The state Land Use Commission on Thursday denied by a 6-0 vote an application by Connections New Century Public Charter School for a special use permit to build a campus on about 70 acres of leased agricultural-zoned state land in Hilo.
The two-day meeting was held via Zoom because of the coronavirus pandemic. Two commissioners, Nancy Cabral, the Big Island commissioner, and Gary Okuda, an at-large commissioner, recused themselves from the vote. Another at-large seat reserved for a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner is vacant.
Plans for the campus, which would be built near the corner of Kaumana Drive and Edita Street, have been in the works since 2006 and have been met with opposition from neighbors who have cited increased traffic, water availability concerns and the potential encroachment by the school on the neighborhood’s quiet lifestyle.
Those plans call for a student body of 381, a 30-bed dormitory, gym, cafeteria, library, caretaker’s residence and two parking lots with a total of 140 stalls.
Five neighbors of the proposed project testified Wednesday before the LUC, raising the aforementioned concerns, while two Connections students testified in favor of the project. The LUC also received written testimony from 17 individuals — including some of the Zoom testifiers — all in opposition.
The county’s Windward Planning Commission in 2014 denied the school’s permit application. The school and its fundraising arm, Community Based Education Support Services, appealed.
The Intermediate Court of Appeals remanded the matter back to the planning commission in February 2020, and the commission in October held a new set of hearings but decided not to open the record to additional evidence. The result was a vote by the planning commission recommending approval of the permit, which was forwarded to the LUC.
“The quandary I have is … that the planning commission in 2014, based upon all the evidence — the same evidence that is on the record now — chose to deny the permit,” said Land Use Commissioner Dawn Chang, who moved for the permit’s denial. “… The ICA … uphold certain findings, but they remand it back and vacate (the permit denial) for other findings.
“And the planning commission chooses not to reopen the record.”
Chang noted the appellate court “found no error in respect to … the adverse impacts of traffic by the proposed project on the surrounding properties.”
She also noted a “constitutional obligation … to preserve and protect traditional customary practices by Native Hawaiians.”
“I find the record sent up by the planning commission totally inadequate to address” traditional and customary Native Hawaiian cultural practices, Chang said. At least a part of the property sits over Kaumana Cave, a lava-tube system created by the 1881 eruption of Mauna Loa.
Chang said she thinks the school’s agricultural curriculum fills a void in public education and added her motion was made with “a very heavy heart.”
Commissioners Edmund Aczon and Dan Giovanni said the Windward Planning Commission “punted” the case to the LUC.
Most of the commissioners said they found the school’s agriculture focus admirable. Some, however, faulted the project’s location and its projected traffic impacts, a “stale” environmental assessment completed in 2010, and plans described as more “conceptual” than complete. Some also questioned the school’s decision to seek a special use permit instead of a district boundary amendment — which would have changed the property’s zoning designation to low-density urban, the same as the surrounding neighborhood.
Ted Hong, attorney for CBESS, said the criticisms of the Windward Planning Commission and county Planning Department “showed a complete lack of respect and were inappropriate.” He said Connections and CBESS will again appeal, “not only for my client, but for anyone that wants or needs a special use permit.”
“We will win on appeal, again,” Hong told the Tribune-Herald.
Connections Principal Romeo Garcia said after the meeting the LUC’s vote is “disappointing to our students, staff, faculty and the community members who are in support of the project.”
In addition to the appeal, Garcia said the school would return to the Windward Planning Commission to seek a “different designation for portions of the property, which are options we were recommended to pursue.”
A zoning change for 15 acres or less can be done by the WPC without LUC approval.
John Thatcher, the school’s retired principal who also sits on its board, said he wasn’t surprised by the vote.
“This is pretty much the way charter schools get treated all over the place,” Thatcher told the Tribune-Herald. “We have to struggle for everything we get. There’s roadblocks thrown out at every intersection.”
Hong said the vote by the “individual members of the LUC said that their preferences are more important than the Supreme Court decisions, the law and regulations.”
“The dangerous part about their decision, is that they are moving the goalposts in terms of special use permits, but they aren’t telling us where and how far,” he said. “It’s like trying to kick a field goal, blindfolded and in the dark.”
Attempts to reach some of the project’s opponents after the hearing by the Tribune-Herald were unsuccessful.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.