Maui Recovery And Affordable Housing Top Hawaiʻi Legislature’s Long List Of Priorities
Maui Recovery And Affordable Housing Top Hawaii Legislature’s Long List Of Priorities
Health care, homelessness and workforce development are among the many competing goals. Will there be enough money to pay for it all?
By Chad Blair
January 15, 2024 · 9 min read
About the Author
Chad Blair is the politics editor for Civil Beat. You can reach him by email at cblair@civilbeat.org or follow him on Twitter at @chadblairCB.
Proposals to address myriad problems revealed by the wildfires that struck Maui and Hawaii island in August are certain to dominate the business of state lawmakers this year.
House and Senate leaders, including minority Republicans, are in broad agreement as well that finding a way to make it easier to rent and own a home in the islands has never been more pressing.
The housing shortage in Lahaina, where some survivors are still living in hotels as the state and Maui County scramble to find more permanent residences, have added a sense of urgency to a crisis that has been in the making for decades.
House Speaker Scott Saiki says aquifer remediation and an integrated approach to resolving the water crisis are part of the House majority legislative package this year. Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, left, and Gov. Josh Green at right joined him in November for the release of a report on Red Hill. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2023)
But there will be many other issues vying for legislative attention in the session that begins Wednesday and is scheduled to end in early May.
Will recreational marijuana finally become law and what does that do for hemp? Can illegal fireworks really be contained? Should condominiums be helped with fire prevention? And is it possible to publicly fund elections to such a degree that it curbs the power of special interests?
This year also happens to be an election year, and incumbents running for reelection will no doubt want to please constituents back in their districts including with capital improvement projects for things like schools.
House Speaker Scott Saiki cautions, however, that — in spite of $250 million extra in tax revenue that the Council on Revenues reported last week — tourism on Maui remains sluggish. The money being projected could be spent very quickly, as often happens when new pots of cash materialize.
“We’re still not really clear on what it will cost for the governor’s proposed initiatives, and we are not really sure what all future federal reimbursements look like going forward,” he said Saturday. “So there are a lot of unknowns on the fiscal side of ledger.”
Gov. Josh Green will present his plans for the session in his State of the State speech next Monday. House and Senate leaders will also flesh out their ideas in opening day speeches and in several thousand bills that are already being posted online.
Still, the 2024 session is forecast to largely be one of rebuilding and preparing for the years ahead.
“In a lot of ways, this is a year of infrastructure,” said Saiki. “It’s not necessarily a year of brand new initiatives. We’ve seen that we need to really focus on the basics, the nuts and bolts. That includes a range of topics like the condition of school buildings all the way up to preventative programs that have been neglected over the years, such as wildfire prevention.”
Shared Interests
The House and Senate packages are remarkably similar though far from identical. Both chambers, controlled by Democrats, are laser-focused not only on Maui recovery and affordable housing but also homelessness, the electrical grid, renewable energy, mental health and the shortage of health care and other workers.
The coronavirus pandemic revealed widespread vacancies throughout state agencies, as did the fires. The unfilled jobs and the need to create additional positions to do things like test water quality, manage grasses in dry areas and hunt for invasive species will require significant spending.
“Furthermore, a recent report indicates that 30% of current state civil service employees will become eligible for retirement within the next five years,” the House said in a press release Thursday.
Covid and the fires also exposed an already rising need for mental health services. The House wants to improve and expedite treatment, enhance crisis response services, meet workforce needs and add access to services.
The Senate said in its own press release Wednesday that it plans to conduct a “comprehensive review” of minimum qualifications and equivalencies to fill vacant state positions. It will also pursue workforce development “targeting growth” in blue-collar jobs such as commercial drivers and alternative energy jobs.
Shortages in the health care industry are also a major Senate concern. It will push legislation to support the long-term care workforce, expand medical and nursing staff and examine barriers that prevent recruitment of out-of-state healthcare professionals.
Regarding housing, the Senate wants the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. and Hawaii Community Development Authority to kick up their ongoing efforts to provide more units. There may also be a call to expand housing into business and industrial zones, and to increase access to affordable housing with “income-blind housing” requirements and private developer subsidy reform.
And the House and Senate majorities continue to conduct oversight of the $600 million appropriated in 2022 by the Legislature to deliver housing to Native Hawaiians on the waitlist.
Unlike the House, the Senate did not establish working groups following the August fires to examine what happened and make recommendations to prevent such disasters.
Senate leadership declined to be interviewed for this story.
