Forty-one months have passed since the Commission on Water Resource Management voted to designate the ground and surface water of West Maui as water management areas. Thirty-nine months have passed since the date the designation became effective. Twenty-seven months ago, … Continued
The Hawaiʻi Water Service has a plan to encourage its customers to conserve water. You won’t find it filed with the water use permit applications submitted to the Commission on Water Resource Management. But the three-page plan does appear in … Continued
Last month, when Ayron Strauch, hydrologist with the Commission on Water Resource Management, was giving commission members a summary of water use applications received, he described the challenges. Applications were not uniform. End uses were not well matched with sources. … Continued
At a hearing of the Hawaiʻi County Board of Appeals last August, neighbors of a 10,000-square-foot house in the state Agricultural Land Use District challenged the decision of the planning director dismissing their complaints that the fellow who managed the … Continued
What, exactly, is going on in Hawaiʻi County? Its own laws and rules specifically forbid the operation of vacation rentals on properties that lie within the state Agricultural District. It passed an ordinance in 2018 that limits these uses to … Continued
Here’s a puzzle. A large house on a five-acre lot in the state Agricultural District is rented out to tourists for more than $700 a night, according to a recent listing on the VRBO website. Inside, near the kitchen door, … Continued
Kauaʻi Water Decision: On September 30, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled that the state Board of Land and Natural Resources should not have denied contested case hearing requests by Kia‘i Wai O Wai‘ale‘ale and Friends of Māhāʻulepū over revocable permits … Continued
More than a year ago – September 2024 – the state Supreme Court issued a ruling on the question of whether short-term vacation rentals are allowed on land in the state Agricultural District. The answer was a resounding no. The … Continued
Meetings of the state Board of Agriculture and Biosecurity usually fly under the radar. Typical agendas include approval of low-interest loans of last resort for farmers, leases of land in state agricultural parks, and votes on recommendations by the department’s … Continued
Court Rebuke for BLNR: The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court has issued its ruling in the challenge brought by several Kauaʻi groups to the state Board of Land and Natural Resources’ issuance of a revocable permit to the seed company Syngenta Hawaiʻi, … Continued