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More examination, please. Oahu is only a 597-square-mile tiny island in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n For some, “sustainability” means more growth, new subdivisions, development and hotels to promote jobs along with a percentage of “affordable” housing.<\/p>\n \u00a0For others, sustainability means protecting near-shore ecosystems, diminishing agricultural lands, controlling tax burdens of massive infrastructure projects and protecting Hawaii’s cultural traditions and sense of place.<\/p>\n But, islanders want merits and impacts scrutinized before any green light to massive developments.<\/p>\n \u00a0The 2010 draft of the Koolauloa Sustainable Communities Plan (KSCP) contradicts the values and vision as outlined in the Oahu General Plan<\/a> and Hawaii 2050<\/a>, the recent statewide vision plan. I shall very briefly highlight a few contradictions and discrepancies.<\/p>\n Oahu’s General Plan extols Koolauloa’s special sense of “Old Hawaii.” It states that “agricultural lands are preserved for agricultural uses,” “the ‘ahupuaa concept is used as the organizing basis for land use planning and natural resource management in Ko’olau Loa.”<\/p>\n \u00a0The General Plan further specifies Koolauloa’s natural resources and predominantly “country” character should be maintained by allowing only limited development in established communities, and that agricultural lands along the windward, North Shore and Waianae coasts be maintained for diversified agriculture.<\/p>\n Do “old Hawaii” and diversified agriculture fit with five hotels, 1,000 condominiums, and a new Envision Laie subdivision with 875 homes, a regional commercial center, industrial and technology parks on 300 acres of ag land? There are hundreds of adjacent acres waiting in the wings.<\/p>\n Will Hawaiian culture and values come to hotels hiring kupuna to provide coconut bird-weaving and ukulele sessions? Or, be cutely coined into words like\u00a0 “Tomorrow’s Ahupua’a”<\/a> filled with resort retail shops and resort-residential homes?<\/p>\n The draft KSCP says, “… the ‘ahupuaa concept is used as the organizing basis for land use planning and natural resource management in Koolauloa.” However, Envision Laie would marginalize kuleana lands and traditional ahupua’a boundaries in historic Malaekahana. Kuleana landowners have no place at the table in this discussion.<\/p>\n City DPP Director David Tanoue said he “will widen” Kamehameha Highway to address traffic impacts from massive developments. Widening the highway would eventually displace hundreds of private owners and businesses from Kaneohe to Haleiwa. Who would invest in ownership with such profound development impacts?<\/p>\n \u00a0Should carte blanche permission of massive development be given without examining planning, financing and constructing infrastructure as stipulated in the KSCP?<\/p>\n \u00a0What is the cost of such infrastructure to already burdened taxpayers? Taxpayers are already laden with the $5.5 billion rail and a billion-dollar-plus Environmental Protection Agency consent decree for sewer updates.<\/p>\n![\"IMG_0134\"](\"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/IMG_0134.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Both claim their interpretations relevant to quality of life. City Hall claims there is no consensus. Thus, the Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) treats “no consensus” as a green light for massive developments.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n