HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.C.R. NO.	199
THIRTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2026
STATE OF HAWAII

HOUSE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

 

Requesting the President of the united states to return to the State all recreational facilities on Hawaii public lands that are no longer required for the defense of the United States, including Fort DeRussy and the Hale Koa Hotel, pursuant to the Hawaii Admission Act, and as further required by Public Law 88-233.

 

 

 

     WHEREAS, the Hale Koa Hotel is an eight-hundred-seventeen-room United States Armed Forces recreation center resort occupying nine acres of prime Waikiki beachfront within the seventy-two-acre Fort DeRussy Military Reservation, operating as a commercial hospitality enterprise that competes directly with the State's visitor industry while paying no transient accommodations tax, no general excise tax, no property tax, and no rent to the State of Hawaii or to the public land trust, and sitting on former crown and government lands that the federal government has no legitimate need to retain for military defense; and

 

     WHEREAS, the lands now known as Fort DeRussy, part of the Kalia district of Waikiki, were historically a landscape of rivers, taro patches, fishponds, and freshwater springs and were acquired by the United States War Department through General Order 20 in 1906 for a military reservation, initially designated the Kalia Military Reservation and renamed Fort DeRussy in 1909; and

 

     WHEREAS, Territorial Governor Lucius E. Pinkham issued executive orders in 1911, 1917, and 1918, which set aside these crown and government lands for federal military use, after which the Army destroyed the fishponds and wetlands by continuously pumping dredged ocean fill for nearly one year; and

 

     WHEREAS, Battery Randolph was constructed between 1909 and 1911 as part of the coastal defense of Honolulu Harbor and was equipped with two fourteen-inch guns that were the largest in the Pacific; and

 

     WHEREAS, those guns never fired a shot in defense, because their fourteen-mile range had been rendered obsolete by the eighteen-mile accuracy of enemy warships by 1941; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Army itself acknowledged this obsolescence by redesignating Fort DeRussy as a rest and recuperation center in June 1942, placing the batteries on standby status in 1943, declaring the guns surplus in 1944, decommissioning the guns by 1946 razing the fort's Battery Dudley to the ground in 1969, and disbanding the Coastal Artillery Corps in 1950; and

 

     WHEREAS, notwithstanding this record, Army Secretary Wilber M. Brucker designated Fort DeRussy a "permanent installation" in 1956, an administrative label that carries no legal weight under the Admission Act; and

 

     WHEREAS, in 1975, the Department of Defense constructed the Hale Koa Hotel, a fifteen-story resort, on nine of the beachfront acres; and the fort's entire history since 1942 has consisted exclusively of recreation, lodging, museum operation, and administrative education, none of which constitutes a military defense purpose sufficient to justify the continued retention of these former crown and government lands under section 5(e) of the Admission Act, P.L. 86-3; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Heritage Foundation, in a 1982 report titled "Surplus Federal Property: It's Time to Sell," identified Fort DeRussy by name as surplus federal property, noting that, of its seventy-two acres, seventeen beachfront acres were "currently unused" and were valued at approximately $13,000,000 per acre at 1982 prices; and

 

     WHEREAS, Fort DeRussy is part of 432,725.91 acres of crown and government lands seized by the federal government between 1900 and 1959, as documented by the Legislative Reference Bureau's 1969 report, "Public Land Policy In Hawaii: An Historical Analysis"; and

 

     WHEREAS, federal law provides for the return of Hawaii's lands to the public land trust, via section 5(e) of the Admission Act of 1959, P.L. 86-3, which specifies that each federal agency having control over retained crown and government lands shall report to the President of the United States (President) regarding its continued need for such lands, and if the President determines the lands are no longer needed by the United States, they shall be conveyed to the State of Hawaii; and via Public Law 88-233, enacted by Congress in December 1963, which ensured that the return mechanism would continue to operate beyond the original five-year deadline; and

 

     WHEREAS, United States Senator Daniel K. Inouye, testifying in the 1963 Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands hearings leading to the passage of Public Law 88-233, said that "[t]hese lands were held in trust by the federal government for the people of Hawaii, with the eventual hope that they would be returned, when federal need was not present[,]" Senator Inouye also argued that even lands declared surplus after the five-year deadline should be returned at no cost because "[w]e feel this is not equitable, and I do not think this was within the intent of the Members of Congress"; and

 

     WHEREAS, Senator Hiram L. Fong, testifying at the same 1963 hearing, spoke directly to the injustice of the federal government's retention of Hawaii's lands, stating "Justice is on our side.  We are asking for the return of lands not needed by the federal government--lands that represent a tiny fraction compared with the 1,275,000 acres the Territory of Hawaii gave to the federal government without cost at annexation," and further noting "As against 1,600 acres Hawaii gave free of charge to the federal government 410,000 [at Statehood].  Surely Congress did intend to compensate Hawaii for these acres"; and

