PLDC alternative worth a try

Loud protests have all but doomed a 2-year-old law aimed at streamlining state and private partnership for development projects: the ill-fated Public Land Development Corp. (PLDC).

It’s not surprising, then, that a proposed substitute of sorts is receiving close scrutiny, but proponents seem to have included adequate restrictions for a well-intentioned experiment that is worth a tryout.

Valid concerns about the PLDC became shrill as the current legislative session approached. Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who initially defended it against what he called "conspiratorial hysteria," finally acknowledged the public distrust over the fatally flawed law and has now agreed to a bill that would create a Public-Private Partnership Authority, without any authority close to what PLDC had been given.

The PLDC was given broad exemption from land-use and zoning reviews in going forward with public-private partnerships for "optimal use of public land for the economic, environmental and social benefit of the people of Hawaii."

Legislators who had supported the 2011 bill, creating what became regarded as something sinister, are poised this session to repeal it. Rightly so, as the PLDC retained little transparency.

The proposed replacement PPPA is modest by comparison, restricting a new authority to three projects: a Maui film production studio, a main street development in Wahiawa and a county-initiated project "related to education or economic development."

Mindful of the outcry over PLDC’s land-use exemptions, the Senate, before moving the PPPA bill over to the House, removed a provision that would have granted counties the power to waive zoning, land use and permitting requirements on projects.

Good.

But the fact that the bill included such language in the first place continues to stoke suspicion.

Sen. Laura Thielen, director of the Department of Land and Natural Resources during the Lingle administration, is among skeptics, concerned that the bill could be changed again in the Legislature’s final days.

She and others are right that careful monitoring of the bill is warranted through the remainder of the session "to make sure that the intent doesn’t change again" by adding provisions allowing "fast-tracking development."

While counties were opposed to the PLDC law, they have given their support to the PPPA bill, as long as the state will not be allowed to exempt projects from rules of any government agencies, including the counties’.

Honolulu City Council Chairman Ernest Martin said it’s important that any exemptions from county statutes or other rules be subject to the Council’s approval.

While the PLDC was given broad authority to go forward with unspecified public-private projects, the PPPA would require that projects — limited to specifically three at this point — bring revenue to the state.

This authority would last only five years, after which legislators could decide whether expansion would be worthwhile.

In the continuing search for smart ways to monetize underutilized land resources, the PPPA proposal is not the only one still alive this legislative session. While a bill to create a new development authority for public-private partnerships at park and harbors has died, two other measures that aim to redevelop public school properties to generate money for school modernization are still viable.

It’s unfortunate that the PLDC overreached in its lack of transparency — but the intent to have a quasi-project manager identify and shepherd specific projects with community benefits through governmental hurdles is worthwhile.

Whatever land-use authority emerges, however, it needs to be more evolved than the PLDC in retaining the important stops for public input.