WAILUKU - The Maui Planning Commission denied three petitions to intervene in the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa's $250 million expansion application Tuesday.
Isaac Hall, speaking for the petitioners, promised to appeal.
The commission does not often rebuff intervenors. Intervention is to be "freely granted," but attorney Blaine Kobayashi, representing the applicant, said that implies that at times it may reject a request for intervention. "Freely granted doesn't mean you have no discretion at all," he said.
Commission Member Jonathan Starr made the motions to refuse invention. For two, involving neighbors at Wailea Beach Villas and Ho'olei condominiums, he argued that they had no distinguishable issues not shared with the general public. One standard for intervention is having a unique issue.
Hall had argued that there were many problems with the application, including encroachment in the shoreline setbacks. (There are two, a 150-foot line set by the county and a 300-foot line established by the convenants, conditions and restrictions of the Wailea project development.)
He said there should be an environmental assessment.
On the third request for intervention, by Dana Naone Hall, the issue was protection of Hawaiian burials. She would have argued her own case but she broke her wrist, so her husband did it for her.
Isaac Hall reviewed the history of the hotel in the late '80s, when 344 burials were found, many, he said, damaged by bulldozers.
Dana Hall, a former chairwoman of the Maui/Lanai Island Burial Council, had wrapped and reinterred those burials, Isaac Hall said and had a history and relationship interest different from other people's, as well as particular standing as a Native Hawaiian.
The commission had only six members present, since John Guard IV has resigned midway in his five-year term to become a county firefighter. Commissioner Ward Mardfin voted against all three of Starr's motions, but without comment on the two by the neighbors.
However, he made an effort to lobby for the extra vote that would have defeated Starr's motion to deny the intervention request by Dana Hall.
He read from a 2000 Hawaii Supreme Court decision in favor of Ka Pa'akai o ka Aina against the Land Use Commission in a Big Island urbanization case. The court said: "The past failure to require Native Hawaiian cultural impact assessments has resulted in the loss and destruction of many important cultural resources and has interfered with the exercise of Native Hawaiian culture."
This "seems like a very close parallel" to the present situation, he said.
Commissioner Bruce U'u, while acknowledging that the original excavations were not handled well, said that a cultural advisory board set up by the applicant would appropriately monitor the work, and that Dana Hall could participate through that.
Both Lyons Naone III and Kimokeo Kapahulehua had testified earlier that the hotel had appropriately included native cultural practitioners and other knowledgeable members of the community.
Much of the public testimony in favor of the hotel expansion focused on economic issues.
Douglas Cabrillo Jr., an electrician who served his apprenticeship two decades ago at the hotel, fought back tears as he explained that he has been out of work since April.
He has three children, he said, for whom he pays $1,900 a month in child support, while his unemployment income is only $2,000.
"I'm not the only one suffering," he said. "My three kids have no more future if I don't work."
The applicant also emphasized the economic benefits from the project: 150 additional permanent full-time jobs; $3.6 million a year in state and federal taxes; $7.2 million in general excise tax; $7.4 million in transient accommodation tax; $2.83 million in county real property tax; and $95 million a year in purchases from more than a thousand local businesses, including $2.8 million for produce, $1.4 million for fresh fish and $800,000 for flowers and plants, plus charitable contributions of more than $1 million.
The commission deferred action on the hotel's request for a special management area permit and planned development approvals. The land-use approvals are needed for the hotel to proceed with plans to add 310 lodging units and other amenities.
The commission is expected to revisit the issue on Oct. 13.
* Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.
