Legislature is heating up - actions & recaps
It’s been an action packed first two weeks of the 2023 Legislative Session. While we are tracking hundreds of environmental and social justice bills, we’re keeping an especially close eye on a handful of bad bills. Here are two bills being heard this Wednesday that would limit the authority of the land use commission that could use your help and a quick recap of the outcome of last week’s bills. We’re also following a handful of bills pertaining to Red Hill, which you can see here. Don’t forget you can read more about all our legislative action at hawaiicapitolwatch.org and sign up for email alerts here.
Land Use Commission Authority bills —
Both bills are being heard on Wednesday, February 8 at 11am before the House Committees on Housing + Water & Land, room 312—testimony is therefore due Tuesday, February 7, 11am. Details, sample testimony & instructions below.
HB673: Authorizes counties to reclassify lands that are 15-100 acres in certain rural, urban, and agricultural districts in which at least 50% of the housing units on the land are set aside for affordable housing.
Why this is bad:
This bill would prevent the Land Use Commission (“LUC”) from applying its decades of institutional knowledge and practice, and its critically important “quasi-judicial” approach to decisionmaking, in vast land use district changes (i.e. from agricultural to urban).
While the intent of the bill is laudable, the LUC is not the purported barrier to affordable housing as certain developers have claimed; instead, its decades of experience have provided it with the ability to effectively and efficiently navigate and balance highly complex public interests (including environmental, cultural, agricultural, socioeconomic, climate, and even affordable housing concerns) that may be impacted by large-scale development proposals. No completed affordable housing application has been denied within the 45-day statutory deadlines imposed on the LUC, and tens of thousands of housing units have been approved by the LUC, but never built.
The LUC also evaluates and approves land use changes using a “quasi-judicial” process, where expert and kamaʻāina testimony and other evidence is explicitly considered in findings of fact, conclusions of law, and conditions of approval - providing a transparent and objective basis for its decisionmaking. The counties, on the other hand, utilize a “quasi-legislative” process, where public testimony is simply received and a decision rendered, without any requirement for testimony or other evidence be used as a basis for decisionmaking.
Sample testimony:
Dear Chairs Hashimoto and Ichiyama, Vice Chairs Aiu and Poepoe, and Members of hte Committee,
My name is ______ and I respectfully OPPOSE HB673. There are a range of public interests that may be impacted, potentially for generations, by large scale land use changes. These interests - environmental, cultural, agricultural, socioeconomic, and others – must be carefully and transparently balanced, to address concerns, minimize unnecessary impacts, and minimize conflict and controversy. The Land Use Commission has decades of experience in doing just this, and should not have its ability to oversee land use district reclassifications limited or eliminated.
Forcing county planning departments to take on the new burden of solely administering land use district reclassification and balancing the myriad public interests in land use could have significant, long-lasting, and avoidable impacts on those interests. This could even have the inadvertent effect of delaying affordable housing production, by reducing planning departments’ capacity to administer other permits and applications needed for housing development and redevelopment.
Rather than reduce the LUC’s authority, the Committees may wish to consider providing it with enforcement tools that can better hold developers accountable when they fail to produce promised affordable and workforce housing units after their petitions for district boundary reclassifications are approved.
Accordingly, I respectfully urge the Committees to HOLD HB673. Mahalo nui for the opportunity to testify.
HB676: Authorizes counties to determine district boundary amendments involving land areas over fifteen acres if the county has adopted an ordinance that meets certain requirements.
Why this is bad:
This bill, like HB673, would reduce the ability of the LUC to oversee large-scale land use district boundary changes. While it has additional conditions that are more carefully tailored to target affordable housing development, it still risks the potential for inadvertent, significant, and long-term if not irrevocable impacts to the public’s environmental, cultural, agricultural, and socioeconomic interests.
Sample testimony:
Dear Chairs Hashimoto and Ichiyama, Vice Chairs Aiu and Poepoe, and Members of hte Committee,
My name is ______ and I respectfully OPPOSE HB676. There are a range of public interests that may be impacted, potentially for generations, by large scale land use changes. These interests - environmental, cultural, agricultural, socioeconomic, and others – must be carefully and transparently balanced, to address concerns, minimize unnecessary impacts, and minimize conflict and controversy. The Land Use Commission has decades of experience in doing just this, and should not have its ability to oversee land use district reclassifications limited or eliminated.
Even with the conditions proposed under this measure, this bill still poses the risk of unintended consequences and unnecessary impacts to a wide range of public interests by forcing county planning departments to take on the new burden of solely administering large-scale land use district reclassification petitions. This could even have the inadvertent effect of delaying affordable housing production, by reducing planning departments’ capacity to administer other permits and applications needed for housing development and redevelopment.
Rather than reduce the LUC’s authority, the Committees may wish to consider providing it with enforcement tools that can better hold developers accountable when they fail to produce promised affordable and workforce housing units after their petitions for district boundary reclassifications are approved.
Accordingly, I respectfully urge the Committees to HOLD HB673. Mahalo nui for the opportunity to testify.
Testimony instructions:
Register for a capitol website account if you havenʻt yet (youʻll need to confirm your registration by responding to an automated email)
Sign in to capitol.hawaii.gov with your registration information and click the "Submit Testimony" button.
Enter "HB673 or HB676" where it says "Enter Bill or Measure."
Input your information and your written testimony, select your testimony option(s)—in-person + written, remotely + written, written only. Please consider providing verbal testimony (in-person or remotely) if you are able!
Note: Virtual testimony option may be disabled 24 hours before the hearing.
If you are testifying via Zoom, be sure to review these instructions (page 4)
Recap of last week’s bills —
SB92 which repeals Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Areas after an unspecified number of years was passed out of the Senate Water and Land Committee on 2/1 with amendments. Read more here.
HB1247 which would exempt certain housing development projects on public lands or using public funds to move forward without environmental review. Following cautious comments and testimony in opposition, the chairs deferred the bill on 2/3—the bill is now defeated for this session. Big mahalo to Chair Hashimoto and Chair Lowen! Read more here.
SB77 which transfers nearly one hundred thousand acres of pasturelands from DLNR to DOA without DLNR approval was passed out of the Senate Committees on Water and Land + Agriculture and Environment on 2/3 with amendments. Read more here.
SB71 which exempts wells on Department of Agriculture lands from environmental review was passed out of the Senate Committees on Water and Land + Agriculture and Environment on 2/3 with amendments. Read more here.