Guest Commentary.

The General Plan Committee has finished its review

of the MIP and is forwarding it’s committee report

and proposed plan to the full council.

Here are some of the most significant differences:

1.  The whole Implementation chapter plus the

Appendix with all the needed CIP projects has been

completely left out with a hope to get it passed “next year”.

So the plan has no financial component.

2.  Most of the maps at the end of each chapter

have been reduced in importance by renaming them

“diagrams”, and by stating that these maps have no

force of law and are merely for “informational purposes”.

This includes the transit corridors.

3.  All of the “Protection Areas” on the maps have

been given the lowly status of not enforceable by law. 

These include: Greenways, Green Belts, Parks,

Preservation Areas, and Sensitive Lands.

4.   The GPAC and the Maui Planning Commission

worked hard to construct Urban and Rural Growth

Boundaries that would provide more than enough area

to accommodate all of the needed demand for housing units,

but NOT so large that it would become very costly for

the County and State to provide the needed infrastructure.

   Unfortunately, The General Plan Committee has not bothered

to consider infrastructure costs and has greatly expanded

those growth boundaries to satisfy the requests of a number

of developers, none of whom provided any details on what

they are planning to do within these expanded boundaries.

The following are just some examples: 

  390 additional acres for Makena Resort’s luxury homes;

  200 acres above the Waikapu golf courses for luxury homes;

  230 acres around the Ulupalakua Ranch headquarters;

  ALL the remaining open space between Wailuku and Waikapu;

 330 acres around Haliimaile for A&B and ML&P.

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You can find the committee report and the proposed plan here:

 http://www.mauicounty.gov/Archive.aspx?AMID=201

HERE ARE THE DIRECT LINKS: