Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Environment

Hello, and welcome to the joint hearing with Senate Committee on Economic Development and tourism, water, land, culture, and the arts and transportation. Today is Wednesday, 03/25/2026. This is our 1PM agenda, and we're in Conference Room 224. The hearing is being streamed live on YouTube. Joining us is chair from Water and Land, Senator Lee, as well as chair from Transportation, Senator Inouye.

We have a one minute time limit for all testifiers as we have various agendas on this afternoon. This agenda has only one bill, HB 2438 HD three relating to Hawaii Culture Trust. First off, testifying for Hawaii Department of Taxation.

Clinton Piper, the Department of Taxation. We'll stand on our written comments.

Thank you. Next up, DBED, Director Tokioka with comments, following testifying for State Foundation Culture Arts Support. Mayor Bisson also in support, testifying for customer services, with comments and testifying for Donkey Mio Art Center in support, as well as Hawaii Arts Alliance in support. Any other, wishing to testify on this measure? Seeing none members, any questions?

Excuse me.

Oh, thank you, Tom. Go ahead.

Sorry, you probably didn't see me. And sorry for not submitting testimony. We wanted to point out that the new trust fund created by this bill does not seem to meet the criteria in HRS section 37-62. That requires, any trust to have beneficiaries with some, tangible interest in the in the upcoming. We don't think we have any.

And so we question why a new trust account is being created. It's easy enough to disperse the money to the the designated beneficiaries. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to testify? Seeing none members, any questions? Seeing none.

CFC is not here, right?

No. Okay. So question, Chair. So are we saying that the income from the number plates will benefit this fund? This, I mean, this, this new trust.

Is that correct? Oh, okay. So no other funds. Nobody the general public don't add a fee. Nothing coming out of the general fund.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Thank you.

Okay. Our members in regard to HB 243 relating to the Hawaii Cultural Trust, recommendation is to pass with an SD1 by redefecting the defective date to 07/01/3050. Any discussion? Seeing none, vice chair for the vote, chair goes aye.

Aye.

Senator Fevella?

I vote yes, Senator Fukunaga?

Aye.

Aye.

Senator Kim?

Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Committee on Water Land, same recommendation. Chair votes aye.

All right. The committee on Water, Land, Culture and the Arts Chair's recommendation on HB 2438 House Draft three to pass with amendments. Chair Lee goes aye, Vice Chair goes aye. Senator Chang?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Senator Lamosao.

Senator DeCorte.

Okay. Measure is adopted, Mr. Chair. And that's me next. Where's my, oh, where's my, okay. Thank you so much.

Yes. Okay. For the Committee on Transportation Chair's recommendation then is to pass HB 2438 house draft three with amendments. Any discussions for the committee on transportation? Hearing none, vice adopted chair, vice chair.

Thank you so much.

Okay. Committee on transportation. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments on HB 243 a HD three. Chair votes Aye, acting vice chair votes I. Senator Elefante is excused.

Senator Kutak excused. Senator Lee?

Aye.

Chair, your measure has been adopted.

Thank you so much.

Oh, with that, we are adjourned. Thank you.

Good afternoon. We're convening the joint committees on water, land, culture, and the arts, economic development and tourism, and agriculture and the environment on our 01:01pm agenda here in State Capital Conference Room 224. We have one bill on the agenda HB 1949 relating to the green fee. We have everybody's written testimony. We have a number of agendas up in this time slot separate from this one.

So we just be asking everyone to, keep their testimony concise. We'll be limiting you to one minute to make sure that we have time to hear from all testifiers. So with that, first testifying on HB 1949 is the Department of Ag and Biosecurity. ... Thank you. Up next is the Department of Land and Natural Resources. ...

Thank you. Next is the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development. ... Thank you. Hawaii State Youth Commission on Zoom.

Aloha, chairs, vice chairs, members of the committee. My name is Vivian Hill. I'm testifying on behalf of the Hawaii State Youth Commission in strong support of HB 1949 House Draft one. The green fee has a lot of potential for Hawaii and its residents. We recognize, that the political pressure on environmental efforts and eroding public trust in the state can undermine that potential.

And that's why we support the funding accountability measures in this bill. The monitoring and reporting responsibilities assigned to the Hawaii Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Committee are key to building resident confidence in the fee. Demonstrating transparency here lays the groundwork for tackling harder climate challenges ahead. The Hawaii State Youth Commission strongly urges the committee to pass HB 1949 house draft one. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you. Up next is Hawaii Greengrove. ...

Care for Aina now coalition. ... Thank you. Kupu. ...

And also moving forward as we continue to go into the dry season following the flood, having erosion and more invasive species likely coming into those areas that puts us at a higher risk for wildfires in summer. So a project one of the projects that the Green ... Crews does a lot of work to mitigate future risks and system levels, mitigate that react to disasters as we see them.

Thank you. Green Fee Advisory Council.

Sorry to break the ice and actually come up here. But good afternoon, Chairs Inouye, DeCoite, and Lee and members of the committees. Jeff Michalina filling in for Carmela. She's one of our 10 members on the Green Tea Advisory Council. We spent the fall going through a very rigorous process evaluating some 621 proposals that came up with that list of recommendations, which is now in House Bill 1800, which we hope that you'll look favorably at.

This measure, House Bill 1949, builds on that transparency and accountability. We think it's essential to have some sort of a dashboard so we can track these projects. The public can see where these dollars are going. There's obviously gonna be a lot of scrutiny on these, funds coming in.

We wanna make sure it goes to the highest and best use, which was really our guiding star throughout the fall in identifying the sum 75 projects in those recommendations, Early visible, high impact winds, that really move us forward for stronger climate resilience, environmental stewardship, and more regenerative tourism.

So we hope we can move this forward and, have a good look at that hospital 1,800 recommendations. Mahalo.

Thank you. Up next on Zoom is Carrie Ostroski.

Aloha, chairs, vice chairs, and members of the committees. I'm Carrie Ostroski. I'm submitting testimony as an individual, from Waikoloa on Hawaii Island in support of HB 1949. The dashboard and the related accountability and transparency, in addition to the community partnerships with state agencies and the project portfolio recommended by the advisory council, I believe are acceptable ways to move the green fee fund forward and, also propel projects and leverage existing investments. Mahalo for your support of HB 1949.

Thank you. Also on Zoom, Lynn Keter.

Not present on Zoom, chair.

Okay. That's everybody who had signed up to testify on HB 1949. Is there anyone else wishing to testify? Good afternoon.

Aloha, senators. My name is Melissa Pavlicek on behalf of the Care for Aina Now Coalition Leadership Committee. I know you heard from our coalition members. We support this measure and in addition, there are so few opportunities to speak to the projects themselves and the funding for them. We've brought up individual community based organizations to champion various parts of the recommendation of the Green Fee Advisory Committee.

So we thank you for hearing this. We appreciate transparency, and we're here to support this measure. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to testify? Please go forward.

