STAND. COM. REP. NO. 473

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 26

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Housing and Water and Land, to which was referred S.B. No. 26 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Establish the Affordable Housing Land Inventory Task Force within the Hawaii Community Development Authority to update the Affordable Rental Housing Report and Ten‑Year Plan maps, tier tables, and inventories of state lands suitable and available for affordable housing development;

(2) Require a report to the Legislature; and

(3) Appropriate funds.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation, Hawaii Public Housing Authority, Office of Housing and Community Development of the County of Hawaiʻi, and one individual.

Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority and Office of Planning and Sustainable Development.

Your Committees find that transit-oriented development allows more individuals and families to live near places of employment. Therefore, this measure prioritizes the identification of lands and the feasibility of transit-oriented development to help the state address its chronic housing shortage.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Adding the following members to the task force:

(A) The President of the Senate, or their designee;

(B) The Speaker of the House of Representatives, or their designee; and

(C) One representative from each county;

(2) Expanding the duties of the taskforce to conduct a study;

(3) Inserting a blank appropriation out of the Rental Housing Revolving Fund for the Mayor Wright Homes affordable housing project; and

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

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Housing and Water and Land that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 26, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 26, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Housing and Water and Land,

________________________________ LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair

________________________________ STANLEY CHANG, Chair