Bill Text: HI HB2852 | 2012 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: Landowner Liability; Property Nuisance; Residential Property

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)

Status: (Enrolled - Dead) 2012-04-24 - (H) Conference Committee Meeting will reconvene on Wednesday 04-25-12 2:35PM in conference room 325. [HB2852 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2012-HB2852-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3186

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 2852

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred H.B. No. 2852, H.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO LANDOWNER LIABILITY,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

 

     (1)  Create a cause of action against any person who maintains a property nuisance that causes injury or damage to another person or property of another;

 

     (2)  Specify the conditions that constitute a property nuisance; and

 

     (3)  Provide exceptions for certain uses, conditions, or activities on the property.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from one individual.  Kamehameha Schools submitted comments.

 

     Your Committee finds that this measure provides an effective mechanism to protect residential neighborhoods from individual investors who purchase large blocks of property for the purpose of blighting the neighborhood.  This practice is called "block busting" with the goal of lowering the overall property values to make it easier for the investor to buy the rest of the surrounding properties in the neighborhood at a lower price.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Clarifying the conditions or activities that constitute a property nuisance;

 

     (2)  Adding a definition for "visual blight" to provide further clarity; and

 

     (3)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2852, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2852, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Labor,

 

		____________________________ CLAYTON HEE, Chair