DHHL regional meeting spotlights values while residents press for change on blood quantum, succession and term limits

Staff from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands opened a second beneficiary consultation for the West Kauai regional plan and walked attendees through the planning hierarchy, schedule and draft community values.

The meeting, led by a DHHL staff member, laid out the process: three content meetings to collect community input, a staff-prepared draft, a fourth meeting for public review and a comment period (typically at least 30 days) before the draft goes to the Hawaiian Homes Commission for information and potential adoption. Staff emphasized that this update adds a vision statement, community values and implementation steps tied to priority projects.

The draft values—presented as single-word values with short descriptions, and illustrated by a word cloud generated from meeting notes—included Ohana (multigenerational living), Aloha, Kama (responsibility), Lahi (community), Ehi (respect/culture), Kokua (mutual aid) and Malama (stewardship of resources). The presenter said the values are draft language to be edited by beneficiaries and that priority projects will be profiled with concrete implementation steps if the community votes to prioritize them.

During discussion, residents raised urgent policy concerns that they said go beyond phrasing of values. One attendee asked, “How can we address blood quantum?” and said there are "fewer and fewer Hawaiians that qualify for Hawaiian homestead" and that people die while waiting on the list. A DHHL staff member responded with the department’s current eligibility explanation: “In order to be an applicant on the wait list, you have to have 50% ... and you must be 18 years old. If you are succeeding ... you must meet a 25% blood quantum and be 18 years old,” and described the usual order of succession (parents, siblings, children, spouse, grandchildren), noting limitations for nieces and nephews except where higher quantum is met.

Staff also gave historical context, citing the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act and Prince Kūhiō’s original proposals, and told attendees that one West Kauai priority project is to research what it would take to change the homestead term (currently 99 years with an option to extend) to a longer term or to pursue other succession pathways. Staff cautioned that a path to change is not guaranteed but said the research is a stated community directive and will be captured in the plan’s priority project profiles.

Participants also raised process questions about accessibility; staff said the office can run hybrid meetings, record sessions and post video to broaden participation. Staff committed to compiling the top five priority projects from beneficiaries, writing full profiles for each (including steps, funding and regulatory needs), and bringing drafts back to the community before submission to the commission.

The meeting paused for a break at 7:02 p.m. and was set to resume at 7:15 p.m. The next steps, as described by staff, are that planning staff will assemble community input into a draft regional plan, open a public comment period and bring the draft to the Hawaiian Homes Commission (noted for information) in the scheduled August meeting in Lihu.