Gov. Neil Abercrombie has released capital improvement funds for the state's Villages of Leiali'i affordable housing project in Lahaina and the Maui Memorial Medical Center, both identified as "priority projects" by the Legislature.
Abercrombie also released state grants-in-aid funding for Hana Health Medical Center.
The long-planned Villages of Leiali'i, which dates back to 1990, will receive $750,000, according to the Governor's Office.
It will be used "to complete the design of a permanent production well and pump station to serve as a potable water source."
Earlier this month, the Maui County Council's General Plan Committee voted to include the project area - near the Lahaina Civic Center - within the proposed urban-growth boundaries for West Maui in the draft Maui Island Plan.
The Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp., the state agency charged with overseeing affordable housing development, said that the state had spent $29 million on infrastructure for the project to date.
Plans for Leiali'i were halted in 1993, when the Office of Hawaiian Affairs sued because the project is sited on ceded lands. State officials say the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that the state has the vested title on the lands.
But because the state Legislature has since passed legislation that requires a supermajority in order for the state to sell ceded lands, the homes built on the site would be sold as leasehold.
The governor also released $347,561 in capital improvement funds for Maui Memorial, which will be used for "additional construction for the interior building space located under (the hospital's) helipad, including installation of fire protection system, electrical, plumbing and mechanical infrastructure."
The two Maui projects were part of about $17 million in capital improvement funding released statewide.
The Hana health center will receive a $900,000 grant-in-aid from the state, which the center says was initially appropriated in 2010.
The money is slated for planning, design and construction to expand the rural community's only medical facility.
"We've totally outgrown our facility to the point where we have several trailers outside to accommodate services," said Hana Health Executive Director Cheryl Vasconcellos. "The medical center is over 45 years old, and it was never designed as health center . . . so it's really very obsolete and can't accommodate the new technologies that we want to have."
