(BIVN) – A controversial senate bill concerning public land leases is up for an important committee vote today at the state legislature.

Senate Bill 1251, part of Governor David Ige’s proposed legislative package, “authorizes the Board of Land and Natural Resources to extend leases of public lands for commercial, industrial, or resort use upon approval of a proposed development agreement to make substantial improvements to the existing improvements,” according to the description. The law would repeals on June 30, 2024.

 A joint Senate Water & Land and Ways & Means Committee held a hearing on the bill on February 25 and is scheduled to make a decision today. 

The Department of Land and Natural Resources said it strongly supports this Administration measure. 

The proposal drew over a hundred written testimonies, most of them in opposition. 

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, for example, opposed the measure, saying it “would authorize relatively unconditioned lease extensions for a wide variety of public land leases, allowing public lands to be placed in the hands of a single private entity for an indefinite amount of time, far longer than necessary for the redevelopment purposes of this measure, and thereby invite potential violations of the public trust, public land trust, as well as compromise the interests of the state, Native Hawaiians, and the public in our limited public land base.”

OHA added that the previous Act 149 – the “pilot project” for the Hilo community economic district – “has not been completed or evaluated; allowing forty-year lease extensions for any and all industrial, commercial, and resort leases in the state may be premature.”