Honolulu Weekly - December 7, 2011 - By Joan Conrow
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) has been fighting for decades to get some $200 million in back-due revenues in return for the state’s use of so-called “ceded” public lands that were siezed from the Hawaiian kindgom upon the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani in 1893. And the state has been trying for decades to perk up the Kakaako area through redevelopment.
Now, Gov. Neil Abercrombie has merged the two long-sought objectives, announcing a proposal which would settle OHA’s claim by giving the agency 25 acres in Kakaako as well as his own grand plans to incorporate the neighborhood into Oahu as a “third city,” replete with a 650-foot skyscraper on Pohukaina Street that would tower some 250 feet over Honolulu’s tallest buildings.
But both proposals face significant obstacles, given the long-simmering dispute over rightful ownership of “ceded lands,” the state Legislature’s previous rejection of an OHA settlement proposal, ongoing fears that the deal could open the doors to a final resolution in favor of the state, past public opposition to Kakaako high rises and the threat of rising sea levels.
“My first thought was, here we go again,” said Henry Noa, prime minister of the Reinstated Hawaiian Government. “We have the state trying to justify a land exchange that they don’t have proper title to. They don’t even have the right to transfer the land.”
Noa’s sentiments were echoed by University of Hawaii professor Jon Osorio in a Nov. 29 commentary published in The Hawaii Independent. “To begin with, all transactions involving so-called public lands by the state and any state agencies are violations of Hawaiian Kingdom law,” he wrote. “The crown and government lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom are the property of Hawaiian nationals and the heirs to the Crown. Possession of these lands by the United States is a theft and nothing more.”
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