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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Monday, September 17, 2001

Editorial
Unseemly approval of North Shore project

The City Council must take another look at a North Shore gated residential development it approved last week.

Kaunala Beach Estate, about a half-mile northeast of Sunset Beach Park, is to include 29 single-family homes, a private road, a parcel to be dedicated to the city for park use and a separate public pedestrian shoreline-access easement.

Whether to allow this proposal to go forward is a pivotal decision. On the face of it, the community appears better off than it was, whether the parcel becomes an upscale residential development or a public park.

Four issues seem uppermost in the decision-making:

• Whether the parcel can hold a viable development, with sufficient setback for ocean erosion.

• Whether the community would have sufficient access by way of the easement.

• Why the council saw fit not to require the developer to build a 12-space parking lot near the public access.

• Whether instead the city can afford to purchase all 17 acres for a park, which the community appears to favor.

Council members doubt the city can afford to purchase the parcel outright, and thus find this attractive development preferable to leaving it in its shabby, rundown state.

The developer, D.G. "Andy" Anderson, a prospective gubernatorial candidate, seems OK with whichever alternative emerges. He says his project wouldn't be cost-effective if the state got its way — it sought, but the council failed to require, an increase in the setback to 80 feet from the standard 60 feet.

That's a shame, because the greater setback is needed. The way to solve seawall and revetment problems is before erosion makes them necessary, by building far enough from the waves in the first place.