Mayor Kirk Caldwell said Wednesday that the city will continue work on Phase 1 of the Waimanalo Bay Beach Park improvement project because it would cost up to $300,000 to pull back from an existing contract, but that he is amenable to halting future phases if the community so chooses.

The outcry against the improvements from both Waimanalo residents and others has been growing steadily since the project at the park, popularly known as Sherwood Forest or Sherwood’s, began in mid-April. The $1.43 million first phase of the Waimanalo Bay Beach Park Master Plan consists of grading and installing irrigation for a multipurpose sports field, a parking lot and play apparatus.

Even Council Chairman Ikaika Anderson, who has long championed the master plan, has urged Caldwell to pause the project in the face of the opposition.

At a standing-room-only meeting Thursday, the City Council Parks, Community Services and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee heard from a slew of people who testified for more than three hours on the project. Most were Waimanalo residents and most were opposed to the master plan, citing concerns about traffic and the loss of areas with environmental and cultural significance.

After the meeting, Parks Chairwoman Heidi Tsuneyoshi sent a letter to Caldwell urging him to halt the project, raising concerns brought up during the meeting. Anderson and Councilwoman Kymberly Pine have sent their own letters also seeking to stop the project.

But Caldwell on Wednesday reiterated early comments that stopping Phase 1 is not happening.

“For me, when we do a project and it’s been fully vetted, fully funded and we actually have started and money has been expended and there’s a cost to stopping, I feel that we need to proceed at least with that phase,” Caldwell told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “Otherwise, every project we do all around this island we say ‘maybe we’ve gotta stop now because a certain group says stop.’”

He said he would have stopped the Waimanalo project if work had not yet started. “The $1.4 million that we’re spending would have just gone right back into the budget,” he said.

The city is following the conditions of an environmental assessment for the project and work will be halted for several months starting Friday because it is the mating season for the Hawaiian hoary bats that tend to frequent the area, he said.

As for future phases, “my feeling personally, but I want to talk to the chair and others, is that we don’t move forward,” the mayor said. “We just finish this one part and we don’t end up wasting $300,000 starting a project and then stopping it.”

Caldwell said he’s agreed to a request by Anderson to plant native canopy trees around the newly improved area.

About 60 people testified at Wednesday’s parks committee meeting. Most opposed the improvements and many said they were not made aware of the project until bulldozers arrived.

Kalani Kalima of the group Na Kua‘aina o Waimanalo said the traffic assessment impact report done for the master plan underplayed the significance of traffic the improvements would cause. That’s because it was done on a weekday and Waimanalo’s major traffic jams happen on the weekends, he said.

Barbara Mayer of the group Save Our Sherwood’s said hoary bats arrived in Hawaii about the same time as the first people did. “Cutting down vegetation at any time of year removes trees needed by ‘ope‘ape‘a of all ages to roost every night! We need to keep all of Sherwood’s undeveloped and green not only for our bats, but also for our children.”

Some people, however, said they supported the master plan that was completed in 2012 after a number of years of work.

Waimanalo resident Mabel Ann Keliihoomalu said the region is sorely in need of recreational areas such as those being planned. She said the improvements also will include what essentially could be used as a bypass route when necessary.