By ILIMA LOOMIS, Staff Writer
reprinted courtesy Maui News 2/26/09
SPRECKELSVILLE -- Developers - and their opponents - are making last-ditch appeals for changes to the draft General Plan, as a deadline to vote on the document looms Saturday.
A town at Olowalu remains one of the most debated issues, with ocean advocates warning that development could spoil one of West Maui's last healthy reefs. And residents of an earlier project in the area turned out to warn that the developers left infrastructure unfinished and didn't deliver on promises.
Olowalu Town developers Bill Frampton and David Ward said they weren't involved in managing the now-disputed Olowalu Mauka subdivision, but pledged to work with the owners to help resolve issues. They said they were committed to developing their proposed Olowalu Town as a green, smart-growth project with extensive community input.
The county Planning Department continues to oppose the project, applauding the design but saying Olowalu is a bad location.
The General Plan Advisory Committee on Tuesday gave an initial thumbs-up to including the 1,500-unit Olowalu Town in the General Plan, along with a scaled-down version of Maui Land & Pineapple Co.'s Pulelehua, and other major West Maui project areas.
The advisory committee is scheduled to resume deliberations at 5 p.m. today at Kaunoa Senior Center, and is expected to make a final vote on the plan at a meeting starting at 10 a.m. Saturday at the same place.
The committee's deadline to complete its recommendations on the plan is Monday. The plan must then be passed by the Maui Planning Commission and the Maui County Council before it takes effect.
The developers of the 14-lot Olowalu Mauka included owners Peter Martin and Jim Riley. Frampton and Ward were later hired by the developers as consultants. Buyers at Olowalu Mauka have complained that the developers never delivered required infrastructure, including an intersection at Honoapiilani Highway to enter the subdivision.
Martin and Riley are now partners with Frampton and Ward on the proposed Olowalu Town.
Olowalu Mauka resident Jan Ehrenkrook warned that the developers were "synonymous with empty promises."
"The bottom line is, infrastructure has never been completed, and we begged them and begged them," she said.
"They have not done what they said they were going to do, and they cannot be trusted," said resident Randy Ragon.
But Frampton and Ward said they had no involvement in the original development, and while they were hired later as consultants, they never had any decision-making authority on Olowalu Mauka.
They said their contract with Riley and Martin gives them the right to pursue entitlements and an option to buy Olowalu Town, and authority to do the project on their own terms.
"We made it very clear that if we were going to go forward, we were going to do it with a different approach," Frampton said. "We'll stand proud all day long next to our word."
He added that he and Ward were helping to facilitate a resolution to the Olowalu Mauka dispute, and that the developers had agreed to pay for an intersection at the entrance to the project.
But Ragon remained skeptical, saying the developers had promised an intersection before. He said he felt it was disingenuous for Frampton and Ward to try to distance themselves from Martin and Riley when they were very much intertwined.
"They're partners," he said. "If you're separate, you're separate."
Planning Director Jeff Hunt said that at this point the Olowalu Mauka issues appear to be a private dispute between the community association and the developer.
While mauka residents opposed Olowalu Town, residents of the lower Olowalu village turned out Tuesday to support the project.
Native Hawaiian activist Bumpy Kanahele, who spoke for Na Kupuna O Maui and noted his own deep family roots in the area, said the vast majority of residents in the village supported the plan, and noted most mauka residents were "transplanted" to the area.
He applauded the traditional ahupuaa plan, affordable housing and self-contained community design of Olowalu Town.
"I don't see how they can be turned down," he said. "Our kupuna believe in that project."
Advisory committee member Hinano Rodrigues, who also has family roots in Olowalu, urged his colleagues to respect the wishes of residents, who for generations lived in the shadow of sugar plantations.
"After 200 years, give us the right to self-determination," he said.
Other committee members were fans of the project design.
"I love the idea," said committee member and South Maui state Rep. Joe Bertram III.
But some were skeptical.
"We're still waiting for many of the things that (developers) promised," said advisory panel member Lucienne de Naie.
Fellow member Wallette Pellegrino said she was torn.
"You could be a model for how community planning should occur," she told the developers. "And you could also be the worst disaster to happen to this Hawaiian community."
* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis @mauinews.com.
reprinted courtesy Maui News 2/26/09
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