Goodfellow Bros. plans employee housing
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Goodfellow Brothers Inc. is taking housing for its employees into its own hands.
Working with Pacific Rim Land Inc., the construction company is hoping to help its employees obtain home ownership with the development of 30 single-family units on 8.5 acres of land in Waiehu.
"With the rising cost of homeownership and a critical housing shortage on Maui, many of these employees, most of whom are long-time local residents, face significant barriers to securing stable, long-term housing," Pacific Rim wrote in its application.
The Maui Planning Commission is scheduled to review the proposal for Pacific Rim's Hunan Homes Workforce Housing Project at 9 a.m. Oct. 13. Maui Planning Department Director Jacky Takakura has recommended approving the project, requiring a district boundary amendment and rezoning.
Vehicle access to the project would be through an extension of Haunani Place and include curbs, gutters and sidewalks on both sides of the street, along with underground utilities. The plan calls for landscaping to include native and Polynesian-introduced plants.
At a minimum, the houses would be on 6,000-square-foot lots with a typical house to include three rooms and two bathrooms, Pacific Rim said.
Pacific Rim said no federally endangered or threatened plant species were found and no native birds were seen.
The Planning Department said the project is not in the tsunami inundation zone and well above sea-level rise exposure.
While the land is classified and zoned agricultural, it is designated for future use as residential in the Kahului-Wailuku Community Plan.
The department said the proposed project will not have a significant impact on the demand for water or on traffic.
Prior archaeological studies noted the sand dunes Waiehu and environs were the prime location for burials and that extreme caution should be taken in developing these areas.
According to Pacific Rim, the cultural management resource firm Pacific Legacy conducted an archaeological inventory survey from Feb. 17 to 27, and 27 test trenches were excavated as part of the work. Pacific Rim said no iwi kūpuna or Hawaiian burials were identified.
The county and state have been developing affordable workforce housing on Maui. An affordable rental project designed to help keep educators on Maui opened this year.
After the 2023 Lahaina Wildfire, the Maui-based developer Dowling Co. built the $20-million, 47-unit workforce housing development.
The temporary Ke 'Ala Punia housing project opened in April by the Department of Education near Princess Nahienaena School. The 5-acre site sits above Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary.