Coalition seeks to stop development near Sharks Cove

A lawsuit filed Friday in state court by the Save Sharks Cove Alliance and other groups seeks to stop an $18 million commercial development across from the popular sea-turtle viewing site that is already a traffic nightmare for North Shore residents.

The Honolulu City Council on Nov. 14 granted permission to developer Hanapohaku LLC to proceed with the project on 28,325 square feet of leaseable area, with tenants that may include restaurants and food trucks, a supermarket, urgent-care center, credit union and surf shop.

The lawsuit was filed against the city and Hanapohaku. At a news conference Saturday at Sharks Cove, Tim Vandeveer, an attorney for the plaintiffs, who include Hawaii’s Thousand Friends and Malama Pupu­kea-Waimea, said “this community is fed up.” After four years of “illegal and disrespectful behavior on the part of this developer, the City Council approved a proposed development without due diligence.”

But Andrew Yani, who owns Hanapohaku with Cully Judd, a descendant of a well-known missionary family who arrived in Hawaii in the early 1800s, said, “We have followed all the rules, regulations and process required of us by law.”

Now that approvals have been granted by the City Council, “a small group of vocal minority would like to change the outcome by rewriting the rules of the game,” he said.

The proposal follows the 2011 North Shore Sustainable Communities Plan, he pointed out. The community “is in overwhelming support” of the Rural Community Commercial Center plan, which includes the adjacent 21,650-square-foot Foodland grocery store built in 1980, according to the landowners.

North Shore resident Melissa Ginella, who attended the news conference at Sharks Cove, said she’s in favor of the project.

“I’ve been on mostly every against-building-stuff-here (effort),” Ginella said. Hanapohaku, however, “is doing a lot of things for our community,” including creating space for an urgent-care center and credit union.

“There are all these things that actually we need out on the North Shore so we don’t have to go through the turtle traffic” to get to Haleiwa and points beyond, she said.

A site plan shows three rows of one- and two-story buildings fronting Kamehameha Highway with parking in the rear.

The parcel currently has two small surf shops, about five food trucks that do not look mobile, a real estate office and a central gravel parking lot.

Part of the complaint against Hanapohaku, which has owned the land since 2014, is alleged violations related to the current operation that resulted in $100,000 in fines.

“They were operating with no permits,” Vandeveer said. “Grubbing and grading with no permits, operating stationary food facilities with no permits.”

Denise Antolini, a lawyer for the Save Sharks Cove Alliance, said under the Sustainable Communities Plan for the North Shore, the Hanapohaku land — although zoned commercial — is restricted to “neighborhood commercial,” meaning it primarily needs to serve residents of the area.

“And what you see over there is not primarily serving the residents of this area,” she said. “It’s a food truck circus that’s a tourist trap.”

Hanapohaku said “any past mistakes” regarding permits have been corrected. “There are no outstanding violations,” the landowner said.

The planned development follows a 2004 failed effort by a previous owner to build a $17 million commercial complex of one- and two-story buildings and 220-stall underground parking garage on the property.

Yani said Hanapohaku is building less than one-third of what applicable zoning allows.

Larry McElheny, a 45-year Pupukea resident and plaintiff in the lawsuit, said he thinks the new center will increase traffic in an already congested area.

Instead of commercial space, “I’d like to see an expansion of this (beach) park, an education center, something like what was done at Hanauma Bay,” he said.

But Bob Justice, a North Shore neighborhood board member, said the Hanapohaku plan actually would relieve traffic because tourists who flock to Sharks Cove don’t have to make the “pilgrimage” to Haleiwa and back for lunch.

“We all love the North Shore,” he said. “It’s just there are different visions for different people. And my vision’s not making this Disneyland. My vision is having (the current beach park) with someplace where I can walk across the street and get something to eat.”