Keep the country country-ish
Development / The Koolau Loa Neighborhood Board
Meets Thu., 10/14, 6pm at Hauula Community Center, 54-010 Kukuna Road. The draft Sustainable Communities plan is on the agenda.
A proposal to build a new community in what is now open space in Malaekahana–consistent with a Mormon Church-driven development effort known as “Envision Laie”–has been included in the city’s planning documents for the area.
Under the terms of a final review plan released last week by the Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP), new housing will be constructed to house staff and faculty of Brigham Young University-Hawaii (BYUH), in addition to “about 875 units for workforce housing for existing Koolauloa families,” according to a copy of the plan posted on DPP’s website.
DPP’s new five-year review of the Koolau Loa Sustainable Communities Plan diverges from previous city policy to develop new Koolau Loa housing only in areas “contiguous to existing development.” The new plan states that Malaekahana “is expected to be an extension of the established Laie community.”
The plan does not detail the precise number of new housing units to be built in Malaekahana. Previous estimates submitted by BYUH in its “Envision Laie” proposal call for 1,260 total units of housing.
The new city plan directs that 50 percent of the total new housing should be “affordable to local area residents” and that preference for these units should be given “first to those who live in Laie and Kahuku, and secondly to those who work in the Koolau Loa region.”
If area household sizes remain relatively constant, the total population of the Laie/Malaekahana area would more than double, from just under 5,000 today to well over 10,000–a community roughly the size of present-day Waimanalo.
The new plan for Koolau Loa includes construction of a mauka road, running from Laie Beach Park to Kahuku High and Intermediate schools, “in the first phase of construction.” The road is intended to mitigate the impact of what amounts to a new town along two-lane Kamehameha Highway, where traffic is already a concern.
According to a source, city officials described the draft to community members as having been approved by “the administration.” It was not clear whether the remark referred to the administration of former Mayor Mufi Hannemann or that of the former Acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell. Messages left Wednesday afternoon for both Caldwell, who leaves office next week, and Hannemann were not returned by press time on Monday afternoon. DPP director David Tanoue also did not comment to the Weekly –his office requested questions in writing on Thursday morning, but had not responded by Monday afternoon.
Among the provisions for what the plan calls the “Malaekahana Residential Community”:
• Prohibition of development that would “intrude into defined Malaekahana view corridors, as seen from Kamehameha Highway.”
• Encouragement of mixed-using zoning.
• Maintenance of “rural quality” along Kamehameha Highway “by maintaining generous setbacks and landscaping at the forefront.”
• Encouragement of bike paths.
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