Sometimes a building project comes along that is so outlandish you have to laugh. Such is the overblown development dreamed up for Keauhou Bay.
They want to squeeze 43 two-story apartments, with an industrial park and a large restaurant into that tiny wharf area on the bay, a space less than 100 yards square.
The whole thing is crazy, here’s their big plan.
Above the sacred birthplace of King Kamehameha III they want to build 43 larget two- story apartments.This will bring in new residents who will drive up to 100 additional cars up and down the road by the hotel every day. Friends visiting will double that number.
That many extra cars jammed into the tourist and resident traffic would cause a constant gridlock of cars up to the highway.
And that’s just the apartments. Next they want to build a large 3,000 square foot restaurant beside the small King’s pathway. This is a 60 by 60 foot room, larger than most restaurants in Kona.
Next door to that they want an industrial park of 10,000 square feet, almost the size of a football field. Space to build this is found only in the Twilight Zone.
And this is just on the wharf side of the bay. On the north side they want food booths and t-shirt stands. It will be Uncle Billy’s downtown market by the bay. White pop-ups filled with mangos, papayas and sodas. There will be ten kiosks of boogie-boards, snorkels, and real Hawaiian trinkets from Taiwan.
Keauhou Bay needs a touch up, so build a tasteful, open-air restaurant and a grassy picnic area next to it.
Don’t drag in rental yards and storage units. Don’t build a big subdivision. Don’t jam up the road with cars. Leave us one place in Kona quiet and natural.
They should develop a place with heart, not a sledge hammer. Build with aloha.
Down deep they must know it’s a bad idea. It is usually easy to testify but they are putting up roadblocks. They make you struggle through a string of 105 letters, numbers, dots, dashes and underscores before you can type your opinion. It’s a pain to testify against it, that’s what they’re counting on.
It’s easier to write directly to the planning department at planning@hawaiicounty.gov and tell them what you think. They welcome your opinion.
A great Hawaiian king once said “Ua mau ke ea i ka ‘aina i ka pono.” The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.
There’s nothing righteous about this. Let’s skip this one.
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com