Hope springs eternal — and for Native Hawaiians long waiting for homestead lots, a glimmer of hope is coming from Ewa Beach.
Last week, the U.S. government transferred 80 acres of surplus federal property — the former NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at the end of Fort Weaver Road — to the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust. Unlike many of the trust’s other lands, this flat acreage is equipped with infrastructure, with much potential to realize homesteads for up to 400 Native Hawaiian families.
It now falls to the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) to get the acreage primed for homes, as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible. DHHL has a wait-list of 11,000 Hawaiians seeking residential homesteads on Oahu — so while the prospect of 400 homes is encouraging, it’s still a mere fraction of overwhelming demand. Rooted in the 1920 federal Hawaiian Homes Act, DHHL manages a 203,000-acre trust to benefit those who are at least half-Hawaiian — but many have died waiting for their homestead leases, set as just compensation by the 1920 law at $1 yearly lease rent for 99 years.
“Residential lots on Oahu are of the highest demand from applicants on the waiting list,” said William J. Aila, Jr., chairman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission. “This land transfer is an opportunity for beneficiaries that is truly in line with the spirit of the Hawaiian Home Lands Recovery Act (HHLRA).”
It is a bittersweet milestone moment.
At long last, the Ewa Beach parcel represents the first transfer of federal lands suitable for homesteading. It is near water, sewage and electrical infrastructure with paved roads and an existing residential community. As DHHL notes, all previous HHLRA land transfers have been in commercial or industrial areas; instead of homes, those have been designated for revenue-making purposes.
Ironically, it was the landmark HHLRA, passed by Congress in 1995, that had raised high hopes for the righting of historical wrongs, by having the U.S. compensate Native Hawaiians for ancestral lands taken from them over the years. Since the HHLRA’s enactment, nearly 900 acres of federal lands have been transferred to DHHL.
But while the recovery act requires the federal government to notify the DHHL trust when excess lands here become available, that was only sporadically done over the decades — and sometimes, even thwarted by bypass legislation backed by members of Hawaii’s own congressional delegation.
In a May 7 investigation co-published by the ProPublica nonprofit newsroom, Honolulu Star-Advertiser writer Rob Perez reported that the late U.S. Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka, as well as current Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono, have all voted for various legislation circumventing the Hawaiian lands recovery act. Both Schatz and Hirono said they were unaware that HHLRA circumventions were embedded in military-spending bills they had voted for — and both vowed to be more aware, so it wouldn’t happen again. Hirono, for one, has written relevant federal agencies to be more diligent about notifying the DHHL trust when excess lands become available.
As for the Ewa Beach parcel: Valued at $10 million, it defrays a $16.9 million land credit that DHHL had with the federal government, after an earlier Waipahu land transfer fell through in 2000.
DHHL now will begin consulting its beneficiaries to determine the design of this new homestead community, and seek funding from the Legislature for master-planning. Aila has noted that the flat acreage close to existing infrastructure will allow DHHL “to develop these lands quicker and for a lower cost than our more isolated parcels.”
Given the decades of starts and stops, it will be incumbent upon DHHL to deliver a cohesive, exciting vision to make quick advantage of this rare opportunity toward fulfilling its homestead obligation to beneficiaries. An impressive, unified vision would make it difficult for even the Legislature — with all its other priorities, competing needs and distractions — to ignore DHHL’s momentum to bring long-awaited dreams to fruition for many of
Hawaii’s indigenous people.
