Hōkūnui Maui

20°51'2.21"N, 156°18'1.46"W | 550m ASL | 1524mm Avg. Rainfall

Late in 2013 we started corresponding with the team at Hōkūnui following a recommendation from a Hawaiian participant at a farm planning course we ran with the Markegard family at their coastal ranch near Half Moon Bay in California. In January of 2014 we made the first of a few trips to Maui and very quickly we developed a rapport with the wonderful Frost family who had purchased this 258 acre (104ha) property in 2011.

The family’s intention was to develop an ‘agrihood’ with the majority of the property be used for agriculture and around 40 acres (16ha) reserved for a mixture of housing which would service the need for affordable housing as well as the premium housing market in a 50:50 mix.

Prior to the Frost’s taking on this property, it had been used for pineapple cultivation in rotations with beef cattle grazing. Prior to that it had been stewarded by indigenous Hawaiians as a part of their sophisticated Ahupua’a mountain-to-sea land sub division system. The Frost’s were very sensitive to the state of indigenous land access and decided from the outset to donate a portion of the landscape to Native Hawaiian people (the Hālau Keʻalaokamaile Cultural Resource Center) and to incorporate indigenous agroforestry systems into this pastoral landscape.

From the outset our inspiration for the ‘whole-of-landscape’ plan was P.A. Yeomans’ last book, ‘The City Forest: The Keyline plan for the Human Environment Revolution’ (1971). This diminutive book with a somewhat idealistic title outlined Yeomans’ blueprint for the development of suburban and periurban housing developments, whereby the normal agriculture planning parameters of ‘The Keyline Plan’ incorporated the integration of house lots, water storages, supply, treatment and irrigation systems; sealed roads which harvested and directed stormwater; urban timber plantations and intensive market gardens. As lifelong ‘Keyliners’ we were not aware of any installations of this archetype and so we were very keen to present this as the theme for this layout.

Through the application of the ‘Regrarians Platform®’ the family were able to outline their holistic context and this, together with the meteorological data (1•Climate layer) and land capability assessment (2•Geography layer) provided us with the primary reference for the farm landscape and enterprise planning that followed.

The landscape itself is relatively uncomplicated and didn’t present any real challenges from a land planning perspective. Prior to our first trip Erik Frost (a house builder) had been busily using Adobe Illustrator to develop the first concept plans (see montage below) and we worked very closely with him to blend some of these concepts into ‘The City Forest’ inspired layout.

Projects such as this generate a significant amount of attention and in many cases are stymied by over-rigourous regulation from different levels of government. This project was no exception and as a result, there is a whole compliance industry that makes these projects way more expensive than they need to be. What we know to work on agricultural sites, is subjected to gold-plated and time-consuming oversight when it comes to putting housing in the mix.

Over the next 10 years the project developed the agricultural landscape—inspired in part by the farmer-consultants we recommended, including Daniel Salatin (Polyface Farm), Brittany Cole Bush and Jaime Elizondo Braun—such that the farm produced a wide range of pasture-based products as well as integrating a modern take on traditional Hawaiian agroforestry systems (overseen by the dynamic Hewahewa family); while elements of the housing development progressed as well.

Last year we received the very sad news from Karin Frost that both her brother Erik and their elderly mother Svia had passed away. Erik was only in his late 50’s and we will miss him greatly as he became a good friend. Vale dear Svia and Erik. Karin and Erik’s late father Robert also became a friend and many will know of him because of a hilarious joke of his that Lisa Heenan regularly recites, and she has even won an award for telling (‘Last Joke’ best joke award at the Koroit Irish Festival 2019)!.

The property is now for sale, and we wish Karin and her son Keala every success and Mahalo for her friendship and support over many years.