Hawaii's Recreational Renaissance plan striking out with boaters

The Recreational Renaissance “Plan B” that Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources has been looking for input and approval for from recreational boaters is unquestionably drawing negative responses from those who have attended recent hearings.

As has been the case at meetings on Kauai, Maui, and the Big Island, Oahu’s recreational boaters who attended last night’s hearing in Waikiki consistently questioned the wisdom of hiking mooring fees as a part of a program to raise about $8 million to repair and maintain the state’s deteriorating parks and boat harbors.

This Plan B came after this year’s state Legislature refused to pass a $240 million bond issue for the DLNR’s projected capital improvement projects.

William Mossman, head of the Hawaii Boaters Political Action Association, pointed out that as the plan is to increase mooring fees in the Ala Wai Harbor by $3.47 per foot of vessel length per month, it would result in a 61 percent increase for boat owners there.

Mossman also noted that under the DLNR’s Plan B, key revenue generating sources, such as those from fast land leases, fuel taxes and non-mooring fees, will not necessarily be returned to the harbor of origin, but may be used for ocean recreation areas statewide.

This, he said, allows the Department of Boating and Ocean Recreation administrator Ed Underwood to say the Ala Wai Harbor runs in the red, when it actually has been known as the state’s top revenue generator for the past 20 to 30 years.

Other boaters also offered that if generating more revenue was the object, then DOBOR officials should work harder at filling the new slips at the Ala Wai’s B, C, and D Docks that have been open since May.

There are presently some 60-plus empty state-of-the-art slips there, and if each were filled with a 30-foot boat, at the present $5.67 a foot, it would bring in about $10,000 more a month into the Boating Special Fund.

Boaters have until Nov. 19 to submit comments to RecreationalRenaissance@hawaii.gov. The Board of Land and Natural Resources may vote on the plan by Dec. 11.