Critic persists with challenge

One of the main opponents of building 11,750 homes at the planned Ho‘opili community on Oahu’s Ewa Plain wants to re-contest a key state approval in hopes of blocking the project, which obtained city zoning in May.

Community group The Friends of Makakilo Inc., led by Kioni Dudley, filed a motion with the state Land Use Commission on Thursday asking the LUC to hold a fresh hearing over whether Ho‘opili should be allowed to go forward on what is 1,553 acres of prime farmland.

Dudley’s motion is largely based on a contention that a traffic analysis from Ho‘opili developer D.R. Horton is underpinned by bogus housing data and was validated by state and city officials who received campaign contributions or improper gifts from companies that stand to benefit from Ho‘opili work or Horton.

Other allegations made in the motion contend that Horton hasn’t followed through on commitments to help relocate farmers on the land, direct stormwater runoff, provide Native Hawaiian access and notify the commission of plans to sell or lease land within the project.

“Our arguments are powerful, convincing, and backed up with evidence that is too solid to be assailed,” Dudley said in a written announcement.

Horton spokeswoman Lee Tokuhara issued a statement dismissing Dudley’s allegations.

“We do not believe there is any merit to Mr. Dudley’s assertions, as we have fully complied with all Land Use Commission conditions and plan to continue to do so as Ho‘opili moves forward,” the statement said.

The company said it could not respond in more detail to the 70-page motion because it did not have a chance to carefully analyze it.

LUC approval was a preliminary yet pivotal entitlement Horton needed to proceed with Ho‘opili. The commission was charged with deciding whether it was appropriate to allow urban development on land long designated by the state for agricultural use. Part of the rationale for the LUC’s approval was that the city had designated the area for urban expansion decades ago along with land that has become home to the Second City of Kapolei, the University of Hawaii-West Oahu, Hawaiian homestead subdivisions and ongoing construction of the Ka Makana Alii regional mall.

Heavily congested traffic on the H-1 freeway has been a huge concern, and is the key issue Dudley said constitutes grounds for reopening the case.

Dudley, who unsuccessfully contested Ho‘opili at LUC hearings in 2011 and 2012 with expert witnesses in conjunction with a similar effort by the Sierra Club and then-state Sen. Clayton Hee, said that he should have had an opportunity to challenge the traffic report during initial hearings but that the report was produced after the commission approved the housing project.

The traffic report, which is an updated version of an initial draft produced by Austin Tsutsumi and Associates for Horton and presented to the LUC, was to be submitted to and deemed acceptable by the state Department of Transportation, the city Department of Transportation Services and the city Department of Planning and Permitting as part of a condition imposed by the LUC.

Dudley argues that the city Department of Transportation Services failed to accept the report. But city officials have disagreed.

Now Dudley wants the LUC to decide whether proper acceptance was made, and rescind its approval if the condition wasn’t met.

Dudley also believes that perhaps some officials will take a different view of the traffic report data and conclusions based on the issues he is raising, especially since the LUC has a new composition since Gov. David Ige took office in December.

“We hopefully will have a real chance to confront (Horton officials) on their numbers,” Dudley said in an interview.

Dudley’s motion contends that the report uses a base-line count of 22,048 existing homes in the Ewa-Kapolei region in 2007 and that this is 15 percent under the 25,800 homes listed in the Oahu Regional Transportation Plan from the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization.

In terms of a projected number of homes in 2035, Horton’s number is 39,669 and is 31 percent under the ORTP projection of 57,100, the motion said.

The alleged undercounting, Dudley’s motion claims, allows Horton to conclude that adding one lane in each direction on H-1 along a bottleneck around the intersection with H-2 will reduce congestion to an acceptable level.

Dudley’s motion also suggests that a DOT official who testified during LUC hearings and “secured approval” of the traffic report in July 2014 could have been influenced by improper gifts from companies that stand to gain work through Horton.

The official was DOT Highways Division Chief Alvin Takeshita, who retired shortly before the state Ethics Commission announced in February a resolution of formal charges that Takeshita and eight other state employees illegally accepted free golf from companies doing business with the state.

Takeshita, according to the Ethics Commission, participated in 10 golf tournaments and an additional three rounds of golf at the expense of concrete and rock producer Ameron Hawaii, engineering firm SSFM International, planning and engineering firm R.M. Towill Corp. and infrastructure consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff. Dudley said some of these companies could derive business from Horton. Takeshita settled the charges against him by paying an administrative fine of $5,750.

Dudley also contends that Mayor Kirk Caldwell and City Council members all received campaign contributions from construction industry entities in favor of Ho‘opili, thus raising questions about the review and approval of the traffic study.

Horton officials said they have no forecast on when they expect to break ground on Ho‘opili. Work is progressing on infrastructure studies that are necessary before the developer can apply for a city subdivision permit.