A developer has proposed a 148-unit housing project for Kōloa, a historic rural town on Kauai’s South Shore, sparking a community debate over local affordability and preservation. The Kauai Planning Commission is set to hear the proposal again on Tuesday after requesting more community outreach. Residents and community groups remain divided over whether the project will help locals struggling with housing costs or damage the town’s character.
The project highlights a broader housing affordability crisis in Hawaii: many residents earn too much to qualify for subsidized housing but too little to purchase market-rate homes. The proposed one-bedroom units start at $520,000, within reach of some gap-market buyers, but community members worry the development will transform Kōloa and strain local infrastructure.
Developer Mike Serpa’s proposal to build a 148-unit housing project in Kōloa has divided the historic Hawaii town between those who see it as addressing a pressing affordability crisis and those who worry it will transform Kōloa and strain local infrastructure.
Serpa, who purchased the site in 2023 and built the neighboring Kōloa Village shopping center, is seeking permits from the Kauai Planning Commission to build the project on 9.5 acres at Weliweli and Waikomo roads on the South Shore. The commission will hear the proposal again on Tuesday after requesting more community outreach in January.
The project would consist of 31 plantation-style buildings housing 148 units of various sizes. One-bedroom units start at $520,000, two-bedrooms at $650,000, and three-bedrooms in the high $600,000s — prices targeted at residents who earn too much to qualify for subsidized affordable housing but too little to afford conventional market-rate homes. It would be the largest multifamily development Kōloa has ever seen in a town that has long remained small and quiet, centered around a historic hub of shops and eateries surrounded by single-family homes.
Community Opposition
Julie Souza, a fifth-generation Po’ipū resident with deep ties to Kōloa, said plainly: “It will literally kill us. They’ll make a lot of money, probably, from people from afar. Our local people can’t pay that amount.”
Two community groups, Friends of Māhā’ulepu and Save Kōloa, filed a petition to intervene in the Planning Commission proceeding. Bridget Hammerquist, president of Friends of Māhā’ulepu, said the development with massive numbers of people and cars represents a departure from the town’s history: “It’s a small, quaint, historic plantation town, and this is not what that town has ever been.”
Residents raised practical concerns about infrastructure. Laureen Naumu-Balocan, a member of both intervenor groups who lives on a homestead behind the project site that has been in her family for over 100 years, expressed concern that more cars will complicate evacuation and hamper first responders during emergencies.
On water management, residents Rita Norman and Ryan Buhk said the neighborhood has experienced increasing runoff problems as the town has grown. The area near Waikomo Stream can fill with a foot of water during heavy rains. Serpa said he has completed a traffic impact analysis with the county’s Planning and Public Works departments and designed the project to manage water from a 100-year storm event. The plan includes 12-inch-deep retention basins in grassy areas that drain to underground pipes and basins beneath parking areas.
Environmental and Cultural Concerns
Some community members called for an environmental impact statement or assessment, citing potential harm to the underground Kōloa cave system, which is the only habitat for endangered species like the Kaua’i cave wolf spider.
A Ka Pa’akai Analysis conducted in October 2025 by Cultural Surveys Hawai’i concluded the project will not impact cultural resources or practices. However, the analysis reached out to 36 groups and individuals, received only four responses, and conducted no in-depth interviews.
Serpa said Cultural Surveys Hawai’i is doing additional testing for underground caves and is open to relocating structures to avoid a historic rock wall identified in a previous study. He has declined to redo the analysis. “I am 100% confident in our Ka Pa’akai Analysis,” Serpa said.
Case for the Project
Not all community members oppose the development. Realtor Cheree Rapozo, a fifth-generation Kaua’i resident, views it as necessary gap housing. First-time home buyers on average qualify for loans of $650,000, she said — far short of the $850,000 minimum needed to purchase a house on Kaua’i. Only a couple of condo projects in Līhu’e are within reach of such buyers, with nothing available on the south side. “For real, we got to meet halfway,” Rapozo said at a Feb. 18 community meeting. “There’s no more houses in the $650,000 range.”
Serpa pointed to his track record. In his nearby Kauhale at Kōloa Village project, where one-bedroom units started at roughly $535,000, 58 of 60 units have sold. Forty-two went to buyers already living on Kaua’i, and roughly 60% of all buyers were in their 50s or 60s.
State Rep. Luke Evslin strongly supports the project. Kaua’i has a pattern of building either income-restricted affordable homes or luxury housing, leaving a gap, he said. Two-story multifamily housing adjacent to the town core is consistent with Kōloa’s character. “I think ensuring that local families can live and thrive on Kaua’i is the only way that we can retain community character,” Evslin wrote.
What Comes Next
Planning Director Ka’āina Hull tentatively recommends approval of the permit application, with conditions. His recommendation requires county construction standards for wildfire resilience and landscaping standards to prevent wildfire spread. Currently, only Kaua’i’s five privately owned plantation camps are subject to such measures, though Kōloa has a high wildfire risk according to the Kaua’i Community Wildfire Protection Plan.
Under the South Kaua’i Form-Based Code, multifamily housing requires zoning permits. The county’s underlying zoning ordinance would normally allow six units per acre — 57 units maximum on the site. Serpa reduced his original 164-unit proposal to 148 units after community members complained he was developing a parcel not included in his permit application; those 16 units would instead be a future phase.
Elizabeth Okinaka of Save Kōloa urged the commission to wait before approving the project. The community should first gauge the impacts of Serpa’s 60-unit Kauhale project next to Kōloa Village, she said. “I think that’s scary. He pitches it as such a good thing for the community and he’s helping, but I think we’ll really see what it’s going to be like when that first project opens.”