North Shore site gets long reprieve

What’s the price tag of doing nothing?

Well, if it involves natural, rugged shoreline on Oahu’s North Shore, that’ll be $45 million, please.

That’s how much Turtle Bay Resort’s landowner will be paid to forego development of 650 homes and instead, preserve some 663 acres in perpetuity for public use.

The long-awaited and hard-earned deal, approved Friday by the state Land Board, involves among other things, a conservation easement, state acquisition of 53 acres fronting Kawela Bay and city acquisition of 13 acres for beachfront park use.

The agreement significantly scales down the developer’s expansion plans for the area, now limited to be closer to the existing hotel and maxed at 100 homes and two hotels with 625 rooms total.

Life to get harder for UH students

Almost as much as the final exams, parking has always been a trial at the University of Hawaii: scarce and, especially for students, prohibitively expensive.

And now it could get even worse. Various fines for violations are going up three- and fourfold. And, naturally, the cost of a permit is going up, too, all because Commuter Services, meant to be self-sustaining, isn’t making it.

It’s hard to feel sympathetic, somehow.

But here’s a bright side, for nearby Manoa homeowners enticed by the prospect of renting an accessory dwelling unit: Providing a home with the required off-street parking stall within walking distance of the campus would be a real lure to tenants.