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Olowalu Town
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Olowalu has traditionally been a population center on Maui during pre and post-contact times. With the decline of the sugar industry, the small plantation town closed down
Dave Ward and Bill Frampton realized that the current development patterns on Maui left few options for local residents who wanted to raise their families in a traditional Maui small town community. The two partners retained Andres Duany and his planning and architecture firm, DPZ, to help. Duany and DPZ are known internationally for Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND), an approach that models our historic town patterns to help create tight communities. This approach has become popular as an antidote to suburban sprawl, which typically creates places to live but does not build communities.
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Olowlau Talk Story Newspaper #1
Olowalu.net
Communicating with the Community
There were two initial steps that needed to be taken. First was to help the DPZ team understand Maui, the site and the history and culture of Maui. Next, the community on Maui needed to come to an understanding of the planning principles that DPZ would use as the foundation of working with the community to devise the community plan. To this end, we created a series of informative newspaper advertisements and a eight page tabloid newspaper that was mailed to everyone on the island. The paper reviewed the history of Olowalu and ancient Hawaiian land management practices. It finished by introducing TND planning concepts that would be discussed in Olowalu Talk Story, a weeklong community driven planning process. Olowalu.net, the website for the project, provided more detail and background on both Olowalu and TND concepts and approaches.
Olowalu Talk Story
The Talk Story event was a weeklong series of workshops and general sessions attended by 1350 participants, the most ever on Maui. Starting with a blank slate, the workshops asked the community to help design a small town at Olowalu. Many options were explored as the community and planners refined and revised the plan. The resulting plan was presented on the final night of the event and was discussed by the audience. The event and the process were documented on paper and on video. The video was edited and was repeatedly shown on community access cable and a DVD version widely distributed.
· Download Olowalu Talk Story Newspaper
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Olowalu Town: By Maui For Maui
We followed the Talk Story workshop with a second 12 page newspaper that summarized the process, the workshop and the resulting community plan. As with the first one, this paper was mailed out to everyone on the island.
· Download Olowalu Town: By Maui, For Maui Newspaper
Small Town Maui Radio
After the Talk Story session ended, we started a weekly radio show during the Friday drive time in which a cross section of community leaders were invited to discuss topics relevant to Maui's traditional small town values and lifestyle, and how these might be expressed going forward. Listeners called in and the resulting show was a lively mix of local lore, insights and aspirations. The show was archived at the show website and as a podcast on iTunes.
Project Status
Bill and Dave are currently working with the County, the community and a wide range of community and business groups to move the project forward. They have received kudos for their transparent and inclusive approach and for the community concept. Maui County is in the midst of creating an updated county-wide development plan. The partners will be waiting for the conclusion of the general plan before beginning their Entitlement and Permitting phase at Olowalu.
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