2025-04-14 UNITE HERE Local 5 Testimony

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**Exhibit 1: March 14, 2025 Letter ** March 14, 2025 Via postal mail and email Jeff Darrow, Planning Director County of Hawaii Planning Department 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Bldg E Kailua-Kona, HI 96740 Re:Zoning Variance application#PL-ZVAR-2025-00007, by Kona Hawaii Development LLC,for TMK: (3)- 7-5-018:011. To Director Darrow, My name is Ivan Hou and I'm with UNITE HERE Local 5. We represent 10,000 workers in the hotel, foodservice and healthcare industries across the state.We represent workers on the Big Island including workers at the Royal Kona Resort, Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort and Kaiser Permanente health clinics. Local 5 has a long history of advocating for public interests in urban planning. For example, we fought for community interests in the Turtle Bay Resort development on Oahu's North Shore (Unite Here v. City and County of Honolulu, Civil Nos. 06-1-0265, 06-1-0867), and we are in an ongoing civil case in which the State Supreme Court recently decided in our favor(Unite Here!Locals v. PACREP LLC, Civil Nos. 1 CC131000047, 1 CC141000753). We have concerns about the permitting process related to the Kona Hawaii Development, LLC development project at 75-5868 Ali'i Drive,TMK: (3)-7-5-018:011. Kona Hawaii Development is affiliated with Baywood Hotels, a hotel operator and developer with over a hundred hotels across the country.The company plans to build a 100-room hotel and parking lot with 143 parking stalls.The applicant's Special Management Area Use Permit Application (PL-SMA-2023-000038)was approved by the Leeward Planning Commission in December 2024. We feel the SMA process didn't adequately address the setback encroachment problem. The applicant applied for a zoning code variance in January 2025 (PL-ZVAR-2025-00007). We strongly oppose the applicant's variance application. The applicant is requesting a zoning variance to allow a known setback encroachment to be grandfathered in as a "non-confirming" permitted improvement.The encroachment should have been addressed during the SMA permit process when it was already a known problem at the time.The encroachment problem was flagged in a report uploaded to the County website on December 4, 2023, a full year before the Leeward Planning Commission (LPC) approved the permit application on December 19, 2024. The zoning variance application reported that "During the course of the Applicant's due diligence, an Alta Survey of the property boundaries and structures was done by Wes Thomas Associates. The survey, as will be described in detail below, identified some possible setback issues."The depth of encroachment ranges from two feet to as much fifteen feet into the twenty feet setback.To be clear,fifteen feet is 75%