Liliuokalani Trust objects to Hawaii Island housing project

The Queen Liliuokalani Trust, the nonprofit former owner of the land where a planned community with 2,330 homes would be built, has raised its objections with Hawaii County officials in arguments before the Land Use Commission and in a lawsuit filed recently to halt LUC proceedings. Despite those objections the commission on Nov. 4 approved urban use of the land. The project must still gain County Council approval to move forward.

The project, called Kamakana Villages at Keahuolu, was initiated by the state to produce work-force housing on the Big Island. The estimated $734 million master-planned community has been in the works for several years. Developer Forest City Hawaii LLC petitioned the LUC in September to reclassify the 272-acre site near Kailua-Kona from agricultural to urban use.

But Queen Liliuokalani Trust raised objections over the use of the site and whether impacts from increased traffic will sufficiently be mitigated. The trust sold the project site and adjacent land to the state in 1992 under threat of condemnation.

“Please do not misunderstand our intentions,” LeeAnn Crabbe, trust vice president, told the Hawaii County Council in written testimony. “We support affordable housing and job creation in this community. What we cannot support is the promise of affordable housing and jobs at the expense to others in this community that will ultimately bear the costs.”

The trust also said the state originally sought to condemn the Kamakana site and another nearly 200 acres for a broader range of public uses, including a University of Hawaii campus and a sports complex. Housing also was part of the original plan with 60 percent of units at affordable prices. Benjamin Kudo, a local attorney representing the trust, said the trust historically has tried not to sell land because it relies on income from its property to support its charitable mission benefiting children.

Kudo said the trust reluctantly agreed to sell the 450 acres in Kona and avoid a legal fight at the time because of the specific public benefits proposed for the property. Kamakana, with 50 percent affordable housing and 200,000 square feet of commercial space, doesn't provide the same public benefit, Kudo said.

The 450 acres were part of a major affordable housing development initiative by the state in the 1980s that led to the development of Kapolei on Oahu. But the Kona project and one on Maui were stalled by a legal challenge over ceded lands in 1994. About 150 acres of the Kona site were transferred to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

A state agency charged with facilitating affordable housing development, the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp., said Kamakana will help meet an acute need for affordable housing in West Hawaii and reduce regional highway traffic that's bad in part because many workers at nearby hotels commute to the area from far away.