Good afternoon, chairs, vice chairs, members of the committee. Rika Konashige on behalf of Will Kane. Office supports the intent of the bill. However, we recommend the comments of placing the dashboard within the Department of Budget and Finance, where it is, the project on training evaluation is currently housed in Buff 101.

Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else in the room? Please come forward.

Quick, can you give a quick show of hands just who else might want to testify in this? Anyone else? Okay. ...

Thank you. Is there anybody online who was wishing to testify? Saw one person pop up when we asked earlier.

No one online, chair.

Okay. Great. Alright. Thank you everybody. Are there any questions?

Jeff, please. Thanks. Thanks for being here. And just for the rest of, you know, this measure had no Senate version. So we're looking at a house bill.

Okay. So the questions I have, according to this measure, and just to let everyone know, I'm a big supporter of cruise ships. This measure includes still on your page one, that a green fee is the new imposition of taxes on the cruise fares. We know what happened after the house heard this measure. Okay.

There's testimony that came in from the cruise lines, objecting to the method of the TAT portion that, the initial phase of the cruise ship portion was taking the entire TAT as a whole on the passenger ticket and not to the, portion of the TAT that should go only to the cabins. Okay. Thereafter, we got a suit. There is a suit right now. So with that said, there is another bill, and I'm not sure where it's at right now.

If we can find out, addressing another way of accommodating this project, to just charging the fee only to the cabins. Okay. Now, and the project that amount is somewhere about $6 going to the harbor division at DLNR, at DOT. With that said, there is a suit. Our and by the way, I have no problem with addressing environment and all the projects that we have.

I have an issue with the way that the TAT is addressing the full cabins, which we all heard from the cruise lines. Why are we paying? And for all of you that travels on the cruise ship, on any cruise lines, you pay a ticket. Let's say it's $5,000. That's what where this bill asks for.

I have an issue with that. Okay? And the cruise lines don't mind if it's correct, go charge to the cabins. Now with that said, where are we in this measure before us? Just to let you know that why I'm involved with this, I'm from the Big Island.

The one who is going to suffer the most. If we have less cruise ships coming into the state, the impact will be Hilo and Kauai. And reason I say is that for Hilo, we have no industry. West Hawaii has the resorts. We depend on small businesses.

So all of downtown Hilo is open whenever there's the cruise ships in town. So we benefit. On Kauai, there is a Luau for three times a week, and they have close to 700 people there at Luau's. Now we also heard a position from Kilohana on Kauai. So our small harbors and the islands, neighbor islands are gonna be impacted.

So where do we stand with this measure? I know we may make some amendments and we'd like to hear from the chairs, but where are we on this bill as we see it? And how are, is the administration, the, the governor seeks the suit that's already there. And we all know as a former mayor, my cop counsel always told me, and AG also always tells us whenever there's a suit, you don't wanna dwell on an issue that may impact the court's decision.

So with that said, please tell us.

Thank you, chair. And completely recognize your concern and, you know, looking out for those communities that may be impacted. You know, we we certainly know that there are significant impacts from cruise ship visitors and recognize that you also see that there should be a connection there. In fact, at the Green Fee Advisory Council, we've received a number of, concerns or proposals that looked at places where, you know, cruise ships disgorged and they found higher impact in the county bathrooms and the parks nearby.

So there certainly is a nexus between that, you know, cruise ship industry and impacts to our local environment.

We know that there's a lawsuit pending. I know the state feels like they're gonna prevail in that lawsuit. I'll let the the state, you know, speak to that. Appreciate you trying to navigate this as best you can. The measure before you is is simply

about also share with you. This suit has also happened in different states years ago, And all of the states that had filed sued, the cruise lines benefited because they won all the cases. So I disagree with the governor if they're saying the state is gonna prevail, but let's see who wins at the end. So having said that, let's tell the truth, and that's why we're here for transparency.

Yeah. Understand. And the measure before you is all about transparency and just whatever funds do come in, irrespective of how things land, we wanna make sure that we monitor and track and really understand where those dollars are going for the highest impact. And so there's open Kimono, and people know that the dollars are being spent in an accountable way.

Okay. But this bill, are we only looking at the cruise ships for a fund to create this fund so everybody can enjoy it?

Again, the measure before you is just creating that dashboard and that accountability. Separately, in house bill 1800, it is a proposal to expend those funds that were created through act 96 last year in the green fee, which does apply to cruise ships currently.

And at the full charge of the ticket?

Not only the cabins. K. I'll make my decision later then. Thank you.

Currently.

Further questions? While you're here, let me dive in just a couple First of all, I appreciate all the work the Green Fee Advisory Council, all the folks from the community weighing in and various folks spent, sounds like, months going through everything and coming up with a list that was then

submitted. Just wanna really highlight the amount of work that I'm sure went into that and really appreciate, appreciate all that. I think the the house budget just crossed over, like, I think, like a week ago. So we haven't had a real chance to dive into the details.

One of the things that's come up in at least some of those discussions and and you know in general is of course what's in there, how does the money gonna be spent which is sort of the the subject of this bill trying to capture I think for accountability purposes that transparency and everything so that you know a year or two years or whenever it is from now I was gonna look back.

One of the things that had been brought up is through that process I know a number of organizations were identified who would be potential partners with the state working on various land and water and other sorts of remediation and various things. Do we have some sort of, like, framework for how that's gonna work and what that looks like right now?

Yeah. This is a great point to bring up because we felt, you know, on the council that we want to make sure folks that are on the ground doing the work, that have the best awareness of of the work that needs to be done are receiving funds. The state being a fantastic partner, we understand their capacity constraints and things, and organizations out there really doing the work.

So trying to identify the right mix of programs that can be executed by the state and those that can be done in partnership with community. So we received some 500 plus, you know, proposals from the community.

In that sorting through trying to find alignment with departmental priorities, And that's what came out in our final recommendations, which was then governor's message too and moved into House Bill 1800 and crossed over to you. For the mechanisms, that is a challenge, but the administration recognizes that, you know, we might need to do things, creatively, more quickly.

There's talk of creating a green stewardship fund that would exist in DLNR elsewhere that could help get some of these dollars out the door quickly to community groups through a competitive, you know, procurement process, which we think is really important. And that's why in that House Bill 1800 there are lump sums of funding with identified programs, regional areas, and projects. But organizations aren't listed because we didn't want to prejudice those organizations in a competitive bidding process later.

So having the agencies closest to the work go through that process, you know, through procurement, through a sub granting, or through a new process that the departments come up with.

So a part of the challenge is, for some of these, the lump sums are quite lumpy, and there's a lot of there's not a lot of detail. Let me put it that way. And I think we're trying to trying to figure out what that looks like,

because ultimately, right, this is like a 130 some odd million dollars potentially that is going out to a lot of these purposes. It's good to know, like, how that's going to go. And I think for a lot of the discussion that's taking place so far, I mean, here in the building, getting a sense of who those are specifically is kind of important.

