STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2236
Honolulu, Hawaii
S.D. 1
President of the Senate
Thirty-Third State Legislature
State of Hawaii
Sir:
Your Committee on Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 2177 entitled:
"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HOUSING,"
begs leave to report as follows:
The purpose and intent of this measure is to:
(1) Clarify that projects seeking exemptions from planning and development laws and rules may be modified by the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation under certain conditions;
(2) Authorize the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation to make recommendations to appropriate legislative bodies;
(3) Require the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation or a county to accept an application seeking certain exemptions within thirty days, and to process the application within one hundred twenty days before final approval by a county legislative body for certain housing projects; and
(4) Provide that any application that is neither approved nor denied by the county within one hundred twenty days shall be approved unless the county can demonstrate why an approval of the project would not be appropriate or would adversely affect public safety.
Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation.
Your Committee finds that the application process for housing development often constitutes a significant barrier to housing development in the State. Section 201H-38, Hawaii Revised Statutes, provides an expedited application mechanism for developers proposing certain projects. However, the existing expedited process remains insufficient to meet the State's need for increased housing production. This measure further expedites the application process by amending application requirements while maintaining essential safeguards.
Your Committee notes the concerns raised by the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation that this measure, in its current form, does not fully account for the complexities in submitting and receiving approval for an application for certain exemptions. Additionally, certain provisions in this measure are not necessary as the timeline for county legislative bodies to act upon a project is already set forth in other existing provisions of section 201H-38, Hawaii Revised Statutes. Amendments are therefore necessary to this measure to ensure that the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation and the counties maintain flexibility in administering the program established by section 201H-38, Hawaii Revised Statutes, and to create accountability to allow applicants time to address issues that may arise while an application is being processed. Your Committee further notes that amendments reflected in the new subsection (b) to section 201H-38, Hawaii Revised Statutes, will preserve the legislative intent to require counties to submit applications to their respective legislative bodies.
Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by:
(1) Deleting language that would have authorized the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation to modify a housing project or impose conditions on the housing project only to the extent necessary to address minimum health and safety standards;
(2) Deleting language that would have required the Executive Director of the Corporation or the responsible county official to review the contents of the submitted applications and to submit the applications to the appropriate legislative body;
(3) Clarifying that the Corporation or a county shall have thirty days to accept a complete application;
(4) Clarifying that, if an application satisfies the requirements of the Corporation's administrative rules, the Corporation shall have one hundred twenty days from acceptance of an application to process the application and bring it before the Corporation's Board of Directors, unless the applicant requests additional time;
(5) Clarifying that a county agency processing an application shall have one hundred twenty days from acceptance of an application to transmit the application to the county legislative body, unless the applicant requests additional time;
(6) Deleting language that would have required that, after one hundred twenty days, if the county has neither rejected nor approved the application, the application shall be considered automatically approved, unless the county can demonstrate why an approval of the project would not be appropriate or would adversely affect public safety; and
(7) 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. 2177, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2177, 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 |
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