Despite overwhelming public testimony against this rushed and disjointed Land-Use sea-change from the most affected residents in Hawaii, the legislators quickly adopted this zoning to increase density for ALL Hawaii counties.
This was a last-minute attempt to disclose to the public about this Bill.
SOCIAL MEDIA’S FAST & EASY FALLACIES APPROACH TO PUBLIC POLICIES:
On the other hand, there was social media by interest groups circulated to those who hope for “affordable housing.” Share whatever is in your mind. No vetting needed. Ah! Creating a seismic land-use change is so simple; you do not consider all the multiplier impacts on Hawaii residents. Who cares about inviting more real estate speculators and investors to compete with local residents?
Interesting, I was warned by a California land-use planner about the trend to decimate single family and it was coming to Hawaii soon. That was about five years ago.
California pushed it and here is the recent court answer to rouge legislators who squashed single-family zoning.
April 29, 2024 3 AM PT
” A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled that a landmark law ending single-family-home-only zoning in California is unconstitutional, a decision that could lead to the law being invalidated in the state’s largest cities.
Judge Curtis Kin determined that Senate Bill 9 does not provide housing restricted for low-income residents and therefore cannot override state constitutional protections afforded to local zoning practices.”
CHATTER CIRCULATING AROUND
There was chatter circulating that increasing the density will pass. Rumors were circulating around that Senator Brian Schatz has met with local politicians and every one should fall in line for this “progressive” idea.
Senator Stanley Change and House Representative Luke Evlslin championed this process.
BACK TO TODAY AT THE STATE CAPITOL:
Scroll to 5:03 video of today’s hearing at the House of Representatives. (By the way, these hearings do not appear on the Olelo Public Access Television anymore. It’s on the Capitol’s own channel that requires ONLINE capabilities. Many residents, especially the kupuna sector, are not connected.)
April 26, 2024, the Committee Report said it has a FULL & FREE discussion. But it doesn’t say that the merits and the demerits were fully and freely discussed and analyzed.
Hawaii Residents should not have to spend time trying to explain and convince the decision makers that SB3202 is problematic and deficient.
Lawmakers must disclose such seismic land-use hijacking to their most-affected constituents first. So far, it’s been a well-kept secret. But the rush is on to adopt this bill.
This STATE bill subverts COUNTY HOME RULE. It’s the Counties which manage and enforce the Land-Use Comprehensive Plans or Community Plans and so on. These plans requires public hearings and public participation. These processes take months and years.
Senator Stanley Chang from Oahu and Representative Luke Evslin sponsored SB3202 and HB1630. They expect to adopt this within four short months with hardly any public participation or disclosures. They’re both on the ballot this year.
Long-story short, the bills upends Hawaii’s residential landed properties zoned Residential 3.5, Residential 5, Residential 7.5, Residential 10, Country in the name of “affordable housing” :
To allow a dwelling on every 2,000 square feet of land.
To allow subdivision of these 2,000 square feet of land.
It’s that “simple”. If they are allowed to subdivide and build, they can “keep families together” and fill the “missingMiddle” gap, so the supporters say.
Read the written testimonies submitted by the usual development lobbyists, non-profits, building industries and related commerce. The supporters this time around included Real Estate Escrow Company, a Aloha Shirt Company and so on. It’s a view into who’s connected to who in Hawaii.
When a small segment of the public caught wind of it, there are more opinions from the frontline and the most affected. It’s interesting to scroll down. There are some very thoughtful insights and warnings. But they do not appear to cause some legislators to pause and think deeper.
This is the video of the April 1, 2024 hearing on SB3202. It’s understandable to expect special interests lobby for their own industry or personal interests.
But it’s alarming to see those in public offices not thoughtfully and dutifully represent the public interests i.e. Hawaii’s residents.
One example: Scroll to 1:49 to listen for a few minutes to this Hawaii County Planner. He obviously disses the elected Hawaii County Council but claims “I’m very much a Home Rule guy.” Who hired this guy?
