On Top of the Aloha Beat BLOG

Garden Isle's Mayor Dies Of Apparent Heart Attack:
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Kauai Mayor Bryan Baptiste, 52, died Sunday afternoon of an apparent heart attack, county officials said.
Paramedics went to Baptiste's home in Wailua and took him to Wilcox Memorial Hospital, where he died.
The mayor had just returned from major heart surgery on Oahu.  Baptiste had quadruple bypass heart surgery on June 13 at Queen's Medical Center He was discharged from the hospital on Friday and returned to Kauai Saturday night, officials said.
 
"This is sad news. Mayor Baptiste will be truly missed. He had a pointed sense of humor that made everyone listen carefully to what he said. We had a wonderful relationship and I will really miss him. My heart goes out to his family as they deal with his unexpected passing. I respected his commitment to the people of Kauai, and his absence on the Hawaii Council of Mayors will be felt by many," Maui Mayor Charmaine Tavares said in a written statement.

The Kauai County charter provides that the County Council meet and appoint a new mayor who will serve temporarily until the election in June. The Council met twice yesterday and will meet again today.  It will be interesting to see who gets appointed. Mayor Baptiste will be missed by so many people whose lives he touched!

Read the GARDEN ISLAND NEWS COVERAGE about the loss of our mayor.

At the conclusion of the Princeville at Hanalei presentation to the community of realtors, questions were taken from the audience. Here is a condensed version of that interaction that will hopefully provide more insight about development and the activities of Princeville at Hanalei, the owners of the Princeville Hotel, the Princeville shopping center, and close to 8,000 acres within the Princeville area.

Q: What about the status of the long-promised  employee housing?
A: Surveys say that employees would rather live in Kilauea. P at H is ooking at site across from the Church of the Pacific in Princeville, and looking at a place in Kilauea. No decision has yet been made on the location.

Q: What about recycling?
A; Need to come up to a plan that is sustainable.

Q: What are future plans of the Princeville airport?
The airport will continue to exist. Heli USA no longer has their space there. Probably there will be a reimplementation of tour helicopters. There is some fixed wing traffic but primarily charter flights . Some discussions about reimplementation of commuters. Not sure if that is practical or feasible. The runway is not scheduled for any expansion. The Princeville airport is currently limited by FAA rules to planes that carry no more than 10 passengers.

Q: How do people get permission to fly into the airport?
A; Call Mike Lu. One of the hats he wears is airport manager. The minimum insurance is $10 million. Most folks only carry $1 million in liability. The airport is privately owned and there’s major concern about liability exposure. Jeff Stone has a new airline that does fly in. Resort Air. You can contact them.

Q: What is your timeframe on the new 17 lots described in this meeting?
For the new subdivision, P at H just recently applied to planning department. The application is routed to all agencies and comes up before planning commission for tentative approval. This will come up in a couple of months.  Development may include design drawings, dealing with shoreline setback issues (some of the parcels are within 500' of the shoreline), drainage studies, and more complexities.

Q: When you speak about sustaianability at the Princeville Ranch new subdivision, are you talking about windmills?
Probably PVs (photovoltaic) or little vertical turbines. There are lots of new devices coming out and they are getting into feasibility economically. The idea would be to generate a portion, but not all of their energy. Projecting a way to monitor energy, see how much it is taking, and turn it off and on in realtime. You can cut down 1/3 of your energy costs that way.

Q; How will the 17 lots in the new Princeville Ranch sdubdivision be subdivided?
Owners may CPR. Possibly 75 homes total. Create an area where ranch activities could occur. Parcels are between 10 and 30 acres in size.

Q: What are locations for development on the Mauka (mountain)  side
P at H has not yet located the spots. Need to find locations that do not interfere with the Carswells farming operation. It will  be a couple of years before the plan is developed. That will be  10-12 undividable residence lots.

Q:Will the building envelopes in the makai lots be predetermined?
Yes. The makai lots will be very specific and very tightly controlled.

The presentation and questions lasted close to an hour.

On June 11th, Princeville at Hanalei (formerly known as Princeville Corporation) gave a presentation to a gathering of the North Shore realtors of Kauai to talk about the status of development on the North Shore and specifically the Princeville at Hanalei projects.

Jay Furfaro, one of our Kauai County Council representatives, Francis Oda, and Dee Crowell all spoke to the audience and fielded questions at the end of the 40 minute presentation. Jay, whose children are sixth generation Hawaiians, started off the meeting with a little bit of North Shore history that I found most interesting. Jay is the keeper of records for Gomez Ohana of Hanalei. His wife of 30 years, Ema Gomez, was raised in Hanalei, Kaua`i. The Gomez family descended from one of the original Princeville cowboys, Louis Antonio Domingo Gomez. Jay and Ema, have three children Nicole, Jennifer and Marissa. All three young women are graduates of Kamehameha Schools and the University of Hawai`i.

With a resort background, including twelve years of service for ITT Sheraton, Jay was hired by the new Princeville at Hanalei as an operating officer back in 2005.

The key objectives Jay Furfaro described when discussing the Princeville Ranch in somewhat broader terms are:
1. To sustain and create a ranch community which honors the land, heritage and history of Princeville at Hanalei.
2. Utilize concepts of sustainable development principles that are based on sound economic models with connectivity to our local community, and promote stewardship of the land.

Regarding the sustainability perspective, Princeville at Hanalei nurtures a native Hawaiian forest, with the assistance of staff and employees.

