Bill gives Scouts title to Koke’e camp

Gov. Linda Lingle this morning is scheduled to sign a bill giving state blessing to a land swap that will give the Boy Scouts of America Aloha Council ownership of 29-acre Camp Alan Fay in Koke’e State Park.

All told, House Bill 83, House Draft 1, will give the council ownership of 332 acres of state land on three islands for one acre of private land near the Waikele shopping area close to Waipahu on O’ahu.

Appraisers have valued the state land and the single acre of private land at Waikele at just over $1 million each.

The bill, coming on the heels of state Board of Land and Natural Resources’ approval of the swap, gives the camp lands to the council, which had been leasing the parcels from the state.

Since the state lands are in the conservation zone and have limited revenue-generating potential for the state, accepting just over an acre of land near the Waikele commercial complexes on O’ahu in exchange for the state land makes good fiscal sense, said state Rep. Ezra Kanoho, D-Wailua, Lihu’e, Koloa.

The Waikele property, consisting of three smaller parcels totaling just over one acre, has “great potential for income generation” and commercial use, said Kanoho, chair of the House Committee on Water & Land Use.

The 29 acres of Koke’e land at Camp Alan Fay is the smallest of the three state parcels changing ownership. Included are 238 acres near Honoka’a on the Big Island, and around 65 acres at Pupukea on O’ahu’s north shore.

Kanoho, along with Kaua’i native Rep. Kika G. Bukoski of Maui, and Rep. Cynthia Thielen of O’ahu, both Republicans, co-sponsored the bill.

Big Island Sen. Lorraine Inouye, who introduced a similar bill, Senate Bill 1555, chairs the Senate Water, Land and Agriculture. Senate Bill 1555 became unnecessary as a result of passage of the House version.

Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).