{"id":15527,"date":"2023-12-01T10:54:11","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T20:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=15527"},"modified":"2023-12-01T10:54:12","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T20:54:12","slug":"long-stalled-project-in-west-maui-could-house-thousands-of-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=15527","title":{"rendered":"Long-Stalled Project in West Maui Could House Thousands of Families"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lahaina needs housing. Even before the firestorm that tore through Lahaina in August, housing for the people who worked in the hotels, shops, and other businesses in West Maui was scarce and expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 3,700 homes in the area were damaged by the fire, including nearly 1,700 that were totally lost, according to insurance claims made by mid-November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet land that was approved for more than a thousand homes and apartments three decades ago has yet to see the first building go vertical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The land in question sits above the condos and golf courses of the Ka\u02bbanapali resort. In 1993, then-landowner Amfac petitioned the Land Use Commission to remove two tracts of land \u2014 one 60 acres, the other around 240 acres \u2014 from the state Agricultural District and place them in the Urban District. Under an agreement Amfac had with the Housing Finance and Development Corporation, pursuant to Act 15 of the 1988 Legislature, 60 percent of the 1,700 housing units to be built on those two tracts would be affordable to households at various levels of the area median income, ranging from 50 percent AMI up to 140 percent AMI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2008, the successor landowner \u2014 Ka\u02bbanapali Land Management Corporation (KLMC) \u2014 had decided it was no longer feasible to pursue the 1993 plan, as development costs \u201cwere expected to far exceed anticipated revenues from the sale of developed units,\u201d the LUC was told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, then, the LUC amended its redistricting order, essentially bifurcating the project. The more mauka portion of 240 acres, to be called the Pu\u02bbukoli\u02bbi Village Mauka (but more recently, just Pu\u02bbukoli\u02bbi Village), would be developed with fewer housing units and a reduced percentage of affordable options. Instead of the 1,300 units originally planned, there would now be 940. Instead of a requirement that 60 percent be affordable, a new agreement involving KLMC, Maui County, and the Hawai\u02bbi Housing Finance and Development Corporation called for 51 percent to be affordable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agreement did not, however, address the affordability quotient for the smaller \u201cPu\u02bbukoli\u02bbi Triangle\u201d area. As KLMC has told the LUC in its intermittent \u201cannual\u201d reports, the triangle area is now being incorporated into the much larger Ka\u02bbanapali 2020 Master Plan, covering around 1,160 acres. That plan, work on which began in 1999, is apparently still a work in progress, even though an environmental impact statement preparation notice (EISPN) was published in 2002, and another EISPN published in 2005. As explained in the latter document, the earlier EISPN named the Maui County Department of Planning as the accepting authority. But, while preparing the draft EIS, multiple factors triggering environmental review were identified, the 2005 EISPN states. As a result, KLMC was withdrawing the earlier EISPN and was substituting the newer one, which identified the Land Use Commission as the accepting authority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2005 prep notice described a plan that would add 2,810 housing units spread over some 600 acres and increase areas of golf courses and open space by 319 acres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To carry out the master plan, the EISPN states, a number of entitlements are required:<\/p>\n\n\n\n