STAND. COM. REP. NO. 288

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 1169

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 1169 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO COMMUNITY LAND TRUSTS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Authorize the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation to establish a five-year Community Land Trust Equity Pilot Program to provide community land trusts with a line of credit to fund the acquisition, rehabilitation, renovation, or construction of housing for low- to moderate-income households and report to the Legislature regarding the Pilot Program; and

(2) Appropriate funds from the Dwelling Unit Revolving Fund for the establishment of the Pilot Program.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation, Nā Hale O Maui, LIMBY Hawaiʻi, and three individuals.

Your Committee finds that community land trusts provide an opportunity to preserve affordable for-sale housing over an extended period of time. However, access to capital remains a persistent challenge for community land trusts in the development of housing. While certain organizations have borrowed funds from financial institutions in the past, the existing process is extensive and time-consuming, further delaying prospective projects on lands owned by community land trust organizations. Therefore, this measure offers another pathway to alleviate the State's chronic housing shortage while serving more low- and moderate-income individuals and families statewide.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Clarifying that low- and moderate-income households who are qualified residents as defined in section 201H-32, Hawaii Revised Statutes, earning not more than one hundred forty percent of the county area median income shall be eligible for housing in the Community Land Trust Equity Pilot Program; and

(2) 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 Housing that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1169, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1169, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

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

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STANLEY CHANG, Chair