Not because we wanna prejudice or screw up any process for procurement, but in a lot of cases, there's only really, like, one organization doing the work in an area. And so we kind of already know, or at least it sounds like, who's likely to get that, but it's just kind of unclear.

And when you have multiple communities identified that are served by one organization versus others, you know, how that money is gonna be dispersed is just it helps with some transparency to get a sense of who's getting what ultimately before money is just appropriated for, you know, kind of a nebulous purpose.

Yeah. Understand that concern. Hopefully, it's not too nebulous. And if there is more detail we can provide on some of those larger lump sums and what was envisioned, Happy to do so and kind of share, you know, the types of projects that have been done or that are anticipated. Again, wary about, you know, putting the cart before the horse in terms of which exact organizations.

We think that real transparency and kind of competitive process is important. As I said, you've heard from a lot of organizations that have been supporting the green fee amendments. Some of them are here, with organizations that are anticipating, perhaps participating in some of that funding. We know historically groups that have been doing, you know, large landscape scale wildfire mitigation projects really successfully that have existing relationships with the department, so they would be well placed to be receiving the funds. Yeah.

I think that's part of the question. Right? If the folks are before us asking for funds for various purposes like we have a number of organizations, nonprofits, and whatever do amazing work in the community coming in for grants and aid through the traditional grants and aid process. You've got folks coming in for funding through other means and this is like a new third, fourth and maybe even fifth sort of stream of funding that potentially could fund some of that.

On our end it's hard to know you know are we granting somebody funding on one hand over here and they're also lining up to get funding over here for something when there's multiple priorities, even in that particular one island or community? How do we weigh that?

Right. Yep. And there, I mean, again, we hope we have a very transparent process for the departments that are looking at how groups are funded, who's historically been underfunded, regional areas that need extra funding, certainly. You know, we were we had some constraints with Act 96 and the guidelines that the council received that this was going to be a supplemental budget request from the governor for funding two departments. So we were constrained in terms of, you know, being explicit about which organizations.

But for the for the actual funding, so you're talking about procurement. Is is that the pathway that all this money is supposed to flow through?

I mean, the legislature has the opportunity to expend the funds how they wish, certainly. In Act 96, it instructed the governor to submit to the legislature, you know, in those three buckets, recommendations for the funding that would flow in the traditional budget process to departments.

Sure. I I guess what I mean is within each department is let's assume each department has like, I don't know, multiple lump sums going to different kinds of things within that. From from what we're hearing so far anyway, not every division or every department has grant making authority or even in some cases contracting authority for a specific kind of thing. That's what we're trying to sort out here.

So how do we ultimately get people money even if you know, there's money to to provide for that specific thing?

Sure. Right. And as I understand it, I would also love to hear from the administration too on ideas that they have to make sure that those dollars can go out.

Sure. Sure. Let me let you off the hook real quick and I'm sorry. Before before we go on, anyone else have

I have one more question.

She wants me on the hook.

Yes. I will put you on the hook

Initially, when we started this green fee from the governor's office, this TAT was not included. He asked me because I'm always looking for the small guy and don't like to raise taxes, as needed, as well. And so asked me to support the bill without the TAT. Okay. So having said that, the house decided to include to all of us unknown that a TAT was going to be in this measure on the governor's bill.

I just wanted to make that clear that I decided I'm gonna support the measure initially on the act because I made that promise to the governor. But now have you considered talking to the governor If he's willing to say and make a change prior to what the attorney general wants to say, who's going to win in the court case to drop the cost of the TAT back only to the cabins like we do at the hotels?

I have not had that conversation. That'd be good question.

Is there anybody here from the governor's office?

Okay. Has any discussion been made? The question is, is the governor willing to make a change on this measure instead of the TAT going into the full ticket of a passenger? Yeah.

Rika Konashige on behalf of governor's office. It's my understanding that we've been working closely with attorney general's office, and I can't, I can get the answer back to you. But right now, they are working on the case. I don't know specifically what, pertaining to the cruise ship language within Act 96. But, currently, what we've put forth before the legislature has been pursuant to Act 96 and what has been asked of us.

Moving forward, it's to the legislature's purview to make the change if you to the process if you see fit.

K. Alright.

Senator Thank you.

I'm pretty quick. Okay. So I mean I mean, here is the dialogue. My concern is this, that we have all these nonprofits choose with this money. Yeah?

My issue is I know a lot of nonprofits take a thousand dollars, $2.50 go to the project. Yeah. There's no parameters in the one is the percentage of this fund that's gonna make sure that it goes back into the tourist industry because the whole town's already paying in here. Now the cruise line is the one paying it. They have to make sure everyone has their fair share, which is fine. But then what is, you don't even have ... You guys already have a specification if you guys will do reef restoration, beach restoration will go back into the industry. That's actually driving our economy.

So that's the issue I have. I'm with Senator Inouye. We don't even know, so now again, nonprofits will line up, we don't know who double dip or triple dip ... You don't know. But they will double dip and then we and then we owe two sites money ... How are we gonna have parameters? You guys, right now you guys are asking us to support something that the governor again, told Senator Inouye, TAT the more. Now TAT went in, but the governor cannot say, you know what?

They don't have to TAT. But he's not gonna do that. Because, again, it's money. K? We're talking about money.

When when you agree for whatever reason, it's green. Green Fee. But again, at the end of the day how are we working on confirmability ... The locals are gonna be paying the same thing when they go on a cruise. How are we gonna ensure the public these moneys are actually gonna go back into the community to drive the industry, put into the industry that pays for a lot of things in the state to make sure that that happens. And probably, you can answer that. Do you have a you have a you have a add something to that?

I mean, we share your concerns 100%. That that's a a legitimate concern for sure. And that was really our highest kind of priority when we're looking at these projects coming in, making sure they go to the highest impact. They're visible. They're actually doing what was intended with the green fee in that legislation.

And in the list of measures that you have in House Bill 1800, we are fairly explicit about, you know, this is going to coral reef restoration, this is going to watershed partnership, this is going to reforestation, wildfire management, some very specific things like Mesonet, which kind of came through in the last couple of weeks with the flooding and monitoring floods and the like. Some things like they use mooring buoys, some very specific projects.

But that accountability really gets back to the measure before you, which is we need to track every dollar so everyone has eyes on where those dollars are going and are they really fulfilling the intent, you know, at the outset. And, again, this was a high priority for the council in making sure because, you know, we're looking at billions from just the last couple weeks of impacts. We only have 100,000,000 in the green Fee.

The gap is so big between what we need to do for deferred maintenance to, you know, build regenerative tourism, to build climate resilience. Every dollar has to go to the intended purpose. So sorting through all those proposals, really seeing what was executable, what organizations are really doing the work, what what is the state doing well, and making sure dollars flow there. But then it comes down to implementation and tracking.

