PD Recommendation Report Lili'uokalani Trust (PL-REZ-2023-051)

Home

Ordinance No. 9127, which was subject to several conditions, including the subdivision and donation of a 62-foot-wide strip of land for highway widening, time performance conditions to secure final plan approval and commence and complete construction, and improvements to Eho Street and its intersection with the highway. The subdivision and dedication of the roadway widening strip was completed by 1994. In 2000, the applicant subsequently amended that ordinance to delete completed conditions and request a 10-year time extension to Condition B to secure Final Plan Approval. In 2010, as the applicant was still in the process of completing improvements to Eho Street, the applicant requested and received an administrative time extension until 2020 to comply with Condition B. In 2013, the County Council accepted dedication of Eho Street between the highway and Luhia Street as a public road. As demonstrated above, the applicant has been diligent in complying conditions of approval necessary to facilitate the development of the site. Moreover, the applicant has marketed the site to prospective lessees, but the applicant notes that project starts and completions have been affected by situations like the recession in 2008, rising interest rates, inflation, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and more recently, the tragedy of the Maui fires. Furthermore, while access to the site from the Queen Ka`ahumanu Highway is considered a plus, its right-in-only access with no right-out has dampened some interest. Thus, while the site is locationally compatible with the surrounding commercial uses, it has and will take more than the normal time to find a developer with a project that can be comfortable with that access constraint. Based on the preceding, the Director has determined that the non-performance of required conditions of approval is the result of conditions that could not have been foreseen or are beyond the control of the applicant, and that are not the result of their fault or negligence. Granting of the amendments would not be contrary to the original reasons for granting the change of zone. As discussed above, the original change of zone ordinance from Open to CV-10 ordinance was granted in 1991 to bring match the 0.874-acre rezone area that was no longer needed for highway widening with the remainder of the parcel and to facilitate a commercial development thereon. That ordinance was amended several times over the 4