After months of hearings, Honua‘ula moves forward

Commissioners satisfied with changes made to 1,150-unit housing project

Saying the Honua'ula master-planned community has evolved for the better, the Maui Planning Commission Tuesday granted a key approval for the revamped project which has been in the making for decades south of Maui Meadows.

The commission voted unanimously 7-0, with one member excused, to grant a Project District Phase II Development approval for Honua'ula, which would include 1,150 housing units, of which 288 would be workforce housing.

It was the last discretionary approval needed for the project, though developers still need to file a Project District Phase III Development application, which goes through county vetting.

In addition to the housing units, there will be 24 acres of village mixed use, 103 acres of recreation and open space and 170 acres to be placed in conservation easement with the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust.

It's a different project from the one proposed years ago called Wailea 670, which included more housing at 1,400 units, along with a golf course.

The commission took the vote Tuesday after previous meetings with hours of testimony, as the project has been embroiled in a contested case for around seven months.

"Honuaula is grateful to the volunteer members of the Maui Planning Commission who spent more than seven months listening to witnesses and reviewing documents and who unanimously found that the project meets the legal requirements for preliminary site plan approval," Cal Chipchase, an attorney for Honuaula Partners, said in a statement on Wednesday. "The Commission agreed that the project has listened to the community and evolved in favor of building less and doing more to preserve the land, including having nearly 200 acres of open space and conservation areas, much of which will be actively managed to protect cultural sites and native species while providing access for cultural practices and education."

Chipchase said the project will "make substantial roadway improvements before any market units are built."

Maui Tomorrow, an environmental advocacy organization, and Ho'oponopono O Makena, which wants to preserve and protect cultural and historical sites and wildlife in Makena and surrounding areas, had intervened on the project, triggering the contested case.

After the decision Tuesday afternoon, Albert Perez, executive director of Maui Tomorrow, said in a statement that the intervenors "requested that the project application be sent back to the drawing board, due to its failure to meet affordable housing and mandatory requirements, including cultural sites that won't be preserved, and faulty drainage plans."

"As an alternative, we asked that the Commission use its power to modify the project to include the required 450 affordable units, but were ignored," Perez added.

Regarding an appeal of the commission's decision, Perez said on Wednesday that they are evaluating their options.

He said that the 288 affordable units included in the project were "an insult to the Council's clear intent" when they first approved it.

During past contested case hearings, the intervenors alleged that the project had not followed ordinances from the County Council's passage in 2008 of the District Phase I Developmental Approval, which called for 450 workforce housing units.

This number was based on the 1,400 units proposed in 2008, back when the county's workforce housing ordinance required that 50 percent of a project's units be affordable -- 700 in this case.

The council directed that 250 units be built off-site at a specific location in north Kihei, and that the remaining 450 units be built on-site, according to Honua'ula's findings of fact and conclusions of law.

However, the county's laws later changed and now require that at least 25 percent of the total number of market-rate units be workforce units. Since the project has scaled back to 1,150 units, the 288 workforce units make up 25 percent of the total project.

Chipchase has said in previous meetings that the proposed project has "more than satisfied" what has been asked of the applicant. Commissioners on Tuesday agreed that the developer had made multiple adjustments.

"I think these guys are good stewards, they made those changes. They had everybody walking inch by inch over that property, and adjusted all those things," Commissioner Dale Thompson said prior to the vote.

He noted how Honua'ula took out its initially proposed golf course. While he is a golfer, Thompson said if the golf course had gone though, "there would be a protest," as the community would not like the idea of more water being catered to a course.

He also pointed to the need to widen Piilani Highway in the area from two to four lanes, a project which is tied to the construction of Honua'ula.

"We need our four lanes going to Kihei, that's a major point right there that has hardly been mentioned," Thompson said, adding that "it's still years before a shovel gets into the ground. It's going to go through a lot more discretion."

Commissioner Kawika Freitas said the project has undergone so many changes since it was initially proposed and "we really got to look at it based on what the changes are."

Freitas said any time there was a possibility of getting more workforce housing, "I brought that up as often as I could, to make sure that we checked all the boxes, crossed the t's and dotted those i's, and made sure that whatever the law is ... it was presented by the applicants. I think that will help us with our decision."

"One really, really good thing is I noticed the applicant listened to the community," Freitas added. "There's developers that they say they do and they don't really listen, but they did and they made those changes that really fit that area and I appreciate that. So what was presented I really feel good about what I'm going to decide today."

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.