The dome shelter in the middle of the budding citrus grove has a spectacular and uncluttered view of the Kona Coast. Its raised wooden platform is perfect for activities like early morning yoga or stargazing.
But there are a couple of problems.
For one, the building doesn’t exist, according to county property records. There are no records of any building permits being issued for the 5-acre agricultural parcel on Hienaloli Road.
A dome-shaped house on a five-acre agricultural block at 75-5481 Hienaloli Road in Kailua-Kona. The county does not show any building permits for the structure, and state law prohibits vacation rentals on land zoned for agriculture. (Provided: Steven Lopez/2026)
“When you build and need an occupancy permit, you’ve got to have structural inspections, electrical inspections,” nearby resident Steve Lopez said. “And where is the effluent going? There’s no septic, there’s nothing.”
What could make things worse, Lopez suspects the dome is being used as a short-term or vacation rental based on the traffic patterns he’s observed from his house.
If he’s right, that would be problem number two as the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled in November 2024 “that farm dwellings in the agricultural district may not be used as short-term vacation rentals because such relief would undermine the purpose of the agricultural district.”
In other words, according to Hawaiʻi statute 205-4.5: vacation rentals are not generally permitted on Hawaiʻi farmland.
So after researching the property on the county website Lopez, who knows the ropes of government oversight as a former liquor commissioner and Kona district representative on the water board, filed an online complaint about the dome last March.
In June, a county inspector from the public works department drove out to see for himself, emails provided by Lopez show — but there was a hitch. The property is landlocked and can only be accessed through easements on adjoining properties — and those are marked with “No Trespassing” signs that Lopez said predate the current owner.
The inspector said he couldn’t disregard the signs and could only view the structure from Lopez’s house.
“He did say what a nice-looking structure it was,” Lopez said. “But now we’re almost a year along, and the county is just not taking ownership of this.”
Who Owns The Dome And What’s Their Plan?
Property records show the lot the dome sits on is owned by a Hawaiʻi-registered company, JKS Solutions, which a Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs listing says engages in “consulting, development, real estate investments, vacation rental and agriculture.”
Attempts to reach the registered agent for JKS Solutions, Jeffrey Sorenson, by email and phone were unsuccessful. Sorenson is connected to at least 20 other addresses in Hawaiʻi and California.
Aerial view of an agricultural block in Kona, TMK: 3-75-11-41 that contains an unpermitted building. The 5-acre lot is zoned as agricultural, at a lower tax rate, and owned by a Hawaiʻi-registered company JKS Solutions. (Illustration: Google Earth/2026)
The 5 acres of land are valued at $736,600, although property records show JKS Solutions paid twice that in 2022. The company only pays $200 a year in taxes because the property is zoned as farmland.
“People are enjoying the tax benefits of the agricultural designation, but that doesn’t give them license to ignore other aspects of the law regarding building,” Lopez said.
A dome-shaped house on a 5-acre lot of agricultural land in Kailua-Kona that was built without permits, county records show. (Courtesy: Steven Lopez/2026)
There is a record of grading permits being approved in 2024 by the Department of Land and Natural Resources for three adjoining blocks in the area, including the lot owned by JKS Solutions.
That could be an indication that other improvements might be planned or potentially are already underway, Lopez said.
But details like those are hard to verify if inspectors don’t actually go onto the property.
There is a recurring issue of property enforcement inspections being stymied by the presence of no trespassing signs, Hawaiʻi County Council Chair Holeka Inaba said.
That underscores the need for Hawaiʻi’s corporation counsel and the county’s building department to discuss more uniform enforcement, Inaba said.
“I mean, you may not need access if it’s an unpermitted structure, you can just see it from the road,” he said.
Vacation Rental Headaches
As in other parts of the state, the management of short-term vacation rentals has occupied a lot of Hawaiʻi County’s time and attention.
In 2019, the county passed a law generally banning those kinds of rentals on agricultural lots built after 1976.
A group of petitioners who owned Big Island agricultural blocks created after 1976 tested that law only to be rebuffed by the county. The landowners and the county then turned to the state Land Use Commission for a ruling, which went the county’s way.
The petitioners then appealed to the state Supreme Court, which found that “short-term vacation rentals undermine agricultural purposes.” That ruling was applauded by Gov. Josh Green as a win for the preservation of valuable agricultural land.
Then in June last year, around the time the county inspector visited Lopez to check out the dome house from his vantage point, the county council passed an amendment to the county code governing transient vacation rentals.
That required people running a vacation rental from their primary residence, known as “hosted rentals,” to register them with the county’s director of finance by this June. Registration of “unhosted” remote rentals had been required since 2019.
Hawaiʻi County did not respond to a question about whether any short-term rental has ever been registered for the dome house parcel.
There could yet be a sequel to the Supreme Court ruling in the form of ongoing litigation over whether the vacation rental ordinance contains a loophole for rentals registered before June last year.
Lopez said all the legal maneuvering points to a looming crisis for the county.
“I’ve been in Kona for 28 years, and this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Lopez said, “but without any enforcement activity by the county, it’s just going to continue to go rampant.”
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