New Development Updates

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There have been a variety of articles in the Maui News over the last 4 or 5 days related to development on Maui that I thought were worth linking to on the blog. A couple of the articles dealt with broader subject matters that will impact development as a whole on the island while there have been a couple of articles that are development specific. Here is a quick run down on the latest from the Maui News.

The most significant article may have been on the unveiling of the latest draft of the Maui County General Plan. Members of the General Plan Advisory Committee as well as members of the general public were able to see the latest efforts of one of the General Plan subcommittees last Saturday. The plan included recommendations on a number of subdivisions that have been proposed. Some major subdivisions were incorporated in the plan, others were scaled back and some were omitted altogether. The plan is not finalized at this point. There is a deadline of March 1 for the plan to be presented to the Maui County Planning Commission. They will review the plan for six months. At that point, the plan will be forwarded to the county council for their review and approval. The plan is subject to changes throughout this process. The General Plan advisory committee should be posting the plan at some point in the next couple of days on the county website.

The Workforce Housing ordinance is another subject that has the potential to impact new development on Maui. This ordinance was enacted a couple of years back. Essentially, it mandated that proposed residential developments of five homes or more should designate between 40 and 50% of the total units as affordable housing. Those units do not have to be in the same location as the development, but they were to be in the same community area. The Maui News reported that the Maui County Council reviewed the ordinance last week and invited speakers to participate. The speakers included both developers and local government agencies and non-profits that deal with affordable housing issues. The range of opinion was mixed, but many thought the ordinance merited some tweaking if it was going to be truly effective as a means of generating additional affordable housing inventory on island. Developers had issues with the restrictions imposed by the plan. The county council will discuss this issue again at their next meeting to determine if changes are in fact needed.

The state will start reviewing a proposed development in the Waikapu area just South of Wailuku town. Pu’unani would cover over 200 acres and would offer a mix of single family and multi-family housing. The proposed development has submitted a draft environment impact statement for review from the state. It is also subject to planning commission and county council review before it may be approved. It appears to face a hurdle in that it has not been included in recent drafts of the county general plan. Check out the Maui News article for more details on the development.

Today’s article is on a new development in Kihei that received SMA approval. The 25 lot subdivision received approval from the Maui Planning Commission yesterday. It will be located in the Waipuilani Road area of Kihei. The developers of the Sunset Estates subdivision will be creating building ready lots and will not be including home sales in the purchase. The lots will not have a homeowners association, but they will have building guidelines to be followed that were developed as part of the agreement to permit the subdivision.

We will continue to follow new development issues as they emerge on The Maui Real Estate Blog. As always, feel free to contact us with any questions on Maui Real Estate.

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