LIHU‘E — A bill that would allow farmers to provide housing for their workers made it to the full council for a final vote last week, but Planning Committee Chair Jay Furfaro asked at the last minute that the bill be recommitted to clarify two legal questions.
The bill will go before the committee again today.
“As long as we have the safeguards against abuse, this is a very important bill,” Lihu‘e resident JoAnn Yukimura said.
Yukimura co-introduced the original bill almost three years ago when she was a councilwoman. She left the council for an unsuccessful mayoral race at the end of 2008, but has kept active in fine-tuning the bill.
She has been meeting with Kaua‘i Farm Bureau staff and local farmers to craft a bill that would help the local agriculture industry sustain a reliable work-force.
“You can’t have farming without farm workers. That’s what it says in the introduction to the bill, and it’s the truth, and that’s why this bill is so important, because it will help farmers get and retain farm workers,” Yukimura said.
Furfaro said last week that there are concerns with the way the bill was written that it may still allow farmers to divide the land and sell it with the farm-worker dwellings on it.
The county attorney said Condominium Property Regimes are governed by the state Real Estate Commission, which may bring in some confrontation regarding the criteria that disqualifies farmers who live on CPR land, but don’t yet have the Agriculture Dedication, Furfaro said.
The bill that went before the full council last week would allow farmers to build up to three farm-worker houses up to 1,800 square feet combined total.
To qualify for a permit, farmers would have to be able to show the county Planning Commission a business plan, annual gross receipts of at least $35,000 and have their land enrolled in the Agriculture Dedication program at the Real Property Tax office.
In addition, if the land is part of a CPR, the Agriculture Dedication criteria would have to be in effect before the bill became law.
The underlying problem
Councilman Derek Kawakami said in an earlier meeting that he would not support the bill the way it was written because he is concerned with the consequences and had doubts regarding the reason for farm-worker shortage.
“I’m not convinced this bill keeps the land affordable; it may drive up the value,” Kawakami said.
He said the bill does provide affordable housing for farm-workers, but questioned if the bill would properly address the real problem.
“We have to identify the problem before coming up with solutions,” Kawakami said.
The cost of freight has doubled, and marketing is a “huge challenge” that should be overcome before approving housing, he said.
“Shortage of farmers is the underlying problem,” said Kawakami, adding that younger generations are not attracted to farming.
The bill states that if a farmer does not comply with the rules, the housing, which has to be built on stilts, has to be removed. Kawakami said he wasn’t convinced the dwellings would be taken down if the farmer didn’t pass the annual inspection.
Kaua‘i Farm Bureau President Roy Oyama has said the bill wasn’t as “tight” as he would like it to be, but he still supported it.
Yukimura said finding farm workers “is a little bit easier now than it was when the economy was so hot that everybody could get any jobs,” but in the long run, farmers would ideally like to have reliable and trained workers who would stay at a farm for a long period.
This bill would address the issue by giving workers and their families a stable living situation, she said.
“As long as we have safeguards, this is the bill that should be passed,” Yukimura said.
Bill 2318, Draft 2, containing new amendments, will be worked on today by the Planning Committee at the Council Chambers in Nawiliwili. Public testimony is allowed each time a bill goes before the council. The meeting is schedule to start 9:30 a.m.
Visit www.kauai.gov for the full meeting agenda.
• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@kauaipubco.com.
