Planned resort divides Big Isle community
HILO » Residents of the Big Island's remote Kau District are lining up for and against a planned 434-acre resort at Punaluu, 56 miles south of Hilo.
On Tuesday, O Ka'u Kakou (We Are Ka'u), leaning in favor of the resort, announced a series of financial benefits for the community that the group would seek to negotiate with prospective owner Sea Mountain Five LLC.
Tonight, a different group called Ka'u Preservation is holding a 6 p.m. meeting at the Naalehu Community Center "to stop the proposed development," the group said.
Although Sea Mountain Five representatives have talked with the community for a year, public posturing increased suddenly after the announcement Sept. 14 that ocean explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau would help assure the environmental quality of the resort.
The resort would have up to 300 hotel rooms and up to 1,500 residential units. Zoning for higher densities has been in place for several decades.
Both groups seeking support have been loose with facts.
Ka'u Preservation announced that tonight's meeting is being "hosted" by County Councilman Bob Jacobson, but Jacobson said he will provide food but is not necessarily an opponent of the project.
Guy Enriquez of O Ka'u Kakou said his group will seek financial benefits, but Pat Blew, managing partner of Sea Mountain Five, said his company actually proposed the benefits to Enriquez's group.
Among those benefits would be a percentage of every future land and building sale in the project to be paid into an account where the money could be used to aid the community.
Enriquez said the district's schools and its hospital are in particular need.
Begun by C. Brewer & Co. in 1972, the Punaluu development has been through twists and turns over the decades. Public sentiment was substantially against it in the 1980s but turned favorable in the early 1990s, at the same time that the Japanese owner ran out of money to develop the resort.
Blew said a large reservoir of good will toward a resort remains in the community, but supporters are quiet, and Sea Mountain Five knew that it would have to offer benefits to reawaken that support.
The company has an agreement to buy the land, but a shoreline management area permit must be obtained before the company concludes the purchase, Blew said.
If all goes relatively smoothly, the company will still need about three years before it can begin construction, he said.