COM 0163.012 2010-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

THE MAUI LANI RISE: Developer raises grades, blocks views of neighbors June 12, 2006 By VALERIE MONSON, Staff Writer Save I © SNARE r_ KAHULUI - How much fill Is too much fill? And, how can high can you go? Those questions are troubling neighbors of rapidly rising Maui Lani subdivisions while stirring controversy for Maui County Council members and officials of Mayor Alan Arakawa's administration. Residents of old -time neighborhoods along Nakoa and Palama drives say they are alarmed to see views from their homes obstructed by upcoming subdivisions in Maui Lani that have risen 15 or 20 feet above the natural grade because the developer has dumped hundreds of truckloads of fill into what had been low -tying areas. That means the new houses will get coveted ocean views while longtime residents, most of them local people who have never owned another home, will be faced with a towering neighbor. "This is a total shock," said Hyram Heu from the home he's lived in since small -kid time in the 1960s. "I knew about the golf course, and I knew about the plan to build the first group of houses that went up several years ago (The Island), but that didn't bother me because I knew we had the gulch and all the kiawe trees in there separating us." That gulch, however, has been cleared and filled with mill mud from the old Pala Sugar Mill, a substance that has been questioned by other neighbors because it could be laced with chemicals, including arsenic. Across from lieu's house, the level of the fill has been built up so high that the new plateau is above some of the Palama Drive rooftops - and that's without the two rows of two -story houses expected to follow, making the finished height possibly 50 feet or more in places. On the other side of Maui Lani, residents of Nakoa Drive were just as startled as Heu to see the gulch behind their homes begin to climb, too. Filled with sand from another part of the development, the 108 -lot subdivision has been raised to the point that some of the neighbors - many of whom have lived in their houses for 30 years or more - say they've already lost their ocean and mountain views. Both projects appear to conflict with a portion of the Maui County Code, which was amended In 1991 to limit the height of a building to no more than 30 feet above "the natural or finish grade, whichever is lower." The code was changed specifically because a new owner in Kuau had artificially elevated his lot to give him views that his neighbors previously enjoyed. But since Maul Lanl got its Project District Phase I and Phase II approvals from the County Council and the Maui Planning Commission more than 25 years ago - when building heights could be determined from the final, altered grade - the developer was given the green light to proceed under the old ordinance by v1AUI- LANI- RIS... THE MAUI LANI RISE: Developer raises g Mayor Alan Arakawa. The mayor told The Maui News that he reached that decision after meeting with county attorneys and other members of his staff last year when the issue came up. "We talked about what position we could defend in court because of the change of rules," said Ara -kawa. "Approvals were given to Maui Lani and the owner progressed on the assumption that those approvals were valid. You can't apply rules that weren't in place when it was approved. In court, we'd get killed." The mayor's decision drew fire during a council Planning Committee meeting last week in which residents of Nakoa Drive pleaded their case. Some council members were outraged that it appeared Arakawa had approved the old building heights on his own. There was even talk among council members about launching an investigation and, if wrongdoing were found, to possibly take the mayor to court. "What authority does the mayor have to contradict the county code ?" asked Council Member Michelle Anderson, who said it was "reprehensible" that developers were allowed to create such hardships on existing residences. Arakawa said it was a decision he didn't enjoy making. "There will be traumatic effects on individuals, but how can you Interpret this in any other way ?" he said. "I'm not going to disagree (that the existing homeowners won't suffer), but we had to make this decision based not on any one project but for the county." The two Maul Lani parcels are owned by separate limited liability corporations that are headed by the same man, Val Peroff of Oahu. Peroff was on the Mainland last week and unavailable for comment. Project Manager Jack Wat -kips also could not be reached. The mayor said he worried that the county could get caught up in another "Montana Beach" lawsuit in which taxpayers ended up spending more than $4 million for an oceanfront development near Paia because previously issued permits were rescinded. "We're not arbitrarily making the decision;" said Arakawa. "We're looking at facts based on the law." If the current ordinance were enforced, certain homes in the new subdivisions might be Limited to 10 feet or less because of the 20- foot fills already in place, "making some of these lots undevelopable," Arakawa wrote In a letter to Peroff. "To resolve this conflict, I made an administrative decision to allow the project to proceed with building heights determined from finished grade," the mayor concluded in a letter he signed May 31, 2005 - 11 days after 17 residents of Nakoa Drive sent a petition and photographs to Arakawa complaining about the rising sea of land behind their homes. In apparent response to the controversy, the Planning Department has proposed a change to the county code that states that the 1991 amendment would not apply to site plan approvals granted with a spedai management area permit or approvals of Project District Phase II or Planned Development Phase II. The Maul and Lanai planning commissions have recommended adoption of that language, but the Molokai Planning Commission stilt wants to review any project that intends to use the finished grade as its base. The situation at Palama and Nakoa drives - Palama runs along the Kahului edge of Maui Lani and Nakoa follows the Wailuku boundary - has stirred up other concems regarding the county's policy in approving grading permits, either at the department level or during the public review process. Because projects are usually in their early stages when they get their entitlements, decision - makers often have no idea what the final lay of the land will look like. The huge increases in elevation at Maui Lani have taken most everybody by surprise. Planning Director Mike Foley declined to comment for this story, referring all questions to Ara -kawa. But he shed some light on the MAUI- LANI- RI5.__