STAND. COM. REP. NO. 896

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 321

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 Commerce and Consumer Protection and Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 321 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TRANSPORTATION,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to provide that the fee simple absolute title of a privately owned highway, road, alley, street, way, lane, bikeway, bridge, or trail is deemed transferred to adjacent property owners or the community association if certain conditions are met.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from two individuals.

Your Committees find that, when a subdivision is developed by a corporation, roadways or access routes that provide ingress and egress to the subdivision are also established for the lots. However, after the lots are sold, the development corporation can go inactive or be dissolved, sometimes decades before the roadways or access routes can be formally conveyed or transferred to the subdivision's community association, who ultimately becomes responsible for maintaining the roadways or access routes. Title issues concerning the roads can then complicate financing necessary to complete certain maintenance or repairs. This measure addresses this issue by reducing barriers that may preclude community associations from being able to properly maintain their roads.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion; and

(2) 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 Commerce and Consumer Protection and Judiciary that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 321, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 321, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Judiciary,

________________________________ KARL RHOADS, Chair

________________________________ JARRETT KEOHOKALOLE, Chair