The corporate owner of the huge Palamanui commercial and residential development in North Kona is now, predictably, seeking the avoidance or indefinite postponement of its promises to the public. That is the tried and true course of other big developers, like Oceanside 1250/Hokulia.
Oceanside 1250 promised a much needed public road from its project makai of Kealakekua to Napoopoo Road. But now, decades later, the development is there, the lots sold and the income taken, but the road isn’t there, leaving the county and its citizens to pay for its huge expense.
It works like this: The developer promises it will pay for much needed infrastructure (like a mauka-makai connector, parks and a college campus in Palamanui’s case) in exchange for immediate zoning and development permits which add many millions of dollars of value to its development; the county gives them what they want; after the huge increase in value from the county, the developer abandons some of the promises it made to the county and the public by saying without proof it can’t afford it, but keeps all the value the county already delivered; the county, without independently checking the developer’s financials, lets the developer out of its promise, without taking anything back. This swells the developer’s bottom line, but leaves the county to take on the cost of the infrastructure, giving the citizenry a beating.
Palamanui wants to delete or defer its promises of a new mauka-makai connector road from Queen Kaahumanu Highway to Mamalahoa Highway through Palamanui necessitated by its huge commercial and residential development; and delete or defer the development of parks as part of the Palamanui residential development. This huge reduction of promised contributions of Palamanui results in Palamanui keeping its multi-million dollar benefits given by the county and the shifting of their expense to the taxpayers, while Palamanui gets a huge increase for its developers’ bottom line. The college at Palamanui already exists and is unaffected.
Palamanui is hiding behind the college campus they also promised, and delivered, which may blind a lot of people to the multi-million deletion and benefit Palamanui now wants from the county.
But Palamanui could be beneficially different if it is willing to spend the money it promised years ago for the mauka-makai connector road to Mamalahoa on some other public infrastructure.
Let’s hope the Leeward Planning Commission and the county requires that kind of contribution from Palamanui and is not intimidated or blinded by fancy one-sided paperwork paid for by Palamanui for the purpose of increasing the developer’s bottom line without keeping their promises, and avoid changing the developer’s promises into the taxpayer’s burden. Let’s hope that Palamanui’s bottom line is honestly and objectively disclosed and audited, so we can all see whether there is any truth to their new claims.
The hearing before the Planning Commission was scheduled for May 19 at the West Hawaii Civic Center.
Mark Van Pernis is a Kailua-Kona attorney.