2009-06-30 TMOOERS - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

operational aspects of the hotel and where they are going. And also, weÓll, then weÓll lead off and end up with the discussion of the proposed changes that the applicant has made as you see in th our letter of June 29. WATANABE: Thank you, Mr. Lim. Go ahead, Mr. Mooers. MOOERS: Thank you. I am Greg Mooers. My address is P. O. Box 1101 Kamuela, HawaiÒi 96743. I am listed as the applicant for this particular SMA Permit. As Mr. Lim pointed out, we have started the renovations of the interior, done on an SMA exemption issued by the previous Planning Director, as the interior work is not considered Ðdevelopment under Rule 9.Ñ The exterior work that we are proposing does require an SMA Use Permit. The fact that a portion of the property that the West Tower is on is in the National, or Federal Historic District necessitated an environment assessment. That environment assessment was prepared and processed through the Planning Department. The Planning Department reviewed the environmental assessment, the comments and our responses to comments, and issued a Finding of No Significant Impact. Therefore, the EA was deemed adequate and addressed the issues. That was published and it passed the challenge period; so that final EA has been approved. I would like to expand a little bit on the project description to make sure that the record clearly reflects some other potential improvements that are suggested in the plans that Maija did not mention, most specifically on the West Tower. There is an existing restaurant on the first floor, and part of the proposed improvements would include opening that up and having an exterior patio dining area. Given the financial situation in the world today, we are not in the position to make all the improvements immediately. So this would be phased renovation is proceeding now, we will start hopefully shortly with the exterior renovations. I would like to address some of the issues that were raised by the various testifiers. Ms. Dierenfield was speaking about the trail access and I think you have in your files the responses that we made to that, and thereÓs also a condition directly related to this lateral shoreline access that Mr. Lim will discuss as we get to that point. The thing thatÓs interesting about this hotel is that we do not own the land; we are lessees. So the issues that were raised in the letter, Mr. Flaherty raised, about ownership of the hotel, we are not the owners, we lease. And if there is a question about ownership or title, this is not the appropriate venue to discuss that. This property does have title insurance. And the Department of Land and Natural Resources would be, you know, the appropriate agency to address that, if there are concerns about the location of the shoreline or other such issues; itÓs not an SMA issue and itÓs not an issue that should be decided by this body. We heard a number of comments about Big Surf Trust, Thurston Estate and Paul Allen; those are all unrelated to our property and our project. We do have a very serious commitment to AhuÒena Heiau. There is an agreement that Ms. Roy referred to that was drafted in 1991 and recorded, and it specifies in here how the heiau and the lÒau grounds will interact, what rights are afforded by the owners of the property, what responsibility is afforded, and itÓs very clear. And we just want to make sure that as we proceed with this SMA Permit that nothing would invalidate this agreement we have with the Board of Land and Natural Resources. EXHIBIT C 14