But Saiki said Saturday, “I anticipate that there’s a lot of commonality between the Senate and the House about responding to the situation, especially since so many of the issues that we’ve seen that arose from Lahaina apply to the entire state. In that sense, I feel that there will be some commonality in how we approach these issues.”
Gov. Josh Green and chief of staff Brooke Wilson speaking to the House Finance Committee on Wednesday at the Capitol. The governor will deliver his State of the State speech next Monday. (Chad Blair/Civil Beat/2024)
While the deadline for non-administrative bills is Friday, dozens of measures have already been pre-filed. They include re-establishing the position of state fire marshal, something Green told the House Finance Committee earlier this month that he is backing.
As Civil Beat reported in September, Hawaii is the only state without a fire marshal, leaving gaps in prevention.
Other bills tentatively pre-filed and with generally wide support also underscore the prioritization of the fires and housing:
House Bill 1548: Makes appropriations to the Department of Land and Natural Resources and Department of Transportation for vegetation management projects to reduce the risks of wildfires across the State.
House Bill 1551: Specifies that fire safety use is a beneficial use of fresh water in the State Water Code. Requires the Department of Land and Natural Resources, in consultation with the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, to cooperate with the counties and reservoir owners to develop protocols and agreements for the use of reservoir waters for fire safety purposes.
House Bill 1544: Adds a minimum penalty of $50 and a maximum penalty of $60,000 per violation of the State Water Code, expands the types of potential violations of the State Water Code, and makes each day that a violation exists or continues to exist a separate offense.
Senate Bill 2011: Allows the construction of multi-family dwelling units on any lot within certain designated county zoning districts, subject to reasonable standards that each county may adopt.
Senate Bill 2025: Eliminates certain restrictions for developing state-owned real property located within one-half mile radius of any station along the elevated mass transit system. Permits high-density development of state-owned real property located within one-half mile radius of any station along the elevated mass transit system.
Senate Bill 2035: Specifies that a simple majority of affirmative votes of the members of the Land Use Commission present at a meeting and qualified to vote is required for any boundary amendment. Reduces the number of days by when the Land Use Commission must act for certain actions related to amendments to district boundaries.
Senate Bill 2042: Requires counties to grant building permits within 60 days if the application is stamped and certified by a licensed engineer and architect.
Dissenting Views
As with every session, there is certain to be heavy disagreement, even among members of the same party.
Green, Maui Mayor Richard Bissen and others announced on Jan. 5 a $500 million initiative to provide longer-term housing for about 3,000 households displaced by the wildfires by March 1. That prompted Sen. Angus McKelvey, whose district includes West Maui and who lost his own home to the fires, to say he was disappointed with the plan.
“Essentially, the plan will not only continue to exacerbate the rental market’s hyperinflation but also displace West Maui families by relocating them to long-term accommodations at Maui Lani, severing their community ties,” he said. “Our government, founded on checks and balances, has so far failed to adequately represent survivors, overshadowed by decrees from other parts of Maui, the state, and the country.”
Last week, Sen. Mike Gabbard and Rep. Nicole Lowen — both Democrats — spoke at a Capitol briefing on “the immediacy and magnitude” of the threat that climate change poses to Hawaii.
Noting that the 10 hottest years globally in recorded history all occurred in the past decade, they linked global warming to the 60-mile per hour winds and “grasses dried by drought” that fueled the wildfires.
Some lawmakers including Lowen will promote this year a constitutional amendment “that guarantees individuals the right to a clean and healthy environment.”
But Rep. Diamond Garcia, the minority floor leader, recently criticized legislative leadership for passing a bill in 2020 that banned coal-powered energy production in the state by 2023. He pointed to the recent rolling blackouts across Oahu.
House Minority Leader Lauren Matsumoto with Speaker Saiki at session’s end in May 2023. All 51 representatives worked on a bipartisan set of working groups in response to the Lahaina fires. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2023)
“We cannot sacrifice the well-being of our citizens in the pursuit of political agencies,” he said in a statement. “It is our duty as public servants to ensure that the people of Hawaii have access to reliable and affordable energy.”
And, while House Republicans worked with House Democrats in the six working groups focused on the fires, Minority Leader Lauren Matsumoto said on the PBS “Insights” program Thursday that cost of living concerns are a GOP priority.
Their package of bills include a general excise tax exemption for food and medical services, 12 weeks of paid family leave and elimination of “income tax for all.”
It’s not clear what the legislative priorities are of the two-member Senate minority, as Sens. Kurt Favella and Brenton Awa have not been able to agree who leads the caucus. But both have consistently fought for funding for schools in their respective districts and a desire to favor the local population against outside interests.
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