On October 21, U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake granted the motion for summary judgment brought by the City & County of Honolulu and Department of Planning and Permitting Director Dawn Apuna in a case brought two years ago by the developer of the Marconi Point Condominiums on O\u02bbahu\u2019s North Shore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 97 acres that make up the agricultural condominium project are entirely within the city\u2019s Special Management Area. Most of the land is zoned for agriculture. A strip along the coast is zoned for preservation and is also within the state Conservation District. The property, which includes the historic Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Station, is flanked by lands targeted for ecosystem restoration and is home to a variety of state and federally protected species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeremiah Henderson III, through his companies Makai Ranch, LLC; Marconi Farms, LLC; MP Unit 21 LLC; and RCA Trade Center Inc., alleged in their May 2023 complaint that they were given official assurances by the DPP that they would not need to obtain a Special Management Area permit to develop the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The original complaint alleged that the city and DPP violated the companies\u2019 rights when, in 2017, the agency informed Makai Ranch that it would need to apply for a SMA permit if it wanted to subdivide and further develop the lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On December 20, 2023, Judge Otake found that the DPP had not given the kind of official assurances that Makai Ranch claimed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She granted in part the city\u2019s motion to dismiss the complaint, stating that the city had discretion to require the companies to obtain an SMA permit. She dismissed the companies\u2019 claims regarding building permits and a roadway subdivision application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oral arguments were heard August 29 on an amended complaint that included claims about the roadway and agricultural subdivision applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/em>Otake noted in her order last month that the companies\u2019 amended complaint did not dispute the city\u2019s claim that they never sought an SMA permit. As a result, she wrote, \u201cplaintiffs\u2019 claims on that front are unripe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She also shot down the companies\u2019 contention that the city should be estopped from requiring them to obtain an SMA permit because of decades-old \u201cassurances” surrounding a roadway subdivision tied to development of the adjacent Turtle Bay Resort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to the companies\u2019 claims that Makai Ranch\u2019s agricultural subdivision application was automatically approved under state and county law, Otake sided with city. It had argued that even though the DPP failed to issue its deferral letter on Makai Ranch\u2019s application within the 30-day deadline set by ordinance, there was no automatic approval because the state law regarding automatic approval \u2014 HRS \u00a7 91-13.5 \u2014 does not apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though the subdivision rules state that the DPP must act within 30 days after it receives a subdivision application and the agency did not issue its deferral letter until more than two months had passed, \u201cplaintiffs do not raise this as a basis for their claim,\u201d Otake wrote. “Instead, plaintiffs argue that DPP was dilatory for not responding within 30 days to Makai Ranch\u2019s August 27 and August 28 letters, and this delay meant that their application was automatically approved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut again, the \u2018automatic approval\u2019 provision in HRS \u00a7 91-13.5 is irrelevant\u2026 Further, plaintiffs do not explain why their August 2020 letters should trigger a 30-day response deadline,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She also rejected the companies\u2019 claims that the DPP treated development at Marconi Point differently than similarly situated properties within the SMA, specifically, the Waiale\u02bbe condominium project, Kahena Wai and Kealia Farms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The companies had asked Otake to defer acting on the city\u2019s motion for summary judgment pending further discovery (including emails among high-ranking DPP officials), but she denied their motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe court is unpersuaded that plaintiffs were diligent in pursuing discovery or that more relevant documents are discoverable. But setting that aside, plaintiffs\u2019 Motion to Defer contains an even more fatal flaw. Although plaintiffs detail what <\/em>information they seek \u2026 they fail to clarify why <\/em>the information they seek would preclude summary judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to documents held by DPP, Henderson\u2019s companies also alleged in their complaint that the agency violated the state Uniform Information Practices Act by failing to fully comply with Makai Ranch\u2019s pre-complaint information requests to determine how or whether corruption played a part in the agency\u2019s decision to require an SMA permit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because Otake dismissed or granted summary judgment on all of the federal claims, she stated that the court \u201cdeclines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs\u2019 remaining state law claims.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Environment Hawai\u02bbi <\/em>did not receive a response from the companies\u2019 attorney by press time to questions about whether they plan to appeal or to apply for an SMA permit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Teresa Dawson<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On October 21, U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake granted the motion for summary judgment brought by the City & County of Honolulu and Department of Planning and Permitting Director Dawn Apuna in a case brought two years ago by … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,338,543],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-16791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-land-use","category-november-2025","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16791","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=16791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}