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Email: "Future of proposed project at Laau Point is unclear"
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MAUNALOA, Molokai — Despite announcing layoffs of 120 Molokai Ranch employees Monday, a day later it remained unclear whether ranch officials intended to abandon plans for the Laau Point housing development — plans that divided the community for the past few years.

The Laau Point development would consist of 200, 2-acre lots for wealthy homeowners as well as a number of community improvements. But opponents of the plan say the area is considered sacred, and the exhaustive public discussions about divvying up the land wound up splintering the community.

State Land Use Commission Interim Executive Officer Rod Maile said the commission was notified by landowner Molokai Properties Ltd. after the Feb. 22 deadline for public comment on its draft environmental impact statement that the company would be submitting a final environmental impact study for the project.

“As far as we know, the (plan’s required) district boundary amendment is still pending,” Maile said. “When they decide to submit is up to them.”

Maile cautioned that people can’t read into the company’s lack of action either way.

The Community-Based Master Land Use Plan for Molokai Ranch proposed to set aside more than 50,000 acres for preservation and agricultural easements in perpetuity.

Several residents and opponents of the plan on Tuesday said they see closing the ranch as a ploy by the landowner to get the community to swallow the development in return for keeping jobs on Molokai.

Officials from Molokai Ranch and its parent company in Honolulu, Molokai Properties Ltd., did not return numerous messages left by The Maui News on Tuesday. A former spokeswoman for the company said she was told the landowner would not be making any further comment at this time.

However in his letter to employees Monday, MPL President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Nicholas never said the company was abandoning its plans to pursue development at Laau Point. Nicholas also said shutting down ranch operations was purely a business decision connected to large deficits and stubborn community resistance.

“This will also be a bitter blow to (Master) Plan supporters, whose main interest in supporting the Master Plan have been a sustained economic future for Molokai,” Nicholas wrote to employees Monday. “However, as we have mentioned on many occasions, without the prospect of an economic future for the company that results from the implementation of all facets of the Master Plan, we are unable to continue to bear large losses from continuing these operations.”

Karen Holt, executive director of the Molokai Community Services Council and a Laau opponent, said ranch critics believe Molokai Properties and especially its Hong Kong-based owner, GuocoLeisure Ltd., are finished with Molokai.

“So far, there isn’t any formal announcement that they are abandoning their plans, but it sounds like they don’t think they will be able to continue here without Laau,” Holt said. “Our working assumption is that it’s over. We think that, but they haven’t said it.”

According to Gov. Linda Lingle’s office, the company stated that its net loss from 2001 to 2006 has been about $37 million. Molokai Ranch maintains about 800 head of cattle as well as a golf course, the 40-room Kaupoa Beach Village and 22-room Molokai Lodge.

Molokai has a population of about 7,500. Molokai Ranch is the island’s largest private employer, said Maui County Council Member Danny Mateo, who holds the Molokai residency seat.

“Hopefully, people will come together,” said Jimmy Duvauchelle, who has worked at the ranch for 42 years and supported the Laau proposal. “It was a good plan. So my question is, what do we do now? Start all over again? They had our opinion. We had ours. Now, it’s time to put our guns down and come together again.”

Molokai Properties executives and some community leaders argued that the Laau deal would put land ownership back in the hands of Native Hawaiians. Otherwise, the landowner might need to sell it all off piecemeal.

Anakala Pilipo Solatario has been the Molokai Ranch cultural adviser since 1980 and came out in opposition to Laau. He said he was diverted by his bosses to another task so he wouldn’t be at Monday’s meeting.

“I hope we get something out of all this that will benefit everyone other than the big developers who ignored procedures,” Solatario said. “I was happy because I knew they wouldn’t get their plans . . . I think they’re using this for a scare tactic to get the governor and state to step in and save them from drowning.”

In the past, Nicholas has said that Molokai Ranch is not for sale.

Still, for the past nine months Holt has helped organize a fundraising campaign, Ho‘i I Ka Pono, to purchase the ranch. UPC Wind Partners has pledged $50 million toward acquiring the properties, which could be worth several hundred million dollars.

On Tuesday, state Sen. J. Kalani English, whose 6th District includes Molokai, said he was also discussing with lawmakers whether the state may try to purchase the property. He compared it to Gov. Linda Lingle’s effort to buy the Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore of Oahu for more than $300 million.

Lingle spokesman Russell Pang said the governor has not discussed purchasing the Molokai property.

“The owners of Molokai Ranch should reconsider its decision to stop operations and find alternatives that will ease the severe economic and emotional impacts this decision brings,” said U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono.

The Molokai Ranch master plan was completed in late 2005 after two years and nearly 150 public meetings. The final environmental impact statement was presented to the commission for approval in October. During the hearings in November, Molokai Properties retreated when commissioners moved to reject the 3,000-page document.

In early December, the landowner then told employees that it would cut costs by 15 percent as a direct result of the failure to win state Land Use Commission approval of the ranch’s final environmental impact statement and $4.5 million in losses in the past year.

“I think they acted like they’d have their way or else this whole time, and just decided to pick up their ball and go home,” said Molokai charter fishing boat Capt. Mike Holmes. “That’s just too bad.”

Now, Molokai Ranch will be “mothballed” as of April 5, according to Nicholas.

English said he found the use of the term “mothball” interesting.

“I don’t think they’re withdrawing the (Land Use Commission) application,” English said. “My instincts tell me that they’ve got too much invested in it to leave it in limbo.”

• Chris Hamilton can be reached at chamilton@mauinews.com.

 

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