Everyone talks about how unproductively public lands are used in general, but the more specific example that’s high on the radar screen is public school property. Especially in urban zones where property value is high but school populations are shrinking, school campuses are rightly seen as an asset that could be tapped to greater effect than it is.
So it is encouraging that legislators are working on a bill that envisions a school property redevelop- ment initiative as a pilot program that could succeed where the broader concept of the Public Land Development Corp. is crashing in a hail of criticism.
But even using this scaled-down approach is going to be complicated. Consider, for example, that many Oahu school campuses are on land owned not by the state Department of Education but by the City and County of Honolulu. So many projects on the state’s most populous island would mean bringing city officials to the table. This jurisdictional overlap is one reason why the long-closed Wailupe Elementary School lay dormant for so long.
Such complexities will demand that lawmakers engage with the public in a wide-ranging discussion about how projects could go forward and, once they do, about how the revenue they generate should be spent.
The PLDC was created as a separate agency geared to enable redevelopment of public land statewide, usually involving a private partner. What bothered people in the initial configuration was that these would be projects exempted from many of the land-use reviews. And although changes were proposed that would provide an avenue for county officials to override a plan, the whole PLDC effort has become a political hot potato. At public hearings intended to gather comments about the rules guiding the PLDC, most critics took aim at the entire idea.
The exhibit of public distrust of what seemed a powerful agency — one that could overcome its original good intentions — was what sent the issue back to the state Capitol this year.
While the fate of the PLDC fate remains to be seen, attempts to upgrade Hawaii’s sadly outdated public school facilities should rightly remain a priority of the Abercrombie administration.
One legislative response to this is a bill that would create a facilities trust enabling the state to lease out some of its underutilized school properties for workforce housing and other commercial projects. Revenue would be funneled into a fund to pay for information-technology improvements that the aging school complexes need to deliver needed services.
But, with the uproar over the PLDC still ongoing, several influential lawmakers believe a go-slow approach may offer the smartest course for the long term.
State Rep. Roy Takumi and state Sen. Jill Tokuda, who chair the education committees, both are talking up the idea of a three-year pilot that would allow the leases only on a few school properties to determine whether this could work statewide. Takumi has suggested that mixed-use projects that pair schools with commercial projects such as affordable rentals or clinics could demonstrate the practical benefits of redevelopment.
This sounds reasonable. Lease rent certainly could provide a long-term revenue stream to support the IT upgrades and other educational needs, such as the proposed preschool services expansion. The law should leave the door open for other, non-educational uses once key public-school priorities are met.
If everyone agrees that some sprawling school properties could provide the money needed to transform schools, and most people do, then leaders should be able to find a way to make it work. Starting small may be the only way the state gets started down this path at all.
