Hokulia Lawsuits

[Konaguy]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

That might work with the lot owners condemming the land. But the dealing
with the developer is a whole another ballgame. Oceanside 1250 already
has invested 350 million in the project already. There is a golf course and
a clubhouse already built, along with a partial bypass road. A land exchange
would simply not work for the above reasons. Heck I know of one lot owner
that has built a house ast Hokulia. But the house cannot be occupied until
the bypass road is completed. The house is on the market for 5.6 million.
Yes I know already your going to ask how did the lot owner get their permits.
I suppose he/she got them before the Ibarra decison came down.

[Konaguy]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

My gut feeling is the State Supreme Court will overturn the Hokulia
decision based on the laches doctrine. Essentially Judge Ibarra acted
too late to enforce the law. This is pretty evident since Oceanside
sold 100 lots, invested 300 million and had entitlements in place
before Judge Ibarra's decision came down.

[Konaguy]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuit Update

http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacif...1/daily41.html

Hokulia lot owners seek $265M

Attorneys for Hokulia lot owners filed an administrative claim with Hawaii County Thursday, seeking to recover about $265 million in damages.

Hokulia is a 1,540-acre, billion-dollar development on the Big Island's Kona Coast, originally approved to include as many as 730 homes.

In 2003, 3rd Circuit Court Judge Ronald Ibarra ruled that Hawaii County did not have the authority to approve the development of Hokulia, halting construction.

Los Angeles attorney Robert Baker of Baker, Keener & Nahra LLP is representing the lot owners in the suit.

[Konaguy]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/artic...ce/letters.txt


HOKULIA

Judge acted too late to enforce the law

In regards to the stalled Hokulia project It is not a question of if the entitlements given to Hokulia were legal -- we are past that point. By the time Judge Ibarra enjoined Hokulia in 2003, it was 5 years since the developers agreement was signed. Entitlements were issued, $350 million invested and 100-plus lots sold during this time also.

From my view Judge Ibarra erred in interpretation of laches doctrine. In other words Judge Ibarra acted too late to enforce the law. Why I feel this way is based on the facts mentioned above -- Hokulia was stopped way after the project started. Thus ultimately denying the 100-plus lot owners their rights to build on their land they purchased.

Essentially no building permit is final in the state of Hawaii unless this ruling is overturned. Johnny come lately can go to court years after entitlements were issued and get them invalidated. There are a number of projects already built here on the Big Island that fall into that trap potentially.

[Miulang]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/artic...ce/letters.txt


HOKULIA

Judge acted too late to enforce the law

In regards to the stalled Hokulia project It is not a question of if the entitlements given to Hokulia were legal -- we are past that point. By the time Judge Ibarra enjoined Hokulia in 2003, it was 5 years since the developers agreement was signed. Entitlements were issued, $350 million invested and 100-plus lots sold during this time also.

From my view Judge Ibarra erred in interpretation of laches doctrine. In other words Judge Ibarra acted too late to enforce the law. Why I feel this way is based on the facts mentioned above -- Hokulia was stopped way after the project started. Thus ultimately denying the 100-plus lot owners their rights to build on their land they purchased.

Essentially no building permit is final in the state of Hawaii unless this ruling is overturned. Johnny come lately can go to court years after entitlements were issued and get them invalidated. There are a number of projects already built here on the Big Island that fall into that trap potentially.

Hopefully with the new beefed-up law that allows Counties to designate ag land and preservation land, the State and County will just drop the Hokulia suit and move on to protect land that has yet to be touched. However, the U.S. Supreme Court did rule in favor of the government's right to condemn property under the eminent domain rule, so long as the owners affected are compensated fairly. I wonder if the State and Hawai'i County would use that trump card?

Miulang

[Konaguy]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

Hopefully with the new beefed-up law that allows Counties to designate ag land and preservation land, the State and County will just drop the Hokulia suit and move on to protect land that has yet to be touched. However, the U.S. Supreme Court did rule in favor of the government's right to condemn property under the eminent domain rule, so long as the owners affected are compensated fairly. I wonder if the State and Hawai'i County would use that trump card?

I have my doubts that would solve the problem. Oceanside invested 350 million
dollars there, plus spent 41.6 million for the 1,550 acres. Then you have the
lot owners who are trying to recover their money they spent. That is what
that 265 million dollar figure is {which includes interest}. It gets really ugly...
By the way the above writing was from me, it was a LTE I submitted.

[Miulang]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

I have my doubts that would solve the problem. Oceanside invested 350 million
dollars there, plus spent 41.6 million for the 1,550 acres. Then you have the
lot owners who are trying to recover their money they spent. That is what
that 265 million dollar figure is {which includes interest}. It gets really ugly...
By the way the above writing was from me, it was a LTE I submitted.

Unfortunately, those of us who don't "subscribe" to the West Hawaii Jnl online can't see your LTE. Would you mind copying it over here?

Mahalos,
Miulang

[Konaguy]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

In regards to the stalled Hokulia project
It is not a question of if the entitlements given to
Hokulia were legal -we are past that point. By the
time Judge Ibarra enjoined Hokulia in 2003, it
was 5 years since the developers agreement was
signed.Entitlements were issued, 350 million invested
and 100 + lots sold during this time also.

