A proposal to more than double the number of rooms at a North Kohala retreat is headed to a contested case hearing after three neighbors successfully petitioned the Leeward Planning Commission.
Applicant Ahu Pohaku Ho‘omaluhia LLC is looking to increase the number of guest rooms at the Hawaii Island Retreat in Hawi from 16 to 36 by construction 20 additional guest rooms on a 5-acre portion of a 14.5-acre parcel off Lokahi Road. To do so, they need to amend a special management area use permit and a special permit. The retreat is located about a half-mile east of Akoni Pule Highway.
The quasi-judicial contested case hearing will be conducted by a hearing officer hired by the commission who will submit findings and recommendations to the planning commission for a vote. First, however, the three petitioners and the applicant must agree on a mediator and try to work out their differences.
“The applicant has twin goals: one is to obviate the need for a contested case hearing; it saves everybody grief, money, time, etc., etc.. And secondly, at the end of the day, is to still try to be — they started off his neighbors and they want to end up as being neighbors,” said Sidney Fuke, consultant for Ahu Pohaku Ho‘omaluhia LLC (formerly Robert Watkins and Jean Sunderland), in requesting the matter be included on the commission’s February agenda. “Hopefully between now and that hearing, we’ll be able to come to some amicable agreement to thereby obviate the need for for a contested case hearing.”
The three neighbors granted standing by the commission as intervenors in the case are the Charles A. Anderson Trust, EWM Enterprises, and Kohala Makani Kai. Charles A. Anderson, who oversees the trust of the same name, is also the authorized agent for the latter two entities.
Prior to the commission granting the three neighboring property owners standing in the case, testimony was offered by three people on matter, in addition to written input submitted by three others. None was affiliated with a petitioning party.
Two of the in-person testifiers on the applications were opposed to the expansion while the third, who also submitted written testimony, offered overall input.
Beth Thoma Robinson, who disclosed in written testimony that Ahu Pohaku Ho‘omaluhia LLC is a client of Hawaii Life Real Estate, where she is broker-in-charge and director of conservation and legacy lands, gave testimony as a citizen active in various groups, including the Kohala Community Plan working group.
She urged the commission to consider the larger community’s wants and needs when rendering a decision on the matter.
“Current community sentiment as expressed in our Kohala Community Plan talk story sessions strongly favors concentrating visitor accommodations at the existing inns and retreats as opposed to the proliferation of TARs,” she wrote in prepared testimony. “The business model of Hawaii Island Retreat is also in keeping with the broader emphasis on regenerative tourism across Hawaii.”
Marcus Castaing and Karl Toubman, who own neighboring parcels, spoke against the proposed expansion, pointing to years of legal issues between residents and the retreat, as well as the concerns over the condition of the road, and the increased traffic the proposed expansion would bring, public shoreline access, water and waste.
“Many of the neighbors are very concerned about this additional traffic on our infrastructure for the benefit — financial benefit — of just one person in the neighborhood,” said Castaing, a current Waiohinu resident who will be moving in February to a neighboring parcel of the retreat that he purchased 20 years ago.