But the bottom line is is we have all these non profit. All the stuff that you had just said that wasn't in the bill. How much non profits specialize in these areas that you're talking about? Because I'll make my company tomorrow because we're in reef restoration. I don't have any expertise, but I will go for the funding because I ... funding is there. Are we gonna ensure that these guys ... And these reef restoring is actually what they're doing. I could take the nonprofit and go hire oh a colleague, I got a colleague and we're doing a project and take the money, right, I get the third party ... I could pay him ... He's gonna do my work then my nonprofit will get some money. How are you going to reassure that. That's the problem I have right now. Because it's happening right now with homelessness. That's why we have homelessness all over the place but they're not doing the job. There's a lot of departments ... That's not benefiting an actual community that's leading in need, like the flooding we have.

Right? Everybody do see, you are gonna see that we never clean the streams. We never, you know, fix all of these things up. How are we gonna guarantee that this money is gonna actually go there? You don't have a guarantee.

I can't even guarantee of the governor because he changed every time. He just told Inouye he was gonna support the TAT, but the TAT is saying, he's silenced. She doesn't have an answer. That's my issue with this bill. So I mean, you don't get me wrong.

I'm not I'm not passionate or something. But I like what you guys did, honestly. But if you guys don't have no accountability, it's hard for me to support something like that down my area of Elbeach. And it's okay. These guys won't get them.

Maybe you won't come to us. We'll fix up our reef and our evil industry. We might get lucky. Like, that could happen.

Yeah. No. I share your frustration.

Thank you. Thank you, Jeff.

Are there questions? Senator Wakai.

Jeff, is is there, like, a scorecard on how you vetted all these people? One point for this, two points for that? I mean, there there is?

We did. We did do analysis. We actually did a one to four scoring to make sure we'd all then end up in the middle. And through that evaluation, we have had at least three sets of eyeballs on each proposal and then had vigorous discussion in looking at the trade offs because there were a lot of very high ones. Some of those trade offs we had to make is, you know, wildfire was top of mind for everyone.

We had a lot of fantastic wildfire proposals, But recognizing legislation had some balance between environmental stewardship, tourism, we had to, you know, move around and have a balanced portfolio, and that that's what's in 1800 now.

Can we put all of those scoresheets online as well? Because I think I see 76 entities that were granted money. If I was, let's say, number 74, I'd like to know how come I wasn't chosen. And because what this is doing is only talking about the winners. Right?

Sometimes, I think we should look at who didn't get funding. Because then that's far more accountability. Right? Because people think, like, what's this? The Jeff B.

Kaluna environmental ferry just gave me the money. Right? And you can

say, like, no, it's not. Here are clear criteria. Here's a scorecard from one to 200 or whatever. Okay. So unfortunately, you're 74, so you didn't get funding. But here's what you can improve on next year to become part of the the illustrious group that gets funded.

Because you're only showcasing the winners. I think you should showcase the losers on this website as well and show the public what exactly was a scorecard for someone being a loser as well as a winner.

I hear you. And just for clarification, the list of the 76, you know, proposals aren't 76 grants to these organizations. We took all the, you know, proposals in, and it really informed our process to identify areas of need. So that list of 76 projects, were really areas of need. Some of those were very specific.

The University of Hawaii through Ag, doing the Mesonet, you know, monitoring and expanding that amplifying network. Some of them were buckets of coral reef restoration, which may be done by DAR. It may be subgranted out. But we didn't, you know, sort of prescribe what that would be. So those are 76 areas of need, whether they're executed by the state, by a third, you know, party or someone else.

So it's not really the winners and losers. But that scoring helped inform, like, gosh, wildfire in Kula is high priority. Let's identify let's see the alignment with departmental priorities and other things and put it, you know, an asterisk on that.

But as we move forward and hopefully make this better and better and better, I think the public should understand what is it that the council uses as criteria and may not agree with what your criteria is. And you could be influenced to expand into other areas that you never thought of, because other people understand what the scoring mechanism is, which is not evidence in the bill right now.

Sure. Yeah. And and that's something that go on a going forward process, I think there should be you know, we had we're very truncated at the time. The time window was small. An open public transparent process is absolutely essential, whether it's a grant process, whether it's just developing a, you know, a budget.

But I will say this this is a very diverse group of 10 individuals from tourism sector, from community, from environmental stewardship. I estimated about two centuries of experience. There were healthy discussions between folks like Jeff Wagner and, you know, Leah Hong doing land conservation. And they were honestly swayed by no one except really the highest impact projects and really looking at what the needs were and how can we use those public dollars in the most effective way possible.

Right. So they have an array of backgrounds. But ultimately, Jeff, they were all political picks. Right? And that's what the public doesn't want.

Right? It's all this politics, all these friends are friends are friends who are part of the coalition. I think you put the everything on the table, the winners, the losers, the criteria, what are your assumptions, what are your metrics, then I think you'll get a lot more confidence in this being to the benefit of the state.

Thanks for the feedback.

Yep. Other questions?

Yes. Can I ask the quest a question? So having said that, is this bill are we supposed to decide on the projects, Not this committee.

What what are we supposed to do today? I thought we were supposed to look at also the projects that were approved.

It'd be

The measure before you sets up a dashboard, a transparency monitoring where those dollars flow. And House Bill 1800 is the current list of recommendations.

But we have no idea who has been picked yet then. We haven't seen the list.

We do not.

Yeah. So

I think let me let me just note it's just past 02:00 here, and we do have a number of other agendas. So are there any other anyone else who hasn't asked a question yet? Seeing none. Alright. Thank you.

We're gonna go into a quick recess and let's, Chairs are you guys good to go? Okay. It's a quick recess.

Good afternoon.

We're reconvening the joint committees on Waterland Economic Development and Ag and Environment on HB 1949 relating to the green fee here in State Capitol Conference Room 224.

This is our 1:01PM agenda. Chairs having conferred, we'd like to go into decision making on this. We'd like to recommend passing the measure forward with amendments. We'd like to do a couple different things.

First, we'd like to clarify, I think based on some of the testimony out there, the reporting requirements as this measure will track and follow different potential green fee appropriations going forward, including BNF, who shall track finances, but also keeping the Climate Commission in there to track the actual substance of the work being done because it's not really a numbers thing.

And so we'll, hopefully have some transparency there. Secondly, we'd like to do, I think based on some of the discussion here, is ensure that there's adequate, discussion on a lot of these items going forward. So we wanna take the, recommendations from the house that were included in the house bill that just passed over. We wanna include those in that measure or in this measure as line items. We'll blank out the amounts in there.

We'll leave it up to future discussion to figure that out. But also for the purposes of trying to figure out who's getting what and really what that all looks like, we wanna remove those appropriations for the time being that include appear to include, specific organizations as private organizations as recipients, not on the merit of their work because I'm sure a lot of them are amazing, but rather for the sake of trying to understand where money will ultimately be flowing and how that process works.

