Koa Ridge lawsuit

Supreme Court unanimously upholds circuit court ruling requiring Castle & Cooke to complete environmental review for Oahu project

HONOLULU - The Sierra Club won a major victory at the state Supreme Court today in their campaign to stop urban sprawl on Central Oahu's agricultural lands. The state Supreme Court unanimously upheld the First Circuit Court's 2003 decision regarding Koa Ridge. That ruling reversed the Land Use Commission's 2002 decision to reclassify hundreds acres of agricultural land for Castle & Cooke's massive residential development due to the lack of an environmental impact statement.
(Today's decision can be read in its entirety online at www.hi.sierraclub.org/koa/decision06.pdf.)

"This is a tremendous victory for protecting the remaining open space and farmlands in Central O`ahu," said Jeff Mikulina, Director of the Sierra Club, Hawai`i Chapter. "Once they are developed, they are gone forever."

The Supreme Court sided with the Sierra Club on all the substantive points of the case, underscoring the requirement that developers conduct the environmental review process early in the planning stages - not after approvals have been granted as Castle & Cooke argued. The circuit court's decision stated that preparing an environmental review after Land Use Commission approval "would have defeated the Legislative purposes of Chapter 343 that required environmental documents to be prepared 'at the earliest practicable time' and that they be available to aid decisionmakers."

"This is a victory not only for Oahu's farmlands, open space, and quality of life, but also for smart planning," said Mikulina. "The court reaffirmed the process to protect our environment and the communities' right to be involved early in the planning process," said Mikulina.

If Castle & Cooke wishes to proceed with the sprawling project, they must re-file their reclassification application with the Land Use Commission.

"The Land Use Commission acted without the benefit of a complete environmental review of Castle & Cooke's sprawling project," said Mikulina. "Hawaii's citizens and future generations deserve decisions that are made with full and accurate disclosure of environmental impacts."

During the proceedings before the Land Use Commission, the Sierra Club, Mililani residents, and others raised concerns about traffic, groundwater availability, loss of agricultural lands and open space, and poor planning. Travel from Central O`ahu to downtown, which today can take over an hour during peak times, would become even more frustrating with the Koa Ridge project, as no new transit options are proposed.

Experts believe that groundwater wells drilled on the Koa Ridge property may negatively impact the quality and quantity of the County's wells located downslope from the project. With ongoing drought and loss of groundwater recharge areas, it's unclear whether enough water will be available to meet current needs. The project would consume nearly the same amount of water as what would be produced by the expensive ($50 million) desalination facility proposed by the City.

While diversifed agriculture is one of the fastest growing industries in the state, the Koa Ridge project "would consume a significant acreage of prime farm lands," according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Research conducted by SMS Research and Marketing Services, Inc., showed that residents of Central O`ahu indicate a desire to protect agriculture from urban development.

The Sierra Club believes that the housing demand can be met without sprawling on more agricultural lands in Central O`ahu. Existing urban areas in Central O`ahu, such as Wahiawa and Waipahu, should be redeveloped. Further, over 13,000 units of housing have already been approved on over 1500 acres of agricultural land for new growth in Central O`ahu. Although the developer claims that new land must be developed to meet growing demand, population in some surrounding Central O`ahu communities actually decreased between 1990 and 2000.

"O`ahu is hitting some real limits to growth. From traffic gridlock, to groundwater resources, to available agricultural lands, the impacts of sprawling growth will impact everyone's quality of life," said Mikulina.