As Others Pulls Back, Spencers Pushes Ahead

Cows graze near the intersection of North Kihei Road and Honoapiilani Highway. Fields mauka of Maalaea Harbor Village are being eyed for an affordable housing project. Photo lifted from Maui News; taken by Amanda Cowan

This article was originally published on Maui News:

Jesse Spencer, who is just finishing up his 412-lot Waikapu Gardens affordable housing project, wants to repeat that success – but more than twice as big – at the project district called Maalaea Mauka.

Other developers may be pulling back, but Spencer said, “I can do this with conditions as they are now.”

Mike Atherton, who is selling Maalaea Mauka to Spencer, thinks so, too.

“Jesse’s unique. He builds true affordable housing,” Atherton said Monday.

Buyer and seller are in a 45-day due diligence period, but Spencer hopes to close in September and break ground within a year after that.

He is sure he will be opposed but hopes to find a sympathetic forum in the County Council, which would have to approve the use of 260 acres of former sugar cane fields above Honoapiilani Highway and mauka of the Maalaea Harbor Village complex.

“I’m going to try for a pricing structure for 60 to 70 percent affordable,” under Hawaii Revised Statues 201H, Spencer said.

The newest version of the state’s affordable housing law allows the Housing Finance and Development Corp. to exempt an affordable housing project from most state and county land-use requirements, although both the County Council and the Land Use Commission would have to review the application.

Waikapu Gardens, approved in 2004 under the previous version of HRS 201G, was planned to be 50 percent affordable, although Spencer Homes sold several designated as market units at affordable prices.

Even if it were to go through the normal rezoning process, Maalaea Mauka would be required to comply with the county’s Residential Workforce Housing Policy, mandating a minimum of 40 percent of new units in a residential project to be affordably priced. The policy applied to the Honua’ula/Wailea 670 project district, which was designated in the community plan and was granted zoning approvals by the council.

Continued  at Maui News

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