STAND. COM. REP. NO.1315

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: H.B. No. 1285

H.D. 1

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 1285, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HISTORIC SITES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to (1) provide protections and penalties for damaging historic properties or burial sites found on private lands when the necessary approvals have not been sought as required by historic preservation law; (2) prohibit the taking, appropriation, excavation, injury, destruction, or alteration of any historic property or burial sites during the course of certain land development or land alteration activities without obtaining an approval; and (3) require the stopping of work in the immediate area of a discovery of a burial site.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Board of Land and Natural Resources (Board) and Hawaii County Planning Department.

Your Committee finds that under current law, penalties do not apply if someone fails to seek a required permit and damages a historic property or burial site on private land. The Department of Land and Natural Resources has often felt frustrated by its inability to protect significant historic properties on private lands or to pursue penalties when historic properties were destroyed because no agency permit action was required or those requirements were ignored. This measure makes it clear that it would be unlawful for anyone to damage a historic property or burial site during the course of land development or land alteration activities without approval from the State Historic Preservation Division.

According to testimony of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, this measure does not apply to family burial sites, which may have been in existence for hundreds of years. In certain areas of the State, these sites continue to be used for burials of family members. It is your Committee's intent that the continued use of these family burial sites for such purposes not be affected by this measure.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1285, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs,

____________________________

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Chair