The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is supporting the efforts of a state senator’s family to subdivide a DHHL homestead parcel leased to her mother, a move that could rectify violations at least a decade old of having too many residences on the property.

Critics of the agency say the deal is another example of DHHL’s tendency to give preferential treatment to certain lessees, including the politically connected. DHHL denies the charge.

Flora Solomon, who has a 99-year lease for the 125-acre Hawaii island ranching parcel, recently applied to that county to subdivide the Waimea property into three smaller lots, with each containing at least two existing structures, according to the subdivision map submitted with her application.

One of the hillside lots would have a bizarre configuration, with two sections at either end of the property connected by a sliver down the middle, the map shows. Several structures would be on the lower end.

Four residences constructed between 1999 and 2007 are among the nine structures on the overall parcel, according to county records. DHHL regulations allow only one residence per homestead lot and, under certain circumstances, a workers’ quarters.

But four dwellings clearly violate that limit. According to county records, the violations apparently have existed since the second dwelling was constructed in 2000 or the third one in 2004 — depending on whether the second one, totaling 1,916 square feet, was considered by DHHL as workers’ quarters.

A department spokesman said the agency has been working with Flora Solomon, the mother of Sen. Malama Solomon, to bring these matters into compliance and has not treated her any differently than other homesteaders.

"If lessees seek the department’s assistance with compliance issues that they are willing to correct, the department does its best to work with them to resolve the issues and bring them into compliance," spokesman Puni Chee said in written responses to Honolulu Star-Advertiser questions. Asked whether DHHL could cite any other case in which a lessee had built multiple residences on a pastoral homestead, supporting the position that the Solomons received no special treatment, Chee was unable to do so.

"The department acknowledges that over its 93-year history, there may be other residential, agricultural or pastoral lessees with unapproved structures on their lease, but we have not been able to inspect all properties statewide due to limited personnel and resources," he wrote.

Some DHHL beneficiaries say the fact that Solomon has exceeded the dwelling limit for at least a decade, seemingly without repercussions, underscores the double standards held by the department.

Among other examples they cite is the case involving a former commissioner of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, which oversees DHHL. Before joining the commission, Stuart Hanchett built an unauthorized dwelling on DHHL land on Kauai, but the agency for several years failed to investigate the matter — until the Star-Advertiser inquired about it last year.

That DHHL now seems to be helping Solomon correct her dwelling problem after the fact makes the favoritism more egregious, they add.

"It’s obvious that the department chooses when to bend the rules and when not to," said Blossom Feiteira, president of the Association of Hawaiians for Homestead Lands, which advocates for beneficiaries waiting for homesteads. "This absolutely smacks of preferential treatment."

Beneficiary Mel Davis on Hawaii island agrees.

"It looks like there are a lot of favors going on there," he said.

Davis received an ag homestead in South Point on the Big Island in the 1980s but was repeatedly told by DHHL that he couldn’t build a home on the property. The agency cited a lack of infrastructure and of formally subdivided lots.

Frustrated by the wait, Davis assigned the lease to his son in the mid-2000s.

Davis, Feiteira and others said the Solomon family has received special treatment because of its political connections. Malama Solomon is a prominent Native Hawaiian political figure and has about two decades experience as a state senator.

Chee denied that DHHL has shown any favoritism toward the Solomons.

"We state again for the record that this family has not received any special treatment by the department," he wrote.

The senator, who last year spoke to the Star-Advertiser about the parcel on behalf of her family, did not respond to several phone calls and an email seeking comment last week. She told the newspaper last year that she wouldn’t discuss the dwelling issue so as not to upset her elderly mother, who was ill at the time.

Malama Solomon said she was living on the homestead to care for her parents.

The subdivision proposal still needs the approval of the commission and the county.

Because the request before the county involves what is considered a ministerial process, the county cannot deny the subdivision if all requirements are met.

One issue is whether to grant a water variance. Although the Solomon homestead is served by one county water meter, the system lacks the capacity to add more.

That means the county must consider several factors, including whether the subdivision would have an adverse affect on neighboring properties, before granting the variance sought by Solomon.

The 125-acre pastoral homestead is in the rolling hills above Hawaii Preparatory Academy, the state’s most expensive private school. Next to the homestead and higher on the hillside is a 105-acre ranching parcel that Sen. Solomon leases from DHHL on a month-to-month basis. Both properties have sweeping ocean views.

Solomon’s subdivision request is one of the first to come before DHHL in years.

Until recently, the department had a moratorium on the subdividing of any farming or pastoral homesteads within the 203,000-acre trust the agency manages for its beneficiaries, who must be at least 50 percent Hawaiian.

The moratorium was imposed in 1999 to stop the illegal practice of subdividing large ag parcels and converting them into so-called gentlemen estates, where large homes were built but hardly any farming was done.

Such abuses undermined the purpose of ag subdivisions: being able to create smaller lots so other family members could build homes nearby and help ranch or farm the homestead land.

In January 2013, the commission lifted the moratorium. After new rules were developed, the department began accepting subdivision applications earlier this year from farmers and ranchers.

DHHL requires lessees to get written permission from the agency before building any permanent improvements on homestead land.

Asked whether Solomon received permission to build the four homes, Chee said DHHL was not aware of such documentation. But he acknowledged that lessees sometimes claimed that past procedures and expectations regarding prior approvals lacked clarity.

"Whatever the case may have been in the past, this administration is committed to working with all lessees who desire to voluntarily come into compliance," Chee wrote.

DHHL had been working on subdivision issues with Flora Solomon and her attorney, H.K. Bruss Keppeler, who died last month.

Because Solomon’s application is among the first under the new system, the agency, working with the lessee and the county, is using it as a test case to identify challenges in the process, according to Chee. As landowner, DHHL signed off on the application, which is normal, according to the county.

The four homes on the Solomon homestead range from 520 square feet to nearly 2,500 square feet, according to county property-tax records. The other structures include a 2,088-square-foot carport and a 1,920-square-foot utility shed, the records show. Both buildings are bigger than many Hawaii homes.

The subdivision map also shows two greenhouses and a halau on the homestead, though no structures identified as such are on the property-tax list.

As county zoning and planning systems have evolved over the years, DHHL’s rules have not kept pace — something the agency needs to address, according to Chee.

In several counties, for instance, ohana-zoned areas allow more than one residence per lot, and often the ohana dwellings are across the street from DHHL subdivisions with the one-residence limit, he noted.

"While we could enforce rules from a ‘zero tolerance’ perspective, the better course of action for our beneficiaries might be to evolve our rules accordingly to bring consistency to the process," Chee wrote.

The possible effects of such policy changes, which would address affordability and wait-list concerns, are being evaluated by the commission, he added.

Critics say the Solomon case sends the message that preferred lessees don’t have to follow DHHL’s rules and, if caught, will get a slap on the wrist at most.

"It’s unequal treatment," said Feiteira, the beneficiary advocate.

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