Secondly, I want to add in a few placeholders to continue the discussion. As I understand it, the work of this past year for the Green Tea Advisory Council working on all the different issues and potential solutions that this funding is supposed to address was really up through the end of last year. And in the last three or four months, there's been a lot that's happened since.

Obviously, to include a lot of the power outages, a lot of the flooding dam situation, and other things that also as the legislature, we're looking at trying to figure out what to do with. So we want to make sure that's part of the conversation to be weighed appropriately because there may be some things in there that are priorities especially since we can't entirely see what the scope of some of these appropriations are supposed to be right.

Also note that there's been a number of discussions on various bills moving through the legislature these last three or four months that have included a lot of community input on various priorities. We wanna address some of that. So all that's to say, we'll include this stuff in this measure so that as this moves forward, there can be another public hearing in the next committee where folks will have a chance to continue the discussion and weigh in, but we can at least have this discussion.

So this is a start to that.

Finally, we'll note in the committee report, I think based on some of the discussion with our colleagues, what we'd like to be able to see is more information on some of those intended appropriations, who the recipients are as well as ultimately in the end how the departments plan to move money to those potential recipients because at least in our discussions, it was clear that some of the various divisions did not have grant making authority, did not have existing channels through which to readily pass funds, which obviously is a huge issue.

So we'll leave that all for the next committee for the moment. I'll note this measure does have a defective date on it, and with that, let me turn it over to anybody if there's any discussion.

I have a question. Yes.

Did you just say that with the house that you have a list on the amendments?

That was what they passed to us in the house budget.

Okay, but you're privy to that budget right now. You have a list.

We all are. We're taking what was put in there as the starting position.

Okay, can you make sure that all the committee members on this body here gets a copy?

Yeah, that's online right now. Okay. Yeah.

So I just wanna make sure if you can maybe put it to the committee. How often the dashboard will be updated? Will it show real time expenditures expenses and or or any quality of added reposts? So repost repost it. And will the dashboard be allowed to be used to search the projects, find specific items or district?

Yeah. We'll note that in the committee reports.

Any other discussion?

Sure. I just wanna bring to like, you know, while we've had the measures moving to an, you know, we all support the green fee and the projects that are out there. But, you know, I'll resort to what Senator Inouye said. We brought up the green fee bill the other year, and I'm not happy at all that it got challenged. And so the amendments that was made in the existing cruise ship bill then was then agreed upon and I said by admin.

And now it's back in here again. And I get I would tax the heck out of anybody but the residents. Now get me wrong. I said, you're coming into this place and you're gonna do business, I will tax you. But the time we go into court and we get challenged, deeming unconstitutional and now it's back here again.

That's sending me the wrong message. You know, so I have concerns with the bill, but I do support a lot of what's happening today that we have to address it. Again, I would also like to interpret into the committee report. I like the idea of a scorecard where everybody plays because this cannot be political. This cannot be where we're going to pick and choose non profit.

And the fact that also I want to know where all the islands are on their projects and the nonprofits that are actually doing the work and how they score upon favorably or unfair. That's just my comments. Thank you, chair.

I just wanted to add that, you know, my personal feeling as well when I supported the chairs, in the Senate, when we decided to do the TAT only on, additional TAT tax increase. And I supported that. And I did tell the governor, having said that, I did say that now it seems like it's full blown and the cruise lines are still in there with no adjustments. However, I do want to make clear though that, you know, there's, I talked about different islands.

The loss we'll have in case we lose the suit or we win the suit or lose the suit.

The idea is that the, the islands that I talked about was Kauai and the Big Island and in particular Hilo. But we have to understand that any monies that come from a cruise ship that it takes into consideration d o t and harbors. And that includes, we need to continue to make sure that improvements are made to our small islands like Molokai. We have a Harbor and yet are we benefiting them from making improvements to the department?

So with that said, the DLNR on the harvest division, if they're giving monies elsewhere and not addressing the improvements to infrastructure, such as Lanai and Molokai as well.

Just wanted to make sure it's in the record.

Okay. Anybody else? Seeing none, vice chair, recommendation to pass with amendments. Okay.

The committee on water, land, culture, and the arts chairs recommendation on HB 1949 house draft one is to pass with amendments.

[Roll call]

Measure is adopted, mister chair.

Thank you.

Committee on Economy, Development and Tourism, same recommendation. Any discussion? Seeing none, Vice Chair for the vote.

[Roll call]

Same recommendation for ADN. Chair votes aye. Vice Chair?

On House Bill 1949 House Draft One. Council amendments. [Roll call]

[Roll call]

Alright. Thank you. That's the end of our 101 PM agenda. Good afternoon. We're convening the joint committees on water, land, culture, and the arts, committee on housing, and committee on Hawaiian affairs on our 1:02PM agenda here in State Capital Conference Room 224 on HB 2049 relating to housing.

We don't have excuse me. We have a number of testifiers and limited time. So we're gonna ask everyone to make sure they're concise in their comments, and we'll be limiting everyone to one minute to make sure we have time to get through all the testifiers. So that said, on hb 2049 testifying signed up to testify first is the Department of Taxation.

Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. Up next is DLNR.

DLNR is the the test who needs support and can provide which

Thank you. Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. Thank you. Hawaii Public Health Institute.

A report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition that comes out every year called the Out of Reach Report. This year, it showed that, a minimum wage worker would have to work 100 and 41 hours per week to afford a modest two bedroom apartment. That's almost literally impossible. We think this is an amazing bill and important bill. We often hear about, concerns about wealth flight, when we talk about revenue generation, but it's actually working families who are fleeing our state.

This is an opportunity to really fix this. The Hawaii Public Health Institute, we see this housing as a powerful social determinant of health, and our governor likes to say housing is healthcare. The stability that comes from having stable housing shapes everything from a child's brain development to an adult's risk of chronic illness. Our real estate market is generating tremendous wealth, and this is an opportunity to make sure that that wealth doesn't flow out of state, but flows back into the communities who need it most.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Signed up to testify next is the Hawaii Association of Realtors.

Thank you, Chair. We'll stand on our testimony.

Thank you. Catholic Charities Hawaii. Good afternoon.

I'm Betty Larson with Catholic Charities Hawaii. We strongly support this bill. We do have two amendments. We strongly support Hawaiian homes and DURF. We know that these are critical state needs.

However we ask that the rate for the rentals involved in the not reduced from 50% to 20% We feel it should at least be 30% to match some of the other dire needs. There's only growing demand, and we're especially concerned about our seniors more and more becoming homeless because of economic need almost straight. They can't afford the rents. This is the product. The rental house involving and builds those units, so we really feel we want to maintain at least 30% of the bill.

We also know that we the infrastructure is necessary. There's infrastructure for homelessness as necessary, and that is why we're asking for a 10% allocation of the taxes to the homeless special run homeless services special funds on our testimony relate that the. CLC is under great risk. There may be huge changes. Huge revenue losses.

800 people may be losing their housing. And so the services to reach out to the elderly to the, homeless are really needed. I have more information, and I'm sure that partners of care would be happy to get more. Thank you very much.

