Mahalo to police for great work
The Kauai Police Department broke up another drug ring here on Kauai per the front page news, May 18.
Thank you, officers!
The time, effort, and investigation you put in to reduce drug crime on Kauai is appreciated. Plus, the arrests are not without risks — that is appreciated, too.
Sadly, we probably all know at least one victim of drugs here on Kauai.
You have just saved who-knows-how-many lives of future victims of the drug trade and possibly lives of some current victims who might be motivated to find help and climb out of the dark hole of drug addiction.
Mahalo for all you do.
Mary Mulhall, Kapaa
Fix laws regarding ag land roads
Re: Paved private roads, common driveway limits, and setbacks for farm land homes.
I am concerned that for Agricultural District (ag) farm homes, the county is requiring unnecessary and exorbitantly costly road paving, doing so only for some roads, and may or is moving the goal posts.
For ag farm homes, county law applies these residential district standards: 1) 16-foot-wide paved streets, even if narrower crushed coral or other road are adequate, and 2) common driveways limited to 120 feet and four homes, even if paved, and even though five farm homes are allowed on 13 acres; and the county may limit farm homes: 3) to parcels within 600 feet of a public road and 300 feet of “access adequate” for fire and delivery trucks, and 4) more.
The county is applying the law to new homes, not existing ones, and may soon call individual condo units “parcels” and apply the distance limits, even though it has not done so for decades.
The law covers farm homes built after September 1972, and if fully enforced on existing and proposed homes, many ag gravel roads must be widened and paved at exorbitant cost, and some homes or parcels will be too far from public or adequate roads, making them unusable and unbuildable, destroying value, and causing hardship, even though existing ag roads and common driveways are serviceable, and the county has for years allowed these homes and collected taxes on the properties. This is not an issue just for “gentlemen farms” or newcomers but for anyone who has or wants a home on ag land.
Please change the law and suspend the Department of Planning’s and Department of Public Works’ current partial and inconsistent enforcement. I know that complicated laws and history can put governments in difficulties, but the present situation may hurt many people and needs change.
I served the State of Hawaii in Honolulu for 36 years before retiring, have owned land on Kauai and paid taxes on it since 1992 and still do so, and was a Kauai resident from 2014-16. While I have returned to Oahu, my childhood home, Kauai remains dear to me, and I have good friends there. Kauai would be better served with better laws.
Laurence K. Lau, Oahu
Mr. Lau;
These laws prevent rampant development and promote safety. Non-paved roads washout, get rutted and become inaccessible for ambulances and emergency vehicles in cases of fires, health emergencies, etc. We certainly don’t need more traffic and congestion on the Island without the proper infrastructure. These laws are in place for good reasons. Keep them.
Dear James, If the laws at issue actually prevented over-development and promoted safety, great, but if you get into the details, you’d find that they don’t. Yes, some unpaved roads can wash out, others don’t – one has to look at the design and type of road, which is what the county should do. There are also issues of using city standards for Ag land, and inconsistent enforcement. – LL
Aloha Kakou,
At a time when there is a huge shortage of housing, county estimates are that we are lacking 5,000 and even 10,000 homes by certain future dates and the right now housing shortage allows only mainland and foreign buyers to afford the new homes going up; and the county has codes or is enforcing old codes to worsen the housing shortage is clearly an indication that inside the County Government the left hand is not working with the right hand.
Further, ask any realtor how many parcels of land are available that are not rippled with unusable gully’s and too steep of hillsides. There just are not many small parcels of land left that are affordable to local families, driving prices up per demand from outsiders.
Furthermore, at a time when the people of Kaua’i are 95% dependent on outside food imported onto the island, the precluding of young local farmers to live and farm on the land is like shooting oneself in the foot.
And yesterday we learned tha the state is providing $500,000.00 dollars to provide farming education and skills to the students, is this so they can tend the lawns of the rich outsiders who are buying the land on Kauai or is it to promote young farmers…who cannot live on the farm, but can live with the homeless.
How fast we forget in an emergency like Hurricane Iniki, that every store on the island was out of food even before the hurricane hit, showing just how fragile food supplies on the island are.
And what about the motivated local youth of Kauai who have graduated high school and went or will go to the tremendous effort, expense, and hardship of going onto college and majoring in agriculture only to now have nowhere to live as the family Ag land cannot be lived on due to what are apparently county codes preventing them from living on the land their family owns and they need to live on in order to farm the food we all need.
Have you ever heard of a farmer in the history of the world that was HOMELESS…?
Farms, the land and the food and the animals on it, require a resident farmer for routine and also emergency needs of the farm.
There are times when rules, and codes, have outserved their time, and times require adaptation to current needs of a community by changing and or outright deleting of outdated codes.
The time has come for such a change. We need farms, farmers, food, and farm animals to provide for us, and to be prepared for any times that others off island, and out of Hawaii cannot provide for us.
Hurricanes, tsunami, Biblical storms, landslides, and even wars that may not even be physically here on Kauai, can shut down our off island sources of food.
Even young Boy Scouts know…BE PREPARED…!
Stopping a farm because there is not a prim and proper road on private property or it’s distance from a county road is too far? Maybe they should demand SIDEWALKS too…!
Ask the people who make and enforce unreasonable laws and codes, in other words do they have a home of their own already and are just practicing the old adage of “kicking The ladder out below them”?
Or are they just manipulating the real estate values that may put them or their friends in a better fianacial situation?
Should realtors be made to do their own due diligence and inform buyers of every code and rule that could impact a piece of property or be held accountable?
Even a 1/4 acre could feed a large family and friends, and a 1/2 acre could feed part of a neighborhood. A few acres or more is a feeding machine.
Next we will hear about restricting solar power because…just because.
We don’t need more rules and codes because someone has a need to write more rules and be authoritative, and not because the people of Kaua’i need more rules. Rules that require $20,000,000 in un-needed paved new roads, and were not needed before, just because of a rare emergency and often unnecessary event, like too many people that call the ambulance because they have the flu and need a ride to the hospital…yes ask the Emergency Services people.
If someone wants a $400,000 road to their $50,000 home, or their $2,000,000 home…let them do it on their own terms and time and affordability.
And after they pave paradise, have them put up a parking lot. Concrete kills the land…let them gravel it…just don’t let them promote landslides.
Mahalo,
Charles