State Official: [megamall] “Plan clearly different”

A state Office of Planning official said that developers of two large retail centers and 250 affordable housing units in Kihei should have filed a motion with the state Land Use Commission to amend conditions placed on the parcel that was initially proposed as a light industrial park.

“This is a clearly different project than was initially proposed,” planner Rodney Funakoshi told state land use commissioners Friday at the Courtyard Maui Kahului Airport hotel.

Funakoshi was one of the last witnesses in the evidentiary portion of the state LUC’s ongoing “show cause” proceedings on whether the retail centers and housing development proposed by Eclipse Development Group of California are in compliance with 20 conditions imposed in 1995 when the panel granted a land reclassification from agricultural to urban to former landowner Kaonoulu Ranch for a light industrial development…

Read the entire article at Maui News

Planning Director Will Spence was called as a witness in the state Land Use Commission’s ongoing “show cause” proceedings to determine whether the projects are in compliance with 20 conditions the body imposed in 1995 when granting a land reclassification Kihei project from agricultural to urban.

“It’s the county’s position that there has been no breach of any of the conditions,” he said.

Spence’s testimony is key because as director of planning for the county, he has a statutory obligation to enforce orders by the Land Use Commission….

Read this second article at Maui News