Housing Scandal Update: Sentencing for all four defendants in the federal fraud case involving abuse of Hawaiʻi County’s system of awarding credits for affordable housing has been postponed yet again. Ex-county employee Alan Rudo, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to … Continued
“If you don’t make a credible case, you’re not going to get the water,” Water Commissioner Aurora Kagawa-Viviani said November 18 of the permit applications submitted two years ago for water from the streams and aquifers of West Maui, also … Continued
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
Swift action on the water use permit applications for the Lahaina Aquifer Sector groundwater and surface water management area is not the only thing members of the public are clamoring for. “Where the heck is the shortage plan? I’m … … 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
Tantalus Couple Seeks Damages, Fights Enforcement Regarding Land Boards’ Conservation District Decisions A couple that owns an old two-story house on rainy Tantalus Drive reached out a few years ago to the state Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands to … 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