 

     WHEREAS, Kermit Gordon, then Director of the United States Bureau of the Budget, confirmed the validity of Hawaii's claim in 1963 correspondence to Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, stating "We believe that Hawaii has a unique claim on the lands and property involved since they were originally given to the United States by the Republic or Territory of Hawaii.  That claim and the special status of those lands and property have been recognized by the United States for many years"; and

 

     WHEREAS, the federal portfolio includes substantial lands not used for national defense purposes, but rather for hotels, short-term vacation rentals, golf courses, marinas, and beach resorts operated exclusively for the recreation of military-affiliated patrons, and that should rightfully be available for the wellness and recreation of all the people of Hawaii, including lands comprising the Hale Koa Hotel; the Bellows Air Force Station recreational area in Waimanalo, which occupies a pristine stretch of windward Oahu coastline with one hundred seventeen lodging units, including beachfront cabins, condominiums, and campsites; the Pililaau Army Recreation Center in Waianae, which includes cottages at Pokai; the Barbers Point beach cottages at Kalaeloa; the recreational beach cottages, cabanas, Klipper Villas, and golf course on a Native Hawaiian burial site at Mokapu; the Kilauea Military Camp, a ninety-two‑unit lodge and cottage complex within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the island of Hawaii; the Barbers Point Golf Course at Kalaeloa; the Leilehua Golf Course in Wahiawa; the Mamala Bay Golf Course at Keehi; the marina at Ke Awalau o Puuloa; and all associated Morale, Welfare and Recreation facilities across every major island, all of which operate on former crown and government lands for the exclusive benefit of a restricted class of patrons rather than for the people of Hawaii as a whole, and none of which are essential for the defense of the United States; and

 

     WHEREAS, the federal government has used, occupied, and controlled crown and government lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom for military and non-military purposes since 1900 without paying fair market rent to the Territory or State of Hawaii; without contributing any revenue to the public land trust established under section 5(f) of the Admission Act, P.L. 86-3; and without making any payment to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for the benefit of Native Hawaiians; and

 

     WHEREAS, established principles of federal and state law support the conclusion that the uncompensated federal retention and use of crown and government lands constitutes a compensable taking and breach of trust; and

 

     WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court held in United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980), that the federal government's seizure of indigenous lands without adequate consideration constitutes a Fifth Amendment taking requiring just compensation, and awarded compensation with interest compounded from the date of the original dispossession; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Supreme Court held in Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419 (1982), and reaffirmed in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, 594 U.S. 139 (2021), that a permanent physical occupation of property by or at the direction of the government constitutes a per se taking regardless of the public benefit conferred; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Hawaii Supreme Court held in Ahuna v. Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, 64 Haw. 327 (1982), that the State's obligations to Native Hawaiian trust beneficiaries constitutes a fiduciary duty of the highest order; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Hawaii Supreme Court held in Office of Hawaiian Affairs v. Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawaii, 117 Haw. 174 (2008), that Native Hawaiians possess unrelinquished claims to the ceded lands and that the State has a fiduciary duty not to alienate those lands until such claims are resolved, an analysis that the United States Supreme Court in Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, 556 U.S. 163 (2009), reversed only on the narrow question of the 1993 Apology Resolution's operative legal effect while leaving the underlying state-law trust obligations undisturbed; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Legislature finds that these authorities, taken together, establish that the federal government's permanent physical occupation of former crown and government lands for purposes unrelated to military defense--lands impressed with a trust for the benefit of the inhabitants of Hawaii since at least the Joint Resolution of Annexation of 1898 and formalized under section 5(f) of the Admission Act, P.L. 86-3--without payment of fair market rent to the public land trust or to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs constitutes both a per se taking under the Fifth Amendment and a continuing breach of the fiduciary obligations recognized by Congress, the Hawaii State Constitution, and the courts of this State; and

 

     WHEREAS, the State of Hawaii has a fiduciary obligation to its citizens, and particularly to Native Hawaiians as named beneficiaries of the public land trust, to pursue all lawful means to recover former crown and government lands that are no longer being used for the purposes for which they were retained and to seek fair compensation for the uncompensated use of those lands; and the Legislature seeks the return of all lands no longer needed for legitimate military purposes, beginning with the Hale Koa Hotel; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2026, the Senate concurring, that the President of the United States is requested to determine that federal recreational facilities on Hawaii public lands, including Fort DeRussy and the Hale Koa Hotel, are no longer required for the defense of the United States, pursuant to the Admission Act, P.L. 86-3, and as further required by Public Law 88-233; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the President is requested to order the immediate conveyance of these public lands to the State of Hawaii; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature believes and declares that the continued federal retention of the Hale Koa Hotel, Fort DeRussy lands, and other non-defense recreational and leisure facilities does not constitute a legitimate federal need sufficient to justify withholding these former crown and government lands from the public land trust; and

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