The Hawaii Sustainable Community Alliance (HSCA) is the organization responsible for initiating SB 2274.
SB 2274 will make “sustainable living research sites” a permitted use on agricultural and rural land.
It will only apply to lots greater than one acre and less than 15 acres in Maui and Hawaii Counties.
The HSCA board of directors started this process four years ago. We drafted County Resolution #302-12, which was passed by the Hawaii County Council, urging the Hawaii State legislature to permit sustainable living research sites. For the 2013 legislative session, we drafted our initial sustainable living research site bill, HB 111.
Rep. Faye Hanohano introduced the bill in January 2013 and it passed all three House committees. Testimony showed the strong support statewide for including sustainable living as a permitted activity in zoning and land use codes. We also learned a lot about the legislative process and weaknesses in HB 111.
A new revised version, SB 2274, was drafted following meetings and input from three Hawaii County planning directors — Chris Yuen, BJ Leithead Todd and Duane Kanahu — to address concerns raised by the Hawaii and Maui County planning departments in response to our original bill HB 111.
This year with SB 2274 there has been no opposing testimony from government agencies and only three that have submitted comments regarding their concerns. Those concerns have been addressed and the bill has been amended. At the last committee hearing (House Water and Land) there were 94 “support” testimonies, eight “oppose” testimonies and two “comment-only” testimonies.
In the last three weeks, a malign campaign has been waged by Puna residents RJ Hampton and Sheryle “Sativa” Sultan under the guise of an organization called the “Puna Coastal Alliance” (PCA) with an unknown membership and no previous record of any accomplishments or meetings.
The Puna Coastal Alliance has recently circulated e-mails claiming that SB 2274 will “permit construction, roads, geothermal, alternative power plants, parking lots, buildings, mills, and processing plants.”
SB 2274 actually shows (perhaps surprisingly for some) that these are already existing permitted land uses under current Hawaii Revised Statutes, section 205.
The only modification that SB 2274 creates in the current law is to add sustainable living research sites as a permitted land use in some rural and agricultural zoned areas.