Hotel, housing projects cut from Lanai development plan

A new oceanfront hotel on Lanai looks like it will be eliminated from the island’s development plan, trimming a major yet controversial piece of the vision for the island offered by its billionaire owner, Larry Ellison.

A Maui County Council committee amended the draft Lanai Community Plan last week to eliminate the proposed hotel with 100 bungalows arranged in the style of a Hawaiian village with views of Maui and Molokai.

In addition, a proposed adjacent rural residential subdivision with up to 50 homes bracketed by two public beach parks was cut from the draft plan.

The action by the Council’s planning committee met with no objection from officials with Ellison’s Lanai management firm, Pulama Lana‘i, who attended the meeting.

Councilman Don Couch, planning committee chairman, said the amendment was made following testimony from Sol Kaho‘o­hala­hala, a former Council member who also once served in the state House, who said existing resort development on Lanai was permitted provided that no development occurred on the island’s eastern end.

Ellison’s new hotel was proposed for 20 acres on Lanai’s eastern shore where a day-trip activity center called Club Lanai once operated.

Couch said other community members had backed up Kaho‘o­hala­hala’s account, which led the committee to amend the community plan by eliminating the hotel and rural housing project.

"That was enough for us," Couch said, adding that Pulama Lana‘i officials had no objection to the change.

Pulama Lana‘i, through spokes­woman Lori Tera­ni­shi, declined to elaborate on its position Friday.

A vote on the amended plan by the committee is scheduled for June 23 on Lanai. Couch anticipates that the full Maui County Council could finalize updates to the plan in August.

The Lanai Community Plan is a document that helps guide land use and other policies for the island, which is part of Maui County.

The plan was adopted in 1983 and was previously updated in 1998. Work on the latest update has been going on for five years, and was largely influenced by the vision of Ellison, who bought 98 percent of Lanai in 2012.

Ellison has promoted a diversified plan to expand Lanai’s economy in what he has called a "model for sustainable enterprise."

A core piece of his plan calls for expanding Lanai City by 546 acres, more than tripling its size, to accommodate new homes and small businesses needed to support a more diverse economy and a population that Pulama Lana‘i pro­jects could double from roughly 3,000 to 6,000 people.

Film studios, a university campus and a tennis academy with dormitory housing also are part of Ellison’s plan, along with an airport runway extension, a rural housing subdivision next to horse stables in Koele, an expanded Manele resort area, homes above Kaumalapau Harbor, more farming and producing all electricity from renewable sources.

A key to supporting so much development on the small island, which was once the world’s largest pineapple plantation, is new sources of potable water. That’s because Lanai’s supply of fresh water from its underground aquifer is being degraded by existing uses, particularly golf course irrigation.

Ellison proposed several desalination plants to turn salt water into fresh water. However, the effort by Pulama Lana‘i to set up an initial plant ran into trouble last year over how long a special use permit for such a facility would be valid.

Pulama Lana‘i said it needed a 30-year term to justify the investment in the plant, for which it already had dug test wells and consulted with experts from Israel. The Lanai Planning Commission was willing to grant only a 15-year term. Pulama Lana‘i said it would have to reassess whether it would pursue a plant on those terms.

The loggerhead over the desalination permit has led some residents to believe Pulama Lana‘i had no reason to go forward with the hotel and residential project on the former Club Lanai site.

"It’s a stalemate," said Ron McOmber, a Lanai resident who is on a Lanai Community Plan advisory committee.

McOmber said eliminating the 100-unit hotel and adjacent homes from the plan is warranted, and was something he and other residents opposed after Pulama Lana‘i shared its vision. "We were going to fight it," he said.