2024-03-06 PL-SMA-2023-000046 Claudia Rohr Opposition Testimony (2)

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1/28/24,3:08 PM Save Sunset Beach Coalition v.City and County of Honolulu,78 P.3d 1 -Haw:Supreme Court 2003-Google Scholar Pursuant to the directive to designate"important agricultural lands[,]"the legislature in 1983 passed Act 273 to establish a"land evaluation"commission to"identify,develop, 12 and recommend for legislative adoption important agricultural lands."I21]The purpose*12 of Act 273 was"to establish an independent agricultural land study commission to advise the Legislature in the development of an agricultural land classification system for identifying important agricultural lands pursuant to Article XI,section 3 of the Hawai'i Constitution."Hse.Stand.Comm.Rot.No.326,in 1983 Hse.Journal,at 980.It is undisputed that the commission made recommendations,but that the legislature failed to act upon them.See infra part VII.The legislature has made no other significant efforts to satisfy its assigned duty since the adoption of Article XI,section 3.Thus,no"standards and criteria"have been enacted after the effective date of section 3. As was the case with another constitutional provision in Rodrigues,Article XI,Section 3 requires legislative action to become operative.The nature of the required legislative action,at the least,was the adoption of standards and criteria.Because section 3 is not"complete in itself,"see Davis v.Burke,179 U.S.at 403,21 S.Ct.210("[w]here a constitutional provision is complete in itself[,]it needs no further legislation to put it in force"),it requires implementing legislation.Hence,the framers appear to have required that"standards and criteria"be adopted by the legislature before the second paragraph relating to a two-thirds vote becomes operative.22 V. Plaintiffs third argument on appeal is that no lands could be reclassified without the legislatively defined"standards and criteria"referred to in Article XI,section 3.For the reasons recounted in part IV.above,this argument is unavailing.Inasmuch as the provision is not self-executing,it has no effect and does not act as a barrier to reclassification. In adopting Act 274 in 1983,the legislature was aware that while the land evaluation commission conducted its study to make recommendations,"prime agricultural lands maybe[sic]taken out of agricultural uses for other development before the legislature can intelligently adopt a studied plan for agricultural lands."Hse.Stand.Comm.No.454, in 1983 House Journal,at 1041.In order to combat this potential problem,the legislature"appeal[ed]to the land use commission and the county planning and zoning bodies to be cognizant of the importance placed upon prime and important agricultural lands"and urged such bodies"to comply fully with the intent of the State Constitution...and the spirit in which this bill is recommended."Id. The legislature reiterated that"faithful adherence to present state constitutional provisions for agricultural land classification or zoning,statutory protection and promotion of agriculture,and regulatory identification of important agricultural land will substantially prevent such inappropriate and excessive conversion of agricultural land to other uses." Conf.Comm.Rpt.No.43,in 1983 House Journal,at 800. Although it is evident that Article XI,section 3 evinced the concern that agricultural lands were not being adequately protected,that concern did not abrogate the requirement that the legislature establish standards and criteria for the preservation of agricultural lands.Until such standards are adopted,the section is legally inoperative.As a 13 consequence,the Lihi Lani lands could be rezoned without a two-thirds majority*13 vote of the City Council.Accordingly the court was correct in ruling in conclusion of law number 6 that the passage of bill number 88 did not violate Article XI,Section 3 of the Hawai'i State Constitution.See supra note 16. V1. Plaintiffs'fourth argument is that the provisions of Article XI,section 3 were executed when the amendment was adapted in 1978,because the drafters intended to adopt soil and land designation standards in existence at the time.In 1977,the United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service and the University of Hawai'i Agriculture Experiment Station conducted and published a study designating and mapping various agricultural lands within the State as"Agricultural Lands of Importance to the State of Hawaii"(ALISH).The intent of this program was to identify"agriculturally important lands"so as to"provide...decision makers with a valuable tool for use in agricultural preservation,planning and development[.]"It is undisputed that land in the Lihi Land project was designated as"important"under the ALISH system.23 A. The first proposed version of Article XI,section 3 included ALISH-like language.However,amendments deleted such language and added other text.The final version read as followsl241(the bracketed section was to be deleted,while the underlined section was revised or added): The State shall conserve and protect agricultural lands,promote diversified agriculture,increase agricultural self-sufficiency,and assure the availability of agriculturally suitable lands.The legislature shall enact laws that will set forth standards and criteria applicable to accomplish the forgoing. [Reclassification of lands identified by the State as prime', unique',or other important'agricultural lands in agricultural districts shall be subject to approval by two thirds of each house of the legislature.These lands shall be protected and maintained for bona fide agricultural use.Necessary support facilities are permissible.]Land identified by the State as important agricultural lands needed to fulfill the purposes above shall not be reclassified by the State or rezoned by its political subdivisions without meeting the standards and criteria established by the legislature and approved by a two-thirds vote of the body responsible for the reclassification or rezoning action. (Emphases added.)Deletion of the words"prime,""unique,"or"other important"lands demonstrates the convention's decision to abandon the ALISH identification system as the controlling classification scheme.L51 14 14 B. In response,Plaintiffs contend that the change to section 3"merely removed the more specific,technical language(prime', unique',and other')and substituted the more general but equally dispositive language'identified by the state as important."'Plaintiffs argue that this"is a common method of revision to make a proposed constitutional amendment clearer and to avoid confusing voters with technical language." We must disagree with this interpretation of the change in language in section 3.There is nothing in the final version of the amendment to indicate that the framers meant to incorporate the ALISH classification system in the constitution.If the framers had intended ALISH to be applied,then they could have simply adopted the first draft of the amendment that included ALISH language.Instead,the convention inserted different words which encompassed the more general designation of"important agricultural lands." It further commanded that the legislature promulgate"standards and criteria,"presumably altering the emphasis on the ALISH standards contained in the original proposal. Were the ALISH system to be incorporated to the exclusion of all others,it would not have been necessary to direct the legislature to adopt standards. In a similar situation,this court considered the intent of the legislature in Maha'ulepu v Land Use Commission,71 Haw.332,790 P.2d 906(1990)and concluded that if the delegates had intended to adopt ALISH at the 1978 Constitutional Convention,they would have expressly done so at that time. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3834089830730945441&q=regulates+permissible+land+uses&hl=en&as_sdt=4,12 4/11