Makena project hearing to resume
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau
WAILUKU, Maui — The hearing on Makena Resort's controversial rezoning request enters a protracted third week today with Maui County Council members scheduled to take up where they left off in the wee hours of Friday morning.
Council members heard testimony from 187 speakers and then deliberated for more than 50 hours over the past two weeks — including Thursday's late-night session that stretched until 3:30 a.m. Friday. The council's Planning and Land Use Committee is expected to continue working on conditions designed to temper the impact of a zoning change that would allow 150 acres of condos and apartments and a 28-acre time-share project just south of the company's Maui Prince Hotel.
Council members are considering more than 45 conditions, including requirements for the Makena Resort Corp. to develop its own water source, to hand over an 11-acre oceanfront parcel for a public park and to build affordable and employee housing equal to 25 percent of its market-priced homes.
Committee Chairman Wayne Nishiki said the length of the hearing is not surprising considering the implications for Maui. Not only must leaders consider the impact on water resources, affordable housing, the marine environment, cultural preservation and traffic, he said, but it will set the tone for other major projects waiting in the wings.
"Regardless of where you live on Maui, the council's action on this zoning application will have major impacts on many generations to come," Nishiki said. "This landmark decision will go a long way toward defining life on Maui in the future."
But some have accused Nishiki, who has been a bane to developers throughout his political career, of using his leadership position to drag out the process. At times during the lengthy hearings, testy colleagues have threatened to revolt in an effort to speed things along.
Councilwoman Charmaine Tavares said there are a variety of reasons why the meeting is taking so long. One of them is because county ordinances have not kept up with the times, she said. If the county's planning laws were updated in regard to affordable housing and energy efficiency, for example, council members wouldn't have to spend so long crafting new conditions.
The proposal, the first major resort project planned for Maui since the late 1980s, also comes at a time when affordable housing and drinking water are becoming increasingly precious commodities on the Valley Isle.
"If this would have come to us seven years ago, it would have sailed through the process," Tavares said.
Television also may have a role in the meeting's length. With gavel-to-gavel coverage on a local cable-access channel, Akaku, critics have suggested some council members are angling for television time. At other times, information known to council members has been repeated expressly for the sake of television viewers.
The television cameras were still rolling at 3:30 a.m. Friday. Nishiki had said he had wanted to finish that night but, with progress still moving slowly, exasperated committee members recessed until today, when they will meet from 9:30 a.m. to about noon. The council, now working around almost daily budget hearings, may meet Thursday night, according to staff members.
If and when the committee approves the rezoning, the governmental review won't be over. The same nine members, sitting as the full County Council, must approve the plan, and each project that emerges from the zoning will face special management area permit hearings before the Maui Planning Commission.
Reach Timothy Hurley at thurley@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.
