Name in the News: William Aila Jr.

William Aila Jr.’s retirement was short and uneventful.

“I retired for a week, in January,” he said.

But then the governor called, asking him to serve as interim chairman and director of the perpetually embattled Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. He took over in May.

“I saw that the challenge of the department was so great,” Aila said, particularly in getting people to understand the complexity of DHHL’s mission to provide homesteads for Native Hawaiians of at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood. The waitlist contains about 28,000 beneficiaries.

Aila hopes to chip away at the list with a diversified portfolio that includes turn-key homes, vacant lots, unimproved lots and rent-with-option-to-own property. Also, new rules allow DHHL to develop affordable rentals; an important project will be on the old Stadium Bowl-O-Drome site in Moiliili.

A big challenge is money: DHHL oversees a land trust of more than 200,000 acres, and the cost of developing enough land to meet the demand — 40,000 lots, say — is monumental. Aila ballparks it at $4 billion, just for the infrastructure — well beyond the reach of the state’s coffers. At the moment, DHHL has 1,300 lots in the pipeline.

Aila, raised in Waianae, is well known as an environmentalist, a community activist and a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner. He has served as the harbormaster at Waianae Boat Harbor and director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. He and his wife have lived on Hawaiian homestead land in Waianae for 27 years — his wife is the beneficiary — but the process took 12 years and a battle with the bureaucracy.

“I was one of those activists on the other side of the table,” Aila laughed. “So when the guys come and sit across the table from me and grumble, I know exactly what they’re talking about.”

Now Aila finds himself in the middle of the protests on Mauna Kea, where Hawaiian activists and others are blocking a road that sits on DHHL land, for which the agency has yet to be compensated.

“As someone who has participated in protests in the past, I respect and support the right to protest and to stand up for what they believe,” he said. “Everyone recognizes the current mood among some Native Hawaiians is a reflection of the longstanding grievances of our community, including DHHL beneficiaries who want to see the department funded at a higher level, resulting in increased opportunities to get Native Hawaiians back on to the land.” Nonetheless, he added, “As an appointed official, I am compelled to follow the law.”

Question: What is the status of compensation and other issues surrounding the state’s use of DHHL lands, such as at the base of Mauna Kea?

Answer: The compensation for unauthorized use of roads and highways, which includes Mauna Kea Access Road, is a settlement by which the payment to DHHL would either be land or money. The Attorney General and the governor approved the department’s request to hire private counsel to advise the Hawaiian Homes Commission on the valuation of compensation … to ensure that it’s fair to the trust.

The Department of Transportation has operational control of the road. But under that, we still own the land. So that’s what’s confusing to a lot of beneficiaries. And a lot of beneficiaries think that, well, if the department (DHHL) owns the land, then they can’t arrest me as a beneficiary of the land, which is not true. Because the road has been used by the public for so many years, it has the characteristics of a public right of way, public access. So in that case, if there was some government reason to shut the road down — public health and safety, etc. — the people on the road are still subject to arrest, even if they are beneficiaries. A good example: You can roll into Waianae Valley Homestead right now, and if somebody is blocking the road, they’re going to get arrested.

Q: Is the rail project-related land swap of 56 acres of DHHL land in Waipahu, for 50 acres of land zoned for agriculture in Kapolei, a fair trade?

A: Ultimately, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) will determine what constitutes a fair compensation for this land exchange. The county has asserted that its land is worth $21 million and ours is worth $5 million. We’ve been not willing to get an appraiser to just stick to our land as being agricultural. We would want our land appraised at its highest and best use … because we have zoning powers; we can do anything the Land Use Commission can do. So … the county and we agreed that we’re going to use the DOI’s appraisal process. DOI would have to approve (the final compensation) anyway. So they’re going to be looking out for our best interests as we go through this.

Q: What’s happening with the Bowl-o-Drome multifamily rental project?

A: We had the Papakolea Hawaiian Homestead Association ask us to hold off on the initial deadline. (Papakolea) is the nearest homestead, so we have homesteaders who want to be heard and want to be part of the process. They asked for additional things to be put in. Some of them were put in, but some of them will impact the economic viability of that development — so we won’t put those things in. In order to subsidize the lower-income rents, we will allow (the developer) to consider one or two floors of commercial.

Requests for proposals on the project at 820 Isenberg Street (the Bowl-O-Drome site) are due by Nov. 15, and a notice of selection scheduled for the end of the year.

Future rental projects are being considering in Maili, as well as near the Kroc Center in Kapolei.

Q: How quickly can DHHL produce more affordable multifamily and rental housing under the new rules?

A: The speed at which DHHL can develop is dependent on the budget from the Legislature and the DHHL’s ability to generate revenue from lands not required for homesteading.

What we heard from developers of affordable rentals was: When you put too many conditions in, you tie our hands; we don’t have the ability to be creative. So (the Bowl-O-Drome) is the first one where we just gave some general desires and then we’re going to see what comes back from that — how creative they can be, what sort of tax credits they can get.

However, the one thing we keep telling both HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) and the Legislature is: You want us to do more rentals, but when we do rentals, we don’t take anyone off the (homestead) waitlist. Nobody comes off the waitlist for a rental. They come off the waitlist when you issue them a lease.

Q: What proportion of developments going forward will be reserved for homes for purchase, as opposed to rentals?

A: Purpose 1 of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act under the Hawaii State Constitution is the development of lots for our beneficiaries. While rentals are an additional option for our beneficiaries, many beneficiaries still prefer a turn-key home.

Q: Why are some people on the waitlist for years?

A: Oftentimes, people have been on the waitlist for 40 years and they’ve been offered at least six times. They choose not to because financially they weren’t ready, or because “I grew up in Waimanalo and I don’t want any other place than Waimanalo,” even though we tell them Waimanalo’s going to be many years off. They continue to defer these offers for Waianae or Kapolei.

Q: How is DHHL helping beneficiaries be financially able to purchase a home?

A: Number one, by creating a variety of options for upcoming lot offerings. We’ve done a lot of turn-key homes. You’ve seen that we are launching the rental product and we have increased the number of vacant lots we offer to beneficiaries. A vacant lot allows a beneficiary to build a home suitable to their needs. This could include a tiny home. DHHL has also completed a rent-with-option-to-purchase program with another project coming online on Hawaii island. In addition, the department is revamping its existing HALE financial services program in 2020 in order to increase the number of services beneficiaries may access.

Q: What have you learned from being both an activist and a public official?

A: What I’ve learned is that change can come from outside and change can come from within. So it’s better to have a plan for both.

Q: Are you happy in your work?

A: There are days when I’m extremely happy, and there are days when I hold my head and go, “What am I doing? I should be out fishing!”