2007-02-15 tsunstone - Laserfiche WebLink

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I come before you today with some very heart-out, thought-out questions. And here are some of them and some of my observations: One of the things that was said in the past was that there may, and I’m underlining the word may, be a left-hand turn lane onto Alii Lani Street, which is how we hoped or you all hoped Mr. DeWeese’s development will be accessed. Both Mayor Kim and Troy Kindred have told this counsel or this Commission that they do not favor any further building of anything along Alii Drive, that means their entrance and egress has to occur onto Alii Drive because of the traffic right now. This parcel is also in the FEMA Flood Zone. And Mr. Mooers who spoke before said that he knows that there is a problem and that they don’t have to correct the problem, just not make it worse. But, gee whiz, if you grub, clear, grade and pave most of the area I think you’re kind of mitigating (sic) the problem. And the people who live on the other side on Kaiolu Street (sic), there’s 20 people that live in there, and they’ve been flooded on a couple of occasions. Now granted this is historic floods, you know, but we have to prepare for that. And on the other side of Alii Lani they have grubbed and there was tremendous runoff in the last rainstorm, even though a berm had been created in addition to everything else. So such things are possible. You know, there are over 350 condos for sale between Capt. Cook and Kealakehe. There seems to be a glut. And I don’t know that 292 more condos constructed in the same vein that Alii Cove, Kona Sea Ridge, and Kona Sea Villas, you know, I guess if I wanted to live in Levittown, Levittown is a community of all like houses in Long Island, the first of its kind -. And it seems me that Mr. DeWeese could come up with maybe different kinds of condos. The Kona Community Development Plan does not, urges no development in flood plains; and we talked about that. There is no mention of affordable housing; and that was a big dangle of carrot that just wasn’t mentioned here. Also, Sunstone, LLC said it would build about 400 feet of Alii Highway; but that makes evacuation parallel to the ocean. And in a local tsunami it may be less time, and over 1,000 people need to get off of Alii Drive and up to higher land. And, of course, Kahakai Estates has already been gated so one cannot go up, straight up, the easement. The developer’s past is not a shining example of community improvement. He’s not a good steward. Of all his developments (Alii Drive, Alii Cove, Kona Sea Ridge, and Kona Sea Villas) only Alii Lani has street lights. As a matter of fact, Alii Cove doesn’t even have the infrastructure. In order for them to put in street lights, they’re going to have to dig up their entire streets to put in the necessary infrastructure for street lights. That’s not good stewardship. And I don’t feel that Mr. DeWeese should continue to go on in that vein. There’s no guest parking in any of his other developments. Alii Lani was the only place that has about 14 guest spots. That’s a paltry amount for 1,000 people, 14 guest spots. Mr. Yuen, you called me on Memorial Day and said regardless of what happens here that you were going to see what you could do to make that easement a tsunami evacuation. And I haven’t heard from you in this 9 months later; and I was wondering where we stood on that. ALAMEDA: Ms. Fox, we get to ask the questions. FOX: Yeah, okay. Well, anyway, that was a thought, an observation; and I thank you for your time. EXHIBIT B 3