In February, we called building in 2026 on the strength of a 2013 environmental study a bold strategy, and suggested the reported $50 million Host Hotels paid for “entitled” land at Turtle Bay might get complicated. Judge Shirley Kawamura agreed. No permits for the 375 hotel and residential units planned on 50 acres at Kawela Bay, the western end of the resort’s holdings, until a supplemental EIS is completed. The reason was two species of endangered Hawaiian yellow-faced bee, nalo meli maoli, federally listed in 2016, three years after the study they were leaning on.
That 2013 study only exists because the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that the 1985 EIS was too old to carry new construction on that same coastline. A court had already decided, on this exact stretch of shoreline, that an aging environmental review cannot be stretched over a new project.
Who could have seen this coming? (tongue firmly in cheek)
