A 21-acre Kaloko Drive parcel that had been approved for rezoning 24 years ago got a new lease on life recently, when the Leeward Planning Commission agreed to a five-year time extension for the new owners to complete the conditions of the rezoning.
The property at the Kaloko Drive/Mamalahoa Highway intersection was rezoned from agriculture 20 acres to agriculture 4 acres in 1998, but the owners didn’t complete the required conditions. Now the property is in what Planning Director Zendo Kern termed “zoning limbo.”
“When we receive a request for time extension, we do a top to bottom review of the application,” Kern said. “This actually reflects the conditions that would be on a brand new, fresh application.”
But Planning Commission Chairman Michael Vitousek on Thursday balked at a department recommendation to forego an archaeological review, which the department said was based on an earlier review by the State Historic Preservation Division saying no historic properties would be affected. SHPD did not respond to a request for comments from the county on the new application.
Vitousek amended the recommendation to require an archaeological field study, and then, if archaeological features are found, to require a more detailed archaeological inventory survey.
“I agree there’s a low chance that archaeological properties will be found,” Vitousek said, “(but) to me it’s worth having a limited look with a field study and they will be able to meet that 5-year timeline.”
Several testifiers, including Native Hawaiian people living in the area, opposed the time extension and pushed for archaeological studies, saying their iwi kupuna, or the bones of their ancestors, are likely buried there.
“You will be grubbing and digging up our bones? … All for what — money? We depend on those iwi. … They are our ancestors, whether you believe it or not, we know it to be true,” said cultural practitioner and midwife Clare Loprinzi, who stated she was testifying on the Kaloko rezoning as well as another property that was also on the agenda.
A Utah group, Sunshine Holdings LLC, acquired the property through foreclosure earlier this year and they are serious about moving forward on the project, planning consultant Sydney Fuke said.
“The applicant bought the property out of foreclosure,” Fuke said. “The delay is not really so much the current applicant’s fault.”
The owners, as a condition of rezoning, must also contribute “fair share” money, which in this case will be used to improve the intersection and erect a stoplight at Mamalahoa Highway where it intersects with Kaloko Drive.
The county and state are on board with the traffic improvements, Kern said, an the county is currently in meetings to finalize a plan.
The commission voted 5-0 to transmit the amended application to the County Council with a positive recommendation.
