Honolulu Star-Advertiser - February 10, 2013
A state agency established to streamline private development on public lands was widely decried Saturday as a misguided handout to profiteers.
At a five-hour hearing at the state Capitol, critics urged lawmakers to scrap the Public Land Development Corp., which was given broad exemptions from land use regulations as an incentive to attract private development on underused state property.
But public opposition has kept it from developing a single project since its creation in 2011.
The PLDC has been criticized as giving too much power to developers.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie has proposed a 21st-century schools initiative to develop underutilized public school land and a new development authority for harbors and parks, but those alternatives have been clouded by the PLDC.
Kauai County Councilman Gary Hooser urged lawmakers to resist tinkering with the PLDC and repeal the law.
“Bad process, bad policy and bad politics have combined to make the perfect storm, and the only way to calm this storm, and to right the canoe — to right that canoe we’re always talking about — is to pass a complete and full repeal of the PLDC,” he said. “No morphing. No amending. No name changes.
“The public wants to know that our lawmakers listen to them. The public believes that the fix is in, and has little confidence in us or in the institutions in which we serve. Please, please pass a full and complete repeal today, and help restore the faith and confidence of the people of our state in their government.”
Mahina Martin, a Maui community leader, said neighbor island residents have had to struggle to have their voices heard by what she called an Oahu-centric PLDC board, despite the fact that much of the public land that could be developed is on the neighbor islands.
“Today, we are too far gone past the ‘Trust us, we’re going to fix it and amend it or adjust it,’ whatever you call it,” she said. “The level of patching and fixing required will give us legislation again that would be bad law.”
Abercrombie, who will consider a PLDC repeal but wants the Legislature to look closely at alternatives, said his 21st-century schools initiative was on the administration’s radar before the PLDC. The governor estimated that public school land from Hawaii Kai to Farrington High School in Kalihi alone could be assessed at more than $1 billion, and said that redevelopment could help generate money to modernize the state’s aging public school infrastructure.
“I’m hoping that we’re not going to start thinking about, ‘Let’s see, what kind of dangers can I foresee?’ and then focus on that as opposed to, ‘How can we have a positive outcome here that is entirely compatible with what is most likely to happen?’” he said.
Rep. Cindy Evans (D, Kaupulehu-Waimea-Halaula), chairwoman of the House Water and Land Committee, said lawmakers would hold committee votes Monday afternoon on the 21st-century schools, new harbors and parks authority, and PLDC-related bills.
She said lawmakers will likely support a PLDC repeal.
“I think at this point in time it’s looking pretty good that we’re going to have repeal,” Evans said. “I believe that our representatives represent their constituents. And I believe that they feel they have to represent their positions.
“So what I saw in terms of testimony that was coming from statewide, it was overwhelmingly ‘repeal.’”
Many of the same environmental, progressive and labor activists who stormed hearings last year on the PLDC’s administrative rules attended the hearing on Saturday. Lawmakers, expecting a large audience, held the hearing in the Capitol auditorium and staff set up a television in the hallway for an overflow crowd that never materialized.
Activists have successfully pressured lawmakers to frame the debate around a PLDC repeal, and as several warned, it will be difficult to discuss the Abercrombie administration’s 21st-century schools initiative or a new harbors and parks authority until the future of the PLDC is resolved.
“We don’t trust you after the Public Lands Development Corp.,” Hawaii County Councilwoman Margaret Wille told lawmakers. “And we need to look at these things holistically and have adult conversations, and not one that combines questions in a way that it looks like we’re opposed to education if we’re opposed to a certain privatization process.”
Sen. Malama Solomon (D, Kaupulehu-Waimea-North Hilo), chairwoman of the Senate Water and Land Committee, told senators earlier this month that she would not hear a PLDC repeal bill and would instead wait to see what emerges from the House. Senate leadership, however, has committed to addressing the PLDC if the House decides not to move a repeal bill.
Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz (D, Wheeler-Wahiawa-Schofield), who, with Solomon, was behind the PLDC as a concept that could help raise revenue for the state, wants to prove that much of the opposition to the PLDC is driven by politics and not public policy.
Dela Cruz, the chairman of the Senate Economic Development, Government Operations and Housing Committee, has scheduled a joint hearing with Solomon’s committee Monday afternoon on a bill that would not only repeal the regulatory exemptions for the PLDC, but exemptions that had been previously granted for the Hawaii Community Development Authority, the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, the Agribusiness Development Corp., the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority and other state agencies.
The two senators have also dusted off the “recreational renaissance” legislation that was proposed by Sen. Laura Thielen (D, Hawaii Kai-Waimanalo-Kailua) when she was director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources during the Lingle administration. The proposal involved, among other items, the development of state land to generate revenue.
Thielen has been among those calling for a PLDC repeal.
“We need to review exemptions as a policy issue which is much, much larger than the development corporation,” Dela Cruz said in an email. “Authorities, corporations and exemptions were established over the years to be more responsive and proactive. That seems to be the preferred route instead of structuring government. Are they working? We need to hear from the agencies.
“The renaissance program was an earlier attempt to create revenue to pay for operations and maintenance. These earlier approaches also should be revisited. We need alternatives to raising taxes and fees that also help create jobs.”
