Legislators are moving closer to repealing the law that created the Public Land Development Corp., with only a few technical issues to resolve.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee approved a repeal bill Monday, deleting a provision that would have transferred the PLDC’s executive director, planner and project development specialist to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
Some senators had worried that the provision might force the bill into a House-Senate conference committee, which would delay a repeal.
The Senate version does include changes from the House draft — as to how money from special funds covered by the law would be distributed — but they are not expected to trigger conference committee negotiations.
"I hope not," said Sen. David Ige (D, Pearl Harbor-Pearl City-Aiea), chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
House Majority Leader Scott Saiki said the House would likely accept the Senate’s revisions to House Bill 1133.
"It was one of our top priorities," Saiki (D, Downtown-Kakaako-McCully) said of a PLDC repeal. "We just want to get it voted on and send it out to the governor."
The PLDC, created by lawmakers and the governor in 2011, was meant to be the development arm of DLNR. The agency was granted broad exemptions from land use regulations to help smooth the private development of public land and generate revenue for the state. But a coalition of environmental, Native Hawaiian and labor activists fought the agency as a government overreach that threatened public land, causing lawmakers to reconsider before a single project was developed.
Sen. Laura Thielen (D, Hawaii Kai-Waimanalo-Kailua), one of the senators who has pushed for a PLDC repeal, had urged senators to pass the House version when it came over earlier this session and not make any changes that would prompt conference committee negotiations.
"Even though my preference would have been, Let’s just revert it back to the House bill and make it clean and move it out, I was willing to take it at this point," Thielen said.
Several activists who oppose the PLDC view the conference committee process with suspicion.
"This is a critical step towards repealing the PLDC," Mahina Martin, a Maui community leader, said in an email. "The Senate Ways and Means Committee deserves our thanks for advancing a clean repeal measure rather than choosing to accept any amendments that would return us all to the difficult and sometimes ugly debates between the public and legislators.
"For several months now, thousands of constituents from across the state spoke out against the PLDC and at this point I’m pretty sure no one truly wants to prolong the debate. Repealing the PLDC is the right thing to do for many reasons — including demonstrating a respect for what the people of Hawaii have loudly, clearly and consistently said we do not want."
