WAILUKU – A&B Properties has released for public review a draft environmental impact statement for Wai’ale, a master-planned community on about 545 acres in Central Maui.
While the project raises the prospect of the construction of more than 2,000 homes in one of Maui’s fastest-growing regions, the development also faces some steep challenges, particularly in gaining access to drinking water and sewage treatment.
A&B Vice President Grant Chun said the project’s tentative design was “informed by the standards and goals of the Maui Island Plan,” which is pending review by the Maui County Council.
The planning and entitlement process is expected to take “many years,” Chun said Monday. Project planners are at the start of working with state officials on the project’s environmental review before seeking a district boundary amendment, he said.
The property is on either side of East Waiko Road, with Kuihelani Highway to the east and Honoapiilani Highway and Waikapu to the west. It is bordered on the north by Maui Lani’s Legends and Traditions subdivisions and the Waikapu Stream to the south.
Plans call for building 2,550 single- and multifamily homes, with land set aside for commercial and retail space, offices, civic and other public facilities, including an 18-acre middle school, a community center, regional and neighborhood parks, and a possible wastewater treatment plant. Now, the land is fallow sugar cane fields, a plant nursery, portions of a cattle feed lot, sand stockpiles and vacant land,
