Most of the longtime residents in the quiet town of La'ie would like to enliven their neighborhood a bit without destroying its relaxed, rural charm.

This, of course, is the ongoing balancing act that confronts communities up and down the Ko'olauloa coastline. Modest growth can be a blessing if it delivers improvements and capacity that the community needs while holding at bay the creeping urbanization of townside O'ahu. The "country" feel is, after all, why residents choose to live here — and live with — the often necessary long commute.

The planners of an expansion on and around the Brigham Young University-Hawai'i campus have a good grasp of what the community wants, thanks to the admirable "Envision La'ie" series of meetings with, and surveys of, the residents.

Hawaii Reserves Inc., the developer, is seeking approvals for 1,200 residential units, shops, churches and an expanded campus to enable a boost in enrollment, something the college needs to sustain itself.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the town's primary landowner and employer as well as its spiritual hub, is firmly rooted in the community, providing a level of trust with residents. But that's been somewhat strained in the past year, when the church shelved plans for a smaller development that the neighbors favored.

This is why the "visioning" process — the conversation with the residents who helped to shape the plans in a promising way — must continue as the project moves through city reviews.

Residents have made it clear they want improvements that are geared to the established residents, not catering to the transient population of vacation renters and second-home owners. Above all, the surveys show, they want and deserve affordable housing. The developers need to deliver homes within reach of the residents, who have watched the trends that are pricing them out of the available housing inventory.

The city and the developers both need to hear the legitimate concerns about housing, traffic and other infrastructure needs. City officials should revisit current limits on housing in the plans and policies, taking into consideration that much of what's available is unaffordable.

So far, the engagement of the community in the plans is encouraging, a model of how projects should proceed. If the end result is a La'ie that supports a thriving community, the investment of time in the process will pay off handsomely.