{"id":12323,"date":"2020-03-31T20:35:34","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T20:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=12323"},"modified":"2020-09-24T17:35:29","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T17:35:29","slug":"board-talk-board-approves-hearings-on-new-state-park-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=12323","title":{"rendered":"Board Talk: Board Approves Hearings On New State Park Fees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Diamond Head State Park. Credit: DLNR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On February 28, Curt Cottrell, administrator for the Department of Land and Natural Resources\u2019 Division of State Parks, asked the Land Board for permission to hold public hearings on proposed fee increases for parking, entry, and facility uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that his division had not increased fees in 20 years. \u201cThis is a long time in coming for us. We\u2019re charging fees established 20 years ago. …We haven\u2019t done a substantive fee change since that time,\u201d he told the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With aid from a legal fellow and deputy attorney general Colin Lau, the division proposed new fees that Cottrell said would greatly increase the division\u2019s ability to repair, maintain, and secure its parks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really wish we would have done that several years ago. Not having a legal fellow, it was really challenging to get the capacity to do this. Once tourism popped, there was a lot of revenue being hemorrhaged over the last several years that we could have collected to have enhanced our operations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that 80 percent of his division\u2019s $14 million annual budget goes to salaries or lifeguard contracts, leaving just $2.8 million for everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the division spent $536,000 on repair and maintenance, which is just a small fraction of its $40 million backlog. Cottrell added that it is also contracting more and more with the department\u2019s enforcement officers to deal with after-hours security issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, with charging for parking and entry, we generate $2.9 million a year … $1 to walk in, $5 to drive in, staggered fees for buses,\u201d he said. With the new fees \u2014 which he assured the board would not be applied to all parks \u2014 \u201cwe stand to make, top-end, minus coronavirus and natural disaster, we could get up to $8.7 million in revenue just from parking and entry, just from a modest increase from $1 to $5, $5 to $10 and an increase in the bus tour calculations,\u201d he said. A proposed 25 percent increase in camping fees would also help bump up total revenue by about half a million, he estimated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rule package did not exclusively seek fee increases. In the case of Diamond Head State Park on O\u2018ahu, which is the only state park where both residents and non-residents pay an entry fee, the division proposes eliminating the fee for residents. Cottrell explained that the income generated from the resident fee there is minimal. Even with the elimination of that fee, he added that income under the new rules, if adopted, was expected to increase to $4 million a year. \u201cThat money can be spread throughout the park system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regard to parks that are currently free to the public that would not be under the proposal, he said that because his division would need to hire a contractor to manage fee collection, the park would need to have enough traffic for the contractor to make money. He said that any such contract to set up a parking and entry scheme similar to what\u2019s at Iao, Waimea, Koke\u2018e, Akaka Falls, or Diamond Head would need to be approved by the Land Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that his division will be focusing on places such as Wainapanapa in East Maui, which, similar to Ha\u2018ena on Kaua\u2018i, has seen an \u201cexplosive amount of tourism and commercial use in a community where we have a park unit that\u2019s attracting them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And just as with Ha\u2018ena State Park, his division will be looking to reduce the patronage. \u201cIn some of these parks, we\u2019re going to be trying to shrink down the use to find a more reasonable balance between tourism and community value,\u201d he said. If the Legislature grants the division\u2019s request to increase the spending ceiling on its special fund by $2 million, and if the fee increases go into effect, \u201cfor us it\u2019ll be drinking out of a firehose. We\u2019re not used to having this kind of operating capital,\u201d he said.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If everything goes as planned, the division will be investing in the quality of its camp sites and hiring Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement officers for \u201cspecial duty ops\u201d regarding the homeless, illegal camping, and itinerant taxi drivers at Diamond Head, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cottrell cautioned that natural disasters may greatly affect the income projections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, Kaua\u2018i was hit with devastating rains and suffered massive flooding. As a result, \u201cwe hemorrhaged about $800,000 of camping revenue at Kalalau because we had to stay closed for 14 months,\u201d he said. The income projections he presented are \u201call going to be subject to fluctuations based on landslides, storms … The coronavirus is a new type of issue that may have some incalculable impacts on our ability as time goes by,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The board approved the request to take the rules to public hearings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks later, on March 18, the DLNR announced the closure of several parks under its jurisdiction to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Two days later, it closed all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cottrell said in a March 20 press release, \u201cmany, many people are simply ignoring gates and signs and choosing to put themselves and any others close-by at risk of contracting COVID-19. This unprecedented step is being taken in the interest of public health and safety and we really encourage people to find alternate activities that do not expose themselves and others to the virus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— Teresa Dawson<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 28, Curt Cottrell, administrator for the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of State Parks, asked the Land Board for permission to hold public hearings on proposed fee increases for parking, entry, and facility uses. He noted … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[467,13],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-12323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-2020","category-board-talk","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}