Assess impact fees to construct schools near rail transit line

Transit-oriented development (TOD) along Oahu’s rail transit line is expected to generate 10,200 more public school students in urban Honolulu. In other words, there’s no getting around building up to 10 new schools — and now is the time to lay the groundwork.

So it’s good to see that the state Department of Education is looking ahead by pushing legislation that would allow it more flexibility when spending impact fees collected from developers within a proposed Kalihi-to-Ala Moana Impact Fee District.

Current law allows the fees in lieu of land to be spent only on school site acquisition and related expenses — not for construction costs. The landscape is changing, so it would make sense to allow the DOE to be able to acquire finished square footage within high-rise buildings, for instance.

The DOE is seeking to establish a Kalihi-to-Ala Moana School Impact Fee District that would require TOD developers to meet with the DOE and pay fees or provide land for schools — a necessary move to prepare for the population boom associated with the 39,000 new residential units expected along that 4-mile stretch.

Such fees come with the territory, and developers should accept that as part of doing business in the urban core. It would be unreasonable for the state to bear all the costs of building up to six new elementary schools and roughly two new middle and high schools without help from those creating the impact.

A 2007 state law authorizes the DOE to collect fees from developers in high-growth areas of the state. The Board of Education (BOE) approved a West Hawaii school impact fee district on Hawaii island in 2009; a Center Maui and West Maui district in 2010; and a Leeward Oahu district in 2012.

It would be prudent for the BOE to approve a Kalihi-to-Ala Moana district. To advance the concept, the education board has already voted to move ahead with public hearings on the proposal.

If approved, the total all-cash fee to developers in the Kalihi-to-Ala Moana area would be $9,374 per new unit. That seems to appropriately reflect the higher cost per acre of potential future school sites in the urban core.

The fee in the Leeward Oahu impact district is $4,334 per multifamily unit, and $2,371 and $2,055 per multifamily unit in Central Maui and West Maui, respectively. Those fees have generated $800,000 in fees in Leeward Oahu and about $2 million on Maui.

The DOE had hoped for its first chance to build a multistory school in a proposed affordable rental tower in Kakaako — a project that would have served as a model for schools in high-density areas along the rail line. But the Hawaii Community Development Authority, in a difficult but ultimately correct decision, earlier this year rejected a developer’s plan that included the vertical school because it strayed much too far from the original request for competing bids.

Still, the DOE is anticipating a second request for proposal will go out that would include a school, and is hoping the developer would be agreeable to including its plans.

While rail transit won’t be operational for several years, and construction pains are unavoidable, work to meet growth needs must keep rolling.

The DOE, for one, appears to be on the right track in preparing for the influx of thousands of public school students in urban Honolulu.