More than 100 people jammed Hauula Elementary School Cafeteria Wednesday night, January 9, to hear a half-dozen developers discuss their plans for thousands of new homes, a handful of hotels, condominiums, and accompanying strip malls and commercial complexes that threaten to transform the coast from Punaluu to Kawela Bay over the next decade.
The special meeting, sponsored by the Koolauloa Neighborhood Board, revealed support for truly affordable housing mixed with widespread anxiety and skepticism that the promises will quickly fade into a reality of increased traffic and congestion, disappearing open space, competition for natural resources, and displacement of long-time residents to make way for vacation and retirement homes for well-to-do newcomers.
Mark Panek, a professor at the University of Hawaii in Hilo who has been research windward development politics, says plans prepared in the mid-1960s envisioned the urbanization of windward Oahu with a deep draft harbor in Kaneohe Bay, light industry in Kahaluu, an oil refinery in Temple Valley, dense Hawaii Kai-like residential development of Waiahole and Waikane Valleys, and a sweeping six lane highway stretching from Kaneohe to Kualoa.
Those plans changed when the city and state, faced with strong community opposition, decided to steer population growth and development to leeward Oahu. The city’s current Sustainable Communities Plan seeks to “to preserve the (windward) region’s rural character and its natural, cultural, scenic and agricultural resources. The region will remain country, characterized by small towns and villages with distinct identities that exist in harmony with the natural settings of mountain ridges and winding coastline.”
But this new round of development proposals is raising fears that developers are aiming to bust through existing development restrictions under the banner of “affordable” housing now that Kapolei’s “second city” is nearing completion.
The developer of the largest project, the expansion of the Turtle Bay Resort with a projected 3,500 hotel rooms and condominium units, once again snubbed the community by failing to appear, as did Continental Pacific, which is planning at least 18 oceanfront luxury homes in Kahuku.
Steve Haug of Hawaii Reserves, Inc., the real estate management and development arm of the Mormon church, said HRI has long-range plans to develop up to 1,500 new homes, on 900 acres that wrap around behind the city’s transfer station and base yard just beyond Laie, including Gunstock Ranch.
Haug said HRI’s focus is on workforce housing for the Polynesian Cultural Center and BYU-Hawaii, with half of the initial 650 units to be affordable. Haug said HRI plans to use shared appreciation leases for its affordable units, while its market priced homes will be sold in fee.
Neighborhood Board chair Dee Dee Letts later said the HRI proposal extends beyond the boundaries of Laie and is really “an entire new town, the town of Malaekahana”.
Moa Mahe and Aaron Campbell described Malaekahana Hui West LLC’s plans for 300 homes on 452 acres located on the Kahuku side of HRI’s proposed project. The company bought the land from Campbell Estate in 2006 for $7.7 million, according to city tax records.
Mahe, owner of the Present Hawaii tour company and the Koolau Business Center , has earned praise for bringing jobs into the area and supporting Kahuku’s sports teams and schools.
State business registration records show Malaekahana Hui West is a Mesa, Arizona-based company registered to do business in Hawaii soon after the 2006 land purchase. The company as a partnership between Mahe’s Pacific Standard Development LLC and the Elbert W Gardner Family Trust, according to Arizona corporation records.
Mahe and Campbell said they also intend to provide affordable homes, but provided no details, saying they are still in the planning process and assessing community needs. However, they have invited people to express interest in the as-yet-unplanned development by joining the Coalition for Affordable Housing, which operates out of Mahe’s offices in the Hauula Kai Shopping Center.
“We’re not developers, we’re the neighbors,” the men said.
Patsy Colburn of Managers Ridge LLC, which plans to build 144 homes and condominium units in Kahuku, said her company started taking deposits from prospective buyers in November 2006 and now has “a long waiting list”.
The development won’t increase traffic or draw more students into area schools because “90 percent of the people are from the community,” Colburn said. But like Mahe,Colburn was unable to provide details of her company’s plans.
Kamehameha Schools, which has 500 acres of agricultural land in Punaluu and residential properties along Kamehameha Highway between Kahana and Punaluu Beach Park, expects its long-term term Punaluu Ahupua’a Plan and five-year action plan to be completed this summer, according to Kamehameha representative Esther Kia’aina.
Creighton Mattoon, who represents Punaluu on the neighborhood board, criticized all the developers for failing to provide the data necessary to evaluate their promises and proposals.
“We ned to see their supporting data for how many homes are needed, what's affordable, how many people can afford the homes,” Mattoon said. “The community needs to know how did they collected the data, if they do have any data. If they have a survey, let’s see it.”
Mattoon said he is also concerned because each of the proposals envisions taking at least some land out of agricultural use.
“We’re going to lose hundreds of acres of ag land,” Mattoon said.
Rev. Bob Nakata of Kahaluu, a community leader and former legislator, called Turtle Bay “the invisible elephant in the room”.
“If Turtle Bay remains in the Sustainable Communities Plan, none of those other things should be approved, because they will drive the Koolauloa population far above levels called for in the General Plan.”
[Reporter Ian Lind has lived in Kaaawa, within the Koolauloa area, since 1988]
[A slightly edited version first appeared in Honolulu Weekly, January 16, 2008]