A new agricultural-land-designation law charges Kaua‘i County Planning Department officials and their statewide counterparts with identifying important agricultural lands for potential future uses by 2010. The ultimate decision on these recommendations will be made by members of the state Land
A new agricultural-land-designation law charges Kaua‘i County Planning Department officials and their statewide counterparts with identifying important agricultural lands for potential future uses by 2010.
The ultimate decision on these recommendations will be made by members of the state Land Use Commission, according to Sandra Lee Kunimoto, director of the state Department of Agriculture.
Kunimoto said the five-year period was a maximum deadline.
The bill was one of several agriculture- and land-use-related bills signed July 1 by Gov. Linda Lingle.
House Bill 1640, now Act 183, advances a long-stalled effort to designate and protect important agricultural lands, Lingle said.
The act provides policies, standards and criteria to carry out a 27-year-old constitutional requirement to ensure the most productive lands stay in agriculture, according to information provided by officials in the governor’s office.
State Department of Agriculture leaders said members of the Land Use Commission would act as leaders of a checks-and-balances system to evaluate recommendations made by county officials.
It also allows state leaders to balance farming needs with needs for affordable housing, conservation, recreation and commercial uses, according those in the office of the governor.
Kunimoto said Land Use Commission members would work with officials from each county, and their recommendations would have to be approved by members of the county councils, but ultimately the final say on the designations would be up to members of the Land Use Commission.
Kunimoto said state Department of Agriculture leaders had to have their package of incentives completed within 18 months.
Kunimoto said the Legacy Lands Act, also passed into law July 1, dovetails HB 1640 to some extent.
The Legacy Lands Act was signed by Lingle, as was the Omnibus Affordable Housing bill approved by members of the state Legislature. One facet of the Legacy Lands Act could create upwards of 425 affordable-housing units per year for Native Hawaiian families, according to a state press release.
The Legacy Lands Act also mandated an increase in the conveyance tax, which critics say will drive up the cost of homes even more, and will create an onerous tax burden rather than proving tax relief, as was promised by Lingle.
In a related matter, with the passage of House Bill 109, Hawai‘i’s communities can be assured that valuable agriculture lands will receive greater protection from inappropriate development, said Democratic Representative Brian Schatz , District 25 and Vice-Chair of the Water, Land Use & Ocean Resources.
Schatz said House Bill 109 will prohibit golf courses and golf driving ranges in zoned agricultural districts.
He said that this new law will help to prevent the misuse of agricultural lands for nonagricultural purpose, and help to move Hawai‘i towards a more sustainable economy and land management system.
“This is a critical pan of the equation. If a parcel is zoned agricultural, that has to mean something, and until this law was passed, the law essentially equated golf courses with farms.”
Schatz says that the next step will be to create a new category of Iand use that can be more viable for parcels that arc not suitable for farms, but not appropriate for urban use, although the rural zoning category of land does exist by law, there is almost no land zoned that way, with less than one-half of one percent of the state’s land in the rural category.
In a July 6 report by Jim Carlton, a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, tilted “Land-Use Ruling Shakes Hawaii Developers,” offers something of a cautionary tale about agricultural land use and its potential repercussions.
The report focused on Arizona developer Lyle Anderson, who applied to build a golf-course subdivision on the Big Island, and did as many other residential developers had done before him in rural Hawai‘i: He got a construction permit on land zoned for agriculture.
According to The Wall Street Journal report: “In 2000, two years after Mr. Anderson and some partners obtained the permit, environmentalists and coffee farmers filed suit in state circuit court alleging that the subdivision was an illegal development; the farmers were later joined by a native Hawaiians’ group called Protect Keopuka Ohana.
“In 2003, after a trial, a state judge halted construction of the $1-billion project on the Big Island. Anderson’s 1,550-acre Hokulia project was a luxury-home development, not a farming venture.
“That fact had been obvious from the start to everyone, including the planners who approved the project. While a 1976 amendment to a state law intended to protect Hawaii’s agricultural lands stipulated that only ‘farm dwellings’ were allowed as residences on lands classified as agricultural, developers had typically observed the law with a splash of green, such as decorative avocado trees, and built what they wanted.
“The ruling by Judge Ronald Ibarra threw Mr. Anderson’s 730-home development into limbo, after he had spent $300 million.
“The developer says his managers laid off about half the 174 workers on Hokulia after the project was shut down. He says his legal bills have topped $8 million, while he pays upkeep on land he expected to have produced rich dividends by now. Meanwhile, about 150 people who had already purchased 200 lots from Mr. Anderson are barred from building on their property,” the newspaper reported.
