Holt on the record

Requires the Land Use Commission to include members with expertise in traditional Hawaiian land use and water resource management, with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs submitting nominees. Kānaka voices belong in land use decisions. Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe, and Members of the Committee, I am submitting testimony in support of HB 2103 HD1. Decisions about how land in Hawaiʻi is used have profound consequences for Native Hawaiian communities, for our watersheds, and for the people who depend on both. It is not too much to ask that the body making those decisions includes at least one person who actually understands traditional Hawaiian land practices and at least one person who understands water. Right now neither is required. This bill fixes that. It also requires OHA to submit a list of nominees for the Hawaiian land practices seat, which means the community most affected by these decisions has a meaningful role in who gets that seat. That is how it should work. Land use decisions made without that knowledge are land use decisions made in the dark. We have seen enough of those. I urge the committee to pass HB 2103 HD1. Mahalo for your time and consideration.

Would exclude certain infrastructure projects in Lahaina wildfire recovery zones from coastal zone management review. Disaster recovery should not be used as cover for bypassing environmental and cultural protections. I submit this testimony in STRONG OPPOSITION to SB 2260. This bill is punitive, short sighted, and fundamentally misdirected. It does not solve the real problems facing the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands or beneficiaries. Instead, it punishes beneficiaries for navigating a broken system that the State itself has failed to fix. SB 2260 would require a beneficiary who becomes a lessee of any Hawaiian Home Lands tract, whether through an original lease or succession, to forfeit any interest in any other tract and to be removed from all waitlists. That is not reform. That is punishment. Hawaiian beneficiaries often apply for multiple tracts for very real and practical reasons. Employment opportunities, access to schools, proximity to elder care, availability of infrastructure, and readiness of land all matter. Families are forced to hedge their options because DHHL timelines are unpredictable and development is often delayed for years or decades. This bill penalizes families for adapting to those realities. Rather than fixing delays, infrastructure gaps, or administrative inefficiencies, SB 2260 shifts blame onto beneficiaries. It creates a false narrative that beneficiaries are the problem, when the true issue is a chronic failure by the State to deliver land and housing in a timely and equitable manner. This bill also undermines the cultural and restorative purpose of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. That Act was intended to restore dignity, stability, and opportunity to Native Hawaiians after generations of displacement. It was not intended to force beneficiaries into rigid, high stakes choices that could permanently lock them out of future opportunities. SB 2260 fractures families, discourages long term planning, and turns beneficiaries against one another in competition for scarce resources. It does nothing to increase housing supply. It does nothing to accelerate development. It does nothing to address infrastructure backlogs. It simply narrows access and increases harm. If the Legislature is serious about reform, it should focus on funding infrastructure, streamlining approvals, increasing transparency, and holding the State accountable for decades of unmet obligations. Punishing beneficiaries is not a solution. For these reasons, I strongly urge the committee to REJECT SB 2260. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify.

Would authorize the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority to extend existing leases and subleases for up to an additional ten years. Mauna Kea is sacred. Lease extensions should not be fast-tracked over Native Hawaiian opposition. I strongly oppose HB2593. I come to this testimony not only as a concerned resident, but as a person of faith who understands sacred space. Church is not just a building. It is where people go to be quiet, to listen, to be humbled, and to remember we are not the center of the universe. For Kanaka and many others, the rightful heirs to this ʻāina and wai, Mauna Kea is such a place. It is a sacred space where connection to God, to ancestors, and to one another is made real. Respect for religious freedom must include respect for this relationship and for the people whose faith is inseparable from this land. There have been many a time in my life when I was lost. I have gone up Mauna Kea with no agenda and no answers. I sat. I listened to the wind. I watched the clouds move across the summit. I felt the stillness, the power, and the grace of the mountain. In these moments, I felt grounded. I felt held. Reminded that I am part of something vast, ancient, and alive. These experiences change me, and it is one of the reasons I write today. We owe Mauna Kea everything. She pulls moisture from the air and brings us rain. Water to drink. Water to grow our crops. Water for our children to play in. She protects us from storms by cooling the surrounding ocean. She is not a metaphor. She is living, essential, and irreplaceable. She is the heartbeat of the lāhui. HB2593 proposes an automatic ten year lease extension that bypasses meaningful oversight and public process. That process is required, not optional. This bill undermines the intent of Act 255 from 2022, which was meant to reform the governance of Mauna Kea after decades of mismanagement. By granting extensions without review, this bill fails to require demonstrated progress on decommissioning or accountability for cultural and environmental obligations. It requires no updated management plans, no environmental assessments, no cultural impact reviews, and no Ka Paʻakai analyses. It also misses a critical opportunity to renegotiate outdated lease terms that no longer reflect community values, legal responsibilities, or ecological reality. Most concerning, HB2593 pre decides outcomes before the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority is allowed to fully exercise the authority it was created to hold. That is not stewardship. That is avoidance. Sacred places demand care, humility, and transparency. Decisions about Mauna Kea must honor the people to whom the care of this mountain belongs while protecting the systems that sustain everyone who lives here. For these reasons, from my faith and my lived experience, I strongly oppose HB2593.

