The slowdown in development in Central O'ahu in recent years could soon give way to thousands of new homes and residents, making some of those already living in the Wahiawa-to-Waipahu region nervous about the effect on schools, roads and other infrastructure.

That is why there is high interest in an update of the Central O'ahu Sustainable Communities Plan, which guides planning and growth in the region. The city must review and update the plan every five years and is beginning that re-evaluation.

Planners want residents to attend a workshop tomorrow and take part in the process if they want to make a difference.

Some people don't like what is in the existing plan.

The Mililani/Waipi'o/Melamanu Neighborhood Board has gone so far as to ask for a moratorium on new residential development in Central O'ahu, with its members asserting that the sustainable community plan failed to address critical issues.

"They just took what developers wanted to do and just drew a circle and called that the urban growth boundary," said Dick Poirier, chairman of the Mililani board. "They didn't do the appropriate studies to show whether it made sense."

Such cries have so far fallen on deaf ears at City Hall. At this point, Poirier said, he would just like to see a more detailed analysis of new development's effects.

Leaders of both Poirier's board and the Mililani Mauka/Launani Valley Neighborhood Board say they aren't opposed to new development but want to see services go up quickly enough to meet that growth.

Poirier described the notion of concurrency, where services go up at the same time as the buildings — be they residential or business — that require them.

"When the house is sold, is there a school for the kid to go to and is the guy going to be able to get out of the driveway, get on the highway, and go to work?" Poirier said. "This is basically what we're asking for."

Alan Arakawa, president of Waiawa Ridge Development, one of the major homebuilders in the area, said concurrency can have different meanings.

"On one extreme, it's the notion that schools and all infrastructure should be in place before the first house is built," Arakawa said. "But I think the more practical approach is understanding where the growth is going to occur, what the infrastructure needs are, and then planning for that infrastructure in a timely manner given practical realities."

THOUSANDS MORE HOMES

Most of the growth for the area designated as Central O'ahu centers on two projects — Castle & Cooke Homes' Koa Ridge and Waiawa Ridge Development's Waiawa Ridge. The neighboring projects, north of Pearl City and east of Waipi'o, could one day see as many as 17,500 homes.

For now, Waiawa Ridge has approval for 5,000 homes on 1,700 acres and expects to break ground next year. Meanwhile, Castle & Cooke is in the preliminary stage of seeking approval from the state Land Use Commission for its 1,500-home first phase.

A third project, Royal Kunia Phase 2, could add up to 2,000 more homes. That project, which recently went through an ownership change, also needs to go through the lengthy land use approval process.

Dean Hazama, chairman of the Mililani Mauka board, echoed Poirier's concerns. But unlike their makai neighbors, the Mililani Mauka board did not ask for a moratorium.

Hazama said his board doesn't want to see a repeat of what happened in their community. "Schools have to be adequately sized, and they need to improve the timing of when they become available to a community," he said. "In Mililani Mauka, the timing was a little bit off. Schools weren't built as quickly as people in the community would have liked to have had them built. And they're not as large as we needed them."

CITY COUNCIL DECIDES

The Mililani Mauka board is also worried about the added traffic not just from the two Waiawa projects, but also from the ever-growing Kapolei-'Ewa communities. The H1-H2 interchange is already a nightmare for thousands of motorists each morning and evening, and it could get worse, Hazama said.

Area Councilman Nestor Garcia said the review process is a good opportunity for the public to weigh in on how the sustainability plan has worked, or not worked.

Garcia said he fully recognizes the concerns raised by the neighborhood boards. "If we can come up with a way to put up development concurrently with the infrastructure, then I think we can come to some common ground," Garcia said. While not in favor of a moratorium on development, "I am trying to see how we can bring the infrastructure online at the same time as the homes that are slated to be developed," he said.

Concurrency is a nice catch phrase, he said, but "how we do it is another thing. That's no easy trick. It means we need to work with all the different parties — the state, the city, the landowners, the developers, and the community."

Bob Stanfield, chief of Development Plans and Zone Change Branch at the city's Department of Planning and Permitting, said all topics are open for discussion. He encouraged those living in the region to attend the upcoming workshop.

"Anything is possible, anything can be proposed," he said. Stanfield did offer a caveat, however.

"To get it into the plan requires five or six votes of the City Council to agree with you," he said. "The agenda's open. Make your case, we're the vehicle to collect those arguments, to organize them, present them. We'll make our recommendations. But the forum's open. This is the community's opportunity to weigh in on what they want for the future, to say whether or not the vision is still appropriate and what they want the plan to say. And then it becomes up to the council to decide what to do with all of that."

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.