Any IOP? Thank you. Hawaiian Council. Thank you. Hawaii Appleseed, Center for Law and Justice.

Chairs, Vice Chairs, Members of the Committee, thank you very much. My name is Devin Thomas testifying on behalf of Hawaii Appleseed in support of this bill. We have a housing crisis that's exacerbated by folks from out of state out of state homeowners coming here and owning properties, mansions that are driving up the cost of real estate for everyone.

These folks should be paying for the privilege of being able to take advantage of our natural environment, of our resources, of our infrastructure, and we can do this by raising the tax rates as is being implemented in this bill. For that reason, we support that part of it, also reducing the burden, on, lower value homes for local homeowners.

And this money, this revenue will be directed towards worthy causes. It'll be directed towards solving the housing crisis, through giving money to Hawaiian Homelands and also the Reno Housing Revolving Fund and other funds as well. Thank you. Thank you.

Grassroot Institute. Thank you. Moving to Zoom, Hawaii Children's Action Network. Oh, I meant in the room.

Come in person.

Look at that.

Thank you for hearing the bills, this bill chairs. Aloha. I'm Nicole Wu from Hawaii Children's Action Network Speaks. We support this bill because we know so many of our working families can't afford to live here and are moving away. Your body passed a similar bill in 2021, another time when we're facing very uncertain state budget, and so we know that this has been discussed and that a large majority of the legislature voted to pass this bill in 2021.

It was vetoed, which is why we're back here again. As as Devin said, this bill is well designed for lower value homes. The rate actually is lower than current conveyance tax. So we're making homes more affordable for a lot of our local working families, and it raises the rate for the sales of high value homes and especially for investment

properties in those who are from out of state buying our beautiful beachfront properties. We believe that they should contribute to our common good and our public services. So thank you for hearing this bill. Please pass it.

Thank you. On Zoom, Avalon Development.

Aloha. I'm McKinley Eits on behalf of Avalon Development. We respectfully oppose this bill fundamentally and you

Sorry. Could could you please, turn your video on?

Oh, yes.

Thanks for that.

Who is this person?

There you are.

Alright. We respectfully oppose this bill. It fundamentally changed the conveyance tax by increasing rates, shifting to a marginal system, and automatic annual increases, and expanding the tax to more transactions. It also permanently ties critical housing infrastructure funding and digital funding towards highly cyclical revenue source. When the market slows, transaction drops and so do so does funding.

These obligations remain, creating instability and future pressure to raise taxes even further. At the same time, higher transaction costs reduce investment. That means fewer housing projects, less redevelopment, and fewer opportunities to convert underutilized buildings into houses. Evidence shows these taxes often backfire. The St.

Paul's group in 2025 did a comprehensive study of multiple cities and found that it reduces transactions, lowers revenues, and slows housing productions. These costs don't disappear. They are passed on to renters, small businesses, and local home buyers. If the goal is more housing and stable funding, this bill moves in the wrong direction. For these reasons, we urge you to defer.

Mahalo.

Thank you. Also on Zoom, tax foundation.

Thank you, Chairs, Vice Chairs, Members of the Committees. Tom Yamachika from Tax Foundation. There are there are a couple of pieces to this bill. One is changing the convenience tax to marginal rate system. We we think that's a good idea, because right now there are substantial discontinuities in it, so that if, for example, a property, sale price has increased by $1, the the tax has increased by a $100,000.

That that's that leads to market discontinuities and and and under undesirable effects. So, yeah, making it a a marginal rate system is a good idea. What may not be such a good idea is dramatically enhancing the rates, you know, six x, seven x, which is, you know, what's in the bill now. Because if if what you really wanna do is for people with higher net worth worth or higher income to contribute more to public services

Time is up. If you could just summarize very, very fast.

Sure. Use the net income tax, not the condensed tax. You only get that once.

Thanks very much. I have to answer any questions.

Up next is Indivisible Hawaii.

Good afternoon. Vice Chairs and Members of Committee. We stand on our testimony in strong support, and thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you. Staying on Zoom, we have Kanani Higbee.

Not present on Zoom, Chair.

K. Patrick Caviola.

Also not present also not present on Zoom, Chair.

Billy Gabriel on Zoom?

Also not present on Zoom, Chair.

K.

That's maybe everybody who signed up to testify. Is there anyone else in the room wishing to testify in this measure? Seeing none. Alright. There's a ton of written testimony.

Two 35 in support, nine opposed, four comments. So with that, are there any questions? All right, seeing none. Thank you, everyone. Let's go into decision making on this measure.

Sorry? I

Okay. Yeah. We will do that. Sorry?

Oh, yeah. Quick recess.

Oh, yeah. Quick recess.

Good afternoon. We're reconvening the joint committees on housing, water, land, Hawaiian affairs on our one or 2PM agenda on HB 2,049 relating to housing. I'd like to recommend moving this forward with amendments, and thank you for everyone for bearing with us as we got through our long agenda today.

A little bit more to go, but for this measure, what we're gonna do is make amendments. First of all, amend the conveyance tax provision to 10% or $10,000,000 whichever is less. We'll add a line item for the acquisition of Ag Lens in the Ag Development, or through the Ag Development Revolving Fund, and amend that to include land acquisition of 15% or 15,000,000, whichever is less. I had a line item for the acquisition and development of public access, for communities at 15% or 15,000,000, whichever is less.

We'll change the, DGHL provision to 20% or $40,000,000 whichever is less.

And I think to some of the discussion that was had by some of the testimony, we'll do for the moment is blank out the tax amounts and thresholds in the measure as this goes on to the next committee. We'll note in the committee report, we'll ask the committee to look at higher thresholds for what that should be set at rather than the existing measure or excuse me, existing 2,000,000 contemplated in the existing bill. There's tech amendments as well. Any discussion on that?

Just to clarify, Chair, that the first amendment that you mentioned would be the 10,000,000 the 10% cap to the legacy land funds. Right. And in general, chair, I'll support your recommendation as the chair of housing. I do have some reservations.

I think that the relatively low threshold we have very high home values here in Hawaii by starting the escalations as low as $2,000,000 I mean, that's that's a tear down in many of our communities, frankly, and we would be hitting middle class buyers in a way that I think we probably don't want to do.

So, you did note that you'd be looking at increasing the thresholds, as this bill moves forward, and I think that's an important discussion to have because we really don't wanna be further burdening middle class housing buyers here in Hawaii.

I'll add to that too. I appreciate that. I'll note at least in the we're blanking it out now but in the measures the house sent over it did lower conveyance taxes on those lower property transactions below that threshold. So I think the idea here is there's a in the end, a win win. We just gotta figure out what that might look like.

And and just to add on to that, I I think we heard a measure earlier this session where we did receive a lot of testimony, about properties that are not necessarily owner occupied, but but might be owned by a family to house their aging parents or their kids. So there are a lot of properties that may not be technically owner occupied, but are still being occupied by local people and family members.

