These bills would allow Hawaii’s four counties to approve district boundary amendments for parcels up to 25 acres, but for only specific housing-related purposes and only when strict criteria are met.
In Hawaii, all land is classified into one of four land-use districts: urban, rural, agricultural or conservation. Landowners can apply for a district boundary amendment to change the classification of a parcel, most commonly from agricultural or rural to urban to allow construction of housing or other development.
State law allows counties to amend district boundaries for parcels of up to 15 acres. But if a proposed amendment exceeds that threshold by even a fraction of an acre, the project must instead receive approval from the state Land Use Commission.
LUC review often duplicates work already performed by county planning departments, zoning boards and county councils. And projects that comply with county general plans, community development plans and zoning ordinances can still be delayed or denied at the state level despite having undergone extensive local review.
This 15-acre threshold is arbitrary and outdated, and it has become a major source of delay for housing projects that are modest in scale but meaningful in impact.
There is no environmental, safety or infrastructure-based reason why a 15-acre project should be handled locally while a larger project must be reviewed at the state level. Yet this cutoff can delay a project by years and increase costs, which discourages homebuilding.
Hawaii’s four counties could approve district boundary amendments up to 25 acres for residential housing, agricultural workforce housing and long-term rental housing.
Projects would have to meet all of the following criteria:
In other words, the proposed project represents logical edge development, rather than full-blown urban sprawl.
