Hungry for Housing

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WAIKAPU - Housing developer Jesse Spencer has completed the last of 411 homes at Waikapu Gardens, and now he is setting his sights on a much bigger fast-track affordable housing project at Maalaea Village, formerly known as Maalaea Mauka.

Spencer had 140 people working to build the Waikapu Gardens homes, but he said he has had to lay off 120 of them. If he can get government authorizations for Maalaea Village, he said he could start building within four months and "keep 150 people working for seven to 10 years."

He will have to get past Planning Director Jeff Hunt first.

The Maalaea Village project - 257 acres, 1,000 units - is designated residential in the South Maui community plan, but Hunt is pressing to change that to open space in the revision of the county land use plans.

In July, Hunt said his position on Maalaea Village was based on concerns about the development's location, its impact on infrastructure and a desire to maintain a green, open-space belt between Maalaea and Waikapu.

Spencer said he visited Mayor Charmaine Tavares, who told him she will support her planning director, even though she voted when she was on the County Council to overrule then-Mayor Linda Lingle when the latter vetoed moving the agricultural land to urban use in the last revision of the community plans.

The land is zoned agriculture and needs both county zoning and a state boundary amendment change from the state Land Use Commission.

Spencer proposes a 201-H accelerated permitting process, with at least 60 percent of the units affordable.

He also plans to develop a small, central commercial center, with a lot for an elementary school and two ball fields. With a central local commercial center for residents, no one would have to walk more than three-quarters of a mile for errands, he said.

The property is across Honoapiilani Highway from the Maalaea Harbor Village complex and runs for 1.7 miles along the West Maui Mountains side of the highway toward Waikapu.

Water would come from three wells already drilled, and wastewater would be treated on-site, with reclaimed effluent used for irrigation within the project, and perhaps also to create a green belt on state land above the project. Spencer said he is talking to the Department of Land and Natural Resources about that.

In the summer, he announced he was negotiating to purchase Maalaea Mauka from Mike Atherton, who had bought it along with other former C. Brewer lands stretching back toward Maui Tropical Plantation. Atherton retains the plantation, which he is planning to transform into a coffee farm.

Spencer said he is getting mixed signals from the county: positive from Housing and Human Concerns, negative from Planning.

He is eager to get moving, partly because he is 78 years old, partly because he wants to put his crews back to work and partly because he still has 3,000 names on his applicant list from Waikapu Gardens.

Many are still house-hungry, he said last week, but many have moved away.

Spencer said he would like to repeat the technique he used at Waikapu Gardens, where most of the homes were sold at subsidized rates, with the rest at market prices. However, with the market homes, Spencer was able to choose who he sold to, and he chose to sell to some people he thought were deserving who were unable to qualify under the affordability guidelines.

Financing is not a concern for him. He owns the wells and the land free and clear, and his plan is to build in 100-home increments, not starting each increment until he has prequalified buyers lined up for mortgages.

He delivered Waikapu Gardens at the peak of Maui's residential housing market, at pre-peak prices for the affordable homes.

"I'm not trying to maximize profit," he said of his new project, although "we're going to make some money."

Spencer said he figures he contributed as well to increasing the stock of rental housing, since "all but about six or seven" of the Waikapu Gardens houses were sold to Maui residents. Even of those sold to Mainlanders, half were bought by parents for children living and working on Maui.

By turning renters into homeowners, he says he opened that much rental housing.

* Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.