Owners of a 22-acre parcel on the makai side of Old Government Road, west and south of Napoopoo Road, are seeking environmental approval for subdivision and a 4-inch water line.
Elizabeth Marshall and Carol Gibson filed the draft environmental assessment with the Office of Environmental Quality Control, which published the document this week. Hawaii County Planning Director Bobby Jean Leithead Todd said she expected the assessment to receive a finding of no significant impact.
Marshall and Gibson propose dividing the parcel into two 5-acre, one 5.9-acre and one 6.6-acre lots for “intensive agricultural use of the property,” the draft assessment said. A requirement to subdivide the property is the installation of the water line inside an existing utility easement and along a 10-foot-wide strip of existing pavement, the document said.
The property is roughly 2,800 feet from the shoreline mauka of Kealakekua Bay, from roughly 400 to 900 feet above sea level and about 1,000 feet from the Old Government Road intersection with Napoopoo Road. The land is within the Kona Field System Site, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“The owners/applicants purchased the property for the sole purpose of subdivision as an investment, to sell at least some lots to share in the high land and development costs,” the document said. “Besides the purchase price, they have participated in the paving of the Old Government Road, which was already required for all surrounding subdivision owners, having already received approval for similar developments of the lands, in accordance with relevant regulations, county, state or federal.”
The property’s 20 to 30 percent slope, as well as the cost of agricultural investments, are “on a scale exceeding the financial means of the average owner, while four people can make this investment and expenses financially bearable.”
A previous owner, James C. Riggle, applied for and received the same subdivision in 1984, the document said. Riggle also received a finding of no significant impact for his subdivision plan that same year. The current owner applied for the same subdivision in 2000, but abandoned the request when the water supply issue was not resolved.
