Lawmakers that attended a rally on Saturday to back the lease renewal of Kan Pacific\u2019s Marianas Resort and Spa in Marpi said an updated land use plan is needed to guide all new developments in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s critical,\u201d said Rep. Ramon Tebuteb (Ind-Saipan). \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s lacking when we look at the overall planning of the development in the Commonwealth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Citing the existence of a zoning policy for Saipan, Tebuteb said there also needs to have \u201can overall sort of a Commonwealth plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important,\u201d said Rep. Vincent Sablan (Ind-Saipan) in a separate interview. \u201cWe really have to look into it. We don\u2019t want to set the wrong precedent here,\u201d noting that Kan Pacific\u2019s lease\u2014which expires in 2018\u2014is \u201cthe first of its kind,\u201d as it is a land lease that\u2019s expiring after the 40-year maximum lease years mandated by the NMI Constitution.<\/p>\n
On the land-lease policy, Sablan said the CNMI needs consistency. \u201cWe cannot just come up with different methods and decisions with different leases. It just doesn’t work like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens now with Kan Pacific or the fate of Kan Pacific will set a precedent for the next the leases that are coming up,\u201d Sablan said, noting hotel officials of Hyatt Regency Saipan and Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan that attended the rally.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the land use plan needs to be tuned up, if not created\u2026because what we are doing now is just\u2026playing it by ear. We are just making decisions on certain leases as we go. We can\u2019t do that. There needs to be consistency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The RFP<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI totally understand what they are doing,\u201d said Best Sunshine International Ltd. CEO Mark Brown, whose company has confirmed a plan to pursue Kan Pacific\u2019s Marpi property once the lease expires.<\/p>\n When asked to comment on the Saturday rally, Brown said, \u201cI would probably be doing the exact same thing. Again, as I mentioned before, it\u2019s a business. An RFP is going to go out. That\u2019s what\u2019s being told.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be many other companies. I\u2019m hearing two, maybe three. So there are other big, big companies out there that are also interested in that parcel of land. Again, we are here on island and we have proven the type of business and type of neighbor that we are, so we are not going to sit back and watch someone else go in for the RFP. We will be right there side by side with whoever else is there.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026It\u2019s a business. And we will be as heavily involved as we possibly can, just like the other companies in the RFP,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n The administration of Gov. Eloy S. Inos has backed the Department of Public Lands\u2019 decision to issue a request for proposals for the lands currently leased to Kan Pacific in Marpi.<\/p>\n Final say<\/strong><\/p>\n However, the decision to lease lands larger than five acres will have to made by the Legislature, Sablan and Tebuteb noted Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cEventually, the say will come down to the Legislature in the end,\u201d said Sablan. \u201cA lot of the discussions now are based on constitutionality or not. They say you cannot extend the lease over 40 years\u2014true. But nothing says you can\u2019t renew an exiting lease.\u201d<\/p>\n From 2013 to 2014, Kan Pacific and DPL exchanged multiple letters to begin negotiations to renew the Marpi lease, according to a Kan Pacific letter to DPL that documented these events. But negotiations suffered an \u201capparent interruption,\u201d blamed on Best Sunshine\u2019s aggressive pursuit of public lands to meet construction and project mandates as Saipan\u2019s exclusive casino licensee, according to a letter from Kan Pacific to DPL.<\/p>\n DPL Secretary Pete A. Tenorio has said that the CNMI is constitutionally prohibited from entering into a new lease with Mariana Resort until after their current 40-year lease expires in 2018. However, Kan Pacific argues that the property will not automatically revert to the government, as a provision in their lease agreement provides that \u201cthe lessor shall inform the lessee whether it intends to initiate the transition of the management of the facilities to lessor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDPL was contractually obligated to give notice of intent,\u201d Kan Pacific lawyer Joseph J. Iacopino earlier wrote. \u201cHowever, such notice was not given, the deadline passed and, instead of giving such notice, DPL encouraged Kan Pacific to enter into subsequent lease with another 40-year term.\u201d<\/p>\n On DPL\u2019s position for an RFP, Sablan notes that an \u201cRFP is not in the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNeither is a new lease,\u201d he added. \u201cExtension is the only word that is there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDPL has the authority to negotiate and whatnot but in the end it\u2019s going to come to the Legislature. So we\u2019ll see where that goes.\u201d<\/p>\n On the administration\u2019s position that a competitive bid would serve the \u201cbest interests\u201d of the CNMI, Tebuteb asked, \u201cHow do you define best interest?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to the RFP? Those are all speculations. Any RFP are all speculations until such time until they are fully approved. \u2026How do you measure what\u2019s best for the people? How do you measure that? You can\u2019t. And frankly speaking it\u2019s hard when you have policy makers who have deep pockets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lawmakers that attended a rally on Saturday to back the lease renewal of Kan Pacific\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[26,175,3092,1252],"class_list":["post-214661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-cnmi","tag-dpl","tag-kan-pacific","tag-rfp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}