There is whole lot more to discuss. But here’s an extremely brief poster about SB3202. It’s alarming that taxpayers will always be responsible for crappy malfeasance if the legislators push this Bill through on May 1, 2024.
I urge you to speak up. You have to protect yourself and your own future in Hawaii.
EMAIL and tell them your opinions. Or simply say “OPPOSE HAMMAJANG SB3202”.
Facebook posts don’t have to be about just about food and events. I thought this was a very helpful share from a friend.
Hawaii has morphed into a very expensive place to live with the average price of a single family at $1M. There are more Hawaiians living out of Hawaii than here. There are a lot of frustrations and angst, and rightly so.
Perhaps the saddest thing I’ve heard from my years of community advocacy is this phrase from a Hawaiian: ” You can go home to your homeland but we have no place to return to. This is our homeland.”
” While looking for something else, I came across this law from 1850, prohibiting natives from leaving Hawai’i due to a concern of population loss. It puts into perspective the recent discussions on the exact same issue.” Jonathan Scheuer
The massive fire destroyed historic Lahaina Town on hot dry August 8, 2023.
In the midst of great devastation, grief, and confusion, Governor Green threw more fuel to the atmosphere of great mistrust towards his known pro-development agenda with his public remarks. The swift action of removing a prominent pro-native-water-rights Hawaiian employee from his state position creates more suspicions of political exploitation.
This state employee has been hastily vilified on the superficial social media around the world. But this issue demands more more effort to investigate and analyze. An educated conclusion can only be made through understanding the history of water rights in a much broader context.
He (Ku’uleialoha Palakiko) and other Native Hawaiians in Maui have spent years fighting for a greater say in how one of their most valued resources— water — is diverted and allocated. Now, in the wake of wind-whipped blazes that ripped through Maui, they say they are being scapegoated by Hawaii government officials and developers, who say water needs to flow more freely for fire protection.
The day after the fire, the administration of Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) asked the state Supreme Court to relax stream flow limits in centralMaui to free up more water for fire suppression.A high-ranking state water commission official was reassigned after a prominent developer claimed his request to fill a reservoir in anticipation of fires was delayed. Two residents sued Monday over the reassignment.
Hōkūao Pellegrino, a farmer in Waikapu, said the fire and what he sees as the resulting blame game are being used to “undo all of the work that our communities have fought so hard and advocated so hard to do.” The result, he added, could undermine Native Hawaiian efforts “to ensure that our landscape is no longer that barren, dry, arid, fire prone region that it has become.”
Developers say that some regulations have hampered efforts to fill reservoirs with water that could be used to protect Lahaina homes and subdivisions.
Since the fire,Gov. Green has repeatedly highlighted the ongoing water conflict on Maui in remarks to reporters. He has suspended portions of the water code “necessary to respond to the emergency,” and has signaled he may further relax water regulations throughout West Maui.
Green has acknowledged that using water for cultural purposes is important, but has said the “stalemate” over water policy has left dry areas of the island vulnerable to blazes. His office did not respond to inquiries from The Washington Post.
The governor directly addressed water activists during a live-streamed interview with a Honolulu-based news site, Civil Beat: “Look guys, we just lost lives because we don’t have a water policy or a statewide plan that protects the land from burning.”
He also has said that “people have been fighting against the release of water to fight fires” — a comment that has outraged community members who say it’s a misrepresentation.
“In my eight years on the water commission, I never heard, in a single hearing, that testimony from anyone in the community,” said Kamanamaikalani Beamer, who served two terms on the state’s water commission starting in 2013.
He added that the Native Hawaiian community around Lahaina “has fought for literally generations to seek justice and balance for the streams and the community and other usages.”
“In an emergency crisis, we’re jumping back to old paradigms that didn’t work for that place, and that brought us to this point.”
