kcerizo@mauinews.com
Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, through his company Pulama Lana’i, is proposing to develop 150 rental homes for Lanai with 49 percent slated for market rates and the other 51 percent scheduled for affordable rents under a state fast-track process for affordable housing.
Although the Hokuao project is still in the planning stages, some Maui County Council members are already questioning the number of affordable units in the project, with one saying it should be 100 percent affordable.
The Hokuao project would build 76 affordable and 74 market-rate rental homes on about 76 acres of former pineapple fields neighboring Lanai City.
The plan includes a one-acre public park, a 1,500-square-foot public community center and 60 parking stalls for Hokuao residents, according to its draft environmental assessment published last week in the state Office of Environmental Quality Control’s “The Environmental Notice.”