Bill Text: HI HB2229 | 2024 | Regular Session | Introduced

---

Bill Title: Relating To Special Management Area Permits.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2024-01-26 - Referred to HSG, JHA, referral sheet 3 [HB2229 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2024-HB2229-Introduced.html

---

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.B. NO.	2229
THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2024
STATE OF HAWAII

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

 

relating to special management area permits.

 

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

 

     SECTION 1.  The legislature finds that one cause of Hawaii's affordable housing crisis is a severe lack of supply in all housing price categories.  One readily available "supply solution" is to reduce the lengthy time and high cost of obtaining certain construction permits.  Act 16, Session Laws of Hawaii 2020, amended chapter 205A, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to require homeowners of single-family homes located on parcels abutting the shoreline to obtain special management area major permits.  The increased time and cost from this amendment are now affecting local homeowners.  Recent experiences in obtaining special management area major permits for single-family homes on shoreline parcels in the city and county of Honolulu demonstrate this increased time and cost.  The elapsed time is ten to twelve months, while the special management area major permit cost is $70,000 to $130,000.  These "soft costs" cannot be mortgaged and do not include other design costs.  The additional costs also do not respect the socio-economic position of homeowners who may be decades-long occupants of ohana-owned real estate.

     Hawaii's housing supply can be increased with reasonable permitting requirements while still adhering to important environmental considerations.  Of particular concern are the negative effects that the changes in Act 16, Session Laws of Hawaii 2020 will have on reconstruction efforts on the Lahaina coastline.

     Accordingly, the purpose of this Act is to amend the definition of "development" in section 205A-22, Hawaii Revised Statutes to clarify that "development" does not include construction or reconstruction of a single-family residence that is less than seven thousand five hundred square feet of floor area and is not part of a larger development, even if the residence is located on a shoreline parcel or a parcel that is impacted by waves, storm surges, high tide, or shoreline erosion.

     SECTION 2.  Section 205A-22, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending the definition of "development" to read as follows:

     ""Development":

     (1)  Means any of the uses, activities, or operations on land or in or under water within a special management area that are included below:

          (A)  Placement or erection of any solid material or any gaseous, liquid, solid, or thermal waste;

          (B)  Grading, removing, dredging, mining, or extraction of any materials;

          (C)  Change in the density or intensity of use of land, including but not limited to the division or subdivision of land;

          (D)  Change in the intensity of use of water, ecology related thereto, or of access thereto; and

          (E)  Construction, reconstruction, or alteration of the size of any structure; and

     (2)  Does not include the following:

          (A)  Construction or reconstruction of a single-family residence that is less than seven thousand five hundred square feet of floor area[; is not situated on a shoreline parcel or a parcel that is impacted by waves, storm surges, high tide, or shoreline erosion;] and is not part of a larger development;

          (B)  Repair or maintenance of roads and highways within existing rights-of-way;

          (C)  Routine maintenance dredging of existing streams, channels, and drainage ways;

          (D)  Repair and maintenance of underground utility lines, including but not limited to water, sewer, power, and telephone and minor appurtenant structures such as pad mounted transformers and sewer pump stations;

          (E)  Zoning variances, except for height, density, parking, and shoreline setback;

          (F)  Repair, maintenance, or interior alterations to existing structures;

          (G)  Demolition or removal of structures, except those structures located on any historic site as designated in national or state registers;

          (H)  Use of any land for the purpose of cultivating, planting, growing, and harvesting plants, crops, trees, and other agricultural, horticultural, or forestry products or animal husbandry, or aquaculture or mariculture of plants or animals, or other agricultural purposes, including all traditional fishpond and traditional agricultural practices;

          (I)  Transfer of title to land;

          (J)  Creation or termination of easements, covenants, or other rights in structures or land;

          (K)  Subdivision of land into lots greater than twenty acres in size;

          (L)  Subdivision of a parcel of land into four or fewer parcels when no associated construction activities are proposed; provided that any land that is so subdivided shall not thereafter qualify for this exception with respect to any subsequent subdivision of any of the resulting parcels;

          (M)  Installation of underground utility lines and appurtenant aboveground fixtures less than four feet in height along existing corridors;

          (N)  Structural and nonstructural improvements to existing single-family residences, where otherwise permissible;

          (O)  Nonstructural improvements to existing commercial or noncommercial structures;

          (P)  Construction, installation, maintenance, repair, and replacement of emergency management warning or signal devices and sirens;

          (Q)  Installation, maintenance, repair, and replacement of public pedestrian and bicycle facilities, including sidewalks, paths, bikeways, crosswalks, stairs, ramps, traffic control barriers, signs, signals, and associated improvements;

          (R)  Trash removal or invasive vegetation removal or control, including incidental ground disturbance, excluding the use of herbicides;

          (S)  Installation of fencing, including associated improvements and incidental structures, for invasive species control or preservation of native habitats on conservation land;

          (T)  Installation, maintenance, repair, and replacement of lighting, fixtures, and equipment to establish compliance with current standards at existing public facilities;

          (U)  Installation, maintenance, repair, and replacement of security measures, including fencing, to existing public facilities; and

          (V)  Hawaiian traditional and customary practices, including work conducted by traditional means near, in, or related to loko i`a, traditional Hawaiian fishponds;

          provided that whenever the authority finds that any excluded use, activity, or operation may have a cumulative impact, or a significant environmental or ecological effect on a special management area, that use, activity, or operation shall be defined as "development" for the purpose of this part."

     SECTION 3.  Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken.

     SECTION 4.  This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

 

INTRODUCED BY:	_____________________________

 

 

Report Title:

Development; Special Management Area; Permitting; Shoreline; Single-Family Homes

 

Description:

Amends the definition of "development", in section 205A-22, HRS, to clarify that "development" does not include construction or reconstruction of a single-family residence that is less than 7,500 square feet of floor area and is not part of a larger development, even if the residence is located on a shoreline parcel or a parcel that is impacted by waves, storm surges, high tide, or shoreline erosion.

 

 

 

The summary description of legislation appearing on this page is for informational purposes only and is not legislation or evidence of legislative intent.