Connections New Century Public Charter School is scaling back its plan to build a new campus in Kaumana.
“We plan on going back to the Windward Planning Commission with plans for 15 acres or less,” said John Thatcher, retired Connections principal and chairman of Community Based Education Support Services, which is the school’s board.
Plans had been in the works since 2006 for a campus on 70-plus acres of land near the corner of Kaumana Drive and Edita Street in Hilo. The leased state land is zoned agricultural, and plans for a project that large on the property require a special use permit from the state Land Use Commission.
That commission in January 2022 denied the school’s permit request via a 6-0 vote. Scaling back the project to 15 acres or less doesn’t require LUC approval, making the county planning commission the final administrative authority.
Connections appealed the LUC’s denial of the permit to the state Supreme Court. The high court ordered mediation and earlier this year dismissed the school’s appeal.
Neighbors have opposed the school’s plans to build on the site, citing concerns about increased traffic, water availability, and the potential encroachment by the school on the neighborhood’s quiet lifestyle.
The original plans called 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. The estimated cost was $30 million.
The Windward Planning Commission in 2014 denied the school’s permit application. The school and CBESS appealed.
The Intermediate Court of Appeals remanded the matter back to the planning commission in February 2020, and the commission in October 2021 held a new set of hearings but decided not to open the record to additional evidence. The result was a 4-1 vote by the planning commission recommending approval of the permit, which was then forwarded to the LUC, where it was unanimously rejected.
The school, which has its classroom in the Kress Building in downtown Hilo, has some agricultural activity on the Kaumana site, including a greenhouse, but no permanent buildings, according to Thatcher.
“There’s probably going to be a point where the Kress Building is not going to be the ideal place to have kids,” Thatcher said. “The sea is rising. I think that’s a growing concern for us. We need to have another option.”
Thatcher said there’s no hard date for the school’s return to the planning commission, indicating it would probably be sometime early next year.
“Part of what we’re doing right now is defining where the 15 acres would be situated,” Thatcher said. “CBESS and the school have been focusing on really developing the property with what we’re able to do with the kids up there.”
Thatcher said the scaled down project is unlikely to include the gym and dorm, but might have its own onsite wastewater facility.
“One of the other focuses that we’ve had, and this is partially through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is to do a wastewater treatment system that is an example of what can be done in an ecologically smart way. At Puna Kai Shopping Center, the wastewater treatment system recycles the water, and they have a little pond there. That approach, to us, makes more sense than everybody going from cesspools to septic tanks.”
The onsite wastewater facility at the 10-acre shopping center, according to consultant Biohabitats, “harnesses the power of nature to treat the wastewater and effluent using constructed wetlands in conjunction with trickling filter technology.”
“Septic tanks aren’t really the long-term solution,” Thatcher said. “And up in Kaumana, you’re not going to run sewage pipes up here. Maybe they will, someday, but I can’t see it in the near future.
“So having smaller wastewater systems that can handle a neighborhood area or something like that, I think there’s a lot of potential for that. And that’s something that we’ve been talking about, supporting that kind of development, an example of ecologically friendly building.
“At this point, there are still a lot of unknowns, but we’re trying to do is to make sure that what we’re doing is consistent with what we’ve always wanted to do, and that we’re doing it in a way that’s not going to be invasive to anyone.”
Henry Lee Loy, a retired physician who lives near the Kaumana site and is one of the most vocal opponents against the school relocating there, declined to comment until he sees Connections’ updated plans.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.