City of Honolulu and Turtle Bay Resort Sued by Keep the North Shore Country
Gil Riviere, director of Keep the North Shore Country, said Tuesday that the study proposing hundreds of new rooms is inaccurate and insufficient and that the city should have rejected it.
Riviere wants the resort to conduct another, more thorough, analysis of the potential impacts of more development.
Turtle Bay Resort LLC and George Atta, the director of the city’s Department of Planning and Permitting, are also named defendants.
“I’m equal parts disappointed but not surprised,” said Drew Stotesbury, CEO of Turtle Bay Resort. “I believe that we have more than met the expectations of anybody engaged in this process.”
The city declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.
The lawsuit is another chapter in a long-drawn-out legal battle between North Shore residents who oppose the hotel’s expansion plans and the companies who have owned the resort.
Keep the North Shore Country and the Hawaii Sierra Club won a case in the Hawaii Supreme Court in 2010 that required Turtle Bay Resort to conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement. The company had attempted to move forward with development plans based on an environmental analysis completed in 1985 but the Supreme Court found that a new study was needed.
Keep the North Shore Country isn’t the only community group fighting North Shore development. Defend Oahu Coalition, an organization dedicated to protecting the North Shore, is in the process of appealing the resort’s land classification before the state Land Use Commission.
Kevin Kelly, a board member at Defend Oahu Coalition, said the group does not have any current plans to file a lawsuit regarding the resort’s supplemental environmental impact statement. Tim Vandeveer, co-chairman of the organization, told Civil Beat last month that the organization was mulling the possibility of a lawsuit.
Robert Harris, executive director of Hawaii’s Sierra Club chapter, said the environmental organization is still considering litigation and may join Keep the North Shore Country’s lawsuit.
Because the city accepted Turtle Bay Resort’s analysis in late October, the deadline to challenge the report is late December.
Keep the North Shore Country’s legal complaint argues that the resort didn’t adequately describe its development plans; didn’t accurately analyze the impacts on traffic, wetlands, ocean water and endangered species; and should have evaluated the benefits of leaving the existing development as it is.
“You can’t just make up what you want to study and what you cannot,” Riviere said. He added that the city “unfortunately did not take a hard look and demand an adequate report.”
Stotesbury from Turtle Bay Resort said the criticisms are unfounded. “We have more than complied with the requirements of the process,” he said.
The company later issued a statement criticizing the lawsuit as “simply a tactic to delay responsible and balanced development that will protect open areas, create jobs for North Shore residents, and provide new sources of revenue for local businesses and government.”
To read the full complaint, click here.
Traffic clogs Kamehameha Highway on Oahu’s North Shore. Opponents to Turtle Bay Resort’s expansion argue that traffic will increase if the development moves forward. (Dan Zelikman/Honolulu Civil Beat)
Read Civil Beat’s past coverage of the issue:
Hawaii Land Use Commission Puts Off Voting on Turtle Bay Land
Report: More Traffic Will Clog North Shore If Turtle Bay Expands
Justices Decline to Reconsider Turtle Bay
Implications of Turtle Bay Ruling Are Both Narrow and Wide
— Anita Hofschneider
