EDITORIAL
Golf course tax break needs careful thought

The Honolulu City Council's legitimate interest in keeping O'ahu's private golf courses alive and thriving may lead it to make a serious policy mistake concerning our property tax system.

The council is looking at a plan that would shift some 1,600 acres of land — much of it now categorized as preservation — into the residential category.

The result would be a sharply lower property tax rate. And the biggest beneficiary would be those golf courses — classified as preservation land — that are struggling to make ends meet.

While there is some concern that this plan could impact wealthy private courses as well as those private operations open to the public, the council seems determined to keep this restricted to those courses that allow general public play.

That's a good first step.

But there are additional problems with this idea.

The first is that the change would result in a loss of nearly $4 million in property tax revenues to the city at current rate levels. Considering the tight shape of the city budget, that would be a substantial blow.

The city could always offset the loss by raising tax rates on other categories, but that makes little sense. Few would argue it makes good public policy to tax businesses and homeowners extra simply to protect businesses that happen to be golf courses.

Another potential problem is the precedent this would set. Is the council willing to offer property tax relief to other categories of business that are having financial problems?

An alternative might be to create a special golf course category. This would offer an opportunity to recognize the general value of golf courses to the community such as view planes, open space, recreational opportunities and higher real estate values for those who live near them.