Plans advance for West Maui medical facility
By CLAUDINE SAN NICOLAS
The Maui News
WAILUKU — The Maui County Council Land Use Committee unanimously approved Wednesday land-use changes for a long-awaited West Maui medical facility, The Maui News reported.
The committee action could lead to the official filing for a state certificate to build a new hospital that the West Maui community has rallied behind for years.
"I know it's been a tortuous road for you and you're only on your first mile," Council Member Gladys Baisa acknowledged to West Maui Improvement Foundation President Joe Pluta during a committee meeting in the Council Chambers.
Last fall, Pluta's organization announced the intent of Southwest Health Group in Texas to develop a small hospital with an estimated investment of $70 million on 14.9 acres near the Lahaina Civic Center. The West Maui Improvement Foundation has served as the lead group raising funds and building community support for a hospital on the west side. The foundation is an offshoot of the West Maui Taxpayers Association.
Through the foundation, dozens of West Maui residents have provided testimony about the inconvenience and sometimes tragic outcomes resulting from having to travel at least 30 minutes by automobile via Honoapiilani Highway to get to Maui Memorial Medical Center in Wailuku.
West Maui has individual physician offices, medical clinics and an after-hours urgent-care clinic operated by Maui Medical Group with a state subsidy.
Initially, the facility would have 25 medical/surgical beds, 10 intensive care beds and three operating suites with acute-care units on 90,000 square feet. There are also plans for 40 long-term-care beds and a medical office building on the facility grounds.
Pluta reiterated Wednesday that land-use changes are needed before the developer can apply for a state certificate to build the medical facility. Hawaii law requires that new health care facilities or services be approved by the State Health Planning and Development Agency.
For the proposed West Maui hospital site, the Land Use Committee recommended:
The full council must approve the land-use measures in two separate readings before they are submitted to Mayor Charmaine Tavares for her review. The bills require the filing of documents and the preparation of a committee report, and the earliest the full council could consider the bills would be March 18.
There were 17 conditions attached to the zoning approval. The conditions covered issues such as traffic impact fees, archaeological monitoring, erosion, drainage retention basins and limiting property use to health care services only.
Voting in favor of the bills were Land Use Committee Chairman Mike Molina and members Baisa, Joe Pontanilla, Jo Anne Johnson, Danny Mateo, Bill Medeiros and Mike Victorino. Excused from the meeting were Council Chairman Riki Hokama and Council Member Michelle Anderson.
Johnson, who holds the council's West Maui residency seat, introduced the three bills in December 2006 to expedite their passage and save the developers an estimated $50,000 in fees.
Johnson said she pushed the project forward "because it is a community benefit."
No one testified against the bills on Wednesday.
In responding to questions from council members, representatives from the state Department of Transportation and the Maui Police Department Lahaina District indicated support for the medical facility and said traffic mitigation measures had been addressed.
Pluta said he believed the developer's state certificate application would meet and even exceed the health planning agency's requirements.
"But we need the zoning first," he said.
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