The Princeville Ranch was the focus of this particular presentation. Princeville Ranch is one of the oldest working cattle ranches in Hawai with its historical roots pre-dating those of the American Old West. For over 175 years, the ranch has been operating. Beef from the ranch used to be shipped to California back in the gold rush days.

As with so many industries these days, with the high cost of transporting everything and the low cost of beef, the Princeville Ranch is a marginal operation. Thus, the idea has evolved to create a 17 lot agricultural subdivision. So, Princeville at Hanalei has applied for the initial permits to create this subdivision. The lots themselves may then be condominiumized (CPR”d) to ultimately create a density of up to 75 homes. See the map below to see where the target pieces for this project is.These 17 lots are described as Princeville Ranch Makai.

Then mauka of the highway, where the mauka village and affordable housing was supposed to be, there will be another 10-12 mutli-acre homesites. The owners in these two project will become equity owners of the Princeville Ranch with the notion that the Carswell family, the family that currently runs the ranch, will continue to do so. The map refers to these as Princeville Ranch Mauka.

So in the spirit of sustainability, the notion is to find like-minded individuals who desire to become a model of a sustainable community. From the road design to the drainage plan for water runoff, each aspect of this development is being scrutinized for its adherence to sustainability for the long term.

This project may take several years to get off the ground. Of course, the affordable housing piece which was expected to be built in the mauka village, still has not been built and this is a source of frustration to the community and the employees of Princeville at Hanalei. Many of these long-time employees must commute from a fairly long distance away.

Two additional projects, the Greens and the Meadows, are also land development projects of Princeville at Hanalei.  The Greens are approximately 36 residential lots with views of the ocean and mountains. Unlike most Princeville lots of 9,000 -12,000 sq. ft., these lots are around 15,000 sq. ft per lot. A new road will parallel the highway leading from the Prince Course Clubhouse to the Fountain through the Greens. These lots will probably not released in the current real estate market although the roads and infrastructure have been completed for some time.  The Meadows is another 200+ home sites located as its name applies, in the meadows just below the greens. The work on this project has barely begun.

Finally, in what is referred to as the Central Plateau area just east of the Prince Golf Course, there is another cluster of land that is slated for development in the future.

If you know of someone committed to “green living” and who would value owning an equity stake in the Princeville Ranch, keep your ears and eyes open to watch the evolution of this project over the next several years.

The Honolulu Advertiser today reported about the Kauai numbers for May. Our MLS is a real-time system so the monthly numbers and comparision to prior years is always available.

The Advertiser reports:

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Prices of single-family homes on Kauai rose in May, while prices of condominiums slipped.

However, the median price for both categories was based on much lower sales volume compared to the same month a year ago, according to statistics from Hawaii Information Service.

The median price of a single-family home on Kauai last month was $677,500, which was 19 percent over May 2007 when it was $570,000. The year-to-date median price was $655,000, no change from 2007.

The median price of a condo was $627,000, down more than 10 percent from the May 2007 median price of $700,000. The median price for the first five months of the year was $579,500, more than 10 percent above the same period in 2007, when it was $525,000.

There were just 20 single-family homes sold in May on the Garden Isle, down 51 percent from May 2007 when there were 41 homes sold. Year-to-date, there were 119 houses sold during the first five months of the year, down 40 percent from the same period in 2007, when there were 199 sales.

Condo sales numbered 18 last month, down 28 percent from 25 units sold in May 2007. Sales for the first five months of the year were also 40 percent down for condos, with just 88 sales recorded, compared to 146 sold during the same period last year.

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It's important to note that with such a small number of sales compared to a larger urban market like Honolulu or any large city on the mainland, the median price may not be that indicative of market trends. Stating that the prices of homes rose simply means that the mix of higher end homes compared to lower end homes was greater. There really is not an area on Kauai where prices are currently rising that I am aware of. So, if you are reading about our market data, make sure you have an open dialogue with a knowledgeable raltor who can put that information into the most meaningful context regarding the Kauai Real Estate market.

For instance, look at the numbers for sales volume in the Koloa/Poipu area. They are down almost 70 PER CENT, while the median price is up for the year significantly. You need someone knowledgeable to help you understand these numbers.

This year's Taste of Hawaii held this past Sunday on June 1st at Smith's Tropical Paradise on the Wailua River was a great success. The event continued its greening trend which started several years ago. The last two years all the utensils and cups and trays were bio-degradeable. This year, a local organization called Zero Waste Kauai participated by taking all the food and biodegradeables to compost and separate all the recycleable materials.

Over 1300 paid guest and close to 800 volunteers, musicians and chefs filled the park starting early Sunday morning and ending at 4PM. There were 14 music groups and some spectacularly delicious foods. My wife particularly liked the tomato-basil-chile gelato. I was enthralled by the Marriott's offering of mediterranean samples, including a little piece of lamb, edamame pate, couscous and chickpea salad.

The musical highlight of the event was the performance in the pavillion by Makana, who is one of the most unusual and talented slack key guitarists alive today. Makana blends the study and wisdom of the great slack key masters with the youthful exuberance, passion, and sheer joy of being inventive with his guitar and voice.

Here are a few pictures you may enjoy. If you are ever on Kauai in June, Taste of Hawaii is always the first Sunday of the month. You've got to check out this way cool event.

VIEW MY GALLERY OF TASTE OF HAWAII PICTURES from the event