Although each U.S. state has its own rules, water is a public trust in Hawaii, a legacy of its days as a sovereign kingdom. The State Commission on Water Resource Management sets standards for the amount of water that must flow through streams; citizens can petition over those.
The legal framework around water rights has “been one of the few tools available to Native Hawaiians to fight against the commercial forces that have been bearing down on the islands for the last 50 years,” said Jonathan Scheuer, a water policy consultant and co-author of the book “Water and Power in West Maui.”
Lahaina, once a capital of the Hawaiian kingdom, has always been hot. But before Western occupation, it was an abundant agricultural landscape with lush wetlands. An inland pond surrounded Moku’ula, a tiny island that was home to Hawaiian royalty.
Struggles over water management heightened with land privatization in the 19th century. Ancient waterways and irrigation systems established by Hawaiians were diverted for the sugar cane plantations that took over large swaths of land in West Maui.Sugar cane, which gave way to tourism in the 20th century, dried out the landscape. A dried up Moku’ula was filled in, and then later buried beneath a baseball field.
The latest controversy began the day after the fires. Glenn Tremble, a West Maui Land executive, wrote to the state water commission complaining thata request to divert water to a company reservoir was delayed for several hours after an agency official told him to first check with a downstream taro farmer, per regulation.
Tremble told The Post that the company’s subdivisions rely on the reservoir water for fire suppression, and that the company issueda preemptive request ahead of an unpredictable blaze. In the moment, he argued, it was unclear whether helicopters could dump water on hotspots, like they did during a November 2022 fire in an area above Lahaina when the Maui Fire Department tapped company reservoirs.
“Based on experience, we knew that flare ups happen, wind strength and direction changes, fires spread quickly, our reservoir levels were low and water from our reservoirs is used by [the Maui Fire Department] for fire control,” Tremble wrote to The Post via email. He added the company needs to have water available to the fire department before firefighters need it. “We also knew that having water for individual homes for irrigation and fire suppression can help to slow or stop fires.”
Critics say filling the developer’s reservoirs with water would not have helped put out the fire in Lahaina. The hydrant system in Lahaina is supplied by the county water system, according to the fire department. And high winds made it too treacherous for helicopters to pull water from reservoirs to drop water on hotspots, as they have done in the past.
In his letter to the commission, Tremble acknowledged “we cannot know whether filling our reservoirs at 1:00 p.m. (as opposed to not at all) would have changed” the outcome. He asked to lift rules on water flow to fill their reservoirs in the area during this emergency period, and “other regulations.”
It became a political controversy after local media published the letter. The water commission official was “redeployed” to allow the agency to “focus on the necessary work to assist the people of Maui recover from the devastation of the wildfires,” the Department of Land and Natural Resources said in a statement. The agency cautioned against suggesting the official “did anything wrong.”
Governor Josh Green’s “Emergency Proclamation” (EP) for “Affordable Housing” is getting more alarming.
Basic protections like the Sunshine Law and Public Participation are suspended in the name of “affordable housing crisis”, to expedite development processes and alleviate the state’s acute shortage of housing units. The EP is good for twelve months. Then what?
The “Emergency Proclamation” was signed by Hawaii’s Governor Josh Green on July 17, 2023 in the name of providing “affordable” housing. The Chief Housing Officer (LHO) is the Central Party – the EP allows the LHO to make decisions “without being certified by the Build Beyond Barriers Working Group”.
Here is a copy of Hawaii Sierra Club Director Wayne Chung Tanaka’s observations of the first “Build Beyond Barriers” meeting at the Hawaii State Capitol in August 2023.
” Takeaways:
The “Build Beyond Barriers Working Group” Chair, Nani Medeiros, unilaterally suspended ALL PROVISIONS of the Sunshine Law, despite having no justification to do so. Meeting facilitator Scott Glenn and developer consultant Trisha Watson actively sought to suppress any discussion about the illegal, non-transparent nature of the Working Group’s first meeting.
