2008-11-06 TBARSELL - Laserfiche WebLink

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YUEN: I just wanted to follow-up a little bit with a discussion about the public access condition. Jeff, could we have the slide with the overall Kapoho Bay area. DARROW: Sure. You want this one? YUEN: Yeah, that slide is probably the best. If you look at this slide, this shows the overall Kapoho Bay area; and then at the top of the picture there’s a Kapoho Beach Lots Road coming into the area. And the applicants, this is the Kapoho Beach Lots Road coming in. The Kapoho-Kalapana Highway is up here, the public highway. And then it comes down and then when -. A gate was placed here. I’m not sure of the exact date, but about, I believe it was sometime in the 1980’s. And it has an arm and it has spikes to prevent cars from being driven on the, around the opposite side of the gate. And access is currently restricted to the residents of the subdivision which includes guests. I’m not sure exactly how they handle bed and breakfast and vacation rental guests because there are quite a few in the subdivision. And so apart from what I’m going to discuss in a minute or two, there is no public access in the subdivision. Just out over here is what people call Champagne Pond which is on the 1960 lava flow; and there’s a way to drive to Champagne Pond. You really can’t get along the shoreline very well here just because of, there are seawalls, there are steep drop-offs, unlike many places on the island. Over much of this area you can’t really walk along the lava at the edge of the shoreline, for example, on public property. Then on this side again off the picture somewhat abutting on this side is Kapoho Vacationland Subdivision. Currently, and then there’s the Waiopae Marine Fisheries Management Area off that Waiopae tide pools. Currently the Vacationland Subdivision does not impede public access. They have a small parking area. I’m not aware of any public access conditional requirement in the Vacationland Subdivision but they don’t block people from coming and using public access. So it is, however, blocked in this area here. These are really two wings of the Kapoho Beach Lot Subdivision that were approved at different times. The applicant’s property is right here, this 16 acres. There’s a little cove that doesn’t really show up here, and their property is right here. The subdivision, the Kapoho Beach Lot Subdivision, was created in two increments, one being over here and the other being over here; and this is a property that’s in between the two. The Kapoho Beachlots Subdivision as far as I know is the only large subdivision that’s actually gated off and blocked to the public where there is no public access. If you think about all of the coastal resorts in West Hawaii like Mauna Lani or Mauna Kea there are public access conditions. There are probably a few small areas in Kona where there are maybe a few lots like maybe 10 or 12 lots where there are gates and there is no public access. But this is about the, as far as I can think of, it’s the only large subdivided area that has no public access. So there are really two issues here; and that is the access from, any access across their property as far as public access. But the bigger issue would be public access to the property because, as I mentioned, it is gated here. The road is owned by the Kapoho Beach Community Association. And when the subdivision was established it was the understanding of the Planning Department that the road was private. And there are also letters to that effect from the Planning Department when complaints were made about the gating of the road in the 1980’s saying that the Kapoho Beachlots Road is private. We have done some more research and we found a series of old maps from the late 1800’s that show, in one map it’s labeled paved road, another map it’s, on the map shows other kinds of labeling, but show a trail or a road from the Government Road to the sea in EXHIBIT B 3