State panel approves
Kona development

The project includes a new
UH campus, housing and a hotel

KAILUA-KONA » The beginnings of a new University of Hawaii campus eight miles north of Kailua-Kona plus 845 housing units and a 120-room hotel there received approval from the state Land Use Commission yesterday.

The Palamanui project planned by Hiluhilu Development LLC would also have a commercial center and a golf course. Hiluhilu is a joint venture of stock brokerage owner Charles Schwab and Kona contractor Guy Lam.

The commission approved changing the designation of the 725-acre site upland from Keahole airport from conservation and agricultural to urban designation for the project.

The Hiluhilu acreage is next to 500 acres of state land where a Center at West Hawaii would eventually be created under the administration of Hawaii Community College in Hilo.

Hiluhilu agreed to build classrooms on its land so that the college center can start as early as 2007. The buildings would be designed to be converted to commercial use later when the state starts building a campus on its own land.

Among the conditions required by the commission were completion of a mauka-makai road linking the coastal Queen Kaahumanu Highway with the upland Mamalahoa Highway, said the developer's representative, Guido Giacometti. A "main street" parallel to the two highways midway between them also would be required, he said.

Of the 845 single-family homes and apartment units, the commission approved a Hawaii County request that about 20 percent be affordable to middle-income earners. Giacometti said about 100 of the affordable units would be on site and about 80 would be elsewhere.

Hiluhilu must now obtain appropriate zoning for the project from the county, with construction to start early next year.