According to the Maui News:
The Texas-based landowner of a controversial 700,000-square-foot retail shopping complex in Kihei has taken over development of the project and plans to change its concept to a “mixed-use” development with business, commercial and residential uses, a representative for the project said Tuesday.
The Land Use Commission originally approved a zoning change from agricultural for a “light industrial” development with frontage road. When the project dramatically changed to a Big Box Store mall, Maui Tomorrow and others initiated legal action to require compliance with the LUC conditions. The LUC sided with Maui Tomorrow and asked the owners to show cause why the land shouldn’t revert to agricultural zoning.
“The project (before) was almost exclusively retail. It was an outlet center,” said Charlie Jencks, a representative for the project Tuesday. “This is a different project. What we’re proposing is a mixed-use project. . . . This really, truly implements the original vision, which was a mixed-use type of project.”
Jenks also said the developer, Eclipse, is out of the picture now.
“The project (before) was almost exclusively retail. It was an outlet center,” said Charlie Jencks, a representative for the project Tuesday. “This is a different project. What we’re proposing is a mixed-use project. . . . This really, truly implements the original vision, which was a mixed-use type of project.”
Maui Tomorrow expressed frustrations with the delays on finalizing the LUC decision:
“We’re asking for things to be tied up. We’re asking for clarity in the (February) ruling,” Maui Tomorrow Executive Director Irene Bowie said. “The decision and order would address the public’s right to know what’s going on. . . . The thing is kind of just sitting in limbo right now.”
“It’s been four-and-a-half months since the vote was taken in early February. We want to get an order entered now,” said Mark Hyde, executive director for South Maui Citizens for Responsible Growth. “We tried the case. We prevailed. That needs to be memorialized and captured.”
Hyde added that time is of the essence, especially because three of the nine commissioners who heard the case will be ending their terms at the end of next week.
“I don’t want to lose the three commissioners who heard the case and reviewed all the findings. . . . It took four days of testimony and piles of briefings. I don’t know how they (three new commissioners) could get their heads in this case,” Hyde said.
Jencks denied claims that developers were stalling in hopes of seating three new commissioner…
Read the entire article at Maui News
