Our response to the Draft RFP written by DOBOR and preliminarily approved by the Board

Our response to the Draft RFP written by DOBOR and preliminarily approved by the Board: was to ask legislators to clarify HRS 200-2.5 and HRS 200-2.6 laws, that let the Board to lease or sell harbors and ask the Legislature to intervene and secure a minimum amount of free recreational parking at the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor.

On Feb.8, 2023 Senator Lorriane Inouye, introduced SB 1034, to permanently preserve 300 free recreational public parking stalls (of the 941) at the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor.

The Surfparking coalition and other groups supporting SB1034 think the law HRS 2.6 should say (b) Any lease of fast lands and submerged lands of the Ala Wai boat harbor shall provide for the maintenance of at least three hundred public parking stalls at no cost for recreational ocean access and for the practice of traditional and customary Native Hawaiian rights."

The term ‘maintenance’ in this case means preserve, ‘hold out’ or save.

Therefore any published RFP, to privatize the harbor should say, in the Accommodation section:

The developer must propose a parking plan that maintains at least 300 parking stalls that are free and open to the public. 

It makes sense to clearly state the parking requirement/accommodation NOW in the RFP process so that potential developers know the requirement up front, before harbor designs are drawn.

Click the button below to see our the legislative summary with testimonies and video of the hearings.