The future Palm Springs of Hawaii.

Rival to Waikiki.

A ranch resort retreat with 10,000 homes and hotel units.

These are descriptions of what West Oahu’s then-agrarian Makaha Valley could be as envisioned by its original developer, local business tycoon Chinn Ho, about 60 years ago.

Last month, a renewed effort to resurrect the long-dormant grand development objective for the valley was announced with the tidbit that golf superstar Tiger Woods would redesign one of two golf courses there as the centerpiece of a reborn resort.

Many golf fans likely were elated. But the resort’s original birth drew community pushback, and now angst from Waianae coast residents is rising over the new, mostly undefined, development plan.

At a special meeting of the Waianae Coast Neighborhood Board that drew close to 150 people and ran nearly three hours this week, community members expressed concerns and opposition while construction industry representatives praised the project as a provider of jobs and good homes for workers.

Stanford Carr, a local developer partnering on the Makaha Resort revival with the valley’s golf course operator and biggest landowner Pacific Links International, also shared that an initial phase is expected to include 154 condominium-hotel units and 260 single-family homes on about 60 acres nestled between what today is one operating golf course and one closed golf course.

Carr, who said Thursday night the hotel could be three or four years away from being built, suggested that many of the concerns were premature because the scope of the development hasn’t been determined.

“We haven’t even put pencil on paper for a master plan,” he said.

Pacific Links has the potential to add many more homes and hotel/timeshare units on over 150 additional acres of undeveloped land it owns in the valley excluding golf course areas. Carr also said Pacific Links expects to discuss working with an affiliate of the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation to incorporate into the resort master plan more than 200 acres of foundation land that largely borders one golf course on the valley’s east side.

So much potential development is unsettling some residents.

“To me this is too much overdevelopment,” said neighborhood board member Kaukaohu Wahilani.

One comment repeated multiple times at the meeting was that new homes won’t be for area residents and will inflate Waianae coast residential property values to make all housing less affordable in a community where the poverty rate was 27% in the latest Census.

“We’re not against development,” said Kapua Keliikoa-Kamai. “We want development that we can move our families into.”

Carr said part of the master plan beyond an initial phase would include affordable rental housing for households earning as little as 30 percent of Honolulu’s median income. Yet some audience members remained skeptical.

“This project is not for us,” said James Manaku Sr. “It’s for people who can afford it. This is for millionaires.”

Manaku continued, “It’s not about golf courses. Two golf courses — fine. But all of this development — that’s the problem. It’s crazy.”

Applause followed comments from Manaku and other project critics, but a concerted effort to support the development plan was made by leaders of construction trade unions and roughly three dozen members wearing orange Laborers International Union of North America shirts.

Hawaii Laborers Union business manager Peter Ganaban said construction workers in the community will be able to afford homes envisioned in the valley. “Please community, allow these projects to go forward,” he said. “There’s no place else to build (in the region) but Makaha Valley.”

Dione Kalaola, a Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters service representative born and raised in Makaha, said, “It’s developments like this that will help improve this community. It’ll create hundreds of construction jobs, generate revenue for the economy and bring a facelift to the urban core.”

Some neighborhood board members questioned whether job creation was a good trade-off for expanded development in Makaha Valley. Others raised the issue of already-bad traffic becoming worse on two-lane Farrington Highway as the only way in and out of Makaha.

“We don’t care about the value of land,” said Waianae resident Philip Ganaban. “We care about the quality of life.”

More than 70 years ago, the Waianae coast was more rural with Makaha Valley as part of a sugar cane plantation. But Ho, who developed Waikiki’s Ilikai hotel in 1964, envisioned a resort there rivaling Waikiki.

The financier and real estate developer bought about 5,000 acres in the valley from Waianae Sugar Co. in 1947, and a decade later floated plans for developing 3,000 acres into a resort with beachfront accommodations and helicopter service from Waikiki.

Ho’s Capital Investment Co. described its plan as becoming a ranch resort retreat with around 3,000 rooms between eight or nine hotels and offering hiking, fishing, hunting, horseback riding and other activities not found in Waikiki. Roughly 7,000 homes, shopping venues and mountain-ledge restaurants accessible only by cable car also were part of the plan.

“Makaha will be the future Palm Springs of Hawaii,” said one Capital Investment ad offering land to other developers in 1960.

Ho’s plan had critics. At one City Planning Commission hearing in 1967, Makaha Civic Association President George Teramoto fought against the valley becoming “a second Waikiki.” Then-City Councilman and future Mayor Frank Fasi also opposed the scope of Ho’s plan.

Capital Investment was able to rezone some upper parts of the valley for resort and residential development, and built the two golf courses along with a 200-room hotel that opened in 1969. A condo tower and two residential subdivisions also were built. But further development fizzled.

Ho sold the hotel in 1973 to a Japanese company, and vacant sites to others. He sold the hotel again in 1979 to an affiliate of All Nippon Airways after the first buyer defaulted on a loan. ANA closed the hotel in 1995 after claiming it never produced a profit, and 174 employees were laid off.

Following a handful of other Makaha Resort owners, including one that reopened the hotel in 2001, Canada-based Pacific Links bought one golf course in 2011 and in 2013 acquired the balance of what it holds now.

Pacific Links razed the hotel in 2014 and since then has been considering what to do.

Carr got involved with Pacific Links about five years ago. He also is developing a 120-home subdivision in the valley called the Cottages at Mauna ‘Olu on 26 acres Carr bought from a Japanese company that tried to build a 300-room hotel and conference center in the 1990s on land zoned for resort use next to the existing Mauna ‘Olu Estates subdivision. Prices at the Cottages start in the mid-$600,000s.

Carr said it could be a couple decades or more to realize whatever master plan he and Pacific Links produce, in part because some parcels that could be part of the plan aren’t zoned for resort or residential use.

“This is not a short-term project,” he said. “We’re just getting started.”