Earthjustice attorney David Henkin was ejected from physically observing the meeting even after being told he could attend as a member of the public, and had the sheriffs called on him by the Governor’s deputy general counsel Jeremy Lakin.
Because there was only one microphone for a room of 30-plus participants, the Facebook livestream of the meeting was largely inaudible.
Nani Medeiros confirmed that she, as the “Lead Housing Officer,” had authority to approve any project that received any state or county waiver or exemption, or that used any state or county financing, funds, or lands. Such projects would be eligible to proceed without complying with the laws suspended by the proclamation – and without any Working Group approval, review, or notification.
“In a democracy, the people are vested with the ultimate decision-making power. Governmental agencies exist to aid the people in the formation and conduct of public policy. Opening up the governmental processes to public scrutiny and participation is the only viable and reasonable method of protecting the public’s interest.” – HRS Chapter 92 (a.k.a. the “Sunshine Law”)
The first “Build Beyond Barriers Working Group” meeting was held on Friday, and the situation with the Governor’s emergency housing proclamation is far, far worse than I had thought. While there was scarcely time for questions during a meeting largely taken up by performative introductions, Working Group leadership made clear that they had no regard for transparency or the law – even as described in the proclamation itself. Previously, I had written my concerns to Working Group chair Nani Medeiros, regarding the apparent suspension of the Sunshine Law. I had observed that the meeting had not been posted to the state calendar with the required six days’ notice.
Nani confirmed that she had decided to unilaterally suspend the notice requirement of the Sunshine Law. Her excuse pointed to logistical issues that needed to be resolved first – namely, coordinating flights for neighbor island working group members and members of the island burial councils (only one burial council member, from Molokaʻi, would end up attending – via Zoom), and finding table microphones so that “sound distribution is strong for participants and observers.”
Nani wrote that she was “committed to making these meetings accessible to the public, even if it means personally investing in equipment” (emphasis added), and promised that the meeting would be posted on the state calendar once all the details were set.
The meeting was never posted on the state calendar, and the information sent to news media for the public to observe the meeting online had the wrong time. When Working Group members arrived at the Governor’s conference room Friday morning, there was only one microphone, tethered to a conference phone by a cord not much longer than six feet, to be shared by some thirty-odd people.
Needless to say, the meeting was largely inaudible to the Facebook Live viewers who were able to find the correct link.Before the Working Group meeting began, a member of the public who wished to quietly observe in person – environmental attorney David Henkin, no less – was ejected by the Governor’s deputy general counsel, Jeremy Lakin. Jeremy even went so far as to call the state sheriffs, rather than contemplate the legality of his action.
Apparently, the public observation provisions of the Sunshine Law had also been suspended for this meeting, in addition to its public notice requirements. Public input requirements were obviously also suspended.
I immediately attempted to ask for clarity about what provisions of the Sunshine Law had been suspended, since the emergency proclamation itself only allows for the suspension of provisions of the Sunshine Law to the extent needed for “expeditious action, decision, or approval.” Posting notice on the state calendar, and allowing a member of the public to quietly observe in person – both requirements of the Sunshine Law – would not delay any conceivable actions, decisionmaking, or approvals.
(In fact, it turned out there also was no action, decisionmaking, or approval whatsoever during the meeting that would justify any Sunshine Law suspension under the proclamation, despite Nani’s prior written (and false) statement that there would be “important decision-making processes taking place.”)
Unfortunately, vice chair Scott Glenn clearly did not want me to raise these concerns, and asked that I hold my question until the end of the meeting.
During our “introductions,” I again warned the group that violating the Sunshine Law was a Big Deal and an invitation for lawsuits, and was met with blank stares. Scott said there would be time to address my concerns after introductions were complete.
Eventually, during the few minutes we had for questions, I was told that the Sunshine Law had been suspended in its entirety. When I questioned how that could be, given the language of the proclamation, developer consultant and Working Group member Trisha Watson cut me off. She said my concerns about legal compliance should be tabled, and that she had “real questions.” No one objected.
