A developer recently shut shoreline access through their property at Pepeekeo Point following a dispute with Hawaii County.
Property owner Hilo Project LLC allowed access until July 10 via a path to a landing near the former Hilo Coast Processing Co. sugar mill. A fence and gate now block entry to the trail, which borders the pali in front of a house under construction.
Steve Strauss, attorney for the company, said the trail was being offered to the county to resolve a shoreline setback dispute.
The county Planning Department had cited the developer for building too close to the shoreline.
Strauss said the new access point was closed after a new agreement couldn’t be reached with the county. He said the property owner disagreed with the county’s setback interpretation.
“The owners have tried, without success, to work out boundary and setback issues through three successive county planning directors and their staffs,” Strauss said in a statement. “… Landowners regret that they must now modify their project and people will not be able to safely walk to the shoreline anymore.”
The dispute goes back several years.
Deputy Planning Director Daryn Arai said the department reached a settlement agreement with the developer in 2013.
As part of that deal, the department wouldn’t object to a proposed setback amendment, but the Planning Commission didn’t support it, he said.
“As far as I’m concerned, we have satisfied all the terms of the 2013 settlement,” Arai said. “It’s just they didn’t get what they wanted.”
The existing public access point appears to be a break in a fence outside the entrance to the subdivision at the end of Sugar Mill Road. There’s no defined path and the terrain looks steep and overgrown.
State business records list Gary L. Olimpia of San Jose, Calif., as Hilo Project LLC’s manager.
Email Tom Callis at tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
