Hawaiʻi Appleseed’s legislative priorities for the 2025 Hawaiʻi State Legislative Session.
Affordable Housing
Conveyance Tax Reform
Act 305 (2022) established a working group to identify barriers to affordable housing. The group identified inadequate infrastructure as the top challenge. Hawaiʻi currently upgrades infrastructure on a project-by-project basis, slowing affordable housing development and increasing costs as a result. The state and counties should take the lead in financing larger, regional infrastructure improvements, enabling faster and more efficient development. Increasing the conveyance tax on properties worth more than $4 million, as well as those owned by non-residents, could provide a vital funding source for these upgrades, advancing both affordability and equity.
HB1410 (Evslin): Establishes the Supportive Housing Special Fund. Restructures the conveyance tax to a marginal rate system and adjusts the tax for multifamily properties to reflect value on a per-unit basis. Allocates revenues from conveyance tax collections to the Supportive Housing Special Fund. Allocates a portion of conveyance tax collections to the Dwelling Unit Revolving Fund to fund infrastructure programs in county-designated transit-oriented development areas that meet minimum standards of transit-supportive density.
Stabilizing Hawaiʻi’s Renters
Hawaiʻi’s renters face significant housing challenges in their daily lives due to rising rent costs, limited housing options, and insufficient tenant protections. Current laws provide short eviction notice periods, lack requirements for just-cause evictions, and do not ensure tenants have legal representation. This leaves tenents vulnerable to displacement and instability. Implementing policies such as a right-to-counsel, just cause requirements, and anti-price gouging protections, and improving access to rental assistance, can reduce displacement, support our local workforce, and enhance community well-being across the state.
HB1325 (Grandinetti): Requires developers developing an affordable housing project under HHFDC to assist certain tenants who are subject to displacement or eviction by the proposed project by: granting those tenants the right of first refusal of a comparable unit in the housing project at an affordable rate; establishing a fund to provide relocation benefits; providing information, either directly or through a contracted service, on how to obtain assistance and exercise the right of first refusal; and establishing procedures to maintain communication with those tenants.
HB464/SB153 (Grandinetti/Chang): Requires, for tenancies greater than 90 days, a landlord to notify a tenant of any intent to raise the rent for any subsequent rental agreement or any intent to terminate a rental agreement 60 days before the expiration of the original rental agreement. Requires 90 day's notice for a landlord or tenant to terminate tenancies of three years or more and 60 days' notice to terminate tenancies of less than three years, with certain exceptions. Increases the amount of notice required to terminate tenancies that are less than month-to-month.
HB463/SB154 (Grandinetti/Chang): Requires that all court records of any eviction proceeding be sealed within specified timeframes upon resolution of the proceeding. Authorizes the court to seal certain eviction records prior to the expiration of these timeframes upon motion by a tenant who is able to demonstrate that certain conditions apply. Requires the clerk of the court to provide access to sealed eviction records to the tenant. Makes it a discriminatory practice to require a person to disclose a sealed eviction record as a condition of certain real property transactions. Prohibits discrimination in real property transactions against a person with a sealed eviction record.
Deed Restrictions for Local Residents (New!)
Proposals to create deed restrictions aim to create a dedicated housing market for long-term Hawaiʻi residents by requiring that buyers or renters be either: (1) currently employed in Hawaiʻi; or (2) retirees who have previously worked in the state for a specific period. These restrictions are income-blind, ensuring broad accessibility while prioritizing housing for locals.
The Kamaʻāina Homes Program would allow property owners to voluntarily place a deed restriction on their home in exchange for a buyout, ensuring that the home remains available exclusively to local residents in perpetuity. ADU Financing Assistance, meanwhile, encourages the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) by local homeowners, offering financial assistance for ADU development. In return, the ADU must be rented under a deed restriction that maintains occupancy for local residents, fostering long-term housing stability. Both programs seek to jump-start a sustainable “locals-only” housing market by protecting inventory from speculative demand and ensuring housing remains accessible to Hawaii’s workforce and retirees."
HB739/SB490 (Evslin/Chang): Establishes the Kamaʻāina Homes Program to provide funding to the counties to purchase voluntary deed restrictions from eligible homeowners or homebuyers.
HB740/SB491 (Evslin/Chang): Establishes the Accessory Dwelling Unit Financing and Deed Restriction Program to allocate funds to the counties to provide grants to eligible homeowners or homebuyers to finance construction costs, development costs, and non-reoccurring closing costs associated with the construction of an accessory dwelling unit and purchase deed restrictions on such property.
Food Equity
Universal Free School Meals
Research shows that access to nutritious meals at school significantly improves student attendance, academic performance and health. Many of Hawai‘i’s students don’t qualify for free school meals, yet their families struggle to put food on the table. This leaves a large number of students without access to the nutrition they need to succeed. UFSM fills that gap. Providing free meals to all keiki also eliminates the risk of social stigma experienced when meals are denied due to negative account balances.
