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Nine expansive residential estates and a cluster of low-income senior rental apartments have been proposed within the mature Royal Kunia master-planned community on land zoned for preservation and long intended for a golf course.
It is the second time in the last decade that a developer has floated a plan to build homes on the undeveloped golf site. And, once again, neighboring residents are objecting.
"It’s not acceptable,"said Ariel Flores, who owns a home bordering part of the 172-acre site that was touted as a future golf course and used as a selling point to attract residents to the Central Oahu neighborhood roughly two decades ago.
The latest proposal is from local developer Jon Gomes and is designed to qualify as an affordable-housing project eligible for a zoning exemption.
Gomes, who is not related to this story’s author, only briefly provided a rough description of his plan — 48 low-income senior apartments and nine single-family homes — for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and did not share more details.
According to minutes of a Waipahu Neighborhood Board meeting last month at which Gomes presented his plan, the developer called the proposal a good compromise with the community after a previous plan for 300 homes was roundly opposed.
The previous plan was floated by Central Oahu Associates LLC, an affiliate of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based 3D Investments that bought the property in 2005 from a Japanese company that was unable to develop the golf course.
The 3D affiliate still owns the land, but did not respond to a request for comment last week. Gomes, doing business as Royal Kunia DPLLC, is proposing the project with a local nonprofit called Ikaika Ohana.
Gomes reportedly told the neighborhood board that nine single-family home sites, which range from 10 to 29 acres each, will be sold to another developer for home construction as a way to subsidize the low-income rentals. Gomes estimated that the single-family homes would cost $700,000 to $1.2 million and will include deed restrictions preventing additional dwellings.
One 10-acre site is for the senior apartments in one- and two-story buildings clustered around a pool and community building and ringed by parking.
Gomes told the neighborhood board that the rental units would be restricted to seniors 62 and older who earn no more than 80 percent of Honolulu’s median income, which equates to $61,350 for a couple. The developer estimated that monthly rent would likely be between $600 and $1,100 for the one- and two-bedroom units.
The developer let the board know that he does not need a zoning change.
Under state law governing affordable housing, developers can seek county zoning exemptions for residential projects in which more than 50 percent of units are reserved for low- or moderate-income households.
In a pre-assessment consultation for an environmental assessment sent to the city Department of Planning and Permitting, the developer indicated that the state affordable-housing law would be used to qualify the project in this way and that state funds are expected to be tapped for the project.
The neighborhood board declined to take a position on the plan until after the Royal Kunia Community Association weighs in. Roughly 300 homes surround the undeveloped golf site.
Gomes has made a preliminary presentation to the association’s board, but the board wants more details presented to Royal Kunia residents, according to an association representative.
Annette Goo, one of Royal Kunia’s earliest residents, who still owns a home in the community with her brother, said she still feels misled nearly 20 years after buying into the community.
"It’s frustrating,"she said. "They led us down the wrong path to what our understanding was. They had this big model with trees, and it made the community look really nice."
Today the undeveloped golf site is filled largely with tall grass and at times has worried residents as a fire hazard. Residents also are concerned about drainage if homes are built on the land, and have complained that not building the golf course has reduced their property values from what was anticipated.
Developing the golf course, however, has been problematic.
The late local developer Herbert Horita master-planned Royal Kunia with about 2,000 homes, a commercial center and two golf courses that began taking shape from former sugar cane fields in the late 1980s.
Horita and development partner Castle & Cooke Homes touted the golf courses but did not guarantee them.
Both golf course sites were sold to Japanese companies intending to capitalize on demand from Japanese visitors willing to pay $100,000 to $200,000 or more for personal golf memberships during what was an economic bubble in that country at the time.
In part due to stiff resistance from local government officials including then-Mayor Frank Fasi, Horita agreed that the city would receive $25 million in community impact fees for each golf course. The golf sites were rezoned from agricultural use to preservation use, which allows golf, as part of the negotiated deal.
One of the golf courses, Royal Kunia Country Club, was completed in 1994 on one edge of the community. Yet the course didn’t open until 2003 because the owner failed to pay $13 million of the $25 million impact fee.
The opening happened after a lender took over the course and resolved the debt by paying the city $2.5 million plus $1 per round for the life of the course.
Horita had sold the second golf site to Koei Hawaii Inc. for $13.5 million in 1989. Koei, however, was prevented from starting construction in 1992 when it couldn’t make an initial impact fee installment payment after the Japanese investment bubble collapsed.
Koei sold the property to the 3D affiliate for $3 million in 2005, according to property records.
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