[ OUR OPINION ]
Land transfer enables
home ownership
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In the early decades following congressional approval of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921, most of the 203,000 acres provided for homesteading was unsuitable for farming and recognized to be remote and uninhabitable. Following a dispute over state use of Hawaiian home lands, the 1995 Legislature agreed to pay $600 million to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands in $30 million annual payments over 20 years. The department previously had relied upon lease payments.
The department now is making good use of its new source of revenue, agreeing to pay the state $2.2 million annually over 15 years to acquire 1,800 acres of livable property on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island from the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawaii. The Kona area of the Big Island has a potential of more than 3,000 homes, while more than 600 are planned near Lahaina, Maui, and at Kapolei and Waiahole Valley on Oahu.
Department Director Micah Kane correctly called the agreement "one of the most important land transfers" in Hawaii's history. The number of leases that have been awarded in the department's entire history totals only 7,200. The waiting list of homestead applicants is 20,000, including 12,000 residential applicants.
"At a time when the cost of housing is unreasonable," Kane said, "we will be providing people who clearly are in many cases in a rental situation into a position of home ownership."
The problem of affordability was addressed in legislation four years ago that authorized $200 million in federal funds for DHHL over five years for housing programs for Hawaiians most in need. Three months ago, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued new rules allowing lessees who are at least 25 percent Hawaiian to qualify for Federal Housing Administration insured mortgages. Lessees previously had to prove at least 50 percent Hawaiian ancestry to obtain FHA insured mortgages.
In testimony supporting enactment of the 1921 law, then-Interior Secretary Franklin K. Lane said it would help in "rehabilitating" impoverished Hawaiians. The energized agency headed by Kane should at long last make headway against what recent studies have documented to remain the most severe housing needs of any population in the country.
Brigade will balloon
school enrollment
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Assistant Schools Superintendent Rae Loui has told the Board of Education that the increase in students who are children of the 810 brigade members will cost the state $16.4 million in startup costs, including 40 portable classrooms and an additional $3.5 million in payment of salaries for more than 60 teachers and assistants. The costs could more than double with the possible arrival of an aviation group.
The Army's environmental impact statement on the Stryker Brigade stated no assistance other than the regular payment of 20 percent of the cost of educating federal dependents. The evaluation focused on environmental effects. Supporters of the brigade spoke of the economic benefits, but those are over the long term.
Leilehua High already is the most crowded school in Hawaii, with 1,760 students, 450 more than its capacity, in the last school year. Hale Kula, Solomon and Wheeler elementary schools, plus Wheeler Intermediate, will be affected, and all are at full capacity now.
Western boom towns learned during the 1970s about a phenomenon that became known as the Gillette Syndrome -- rapid injection of workers to support new energy development before the small town's infrastructure could be built to accommodate the added population. The social effects were devastating during the years before the economic pluses could be turned into tax revenues needed to build an adequate infrastructure.
Immediate attention is needed in Central Oahu to construct facilities and prepare for expansion of the student enrollment to prevent such a phenomenon from occurring in the school system. The state's budget would be stretched thin to perform that task alone, and it should receive prompt assistance from the federal government, beyond the 20 percent formula.
