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HomeMy WebLinkAboutRES 357 Draft 01 1994-1996COUNTY OF HAW~-~ ~ ~~STATE OF HAWAII RESOLUTION N0. 357 96 RELATING TO CONDOMINIUM PROPERTY REGIMES ON AGRICULTURAL LANDS. WHEREAS, in 1961, the Legislature of the State of Hawaii enacted Act 180 known as the "Horizontal Property Act" which provided for multiple saleable and mortgageable interests of apartments; and WHEREAS, the intent of Act 180 was to provide for greater living opportunities in urban azeas on Oahu with multiple unit zoning by defining "apartment as an enclosed room occupying all or part of a floor in a building of one or more floors or stories regazdless of whether it be destined for residence, for office, for the operation of any industry or business, or for any other type of independent use, provided it has a direct exit to a thoroughfaze or to a given common space leading to athoroughfare";and WHEREAS, the Horizontal Property Regimes law was later enacted as a restatement of Act 180 without substantive changes and retitled the Condominium Property Regime (C.P.R.) law; and WHEREAS, Chapter 205-2, Hawaii Revised Statutes, allows for more than one farm dwelling on a lot as long as all dwellings aze used in connection with a farm or where agricultural activity provides income to the family occupying the dwelling unit(s); and WHEREAS, the state C.P.R. law is now commonly being used to create multiple but sepazate property interests in agricultural lands, in the form of farm dwellings held as sepazate "apartments," across the State of Hawaii and specifically in the County of Hawaii, even though county permits for all such dwelling units require ongoing compliance with farm use requirements set by state law which the county is required to enforce; and WHEREAS, there aze approximately 70,500 lots within the state agricultural land use district in the County of Hawaii, on which any dwelling must by state law be a farm dwelling, and hundreds of C.P.Rs have been established on these lots pursuant to Chapter 514A, Hawaii Revised Statutes, and on which hundreds more aze purportedly pending in the County of Hawaii alone; and WHEREAS, the council finds that a program based on a high volume of site inspections, heavy fines and penalties for subsequent non-compliance by the owners of such "condo- dwellings" would be expensive, onerous and an ineffective means to either produce viable farm products or to protect agricultural lands from abuse, given the inherent nature of property rights under our federal constitution and the specific, unqualified use rights granted each condo-unit owner by way of the state C.P.R. law; and WHEREAS, the council believes that the effective power to regulate and protect the use of agricultural lands rests with the permitting process for farm dwellings, rather than with the enforcement of problematic farming and production requirements for each dwelling unit under the state C.P.R. law; and WHEREAS, the council finds that prior to the present practice of creating multiple C.P.R. interests within individual agriculturally zoned lots, the long-standing farm dwelling requirements for additional dwellings on such lots were razely abused because each lot, with or without multiple dwellings, was a single, indivisible economic unit; and WHEREAS, the distinct ability to sepazately mortgage and sell each of the multiple dwellings on a single lot through the simple establishment of a C.P.R. has been exploited in exactly the same way it empowered the multi-unit urban zoning of Honolulu in the 1960s, as the first and only viable alternative to "cooperatives"; and WHEREAS, in order to protect agricultural lands from over-development with dwellings, the counties must either (i) increase the minimum building site azea for each and every farm dwelling to preclude any multiple farm dwelling approvals, or (ii) obtain relief through the state legislature by its changes to the C.P.R. law which prohibit the use of C.P.R.s in the state agricultural land use district; and. WHEREAS, the council finds that by amending its zoning code to flatly prohibit more than one dwelling per lot in the agricultural district in order to eliminate C.P.R. abuse, would harm many legitimate family and farm interests and would therefore be counter-productive to the citizens of the County of Hawaii. THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE COUNTY OF HAWAII, that it requests the Legislature of the State of Hawaii to amend Chapter 514A of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, to provide that the Condominium Property Regimes law is not applicable to lands within the state Agricultural land use district and thereby upholds the original intent of the C.P.R. law and preserves agricultural lands for agricultural use rather than residential use. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Clerk of the County of Hawaii transmit copies of this resolution to the Honorable Governor Benjamin J. Cayetano; the President of the State Senate; the House Speaker of the State House of Representatives; the Honorable Mayor Jeremy Harris of City and County of Honolulu; the Honorable Mayor Stephen K. Yamashiro of Hawaii County; the Honorable Mayor Linda Crockett Lingle of Maui County; the Honorable Maryanne W. Kusaka of Kauai County; the Council Chairperson of Honolulu City Council; the Council Chairperson of Maui County Council; and the Council Chairperson of Kauai County. Dated: Hilo, Hawaii, this 23zt3 day of July , 1996. INTRODUCED BY: MEMBERS, COUNTY OF HAWAII COU Coi I hereby certify that the fo vote indicated to the right the County of Hawaii on TT r / /~ ~ (~P~ NTY COUNCI R OLL CAL L VOTE L ,nty of Hawaii AYES NOFS ABS EX silo, Hawaii Arakaki X Honk-Abramson }[ regoing RESOLUTION was by the Quids X hereof adopted by the COUNCIL of ~ Luna X July 23 1996 Domingo X , Osorio X Rath X Ray X ( Smith }{ ~`c~/~ (~~ 'W 7aJ 8 0 1 0 v Reference C-12 95 COUNTY CLERK CHAIRMAN & PRESIDING OFFICER RESOLUTION NO.