Sunday, March 19, 2006 8:39 AM

HALIIMAILE – With rock music pumping overhead and panels of pastel drawings lined up for all to see, the initial concept for an expanded village at Haliimaile was unveiled Thursday night.

But the team of consultants that compiled the plans emphasized that there will still be opportunity for change.

“This is a conversation that’s just beginning,” said Victor Dover, the Florida-based planner who led the 10-day effort to provide a preliminary blueprint for landowners Maui Land & Pineapple Co. and A&B Properties. “To build a place will take a long time. To plan a place will take a long time. . . . This is extra, but we hope this gives us a better start.”

The new village would feature a mix of housing, including attached rowhouselike dwellings and apartments over businesses, along with three schools, a larger commercial district, environmentally friendly buildings and interior connector roads that would add two more T-intersections onto Baldwin Avenue.

As might be expected, early reviews from residents ranged from the superlative to the suspicious.

“Growth is going to happen,” said an enthusiastic Gretchen Freitas, who was born and raised in Haliimaile. “You can either sit back and not do anything or you can be part of the solution.”

Steve Harman, who bought a home in Haliimaile in 1999 because he fell in love with the old plantation town, didn’t see the proposed concept as a solution for current residents.

“Their work is about done,” said Harman of the consultants, “but our work is just beginning to make sure they don’t just look at the bottom line and start getting rid of things that make the community livable.”

ML&P and A&B jointly sponsored the “charette” – a fast-paced collaborative effort at creating a proposed project in a short time. It’s the latest method of introducing potentially controversial developments on Maui. Instead of landowners arriving at the Maui County Council with complete plans that only power brokers know about, the community is invited to share their input at the beginning.

Whether that public participation ends up affecting the overall design remains to be seen.

The presentations Thursday night again underlined overall ideas of “cradle to cradle” planning where all materials are recycled and families can live in a “greener” atmosphere. One of the more interesting concepts involved water catchment systems that would be attached to each house. The rainwater would be used in toilets and washing machines with resulting gray water routed outside for irrigation and black water piped to a neighborhood treatment plant where it would be cleaned and reused in the landscape.

Solar energy and photovoltaics would be commonplace. Home builders would look to such unconventional materials as sugar bagasse for more earth-friendly construction.

Downtown Haliimaile would focus on the current commercial hub of the little village: Haliimaile General Store, which is no longer a general store, but an upscale restaurant. The new business district would feature streets lined with two-story buildings, many of them with pretty balconies and Charles Dickey-like roofs. There would be a grocery, a farmer’s market and more. A day care center might be located on the lower level of a structure with the operator or teacher living above it.

Dover said the town was laid out in such a fashion that kept views and took advantage of natural breezes to keep houses cool on hot days. The dense town center would give way to roomier neighborhoods that would, in turn, have their own minihubs so that the elusive quart of milk or daily newspaper would always be within a five-minute walk. The edges of the community would be bounded in agriculture that would stretch on one side to Haleakala Highway and the other to Baldwin Avenue.

A new road from the mauka portion of the project would intersect at Haliimaile Road in the business district where developers would like to try a roundabout instead of a traffic light. No new roads would connect with Haleakala Highway. All roads in the town would be no wider than two lanes.

ML&P and A&B own nearly equal parts of the 600-acre property that falls on either side of Haliimaile Road. Dover and others involved in the Haliimaile sessions were also instrumental in designing ML&P’s Pulelehua in West Maui. The projects feature many of the same components such as walkable communities and mixed-use villages.

Wilson Tadeo, a 34-year-old ML&P worker who has lived in Haliimaile for most of his life, attended nearly all of the public gatherings and continues to talk to developers but remains opposed to the project.

“I’m still going to fight it,” said Tadeo, who was also concerned that consultants carried more influence in last weekend’s hands-on workshop than did residents. “There are some good concepts here, but I still want to keep the town how it is.”

Lu Calina, a cook at Haliimaile General Store who also grew up in the village, said the concepts were good enough for him.

“This is very exciting,” said Calina. “The one thing that’s constant is change. I think the community as a whole is excited about it. Why not design a community that’s environmentally friendly?”

While the design team spent more than two hours explaining how they arrived at their preliminary diagram, no questions were taken from the crowd that included a large number of Native Hawaiians who told a reporter before the meeting that they intended on bringing up the issue of land ownership just as they had a week ago when they dominated an open forum.

But once the presentations were completed Thursday night, Dover quickly pointed to the series of drawings in the back of the gym and encouraged everyone to look at them. After that, the microphones went silent.

Randy Endo, vice president of community development for ML&P, said the developers “didn’t want a repeat and hear the same things.”

“We had decided there wouldn’t be an open mike like we had (March 10),” said Endo. “We wanted to be considerate for people who came to hear the presentations. We did talk to some of the people who had title questions, but I’m not sure if we could resolve anything with any particular group. We tried to explain our position, but I’m not sure they agreed with our position.”

Endo said ML&P has title reports and chain of title documents. John Belles of Pukalani produced an allodial deed that was hand-stamped at the state’s Bureau of Conveyances as proof that the Hawaiians held title. The Bureau of Conveyances stamps all documents that it receives as a matter of routine but does not research claims.

Although it wasn’t clear if trouble was expected, police were on hand for the public presentations, but they were not needed.

Haliimaile is already in the process of changing. Last year, A&B got approval for a 150-unit subdivision on the outskirts of town. Landowners met with community members for input on that project, too, but residents later learned that the average price of a house was expected to reach $700,000.

Even supporters of the expanded Haliimaile village want to make sure that all this new housing winds up in the hands of Maui residents, not newcomers in search of paradise.

“I’d like to see our local families get these affordable homes,” said Freitas, whose husband, Jay, leads church services every Sunday in Scout Hall next to the gymnasium.

After all the discussions and presentations, there was still no mention of the number of housing units that will make up the project, sizes of the lots or anticipated sales prices.

ML&P and A&B expect to have another community meeting on the project in two months or so. Bob McNatt, ML&P vice president, estimated it will be four years before all permits can be secured to start building. After that, construction will take place in increments.

Valerie Monson can be reached at vmonson@mauinews.com.

Copyright © 2005 The Maui News.