In a report March 14, hearing officer Linden Joesting said that Grand Wailea’s proposal “does not yet meet legal standards.” She said that plans do not completely mitigate traffic related to the project, and that the hotel needs to outline access to the property for traditional and customary Native Hawaiian practices, among other issues.

Joesting, a Maui attorney and former Maui County deputy corporation counsel, also outlined recommendations for the Maui Planning

Commission and the resort’s owner, BRE Iconic GRW Owner LLC, which is seeking a special management area permit for the project that would include the new guest rooms as well as improvements to landscaping, pool amenities, restaurant facilities and infrastructure.

Joesting’s report comes after a lengthy intervention process by iwi protection groups Malama Kakanilua, Ho’oponopono O Makena and Pele Defense Fund, who said they are concerned about further digging that could harm more iwi kupuna on the property where over the last 35 years more than 350 traditional burials have been found, removed, displaced or remain unaccounted for on the luxury hotel site, the groups said. They are also concerned about the impacts to the ocean, and further use of potable water, along with issues of traffic and drainage.

In January 2020, the groups challenged the resort’s proposal. But the process was slowed by COVID-19 restrictions and what the intervenors described as “multiple changes of plans and filings by the luxury resorts’ consultants.” Contested case hearings were held later in 2020 and 2021. Mediation was also held.

The Grand Wailea Resort’s reflecting pool is shown following a property-wide renovation last year. Photo courtesy Grand Wailea

Maui County spokeswoman Mahina Martin said on Friday afternoon that the matter will be taken up before the Maui Planning Commission, but a date will need to be found when all the parties can be in attendance as well as when there is room on the commission’s agenda.

She said the parties involved had 10 days to file their “exceptions” to the hearing officer’s report, which all had done by Thursday. They included the intervenors, BRE Iconic and Maui County.

The Maui County Planning Department did recommend approving the project with conditions in 2019.

The groups continue to maintain that no permit should be given “without a plan to clean the ocean and a promise to stop any more digging to protect burials and expand the burial preserves.”

“Mary Kawena Pukui defined our ancestral burials as our most precious possessions,” Clare Apana, head of Malama Kakanilua, said in a news release last month. “We entered into this case to stop the common practice of building on our known burial grounds and irreparably harming iwi kupuna.”

Palikapu Dedman, head of the Pele Defense Fund, also said in the news release that “the law needs to stop archaeologists and county agencies from being the intentional desecrators of our kupuna for building projects.”

“It’s all about dig, dig, dig,” Dedman said. “You’ve got a burial mound by a parking garage at Grand Wailea where over 200 kanaka burials were stacked up in 1991. This desecration was used to justify the digging up and moving of iwi kupuna from all over the 40-acre hotel site.”

“We urge the entire Planning Commission to demand this project reveal its true impacts and halt any further digging in south Maui’s largest traditional kanaka burial ground,” he added.

Ashford DeLima, who is the president of Ho’oponopono O Makena and was born and raised near the Grand Wailea site, said he remembers the abundance of fish at the beach.

“The ulua were blue, like the clean water — now they stay brown to match the polluted runoff that the resort makes,” he said.

He added that the “saddest thing” is the iwi kupuna are not able to rest as they should “when bulldozers and developers archaeologists threaten to bother them yet again, or put them in confined spaces with tall concrete buildings blocking the ocean, mountains, the stars, even the sky.”

William Meheula, counsel for Grand Wailea, a Waldorf Astoria Resort, also expressed support for Joesting’s report in a statement Friday morning.

“The hearing officer’s report was welcome confirmation of Grand Wailea’s enhancement plans and commitment to being a good steward,” Meheula said. “We agree with almost all of the recommendations, including that iwi kupuna and cultural resources are unlikely to be impacted, and have submitted a response largely supporting the report and demonstrating the project has satisfied the necessary conditions to proceed if approved by the Maui Planning Commission.”

J.P. Oliver, managing director for the resort, said that for more than 30 years the hotel “has been a driving force for good in the local economy” as one of the island’s largest employers with nearly 1,200 team members and partnerships with 75 local businesses.

“This enhancement will allow us to grow our positive impact with hundreds of new jobs during construction and additional permanent hospitality positions after the project is completed,” he said.

The resort also added that the project’s scope was reduced by nearly 40 percent from original plans “to reflect community members’ feedback and avoid ground disturbance in areas of archaeological or cultural sensitivity.”

The new units will be added to the expanded Wailea and Haleakala wings, which would remain the same height, and within two new floors added on the existing Chapel and Lagoon wings, the resort said.

It also added that it has implemented a comprehensive water conservation plan that has reduced daily water usage by more than half since 2018.

The resort also said that in 2022, it reduced water use per occupied guest room by 18 percent compared to 2021 and saved 1.77 million kilowatt-hours of energy in total, a 2.23 percent reduction in electricity consumption per occupied guest room.

BRE Iconic Holdings bought the 776-room luxury hotel in April 2018 for a reported $1.1 billion, which at the time was reportedly the second highest price paid for a hotel in the U.S.

BRE is another name for the New York-based Blackstone Group LP, a private equity firm. The hotel remains under the management company of Waldorf Astoria Management LLC. It is one of the island’s largest hotels by room count. The hotel opened in 1991.

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reachd at mtanji@mauinews.com.