Firm withdraws Keopuka development plans
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer
An Arizona developer has withdrawn its plan for the Keopuka Lands project, a 660-acre golf course community above Kealakekua Bay, and plans to propose another development that would be designed in a way that it has less impact on the land.
Dick Frye, vice president of Pacific Star LLC, said yesterday that the development will be reworked with fewer homes in environmentally sensitive coastal areas. The reworked plan probably will not have a golf course.
"It will be more residential, more rural and have a lower density,'' he said.
As proposed, the Keopuka Lands project would have consisted of at least 125 agricultural lots plus a private golf course and clubhouse. The original proposal included a "members hale,'' or lodge, but it was withdrawn by the developer in response to community opposition.
Environmentalists who strongly opposed the project were calling Pacific Star's withdrawal a major victory.
"The community's resolve is now strengthened and prepared to defend against any future threats to the wild, rugged beauty and pristine waters of the South Kona coastline,'' said Jack Kelly of Keep Kealakekua Wild!
The withdrawal of the project's draft environmental impact statement follows the dismissal of a lawsuit that Pacific Star filed in an attempt to overturn the State Land Use Commission's decision declaring that the proposed luxury residential resort was not agricultural in nature.
The commission's decision had required the company to seek reclassification of the land from the agricultural district to urban to proceed.
Developer Lyle Anderson of Scottsdale, Ariz., is the principal investor in both the Keopuka Lands development and the neighboring 1,250-acre Hokuli'a community, another luxury project opposed by environmentalists and Hawaiians.
Frye said he didn't know when a new Keopuka Lands draft environmental impact statement would be ready. He anticipated that the public review process would likely take a year or two and said he's hoping the new project will find greater public support.
Jay Griffin, coastal coordinator for the Sierra Club, Hawai'i Chapter, said the community will remain ready to fight projects that threaten the area's historic sites and pristine waters.
"Pacific Star's repeated failed attempts to oppose the community send a strong message that Hawai'i can chose not to let out-of-state developers pave our remaining wild coastlines,'' Griffin said.
Reach Timothy Hurley at (808) 244-4880 or thurley@honoluluadvertiser.com
