The long-debated Honuaʻula master-planned community project is returning to the Maui County Council’s agenda for its regular meeting on Friday. The “hot button” issue has been whether to approve the developer’s request to remove a requirement to build 450 affordable units in the South Maui project district development.
Council Member Keani Rawlins Fernandez is proposing an amendment to keep all 450 affordable units in the project district. The draft amendment stems from “hundreds of testifiers” who’ve demanded that developers build, at a minimum, 450 units to fulfill commitments to provide housing for residents as a condition of receiving land entitlements.
Council Member Tamara Paltin and Rawlins-Fernandez have submitted draft amendments to extend the length of time for deed restrictions for residential workforce housing units. Council Member Gabe Johnson is calling for giving lottery preference on workforce housing units to Maui residents, ranked by their length of residency and income level.
According to a report from the Housing and Land Use Committee, chaired by Council Member Tasha Kama, the panel recommended approval of proposed amendments to the development’s project district and a change of zoning.
Among other things, the committee recommended requiring all residential workforce units to be built on-site and capping the total number of units at 1,150, down from the previously approved 1,400. The panel voted to remove references to 450 affordable units in the Kīhei-Mākena Project District 9 ordinance. The bill also eliminated provisions for a golf course and related facilities, instead incorporating cultural and educational centers as permitted uses. The project area is mauka of Wailea and adjacent to Maui Meadows.
The committee’s recommendation last year came with the support of the Council’s five-member “majority”: Committee Chair Kama, Council Chair Alice Lee and Council Members Yuki Lei Sugimura, Tom Cook and Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins. Minority members were opposed: Council Members Paltin, Rawlins-Fernandez, Johnson and Shane Sinenci.
This is not the first time the measures have appeared on the Council’s agenda. The bills were set for first-reading action on Dec. 13, 2024, but the measures were taken off the agenda because of a “procedural requirement.”
Because the bills had not had a public hearing in South Maui, the Council paused its consideration of them until the procedural requirement was met, Lee announced at the time.
What followed was an official public hearing by the Maui Planning Commission at the Malcolm Center in Kīhei. The commission saw a standing-room-only crowd on March 11. The commission heard nearly six hours of testimony, with public comments running about 9-to-1 opposed. According to commission records of the 66 testifiers, 58 (87.9%) opposed the development and/or the proposed land-use changes. Their concerns included reducing the project’s number of workforce homes and objections to the prioritizing luxury homes over affordable housing.
Six testifiers (9.1%) supported the proposed changes. They maintained that any increase in housing inventory would help mitigate Maui’s housing crisis. Proponents also highlighted the project’s potential to generate construction jobs for local workers. Some of these supporters represented construction labor unions, asserting that they had the backing of hundreds of union members.
Ultimately, the commission voted 5-2 on March 25 to recommend approval of the project amendments. The Planning Commission recommended finding a way to build approximately 50 affordable workforce housing units in conjunction with the state Department of Transportation’s widening of Piʻilani Highway.
The debate over requiring affordable housing within Honuaʻula project comes as Maui residents continue to wrestle with a dire housing shortage, worsened by the August 2023 wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes.
Since June 9, council members have heard many hours of testimony from hundreds of people on Bill 9, which attempts to convert thousands of vacation rental units, primarily in South and West Maui, to long-term residential housing in apartment-zoned districts.
Housing availability has fueled that controversy, pitting residents’ need for housing versus the private property rights of vacation rental owners. Decision-making on Bill 9 is expected sometime next week.
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