WAILUKU – Sixty years ago, when Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. was drawing up the plans for Dream City, its managers foresaw the day when Kahului would extend to what was then called Waiale Pastures.
That time is still years off, but it is close enough that A&B Properties has filed a preparatory notice with the Land Use Commission in anticipation of an environmental impact statement for reclassification of 545 acres on either side of Waiko Road.
“This will be a yearslong process before we are able to do anything physically on the property,” A&B Properties Vice President Grant Chun said Wednesday.
The proposal calls for about 2,550 dwellings, with village mixed-use, commercial and light-industrial areas, a regional park, community center, neighborhood parks, sites for a cultural preserve, a school and related infrastructure. In other words, something similar to Maui Lani, which lies along the northern boundary of the new area.
The project extends in a rough triangle, with a long frontage on Kuihelani Highway. A&B does not own a section north of Waiko Road that is being rapidly developed for light industrial uses. Its plan would include another 16 or 17 acres of light industrial in the area.
Chun describes the area as mostly flat, sandy and never cultivated. Tenants are using much of the land for cattle.
There has been a preliminary archaeological inventory and a proposed burial treatment plan that has been accepted by the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Historic Preservation Division, Chun said.
A supply of water is to be determined. Chun said the project does not depend on going forward with the joint A&B-Department of Water Supply Waiale Road surface water treatment plant, although that would be one possibility.
Unlike Maui Lani, no golf course is planned. At Maui Lani – originally an A&B concept although it was sold to Bill Mills who did the actual development – the golf course also serves as the drainage system. Chun said it is too early in the process for civil engineering decisions to have been made.
The land is designated for urban development in the county general plan, but it does not have a community plan or zoning yet.
The petition to the state land use panel asks to change the state classification from agriculture to urban. Such petitions are contested cases, with lengthy evidentiary hearings. No date has been set for the first hearing.
The petition (Docket No. A10-789) is available for review at the Maui Planning Department offices, Kalana Pakui, on South High Street.