The Working Group leadership’s flippant disregard of both the law and the critical importance of public transparency was simply astounding. These are the people we, the public, are being asked to trust with the future of our islands.
In response to the only other question I was allowed to raise, Nani also confirmed that she, the lead housing officer, had unilateral authority to bypass the Working Group completely, and approve any project that received any state or county exemption or waiver, or used any state or county lands, funds, or financing. She also made clear she was under no obligation to even inform the Working Group of any such approvals.
Yes, this is real life. And incredibly, the Working Group Chair’s willingness to disregard the law, eschew transparency, and repeatedly lie – in writing, no less – makes clear that this emergency proclamation and the people in charge of it are even more dangerous than I had previously worried.
Friends, the future of our islands – our cherished landscapes, our cultural foundations, our social fabric, and even our housing crisis itself – may be harmed irrevocably by a proclamation that puts unprecedented power in the hands of a few individuals. These individuals have already shown that they will not – or cannot – even coordinate a single introductory meeting in compliance with the proclamation itself. We are now being asked to let these same people administer and enforce an initiative involving tens of thousands of un-affordable housing units across hundreds or potentially thousands of acres of land, throughout the islands.
Even with the best intentions, developers will surely run circles around this Working Group’s leadership, to the benefit of corporate profit margins, and the detriment of all that makes Hawai‘i, Hawai‘i.”
Social media can’t be all that bad. this is funny. Potholes are every where here in Hawaii.
It’s a mystery why we spend millions of dollars each year and we continue to have such problems. Mind you, we don’t even have to deal with snow or de-icing.
It I have my rathers, I would insist that there are warranties to these jobs. Companies must be confident enough of their work to provide a 5-year warranty. If there are potholes, the company has to fix their work within a week at its own expense.
Bill 21, authored by City Councilman Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, asks for changes to the City County Housing Code to be consistent with the International Building Code (IBC) that allows windowless (no natural light and ventilation) housing units.
Santos-Tam, a construction industry lobbyist, said that the county needs to build 25,000 housing units and thus “optionality” is necessary in housing development. The statement begs many questions as to who these units are for and do we want Oahu to follow other countries’ values and standards. Is this about helping developers or is this about meeting the needs of our local residents?
Below is an excellent example of a local government worker with lots of expertise and experience standing up for the public good, rather than developers. Michael O Silva, speaking as a private citizen, should be commended for speaking up. His testimony is free from self-interests but filled with common sense and aloha for the ordinary local residents. Read the testimonies here.
Listen to Bill 21 here. It starts around the 1:46 mark.
The State Legislature wants to repeal the existing HTA and create a new Office of Destination Management within the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBET).
This action appears to be a knee-jerk and punitive legislating. It reminds me of the nationwide movement to “Defund The Police” based on the actions of a few bad cops. Some states who defunded the police had to reverse their actions and fund the police. While justice and rule of law is paramount to our democracy, public policy-making must be intelligently and deliberately vetted.
What is interesting is also the punitive language that is attached to Bill 1375 and Bill SB 1522 –
SECTION l. The legislature finds that the Hawaii tourism authority has failed to effectively execute its duties to manage the tourism marketing plan for the State.
The Legislature is wielding a quick sword at HTA because it “has failed” in its duty. However, residents of Hawaii does not have the same swift opportunity to treat the Legislature job performance. Public efforts to adopt Term Limits for the State Legislature failed again this 2023 session.
Besides HTA is not the only entity that is contributing to the unhappiness of our residents in Hawaii relating to tourism issues. The Governor, Lt. Governor, Mayors, State and City Transportation departments and so forth are all responsible too.
Note the punitive language.
HB 1381 is a more deliberate and informed legislation to adopt a public policy. But it died very quickly.
Consultant Dawn Chang’s nomination Hearing is on Friday March 31, 2023 1:00 pm
Testimonies can be submitted here. You need an email to register. Testimonies can be a simply OPPOSE or SUPPORT.
