A deal on the sale of ceded lands was reached yesterday.

The state Office of Hawaiian Affairs and three of four Native Hawaiian plaintiffs agreed to settle their 15-year-old lawsuit with the state over ceded lands in the wake of the Legislature's passage yesterday of a bill requiring Hawai'i governors to get approval from lawmakers before selling ceded lands.

OHA and the other plaintiffs had sued to block the state from selling portions of ceded lands — 1.2 million acres held in trust by the state — until claims by Native Hawaiians to those lands are resolved.

The measure, Senate Bill 1677, requires a two-thirds vote by both chambers of the Legislature before most ceded lands can be sold.

OHA and three of the four individual plaintiffs reached "an agreement on a set of steps that will resolve all or almost all of the lawsuit filed by OHA and the private plaintiffs in 1994," OHA said in a statement.

Yet to be resolved is the issue of how much OHA should receive from revenues derived from ceded lands. A bill to address this issue failed last Friday.

University of Hawai'i professor Jonathan Osorio, one of the plaintiffs, did not join in the settlement.