Plans to erect the world’s largest telescope atop Mauna Kea advanced Thursday with approval of a long-term lease agreement with the University of Hawaii that clears the way for construction to begin as planned in April.

The UH Board of Regents voted 13-1 to approve sublease terms for the controversial $1.3 billion Thirty Meter Telescope project, which is expected to create 300 construction jobs and up to 140 permanent jobs.

The decision came amid strong opposition from Native Hawaiian students and faculty of UH-Manoa, who testified against the project and described the Hawaii island volcano as a sacred cultural site. Students handed over petitions opposing the project with close to 300 signatures from students and faculty.

The board deliberated in executive session before discussing and voting on the lease terms Thursday during the public portion of its monthly meeting.

Some regents expressed concerns about adequate outreach efforts, but most ultimately agreed that proper protections and mitigation measures are in place.

Student regent Jeffrey Acido was the lone opposing vote. Maui regent Eugene Bal was not in attendance.

"I think we did something good for Hawaii. Mauna Kea is this huge, huge part of Hawaii and who we are as a people, and what we’ve done is allow it to be used for a very good purpose," regents Chairman John Holzman told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser after the meeting. "It’ll be taken care of. No one took this vote lightly."

The agreement provides about 9 acres on the northern plateau below Mauna Kea’s summit on land that UH leases from the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.

The sublease agreement will need to be approved by the Land Board, which in April 2013 approved putting the project on Mauna Kea. It imposed two dozen conditions at the time, including payment of a "substantial amount" of rent to be used solely for the management and stewardship of the mountain.

Construction is expected to start in April and be completed in 2022. Under the lease terms, the university will charge $1.08 million in annual rent once the telescope is in operation. Rent will average about $500,000 a year during the 10-year construction phase.

The lease would run through 2033, when UH’s master lease for Mauna Kea lands expires, but the agreement would automatically extend the project’s sublease to 65 years from the effective date if and when the state Land Board approves UH’s pending request to enter into new 65-year leases.

UH-Hilo Chancellor Don Straney — who oversees the Office of Mauna Kea Management, the agency responsible for managing the observatories atop the mountain — said "several hundred" meetings have been held on Hawaii island since the TMT Observatory Corp. in 2009 selected Mauna Kea as its preferred site.

The project is being designed and financed by TMT, a Pasadena, Calif.-based nonprofit with California and Canadian universities as partners along with scientists from Japan, China and India.

With a primary segmented mirror measuring 30 meters wide, or nearly 100 feet, the project’s website says the cutting-edge telescope will be three times larger than the most powerful optical telescopes in use now, and allow astronomers to explore forming galaxies "at the very edge of the observable universe, near the beginning of time."

The dome housing the telescope will rise 180 feet.

Straney cited major discoveries astronomers have made using existing Mauna Kea observatories in trying to convey the benefits of the project, including one discovery for which the Nobel Prize was awarded three years ago.

He said the telescope would help UH grow its funding for astronomy research.

Despite the heavy opposition from Manoa students, Straney credited community outreach in characterizing UH-Hilo students as unopposed to the project.

Regent Jeffrey Portnoy said the board should keep in mind the need for statewide outreach for future projects, saying that Manoa students "felt rightfully wronged that they had not been included."

‘Ilima Long, a Hawaiian studies student at UH-Manoa, testified earlier that she feels connected to Mauna Kea and views any construction as a desecration of the mountain.

"There are a lot of Hawaiian students on this campus. We are genealogically connected to this mountain. That is a source of our identity and our spirituality," Long said. "Our kuleana and our authority to determine and to talk about what is best for that mountain is talking about what is best for us — and it comes from that connection to that land."

The regents agreed to the project in 2010. UH said executing the sublease would be the last step needed to allow construction to begin, despite a pending court challenge to the project’s permit.