This is a written testimony from Deborah Ward from Mountain View, Hawaii Island OPPOSING Dawn Chang. Deborah has been in the environmental movement to preserve and protect Hawaii’s resources for decades. She has been a member of the Hawaii island group of Sierra club since 1984 in Excom positions since then. She served on the OMKM ENVIRONMENT committee for 23 years. Deborah is a retired faculty for UH DEPT of natural resources and environmental management, with an MS in Horticulture. She is currently farming ten acres in Mountain View.
” I am writing to urge you to not to confirm the nomination of Ms.Dawn Chang as Chair of the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR).
The basis for my opposition to this appointment is that Ms. Chang’s approach to the pressing issues of our time has been too narrowly focused on meeting the needs of her corporate and organizational clients when the focus needs to be on protecting the public trust.
The context for my concerns is the kuleana of the BLNR. While I am sure that you are aware of that responsibility, a reminder is in order given the importance of the appointment being considered. The Department of Land and Natural Resources, headed by an executive Board of Land and Natural Resources, is responsible for managing, administering, and exercising control over public lands, water resources, ocean waters, navigable streams, coastal areas (except commercial harbors), minerals, and all interests therein.
The department’s jurisdiction encompasses nearly 1.3 million acres of State lands, beaches, and coastal waters as well as 750 miles of coastline (the fourth longest in the country). It includes state parks; historical sites; forests and forest reserves; aquatic life and its sanctuaries; public fishing areas; boating, ocean recreation, and coastal programs; wildlife and its sanctuaries; game management areas; public hunting areas; and natural area reserves.A summary of that kuleana is protecting the public trust.
Given this tremendous responsibility, the selection of a Chair should be guided by the highest principles. There is ample evidence that the selection of Ms. Chang does not demonstrate an adherence to that fundamental requirement.
The candidate should have demonstrated unquestionable integrity, a profound understanding of Hawaiian history and, a deep respect for the traditional Hawaiian civilization.
While Ms. Chang’s work has been involved in a wide range of relevant areas, an examination of her record in those involvements discloses a bias that disqualifies her from holding the BLNR position. Ms. Chang’s career is repeatedly characterized by decisions that ignore the mandates of history in order to facilitate the colonial mindset of facilitating economic exploitation, rather than acting as a protector of Hawai’i’s future. Her long list of corporate clients is the visible manifestation of her true professional commitments.
Her company belongs in the company of businesses that prepare environmental assessments and environmental impact statements which give developers the cover of a document that says what the developer needs to justify the project at issue.
There are other questions about the fitness of Ms. Chang. Some of her actions appear to be unethical, such as advising clients on how to avoid taking legally required actions.
For example, she advised Kawaiahaʻo Church that its proposal to construct a multi-purpose center did not require an archeological inventory survey, which the law clearly required. Ms. Chang’s advice was to ignore the legal requirement to avoid increasing the project cost.Her advice resulted in lengthy litigation and the illegal disturbing of hundreds of burials.
One of the major issues BLNR must address is the future of Mauna Kea. On that issue, Ms. Chang was responsible for preparing a woefully inadequate comprehensive master plan. Her plan was missing provisions for natural and cultural management, decommissioning, and public access. BLNR determined that the plan was deficient. The delay in approving the missing critical pieces of the plan led to delays in the CDUA for the TMT construction. The BLNR had to step in to require compliance with the law lacking in Ms. Chang’s plan.
DLNR is currently plagued by weak leadership, with multiple conflicts between offices and divisions, many due to conflicting mandates. The chronic understaffing and underfunding leads to ineffectiveness and institutional frustration. The loss of institutional knowledge has led to a serious degradation of our cultural heritage.
Ms. Chang does not demonstrate the skills to address these issues, and could serve to exacerbate the problems. Ms Chang is not the right person to be confirmed as Chair. I ask you to oppose her appointment.”
