By HARRY EAGAR
Staff Writer
WAILUKU -- The Maui Planning Commission approved zoning and/or community plan amendments for 13 parcels at Wailea Monday, but it deferred action on the two that created the most concern.
The commission said it wanted applicant Wailea Resort Co. to show an effort to get community consensus behind those two. However, time is short.
Because of the way commission rules are written, the commission has only 60 days to make a recommendation to the County Council. (The council has final say on zoning; the commission's role is to make recommendations.)
If the commission does not make a recommendation within 60 days, the application goes to the council without one.
The two troublesome parcels are a lot of about 14 acres between the tennis center and Wailea Ekolu condominiums and the lot under Wailea Shopping Village. It too is near condos, Wailea Elua.
Condominium residents mounted a letter-writing campaign against those two changes, described by several commissioners as ``overwhelming.''
The hearing was particularly complicated. Wailea was seeking nine amendments to the community plan, three Land Use Commission district boundary changes and 13 zoning changes.
And some, the shopping village for example, have more than one kind of zoning.
Most of the changes were simple, some merely regularizing zoning for existing developments.
Wailea was started as a planned development, in the days before the county had ``project district'' zoning. The building that is now a Chart House restaurant was listed in old maps as ``clubhouse,'' but there is no such zoning.
Wailea Resort wants to change that to business-resort.
While that was not controversial, questions were raised about other commercial applications, and about requests to move to B2 business commercial, not business-resort, on most of the lots.
John Strack, manager at Wailea Elua, said he was speaking for his residents in questioning the amount of new commercial development, ``rather than the resort atmosphere they have now.''
Speakers also brought up the community plan, yet to be finally adopted, that lists several spots in Kihei as preferred nodes for commerce.
But Barry Rand of Wailea Resort said the commercial projects would not be ``like South Kihei Road.''
The resort's contention is that no new commercial space has been added since the 1970s, when Wailea contained only two hotels, one single-family subdivision and two condo projects.
The resort has grown tremendously since then, and now has many residents whereas in the past it had mostly visitors.
Those residents would like the convenience of a post office, doctors and dentists offices and similar services, Rand said. However, office uses are not permitted in business-resort.
Hence, the requests for B2. However, as commissioners pointed out, B2 allows 63 kinds of operations, some incompatible with a vacation resort, such as warehouses and stadiums.
Rand said Wailea Resort would be willing to have conditions eliminating some normal B2 uses. He also answered residents' concerns about heavier traffic by saying, ``We cannot maintain (the resort's) standing . . . if passengers are stranded in traffic.''
The new traffic plan includes new signals at intersections and connection of some existing streets into through roads.
Rand said the resort company and representatives of residents are working on ``CCRs'' (covenants, codes and restrictions) that would add more limits than zoning does. Commissioners said they would like to see those CCRs before deciding on the two parcels near the condos.
The CCRs cannot be formally adopted until the resident groups hold their annual meeting in March, but drafts should be available sooner.
Commissioner Joe Bertram said that if the new commercial areas are truly going to be low-key and not like South Kihei Road, the resort has to do a better job of persuading the residents of that.
``They don't want to wait until it's built to see what it is,'' he said.
The Planning Department recommended approval of the applications, but with several conditions, such as increased setbacks or height limits, where the zoning would permit six-story buildings and no setbacks.
The commission voted to recommend changes on 13 lots but deferred Parcels 5 and 16 -- the lot near Ekolu and the shopping village. Commissioner Barbara Long said the applicant should ``try for community involvement.''
The commission voted to defer those two requests, meaning the resort would have to reappear before the panel within 60 days to try again for a favorable recommendation.
Wailea Resort says its new comprehensive plan will reduce overall density from the current layout by thousands of residences and hotel rooms.
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Psy 412 Miami University. Last revised: . This document has been accessed times since July 15, 1997. Comments & Questions to R. Sherman .