What on earth is going on at the University of the Nations-Kona? More specifically, what is the Land Use Commission going to do with the messy situation that confronts it?
The development proposal that prompted the LUC to redistrict 62 acres of land adjoining the campus in Kona was abandoned long ago by the school’s governors – though they didn’t inform the commission of that in anything approaching a timely manner. Year after year, they failed to give the commission required progress reports.
Yes, in 2007, there was a half-hearted effort to amend terms of the redistricting, but the university never followed up.
In 2019, the university presented the commission with a request to have the land revert to the state Agricultural District. That lasted a New York minute. Then there was a request to withdraw the request to revert and to give the school a chance to draw up a new plan to develop the land.
At that point, the commission sought to require the university to show cause as to why the land should not revert, given the failure to commence substantial work on the site.
The school got serious about developing a new plan for using the land. It hired consultants, developed a master plan, and managed to persuade members of the LUC that it could and would move forward with an ambitious expansion of the school campus.
The order to show cause was set aside.
And that was a mistake. A mistake that has put the commission in an unprecedented situation, where it seems no one is quite sure how to proceed.
The original proposal did not require preparation of an environmental impact statement. Now, however, the LUC determined that the university would need to prepare one for its new master planned development.
The university has retained competent consultants to prepare the EIS, but that is no assurance that it will be accepted. Given the manner in which the university has changed its plans, the community has had little opportunity to weigh in on the new proposal nor is it likely to have such an opportunity until well into the new year.
The housing that was such an important element of the original plan — especially the affordable housing — has been dropped, with the university now claiming that there is no trigger under county law that would require it to provide affordable units.
But maybe the biggest question the commission faces is this: how can it accept any plan that is not accompanied by a reasonable means of financing it?
The ability of a developer to finance a project is ordinarily addressed when the commission first hears a proposed boundary amendment. Back in 2003, the university had a plan that passed LUC muster. The condos and cultural center it would build on the site would be developed with conventional financing, and then would provide the school with revenue for years to come.
It may have been naïve on the part of the university’s governors, with no history of undertaking a project of that size, to think that they could do this. But the LUC went along with it.
Then they discovered they weren’t cut out to be developers at all – not in the usual sense of the word. While building the first increment of Hualalai Village, just outside the petition area, they encountered the rough and tumble world of conventional development, There was the messy business of contractors demanding payment, of having to line up sources of capital. For a board that was accustomed to volunteer labor and donated goods, it was a revelation, and not a happy one. And so after that first increment, they dropped the idea of Hualalai Village phases 2-4 and jettisoned the cultural center.
All without letting the LUC know.
Now, suddenly, the commission has a project that is already entitled but which diverges drastically from the one it approved. Not only does it not include the promised housing, but the new approach to financing – based on faith – is, to say the least, not anticipated in commission rules.
For the next few months, the university and its consultants will be preparing the promised EIS, with a final document not anticipated until nearly a year from now. But no matter the environmental impacts, the issue of financing remains. And how the commission addresses that will be interesting to watch.
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