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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, November 3, 2005

Board seeks 'Ahuimanu plan delay

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward O'ahu Writer

KAHALU'U — The Kahalu'u Neighborhood Board will ask the city to delay issuing any more permits to a planned 44-unit subdivision in 'Ahuimanu until its concerns are addressed.

Aiello Development Group LLC plans to build the Woods at 'Ahuimanu on 15.4 acres of land, subdividing the property into lots of 10,000 to 35,000 square feet. It presented its plan to the board last month.

The board wants the city Department of Planning and Permitting to review a list of residents' concerns before issuing any more permits, said George Okuda, board chairman.

Okuda said the board will request the following: reduce the number of houses; eliminate streetlights from the plan; expand the water runoff retention basin; assure residents that leach fields in the project will be adequate for the added septic tanks; limit grading to 5 acres at a time, and improve 'Ahuimanu Road, which leads up to the project.

"We're telling them to delay issuing the building permit until they can address the concerns and resolve some of the problems," he said.

The neighborhood boards are advisory panels to city agencies and carry no power to execute their request.

Aiello Development said it has met stringent requirements for the subdivision including designing state-approve septic tank systems with a backup in place. The retention basin was designed for the amount of water flow running through the subdivision, which meets all city and state regulations, said Peter Aiello, project manager.

Aiello said the project is well within the parameters of the city's sustainable community plans.

"The advisable density, specifically within the area we're developing, should be between two and eight units per acre," he said. "With 15.4 acres and 46 lots we're at three units per acre. So we're definitely at the low end of the sustainable community guidelines."

Regretfully the city has said it won't delete streetlights from the plan, Aiello said.

As far as the road is concerned, it is the city's responsibility to improve it and the development has no control over it, he said, adding that his company has pledged to work with the neighborhood board to see what can be done about the 1 1/2-mile road, which has no curbs or sidewalks.

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com.