STAND. COM. REP. 27

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: H.B. No. 453

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Agriculture, to which was referred H.B. No. 453 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO AGRICULTURAL LAND PRESERVATION,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to:

(1) Create processes, standards, and criteria for the designation, reclassification, rezoning, and permissible uses of important agricultural lands;

(2) Establish agricultural land preservation district advisory committees to advise the Land Use Commission (LUC) regarding important agricultural lands;

(3) Establish the Agricultural Land Preservation Bank to administer the Agricultural Land Preservation Fund (Fund) and manage the transfer of development rights for designated important agricultural lands;

(4) Allow LUC to establish rural growth districts which may be used for specified purposes by landowners who have acquired transferable development credits on designated important agricultural lands;

(5) Create an important agricultural lands income tax credit for real property taxes paid on important agricultural lands;

(6) Allow counties to create a program to designate growth zones within the county in which transferable development credits from designated agricultural development lands may be used to adjust aspects of properties or property improvements; and

(7) Make an unspecified appropriation into the Fund.

The Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation submitted testimony in support of this bill. LUC, the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Maui County Farm Bureau, and the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center submitted testimony in support of the intent of this bill. Hawaii's Thousand Friends and the Sierra Club, Hawaii Chapter, submitted testimony in opposition to this bill. The Department of Land and Natural Resources, Department of Agriculture, and Office of Planning submitted comments on this bill.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Agriculture that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 453 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Water, Land Use, and Hawaiian Affairs.

 

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

 

____________________________

FELIPE P. ABINSAY, JR., Chair