Another new condominium project proposed for South Maui, Kamaole Grand

#kihei #KamaoleGrand

1/3/17 The Administration’s Urban Design Review Board (UDRB) hearing this morning commenced with Kamaole Grand. While the address is 2455 South Kihei Road (SKR), that is just a proposed entrance way to the seven building, 217 unit condo project which would be located between SKR and the newly opened Liloa Drive.

In spite of KCA’s outreach to the owners representative weeks ago, there was no communication with us, so no opportunity for our Design Review Committee to proceed with our acclaimed smart growth scorecard before this morning’s meeting. Additionally we asked the County Planning Department about communication with the developer, and the planner advised they recommended this, but are unable to force them to do so. Lastly, the contracted planning consultant, Chris Hart and Partners (CHP) has consistently brought all Kihei projects they handled to KCA, but not this one. This raised a red flag for us as we approached this morning’s meeting at 10:00 AM, where Mike Goshi of Design Partners of Oahu is requesting a Special Management Area Use permit (SMA) which is legally required due to the area proximity to our precious kai.

After the presentation by CHP’s Raymond Cabebe, two area residents offered testimony, preceding KCA’s Linda Berry, who addressed several of our concerns including no meeting with KCA. Other environmental concerns will all be addressed in the KCA smart growth scorecard (*see below).Two UDRB members encouraged such communication and both Mr Goshi and Mr Cabebe publicly announced they fully intended to do so. Mr Goshi mentioned the scheduling of this morning’s meeting occurred much sooner than expected.

At the close of this segment, Senior planner Ann Cua uttered her first words at the meeting by advising that the department used to encourage developers in Kihei to meet with KCA, but no longer does so, partially because after such KCA committee and public meetings, sometimes nearby residents claimed they were not aware. We found this interesting as when developers apply for an SMA permit, required for all development makai of the Highway, it was our understanding that they were legally required to notify all entities within 500′ of the project. Shortly after the UDRB segment concluded, Mr Cabebe of CHP in a spirit of cooperation and community, scheduled a meeting with the KCA Design Review Committee Chair for January 19, 2017.* Here is where scorecard is used  See  https://gokihei.org/wp-content/uploads/KIHEI-ADVANCED-SCORECARD-2015-111.pdf