A quasi-judicial hearing over a Kilauea property owner’s plan to build an upscale house on environmentally sensitive coastal land started with an all-day session yesterday at the Mo‘ikeha Building.
County Planning Commission Chair Steven Weinstein presided over the contested case, expected to resume April 1, acting as a judge while attorneys questioned witnesses ranging from building [...]

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Home prices on Kauai rose last month but sales were lower.
The median price of a single-family home on Kauai in February was $760,000, a 26 percent increase over the same month in 2007 when it was $601,500, according to statistics from Hawaii Information Service.
The median price was based on 24 sales, down from 32 sales [...]

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Hawaii’s verdant volcanic peaks and crystalline waters have made tourism the state’s biggest industry. But not all Hawaii residents are thrilled by the millions who flock to their shores.
They complain that some of the visitors renting homes and rooms in their residential neighborhoods create noise, drive up home and rental prices and destroy the sense [...]

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The Ag Moratorium Bill was killed at Wednesday’s Council meeting by way of Council Member Rapozo making a motion “to receive” and Kouchi seconding immediately (vote tally below).
How the Public Testified
Every person to testify during the public comment period was IN SUPPORT of the temporary moratorium bill. A council member later stated that there were [...]

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Representatives from both sides of a North Shore land use debate took turns reacting to the county Planning Commission with dropped jaws, scoffs, hand-waving and head-shaking, yesterday, at the Mo‘ikeha Building.
The morning session stretched into the evening as commissioners grappled with how to handle an after-the-fact permit request for Moloa‘a Bay Ranch.
After paying $44,000 in [...]

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This winter’s candlelight vigils and banner-waving protesters are gone, their legal challenges exhausted. Soon, bulldozers could roll past Koloa’s wooden sidewalks, clucking chickens and stop sign plastered with a “Die Developers Die” bumper sticker, ready to transform a ragtag grove of monkeypod trees into a shopping center.
But here in Hawaii’s oldest sugar plantation town, little [...]

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Entertainer and Oahu native Bette Midler will pay a $6,500 fine for improperly cutting down more than 200 trees on one of her Kauai properties, an attorney representing her said yesterday.
“It was cleared without permits, and without the realization that permits were necessary,” Kauai attorney Max W.J. Graham said of Midler’s 58,500-square-foot lot in the [...]

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Joseph Brescia and his neighbor Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis must change plans
Two California residents — one a rock star — have slogged through a series of government approvals and denials in an attempt to build new homes on their Kauai north shore land.
The latest action came yesterday when the Kauai Planning [...]

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As founders of Kaua‘i’s first environmentally friendly real estate company, Jason Donovan and his wife, Channon, are trying to live the greenest life possible. From the hemp shirts on their backs to the business cards printed on recycled paper and imbedded with seeds, the couple have made a commitment to be kind to Mother Earth.
This [...]

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Kauai real estate agents closed on 46 single family homes and 24 condos in June, the Hawaii Information Service reported Wednesday. The median home price was $655,000; the median condo price was $572,500.
Home sales volume was roughly the same as the 42 homes that went to closing in June 2006, but condo sales volume fell [...]

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