With all due respect to City Councilman Romy Cachola, his call for a transit stop in Mapunapuna (Island Voices, May 20) is premature. While this move may fit the priorities of Massachusetts-based HRPT, which owns most of the land in the area, and while it is certainly intended to increase the long-term value of HRPT's landholdings and the magnitude of its income from Hawai'i, it does not take into account the economic realities of many local businesses in the area.

A May 14 front-page story in The Advertiser described HRPT's offer to the City Council to locate a transit stop on its property. Bradford Leach, vice president of the Pacific region for HRPT, is quoted as saying, "We're willing to spend our own money, and our own time and our own costs in order to assist the city in any way." In reality, HRPT will first collect this money from its lessees, and it is those lessees we should be concerned about.

HRPT is the largest owner of industrial and commercial land on O'ahu. In the Mapunapuna and Sand Island areas — the last remaining urban industrial centers in O'ahu — there are 186 businesses with long-term ground leases. They include a wide range of bread-and-butter businesses, including wholesale and retail goods and services, community television, production and manufacturing, auto dealerships and repairs, contractors and suppliers.

Many of these ground leases are up for rent "renegotiation" with HRPT, and the early signs are quite troubling. While the HRPT leases require that the rents be "fair and reasonable," HRPT is seeking to double or triple the existing rents and also to add an additional annual percentage increase not provided in the existing leases.

For many local businesses, HRPT's new and breathtaking rents will lead to higher prices for local consumers and may force businesses to relocate or go out of business all together. Those businesses who can move to distant areas will then risk losing their client base while facing significantly higher costs to produce and deliver their goods and services. This will put additional pressure on their already-thin margins. If this happens, Mapunapuna will see the loss of jobs and a reduction of its tax base, resulting in further erosion of the local economy.

Local businesses want to avoid these hardships. They are seeking lease rents that are fair and reasonable to both parties, not rents based on real estate speculation. Citizens for Fair Valuation is dedicated to helping these businesses stay in business. In hopes of achieving a productive dialogue with HRPT, many Mapunapuna businesses have joined Citizens for Fair Valuation, and we are working with them in their efforts to seek rents that are fair and reasonable for both parties, just as provided in the HRPT leases.

But we need help from public officials like City Councilmember Romy Cachola. Before rushing ahead to install rail stations in a political context and for the benefit of one large absentee landowner, let's take a hard look at the needs of the companies who are doing business in this area, and who have made it into a vital industrial and commercial center for our local economy.

Let's look at the long-term effects of HRPT's initiative on the neighborhood and identify the ways in which we can strengthen the long-term viability of those businesses. Let's not rush into a development that will enhance the landowner's interest without addressing the concerns of the local businesses about the possibility of economic instability and decline inherent in HRPT's unreasonable rent demands.

Clearly, there needs to be an in-depth community conversation on HRPT's project, including serious and good faith interaction between Councilmember Cachola and his constituents, before any action can be legitimately considered.

Michael Steiner is executive director of Citizens for Fair Valuation. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.