Allow worker housing on agricultural land

Support SB2740

This bill would add cluster housing for farmworkers as a permitted use on state agricultural lands.

More than half of those people are employed on Hawaii Island, with about 25% of Hawaiʻi County farms employing paid laborers.

Approximately 9,600 people in Hawaii are employed on farms and classified by the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations as “hired farm labor.”

A 2020 survey found that 41% of the state’s farmers and ranchers cited a lack of labor as a barrier to expanding their operations.

Why do farmers need workforce housing on agricultural land?

High housing costs are a big reason Hawaii farmers and ranchers struggle to hire workers. This issue could be mitigated by reforming the state and county regulations that make it prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for them to build an adequate amount of employee housing on their land.

State legislators passed a law almost 20 years ago to create zoning flexibility for farmworker housing projects on Important Agricultural Lands, but it hasn’t helped.

Additionally, each of Hawaii’s four counties has different standards for where and how farm employee housing can be built. Some county zoning codes are more challenging to navigate than others.

How it would work

State law would define farm cluster housing as multiple housing units built in a compact area of an agricultural lot to maximize the amount of land that can be used for farming or ranching.

Hawaii’s four counties would be required to enact ordinances that allow farm cluster housing and exempt such projects from:

Subdivision ordinances.
Zoning rules that restrict the number of units allowed on a property.
Subjective review by county agencies.

Only property owners or their employees could live in the units, preventing them from being offered as short-term rentals.

FAQs

Could farm cluster housing be used as short-term rentals?
No. The bill specifies that the housing must be used by the property owner or their employees.

Why can’t farm employees live in the city and drive to work?
This might be more convenient for some people, but others might want to live on the property to minimize their commutes and save money on gas. In other cases, on-farm housing would save farmers time and money figuring out where to house their seasonal workers.