Agreement reached on Turtle Bay preservation

A rejiggered plan to preserve much of Turtle Bay Resort from development was put into firm place Thursday.

"We have been working very hard," Gov. David Ige said in announcing the new agreement in his office while flanked by several state lawmakers, county representatives and community leaders who along with the resort’s owner were involved in reworking pieces of the complex plan.

"I think, collectively, this deal is much better," Ige said.

The amount of land to be excluded from housing and hotel development remains roughly the same at 665 acres, which includes 65 acres of wilderness fronting Kawela Bay, 38 oceanfront acres at Kahuku Point and land occupied by the resort’s two golf courses.

Under the preservation deal, the resort would forgo development of 650 homes, including 225 fronting Kawela Bay. The resort intends to proceed with building two hotels with a combined 625 rooms on about 75 acres fronting the ocean on two sides of the existing 443-room Turtle Bay hotel.

The price for protecting what amounts to 79 percent of the open space at the North Shore resort mainly via a conservation easement prohibiting development on the land in perpetuity was reduced to $45 million from $48.5 million, of which the state will pay $35 million, down from $40 million.

Stepping up with a bigger contribution was the city, which agreed to chip in $7.5 million instead of $5 million and will receive 48 acres for beachfront public parks.

The Army, in partnership with The Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit, will contribute $2.5 million. Previously, the nonprofit committed to raise $3.5 million.

As part of the reduced total price, the easement will not cover a 29-acre parcel along part of one golf course that was previously to be part of the area preserved.

However, the new deal provides more than two years, to the end of 2017, to reach a potential additional preservation pact whereby an easement could be added to the 29 acres along with a 33-acre oceanfront parcel on which the resort can build 100 homes.

Another change is that the state will own 55 acres at Kawela Bay instead of just holding an easement. This piece of property will be leased back to the resort at a nominal rate for 65 years, which allows the state to one day manage the land for its own use.

Other details of the new agreement include allowing free perpetual play on the resort’s golf courses for Kahuku High and Intermediate School’s golf team, providing 80 public parking spaces and creating a 150-foot setback around a protected reef area known as Keiki Pond.

Drew Stotesbury, CEO of the resort, said in a statement that the new agreement offers increased public benefits while protecting the same amount of open space.

"This agreement delivers on the massive conservation of land that the people and communities of the North Shore were promised," he said.

An initial, though tentative, preservation agreement was reached in April 2014 after lengthy negotiations between the resort and the state. Ige, then a state senator, hatched a financing plan whereby bonds would be issued and then paid off using money saved by refinancing the debt on the Hawai’i Convention Center. A bill to carry out the plan was hastily crafted and passed in the waning moments of last year’s Legislature with no public hearings.

The original agreement appeared on its way to completion, but a legal review earlier this year revealed that the bond sale had to be completed by June 30 under last year’s law. That deadline wasn’t going to be met, which led to language being inserted into an unrelated bill in March to provide an extension, which reopened discussions on deal terms.

The bill nearly died after being deferred by a House committee last month. Then on Wednesday there was no progress announced by a conference committee that needs to pass the bill by a Friday deadline.

Under the new agreement, paying for the state’s portion of the deal will be financed with $35 million in general obligation bonds. The bonds will be paid off at a rate of about $3 million a year, with $1.5 million coming from the Convention Center debt savings and $1.5 million expected from the Legacy Land Conservation Program.

The parties expect the purchase to be completed by Sept. 1.