Looking to trim its list of homestead applicants, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands yesterday accepted a plan that could one day lead to 417 houses on nearly 26,000 acres of land on Moloka'i.

The proposal from the architecture and planning firm Group 70 International follows the department's switch last year from building pockets of 20 houses at a time to creating sustainable communities of up to 500 houses.

"The whole concept has changed from building a house to making the community," said Lloyd Yonenaka, department administrator.

Department Director Micah Kane said the Moloka'i plan is still in its early stages and needs community review before any project can be launched.

The proposal identifies the potential for 417 Moloka'i homes to be built in 'Ualapu'e, Kapa'akea, Makakupa'ia, Kamiloloa and Kalama'ula at a cost of $44.8 million.

'Ualapu'e could see 74 10,000-square-foot residential lots spread over 25 acres. The Kapa'akea, Kamiloloa and Makakupa'ia areas combined could accommodate 286 half-acre lots. And 57 one-acre lots could be developed on Kalama'ula.

"What you have there is what the potential can allow," Kane said. "If there is a demand for residential homesteads there, that's where our people have told us, 'This is where we'd like to see it happen.' "

Kane said the focus now is on resource-driven issues like improving drainage in Kapa'akea.

"It isn't so much a design to see a lot more homesteads there as it is to assure that Moloka'i remains Moloka'i," Kane said.

Group 70 has redesigned the Hanauma Bay Marine Education Center. It has helped the department develop a master plan for Kaua'i and assisted with studies for parcels in Kaluwahine and Waimanalo on O'ahu.

The firm said it would "create sustainable communities that respect the traditional cultural and subsistence practices that make Moloka'i unique."

There are 18,500 home applicants on the DHHL waiting list, Yonenaka said.

Last week Maui-based Dowling Co. was chosen for the development of two new projects on Maui, the latest phase of Waiehu Kou and the Villages of Leiali'i.

Other plans are to develop 326 lots in Kapolei, Yonenaka said, and add 300 more homes in Kona on the Big Island sometime in the future.