People opposed to broader development of the Laie-Turtle Bay area call the latest draft of the Ko‘olau Loa Sustainable Communities Plan neither sustainable nor a community plan.

But Hawaii Reserves Inc., which manages Brigham Young University-Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, insists the community itself is not sustainable without the expansion in the latest draft of the plan.

The fight has divided the community, and both sides are expected to voice their views loud and clear when the City Council Zoning Planning Committee holds a public hearing Tuesday on Bill 47, the proposed update of the Ko‘olau Loa Sustainable Communities Plan. The meeting runs from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Kahuku High School cafeteria.

The plan, which is supposed to be updated every five years, serves as a land use guideline for the region from the north of Kaneohe Bay to Turtle Bay.

Council Zoning Chairman Ikaika Anderson said Tuesday’s meeting is for public testimony only and that the committee will not take a vote until a later date.

The most heated debates on the draft Koolauloa plan issued by the city Department of Planning and Permitting center on two areas on the north end of the region:

» Hawaii Reserves’ plans to create a new community at Malaekahana, a proposal not in the existing plan.

» Expansion of Turtle Bay Resort, which is in the existing plan but something those opposed to large-scale growth want taken out.

Hawaii Reserves wants to be able to expand the BYUH campus in Laie as well as add new housing in Malaekahana and commercial and business development in Laie and Malaekahana. The entire project has been dubbed "Envision La‘ie."

THE MOST contentious component is the plan for a new 300-acre community in Malaekahana, next to existing Laie town. Hawaii Reserves officials said they want to put up to 875 additional housing units there, and they say at least 50 percent will meet federal affordable housing guidelines to provide homes for those who live and work in the area.

Driving the need for the additional housing, Hawaii Reserves officials said, is an anticipated increase in the student population of BYUH, the area’s largest employer, and a possible expansion of the Polynesian Cultural Center.

"For Ko‘olau Loa to remain vital and vibrant, BYU-Hawaii and PCC must remain dynamic and relevant," according to material on the Envision La‘ie website.

Steve Hoag, vice president of administration for Hawaii Reserves, said in a statement that the Koolauloa plan in general "addresses the extreme housing crisis and job shortage we are facing and will help keep families together," adding, "It will also help sustain BYU-Hawaii and other major employers in the region, and help preserve our country lifestyle."

Hoag said Hawaii Reserves is committed to preserving agriculture and environmental preservation in Laie, and he said 94 percent of Koolauloa remains undeveloped under the plan.

"The plan promotes smart growth and true sustainability through principles that allow people to live, work and play in the same place," he said.

A number of Laie residents, many of whom work for BYUH or the Polynesian Cultural Center, have also come out in support of the project, citing a need for homes to accommodate future generations.

Opponents, however, said the proposed plan is excessive and will overburden existing roads and other infrastructure.

Longtime Kaaawa resident and Koolauloa Neighborhood Board member Dee Dee Letts told the Star-Advertiser that Hawaii Reserves has a substantial amount of undeveloped land by the BYUH campus and elsewhere in Laie where the new homes can go. The city could ease building height restrictions that would allow Hawaii Reserves to put up more units by building higher on its Laie properties, thus negating the need to develop in Malaekahana, she said.

"We’re not really arguing there shouldn’t be any more growth," Letts said. "We’re arguing more where they’re trying to put it." 

Approving expansion into Malaekahana, on what the state classifies as agricultural land, would set a precedent that would make it easier for surrounding areas to be developed, she argued.

While Hawaii Reserves said it wants to develop 875 housing units at Malaekahana, Letts and other opponents said the landowner had previously wanted 1,200 units there and that it lowered the number to appease the city.

Letts said she’s skeptical that Hawaii Reserves’ long-term plan is for Malaekahana calls for just 875 housing units given the change is for 300 acres.

Tim Vandeveer, a member of the Defend Oahu Coalition, agreed.

"We really see this as a tipping point for the last rural area of Oahu to be urbanized," he said. "It starts with this plan."

Opponents worry that Kamehameha Highway, the main thoroughfare in the area, is already heavily congested, deemed a major priority for the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Citizens Advisory Committee. But Hawaii Reserves and its supporters say a new mauka bypass road would ease the situation by connecting Malaekahana with Laie and Kahuku.

Growth at Turtle Bay Resort is the second major battleground in the draft plan. The current Koolauloa plan allows for the resort to develop up to 3,500 additional resort units in up to five hotels on 850 acres along five miles of oceanfront.

Replay Resorts, which heads a consortium of owners now in charge of Turtle Bay, announced last year it is downscaling the plan and now only wants 1,250 resort units in two hotels and 160 residential units, said Replay official Drew Stotesbury.

"We’ve increased our oceanfront setbacks and open space, and we’re providing a lot of jobs, which a majority of people in the community really want," Stotesbury said.

But the Defend Oahu Coalition and others who oppose a large-scale Turtle Bay expansion want the owners to develop within its existing developed footprint such as areas where there are now beach cabanas, parking and golf courses, Letts said.

"Anywhere that’s already disturbed," she said. "What we’re trying to do is preserve undisturbed coastline."

Opponents want the resort’s lands to be placed into a special planning area with special consideration given to preservation of the coastline.

They also note that a committee formed by Gov. Neil Abercrombie is working on a plan to preserve the Turtle Bay coastline. Because of that, they want expansion plans deleted from the Koolauloa plan.

Stotesbury said Turtle Bay’s owners are willingly participating in the Abercrombie initiative and said that process can run parallel to resort expansion.

Meanwhile, the city Department of Planning and Permitting stated in a staff report that the resort expansion should be kept in the Koolauloa plan because "the city has an obligation to uphold existing entitlements."

Members of the Defend Oahu Coalition said a public advisory committee established by DPP to help with the Koolauloa plan worked two years on a set of recommendations that was ignored, instead allowing for both the Malaekahana development to be added and the Turtle Bay expansion to remain in the draft plan now before the Council.