Yeah. Chair, I said I share the same sentiments that chair of Housing is making and appreciate the elevation of the the thresholds and echoing about everything that he said. So thank you.

Thank you, chair, so much for your hard work on this. I also do agree with the remarks of the chair of housing. I am looking forward to potentially having the threshold increase later on during committees, conference committee. I think for right now though, respectfully, I will vote no. But I believe that if we can meet a threshold that is not so heavy burden on the residents, I will be changing my vote. But for now, respectfully, I will be voting down. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, chair. I share the same concerns of the housing chair, the Senator from Kahala. I do have concerns, but I do think this warrants further discussion.

So hopefully, some of these concerns can be addressed as what the unintended consequences may be and impacts, per se. And I'd like to kinda know exactly, you know, what that dollar amount figure would be, in terms of revenue generating. But with that, I'll be voting, albeit your recommendation. I do have concerns. I'll be voting with reservations.

Thank you. Can I add for the committee on Water Land? I will be voting no. And specifically because I've received some no votes from my constituents in the Hawaiian homestead. I have one of the largest homesteads in my district, so I'll follow my constituents voting no.

Gotcha. Okay. If there's no one else, Vice Chair for the vote.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. For the committee on housing, same recommendation to pass House Bill 2,049 with amendments. Any discussion or questions? If not, chair votes reservations.

[Roll Call]

On the committee on Hawaiian affairs, following the same recommendations, vice chair for the vote, chair votes aye.

For HB 2049 HBK, recommendation of the chair's past votes amendment. Chair votes aye. Vice chair votes with reservations. Senator Hart is excused. Senator Keohokalole is Aye.

Here. Thank you. Third to four. No. Chair, your position is adopted.

Thank you. Thank you. That takes us out of our 01:02PM agenda.

We're convening the Committee on Water, Land, Culture, and the Arts on our 1:05PM agenda here in State Capitol Conference Room 224 on HB 1710, relating to historic preservation, which authorizes SHPD to conduct a phase review of a proposed project on private property under certain circumstances.

And amends the process and deadlines by which SHPD must provide written concurrence or non-concurrence for proposed projects on private property or certain projects that require state or county approval for entitlement for use. Testifying first on 1710 is the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development. Up next is... You know what? We're gonna take a quick recess. Recess.

Alright. Reconvening the Committee on Water, Land, Culture, the Arts on our 1:05pm agenda here in State Capitol Conference Room 224. Apologies for the delay while we had a number of lengthy agendas and multiple rooms to be in. We're on HB 1710, relating to historic preservation. Up first to testify is the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development. Thank you. Up next is the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

I'll come up real quick because I have one amendment. Hi. I'm Jessica Puff, the administrator of SHPD. We stand on our testimony submitted in support, but we also got a chance to look at OHA's testimony as well. And we just wanted to highlight that we support their proposed amendments.

Particularly those that are found on pages three and through five of their testimony that address further clarifying 6E-42, 6E-42.2, and 6E-43 responsibilities to avoid and protect iwi. And we also agree with their proposed amendment to include exemptions for projects that don't have ground disturbance for condos, apartments, and hotel renovation projects.

Thank you. Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Aloha mai kākou. Leialoha Makuanani on behalf of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. We're providing comments on this bill. And I'll just try and quickly summarize because we support some of the measures like the complete submittal requirement, which would help incorporate complete submittals into all, the into all of chapter 6E.

Which we have an amendment to make sure that that does. As well as we do have concerns then about the automatic concurrence where that would automatically projects could automatically move forward after a thirty day or ninety day timeline depending on their submission.

We're opposed to automatic concurrence provisions. The provision that's in 68 that's attempting to be moved over was thoughtfully processed and went through last year just for to address state affordable housing issues, and we think that needs to play out a little bit more before putting it into all the other sections. But we'll stand on the rest of our written comments. If you have any questions, I'm available for questions. Mahalo.

Thank you. I apologize. Online, the Attorney General... Oh, in the room, the Attorney General.

Good afternoon, Chair and Member DeCorte. Alyssa Kau, Deputy Attorney General on behalf of the department. The department offers comments on this bill on this bill. Our comments are mainly technical. And the department, first of all, would like to highlight that these are the identical comments that we offered to the House Committee on Finance at its March 3 hearing.

The main issue is that the amendments to this bill concern, six, section 6E-42 of HRS, and that's the wrong version of the statute that's in place. So we would request that the current version of act of Section 6E-42, which was amended by Act 160 be used as the basis for amendments, be used as the basis for any further amendments to this bill. I'm available if you have any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Next, Hawaii Association of Realtors. Grassroot Institute. NAIOP Hawaii. And on Zoom, Avalon Development Company.

Aloha. We strongly support this bill based on our direct experience as developers working under Chapter 6E. In practice, delaying the SHPD review process adds significant and unpredictable costs to projects, carrying costs, financing risk, and coordination challenges that compound over time.

These delays often stem not from preservation concerns, but from unclear standards for application completeness, repeated information requests, and the absence of reliable timelines for review. This bill addresses these issues in a targeted and responsible way.

It clearly defines a complete submittal, requires SHPD to certify completeness, establishes reasonable deadlines for concurrence or nonconcurrence, and allows space and pragmatic review for complex projects. The deep concurrence provision is essential because deadlines only matter if there's accountability. It does not eliminate review or mitigation.

It simply prevents projects from being stalled indefinitely once a complete submittal has been made. These reforms are especially critical in Lahaina. We're trying to rebuild a commercial property. We are participating in a working group of affected property owners, and no one has really been able to get a clear, consistent guidance from SHPD on how to move forward. Mahalo.

Thank you. That's everyone who had signed up to testify on HB 1710. Is there anyone else wishing to testify? Yes. I see that now. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Seeing none. Are there any questions? Just for Avalon, if you're still there.

Yes.

Thanks. Part of one of the things contemplated in this measure, which has been part of the discussion for some time now, I mean, for years now, is the phasing of projects as this bill applies to specific private properties for phasing. Is that something that you guys are looking to theoretically use?

I'm not, like, not sure at length, but we honestly just want the SHPD process to be approved any way possible.

Sure. So let me let me rephrase it. If in a phasing process, you're doing some sort of due diligence on first phase versus second, it would seem that there'd be, and this has been brought up in prior discussion on the developer side. There'd be additional risk of running into, you know, some sort of iwi or who knows what else, which then after having committed those resources and funds to the project could stall it. I guess what I'm asking is is that a risk you're willing to take?

Yes.

Okay. Thanks very much. And then for SHPD. Thanks. On that same point of actual phasing. Obviously this is a little bit different than what was done in last year or the year before as it applied to theoretically much larger projects I think just generally speaking. But for small scale private residences in particular, I'm just curious about phasing of those projects because doing a house, like what would that actually mean?

