He\u2019s got entitlements. He\u2019s got an appraisal for $18.2 million. He had an offer of $16 million for the property\u2026.<\/p>\n
These are the kind of worries that made some Honolulu City Council members believe they\u2019d be putting the city at risk if they let their condemnation lawsuit over Waimea Valley go to trial. \u201cHe\u201d is Christian Wolffer, the New York-based investor who is a principal with former valley owner Attractions Hawai`i, which is fighting with the city over the ownership of and compensation for the valley.<\/p>\n
At a December 7 meeting of the council, noted attorney James Case, testifying on behalf of the Stewards of Waimea Valley, said that the he had reviewed the court files, and determined that city had \u201ca good hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to get hurt by a jury of your peers,\u201d he assured the council.<\/p>\n
And what about that appraisal?<\/p>\n
Case said that the council could trust its own, much lower appraisal. Also, he said, a separate appraisal done for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs appraisal \u201cbacks up the city\u201d and strengthens the city\u2019s case for condemnation.<\/p>\n
(In his September 27, 2002 appraisal report, Craig Leong, hired by the city, noted that the flat, and therefore buildable, parts of the valley are mostly in special flood hazard areas and are rife with historic sites. Based on these and other factors, Leong concluded that the entire 1,875 acres were worth $2.6 million. Jan Medusky\u2019s November 2002 appraisal report for Attractions Hawai`i was silent on what Leong saw limiting factors, but stated that the 300 makai acres\u2014the part of the valley that extends from the vicinity of Waimea Falls to Kamehameha Highway \u2013 could be developed for residential use, while the remaining 1,500 or so acres were best reserved for \u201ctraditional conservation.\u201d Medusky concluded that Waimea Valley was worth $18.2 million. OHA\u2019s September 2001 appraisal by John Child & Company places the value of Waimea at $5.3 to $6.5 million.)<\/p>\n
And what of that alleged offer?<\/p>\n
\u201cA whiff in the sky,\u201d Case said. \u201cIt was a letter of intent, not binding on anybody. Anybody can sign a letter of intent that I\u2019m interested in buying your property.\u2026You don\u2019t get any weight until you\u2019ve sold a piece of land, you\u2019ve got cash in your hands or you have a firm agreement of sale with a substantial down payment where the person is really going to be hurt bad if he doesn\u2019t perform. A letter of intent is worthless. It should be discounted by you entirely,\u201d he told Councilmember Gary Okino. Okino had expressed concern over what he had come to believe was a \u201cpretty firm commitment\u201d from the Ginn Company, an East Coast developer who had signed a letter of intent in November 2000 to buy Waimea Valley for $16.9 million. (Court records note that Leong describes the letter as \u201chighly suspect.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Finally, Okino asked Case, \u201cWhat about the fact that the landowner had entitlements to develop eco-cabins or whatever all the way up there, the side of the ridge, to the tune of two or three-hundred units?\u201d<\/p>\n
On this, Case admitted that he was not very knowledgeable. But according to Sam Lemmo, administrator for the Department of Land and Natural Resources\u2019 Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, Attractions Hawai`i has no such entitlement.<\/p>\n
Thirty-one years ago, the Board of Land and Natural Resources approved a Conservation District Use Application for recreational use at Waimea Valley. The valley was owned then by Bishop Corporation, which a year earlier had received Land Board approval to develop its 1,800-acre property into a park.<\/p>\n
In approving the permit, the Land Board approved in concept of Bishop Corporation\u2019s master plan for the area, which included, among other things, the development of vacation cabins. Twelve areas had been selected throughout the park, each to contain six to 10 cabins, for a maximum of 120 cabins, each with a maximum floor area of 800 square feet.<\/p>\n
The Land Board included conditions in the permit that required each project in the master plan to receive prior Land Board approval, each major project to be accompanied by an environmental assessment, and that upon the approval of a project, the applicant had one year to initiate construction of the project.<\/p>\n
The Bishop Corporation and subsequent owners of Waimea Valley never built those cabins, even after the Land Board approved an updated Master Plan for the area in 1989.<\/p>\n
While Okino seemed to think that the permit entitled Attractions Hawai`i to develop the valley, which would therefore make the land more valuable, Lemmo told Environment Hawai`i<\/i>, \u201cApproval-in-concept is not a vested right.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Council ultimately voted unanimously to deny a proposed settlement of the city\u2019s lawsuit to condemn Waimea Valley, filed in 2001. The settlement, which had been crafted in secret, would have allowed the city to keep the 300 seaward acres (known to most people as Waimea Falls Park) for $5.1 million, and would have returned the remaining 1,500 or so acres of mountainous terrain to Attractions Hawai`i.<\/p>\n
Immediately after the council\u2019s vote, however, Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann condemned the council\u2019s action and reinitiated settlement talks with Attractions Hawai`i. If somehow the valley or portions of it are returned to Attractions Hawai`i (whether as a result of mediation or a court decision), proposed changes to the DLNR\u2019s Conservation District Rules could significantly shrink the developable areas there.<\/p>\n
Waimea Valley lies within the limited and general subzones of the Conservation District, but mostly within the limited subzone. DLNR rules allow one single family residence to be built on a limited subzone lot, so long as the house is built in a flood zone or coastal high hazard area.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an odd rule, and many (including former Land Board member Kathryn Inouye) have questioned why the Land Board would keep a rule that encourages building in dangerous and unstable areas. So in 2002, the Land Board, led by Inouye who is herself a developer, approved a request by the DLNR\u2019s Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands to hold public hearings on proposed rule changes that would eliminate language that encourages the building of houses flood- and coastal hazard-prone areas.<\/p>\n
The OCCL held public hearings on the proposed changes shortly thereafter, but eventually chose to abandon the changes because landowners, believing they should be allowed to build in such areas, had objected strongly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided it was too much controversy,\u201d says OCCL administrator Lemmo. \u201cPrivate landowners were feeling they were getting rights taken away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Lemmo says he\u2019s planning to try again and will include those proposed changes to the limited subzone rules in other rule changes he plans to bring to the Land Board early next year. If those changes are adopted, houses will be prohibited in the limited subzone, which covers more than half of Waimea Valley.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are eight parcels in the valley and not all of them are developable,\u201d Lemmo says, adding that anyone wanting to build a home there would have to file a Conservation District Use Application and do an environmental assessment.<\/p>\n
— Teresa Dawson<\/p>\n
Volume 16, Number 7 January 2006<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He’s got entitlements. He’s got an appraisal for $18.2 million. He had an offer of $16 million for the property…. These are the kind of worries that made some Honolulu City Council members believe they’d be putting the city at … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}