2008-01-11 THALEKII - Laserfiche WebLink

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with some of the issues that will come up about traffic through neighborhoods and traffic on other roads that may be affected by this. So the basic purpose behind amending the conditions is to try to get some relief to the severe traffic congestion that exists on the Mamalahoa Highway. When the rezoning of what is now called Hokulia was originally proposed in the 1990s the major offsite infrastructure requirement of the developer was to build the Mamalahoa Bypass Highway. So as Norman just showed you, this would be approximately five miles of road from Keauhou to the Napoopoo junction. There would be one intermediate point of contact and travel between the Mamalahoa Highway and the Mamalahoa Bypass, and that would be Halekii Street. During the considerations of the rezoning there were concerns about the opening of the Halekii connection before the entire highway was completed because it was contemplated, of course, that construction would start from Keauhou and be available up until this point. And so conditions were placed in the rezoning ordinances that limited access from Halekii Street. That actually said that access from, the use of Halekii Street as a through connector would not be allowed until the entire Bypass was completed from the Napoopoo junction to Keauhou. And there were two rezoning ordinances that covered the Hokulia property; and that’s why we have two ordinances here, two conditions that would have to be changed. I’m going to talk a little bit about the background of what happened subsequently, because the project has not actually been in front of this Planning Commission. You’ve seen a great deal about it in the newspapers. It certainly had a great deal of coverage. But I think it’d be useful to have a little bit of background. The rezoning took place in 1996. The subdivisions, the property then comes in for subdivision approval. The subdivisions, several increments were approved in 1999 and 2000 of the subdivision. The rezoning ordinances said that the Mamalahoa Bypass could either be built or it could be bonded, and the subdivisions could go ahead. So a bond was issued to ensure the eventual completion of the Mamalahoa Bypass. There was a lawsuit that challenged the legality of the Oceanside 1250 project. There was a Circuit Court decision basically in favor of that lawsuit which resulted in an injunction against the further construction of the Bypass. At the time the injunction was issued the Bypass Highway had been nearly completed from the Keauhou end almost to the Halekii intersection. The Oceanside 1250 also had built intersections improvements at the intersection of Mamalahoa Highway and Halekii that were also required by the rezoning ordinance. So there was a delay of approximately two years while the injunction was in place. In the meantime, there was a necessity to acquire the right-of- way for the Bypass Highway. As you’ll see, Oceanside owned only actually a short section of the land encompassed by the Bypass Highway. They were able to negotiate agreements with all the other private landowners involved to secure the right-of-way. However, one landowner, the Coupe family, which owns the property right about here immediately to the south of the zoned area, Oceanside 1250’s property, and a mile or so to the south of the Halekii Street intersection owns a strip of land. I don’t remember the width. I believe it’s between 1,000 and 2,000 feet. I think we put that in your materials as the width of the Coupe property. Oceanside 1250 was unable to negotiate an acquisition of that and so the County initiated a condemnation. A condemnation or eminent domain is a process where the government can require a private landowner to sell their property for a public purpose. This is power of all governments in the United States. I think as you can see, if the public needs a road built across an area and there’s a private landowner, there has to be some means of requiring a private landowner to sell the right- of-way or else the private landowner has the ability to block the construction of the road. In a normal condemnation suit the only issue is the amount of compensation. This landowner though challenged the public purpose of that. The County prevailed in the public purpose aspect of it EXHIBIT A 3