Authorizes the Department of Land and Natural Resources to enter community co-management agreements with community-based organizations for state lands, by direct negotiation without public auction. Returns stewardship of the land to the communities who know it. Aloha Chair Lee, Vice Chair Inouye, and Members of the Committee, My name is Cristina Holt. I live on Hawaiʻi Island, and I strongly support SB 2979. For generations, communities have cared for specific places. Not because the State told them to. Because those places are part of who they are. We all know this truth. The State cannot sustainably manage every shoreline, every stream, every heiau, every trail. It does not have the staff. It does not have the lived knowledge. It does not have the daily relationship. Communities do. Right now, grassroots organizations are already stewarding public lands. They restore fishponds. They manage invasive species. They educate keiki. They protect burials. They do this work through patchwork agreements like revocable permits and curatorships that were never designed for long-term care. SB 2979 brings clarity. It brings structure. It brings durability. It says the State recognizes that place-based knowledge and Native Hawaiian stewardship are not symbolic. They are operational. It says the people closest to the land should have a formal seat at the table in managing it. If we truly believe in mālama ʻāina, then we must empower the communities already doing that work. Please pass SB 2979. Mahalo for your time. Cristina Holt Hawaiʻi Island

Restructures the conveyance tax to a progressive marginal rate system for residential property sales, adjusts multifamily property taxes on a per-unit basis, and applies a cost-of-living adjustment to rates going forward. Directs a portion of conveyance tax revenue to a new Transit-Oriented Development Infrastructure Subaccount and to the Hawaiian Home Lands Infrastructure and Housing Special Fund. Wealthy investors and speculators pay more. The money goes to housing for people who actually belong here. Aloha Chair Todd, Vice Chair Takenouchi, and members of the Committee, My name is Tina Holt and I live in Hilo. I work four jobs to keep my family housed and fed. And I am not the exception. That is just what life looks like for a lot of us here. We are working multiple jobs, driving on roads that wash out in every storm, living in communities that have been chronically underinvested for decades while the most valuable land around us changes hands without contributing meaningfully to the people who actually live here. SB3028 changes that. It restructures the conveyance tax so that high-value properties, those valued at two million dollars and above, pay a higher rate when they change hands. According to the Hawaiʻi Tax Fairness Coalition this could raise between 69 and 80 million dollars per year. And where that money goes is written right into the law. Hawaiian Home Lands. Affordable rental housing. Infrastructure. Land conservation. Not a vague promise. The law. Working families like mine will not see our taxes go up. But we will see the benefits of those who gain the most from Hawaiʻi's land and real estate paying more into the programs and systems that sustain us. Please pass SB3028. Our communities cannot afford to wait. Mahalo, Tina Holt Hilo, Hawaiʻi

