A quiet legislative change now allows nieces and nephews to inherit Hawaiian homestead leases. For some families, this is the difference between keeping the land and losing it.
Hawaiian Home Lands: Briefly
The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (HHCA), enacted by Congress in 1920, set aside approximately 203,500 acres across the islands for a homesteading program intended to benefit Native Hawaiians. The program, administered by Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL), is for eligible beneficiaries to lease residential, agricultural, or pastoral lots at a nominal rate of $1/year for 99 years. “Eligible beneficiaries are those who can demonstrate at least one-half Native Hawaiian blood quantum.
Designed as a form of restitution for Native Hawaiians displaced from their ancestral lands, the program works to address inequity. It is also, by the admission of most people who work within it, deeply imperfect. The waiting list for homestead leases has historically stretched tens of thousands of people long. Succession rules have long created heartbreaking situations where a lessee’s death without a qualified heir caused the land to revert to the state. The property doesn’t stay within the family.
The Statute
Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, as amended — a federal statute codified as a compact within the Hawaiʻi Admission Act of 1959. DHHL administers the program under Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes Chapter 167 and the Hawaiʻi Administrative Rules, Title 10.
HB 2309, SLH 2026 — amends HHCA succession provisions to include nieces and nephews as eligible successors to a homestead, subject to the one-quarter blood quantum requirement. This is a change from the original 50% requirement for nieces and nephews.
In 2026, the Hawaiʻi Legislature passed House Bill 2309 unanimously — 25-0 in the Senate. The bill expands the list of relatives eligible to succeed a Hawaiian homelands lease to include nieces and nephews. Adding them to the existing list of spouses, children, grandchildren, and siblings. All successors must still meet the one-quarter Native Hawaiian blood quantum threshold required by the HHCA. Nieces and nephews were previously allowed as successors, only if they met the original 50% blood-quantum requirement.
The change may appear incremental, but its practical significance is substantial. Because federal law tightly regulates the program, succession rules determine whether a family’s multigenerational connection to the land survives. Or is severed when a leaseholder dies. For families in which children and grandchildren have already passed, or are ineligible due to blood quantum rules, a niece or nephew may be the last qualified relative with a legal path to succession.
As such, succession rules carry outsized weight — determining whether a family’s connection to the land endures across generations or is severed when a lessee dies without a legally eligible heir.
Blood quantum and the ongoing debate:
The blood quantum requirement has been criticized by scholars and advocates as a colonial legal construct that fractures Native Hawaiian identity and creates a legal distinction between Hawaiians based on degree of ancestry. A standard applied to few other groups in American law. The HHCA’s one-half requirement was set by Congress in 1920 and cannot be changed by the state legislature alone. It would require an act of Congress or a constitutional amendment. For now, the expansion of eligible successors work within that constraint rather than challenging it by allowing successors — nieces and nephews included — to inherit the homestead as long as they’re at least 25% Native Hawaiian.
The legislature also passed HB 1800, which increases funding to DHHL and other housing initiatives — a necessary companion measure given that the waiting list for homestead lots remains among the longest in the program’s history. Addressing the succession gap through HB 2309 while simultaneously addressing the resource gap through HB 1800 represents a meaningful, if incremental, policy response to an ongoing legal and humanitarian problem.
Sources
Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, Pub. L. 67-34, 42 Stat. 108; codified at 48 U.S.C. § 491 et seq.
Hawaii Admission Act, Pub. L. 86-3, 73 Stat. 4 (1959) — HHCA incorporated as compact
HRS Chapter 167 (Hawaiian Home Lands); HAR Title 10
HB 2309, SLH 2026 — amending HHCA succession provisions (passed Senate 25-0)
Courthouse News Service — “Hawaii Legislature passes bills for automatic voter registration, native homestead rights” (May 2026)
Ka Wai Ola, Office of Hawaiian Affairs — “2026 Legislative Landscape Raises Concerns” (Apr. 2026)
Harvard Law Review — “Aloha ʻĀina: Native Hawaiian Land Restitution” (2020)
Looking for more info on DHHL leases? https://dhhl.hawaii.gov
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