Turtle Bay owner working with community

Turtle Bay Resort’s proposed development has a long, storied history that spans generations of North Shore families. For almost three decades, the Kuilima North Shore Strategy Planning Committee (KNSSPC) has been an integral part in the development of the resort on the North Shore.

The KNSSPC was formed in 1983 to identify ways the resort’s redevelopment could benefit regional residents. Its goal was to give voice to all segments of the region — from government and political representatives to local business interests, community associa- tions and leaders, and residents.

Turtle Bay Resort’s owners back then, the Kuilima Development Co., had scrapped all of its previous plans for expansion, and instead began a reorganized effort with the KNSSPC to build a new plan. The committee has always been an independent body to hold the resorts’ owners accountable to the region’s economic and environmental needs while maintaining the sustainability of the area.

In 1986, the committee, which consisted of about 130 residents from the North Shore’s Koolauloa regions, successfully negotiated numerous entitlements that include, but are not limited to, affordable housing, beach access right-of-way, child care, public park access, employment and career training for job opportunities in the future.

Three years ago, KNSSPC reorganized and began meeting with Replay Resorts to ensure that the new owners were meeting the original conditions created within the unilateral agreement.

The committee supports the sensitivity and respect in which Replay Resorts approaches the cultural impacts of its development. The company voluntarily conducted an archaeological survey, and continues to work closely with the Kahuku Burial Committee, the state and the Oahu Island Burial Council. And the resort promises to conserve 469 acres of mauka land as a conservation easement, ensuring those lands stay zoned for agricultural use forever.

The current owners offer more community concessions than any other owner in Turtle Bay Resort’s recent history. It is offering 160 needed affordable housing units, more than twice what it is required to build. The new plan has up to 300 feet of minimum shoreline setbacks, totaling 42 acres of setback area, as well as 12 public access ways to the entire shoreline.

Although Replay Resorts only had to conduct a new environmental impact statement on the 1986 agreement (3,500 units), it instead opted to reduce the approved density by more than 60 percent, down to 1,375 units.

Traffic is a challenge, but Replay Resorts is committing to pay its fair share of improvement toward this issue. KNSSPC has its own subcommittees to review every aspect of the draft SEIS, and to this day continues to engage Replay Resorts in discussions.

The KNSSPC continues to support Turtle Bay Resort’s current proposed action, which will create 758 new resort jobs, on top of thousands of construction jobs over 11 years and will be a beneficial economic shot in the arm for the regional community.

The Kuilima North Shore Strategy Planning Committee is not a group that seeks development, and is certainly no rubber-stamp for any project. Instead, we are a committee created to make sure residents have a voice in the development that does happen, and we want to make sure that message carries throughout future generations of the North Shore and the Koolauloa ohana.

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Tammy Escorzon is president, John "Junior" Primacio is vice president and Sarah I. Cadiz is secretary of the Kuilima North Shore Strategy Planning Committee. They submitted this on behalf of the group.