A&B closer to getting
permits for Kauai resort

Councilmen reminded of promises

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- Alexander & Baldwin appears assured of a thumbs-up on its proposed $125 million, 700-room Kukuiula Resort on former sugar land in Poipu when the Kauai County Council votes on zoning changes for the project next week.

The Council's Planning Committee voted 4-1 yesterday to recommend approval of the project. Since four votes will be needed for passage next week, A&B should receive its permits.

The two Council members who are not on the committee have indicated they too will back A&B next week.

The sole dissenting vote came from Councilman Gary Hooser, who said he would rather wait for completion of an updated General Plan to see whether the additional rooms will fit in.

But the county has been working on a new General Plan for two years, and Planning Director Dee Crowell told the Council yesterday he could not predict a completion date any time in the near future.

"We have enough rooms," Hooser said. "We are at risk of violating the quality of the product we sell."

The Council's decision was another in a string of rebuffs for Kauai's environmental community, which opposed the A&B plan on the basis that the island already has zoning approved for thousands of hotel rooms that never have been built.

Former Mayor JoAnn Yukimura, a key leader of those on Kauai opposed to any development on the island, was the first to speak out against the resort at a hearing this summer. A decade ago she tried to kill it, and the Council overrode her veto in order to grant A&B the permits it received at that time.

The Council majority seemed more impressed with the tax revenue the rezoning will provide.

Even without any construction, taxes on the A&B property will jump from $1 million to $16 million next year, according to Council Chairman Ron Kouchi.

The committee added an amendment requiring A&B to build the resort within five years or face loss of the zoning. It also added requirements that A&B build more roads serving the project than originally proposed.

The Kukuiula Resort will include 200 hotel rooms and 500 time-share units. Kauai already has more time-share units than any other island -- 1,381 out of a statewide total of 3,261.

The project requires Council action because it reverses a compromise A&B made with the Council a decade ago.

The existing zoning is for residential construction only, with the understanding that A&B would seek permits for a resort only after it built about 2,500 residences. Only one home has been built to date.

Now, the company wants to build the resort before it builds the homes.

Tom Shigemoto, head of A&B's Kukuiula Development Co. and a former county planning director, said the company already has spent $50 million on the project.

With the promise of 845 construction jobs, 668 construction-related jobs and 460 long-term jobs at the resort once it is completed, the project has received strong support from the unions and much of Kauai's business community.

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Councilmen reminded
of promises

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- It's just about the meanest thing you can do to elected officials at a public meeting: Dig out their old campaign promises and wave them under their noses.

That's what the Sierra Club did yesterday to three of the four Kauai County councilmen who voted to increase by 700 the number of hotel and time-share units allowed on the island so Alexander & Baldwin can proceed with its planned Kukuiula Resort.

Marge Freeman, speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club, reminded Billy Swain, Daryl Kaneshiro and Jimmy Tokioka that in a candidate survey conducted by the Kauai Business Report just before the November 1998 election, all three went on record opposing more hotel rooms.

She read them their own survey responses:

Swain: "I don't support more hotel-zoned property on Kauai."

Kaneshiro: "With hotel-zoned lands still vacant, no new changes in zoning should be allowed."

Tokioka: "Other sites are already zoned for immediate resort use. Let's get them running."

The only defense yesterday was sputtered by Kaneshiro: "We're talking nine months or a year ago compared to what's going on today."

The only member to vote for A&B yesterday who hadn't opposed more hotel rooms last year was Councilman Randal Valenciano.