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HRS §53-51

Urban renewal projects

This section lets a redevelopment agency plan and carry out urban renewal projects in urban areas. These projects can fix or prevent slums and blight, and may include repairing buildings, buying and clearing property, building public improvements, and selling property for project goals. It is a broad permission, not a detailed rulebook.

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The statute, as written — Urban renewal projects

In addition to its authority under any other section of this chapter, a redevelopment agency may plan and undertake urban renewal projects within urban areas. As used in this chapter, an urban renewal project may include undertakings and activities for the elimination (and for the prevention of the development or spread) of slums, or other blighted, or deteriorated, or deteriorating areas and may involve any work or undertaking for the purpose constituting a redevelopment project or any rehabilitation or conservation work or a program of code enforcement, or any combination of such undertaking or work. For this purpose, "rehabilitation or conservation work" may include (1) carrying out plans for a program of voluntary or compulsory repair and rehabilitation of buildings or other improvements; (2) acquisition of real property and demolition, removal, or rehabilitation of buildings and improvements thereon where necessary to eliminate unhealthful, unsanitary, or unsafe conditions, lessen density, reduce traffic hazards, eliminate obsolete or other uses detrimental to the public welfare, or to otherwise remove or prevent the spread of blight or deterioration, or to provide land for needed public facilities; (3) installation, construction, or reconstruction of streets, utilities, parks, playgrounds, and other improvements necessary for carrying out the objectives of the urban renewal project; and (4) the disposition, for uses in accordance with the objectives of the urban renewal project of any property or part thereof acquired in the area of the project; provided that the disposition shall be in the manner prescribed in this chapter for the disposition of property in a redevelopment project area under part I.
Read the official text at capitol.hawaii.gov ↗as published Jan 6, 2026our copy taken Aug 20, 2026

LawTrove is not legal advice. The summary above is a computer-generated restatement — the authoritative text is the official version linked above.