WAILUKU, Maui - The shop itself might be tiny, but a proposal to rezone and expand the 94-year-old Hanzawa's Variety Store has grown into a big controversy in the usually laid-back Kaupakulua community.

Some of the neighbors who oppose the project say they aren't ready to accept a compromise that's been proposed, and store owner Matt Daniells said he's exhausted and near the end of his rope after spending five years and more than $100,000 on his zoning application so far. Both sides say they're sad that the dispute has led to angry words and hurt feelings between neighbors in this small, rainy corner of Haiku.

"We only had great respect for Mr. Hanzawa," said Leina Shirota-Purdy, who owns land opposite the store and grew up within walking distance. "It's just sad, because we're all longtime friends, and it's come to the point that we're just not friendly anymore."

Matt and Sandy Daniells, who is a descendant of the store's founder, had proposed an 800-foot expansion of the store and the construction of three small commercial buildings nearby. The Daniellses applied for rezoning and state land-use district boundary amendments on 2 acres for the project.

The couple also are asking for land-use changes for 1.9 acres they propose to subdivide into two residential lots.

They have said the expansion is needed in order for the business to remain viable.

The property currently is zoned "interim," and apparently was left out of a comprehensive rezoning of the area that gave other pre-existing businesses in Haiku and Upcountry commercial zoning in the 1990s.

Opponents of the project largely have objected to the proposed commercial buildings, saying they supported rezoning for the store itself.

At a meeting of the council Land Use Committee this week, the Daniellses said they would agree to give up the three separate commercial buildings if they could be allowed to double the size of the existing store to 6,344 square feet.

The meeting was recessed Wednesday and will reconvene at 9 a.m. Monday. The owners of Hanzawa's Variety Store will need to get at least seven votes for their application to pass, due to a successful petition effort by opponents.

Shirota-Purdy said doubling the size of the store would lead to the same kind of commercial expansion her family opposes for the area.

"We're not accepting that," she said.

She said her family's main issue with the project was a concern that it would change the agricultural character of the area.

"We do not want to change our little area of Kaupakulua," she said. "That's where we grew up, that's why we live in the country."

Other issues include the concern that commercial expansion would bring additional traffic to narrow, winding Kaupakalua Road, and fears that allowing Hanzawa's to rezone would open the door in the future for A&B to develop around 250 acres nearby.

Shirota-Purdy also objected that Hanzawa's would be allowed some exemptions to subdivision requirements, including dedicating a 10-foot roadway lot along its portion of Kaupakalua.

She said her own family was in the process of applying for a family subdivision and would need to comply with those requirements.

"They're not having to do that, which we find very unfair," she said.

Will Spence, a consultant to the Daniellses, said that, because the store was built within the roadway setback years before current subdivision requirements were put in place, if they had to provide an urban-style roadway dedication, the building would need an extensive overhaul in order to bring it up to code.

He also noted that the project included changes to improve road safety, such as eliminating existing parking stalls along Kaupakalua Road that require drivers to back out into traffic.

A&B has made no application to develop its land in the area or have it included as a growth area in the Maui Island Plan, and the Daniellses have presented a letter from company officials stating that they do not intend to develop the land, he added.

Matt Daniells said he was feeling frustrated and worn down after investing so much more time and money in the application than he had bargained for, and facing so much bitter opposition.

"The stuff they're throwing out there really doesn't have anything to do with Hanzawa's. Safety issues, the road - it has nothing to do with us," he said, saying only that the county could fix the condition of Kaupakalua Road.

The Daniellses' proposal has drawn many people from the Haiku community to testify both for and against the project, but many of the project's opponents have come from Shirota-Purdy's family, which owns land surrounding Hanzawa's.

"They're saying it's the whole community, but this one family is organizing petitions and such against us," Matt Daniells said. "I don't know what the vendetta is."

The animosity and accusations had his wife "in tears" at some meetings, and the stress was taking a toll on her health, he said.

"Sandy is the heart and soul of the business, and she's really losing her passion," he said. "It's really sad the treatment she's been getting from people she's known since childhood."

Shirota-Purdy acknowledged that much of the opposition to the project came from her family members but said that was because her extended family represents the single-largest neighbor to the Hanzawa's property.

"We've lived there a long time. My family has been there since 1950. I grew up there, my mother was raised there, and that whole area surrounding the store, our family practically owns that whole area," she said. "Granted we're one family, but we're one family with many people."

After growing up nearby, with memories of walking through her family's pastures as a child to buy ice cream at Hanzawa's, Shirota-Purdy also felt sad that the dispute had caused a rift among longtime friends and neighbors.

Throughout the controversy, she said, she and her family members continued to patronize the store but now get angry looks and comments about their opposition to the project when they shop there.

"It's gotten to the point that it's unbearable for us to be even neighborly anymore," she said. "We're in that position where you have to decide, are you just not ever going to go in the store again."