Eight months after being exempted from a Special Management Area (SMA) permit, Pierluigi Zappacosta is no closer to building his proposed 20,000 square foot farm dwelling on Molokai’s west end, nor is his opposition any closer to stopping him.

The Molokai Planning Commission (MoPC) met last week to continue to sort through the tangled web of legal procedures surrounding the controversial project. The commissioners decided they would wait until January to decide whether or not to hear an appeal on their April 22 decision to exempt Zappacosta from obtaining the SMA permit.

Pierluigi ZappacostaMolokai resident Steve Morgan filed an appeal on May 26 saying that the plans for the ten bathroom, two kitchen house and two additional buildings on the property did not qualify for an exemption under county laws. The County of Maui later filed a motion to get rid of Morgan’s appeal on the grounds that it was not made to the right person, by the right person or in a timely manner – all of which Morgan refuted.

“All I am really doing now is jumping through these legal hoops, hoping that somehow we can get to the real meat of the situation,” Morgan said.

After hearing arguments from both sides, MoPC voted to allow the appeal during a Sept. 28 meeting. As the appellant, Morgan was required to submit a written “Findings of Fact” that the commission would adopt as its own to make their decision official. Morgan’s report did not arrive in the MoPC’s hands until Dec. 1.

“I really am not trying to drag this process out,” Morgan said. “It was very difficult for me to get a hold of the minutes of meetings and other information that I needed.”

At last week’s meeting, the commissioners decided Morgan’s report was not convincing enough and asked him to try again before they finalized their decision to hear his appeal. Jane Lovell, an attorney representing Maui County, begged the commission not to accept the report because of a few “troubling errors.”

“The findings rest on an erroneous citation of the commission’s rules and an erroneous selection from the April 22 meeting’s minutes. I am asking that you please don’t adopt them at this time,” Lovell said.

MoPC agreed with Lovell’s assessment and asked Morgan to try again.

“The current findings of fact don’t accurately reflect the decision we made [on Sept. 28] or the reasons we made the decision,” said Commissioner Napua Leong. Leong, who spearheaded the motion to allow Morgan’s appeal, asked the appellant to do a better job of capturing the commission’s reasons for allowing the appeal rather than his own.

The commissioners decided that a final decision on whether or not to hear the appeal would be made at their next meeting, schedule for Jan. 13. MoPC Vice-Chair Steve Chaikin said if Morgan’s report was not up to par at that meeting, the group would have to reconsider their decision to let him appeal.