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The Honolulu City Council voted Wednesday to give the city and a property owner more time to develop a first-responder hub at a North Shore commercial center. The Council unanimously adopted Resolution 261, which grants the city and the current property owner of parcels on the 59-700 block of Kamehameha Highway in Pupukea a two-year extension to develop a North Shore Ocean Safety Station and Emergency Medical Services division ambulance unit facility. A 4.58-acre business zone, the site currently includes a Foodland Super Market, mauka of the popular snorkeling and diving spot Shark’s Cove. Earmarking $26 million for this acquisition, the city is seeking three parcels next to the supermarket for the first-responder hub. But due to stated delays in talks between the parties, the city and the site’s owner, Hanapohaku LLC, previously requested the Council grant a two-year extension to a prior deadline on the project’s development permit. The project requires a development permit be issued with Hanapohaku’s existing special management area major permit, or SMA, which also includes the Sullivan Family Limited Partnership, and the Maurice and Joanna Sullivan Family Foundation. An area extending inland from the shoreline, the SMA was established under state law in 1975 to preserve and protect Hawaii’s coastal zones. The counties, also under state law, have the power to administer such permits. On Oahu, the Council has that authority. At his fifth State of the City address early this year, Mayor Rick Blangiardi formally announced the city’s planned acquisition of the Pupukea properties. “These plans are subject to a negotiated sale price with the current landowner, but will be transformative for our North Shore communities,” Blangiardi said in the March 18 speech. Before Wednesday’s vote, Pupukea resident Denise Antolini — testifying on behalf of Save Sharks Cove Alliance — thanked the city and Council for their efforts. “We are really very encouraged by the administration’s progress in closing a deal with the landowner,” she said. “And that’s why we are really trying to do everything we can to support that.” But in written testimony, 45-year North Shore resident Karen Gallagher opposed the extra time and associated delay for this project. “I am opposed to this extension because I believe it may lead to a price increase, and is counterproductive to our mayor’s planned acquisition of the property for a first responders’ center,” Gallagher wrote. “We need this ASAP for the safety of our residents and our visitors and any delay may be deadly.” The Council did not discuss the matter before its approving vote for Resolution 261. Besides the planned first-responder hub, the project, also known as McCully’s Corner, would include development of a rural community commercial center with two parking lots, a new individual wastewater treatment system, low-impact development controls for drainage, and other improvements, city documents state. The project consists of two two-story structures and one single-story structure with about 34,500 square feet of floor area, and proposes to provide a mix of goods and services, city reports state. The development also includes 126 parking spaces, a staging area for up to five food trucks, about 16,000 square feet of photovoltaic panels, bicycle parking, and a new shared entrance and exit access way with the existing grocery store, city documents indicate. The total assessed value for the three properties in question is more than $4.73 million, according to the city’s Real Property Assessment Division. Hanapohaku, led by Andrew Yani, submitted a request on Aug. 29, for a two-year extension to their current Nov. 14 deadline to obtain a development permit, the city said. According to the submittal, the applicant told the city Department of Planning and Permitting that its development efforts have been on hold for the past six months to negotiate in “good faith” with the city in its efforts to purchase the project site. “Hanapohaku has and will continue to work cooperatively with the DPP relative to its permits and any further inquiries DPP may have while pursuing its sale of the property to the city,” Christian Adams, Hanapohaku’s agent, wrote in an Aug. 29 letter to DPP.
