Gov. Neil Abercrombie has urged the Public Land Development Corp. to adopt a strategic plan that defines its priorities and scope, warning that public "suspicion and supposition" would continue without such a plan.

The governor wrote in a letter to the corporation’s five-member board Wednesday that adopting the strategic plan would demonstrate that the board has heard the public’s concerns.

"Now is the opportunity for the PLDC board to address public reservations about the PLDC (perceived or otherwise), commit to transparency, outline the community’s role in projects, and highlight its great potential," the governor wrote.

The strategic plan, drafted by state senators who support the corporation with guidance from the corporation’s staff, would make it clear that the corporation has to comply with the state’s environmental review, historic preservation, ceded lands, open meetings and wage rate laws. The corporation, among other stipulations, would also agree not to develop agricultural land eligible for designation under the state’s important agricultural lands program.

Kalbert Young, the state budget director and chairman of the corporation’s board, said at a board meeting Thursday that the strategic plan provides a "good framework." But he said the board wanted to hear more public input and would wait until its next meeting in October before deciding how to proceed.

Robert Harris, director of the Sierra Club Hawaii chapter, and Henry Curtis, executive director of Life of the Land, were among several environmental advocates who questioned how the strategic plan would blend with the corporation’s draft administrative rules and the underlying law that created the corporation.

The corporation staff is still compiling the testimony gathered at public hearings on the administrative rules, which were dominated by opponents who did not address the draft rules, but instead called for the corporation to be abolished as a threat to the environment and native culture.

Several activists told the board Thursday not to discount the public voices demanding a repeal, even though it is the state Legislature, and not the board, that has the authority to consider a repeal.

Lloyd Haraguchi, the corporation’s executive director, said if the draft rules are substantially revised, the board would hold additional public hearings. He said afterward that such a process could take until the end of the year or longer. He said no development projects would be considered until the rules are adopted.

"We heard and we listened, and some of the comments that came in is that we should finish the rules before we go out and do a project," he said. "And this is exactly what we’re doing."

Harris predicted that the draft rules would have to be substantially changed. "I think the first draft was so lacking and so woeful that they do need to do substantial revisions," he said.

Young, asked afterward whether the board was listening to the public criticism, said the board is doing what is required and expected under the law. "Unfortunately, the PLDC cannot control issues related to Hawaiian sovereignty, geothermal, GMO (genetically modified organism) development — any of those other type" of issues outside of specific projects that may be proposed.