STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2154

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 3247

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2022

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 3247 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HAWAIIAN HOME LANDS,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to require the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to build apartments to address the housing needs of native Hawaiians on the homestead waitlist.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from one individual.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

 

     Your Committee finds that in 2019, about 28,500 native Hawaiian adults were on the waitlist for residential, farming, or ranching homesteads.  This number has not significantly decreased in the current day despite plans to rectify the situation, and to date, over two thousand native Hawaiian beneficiaries have died while on the waitlist.  The coronavirus 2019 pandemic has only made life more difficult for those homeless or struggling to pay rent while on the waitlist.  The purpose of this measure is to ameliorate this issue by constructing apartments on Hawaiian home lands to more quickly reduce the number of native Hawaiians on the waitlist.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by expanding the housing plan to include rent-with-option-to-buy and other rental housing units, in addition to apartment housing.

 

     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. 3247, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3247, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

 

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

 

 

 

________________________________

MAILE S.L. SHIMABUKURO, Chair