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| The Bishop Building is at the center of a dispute that could affect the future of Windward Community College and the Hawaii State Hospital. |
The
Kaneohe Neighborhood Board has voted to support Windward Community College
in a disagreement over the location of a proposed mental health facility next
to its campus.
The Board approved a resolution
calling on the State Department of Health to negotiate a land exchange that
would move the proposed facility to a larger parcel nearby. The land exchange
would protect the historic Bishop Building, which the college would like to use
for a charter school but is to be torn down to make way for the new facility.
The vote during the Board's February 18 meeting was 9-2, with two abstentions.
The vote came after a statement by Gov.
David Ige’s chief of staff, Mike McCartney, supporting the Hospital’s plan and
noting that the work needs to be done to fix problems related to serious
overcrowding.
Proposed Facility Would Give Geriatric Care
The proposed facility would provide
psychiatric and nursing care for up to 50 State Hospital patients needing
geriatric services. The patients would be discharged from the Hospital and
transferred to the new facility, which would be financed, built and operated by
privately owned Avalon Health Care Group. The transfers would free up beds to
serve an expanding population of potentially violent patients.
Hospital Administrator William J. May told
the Board that the Hospital is 90 patients over its 170-patient capacity and
growing. Mr. May said a land swap would set back development of the long-term
care facility by five to six years.
College Chancellor Defends Land Swap
College Chancellor Doug Dykstra told the
Board that the Hospital can’t begin work on a key part of the project because
it lacks state permission to demolish the Bishop Building. He also said past
claims by the Health Department that it was ready to start work on the
long-term care facility have not proved true. And he noted that the land swap
would not affect plans to build a separate, expanded Hospital facility to
handle potentially violent patients.
The resolution, which was introduced by
Board Vice Chair Bill Sager, says the Health Department did not consider the
possibility of a land exchange, which the college has offered on four occasions
in the past five years.
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| Mahealani Cypher |
Neighborhood Board member Mahealani Cypher
said she believed that a land swap would raise costs for the State Hospital but
that the costs could have been averted if the Hospital officials had talked
with community members sooner. She said relocating the long-term care facility
elsewhere was a better solution.
Learn More
More information about the issue is available from the sources listed below. Click on the highlighted text to access the information:
The hospital’s 2015 Master Plan Update.
A report from the Board’s Hawaii State Hospital Master Plan Review Permitted Interaction Group.
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