WAILUKU, Maui (AP) — The owner of a plantation on Maui who is looking to turn the property into a development with small businesses and more than 1,400 homes expects the project’s environmental impact statement to be submitted for review
WAILUKU, Maui (AP) — The owner of a plantation on Maui who is looking to turn the property into a development with small businesses and more than 1,400 homes expects the project’s environmental impact statement to be submitted for review this week.
Plans for the development near Waikapu include developing about 500 acres around the Maui Tropical Plantation, building a 12-acre school, 82 acres of parks and open space and 200,000 square feet of commercial and mixed-use areas.
Owner Mike Atherton said he is ready to hear feedback from the public about the project.
“I’ve always been with the public,” he said. “I want all the input I can because I want to be able to build this little town with all my heart and soul.”
Atherton announced plans for the development last April, and said the outline for the project has not changed much since then. However, the recent announcement from Alexander &Baldwin that it would close Hawaiian Commercial &Sugar Co. by the end of the year will cause “economic hardship,” he said.
The company said all 675 people who work for its Hawaiian Commercial &Sugar subsidiary will be laid off. About half will be retained through the end of this year’s sugar harvest.
“We lost our biggest tenant, HC&S, 1,600 acres of sugar cane that they leased from us – by far our biggest,” Atherton said. “It was devastating. I had no idea.”
Atherton said he plans to spread about half the agricultural acres among local farmers already at the plantation. The rest will go toward the 500 acres for the development as well as raising cattle and growing coffee trees.
“We’re in the real estate development business, but we try to be good stewards of the land at the same time,” Atherton said. “I tried to come up with a complete project, and I hope the people of Maui understand that, and the EIS explains that. I mean we have an 800-acre conservation easement that stops urban sprawls in its tracks on Waiale Road.”
