2008-01-11 TPDKOHALA LLC - Laserfiche WebLink

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Planning Commission’s and the Planning Director’s, and the County Council’s feeling that they should recognize some of these issues that are brought up by the community. They did not touch this property. And for the Planning Director now without any changes in the General Plan or any other regulatory documents to come before you to downzone an existing zoned property we think is improper. We think that once, you know, I think it would be a different situation if there was no rezoning or SMA Permit granted for this property, but that did happen; and we believe that it creates a situation in which Kohala LLC has its property rights to protect. We believe that the downzoning would affect a violation of our civil rights and our constitutional protections to due process and equal protection. We also believe that under the regulatory takings issues that the SMA Permit No. 379 was the last discretionary approval that vests Kohala LLC’s rights to develop the property pursuant to that SMA Permit. We believe that although conditions of approval, such as the time extensions for any final subdivision approval, were not met, those are, those have been deemed by the Hawaii Supreme Court as not being critical to the legality of the SMA Permit. We think that the Commission should both extend the discussion on this matter to the March hearing to allow us to present it all at one time, but that at the worst case scenario that the Commission, if they’re inclined to vote this out today under any scenario, that they do make it clear on the record what their position was so that the County Council can have the full benefit of your thoughts. I think what, you know, my final point is that once the County Council and the Planning Commission acted on the rezoning and SMA in the initial go-around on the entitlements for this project and they made a substantive determination on the General Plan and all the regulatory entitlements, that the County cannot now reverse the field and change their findings on those things. The issue, and I think you kind of expressed it sometimes in your comments, is that the public has to rely on the government to protect private property rights; and that is critical to the Constitutional rights of due process and equal protection. And when an applicant comes in they deserve to be treated fairly; and as we’ve indicated in our last memo to you, this is the only involuntary downzoning that has been processed at least in the last eight years. I’ve been working with the Planning Commission and the County Council on rezonings for 20 years now and I haven’t seen any involuntary downzonings occur in that period of time in my experience. We think it’s a bad idea, we think it’s unfair. And so we would ask that the Commission support our request to retain the zoning for this property. Thank you. WATANABE: Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: I don’t really have a question for Mr. Lim, but I would like some clarification because I’m still confused about the surrounding zonings. Maybe, Jeff, if you could show me what’s what up there. DARROW: I’m sorry, I made a mistake earlier. The light green zoning is Ag-5, Agricultural-5. EXHIBIT C 13