To its critics, the new Public Land Development Corp. appears set on making all of Hawaii into one gigantic hedge fund.
To its supporters, the PLDC is about joining the 21st century, making Hawaii’s public land stand and deliver and rid the state of underdeveloped land.
Still, even the law’s mission statement that it is "to make optimal use of public land for the economic, environmental and social benefit of the people of Hawaii" could give you reason to pause.
Although the PLDC concept was not included in either House or Senate legislative package, nor in Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s State of the State speech in 2011, the Legislature passed the bill and Abercrombie signed it into law.
Then it lit up a mostly sleeping public.
The bill’s stated reason for being is to funnel money to the Department of Land and Natural Resources, which has seen its budget cut in half since 2002.
The PLDC is run by a board of five, including three state appointees picked by the governor and two selected by the Legislature. There is no Senate confirmation.
After years of being told that Hawaii was bound by regulations and business could not flourish because there was no capital to be invested, Abercrombie and the Legislature have set about on a campaign to green-light development projectsby exempting them from as many government zoning, building, environmental and construction standards and regulations as they can legally find.
The PLDC law says "it shall be exempt from all statutes, ordinances, charter provisions, and rules of any government agency relating to special improvement district assessments or requirements; land use, zoning, and construction standards for subdivisions, development, and improvement of land; and the construction, improvement, and sale of homes."
In order to pass its own rules, the PLDC needed to hold a series of public hearings across the state. But instead of getting public suggestions about how to conduct its meetings and such, the public turnout was huge and uniformly nasty. Basically the public witnesses told PLDC to "drop dead."
A portion of the opposition was fueled by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which according to its own releases said: "The huge turnout was prompted largely by efforts at OHA to mobilize its beneficiaries through email alerts, phone calls and public notices in its newspaper as well as social media sites."
OHA said it didn’t trust the PLDC because the PLDC rules didn’t "reflect cultural sensitivity to the unique challenges facing Native Hawaiians. (And) the PLDC is authorized to develop the state’s lands in a way never allowed before."
The controversy attracted the attention of Democratic candidate for the state Senate, Laura Thielen, who has started campaigning on a platform of repealing the PLDC. Thielen adds a lot of credibility to the argument because she was DLNR director and land board chairwoman during much of the budget-cutting years and knows the issues more than most.
"There are a lot more people stepping forward, saying to wait. There are laws and regulations in place to protect our quality of life, and even if it takes a little longer but to respect our residents, then so be it," Thielen said in an interview.
If the PLDC is needed to pay for the state parks and recreation land, Thielen noted: "The state doesn’t have a good record of earning a lot of money when it tries to compete with the private sector."
"If you look over the past 50 years, it seems we have developed an awful lot. What have we needed to develop that we haven’t developed?" she said.
Her Republican opponent, former state Sen. Fred Hemmings, said he also opposes the PLDC because "it was a good idea that was poorly executed."
For now, the PLDC remains — and with it a deep community skepticism that when the Abercrombie administration and all future governors say, "Trust me," it really means, "Sucker."
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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
