Maui affordable housing
development to take
the long route

An application by Gensiro
Kawamoto was rejected for
containing outdated information

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

An attorney who represents Gensiro Kawamoto said the Japanese developer purposefully submitted a defective land-use application for a proposed housing project on Maui because that is the way some clients want to do business.

On Dec. 19, the state Land Use Commission returned Kawamoto's petition for a land-use change, saying that the application contained 18 separate defects, including the use of outdated traffic and engineering studies and incorrect property information. Kawamoto also used the wrong kind of check to pay the $500 application fee.

A decade ago, Kawamoto received the commission's approval for a land-use change for the same project.

Therefore, Kawamoto wanted to proceed with the development by filing the old application again, even though he knew the rules had changed, said Carol Asai-Sato, a Honolulu attorney who represents Kawamoto.

"It's not that we haven't kept up. We were quite aware of the changes and the current conditions," said Asai-Sato. Kawamoto wanted to leave it up to the Land Use Commission to point out the changes, she said, noting that the use of the wrong kind of check was an oversight. Kawamoto had used a corporate check rather than the required cashier's check.

"[Kawamoto] seems to know his own mind," said Anthony Ching, executive officer of the Land Use Commission. "He knows what he wants to do and he does it."

The bulk of Kawamoto's original petition for the development had been prepared previously by United Realty Inc., which sold Kawamoto the property in 1989. "You might consider it his first petition," Ching said.

Kawamoto first drew attention in Hawaii during the real-estate bubble of the late 1980s when he would ride around Oahu in a white limousine, snapping up more than 170 real estate properties at high prices, including the former Kaiser Estate in Portlock for $43 million.

Critics, including then-Mayor Frank Fasi, charged that Japanese buyers had driven up housing prices in Hawaii and depleted the amount of available homes for sale. In 1988, Kawamoto suspended the buying spree and told reporters that he was concerned about the local view of Japanese investors.

Kawamoto proposed a slew of money-losing affordable housing projects, much of which he later abandoned. Fasi publicly accused Kawamoto of seeking cheap publicity from the projects.

Previously, the Land Use Commission approved a change of land use to allow the Maui project, but the approval lapsed after the proposal died in late 1995.

Kawamoto blamed the Maui County Council for asking too much money for water, sewers and drainage.

Kawamoto is now seeking proposals from consultants on how to proceed with the Maui project, said Asai-Sato. It's not clear when Kawamoto would submit a new proposal.

The Land Use Commission has not heard back from the developer since Ching sent out the letter a month ago.

Kawamoto's proposal called for the construction of 880 homes on 146 acres near Kihei. About half the units were to be affordable for residents based on Maui's median income at the time of the original petition, which was in 1990.

Recently, Kawamoto has been in a dispute with the neighbors of another of his properties, an undeveloped 130-acre hillside lot in Kahaluu. For decades, the neighbors have been using driveways that encroach on the property, which Kawamoto bought in 1988.

Kawamoto gave the neighbors notice in October that he was going to tear up the driveways, and the neighbors raised a public outcry. On Christmas Eve, Kawamoto destroyed the driveways.

Asai-Sato said there was no connection between the Kahaluu dispute and the coincidental timing of the an- nouncement about the Maui affordable housing project. When asked why Kawamoto revived the Maui development at this time, Asai-Sato could not provide an answer.