Gov. David Ige is scrambling to save a "historic" arrangement to protect much of Oahu’s Turtle Bay Resort from development after the $40 million taxpayer deal hit a snag over financing he helped arrange.

The snag has to do with creative financing that the state Legislature hastily arranged and approved last year to buy a conservation easement preserving about 665 acres of the North Shore property from housing and hotel development.

Ige last year was a key player in the financing as a senator who helped then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie secure one of his administration’s biggest achievements. He is now working to salvage the situation that some state lawmakers want to re-examine, despite fears from environmental groups that the easement deal is in danger.

The easement purchase was going to be made by the state selling $40 million of revenue bonds through the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

But the bond sale has a June 30 deadline that the Tourism Authority does not intend to meet.

So a new effort is underway at the Legislature to extend the deadline at the behest of Ige’s administration — a move that is being met with some reluctance along with renewed scrutiny as to whether the state is getting a fair price for reducing development and opening up undeveloped resort land to more public use.

"The issue is long from over,"said state Rep. Tom Brower, chairman of the House Tourism Committee, which decided last week to defer a bill that would extend the bond sale deadline for a year.

There is a possibility that the bill still could be passed, but land preservation groups are worried that the deal to protect the Turtle Bay land is in serious jeopardy if the bill dies.

The company overseeing Turtle Bay development and the easement deal on behalf of the resort’s owner said it is concerned that its goal to have the easement sale completed by Sept. 1 will be derailed without an extended bond sale deadline.

"We can’t just sort of suspend this process indefinitely,"said Drew Stotesbury, CEO of resort operations and development for Turtle Bay management firm Replay Resorts Inc. "Time is money."

Stotesbury said he can’t predict what will happen with the easement deal if the ability to complete a purchase is put off till next year.

Wes Machida, director of the state Department of Budget and Finance, said the timing of a bond sale became an issue last month after the state Department of the Attorney General said selling the bonds had to be done by June 30 under last year’s Act 81.

Machida said a prior interpretation of the law was that the bond sale process had to begin by June 30 but could be completed as late as June 30, 2016.

The new view led Ige’s administration to seek a deadline extension. One was proposed by inserting an amendment into Senate Bill 284, which originally had to do with an unrelated Tourism Authority fund.

New language extending the Turtle Bay bonds was inserted March 4 by the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which initially decided to pass the original version of the bill Feb. 26 following a public hearing but then reconsidered that decision and passed the amended version, which also replaces the Tourism Authority with Budget and Finance as the bond issuer.

The full Senate passed the bill unanimously March 10.

Brower (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana-Kakaako) said the House Tourism Committee discussed the bill for about 90 minutes Wednesday. He said concerns were raised about going through with the deal, especially because the bond authorization was rushed through the Legislature last year in a process that involved no public hearings and didn’t sit well with many lawmakers.

It was Abercrombie who tried to line up financing for the easement in his proposed budget early last year in anticipation of a tentative deal following major headway that was made in late 2013.

In mid-April, Abercrombie announced what he termed a "historic"deal to buy the easement for $48.5 million that included the city and the Trust for Public Land chipping in $5 million and $3.5 million, respectively.

Yet lawmakers had excluded the bonds from the budget, leaving little room to maneuver.

Ige, then a state senator involved in budget negotiations, came up with an idea to refinance debt on the Hawai’i Convention Center and use a portion of the interest savings — about

$3 million a year — to cover debt service for Turtle Bay bonds that would be issued by the Tourism Authority.

To authorize the bonds, language in an unrelated bill on hotel room taxes was replaced in conference committee that provided for no public testimony on the plan. The maneuver, known as "gut and replace," left some lawmakers uncomfortable given the lack of discussion or details about the deal. Still, the measure was passed almost unanimously.

Mike McCartney, who left his job as Tourism Authority CEO to become Ige’s chief of staff in December after Ige unseated Abercrombie, said that selling the bonds and executing the easement purchase was always subject to reaching more detailed agreement on what exactly the easement will involve, and validating that the price is fair.

"In order for things to move forward, terms and conditions of the conservation easement clearly need to be defined,"McCartney said.

Such details include defining public access, maintenance responsibilities, security and amenities such as restrooms and parking.

This due diligence, he said, took longer than anticipated.

McCartney also said that Ige is committed to preserving the North Shore land but that lawmakers should be comfortable knowing what exactly the state is buying and whether it’s worth the price before bonds are sold.

Under the easement arrangement, 650 homes approved for development, including 225 fronting Kawela Bay, would not be built. And no development would happen on about 665 acres, including 70 acres fronting Kawela Bay and almost 600 acres largely occupied by Turtle Bay’s two golf courses.

The resort still would be permitted to add two hotels with a combined 625 rooms, and 100 homes on about 150 acres fronting the ocean on opposing sides of the existing 443-room Turtle Bay hotel.

The easement, which would last in perpetuity, was seen as a compromise over the resort’s larger and preferred expansion plan, which had been opposed by several community groups.

On Monday representatives of the Trust for Public Land and the North Shore Community Land Trust urged lawmakers to pass SB284 so the bond sale deadline can be extended.

"We think the additional time is needed for the deal to go through,"said Doug Cole, executive director of the North Shore Community Land Trust.

House leaders pulled the bill from the Tourism Committee on Monday and referred it to the Water and Land Committee and the Finance Committee. An initial committee hearing and passage would have to happen Wednesday for SB284 to stay alive.