Condominium Property Regime, or CPR, is a Hawaii state law that gives the guidelines for creating a condominium.  On Kauai, many people have used this law to legally divide up the ownership of properties that might not otherwise have qualified to be subdivided.

If you are interested in this for your property, the first thing to do is write a letter to the Kauai Planning Department and find out what the residential density is for that particular piece of property.  The Planning Department will tell you the zoning and how many houses are allowed in a return letter that could take up to three weeks or longer to receive.   If the property’s zoning allows for more than one house then you might be able to divide the property using a CPR.

The next step would be to obtain a title report on the property find out if there are any deed restrictions, such as subdivision covenants, which are recorded against the title, that might prevent you from completing a CPR.  In older subdivisions there may not be a subdivision covenant document but there might be language in a previous deed that prevents a CPR.  Another step would be to find out if access and utilities such as additional water meters are available for all the divided units.  Sometimes the zoning will allow for additional homes, but water meter and/or waste water restrictions would greatly limit the density.  An example of this would be a 5 acre property that is zoned R-2 (which means that there are 2 houses allowed per acre) would result in a density of 10 houses.  However, the water department might currently only allow for 2 water meters for this property and they may also state that each water meter may only serve one house.  In this situation, you would be limited to only 2 houses and therefore your CPR would be limited to 2 units, rather than 10.

In another case, the zoning might allow for 2 houses but the State Health Department rules allow for only1 wastewater system.  In this scenario you could create a 2 unit CPR but the units would have to share the wastewater system and each wastewater system is only allowed to service 5 bedrooms.  There would be a restriction on the 2 CPR units for 5 bedrooms, which would be a total for both houses combined.  This can be a problem if the owners of either of the units want to add on another bedroom in the future.

Government rules are always changing and even though a property would qualify for CPR in the past, it may not be the same now or in the future.