So the way that we interpret it is that it's similar to what happens under, like, the federal National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 process where phasing is allowed provided that there is a governing agreement document in the form of a programmatic agreement that exists for the entirety of the project and the entirety of the duration of the project.

So if it can only be executed in phases as money allows or you have to have phase one done before you can start phase two, however it's structured, that agreement document lays out the conditions for the execution of the projects and the continuance of consultation with SHPD or the Burial Council or descendants or whoever it may be. Right?

We have these kinds of agreements already in place with like HART with, there's some affordable housing projects like Mayor Wright that will be executed in phases and this kind of lays out the plan for that. I think OHA's comment also recommended that for 1610 in particular that a project require preservation plan for the historic resource, which we're not opposed to.

I guess what I'm getting at is, for not a, not a rail project or one of those giant ones, but like literally somebody like doing a residential or, you know, small scale commercial. Like who would actually phase a project like that?

It would largely be a, it would likely be a larger developer. I could see conceivably that a smaller property owner that, say, bought a property and needed to buy build their residence first and then, like, say, they were planning to develop, like, a carport or Ohana units or something but they needed to get the primary residence build first.

I guess you could call that a phasing if you had planned from the beginning to develop the entire property, and then they could theoretically do a phased approach. But typically with small property owners, it isn't a phased approach. It's like what they can afford to do in the moment, and then they just continue to build on their investment property from there as money allows. And that's slightly different.

I guess I'm getting at is, I mean, over the years, some of the, in some of the conversation what we've heard from particular folks in that kind of situation is not so much that they're gonna do half a project or come back and and do that sort of thing.

But they don't but I think the bigger question is do you trigger SHPD or in you know chapter 6E environmental review or historic review in the first place based on some other criteria, should the kind of whole of the project then apply. So in other words, if you're looking at doing, well even let's say renovations to your house right?

Or maybe there's a storm or something you need to like replace whatever, or maybe it's your entire house. But if it's the same footprint, that's one thing. If you're looking to build a different house, is that where the trigger then should be? I mean, like in a, in a totally new footprint somewhere else on the property.

Well, there is already, there is already a trigger that exists, right. Because you need to build it the building permit is the trigger for the 6E-42 or whatever the permitted project is or the type of permit. That's the trigger for HRS 6E-42 for the historic preservation review.

So I unless the counties change their rules in some way on what kinds of projects get permitted, the main house in that scenario would get triggered by a permit and then say in five years, if the funding was allowed and they could build that Ohana unit or investment property, then they could they would be triggered again by a building permit.

So it's not the project as a whole or the development of the property as a whole that triggers the historic preservation review. It's the individual permits that are required in order to execute the project that triggers the review. So I don't know if that answers.

No. Well, what I was getting at is, are you okay? So for example, if we say in a situation like that, you're gonna go build a new something somewhere else in your property. You know, a green field site that's not been touched before. I presume in that situation, under the current process, you'd have to go through some sort of if you're in a sandy area or, you know, whatever. Right? Some sort of arc review.

Yeah.

But if you're gonna replace some other part of your house on that same property that's on its existing footprint right now, would you have to do the same?

I think that unless one of the existing exemptions under 6E-42.2 apply, as long as there... I would say unless one of the existing, theoretically, unless one of the existing exemptions apply, the only trigger that would require you to come to SHPD is if there was a permit that wasn't previously exempted that covers an activity that wasn't previously exempted.

I think that in that case, I am comfortable, I think our office is comfortable with clearly articulating under 6E-42.2 that any project scope of work that does not include ground disturbance could be exempted from further review from SHPD just blanketly.

And I think that's where the OHA was getting with our comments about, like, condos and apartments and, like, hotels. Because I don't know if that's where you're getting at, but I can't speak that all of those types of projects would be a 100% exempted because our trigger is the county, but I would not be opposed to that kind of work being exempted.

Thank you. Any further questions? All right, thanks everybody. So that is the end of our 1:05pm agenda. So we'll go into decision making on that and then we'll come back for our deferred agenda to wrap up. So moving to decision making on HB 1710, HD 2. Designate an acting Vice Chair here.

Thank you. We'd like to move this measure forward making amendments. Pursuant to the conversation, I'd like to adopt OHA's recommendations under subsection seven. Just clarifying projects submitted under this chapter rather than section for clarity.

Secondly, we'll replace language to allow ongoing repair work under a preservation plan on page three. Or I should say beginning on page three, which gets to some of the crux of what we were just discussing a minute ago. And on in 6E-42.2, we'll clarify that if you're not disturbing the ground basically no need to go to SHPD at that point.

If you are building on an expanded footprint then yes, you would need to. We'll pull out the automatic approval clock for this. I know it's been a lot of discussion around that one, but mostly because the pilot for the public project changes we made was about like five minutes ago just last year.

So like to just see how that plays out a little bit before we open that door. Finally per the AGs, in case we're missing something because I know it's late here, we'll adopt their comments to use the base language that is the updated statute accordingly and make other tech amendments.

I'll note this has a defective effective date going into the Judicial Committee, so let's see if that cleans and or clears anything up as we go forward. So if there's any discussion? Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Committee on Water, Land, Culture, and the Arts voting on HB 1710, HD 2. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair goes aye, acting Vice Chair goes aye. Noting the excused absence of Senator Inouye and Senator Chang. [Roll Call] Chair, your measure is adopted.

Thank you. Okay. So that takes us out of our 1:05, and we'll go straight into our 10--excuse me--1:12 p.m. agenda. This is a measure previously heard and deferred to this day. This is HB 649 HD 1, relating to small boat harbors, which establishes the Small Boat Harbor Commercial Vessel Special Fund and increases mortgage fees.

I'd like to recommend moving this forward, but we're gonna make some amendments here. I think there was a lot of discussion from the recreational community, so we wanted to address that. I know DLNR had some language that they had recommended that would both satisfy DLNR's recommendations and also keep all the voters happy. So that would look like removing the increase in mortgage fees and establishing the establishment of a new special fund.

So that will all be out of the bill, but adopting the recommendations from DLNR in pieces of the language from HB 2477 2024, section two, that closes the loopholes on those currently not paying for use. That existing commercial use is due, so it levels the playing field and gives flexibility to the department to set those levels in relation to the impact a user has on natural resources. And the other amendments: accepting Subsection H, which related to permit auctions.

So to be clear, we're removing the fee increase and other things that had raised concerns amongst testifiers, as well as the permit auction, but we're giving DLNR the flexibility that they requested which should not ruffle feathers. We'll leave a defective date on it just to be sure that there's an opportunity for folks to weigh in in the Ways and Means Committee, just in case. So if there's no discussion on that, Acting Vice Chair.

Okay. Committee on Water, Land, Culture and the Arts. Voting on HB 649 HD 1, Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair goes aye. Noting the excused absence of Senator Inouye, [roll call]. Acting Vice Chair goes aye as well. Chair, your measure is adopted.

Thank you. And we're adjourned.