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About 300 Royal Kunia residents in Central Oahu have some new neighbors, and that’s not sitting well with the community that long expected manicured golf fairways and putting greens to grace a vacant piece of land bordering its homes.
Instead, it could be farm crops, livestock or perhaps even a waste disposal facility that sprouts on 172 acres within the residential community where 18 holes of golf were master-planned but never built.
“We have an issue here,” said Albi Mateo, general manager of the Royal Kunia Community Association.
In May a California real estate investment firm that bought the parcel in 2005 for $3 million resold the property as 13 land condominiums for a combined $8 million, or $615,000 per condo on average.
Buyers of the condos, which range from 7 to 16 acres and are dubbed the Meadows at Royal Kunia, are almost all limited-liability companies, including a few with close to 10 or more member owners.
The land is zoned by the city as “general preservation,” which limits uses largely to agriculture or golf but also allows a few other things such as waste disposal or biofuel processing under conditional permits.
Homeowners surrounding the property are concerned about many issues, including noise, water drainage, soil blowing in the wind, fertilizer use, pesticide use and traffic.
“We’re actually considering moving,” said Pam Laszlo, who bought a home abutting the vacant land 12 years ago with her husband.
Another complaint from some homeowners is that they paid more for their homes based on the intent by Royal Kunia’s developer to build a golf course that would provide a nice view, green space and a recreational amenity.
Royal Kunia was master- planned with about 2,000 homes by the late local developer Herbert Horita, who partnered with Castle & Cooke Homes and began building the community in the late 1980s on land once planted in sugar cane.
Two golf courses were planned at Royal Kunia but were saddled with onerous “community impact fees.” The fees negotiated by the City Council required that the developer of each golf course pay the city $25 million and allow public play at reduced rates comparable to municipal greens fees.
A Japanese company completed one course in 1994, but it didn’t open until 2003 when a lender that took over Royal Kunia Golf Course worked out a deal to pay the city $2.5 million plus $1 per round for the life of the course to satisfy $13 million of the $25 million fee that hadn’t been paid.
The other golf course site was sold to Japanese-based Koei Hawaii Inc. in 1989 for $13.5 million. But Koei couldn’t make an initial $3 million impact fee installment, and the land has been vacant since.
Rezoning hopes
In 2005 an affiliate of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based 3D Investments led by Joseph Daneshgar bought the vacant property and initially explored building homes on the site, which would have required a zoning change and was opposed by nearby residents.
Central Oahu Associates, the 3D affiliate, created the condo units with local developer Jon Gomes (no relation to Andrew Gomes) and enlisted real estate broker Augusto Concepcion of Carrington Real Estate Services in Waipahu to sell the units.
According to property records, buyers include the owner of Hawaii Landscape & Nursery Inc. and the owner of electrical contractor JMI Electric LLC. Concepcion, the project’s broker, is a member in two companies that bought units. Concepcion did not return a call seeking comment.
Arlene Guieb, office manager for W.G. Construction LLC, said she and her husband, who heads the general contracting firm, don’t plan to farm the land they bought, but anticipate having the zoning changed and the land subdivided to permit residential development. “We would like to build our homes and do our office business there,” she said.
Under general preservation zoning, no “farm dwellings” are permitted. But if the land were rezoned to an agricultural classification, homes could be built with little regard for whether actual farming takes place on the land.
Generally, there is uncertainty among Royal Kunia residents over how their new neighbors will use their land — and what impact it could have on adjacent property values.
“We’re very frustrated,” Laszlo said. “Nobody can tell us what’s going on.”
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