Kamehameha Schools’ plan to give Haleiwa’s famed shave ice district a major face-lift won approval from the City Council’s Zoning and Planning Committee on Thursday, setting the project up for a final Council vote on Oct. 3.

The 4-0 decision came despite a plea from the manager of the neighboring Haleiwa Town Center to hold off on approving the project until a modified plan for the main entrance to the area is aired before the North Shore Neighborhood Board this week.

Bill 52 would change the zoning for about 4 acres on the makai side of Kamehameha Highway between Kewalo and Mahaulu lanes, including the structures housing Matsumoto Shave Ice and Aoki’s Shave Ice.

The site would be rezoned from agricultural and residential use to business use on the highway side and country use in the back.

The $12.6 million project calls for tearing down four of the nine existing buildings, including the ones housing Aoki’s and the ‘Iwa Gallery, development officials said. Plans call for both buildings to be "re-created" on the parcel back from the road. There would be three other new buildings while four existing buildings, including the one housing Matsu­moto’s, will stay in place and be restored.

While many of the buildings are zoned for residential use, most have been used for commercial purposes over the past century, said Jeff Overton, chief environmental planner for Group 70, Kamehameha Schools’ architectural and planning firm for the project.

Kamehameha Schools officials told the committee that a major goal of the project is to make the area safer for the tourists and locals who visit what many consider to be the visual center of Haleiwa Town.

Six existing parking areas or points of access would be replaced by two entrances, one off Mahaulu Lane. A paved lot in the rear of the property is to have 115 parking stalls.

The landowner recently shifted the highway-side entrance from the southern border the property shares with the Haleiwa Town Center to a point about 160 feet north, or closer to Matsu­moto. The switch was necessary, Overton said, due to an impasse in negotiations with the leaseholder of the Haleiwa Town Center to share an existing thoroughfare, the private Kewalo Lane.

"The neighboring landowner was not going to allow this to occur," Overton said.

Overton said a study showed the change in the entry location would not affect traffic, while dedicated left-turn lanes would help ease traffic.

But Will Schoettle, Haleiwa Town Center’s principal and the man who had been negotiating with Kamehameha Schools, urged committee members to defer the vote on the rezoning, arguing that the public should first be given a chance to see and give their opinion on the proposed entryway.

Schoettle said he believes the new entryway has "pedestrian/vehicular and planning issues" since there are several driveways and crosswalks within too small an area.

"They’re focused on doubling the density on the narrowest part of Haleiwa," Schoettle said.

Kamehameha Schools officials said while commercial space would double to 28,000 square feet, it’s less than what is allowed. Overton said that details such as the locations of entrances are typically dealt with administratively at the building permit level, not zoning.

Department of Planning and Permitting Director David Tanoue said his agency believes the new access is as safe as the previous design, and both are safer than the existing situation, which has no sidewalks fronting the shave ice shops.

Zoning and Planning Chairman Ikaika Anderson, in recommending that the bill move out of committee, said the full Council can always defer the measure at its Oct. 3 meeting.

Michael Lyons, North Shore Neighborhood Board chairman, said some residents and businesses share Schoettle’s concerns about increased pedestrian and vehicular traffic.