The long-awaited settlement of a festering labor dispute at the Turtle Bay Resort is a welcome end in itself and an even more hopeful development if it signals a break in the impasse over the North Shore development's expansion plan.

Last week's contract settlement between resort managers and the hotel workers union, UNITE HERE Local 5, was punctuated by executives' cheerful pronouncements about an "era of openness between us and the employees and the community."

Undoubtedly, the soured contract negotiations had become dead weight that nobody really needed any more, given the clash over the planned development of five new hotels. None of those plans could possibly move forward if the management firm, Benchmark Hospitality, remained at war with the union.

But the relationship with the community is also key here, because much of the additional work force needed for the expansion would come from the North Shore district.

More importantly, developer Kuilima Resort Co. will depend on the goodwill of its neighbors for any expanded hotel-condominium-park complex, even if it has a 20-year-old unilateral agreement with the city to build it. A tourist destination on the order of 3,500 rooms and condo units can't flourish in the midst of a region where the residents regard it resentfully.

The viability of that two-decades-old agreement is under fire now largely because of the lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club's Hawai'i chapter and a group of opponents called Keep the North Shore Country. The legal challenge seeks to force Kuilima to complete a new environmental impact study.

It would have been better had the developers opted to update its two-decades-old study and to revisit the terms of its agreement with the community — without a lawsuit forcing the issue.

In this new spirit of cooperation, it would be wise to find a settlement that similarly would bring an end to the courtroom dispute as well.

Critics have raised legitimate concerns about the project's potential effects on transportation, public works and the environment. Reopening the agreement to discussion would be a more sensible investment of time than a prolonged legal battle.

There's much in the development that could greatly benefit the North Shore, not the least of which is the plan to add park facilities and better shoreline access. Some measure of expansion at Turtle Bay seems in the cards.

Keeping that in mind, it's in everyone's best interest to keep communications open, rather than wallowing in an endless legal quagmire.