STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1665

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: H.B. No. 1348

H.D. 2

S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred H.B. No. 1348, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, entitled:

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

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to establish a lottery system for the leasing of cabins on public lands for recreation-residence use.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Kōkeʻe Leaseholders Association, and forty-five individuals.

Your Committee finds that the historic recreation residence communities within Kōkeʻe-Waimea Canyon State Parks on the island of Kauaʻi have been cherished resources for local families for over a century. Currently, the parks contain approximately one hundred recreation-residence leases, which are unique in the State because they allow no permanent residence, but instead are intended for occasional use not to exceed one hundred eighty days of use per year. Your Committee further finds that, due to a combination of enabling legislation and past Board of Land and Natural Resources approvals establishing rent amounts, there presently exists an inequity in annual rents charged for these leases. For example, in 2009, appraised rents for cabins ranged from $5,000 to $9,500 annually, but the most recent auction of just seven cabins, held in 2024, resulted in winning bids ranging from $15,500 to $41,000 yearly for cabins in severely neglected condition. This measure will address this inequity and ensure that future management of the recreation-residence leases within Kōkeʻe-Waimea Canyon State Parks is a much more fair and equitable process.

Your Committee notes that, given that at least one lease for recreation-residence use per year is terminated and left vacant for years before the next disposition, and to create more frequent opportunities for the public to obtain a lease, this measure should be amended to require vacant properties be disposed of by public lottery within twelve months of the property becoming vacant. Your Committee believes that this requirement will ensure that more members of the public can obtain recreation-residences and that vacant properties will not sit idle and become dilapidated before subsequent lotteries.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Specifying that a lessee determined to be in good standing by the Board of Land and Natural Resources at the expiration of the lessee's lease may directly negotiate with the Board to renew the lease for an additional term not to exceed twenty years if the property has been subject to public lottery at least once;

(2) Requiring vacant properties be disposed of by public lottery within twelve months of the property becoming vacant; and

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

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1348, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1348, H.D. 2, S.D. 2.

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

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KARL RHOADS, Chair