{"id":9726,"date":"2017-06-01T17:37:16","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T17:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=9726"},"modified":"2018-06-07T00:32:40","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T00:32:40","slug":"legacy-land-conservation-program-celebrates-a-decade-of-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=9726","title":{"rendered":"Legacy Land Conservation Program\u00a0Celebrates A Decade of Protection"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Turtle Bay, O`ahu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the really cool things the state does. We come away from this every year feeling we did something, we really did something,\u201d said outgoing Legacy Land Conservation Commission member John Sinton at the group\u2019s meeting last month.<\/p>\n

Every year for the past decade, the commission has been making recommendations to the state Board of Land and Natural Resources on how to allocate millions of dollars in Land Conservation Funds for the purchase of easements and\/or land to protect valuable natural areas from development.<\/p>\n

Under the Legacy Lands Act, signed by Gov. Linda Lingle in 2005 and amended a few years ago, ten percent of the state\u2019s conveyance taxes or $6.8 million, whichever is less, is deposited into the Department of Land and Natural Resources\u2019 Land Conservation Fund. The Legislature has traditionally set the program\u2019s spending ceiling at $5.1 million. About $4.5 million goes towards grants, while the rest pays for overhead costs.<\/p>\n

The funds are intended to be used to help acquire land for watershed and habitat protection, or for the preservation of coastal areas, ocean access, cultural and historic sites, recreational and public hunting areas, parks, natural areas, agricultural production, and open spaces or scenic resources.<\/p>\n

The very first round of projects to be approved for funding included the purchase of 11 acres by MA`O Farms in West O`ahu and Hawai`i County\u2019s acquisition of more than 500 acres of coastal lands at Kawa. Since then, the Land Board has approved about four dozen projects in total. More recently, the program has supported the widely publicized purchase of 181 acres along O`ahu\u2019s Ka Iwi coast and the protection of hundreds of acres at Turtle Bay.<\/p>\n

Had all approved acquisitions and easements over the past decade been completed, they would have protected some 30,000 acres at a cost of about $35 million. But not all projects that receive Land Board approval are completed in a timely manner, or at all.<\/p>\n

According to a map prepared recently by Legacy Land Conservation Commission chair Theresa Cabrera Menard, who is also a GIS specialist for The Nature Conservancy of Hawai`i, only two dozen or so purchases had actually been completed as of press time, while another 17 were pending completion. (According to program specialist David Penn, some of those numbers may change soon as some of the pending projects reach completion.)<\/p>\n

The DLNR\u2019s Division of Forestry and Wildlife has received approval for the most Legacy Conservation projects. It\u2019s received some $3.2 million for pending and completed projects totaling more than 8,000 acres as of press time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great program. We\u2019ve bought so many lands,\u201d DOFAW administrator David Smith told the commission last month. \u201cBuying lands is one of the most important things we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Imperfect Process<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Discussion at the commission\u2019s meeting last month revealed the many reasons why an approved land acquisition or conservation easement can take years to complete or may fail altogether: a lawsuit, appraisal disputes, title issues, a funding lapse, even confusion over who pays due diligence costs. (Normally, the landowner must provide proof of ownership as well as a survey of the property to be conveyed. If a project receives Land Board approval, the Land Division will order an appraisal. For former agricultural lands, it may also require a Phase 1 or Phase 2 environmental survey be done at the state\u2019s expense.)<\/p>\n

Sometimes delays are caused by a combination of things, as in the case of DOFAW\u2019s planned purchase of 800 acres within the Pua`ahala watershed on Moloka`i, which was approved by the Land Board in 2015.<\/p>\n

Malama Minn, a project development specialist with the DLNR\u2019s Land Division who helps shepherd projects to completion once they receive Land Board approval, told the commission that the Pua`ahala lands are made up of ten separate residential-,\u00a0 agricultural-, and preservation-zoned properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt being on Moloka`i, as well, is a unique challenge for our appraiser,\u201d she said. What\u2019s more, she added that her division is missing some of the necessary surveys and title reports.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the quality of title the division wants for any lands the department is purchasing, \u201cwe prefer warranty deeds, [but] getting warranty deeds is challenging,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at what is the best possible title we can get.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe complexity of the acquisition, we knew it was going to take some time,\u201d she said, adding that the DLNR was also being very conscientious about maintaining public access.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you talk about fencing and the hunting community, it can be very contentious. We\u2019re trying to get the population to support this acquisition,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In other cases, it\u2019s not clear at all who owns the land.<\/p>\n

For one of the earliest projects to receive approval \u2014 the DLNR Division of State Parks\u2019 acquisition of seven acres around the Kukuipahu heiau in North Kohala \u2014 Hawai`i County\u2019s property website shows that the state already owns the land and the DLNR has been unable to find a point of contact for the actual owner, Minn said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome landowners know they don\u2019t have clear title [to the land] and they want to get rid of it. We think we\u2019re getting a good deal, doing it for conservation reasons \u2026 We find out they don\u2019t have clear title and they owe taxes on it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, Minn suspects, the landowners aren\u2019t really interested in selling their property for conservation purposes. Rather, they just offer their land for sale under the Legacy Land program because they want a free appraisal from the state or help determining title, she suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cLandowners looking to sell a property for a long time, \u2026 sometimes they\u2019re looking at \u2018What is my property worth? Maybe I can get the state to appraise it and shop it around.\u2019 \u2026 That\u2019s why we have projects sitting on the books for years and years and years,\u201d she told the commission.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/b><\/p>\n

Legacy Land Legislation<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year, the legislature wants to attack this program,\u201d and spend the money that goes into the Land Conservation Fund on other things, DOFAW administrator David Smith said. This past session, while legislators largely left the program alone, they did pass House Bill 839, which calls for an audit of expenditures from the fund \u2014 at least those between July 2015 and the end of this month \u2014 to determine whether they \u201cwere in compliance with laws and in accordance with the terms of the contracts, grants, and memoranda of understanding and whether contractors and awardees were adequately screened and qualified.\u201d<\/p>\n

The time period to be audited coincides with a \u201cfunding debacle,\u201d as program specialist David Penn called it, that occurred at the end of fiscal year 2016. The Legacy Land program\u2019s previous administrator left in late 2015. The department\u2019s failure to fill her position in a timely manner resulted in contracts for three non-state projects that had been approved in 2015 (except for the Ka Iwi coast lands) not being completed in time to encumber more than $2.2 million. Funds came or will come from subsequent appropriations. As a result, only $800,000 was available for projects this year.<\/p>\n

Gov. David Ige had not signed the bill as of press time.<\/p>\n

In his proposed budget, House Bill 100, Ige requested that the Legacy Lands program be reimbursed the $2.2 million that had lapsed, and be granted $1.7 million in additional funds. The legislature \u201cdid not concur\u201d in its final version of the bill.<\/p>\n

The Legislature did, however, appropriate $1 million to DOFAW \u2014 which didn\u2019t ask for it \u2014 for the acquisition of potential `elepaio habitat at Paiko Ridge that has been targeted for development. It also appropriated nearly $24 million in capital improvement project funds for agricultural land acquisitions in North-Central O`ahu by the state Agribusiness Development Corporation.<\/p>\n

Bills that would have increased the amount of money going into the Legacy Conservation Fund \u2014 HB 69, 221, and 1570 \u2014 all passed first reading, but ultimately failed.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Teresa Dawson<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

June 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  “This is one of the really cool things the state does. We come away from this every year feeling we did something, we really did something,” said outgoing Legacy Land Conservation Commission member John Sinton at the group’s meeting … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-june-2017"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9726","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=9726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}