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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0493.110 2000-2002 Good evening. My name is ®ick Boyd. I am speaking for Kako'o. Tonight !want to focus your attention on the section of the General Plan dealing with North Kohala's economic future Pages 54 to 56 in your draft. With one exception we want to thank you for the additions proposed. The exception is your reference to the resort zoning at Mahukona. Your wording does not reflect the reality of the situation. It is very unlikely that a resort will be built at 141ahukona in the next 10 years. 1=first you have to realize that people in our community have been fighting for over 30 years to protect the public nature of the only place in our 29 miles of coastline where we can safely access the ocean. Because virtually nothing was done on the resort the first 5 years and only minor dirt moving was done the next 4, efforts are underway to call on the county to vacate the zoning. With court access cases, legislative resolutions, petitions, meetings and more meetings, we have called for an open coastline. even Chalon's own community participation committee advised keeping the Special Management area in Mahukona free from development. When the county ignored these strong public outcrys and granted resort zoning in 1993 one of our groups responded by suing the County, not Chalon, for ignoring it's own rules on environmental review and ignoring state review by approving this (show map) convoluted segmented 14.4 acres of land in a resort that would seriously impact 645 acres of shoreline land. Chalon chose to join the suit. The Supreme Court agreed with us on the need for Chapter 343 environmental review. Judge Ibarra recently threw out a less than 15-acre segmenting case similar to Mahukona. The irony is that if Chalon had agreed to do and CIS and undergo State land use review, they could have started construction 9 years ago. They didn't. They chose to fight the community. Since 1988 this company has a record of twisting planning regulations to avoid community review and public hearings exactly what they are doing now on the north coast with consolidation re-subdivisions. Now YOU know and I know that the bankrupt Chalon now called Sureity will never build a resort in Mahukona. They have been saying this themselves in print and at public meetings lately. if they sell the land, the new owners will have to right the wrongs committed by the County and Chalon --and face a much more organized community unified on the public use of this shoreline area. This is why it is important to modify the reference to Chalon is it Sureity? in the text and include under "courses of action" the phrase: reevaluate areas at ~49ahukona currently zoned f®r resort use. f ;FNv~ • ~s I~~t~ ~ ~ 1 g ~ _ _ _ _ _