Turtle Bay deal looks promising

We sure hope that Turtle Bay Resort is bluffing with its claim that $40 million isn’t enough for a conservation easement that would protect Kawela Bay and Kahuku Point from being overrun by development. The state’s proposal seems like more than a fair bargain that keeps title to the land with the resort, allows two new hotels to rise elsewhere on the property and avoids the condemnation option still available should this plan fall through.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s $1.8 billion supplemental budget proposal to the Legislature includes a request for $40 million in general obligation bonds to conserve more than three miles of unspoiled, accessible shoreline around the resort, which faces major community opposition to its plan to significantly expand what is already the largest hotel operation on the North Shore.

The amount is included in Abercrombie’s budget request for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, and the figure is based on an appraisal that values the conservation easements for the two parcels in question at $31.1 million to $38.3 million. Turtle Bay Resort’s asset manager and operator, Replay Resorts Inc., hired its own appraiser, who delivered a higher figure, which Replay refused to publicly disclose. The working group negotiating with Replay on behalf of the state hasn’t released it either, except to say that the difference is "significant, but not insurmountable."

If the public is to have any trust in the ongoing talks, Replay’s appraisal must be publicly disclosed. The taxpayers deserve to know the actual size of this gap.

The five-member working group of state officials and preservation advocates was created last spring at the behest of the Legislature, which shelved a Senate bill that would have condemned the land and taken it for the public good in favor of a negotiated process that respects the landowner’s rights as it seeks to save a scenic stretch of rural Oahu threatened by overdevelopment. Negotiations are the better path, and the proposal that has emerged is promising.

Replay refused to sell the land outright, which is why the conservation easement prohibiting development is on the table. The deal would preserve nearly three-quarters of the land now marked for resort expansion — or 610 acres out of 852 acres — and prevent the construction of 750 homes.

Development would be prohibited in perpetuity on 69 acres around Kawela Bay and Kawela Point and on 541 acres on the Kahuku side; that larger parcel is where the resort’s two golf courses are now, and where the homes were slated. Recreational activities on the conservation parcels would continue. And it would remain possible to build two new oceanfront hotels, with a combined 625 rooms, elsewhere on the property.

This truly is a compromise, one that does not block the resort from growing but prevents what under the resort’s original plan amounted to the urbanization of rural Oahu.

Preserving the open space is a plus for the resort, too. Turtle Bay is the opposite of Waikiki: That’s its primary attraction. Its beaches are among the dwindling few on Oahu where you can walk for miles along undeveloped shoreline. Let’s keep it that way.

Community opposition, including legal challenges, have blocked Turtle Bay’s expansion plans for decades. It’s significant that the leader of Keep the North Shore Country, which has a lawsuit pending against the resort, supports the state’s proposal.

This compromise balances business and environmental interests in a way that creates a lasting legacy for our island. Since it’s generally illegal for the state to pay more than fair-market price for the conservation easements required here, we hope Replay recognizes the value of the state’s proposal and closes the gap.