Perhaps. Japanese billionaire Gensiro Kawamoto, who owns 147 acres adjoining the northern border of Maui Meadows has made such a proposal.

Japanese billionaire Gensiro Kawamoto, who withdrew plans to develop 147 acres in Kihei as an affordable housing project protesting a demand for a contribution to schools, has offered to give 50 acres and $5 million to the Department of Education to build a new Kihei high school. According to the Department of Education, Kawamoto’s project site next to the Maui Meadows rural subdivision is among seven sites under review by the department’s facilities branch… In his proposal to the DOE, Kawamoto is asking assistance from the department in getting the state to complete major offsite infrastructure improvements including connections for water, sewer lines and electricity…Kawamoto bought the 147 acres for $19 million in 1989, taking over an affordable housing project that had been approved by the Land Use Commission but was not yet zoned by the county. When he gave up the plans in 1995, the land reverted to agricultural use. On Oahu, Kawamoto has recently moved forward with a plan to rent out homes in one of Oahu’s priciest neighborhoods to Native Hawaiian families for $150 to $200 a month. In the 1980s, Kawamoto aroused concerns when he began purchasing single-family homes around Oahu in a spending spree that pumped up values of existing houses.

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