SB43 (Dela Cruz): Beginning with the 2025-2026 school year, requires the Department of Education to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students enrolled in department schools. Appropriates funds.
HB757 (Matayoshi): Beginning with the 2025-2026 school year, requires the Department of Education to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students enrolled in department schools. Appropriates funds.
Transportation
Freedom to Walk
Decriminalizing jaywalking would allow pedestrians to legally cross the street outside of marked crosswalks, or against the traffic signal, so long as they do not pose a threat of collision with vehicles. Pedestrians often have the best judgment in avoiding traffic injuries. Nearly 60 million Americans now live in places where jaywalking has been decriminalized.
Jaywalking tickets can lead to debt and court records, and unfairly impacts people who rely on walking to get around. Between 2018–2023, on average, more than 5,000 citations were given in Hawaiʻi for jaywalking per year, much higher than other places in the U.S. However, nearly 78 percent of jaywalking citation fees were not collected, making jaywalking enforcement a financial drain. Freedom to Walk encourages the state to shift from enforcement, towards investment in safe, accessible pedestrian infrastructure.
SB106 (Rhoads): Authorizes pedestrians to act contrary to the statewide traffic code when a reasonably careful pedestrian would determine that there is no immediate danger of a collision with a moving vehicle.
HB941 (Todd): Authorizes pedestrians to cross roadways in a manner contrary to the statewide traffic code under certain circumstances.
Safe Routes to School Funding
In 2022, Hawaiʻi saw a record 117 traffic fatalities and 572 serious injuries on its roads. Many of these collisions occurred near schools, highlighting the need to prioritize the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program. SRTS provides healthy transportation options for keiki by developing pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure within a one-mile radius of public schools. Despite the importance of this program, it is severely underfunded. Nearly 80 percent of high-priority pedestrian, bicycle, and multimodal projects across the state that are awaiting funding are located near schools. A dedicated, $15 million per year to the SRTS would target this development where it will do the most good.
These bills may also include other pedestrian safety measures, such as leading pedestrian intervals (LPIs), which give pedestrians and bicyclists a 3–7 second head start to cross the street before vehicles begin moving. LPIs have been found to reduce pedestrian-vehicle collisions by up to 60 percent.
HB1471 (Grandinetti): Requires and appropriates funds for the Department of Transportation to install traffic actuated signals, including leading pedestrian intervals and accessible pedestrian signals and detectors. Imposes an additional fee of $5 for a certificate of registration for motor vehicles, to be deposited into the Safe Routes to School Program Special Fund.
SB1124 (Lee): Establishes the retail delivery safety fee of 50 cents to be imposed on a retailer for each transaction involving a non-food item retail delivery in the State. Allows the retailer to transfer the fee to the purchaser. Creates certain exemptions. Requires the Director of Taxation to deposit the collected fees into the Safe Routes to School Program Special Fund. Allows the Director of Taxation to deposit collected fees that cover the administration of the retail delivery safety fee into the state general fund.
SB1196 (Lee): Establishes a ridesharing fee. Deposits fees collected into the Safe Routes to School Program Special Fund.
Tax Reform
A Hawaiʻi Child Tax Credit
The federal child tax credit (CTC) provides financial assistance to low- and middle-income parents with children. The CTC reduced child poverty in the U.S. by 40 percent when the credit amounts were temporarily expanded in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, the credit amount had been $2,000 for each child under the age of 18. This amount was boosted to $3,600 for each child aged 5 and under, and $3,000 for each child aged 6 to 17.
The expansion ended after 2021 and, in 2022, the national child poverty rate more than doubled from 5.2 percent to 12.4 percent. Hawaiʻi can fill the gap the end of the expansion left by creating its own, state-level CTC. The proposed Hawaiʻi CTC would be worth $650 for every child under 18, and would reach around 162,000 local families. This program would come at a cost of just $84 million per year.
Capital Gains Tax Reform
Hawaiʻi can better support low-income working families by changing how it taxes income from investments, called “capital gains.” Currently, Hawaiʻi taxes capital gains at a lower rate (7.25 percent) than regular income (up to 11 percent for the highest earners). This mostly benefits wealthy households that have a much larger share of income that comes from investments.
Taxing capital gains at the same progressive rates at which regular income is taxed could raise $88–132 million each year. This added money could be used to fund programs and tax credits that help families deal with the high cost of living, such as the state Child Tax Credit.
Earned Income Tax Credit Expansion (New!)
Hawaiʻi’s Earned Income Tax Credit was first established in 2017 and has already been expanded thanks to the efforts of advocates like you. New proposals this year would expand the credit further, strengthening one of our most successful anti-poverty tools at a time when working families are struggling to meet their basic needs.
HB182/SB704 (Lamasao/San Buenaventurea): Permanently increases the state earned income tax credit to 50% of the federal earned income tax credit. Applies to taxable years beginning after 12/31/2024.
HB183/SB1013 (Lamasao/Lee): Authorizes each qualifying individual taxpayer to claim an additional credit if the taxpayer claims any dependent under the age of 18.