Governor signs repeal of Public Land Development Corp.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie, left, has asked William Aila, chairman of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, to discuss criticisms of administrative rules for the new Public Land Development Corp.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a bill to repeal the Public Land Development Corporation, erasing the two-year-old law before the agency developed a single project.
“As with any new law, public understanding and support are essential,” Abercrombie said in a news release Monday. “In the case of the PLDC, best intentions and the potential for public good could not be reconciled with public concerns.”
The Legislature gave final approval to a repeal of the PLDC this month.
Created in 2011, the PLDC was to work with the private sector on development projects on underused state land. Opponents, including environmentalists, some Native Hawaiian goups and labor activists, attacked it as a government overreach, citing the broad exemptions from land-use regulations granted to the PLDC.
Following demonstrative opposition during the public rule-making process for the agency, lawmakers who had voted overwhelmingly for the PLDC two years ago uniformly agreed to abandon the agency.
