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The Hawaii land management arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is seeking permits to transform 14 mostly vacant lots on Laie Beach into 74 rental units.

Hawaii Reserves Inc. says it is creating beachfront rentals for local working individuals and families with smaller households primarily in Koolauloa — an area that stretches from Kaaawa to Waimea Bay.

To disclose: I am a member of a club that owns property along the same Laie shoreline but the club is not involved in the development.

The , a Laie rental housing initiative, is clearly unusual — maybe the first of its kind, an oceanfront project created for middle-class local residents and families.

Normally, a landowner would turn such rare open shoreline into luxury homes or high-end vacation rentals for the wealthy rather than rental dwellings priced for firefighters and teachers.

“Our shoreline properties are the only residentially zoned open land we have to do such a project. All our mauka lots are filled. Many of our properties inland sold to individual owners,” HRI president Eric Beaver said.

Beaver said HRI plans to develop its shoreline lots into rentals rather than selling them for single-family homes because “we are told that all most working families and individuals can afford are rental units.”

Selling the lots for homes to individuals would also attract buyers who donʻt live in the area.

Public criticism and comments from area residents have been largely lacking considering the development will change forever a longtime rural beach dotted with modest beach cottages into a semi-suburban assortment of townhouses. A friend says the silence is because many people still don’t know about the project. More on that later.

An Urgent Need For More Housing

Beaver says he sees the proposed rentals as a way to make a dent in the pressing need for housing in Hawaii with more and more local residents moving away to seek job opportunities and homes they can afford — including his own five adult children, all of whom now live on the mainland.

HRIʻs office says it receives phone calls almost every day from people asking for rentals in Laie when there are more than 50 people already on a waiting list, hoping that one of the company’s existing 48 rental units will become available.

“Families want to raise their kids where they were raised. With this project, more families and individuals can have a roof over their heads,” Beaver said.

HRI has hired the architectural planning company G70 to prepare the multiple permit applications it needs before it can begin the housing project. 

Jeff Overton, principal planner at G70, says he is working on the draft environmental assessment, which is the first step in a process that eventually will require a final environmental assessment, a major Special Management Area permit and further down the road, building permits from the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting.

Major Special Management Area permits are required for any project in the SMA that has a total valuation of more than $500,000.

Beaver says the earliest HRI might begin to build the first part of the project would be between 2027 and 2028.

The development — to be constructed in phases — calls for two to three structures on each of the 14 lots in the form of duplexes, multiplexes and some single homes.

HRI says the structures would feature one-, two- and three-bedroom rental units “to address the severe, ongoing shortage of housing in the community.”

HRI’s website says that although it is “impossible to predict what market rental prices will be in future years” its existing rentals in Laie run between $1,200 and $1,600 a month for one-bedroom units and $2,400 to $3,000 for three-bedroom units.

Public Awareness Lacking

So far, widespread public criticism or comment about the proposal has been lacking because the development not been widely publicized.

Except for individuals or groups who received letters G70 sent out as part of the draft environmental assessment process in July and October last year or who have read about the project on HRI’s website, not many people I called seemed aware of it.

However, I received an alarmed call from two residents living next to the planned project on June 24 when without a permit or their permission HRI sent in heavy equipment to start work doubling the width of a 10-foot-wide private road that they and other adjacent residents jointly own with HRI.

“They were just going ahead and doing their own thing on our lane without our authorization. We called the police when the backhoes and an excavator started pulling out plants,” said Faye Fukuyama, adding the work also threatened a plumeria tree that was planted by her father-in-law 50 years ago.

She has lived alongside the road for 49 years with her husband Dane, the postman for the Laie area.

Faye and Dane Fukuyama and Connie Tamura, another joint owner of the road, enlisted the services of Honolulu attorney William Saunders Jr. who sent HRI a cease-and-desist letter on June 30 which stopped the unpermitted roadwork.

In the letter, Saunders said HRI needed the consent of the other private road owners to proceed and that it must stop work on both the road and two lots at the end of the road that the company wants to consolidate and re-subdivide. Saunders says the lots are part of HRI’s larger oceanside rental development in a Special Management Area and require an environmental assessment and SMA permit. 

Beaver said HRI does not need unanimous consent from all the road’s joint owners or SMA permit approval because the road widening is part of a separate project not related to its proposed rental development.

He said the road widening was required by DPP as part of HRI’s application to consolidate and re-subdivide its property adjacent to the proposed rental housing development but it is not part of the larger project.

Department of Planning and Permitting spokesman Curtis Lum said in an email to Civil Beat that DPP has not issued HRI any permits for any of the roadwork or initial work on its property on the private road next to the proposed rental project.

Lum says DPP is investigating to find out if HRI’s initial grubbing on the private road is something the company would be allowed to do without a permit and in addition if it needs an SMA permit to begin work on the road and the property at the end of the road that it says is a separate project. 

Attorney Saunders argued in a follow-up letter sent to DPP on July 15 that the work on the private road and HRI’s property at the end of the road are an integral part of the larger rental housing project and cannot proceed without multiple additional permits.

“It is clear that the roadway alterations and the subdivision of parcel TMK# 5-5-011:004 are really part of the larger ‘Laie Rental Housing’ project. That parcel was originally included as part of the larger proposal (see attachment) but was separated into another increment for tactical reasons, i.e., to avoid SMA permit obligations for construction of the roadway and proposed multifamily units on TMK# 5-5-011:004,“ wrote Saunders.

Among the larger problems with the proposed 74-unit development that Faye Fukuyama foresees are increased traffic in Laie and HRIʻs challenge to make sure the wider local workforce of Koolauloa gets a fair crack at renting the attractive beachfront units, not just employees and friends of the LDS church.

HRIʻs Beaver said in a phone message Monday that the units will be open to anyone who applies and ultimately qualifies to rent them. He said it is not a closed system and that HRI in all its .

Traffic, sewage, coastline erosion and other concerns are certain to be raised in many public hearings ahead as HRI tries to win final approval for its oceanfront rental housing initiative.