URGENT: YOUR EMAIL TESTIMONY IS NEEDED BY 12 NOON TOMORROW (FRIDAY, 2/18) TO PROTECT HONUA‘ULA

Please support citizen groups who want to be YOUR VOICE before a bad development plan is approved for 670 acres between Maui Meadows and Mākena Golf course. Let Maui Planning Commission know you support Maui Tomorrow and Ho’oponopono O Makena being allowed to intervene on the massive Wailea 670 /Honua‘ula development project as it seeks its FINAL permit that will have public review.

Back in 1988, a group of developers proposed a new 1,400 home development to be built in the open rolling hills and lava flows above Wailea Resort. Half of these homes were to have been affordable. Today, this land is owned by Honua‘ula Partners, LLC, which plans to convert these beautiful 670 acres into 1150 units of condos, apartments, luxury view lots, and commercial spaces that will total more area than the Maui Mall. Now only 288 of the homes will be affordable.

After years of citizen efforts, we now know that the Wailea 670/Honua‘ula area holds remarkable natural and cultural resources, including:

• A rare dryland forest with thousands of native plants and creatures – some even endangered! – but the current preservation plan doesn’t hold anyone accountable if they are destroyed.

• Thousands of Hawaiian archaeological features – a preserve was created, but many features are still unrecognized and unprotected in official State preservation plans because they have been “delisted” from data bases.

• Natural gulches that carry huge storm water flows to the lands below and the ocean – as Kīhei and Wailea residents know, this is very important for drainage and cultural practice.

The developer wrote an Environmental Impact Statement for this project back in 2012, but the project plan has changed so much, and the impacts will be so different that this is essentially a different project.

• Providing less than half the affordable homes means that more expensive homes will be built and there will be less benefit to the community.

• The current plan will creating more runoff with less area for stormwater to percolate into the ground. County drainage standards are not adequate to prevent the flooding that already occur whenever it rains Upcountry.

• Extensive areas of hard “blue rock” may require blasting to create 46 drainage retention basins. This would violate the Wailea 670 Project District Ordinance requirement that required developers to work with “natural landforms.”

Please email the Maui Planning Commission at planning@mauicounty.gov by noon tomorrow, February 18, 2022, and ask for the following:

“Please allow Hoʻoponopono O Mākena and Maui Tomorrow to intervene in the contested case for the Project District Phase II Approval for the Honua‘ula Project (formerly Wailea 670). These nonprofit community groups have important information to bring to the table that will enable the Maui Planning Commission to make a better informed decision, so that the project will comply with the law and minimize impacts as originally intended.”

We have ONE more chance to stop Honua‘ula Partners, LLC from destroying this precious place, so we need everybody to speak up.

Mahalo for helping to protect Maui’s future!