Merits Briefs in Upcoming ICA Appeal on Kuilima Resort Environmental Impact Statement

On April 9, 2008, the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals will be hearing oral arguments in Unite Here! Local 5 v. City and County of Honolulu, No. 28603, the appeal involving the question of whether the City should have required the Kuilima Resort to prepare a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.  Here are the main merits briefs of the parties:

• Opening Brief (2.5mb pdf)
  

• City's Answering Brief (1.3mb pdf)
  

• Kuilima_Resort's Answering Briefs (3mb pdf)

The issue, as stated by the Appellants:

Does the Hawai'i Environmental Protection Act (HEPA) [Haw. Rev. Stat. § 343-1, et seq.] and the Environmental Council Rules (HEPA Rules) obligate a public agency to determine whether a project requires a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (Supplemental EIS or SEIS) where new circumstances and evidence bring to light likely increased environmental impacts not previously dealt with in the project's twenty-two (22) year old EIS?

Opening Brief at 1.  The Resort, naturally, phrases the issue somewhat differently:

Plaintiffs challenge Kuilima's development Project, which the City and State entitled in 1986 based in part on the EIS.  Since the entitlements, and until this litigation began in January 2006, the Project proceeded forward.  Plaintiffs emphasized at the trial level that the lapse in time from 1986, without completion of the Project, is a "change" in the Project that, coupled with alleged changes in the regional environment over that time, requires an SEIS.  Plaintiffs continue to rely on alleged regional changes in environmental conditions since the acceptance of the EIS, but now argue that those changes, by themselves, form a stand-alone basis to require an SEIS under the last sentence of HRS [sic] § 11-200-27.  This misinterpretation of the SEIS Rules is just another argument that the lapse of time is enough to require an SEIS. [footnote omitted]

Kuilima Resort's Answering Brief at 1.