KAILUA-KONA — The Leeward Planning Commission on Thursday is scheduled to hear a request from Goodfellow Bros Inc. to extend the life of its permit for a base yard at the Waikoloa Quarry and approve an asphalt/concrete batching plant in the area.
Ed Brown, vice president of Hawaii operations for Goodfellow Bros Inc., said the commission’s approval, if granted, wouldn’t immediately lead to the plant’s development and operation, also noting that additional permitting with the state Department of Health and federal Environmental Protection Agency would also need to take place.
The site in question is part of a roughly 246-acre parcel south of Waikoloa Road between Waikoloa Village and Queen Kaahumanu Highway in South Kohala. It is part of the state Land Use Agricultural District.
That parcel consists of a nearly 220-acre quarry and 14.77-acre base yard.
In 2008, the County Planning Commission OK’d a Special Permit for the base yard to allow for equipment and vehicle maintenance and repairs at the site. A condition of that permit, however, included an expiration date of the end of this year to coincide with when a separate permit the state Land Use Commission issued in the 1990s to Waikoloa Development Co. for quarry operations would expire.
In 2016, however, the state Land Use Commission extended the permit for quarry operations through 2043 or when the quarry is abandoned or the lease is terminated or expires.
Citing the relationship between the operations at the base yard and at the quarry, Goodfellow Bros is also seeking to extend the timeline for the base yard permit.
“Now that the quarrying operation was extended, the applicant believes that it is only reasonable and logical to have the special permit for the base yard also extended to coincide with the life of the quarry special permit,” states the application filed with the Planning Department.
Documents filed with the Planning Department note though that the quarry and base yard will be operated by separate entities with potentially different timelines, so tying the base yard permit exclusively to the quarry permit “may not necessarily be appropriate.”
As a result, the company included a request to extend the permit by a minimum 10 years. That would allow the base yard to continue operating should the quarry permit be terminated early.
The company is also seeking approval to build and run a concrete/asphalt batching plant at the site as well.
That batching facility would eventually run on about 5 acres of the 14.77-acre parcel and include a 30-foot silo in addition to conveyor belts, a weigh station and mixer.
That facility would use quarried material to make asphalt, concrete or a mixture for infrastructure such as roads.
The quarry, base yard and batching plant could support improvements like the Daniel K. Inouye Highway extension, proposed for just south of the area.
The site in question falls within the State Land Use Agricultural District, although this particular area is considered “very poor” quality land in terms of agricultural productivity.
And because the site has been built upon, “very little, if any” additional land would be taken away from potential agricultural use.