualify for an exemption from the requirement that plans and specifications for construction projects be prepared by a licensed engineer or architect.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from one individual. Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Board of Professional Engineers, Architects, Surveyors, and Landscape Architects.

Your Committee finds that making a house accessible, renovating a bathroom, modernizing a kitchen, or other simple renovation projects require a licensed professional engineer or architect to prepare plans for the renovation based on certain cost valuations. The exemption from this requirement is set in statute and based on cost valuations originally established in 1979. Your Committee further finds that these outdated cost valuations have unnecessarily added to the costs of simple home renovations. An update to the cost valuations used to qualify for this exemption is therefore necessary.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Reducing the estimated cost valuation figures by fifty percent; and

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

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Housing that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2442, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2442, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Finance.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Housing,

____________________________

NADINE K. NAKAMURA, Chair