OPPOSE SB2007: Defend the LUC
/Defend the Land Use Commission (again) from a “zombie bill” that once again seeks to scapegoat the Land Use Commission for housing construction delays. This bill will reduce the Commission's ability to preserve our food security, protect Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights, respond to the climate crisis, and ensure housing for all income levels, when approving large scale land use changes.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, February 17 at 1:01pm in room 224, the Senate Water, Land, Culture and the Arts and Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs Committees will hear SB2007.
Please take a moment to submit testimony on this measure, sample testimony and instructions below.
What this bill does
SB2007 would remove the Land Use Commission (LUC’s) oversight over proposed land use changes involving up to 25 acres of land.
Why this is important
SB2007 would prevent the LUC from using its time-tested, transparent, and accountable process to review certain large land use change proposals, and ensure conditions that can safeguard our food security, cultural practices, public trust resources, climate resilience, and housing affordability and job creation needs - public interests that are not considered or adequately accounted for in county land use processes and decisionmaking.
Sample testimony for SB2007
Aloha Chairs Lee and Wakai, Vice Chairs Inouye and Chang, and members of the Committees,
My name is [Name], and I am writing in STRONG OPPOSITION to SB2007.
This measure once again scapegoats the Land Use Commission (LUC) for housing construction delays, in order to allow developers to avoid the critical protections the LUC provides for our food security, public trust resources, Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights, climate resilience, low-income housing needs, and other public interests that may be impacted by large-scale land use changes.
The LUC has long administered a critical, comprehensive process to identify and mitigate impacts to natural and cultural resources, Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights, food security, and other public interests that may be affected by the large-scale reclassification of conservation, rural, and agricultural lands into the urban district. Unlike existing county land use planning and decisionmaking, the quasi-judicial, “court-like” nature of this LUC “district boundary amendment” (“DBA”) process ensures that data and other information from technical experts, cultural practitioners, and other stakeholders can be formally considered, vetted, and explicitly incorporated in its DBA approvals.
Throughout its decades of work, the LUC has also demonstrated its ability to consistently balance the public’s interests while overseeing such large-scale land use changes, without creating undue delays. Notably, throughout the 2010s and to the present day, the LUC has consistently met the one-year approval deadline for completed DBA petitions, as well as the 45-day approval deadline for DBAs needed to accommodate HRS § 201H-38 “affordable housing” projects.
By limiting the LUC’s jurisdiction to DBAs involving more than 25 acres, this bill will needlessly limit a critical land use oversight mechanism that consistently and efficiently safeguards the public trust, Native Hawaiian rights, and other public interests in large land use changes - for little to no benefit to housing development. Please do not support this thinly veiled giveaway to developer profit margins at the expense of our local communities.
Mahalo nui for the opportunity to testify.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
Testimony instructions
Register for a capitol website account if you haven’t 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 “SB2007” where it says "Enter Bill or Measure."
Input your information, select “OPPOSE”, write or copy/paste your testimony, and 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).
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