Key Senate committees have indefinitely deferred Gov. Neil Abercrombie‘s bill to develop school lands via a partnership with the Hawaii Community Development Association.

Senate Education Chair Jill Tokuda said Monday that the Senate will likely get the bill back later this session since the House version is still alive. House Bill 865, Senate Bill 1096‘s companion legislation, was deferred until Friday. 

Meantime, the Department of Education is pushing its own bill to develop school lands without using HCDA. The governor and DOE officials have indicated that there may be amendments to the governor’s bill that could help strike a compromise.

Sen. Laura Thielen, a member of the Economic Development Committee, said during the hearing Monday afternoon that SB1096 doesn’t offer enough guarantee that projects would be community-driven like the governor tried to assure lawmakers of last week.

The governor’s policy leader, Tammi Chun, said HCDA laws and Board of Education policies would require public input. But she left open the possibility of amending the bill by including specific language to satisfy Thielen’s concerns. 

Many lawmakers are sensitive to heightened community concern over the state using different agencies to develop land without public involvement from the get-go. Efforts to repeal the Public Land Development Corporation, the poster child of this concern, moved forward Monday in the House.

— Nathan Eagle