Judge Rules that Developer Cannot Separately Evaluate Projects Comprising the Remaining 135 Acres of Wailea
Hoʻoponopono o Mākena, Maui Tomorrow Foundation, and Sierra Club of Hawai‘i prevailed today in their lawsuit in Maui’s Environmental Court. Maui Circuit Court Judge Kirstin M. Hamman invalidated the Maui Planning Commission’s approval of an environmental assessment for the Wailea SF-S project, a proposed development consisting of 57 luxury second-homes, aimed at part-time residents, each with its own private pool and guest unit, on 23-acres located between Kilohana Drive and Okolani Drive, in the traditional ahupuaʻa of Paeahu. The project is one of several which parent company Ledcor has been marketing as the “Wailea Hills Collection.” Together, these projects comprise 135 acres, and include most of the remaining undeveloped lands in Wailea. Although the developer maintained that the projects were separate, the judge found that environmental review for the Wailea SF-S project was legally required to encompass all of the projects together. Judge Hamman also enjoined the Maui Planning Commission from issuing additional permits for the project that would be premised on the invalidated environmental review documents.
“The judge understood the grave consequences that could result if projects like this were allowed to separately evaluate impacts on our ʻāīna,” said Carol Lee Kamekona of Hoʻoponopono o Mākena, a recognized cultural descendant of Honuaʻula. “Her ruling lends support to our call for evaluation of impacts to the entire traditional cultural property of Paeahu, including the waters and fishing grounds, which extends far beyond the boundaries of this particular parcel. This ruling will help us to do better for our ʻĀina and our Lāhui.”
Lucienne de Naie, Chair of Sierra Club Maui Group, celebrated the win, saying, “This ruling much more clearly defines what is considered ‘segmentation’ under the new environmental review rules, which were revised in 2019. The judge agreed with us that the Maui Planning Commission was not given enough information to make an informed decision regarding the impacts of the project. We believe that the developer should now prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement that includes all of the remaining projects in Wailea.”
Albert Perez, Executive Director of the Maui Tomorrow Foundation, commented, “The developer had proposed multiple luxury developments near each other in the Wailea area, and claimed that they were unrelated, but the judge was very clear that these separate projects comprised a group of actions that needed to be evaluated as a single program. The judge also refuted the developer’s arguments that the other projects were ʻspeculativeʻ and therefore not part of a program, by pointing to the fact that there were development memoranda, traffic improvement requirements, and other agreements, which were all premised on the future development of multiple parcels in Wailea. Judge Hamman stated that this is the type of piecemeal review that environmental review was intended to prevent.”
Plaintiffs were represented by attorneys Bianca Isaki and Christina Lizzi.