Would amend the definition of public uses as it applies to state lands. The details of how public use is defined determine whether crown lands serve the public or serve private interests. Aloha Chair Lee, Vice Chair Inouye, and Members of the Committee on Water, Land, Culture and the Arts, My name is Cristina Holt and I am a resident of Hilo, Hawaiʻi, House District 2 and Senate District 1. I am in STRONG OPPOSITION to SB3148. This bill attempts to redefine "public use" of public trust lands to include private, for-profit activities like hotel and resort leases, logging, and mining. It is a direct response to the 2025 Intermediate Court of Appeals ruling that correctly reaffirmed what should never have been in question: that the Land Board must begin with a presumption in favor of public use, access, and enjoyment of public lands before allowing private entities to exclude the public. Instead of complying with that court order, the Department of Land and Natural Resources has chosen to try to change the rules entirely. This is an end-run around the judiciary and a betrayal of the public trust. We have already seen what happens when a state goes down this road. Look at Florida. For decades, Florida has allowed private development interests to steadily erode public beach access. The results have been devastating: Beach access closures. Despite Florida's long-established custom of public beach use, the passage of HB 631 in 2018 effectively gutted the doctrine of customary use, making it dramatically harder for local governments to guarantee public access to dry sand beaches fronting private property. Overnight, beachfront resorts and property owners began posting "No Trespassing" signs on stretches of beach that communities had used for generations. Privatization by attrition. In communities like Destin, Walton County, and along the Southwest Florida coast, public beach access points have been systematically reduced through private development, gated communities, and resort expansion. In some areas, there are miles of coastline where the public physically cannot reach the water without trespassing. Legal chaos. Rather than settling the question, Florida's approach created an explosion of litigation. Counties, municipalities, property owners, and the public have spent millions in legal fees fighting over access rights that were previously understood and respected. Walton County alone has been embroiled in beach access lawsuits for years, costing taxpayers enormously while access remains uncertain. Environmental degradation. When public oversight of coastal lands is weakened in favor of private interests, environmental protections follow. Florida has seen rampant coastal overdevelopment, destruction of dune systems, habitat loss, and water quality crises, much of it driven by the same private development interests that pushed for reduced public access. The algae blooms choking Florida's coastlines and waterways are not unrelated to a governance philosophy that prioritizes private profit over public stewardship. Loss of cultural and community identity. Florida's beaches were once the heart of local communities, places for fishing, gathering, recreation, and connection. In many areas, that is simply gone. Locals are priced out, shut out, and told that the beach they grew up on now belongs to a resort or a hedge fund manager's vacation home. The social fabric of coastal communities has been torn apart. This is not hypothetical. This is not fearmongering. This is what actually happened and is still happening when another state decided that private use of public coastal land was essentially the same as public use. Hawaiʻi is not Florida, and we should not be importing Florida's mistakes. The public trust doctrine, rooted in Hawaiian worldview and enshrined in our State Constitution, exists precisely to prevent this kind of erosion. It recognizes that our beaches, our waters, and our lands belong to all of us, including generations not yet born. SB3148 would give private, profit-driven uses of public lands a legal presumption equal to actual public use. This is not a reasonable balancing of interests. It is a wholesale redefinition of what "public" means, crafted to benefit the hotel and resort industry at the expense of everyone else. I urge this Committee to consider the following: The court got it right. The 2025 ICA ruling did not ban private use of public lands. It simply required the Land Board to start with the public's interest and explain any decision to allow private exclusion. That is a reasonable, minimal standard. If DLNR cannot meet that standard, the answer is better governance, not rewriting the law. This bill will generate exactly the legal chaos it claims to prevent. Redefining "public use" to include private activities under the public trust doctrine will be challenged immediately and repeatedly. The result will be years of costly litigation and legal uncertainty, the very outcome Florida created. The public trust is not an obstacle to good governance. It IS good governance. The trust exists to ensure that short-term political and economic pressures do not permanently compromise resources that belong to all of us. Weakening it does not solve problems. It creates them, for decades. Hawaiʻi's people are watching. The overwhelming public testimony against the privatization of our beaches in recent years has made the community's position abundantly clear. This bill disregards that voice entirely. I respectfully but firmly urge this Committee to hold this bill and send a clear message: the public trust is not negotiable, our beaches are not for sale, and Hawaiʻi will not become Florida. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify. Cristina Holt Hilo, Hawaiʻi House District 2, Senate District 1

Establishes a cultural training pilot program for commercial use permit holders operating in Lahaina Harbor, developed in partnership with OHA, on the cultural and historic significance of the area. Commercial operators in sacred spaces should know where they are. Chair Lee, Chair Richards, Vice Chair Inouye, Vice Chair Lamosao, and Members of the Committees, I am submitting testimony in support of SB 3173. Lahaina is not just a harbor. It is a place of profound historical and cultural significance to Native Hawaiians, and it is a community that has endured unimaginable loss. The people operating commercial businesses in those waters should understand where they are and what that place means. That is not too much to ask. This bill does something simple and respectful. It requires commercial permit holders at Lahaina harbor to complete a cultural training course developed in partnership with an OHA-identified organization that specializes in Native Hawaiian culture and place-based history. No one is being shut out. No permits are being denied. People are just being asked to learn before they operate. When you know the history of a place, you treat it differently. That matters for Lahaina now more than ever. I urge the committees to pass SB 3173. Mahalo for your time and consideration.