Bill limits seawalls to official agencies

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Capitol Bureau

Only government agencies would be allowed to build seawalls or groins under a bill that moved out of the House Economic Development and Business Concerns Committee yesterday.

House Bill 1953, House Draft 1, also would provide a new definition of shoreline setback.

The bill now goes to the House Water, Land and Hawaiian Affairs Committee.

Rep. Tommy Waters, D-51st (Waimanalo, Lanikai), who authored the bill, said it is designed to stop property owners from seeking variances to put up seawalls and other shoreline structures.

Lanikai has been losing sand at alarming rates, Waters said, and "most of the data and information that we have point to the hardening of the shore."

The ban on construction of seawalls and groins would begin July 1. Variances could be granted to the Department of Transportation or Department of Land and Natural Resources to create seawalls or groins that would preserve the shoreline or for some other government purpose.

The draft bill also establishes a new way of defining shoreline setback based on the annual erosion rate for a given area.

The new language would require shoreline setback to be "a distance inland from the shoreline equal to 50 times the annual erosion rate for the area based on historical aerial photographs or the shoreline setback line established by the county, whichever is greater," something that would be determined by the DLNR.

The original bill called for increasing the statewide shoreline setback from 40 feet to 100 feet. Public utilities or state agencies could be exempt from the provisions.

The amendments address concerns raised by the DLNR, which earlier had testified that the bill could prove too restrictive.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.