2019-08-28 BDHRA Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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to sort of streamline that process and hopefully remove that element from it so there's a little bit more incentive for people to step in without the burden of that costly environmental review upfront. And some of the concerns I've heard about that process, or having a peninsula-wide review have been, you know, how do you plan for that, how do you, you know, what if somebody wants to do something different. So I just wanted, if Planning can chime in briefly on that, you know, how flexible something like that could be. Like could you do a programmatic environmental impact statement where you say these are the basic parameters of what we would want to see at these various sites and if you step outside of that it's going to cost you more. What are the possibilities for, for that scenario? KANUHA: In order for that to be worthwhile, there needs to be more structure. I think that's where some of these bills were heading towards,providing more structure. There was some school of thought that perhaps to seek the funding to conduct this overall EIS would be an encouraging factor, but without the structure in place it's actually kind of premature. GADDIS: Anyone else have any questions, or comments, statements regarding the discussion? Go ahead Mr. DeLima. DELIMA: I do want to indicate that I agree with the Representative that if you, if we need to have an agency, preferably by the State to have the lead authority on getting this thing moving because I don't think this group is gonna have the ability to effectuate anything. Because even that RFI process, the RFI process was to develop whether there was any interest of someone to obtain a long-term lease. And the reason only one person had any interest was cause only one person had the leverage to do so. And you know, they wanted to condition their ability because it required that whoever showed interest and was going to obtain it had to put up the money for the assessment and EIS for the actual demolition itself. So here we want someone to indicate interest, there's really only one player in town to do it, and then we want them to put up the money in order to potentially be able to get the lease. So I think if we had a board like what Representative Onishi is proposing, and get the thing moving, maybe they can enter into a memorandum of understanding on that aspect of it and everything else can fall into place. But the sooner we get this thing moving in that direction the better it is for all of us. I appreciate the Representative,he is our representative from Hilo so I think he's doing a good job at moving this along so, thank you Representative Onishi. GADDIS: Yeah, I just want to echo that. Thank you so much for coming out. If no one else anyone else have anything they wanna add? Go ahead Mr. Onishi. ONISHL One final comment. So, you know, DLNR has a responsibility of managing the lands and trying to get the appropriate use and to generate income to help support the department. They, it is difficult for them to consider something like, "hey, you know what, if you're willing to give up Banyan Drive, I mean the golf course, and revert it back to the State so the State can redevelop it, we might consider assisting you with securing the Uncle Billy's property for your use, right? And come up with some agreement on, ok, how do we take down the old place, etcetera. That is very difficult for the department to do under the current law, under the current Page 17 of 19 Banyan Drive Hawaii Redevelopment Agency August 28,2019 Minutes