Maui residents reject “greedy and deceitful” luxury development

By Yiming Fu, Report for America corps member

A luxury development project in South Maui is hoping to ram its way through Maui County Council’s approval process after cutting over half of its affordable housing units.

Locals are saying no.

Wailea 670, a proposed single- and multi-family housing development in the Honua’ula Preservation Area by Wailea, originally pledged to make 700 of the 1400 units affordable. It recently reduced the number to 288.

“We need this 700,” Hawaiian cultural practitioner Carol Lee Kamekona said. “Our people need housing, but not the majority luxury that our people can’t afford.”

At a 9:00 a.m. Maui County Planning Commission meeting Tuesday, over 80 community members packed a small hearing room to testify against the development. With online testimony, the meeting stretched more than ten hours, late into the night. 

Local activists organized members to show up to the meeting because it’s the last step before the plan goes before Maui County Council. The county is known to rule in favor of developers, and local activists feel a bit more hopeful the planning commission will walk the project back.

The original proposal includes 700 affordable homes with 700 market rate homes. On Maui, “market rate” means expensive — the median home price on Maui in February 2025 was $1.2 million. The proposal also promised to widen the two-lane Piilani highway to four lanes and to pay $5 million for a South Maui community park.

Maui County Council approved the development with a 5-4 vote in 2008, with many council members citing the 700 affordable units for their green light. 

Now, Wailea 670 seeks the go-ahead with a completely different plan. Residents criticized the lack of affordable housing as local families have to leave Maui in droves. They also criticized the developers’ unwillingness to contribute to widening the Piilani. Developers are now saying they’ll do it later or they’ll fund it with the Department of Transportation with taxpayer dollars. 

Critically, the Wailea 670 will also be built over Iwi Kūpuna, Hawaiian ancestral remains.

Fair and legal on paper

A testifier from the Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters said the housing is fair and developers are not taking advantage because they’re building 58 more affordable units than Maui ordinances require.

The testifier emphasized that the outside developers are doing everything legal and by law. In fact, these homes will help buy local people time and create work opportunities for locals, he said.

“The longer we prolong projects like this, our local people will suffer. Regardless, people from out of state will come here to buy homes.”

Another testifier from the Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters said 288 affordable homes is better than zero.

“And market rate, we talk about it as if we come at it with a poverty mindset, but who is to say that local people cannot be in those places?” he said. 

Native Hawaiians are facing the most acute barriers to remaining in their ancestral home, Ka Wai Ola news reports, as Hawaiians only earn $0.84 for every $1 earned by everyone else in Hawaiʻi.

For many, the only way to remain in Hawaiʻi is to double up with mom, dad, and tūtū; the Ka Wai Ola news report writes, with census data showing Native Hawaiian households are crowded at twice the rate as everyone else.

One in every four Native Hawaiians born in Hawaiʻi has moved away.

Building for who

Kamanao’i’o Gomes, a Lahainaluna class of 1998 alum, worked in construction for many years but left when he realized he was only building homes for outsiders, not local families. 

He thinks those speaking out in support of the development from the Council of Carpenters were paid to testify with pre-written scripts. Gomes believes some construction workers often prioritize their jobs over affordable housing. 

Gomes said Wailea 670 is another example of outsiders bamboozling Native Hawaiians since 1893, when the Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown. He has attended three meetings about Wailea 670 and testified twice against the project, saying it feels rushed. From his experience at the three meetings, it seems like 98% of testifiers are against this project.

“You know what happens is we’re getting gentrified,” Gomes said.

From Lahaina, Gomes compared it to what’s happening in his hometown with outside investors trying to buy up the burn zone. 

“I see a lot of the corruption, I see a lot of the disrespect to the Hawaiian culture and that pisses me off,” Gomes said. “I thought we handled this the first and second time already, we just gonna find something fair and work things out. But we’re still here again. And we’re working with a county council that seems not to have the community’s best interest at heart.”

Gomes called on the county to fix the amendments or scrap the plan entirely. 

Maui County Council Chair Alice Lee scheduled a special council meeting last December during the winter holiday to fast track the Wailea 670 development. Special county meetings during the holiday season are intended for emergencies and crises, not to meet with developers.

However, councilmembers were able to return the project to committee by emphasizing the lack of consultation with Maui County’s Department of ʻŌiwi Resources.

The Cargill Group and Lehman Brothers, the project developers, have since added a proposal to build a cultural center.

But Kamekona doesn’t think outside developers will do a good job creating a respectful cultural center.

“Whose culture will it highlight?” Kamekona said. “What narrative will be told? Will it tell of all the desecration of archaeological sights and iwi kūpuna to build this project?”

No further amendments, Kamekona said. The project needs to be passed exactly as it was promised, with affordable housing, highway widenings and parks for the kids to play in. So, the next generation of Hawai’i can not only survive but thrive.

“As a recognized cultural defendant of the moku of honua’ula and for the sake of my kupuna and for this ʻāina, I say to you Maui planning commissioners, have the will to enforce as much of the original proposal of this project by denying any further amendments.”