Work at Royal Kunia site has neighbors angry

Farming and suburban living often peacefully coexist in Hawaii. But in Royal Kunia, residents are clashing with recent buyers of vacant land behind roughly 300 homes where a golf course was once planned.

Homeowners say some of their new neighbors have imprudently worked to establish farms on the property, using a wheelchair sidewalk ramp for a driveway, parking vehicles on sidewalks, stirring up dust and erecting structures without city permits.

“I get all these complaints,” Rito Saniatan, chairman of the Waipahu Neigh­borhood Board, announced at the board’s September meeting. “I’m really ticked off.”

At the meeting, Saniatan told Gus Concepcion, a representative of several groups who in May bought the 172-acre site dubbed the Meadows at Royal Kunia, that the group is antagonizing homeowners and broke a promise to stop work until permits are obtained.

Saniatan also asked whether parcel owners intend to misuse the land as some have done in nearby Kunia Loa Ridge Farmlands, where the city has had difficulty enforcing land-use regulations after property owners built illegal homes.

“Is your plan to turn the Meadows into another Wild Wild West like (Kunia Loa) where anything goes?” Saniatan asked Concepcion, who is a landowner at the Meadows and a real estate broker who sold lots at Kunia Loa and the Meadows.

Concepcion said it was a misconception to compare the Meadows with Kunia Loa.

The Meadows property is zoned as “general preservation” land, which allows crop production, livestock grazing, forestry and aquaculture along with cemeteries without discretionary approval. Other uses, including zoos, vacation cabins and recreational facilities are conditional uses that require public hearings and discretionary approval.

The site was sold as 13 parcels of 7 to 16 acres each for $615,000 on average, or $8 million overall, to 13 limited liability companies with about 95 individual members. Concepcion represents the owner group as condo board president.

Though some owners have said they intend to grow crops, the group hasn’t produced a master plan for the property, which lacks water and other utilities.

Tim Hiu, deputy director of the city Department of Planning and Permitting, explained at the neighborhood board meeting that building permits for structures are required because the Meadows property is in the state urban district, unlike Kunia Loa, where some landowners have abused a state law that allows construction of agricultural buildings without building permits on that site, which is zoned for agriculture.

Saniatan added that unlike Kunia Loa, where no neighbors are nearby, Royal Kunia residents are keeping close watch on the Meadows.

“You got 5,000 homes in Royal Kunia,” he said. “These people have (come) together and are very determined that whatever you guys are doing, they are going to keep an eye on.”

Hiu said DPP has received complaints about structures, such as industrial tents, built on the Meadows site, and that these structures were removed by their owners after city inspections.

However, some Royal Kunia residents said other structures remain even though Hiu said no city permits have been issued for anything on the property.

Neighbors also complained about the hours of activity on the property, a pile of gravel dumped on a sidewalk and dust.

Brenda Mariano said she’d like to see dust screens put up around the property to prevent graded dirt from drifting.

“It’s going into people’s patios, swimming pools and backyards,” she said.

Concepcion said screens would be put up.

Mariano also asked about operating hours, and said that an agreement between Meadows owners and the community to limit work to between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays and between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturdays isn’t being respected. Saniatan agreed, and said Concepcion has been one of the owners working after hours.

“You folks have been very inconsiderate to the homeowners,” Saniatan said.

Another widely acknowledged issue was a load of gravel that some Meadows owners dumped on a sidewalk so they could make a driveway to their land over a wheelchair access point on the sidewalk. The former owner of the property, a California real estate investment firm, sold the land with no legal vehicular access. The new owners can apply for a permit to build a driveway but haven’t. Instead, they created a driveway over a sidewalk along a private road owned by Castle & Cooke Hawaii, one of the developers of Royal Kunia.

Though Hiu said a city permit isn’t required to build a driveway off a private road, Castle & Cooke said it didn’t consent to such work along the road, which it is in the process of dedicating to the city.

Complaints about the driveway work and about trucks parking on the sidewalk followed an Aug. 16 meeting between Meadows owners and Royal Kunia residents at which it was agreed that work would cease until permits were obtained, according to Saniatan.

Concepcion said such work did stop, but that drew a chorus of incredulous laughter from residents at the neighborhood board meeting. Concepcion said Meadows owners have met with DPP to understand what permits they need, and that the owners want to work together with homeowners. They also plan to install bulletin boards on the site to inform neighbors of what’s going on.

Concepcion told the neighborhood board that a master plan should be available in a month, and that he will advise all Meadows owners that work on the land should cease until necessary permits are obtained.