County OK with developer concessions
Palamanui seeks more commercial land, later roads
Hawaii County officials are going to recommend the Leeward Planning Commission approve requests from a West Hawaii developer to reduce, defer and remove conditions from the development's rezoning ordinance.Palamanui developers submitted in March a request to delay building a mauka-makai connector road north of the Makalei Estates subdivision, a thoroughfare that would connect from Mamalahoa Highway to Queen Kaahumanu Highway, as well as eliminate a condition tying the number of homes to the square footage of commercial building space.
Planning Director Bobby Jean Leithead-Todd said she was going to "recommend approval, with conditions and subject to additional testimony."
|
advertisement
|
Leithead-Todd said she intentionally did not respond to West Hawaii Today's requests for comment for an article that ran Sunday, left for her over the course of three business days.
Mayor Billy Kenoi said he, too, favored granting the requests, focusing mainly on the deferral for the mauka-makai road, which puts off the requirement to build the road by 2012, six years after the County Council approved the ordinance. But he claimed the changes weren't allowing Palamunui developers to get out of promises made in order to receive the zoning change.
"There's no forgiving of commitments," Kenoi said. "There's just timelines."
Asked later about the request to delete a requirement tying the number of houses of residential development to commercial development, from one unit for every 600 square feet of commercial space to no specific requirements, the mayor declined to comment, citing a need to review Palamanui's request to see if that was what the developer was asking.
Palamanui's Roger Harris talked to West Hawaii Today about the need to disconnect the number of residential units from the commercial development for the Sunday article.
Harris repeated the reason for the requests earlier this week -- the company doesn't have the financing necessary to build the roads, construct the one required University of Hawaii at West Hawaii Center building and related infrastructure and get started on development to sell all at once. And, he said, the economy isn't strong enough to drive significant residential sales.
He wants to see the university center, a 20,000-square-foot building that will be dedicated to the University of Hawaii's community college program for West Hawaii courses, built -- and soon, he said.
The repeated request for the county's help, however, isn't an ultimatum that ends with the university building not being constructed, Harris said.
"This is not a threat," he said.
Palamanui Global Holdings is being developed through a partnership of Hiluhilu Development, discount brokerage giant Charles Schwab and Hunt Development Group.
Harris said Schwab's other holdings in West Hawaii are a home at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai and part ownership of the private Nanea Golf Club. Schwab has not made any philanthropic contributions to West Hawaii groups that Harris could remember.
|
|
DC2003 wrote on Jun 30, 2009 6:58 AM:
Forget the houses ... just bring infrastructure up to CURRENT needs. "