Land-rich and cash-poor for most of its existence, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands began receiving $30 million a year from the state in 1995 as part of a legal settlement over past misuse of homelands properties. Those payments end in eight years.

The department received another 1,800 acres of new land in 2004, transferred from the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the state public housing agency, the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawaii. Some of those properties already had infrastructure improvements, and DHHL agreed to pay back the $33 million value of those improvements over 15 years.

The department says it has awarded 2,037 leases over the past four years (the leases run 99 years and cost $1 per year) to people of at least 50 percent Hawaiian ancestry.

That's compared with 5,875 leases awarded during the previous 80 years.

And the department hopes to award 1,000 leases each year through 2010.

The department says it cannot calculate how much money it has spent to place Hawaiians on land over the past four years.

Some numbers are available for specific projects. At the 326-unit Kaupe'a project in Kapolei — on land received from HCDCH — the department spent $24.9 million on infrastructure, $3 million on consultant plans and architectural drawings and $80 million in home construction costs. The construction costs will be recouped as houses are sold.

The Keokea-Waiohuli 388- unit development on Maui will cost the department some $75 million in nonrecoverable infrastructure expenses over the next four years if construction costs stabilize or drop.

Next year's development budget for the department is $140 million.

The annual operating budget is about $14 million, with 140 employees and offices on every island except Lana'i. The department also manages two water systems on Moloka'i and one on Kaua'i.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.