State wants to open ag park in 2015

The state Department of Agriculture hopes to break ground next year on a long-stymied Central Oahu farm subdivision where 150 acres of former sugar cane land in Kunia owned by the state would be leased to small farmers at attractive terms often absent in the private market.

The agency filed a draft environmental assessment last week for the estimated $21 million Kunia Agricultural Park project.

If developed, the ag park would help expand diversified agriculture and satisfy demand for state farm lot leases by providing small farmers with 24 roughly 5-acre lots at reasonable rents and long-term tenure. The project also may provide 24 homes for farm operators and employees on the site.

“Since the demise of sugar cane and precipitous decline of pineapple on Oahu, specifically in the Kunia region, diversified agriculture has emerged as the ‘viable industry’ in the agricultural sector,” the environmental report said.

However, development of the ag park is contingent on legislative funding and infrastructure connections such as roads and electricity provided by a neighboring landowner.

State ag parks have been one way the Agriculture Department has helped remove barriers — high land and infrastructure costs, and water availability — that deter small-scale diversified farming in Hawaii.

The agency operates 10 ag parks on four islands with 3,123 acres divided into 227 lots. Of those lots, only two in Wai­anae are available for lease.

But increasing this inventory by adding an ag park with prime farmland in Kunia has been challenging.

The project has been planned for close to two decades, but wasn’t developed earlier because it is dependent on road and utility connections provided by the developer of the nearby Royal Kunia residential community.

Royal Kunia’s developer, Hale­kua Development Corp., was required to give the state the 150-acre site along with infrastructure connections in conjunction with developing a 2,000-home second phase of Royal Kunia that was set for 1994. But the second phase was derailed by financial troubles that pushed Hale­kua into bankruptcy. Halekua finally conveyed the 150 acres to the state in 2004, and emerged from bankruptcy in 2007 with new investors.

Construction of Royal Kunia II is expected to begin next year, which should provide the ag park with infrastructure connections suiting the Agriculture

Department’s timeline, according to Hale­kua’s development partner Stanford Carr.

“I don’t think their timing is going to be a problem,” Carr said in an email.

The Agriculture Department anticipates that ag park design work will take from June to June 2014. Construction would start in October 2014 and be completed in December 2015.

That timetable is subject to funding. The state budget pending at the Legislature includes $2.5 million for the ag park in fiscal year 2013-14.

Much of the project’s

$21 million cost involves developing utility and irrigation water infrastructure within the site.

Irrigation water from the Wai­ahole Ditch would be supplied if a pending allocation request is granted by the state Commission on Water Resource Management, according to the draft environmental assessment.

For the past several years, the state has leased about 70 percent of the site to an affiliate of Larry Jefts Farms under a revokable permit to make some use of the land.

Long-term leases for developed farm lots would likely be in line with the state’s other ag parks, where leases typically range from 15 to 45 years.

Because the Kunia ag park will be near future homes, certain operations such as livestock and aquaculture production won’t be allowed, the environmental report said.

To make farming more convenient for operators and employees, the Agriculture Department proposes developing up to 50 homes. The state would own and lease the homes to farm operators or workers.

Presently the agency allows one home per lot at existing ag parks for farm employees or as a principal residence for a farm lessee with approval of the agency’s board.