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1 <br />Dr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Council Chair <br />and Members of the County Council <br />December 22, 2025 <br />Page 2 <br />The Commission concurred with the Planning Director's following reasons for a favorable <br />consideration of the request. Criteria for granting the favorable recommendation are shown <br />below in bold print. <br />The applicant, Kona Country Club, Inc., is requesting a ten (10)-year time <br />extension to Condition D (complete construction) of Ordinance No. 20-65, which was <br />approved by the County Council and effective on September 15, 2020. <br />The applicant initially proposed to develop a maximum of sixty (60) single-family <br />and multiple -family residential units and related amenities with the intent of having them <br />used as vacation rental units. In trying to address the various rezoning conditions such as <br />water, archaeology, and emergency access, the plan was scaled back to twenty-nine (29) <br />single-family dwellings with related amenities. <br />The request for a ten (10)-year time extension to complete construction of the <br />Kona Country Club is, in part, due to delays caused by inability to secure project <br />financing; the filing explains that financing "has been stalled due to the vagaries of the <br />global economy," and those challenges were later compounded by the COVID-19 <br />pandemic, which disrupted market conditions and the ability to secure capital for a <br />resort -oriented housing project. The project was expected to be completed by September <br />15, 2025, however, the developer faced unforeseen challenges in securing necessary <br />funding. In parallel, a lengthy archaeological compliance process, including preparing <br />and obtaining approvals for the Data Recovery, Burial Treatment, Preservation, and <br />Monitoring plans (2013-2014) and later acceptance of the Data Recovery Report in <br />January 2025, delayed when construction plans could be finalized, so no physical <br />construction ever began. <br />Construction of the proposed project is anticipated to begin within five years <br />following the approval of this amendment, is projected to finish by December 30, 2035, <br />and is estimated to cost a minimum of $390 million. <br />The non-performance of timed conditions is the result of conditions that <br />could not have been foreseen or are beyond the control of the applicants, successors <br />or assigns, and that are not the result of their fault or negligence. Since the change of <br />zone ordinance was last amended in 2020, the applicant has been diligently working on <br />satisfying conditions of approval, the most time consuming of which were completing <br />archaeological and cultural resource mitigation plans. <br />In accordance with Condition M of the Change of Zone Ordinance, the applicant <br />completed an updated Archaeological Inventory Survey (AIS) approved by the State <br />Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) in 2012 and subsequently completed several <br />mitigation plans related to archaeological and cultural features found on the site (further <br />discussed below in the DASH/ Ka Pa`akai Analysis). <br />