{"id":8696,"date":"2016-02-01T19:29:02","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T19:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=8696"},"modified":"2018-06-14T23:39:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T23:39:20","slug":"board-talk-lack-of-detail-in-permit-renewal-list-draws-fire-from-public-board-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=8696","title":{"rendered":"Board Talk: Lack of Detail in Permit Renewal List\u00a0Draws Fire from Public, Board Members"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"permit<\/a>For years, every December, the Department of Land and Natural Resources\u2019 Land Division has submitted a list of hundreds of revocable permits (RPs) to the Board of Land and Natural Resources for renewal, for everything from a 40-square-foot empty lot the division wants an adjacent landowner to maintain, to, as our cover story notes, the use of 33,000 acres of state land to divert hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day from East Maui.<\/p>\n

This year, members of the public and the Land Board took the division to task for not providing even basic information about each of the permits to be renewed. The list it provided contained the name of each permittee, the tax map key number for the property, the date the permit was first issued, the character of use (i.e., parking, church, recreational, agriculture), the land area, and the annual rent.<\/p>\n

Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation attorney David Kimo Frankel, who testified only on the four permits to Alexander & Baldwin and East Maui Irrigation Company, ridiculed the Land Division\u2019s \u201cExemption Notification\u201d that the annual permit renewal was exempt from environmental review because there were no changes in use.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is really profoundly disturbing is the one-page exemption determination that your staff provided to you,\u201d he told the Land Board. \u201cThis is really an embarrassment. We\u2019re talking about the diversion of hundreds of streams and the conclusion that it doesn’t have a significant impact \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that contrary to what\u2019s required by the department\u2019s administrative rules, the division had not consulted with anyone on the renewals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Land Management walked across the hall to DAR [the Division of Aquatic Resources], they might have seen the 2009 study on the significant impact of stream diversions. \u2026 To claim that the diversions are not having a significant impact is belied by the sister division of DLNR\u2019s own study,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With regard to the list of permits as a whole, Marti Townsend, director of the Sierra Club, Hawai`i Chapter, testified that the board needs much more information than what it was given to decide whether or not to renew.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to know the exact location, the current conditions \u2026 This kind of cursory review is not okay,\u201d she told the Land Board at its December 11 meeting.<\/p>\n

She added that the board needed to assess the permits\u2019 impact on traditional and customary practices, evaluate any changes to the property and surrounding uses, and determine whether others may want to use the property.<\/p>\n

Conservation Council for Hawai`i director Marjorie Ziegler took a particular interest in how the rents were being calculated. She noted that in the case of the four to A&B and EMI, the recommended rent amounted to between $5 and $9 per acre per year. Other permits for smaller areas had really high rent, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be nice if you and the public could get a little more information on how the rents are determined. Aren\u2019t you worried someone is going to sue you that their rent is higher? \u2026 Also, the department needs the money,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She urged the Land Division to look more closely at each permit and ask itself whether it was proper to remain a revocable permit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just like a bad habit. You keep approving these lists of permits without any deliberation here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A number of the Land Board members agreed that the Land Division (and the Division of State Parks, which had submitted a similar list earlier in the meeting) needed to provide more information to the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the general gist of this is we want \u2026 more transparency in what\u2019s going on with this piece of land or this permit,\u201d board chair Suzanne Case told the Land Division\u2019s Kevin Moore.<\/p>\n

The Land Board ultimately approved the list as submitted (except for the four permits to A&B and EMI), but directed the division to include in next year\u2019s submission an explanation of why each permit area is not being put out for lease and of the basis for the rent amount if it is not set at market rates.<\/p>\n

The board also asked that the division bring the renewal requests to the board in four separate meetings next time, one for each island group, and to return to the board in June with an update on three of the permits.<\/p>\n

Board member Chris Yuen wanted to revisit the permit for the Country Club condo on Hilo\u2019s Banyan Drive to make sure the board wasn\u2019t giving the tenant too much of a rent break. He also wanted to evaluate whether McCandless Ranch should continue to use a parcel known as the Waiea tract on Hawai`i island.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an environmentally sensitive area \u2026 with the `alala (endangered Hawaiian crow) and other issues. I\u2019d like to see a concurrence by DOFAW [the DLNR\u2019s Division of Forestry and Wildlife] on the continuation and the use of this as an RP. When I was on the board 20 years ago, I said this should be limited to access rather than pasture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Board member Stanley Roehrig also wanted the division to report back on a permit to Kukio Resorts for 2,500 acres of pasture land for $216 a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a gated community and they lock the gate unless you\u2019re a landowner or a vendor,\u201d he said, adding,\u00a0 \u201cThese are the guys with the jets at the airports. \u2026 The Land Board\u2019s not supposed to take care of the really rich guys at the expense of the poor guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the changes asked for to next year\u2019s round of permit renewals, Yuen said he expected the board to have \u201ca little bit of a better sense we\u2019re doing the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Teresa Dawson<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, every December, the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Land Division has submitted a list of hundreds of revocable permits (RPs) to the Board of Land and Natural Resources for renewal, for everything from a 40-square-foot empty lot … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[397],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-8696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-february-2016","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696","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=8696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}