County Sets Terms on Permit, But Fails to Ensure Compliance

posted in: December 1993 | 0

The Special Management Area permit issued for the seawall fronting the Sugar Cove condominiums imposed 12 conditions upon the applicant. A review of the documents in files at the Planning Department and the Department of Public Works indicates that several of those conditions have not been met.

The first condition is: “That the applicants obtain the proper permits from the Department of the Army, Board of Land and Natural Resources, and the Department of Public Works of construction.”

The Army Corps of Engineers is still waiting for the Sugar Cove owners association to apply for the necessary Department of the Army permit.

No BLNR permit was obtained, since the applicant decided to build the wall mauka of the shoreline, on private property.

Condition No. 11 provides that the applicant shall fully comply “with all applicable governmental requirements.” Over and above the failure to obtain a Corps of Engineers permit, the applicant did not provide the county with an updated shoreline certification before work began. This is contrary to the state Coastal Zone Management Act, which requires shorelines to be certified in the 12-month period before construction begins. The most recent shoreline certification that appears in Planning Department files is dated January 1992.

Condition No. 12 requires the applicants to “submit to the Planning Department a detailed report addressing its compliance with the conditions established … Further, this report shall be reviewed and approved by the Planning Department prior to the issuance of the building permit.”

In a telephone interview, Planning Director Brian Miskae said he did not know whether such a report had been submitted. Environment Hawai’i was unable to find any report, or even any reference to such a report, in the Planning Department’s files on the permit. In view of the absence of a properly certified shoreline and a Corps of Engineers permit, it is difficult to imagine how, if a report had been written, it could have indicated full compliance “with the conditions established.”

Condition No. 8 requires the applicants or their designated agent to “monitor the conditions adjacent and near to the proposed revetment for a minimum period of five years after the completion of said revetment.” The information is to be presented to the Planning Commission at a minimum of once a year. So far, no plan for monitoring shoreline conditions has been submitted, although the applicants may yet fulfill this requirement.

Condition No. 5 states that “the Planning Department shall review the final construction plans prior to issuance of a building permit for the project.” Although reference to revised plans is made in a letter from Ralph Hayashi to the Land Use and Codes Division of the Department of Public Works, no one at the Department of Public Works or at the Planning Department could find any plans for the wall other than those submitted at the time the original application was made – plans that Hayashi drew up in November 1991 and indicating the 23-foot-wide apron on state land.

Without a set of approved, revised plans on file, it is impossible to know how the wall was to have been built. Ann Cua, a county planner familiar with the permit, believes that the applicant built the vertical part of the wall according to the original plan – that is, with the three-ton boulders stacked virtually on top of the certified shoreline. Hayashi claims, though, that the vertical portion of the wall was built 10 feet mauka of the shoreline and that a 10-foot-wide apron extends from the toe of the vertical portion to the certified shoreline.

The question of the wall’s construction is more than academic. If the wall lacks a secure footing, it is possible indeed, likely, that wave action will eventually undercut the boulders. In the event of strong surf or a high storm surge, the boulders might easily become waterborne cannonballs, posing a far greater danger to the lives and property of the condominium dwellers than any more gradual threat of an eroding shoreline.

Volume 4 Number 6 December 1993

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