The following testimony was submitted by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii for consideration by the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs on March 27, 2025.
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March 27, 2025, 2 p.m.
Hawaii State Capitol
Conference Room 325 and Videoconference
To: House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs
Rep. David Tarnas, Chair
Rep. Mahina Poepoe, Vice Chair
From: Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
Ted Kefalas, Director of Strategic Campaigns
RE: SB15 SD1 HD1 — RELATING TO HISTORIC PRESERVATION
Aloha Chair Tarnas, Vice-Chair Poepoe and other members of the Committee,
The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii supports SB15 SD1 HD1, which would redefine the term “historic property.”
Currently, the term is defined as “any building, structure, object, district, area, or site, including heiau and underwater site, which is over fifty years old.”
SB15 SD1 HD1 would change the definition to read: “any building, structure, object, district, area, or site, including heiau and underwater site that is over fifty years old and meets the criteria for being entered into the Hawaii register of historic places.”
The bill would also expand exemptions for work done on single-family homes on the Hawaii Register of Historic Places and for projects in nominally sensitive areas — places known to have a low density of historic, cultural or archaeological resources or those where a large amount of excavation has taken place without discovering any historic properties.
Grassroot supports this measure because historic preservation review of projects often takes months, and the State Historic Preservation Division faces a large and growing number of projects that will need its review.
On Oahu alone, there are 8,583 improved parcels in the industrial, commercial and hotel and resort property tax classes. Of these, 4,524 or 52.7%% host buildings were built in 1975 or before. Meanwhile, 4,315 or 50.3% host buildings were constructed in 1976 or later.[1] And the number of parcels that could be subject to SHPD review will only increase as Hawaii’s buildings age.
A recent Grassroot white paper, “Preserving the past or preventing progress?” analyzed SHPD data and found that more than 90% of the projects the agency reviewed from 2021 to 2024 had no impact on historic properties.
The average review time for projects issued determinations has been 94 days. However, SHPD reviewed less than half of the applications it has received during this period.
Grassroot supports the current draft of the bill and would ask that the Committee retain this draft going forward. A prior draft contained language that would have added substantial uncertainty to the historic review process and slowed down reviews instead of moving projects out of the queue.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Ted Kefalas
Director of Strategic Campaigns
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
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[1] Hawaii Information Service database, accessed Jan. 31, 2024. Figures exceed 100% because some parcels in a given tax class have multiple buildings with multiple construction dates, resulting in double counting. A subscription is needed to access the data.
