County Council’s Land Use Committee Meeting Item Had Us Concerned But Passed 5-0 to Imua

Proposed resolution from Molokai’s Stacy Crivello for our South Maui area was very mysterious, so we asked  questions at the LU commission this morning

UPDATE 11/9/18 Now the 11/15 Council agenda has been posted, and we do NOT see this matter there. As far as we can determine the next Full Council meeting is not until DEC 7. So again  stay tuned.

UPDATE  10/31/18  WHAT NEXT?  Since we offered this report to the community, we have received numerous communications asking what will be the next step. We were awaiting official word, but guys kept asking, as so many were not aware of this meeting, this proposal.  So with the disclaimer this is not official- uncertain- TBA and subject to change, our best guess is the matter will be (maybe) on the Full Council agenda (probably) on Thursday November 15. STAY TUNED!

10/23/18 #kihei

Chair Bob Carroll’s first agenda item this morning was resolution LU-72  which asked Maui County’s Planning Commission to change the zoning on land in South Kihei. This motion has us asking who, when and WHY?

The “where” is mauka South Kihei Road just north of Kilohana. The “what” was the change of zoning from open zoning to R-1 (single family homes).

Once again we saw a nine member committee with bare quorum of five participants. While our South Maui member Kelly King advised us she would not attend due to a death in her family, and we understand Elle Cochran was at the White House, we do not know why other two were not present. Our understanding is all motions require five votes, so unanimity would be required for any of the three agenda items to move.

Our concern which was LU-72 was the first agenda item.  We counted nearly thirty public testifiers, the vast majority of those present were concerning the zoning of accessory dwellings, generally called ohanas.

Early on, a member of the apparent owners of the South Kihei land in question, the Ferreira family, Everette Ferreira, as well as the supposed developer, Howard Kihune, Jr. testified in support of LU-72. We believe Mr. Ferreira advised that his family, which has owned the land for most of this century and who were unable to find a buyer, decided to develop it as 100% affordable single family homes. Mr. Kihune stated it was expected to be 28-30 homes. This public testimony alone provided more information than we had about the resolution in the committee’s documentation. We counted two more public testifiers Greg Jenkins in support and Kai Nishiki asking that the matter to be deferred, as KCA did, until our community had more information.

This was the first true government action (there was an item in full Council to refer the matter to this committee back on 9/26/18) to ask the Planning Commission to change the zoning of this land from Open Zone (whatever that means, as no official seemed to be able to define it) to R-1. When we asked the matter be deferred to allow community understanding, and input at this committee, the general understanding of the members was that there would be plenty of opportunities at future administration and Council meetings.

Of course, we know there will be more meetings, but advising the community to keep spending their uncompensated time traveling to Wailuku to keep offering testimony is not pono.

We did reach out to Mr. Kihune and asked to meet with him to ascertain factual information on the proposal for the community, and he readily agreed.

But meanwhile the committee is pushed to send the matter to the Planning Commission, and unanimously did so.