Nansay Hawai’i, Inc., the Hawai’i arm of a Japanese corporation, plans to build a three hotel resort on the land of Kohanaiki, to the immediate north of Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park. Inside the 300-foot-wide coastal strip that lies within the congressionally designated park boundaries, Nansay proposes to erect part of a 250-room all-suite hotel and a “specialty restaurant.”
Nansay submitted its request for various county permits to the Hawai’i County Planning Commission in 1990. In November of that year, the commission voted to approve the project, denying the requests of several groups for a contested case hearing.
The matter was taken to court. Both the circuit and appeals courts determined that the Planning Commission had erred in denying the request to intervene of at least one of the parties seeking the contested case, Public Access Shoreline Hawai’i, or PASH. The basis for the Intermediate Court of Appeals’ grant of standing was the claim made by one of its members, Mahealani Pai, that he exercised gathering rights on Nansay’s land.
Both Nansay and the county have appealed to the Supreme Court. Last month, it agreed to hear the case.
Nansay bought the property in 1989 from Kona Beach Development Venture, a limited partnership, which in 1986 won approval from the state Land Use Commission to use the area for a resort. In connection with LUC action, Kona Beach Development had prepared an environmental impact statement, indicating plans for two hotels and a total of 700 rooms.
Nansay redrew the plans contained in the EIS. Full build-out of the proposal it put forward to the Planning Commission calls altogether for three hotels (although permits are being sought for just the first two). Even so, those two hotels will contain 1,050 guest units. And, instead of the hotels being set back 400 to 600 feet from the shoreline, as KBD had said they would be in the EIS, Nansay is proposing to site them as close as 150 feet from the shoreline.
One of the groups that had sought (unsuccessfully) intervener status is the Protect Kohanaiki ‘Ohana. Its members brought these discrepancies between the approved EIS and the Nansay project to the attention of the Planning Commission, although to no avail. The commission has not required preparation of any supplemental EIS.
Nansay’s consultants have drawn up a plan to protect the anchialine ponds in the area. PKO charges, however, that with buildings able to be built as close as 40 feet to the ponds, the water circulation that keeps the ponds alive will be jeopardized.
PKO has raised also the point that Nansay maybe segmenting its project in order to avoid addressing cumulative impacts. A 67-acre parcel adjoining the national park has been left blank on development maps, although earlier maps developed by KBD had shown a marina being built on the site.
Greg Mooers, development manager for Nansay Hawai’i, told Environment Hawai’i that that part of the map was left blank based on the public’s opposition to a marina and concerns for the reef and nearby Kaloko Pond. On this basis, he said, “weren’t comfortable with proceeding” on the marina plans.
“We are not holding back plans for any ‘water feature,”‘ he said. “We simply moved ahead with the northern part of the project, since that didn’t generate much interest” among the people whom Nansay polled in 1989.
Volume 3, Number 12 June 1993
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