Affordable homes planned on Maui
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor
WAILUKU, Maui — Maui developer Sterling Kim said he hopes to offer homes in a new Waiehu subdivision for less than $200,000.
That would be welcome news to residents who have been squeezed out of Maui's heated home-buying market, where the median home price has topped $600,000.
"It will be priced lower than anyone has seen before, for people with the lowest percentage of median income," Kim said yesterday.
Kim's Hale Mua Properties LLC is proposing to develop the 240-acre Hale Mua subdivision with 238 affordable single-family house-lot packages, 209 market-priced lots, 19 larger lots, three parks, and a new wastewater pump station.
The project includes $15 million to $20 million in off-site infrastructure improvements, the most noteworthy of which is an extension of 'Imi Kala Street with a new bridge crossing 'Iao Stream.
The project site is on former macadamia nut farm land mauka of Kahekili Highway, above the Waiehu Terrace and Waiehu Heights subdivisions. Kim said he expects to present the project to the Maui County Council for rezoning early this summer. State Land Use Commission approval also is needed.
If all the approvals and permits fall into place, Kim said construction could start this fall, with occupancy in early 2007.
The affordable lots are proposed to be a minimum of 5,000 square feet. The homes, which will have approximately 1,100 to 1,200 square feet of living area, will be built under the county's zero-lot line regulations that allow homes to be placed close together on smaller lots.
The affordable house-lot packages will be sold with a buy-back clause to prevent resale for speculative purposes.
The fee-simple market-priced lots will be approximately 10,000 square feet, while the 19 larger lots will range from 2 to 25 acres to create a sense of open space, Kim said. It is too early to predict prices on these lots, he said.
To ease the traffic flow through Wailuku town, Hale Mua Properties is proposing to extend 'Imi Kala Street from its current terminus at 'Eha Street to intersect with Kahekili Highway. A new bridge over 'Iao Stream would be required to do that.
The extension would allow motorists to bypass the traffic logjam in Wailuku town, sending cars past the Wailuku Post Office and onto Mill Street. The county is planning to acquire an old cane-haul road that runs behind St. Anthony School that would carry motorists from Mill to Wai'ale Road and out onto Honoapi'ilani Highway, the island's main route to Lahaina.
Kim said a lot of the credit for the project belongs to Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa, who has made affordable housing one of his administration's priorities. He said he was able to work with the mayor to devise infrastructure improvements early in the planning process to address anticipated concerns over traffic and other issues, and to help the project proceed more smoothly through the approval process.
Arakawa said Kim was "a real gem in wanting to work with us from the beginning on the infrastructure challenges.
"We're looking at all the infrastructure. It takes time to put it all together as a package. We're not waiting for somebody else to tell us what needs to be done," he said.
The mayor said that along with Kim, he has been working with Maui Lani, A&B Properties and a host of other developers to provide a new traffic corridor through Wailuku. The area is experiencing a home-building boom with new projects by Hawaiian Homes, Maui Lani, Kehalani, Spencer Homes and others. In addition, Arakawa said the county is in discussions with developer Stanford Carr over a 70-acre affordable housing project that is also in the Waiehu area.
Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.
