Myriad Concerns Stall Progress On Planned Holualoa Development

 A housing development first proposed 40 years ago and into which the current owners are seeking to breathe new life faces a series of daunting challenges.

There’s the uproar from the community over traffic impacts from the proposed 450-unit development.

Affordable housing agreements have fallen apart. 

Residents worried over the impact on cultural resources and possible trails on the 70 acres proposed for the new housing have not been mollified by the developers’ studies.

Finally, a recent federal lawsuit alleging Clean Water Act violations by the publicly owned Kealakehe sewage treatment plant could bar any new connections, including those from the proposed Kona Vistas development, until the litigation is settled. 

Traffic

Among other things, landowner Kona Three, LLC, undertook a traffic impact analysis report, included in the 2021 environmental assessment for the Kona Vistas multi-family project.

The traffic report stated that while the project would add to problems, congestion on Queen Kaʻahumanu Highway would get worse even without the project being built. Because of this, the developer would not need to make any improvements to intersections beyond construction of the proposed four-lane, unsignalled intersection of the spine road of the project with the highway. Placing a traffic light so close to the existing Lako Street signal is not an option. The state Department of Transportation has indicated its opposition to the planned Royal Vistas intersection, stating in comments on the EA, “the proposed full access intersection with Queen Kaʻahumanu Highway is not advisable.”

In the mauka area of the subdivision, a road will cross over the county-owned Holualoa Drainageway to the existing Kekuanaoa Place, part of the single-family Kona Vistas development. This is intended to let southbound traffic from the multi-family units have access to Lako Street, where, at the intersection with Queen K, traffic signals allow left-hand turns. The developer has stated that this will avoid left turns onto Queen K from the subdivision’s main entrance.

Residents of the upscale single-family subdivision, where houses can sell for seven-digit figures, have not welcomed the proposed connection. They have, however, managed to get the county to agree to not improve Kekuanaoa as it runs through their area with sidewalks and curbs, which are required on the connecting roadway in the multi-family development.

Other residents in the area have been outspoken in their objections to the additional traffic, noting that the Lako intersection is itself subject to long and frustrating delays. Some changes in the signal pattern have been suggested, but even with these, the projected flows are predicted to worsen.

Trails

Among the critical comments received on the 2021 environmental assessment for the project, many alleged the presence of important cultural sites that should be preserved, including a holua, or slide, connecting to the Kealakowaʻa heiau a short distance makai of the property. Archaeologists retained by Kona Three have disputed the claim. 

The possible presence of ancient trails crossing the site has become another issue. Again, Kona Vistas’ consultants say there is no evidence of this on old maps. Any evidence of unmapped trails on the ground has been pretty much erased following decades of ranching and bulldozing on the site.

Jackson Bauer, the Hawaiʻi island trails specialist for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Na Ala Hele program, has argued that the property was the site of trails that merit protection. In a letter to the county Planning Department last December, Bauer wrote:

“The Holualoa ahupuaʻa was a main population center for pre-contact Hawaiian society. Extensive agricultural field systems are present above and within the subject area. Extensive mauka-makai trails were known to connect these agricultural fields with the coastal villages and fisheries, many of which continued to be used well into the 20^th century. …

“Several maps from the early 20^th century, when stitched together, show continuous trails from the coast up to the Māmalahoa Highway and the uplands.” Bauer attached maps from 1914 and 1928 that clearly show these trails, including one that runs along the boundary of Land Court Award 3660, which crosses the property east to west.

While Kona Vistas’ archaeologists reports are “detailed and extensive,” he continued, “little research was conducted on the known trails and alignments. An important site just below the project area and between this network of trails is the Kealakowaʻa Heiau complex. As its name suggests (along with historical accounts and histories), this was an important site in relation to the canoe carving and the hauling of canoes on these mauka-makai trails (Ke ala = “the trail,” ko waʻa = “for canoes”).”

Jackson included in his letter a copy of a statement in 2004 from Goro Inaba, a lifelong resident of the area, attesting to his use of the Holualoa Trail. “As early as 1929, I walked this trail along with two of my classmates,” he wrote. “I would meet my friends, expert pole fishermen, and proceed with them, walking the lower section of the Holualoa Trail below Hualalai Road to Holualoa Beach, where we would spend the day at the beach. I remember the trail being marked by rock walls spaced approximately 10 feet apart.”

Wastewater

In the 2021 environmental assessment, the subject of wastewater was given one sentence, to wit: “Wastewater would be disposed of through a tie-in with the county sewer system.” 

Nothing more.

Kona Three’s planning consultant, Daryn Arai, was asked for details. He acknowledged in a responding email that the EA “did not contain an extensive discussion on the county’s sewer system that will service the proposed project.”

“The closest sewer lines are located roughly 2,000 feet to the north,” he said, “and it is from this system that the sewer line will be extended to the south to service the proposed project. The line extension is expected to be within the Queen Kaʻahumanu Highway.”

The trigger for the 2021 environmental assessment was the use of county drainageways. The use of a state-owned highway – for the extension of a sewer main – constitutes a separate trigger. 

Wastewater from the project would be treated at the Kealakehe sewage treatment plant, six miles to the north, Arai said, noting that the county Department of Environmental Management had not expressed any concerns.

For years, however, the Kealakehe plant has been the subject of complaints that it was operating without a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. On September 25, the county was sued by Hui Mālama Honokōhau, alleging that the ongoing operation of the Kealakehe plant without such a permit violated the federal Clean Water Act. 

In addition to asking the court to require the county to obtain an NPDES permit, the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for Honolulu, also seeks “additional injunctive relief as may be necessary to ensure that [the county] fully complies with the CWA.” 

David Henkin, an attorney with Earthjustice, which represents the Hui, noted that that additional “injunctive relief” may well include “a moratorium on new connections.”

“That certainly will be one thing we will consider when we get to the remedy phase of the lawsuit.”

— Patricia Tummons