HILO, Hawaii — A community outcry in Hilo has led to the rejection of a proposed pair of high- impact housing projects.
The Windward Planning Commission on Thursday considered a pair of applications for special management area use permits to build housing near Onekahakaha Road in Keaukaha.
While the two projects are unrelated, and with quite different stated intents, they had two things in common: First, their proposed sites are about 1,000 feet apart from each other, and second, Keaukaha residents found them wildly inappropriate for the community.
The first proposal to be addressed by the commission was by Honolulu resident Tieli Wang, who planned to build one three-story “single-family residence” on each of three adjacent parcels on Machida Lane, a small private road off of Onekahakaha Road just makai of Kalanianaole Street.
Wang’s proposal was to build one residence for the extended Wang family, who would move to the Big Island from Oahu, while the other two residences would be for short- or long-term rental units. However, the proposal noted that the family home also could be used for short- or long-term rentals.
But the scale of the project drew gasps from attendees at the commission meeting. The rental houses would be two 4,560-square-foot houses with five bedrooms and eight bathrooms each, while the Wang residence would be a 6,008-square-foot, five-bedroom, 12-bathroom titan.
“How big is their family?” quipped commission Chair Dennis Lin.
The size of the project in an underdeveloped, low- income area near a charter school and a Hawaii County beach park drew considerable opposition from attendees, who criticized it on sanitation, safety, traffic and aesthetic grounds.
“Machida Lane is a private road; it’s not really serviced by anybody,” said David Owens, who lives on that road. “To add 15 or 20 (bedrooms) at the end of the road won’t work.”
Owens compared the project to the “monster homes” on Oahu — vast houses built in residential areas but subdivided into several small units. Some Honolulu monster homes have had as many as 21 bedrooms in areas not equipped for such density.
Pat Kahawaiolaa, president of the Keaukaha Community Association, noted the proposal stated that the houses would rely on individual wastewater systems — septic systems, in other words — which could compromise the fragile tidal pools near the property.
Former Hilo Sen. Laura Acasio agreed, saying that the porous rock beneath Keaukaha makes it susceptible to saltwater intrusion, which in turn makes septic systems prone to corrosion and could leach wastewater into the ocean.
While the Wang family did not make an appearance, they sent a representative, Val Colter, who seemed no more convinced about the project’s reasonableness than anyone else at the meeting.
“I tried to talk them into something smaller,” Colter said, reiterating multiple times that she is “just the messenger.”
But Colter said the septic systems being developed for the project are aerobic systems whose effluent is so clean as to be drinkable.
While Commissioner Matthias Kusch moved to approve the permit with the caveat that the project instead connect to a county sewer line, nobody seconded the motion. Instead, Commission Vice Chair Louis Daniele moved to deny the permit entirely.
“The road situation seems to be pretty dire,” Daniele said. “I don’t see how they’re going to do anything down there — equipment, vehicles, workers. It looks like it’s going to be a big mess for the community.”
Commissioner Wayne De Luz seconded the motion, saying, “No one is opposed to single-home use. … They’re not saying you can’t build a house; they’re just saying don’t build a hotel.”
The commission voted unanimously to deny the permit, albeit with one commissioner, Chantal Perrin, absent.
The second project fared no better than the first. This proposal, by Niel Jayasinghe of Texas, would build a 41,600-square-foot apartment building containing 17 rental units on a parcel on the north side of Kalanianaole Street, about 350 feet west of Onekahakaha Road.
Unlike the Wang project, the apartment building would connect to county wastewater infrastructure. But, like the Wang project, the proposal was deemed a poor fit for the area. Most of the people testifying against the first project also spoke against the second one.
John Pipan, planning administrator for Land Planning Hawaii LLC, represented the apartment project, saying that it was envisioned from the start as offering entirely affordable workforce housing.
“But they’re not affordable,” said resident Tara Rojas. “This is not of the area. … This is putting profit over people and the environment.”
Commissioner Lauren Balog took note of the proposed rents for units in the building: Most would be two-bedroom units available for between $2,250 and $3,000 a month, with one three-bedroom unit available for $3,500 a month.
“I think that’s a lot of the reason why this community doesn’t see the need for it, because they cannot afford this,” Balog said. “It is not going to benefit them.”
“I don’t think any of those rent amounts are considered affordable in that community,” Lin said, adding that the proposal is offering units affordable for residents making 100% of the area median income, while most affordable housing projects in Keaukaha target ranges as low as 60% of the area median income.
“I don’t know if people even in my district can afford that kind of income,” said Lin, who represents South Hilo on the commission.
Daniele moved to deny the Jayasinghe permit as well, citing the project’s likely impact on the area’s overtaxed traffic and wastewater infrastructure.
The commission again voted in agreement with Daniele, although not unanimously this time: Kusch voted against denying the application.