From my view Judge Ibarra erred in interpretation
of laches doctrine. In other words Judge Ibarra acted
too late to enforce the law. Why I feel this way is
based on the facts mentioned above- Hokulia was
stopped way after the project started. Thus ultimately
denying the 100 + lot owners their rights to build on
their land they purchased.

Essentially no building permit is final in the State
of Hawaii unless this ruling is overturned. Johnny come
lately can go to court years after entitlements were issued
and get them invalidated. There are a number of projects
already built here on the Big Island that fall into that trap
potentially.

Worse yet if the Hokulia ruling is not overturned,
the County and State of Hawaii will be the legal cross hairs
of the Hokulia lot owners. The lot owners have already
filed an administrative claim against the County of Hawaii
for 265 million.In 60 days the lot owners might initiate a lawsuit,
unless this mess is resolved by then. Based on my interpretation
of Judge Ibarra's 2003 ruling, there is a very good chance the
County will lose.


Which will have draconian effects on the citizens of the
Big Island and ultimately the State of Hawaii.

[kimo55]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

as an aside; whuddup with the empty margin right side? so we can take notes?
jez curious...

[mel]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

The empty margins on the right side sometimes occur if you cut text out of a website that has narrow column margins. While I don't go to WHT site often, I notice this is the case with the Star Bulletin website and possibly the Advertiser. If you just cut and paste the text from some of these sites, you get the result above. Nothing wrong with that.

If you want to fix it, I know on the Mac side you can by using a text editor program such as BBEdit Lite that offers options for text clean up including deleting line breaks. If you do that, and then paste the text in, it should flow nicely and fill the space evenly over here.

I am sure there are some text editors that can do the same on the Windows side. I don't know what they are.

OK, I am off topic here... get back to your discussions. I offer no comment on this issue but it is interesting reading.

[kimo55]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

hey mel, no... that was gud stuff.

[Konaguy]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

I found this very interesting statement by Esther Uyeda.
As this certainly should hold a lot of weight. Essentially she
said that LUC approval was not necessary. She was the Executive
Director of LUC during the time Hokulia was seeeking their entitlements.

http://www.hokuliaupdate.com/pdf/dec...ther_uyeda.pdf

[Miulang]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

I found this very interesting statement by Esther Uyeda.
As this certainly should hold a lot of weight. Essentially she
said that LUC approval was not necessary. She was the Executive
Director of LUC during the time Hokulia was seeeking their entitlements.

http://www.hokuliaupdate.com/pdf/dec...ther_uyeda.pdf

I know large developers probably do this kind of sleight of hand all the time when faced with opposition, but don't you think it weird that Ms. Uyeda was concerned because the developers "unbundled" the clubhouse and another 1000 or so houselots that were to be zoned urban but which were later dropped because of public outcries about reclassifying so much land from ag to urban? And isn't it interesting that the second permit application only ended up including the clubhouse and NOT the proposed houselots?

If the whole project (both the ag-zoned and reclassified urban zoned parts) had been kept together as one master development, would the whole project have gotten approval? Sounds like it would have been a toss-up to me. Kinda too late now to reverse things, as you stated in your LTE. But this whole fiasco should serve as a cautionary tale to ALL County LUCs that they really have to be clear on what their intentions are at the time they rule on applications or else the same kinds of pilikia are going to happen over and over again as more and more lands come under the ag-lot perview. In that Haiku ag-lot development that I mentioned previously, I seriously doubt the occupants of those multimillion dollar houses are growing any more than a lawn and shrubbery as their contribution to Maui's agriculture.

Miulang

[Konaguy]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

I was one of those people that was very skeptical of this whole debacle
for awhile frankly. That was until I started reading the 2003 decision by
Judge Ibarra and related legal documents. As I believe those documents
you won't find the bias that is usually found in newspapers etc. Also if
you lie on there, there is a good chance you will prosecuted for perjury.

If there was one positive outcome of this debacle it has hopefully made
developers make a closer analysis of their projects. Don't get me wrong I
don't think Hokulia did anything wrong or did anything that other developers
did in the past [There are 61 similiar ag subdivisions on the Big island]

[Miulang]

Re: Hokulia Lawsuits

I was one of those people that was very skeptical of this whole debacle
for awhile frankly. That was until I started reading the 2003 decision by
Judge Ibarra and related legal documents. As I believe those documents
you won't find the bias that is usually found in newspapers etc. Also if
you lie on there, there is a good chance you will prosecuted for perjury.

If there was one positive outcome of this debacle it has hopefully made
developers make a closer analysis of their projects. Don't get me wrong I
don't think Hokulia did anything wrong or did anything that other developers
did in the past [There are 61 similiar ag subdivisions on the Big island]

I think the State has now a new, beefed up law that mandates the Counties to identify agricultural and preservation lands that must not be touched, so the counties at least have some "teeth" to their bark. They just have to make sure they put in their chompers before the developers and their weasel lawyers run circles around them.

Miulang