Oswald Stender lives in a residential neighborhood. But unlike most of his Maunawili Valley neighbors, the former Kamehameha Schools trustee resides on four acres zoned for agriculture and wants to add more homes to his family estate through rezoning.

Stender on Wednesday won a unanimous endorsement from the city Planning Commission after the city Department of Planning and Permitting recommended the change be approved.

DPP said in a report that rezoning Stender’s property won’t alter the neighborhood’s residential character or adjacent open space, and is consistent with state and county land-use regulations.

Stender, 86, said he wants to build two homes for two grandsons. Stender lives in one home on the site, and his son and granddaughter live in a second home there.

Initially, Stender indicated in his zone change application that he wanted to also build two accessory dwelling units that could be rented out for income, but after DPP said this would require subdividing the property into three pieces, Stender said he won’t pursue that.

As part of its endorsement, the Planning Commission adopted a DPP recommendation that Stender sign an agreement not to develop or grade 2.7 acres of his land that drops down past Maunawili Stream. Such an agreement would bind future owners. Stender told the commission he’s fine with that.

“I have no problem dedicating it as open space,” he said. “We enjoy it that way. I grew up in Hauula. We had a 3-acre farm. I think it’s too bad the children don’t have access to a lot of open space, and climbing trees, and playing in the stream and all that kind of thing.”

Stender is asking that his property be rezoned to the Country District, which allows for low-density rural residential development in areas with limited agriculture potential. Currently his land is mostly zoned for agriculture.

Under current zoning, Stender can’t add any more homes to his property.

According to DPP, Stender’s property, which was once the site of a rice mill owned by the family who operates the City Mill hardware store chain, is not good land for farming.

DPP also noted that several neighboring homes are on country-zoned land. Several other homes are on 1-acre or larger lots zoned for agriculture like Stender’s. Most of the residential community of Maunawili Valley was built in the 1950s and 1960s on smaller lots with residential zoning.

There are also a few parcels of 50 acres or more that are zoned for agriculture, including land leased to a farmers association and the Royal Hawaiian Golf Club.

The city has several regional plans intended to guide land use, and the plan for the area including Maunawili Valley has a community growth boundary intended to define and contain developed areas.

Though this boundary on a map in the Koolau Poko Sustainable Communities Plan excludes Stender’s property from where development is directed, the plan states that the map isn’t intended to determine specific land-use boundaries.

“Such boundaries are to be determined during the review of specific land use or public facilities investment decisions, and their exact locations are to be guided by the vision and policies of this plan,” the plan states.

DPP noted that the community plan specifically calls for increasing the area’s housing capacity by developing lands that are already urbanized, subdividing larger residential lots and adding homes to existing residential lots through ohana dwelling and accessory dwelling unit programs, among other things.

Mike Watkins, a DPP planner, said the community plan supports adding homes to Stender’s property, which is within the state’s urban land-use district. “The country zoning is fully appropriate here,” he told commissioners.

There was no public testimony. An ultimate decision on the zoning change is up to the City Council, which hasn’t scheduled hearings.