There appears to be a wee bit of a tussle over who’s in control of the emerging General Plan Update. I could be wrong, of course, since my view is confined to what trickles in and out of my padded
There appears to be a wee bit of a tussle over who’s in control of the
emerging General Plan Update. I could be wrong, of course, since my view is
confined to what trickles in and out of my padded cell at The Garden Island,
but it sounds to me like “The People” are reluctant to hand over the draft
plan to “The Government” without significant modifications.
In other
words, they want to know that coming down the chute, this plan, which probably
has been more widely scrutinized than any in the history of the island, will
reflect the needs of the community.
I was struck this week by the comment
of Citizens Advisory Committee member Barbara Robeson who pointed out that
without reliable housing needs data it is impossible to make decisions on the
need for proposed residential development that may be included in the final
plan.
Robeson, who is a former Planning Commission chair, wasn’t the only
one to comment about the lack of baseline data. Tom Shigemoto and Avery Youn,
both former county planning directors, expressed similar concerns about the
omission of future roadways on draft General Plan maps. “How can you address
land-use concerns without talking about circulation?” Youn asked.
On the
other hand, Robeson pointed out, exhaustive studies and data are available to
project the need for visitor accommodations on the island, which some might
say gives rise to the concern that forecasting the needs of the visitor
industry is more important than evaluating the needs of residents.
In
fact, of course, both are important—and both must be considered.
“The
Government,” meaning the Kusaka Administration, the County Council and the
Planning Commission, is tasked with the responsibility of keeping Kauai
solvent so that it can provide services to its citizens. When it sees the
opportunity to make a buck, i.e. increase tax revenues, its inclination is to
bend in the direction of the treasury. A thriving visitor industry is good for
the bottom line.
So is a well cared for community.
In a letter to the
forum this week, former Garden Island reporter Georgia Mossman commented that
she’s having a difficult time understanding what/who is driving the General
Plan Update. “I understand that property owners, including stockholders in the
plantations, would like to upzone their real estate and make money on it,” she
wrote. “What I don’t understand is, why their desires should decide our
future.”
These kinds of questions have been debated on this island for
years. Hotly debated. So when the opportunity to participate in developing a
plan to guide Kauai over the next 20 years became available, a lot of people
wanted to add their two cents. And after spending nearly two years working on
the plan, it’s entirely understandable that they don’t want to see it
neutralized to the point of impotency.
From the beginning, people have
said that the GPU needs teeth. It also needs to be based on reliable research.
No one can make sound decisions without that data. What you’re going to end up
with is a plan based on interpretations and opinions. For example, the one
thing most people seem to agree upon is that Kauai should maintain its rural
character. But can rural character be defined precisely enough to assure its
integrity?
Let’s say, the county passed a law—similar to the
no-building-taller-than-the-tallest-coconut-tree law—that limited roadways to
a maximum of four lanes. Then, through highway studies, it would be possible
to determine how many vehicles could circulate on those roadways. If a housing
or resort development would exceed that capacity, it would be denied.
That may be a naïve example, but it points to the need for baseline data
to determine future growth.
Kauai isn’t the only place dealing with future
land-use issues. Community-planning initiatives are going on all over the
Mainland. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Ridge is in the midst of an intense
community-based, land-use campaign. In land-use forums across the state, 4,000
Pennsylvanians expressed deep concerns about preserving farmland and open
space, and indicated that governments needed better tools to effectively plan
for the future of their communities.
As a result, Ridge is proposing to
spend $3.6 million on land-use planning efforts by local governments, and,
among other things, to complete a top-to-bottom review of state government to
ensure that all state funding programs support local land-use planning.
Through his Center for Local Government Services, Ridge has created a series
of reports that can be used by local governments as a road map for land-use
tools. Communities can access information on creating a community vision,
planning sewage, water and transportation infrastructures, developing
preservation and conservation strategies, initiating community rebuilding
programs and developing cooperative inter-government planning agreements.
Ridge’s “Growing Greener” program will invest nearly $650 million in
preserving farmland and protecting open space, eliminating the maintenance
backlog in state parks, cleaning up abandoned mines and restoring watersheds,
providing funds for greenways, recreational trails and community parks,
helping communities address land use, and providing new and upgraded water and
sewer systems.
In other words, sound land use policies are a priority in
Pennsylvania. Ridge calls it growing greener, growing smarter. If it’s
important in Pennsylvania, it can’t be less important in Hawaii.
In
Arizona, Gov. Jane Hull calls her land-use plan, Growing Smarter Plus. It
includes preserving more than 70,000 acres of open space and would require
public votes when communities establish or update growth plans. The plan is
Hull’s alternative to an environmentalist-backed initiative to create growth
boundaries.
Often the pressure for growing greener, growing smarter comes
only on the tails of unchecked development. On Kauai, that’s not the case.
There is room for development here. The question is how much room?
It’s
easy to throw money and words at land-use initiatives and open-space
requirements after the fact. It is much more difficult to plan ahead with both
the pressure to maintain a healthy economic base and sustain a treasured
lifestyle.
I have always believed that Keeping Kaua’i Kaua’i amounts to a
highly sophisticated task. County Planning Director Dee Crowell and GPU
consultant Robin Foster deserve a huge amount of credit for bringing the plan
this far. So do Citizens Advisory Committee members who have devoted hours and
hours of volunteer time and made substantial contributions to the
process.
Beyond that, there is an unprecedented interest from the
community that has manifested in new organizations, a steady stream of letters
to the forum and an ongoing community dialogue.
In the process, there
seems to have developed a degree of mistrust between “The People” and “The
Government.” A close friend tells me that’s healthy, the forerunner of a new
alliance. Others would simply call that the status quo.
But if Kaua’i’s
future—at least for the next 20 years—is to be guided by this thing we call
a General Plan, it must be important enough to set aside personal feelings and
adopt the best plan possible. That won’t happen if the discussion is dominated
by opinions, territorial alliances and economic concerns.
Decisions need
to be based on reliable housing studies, socio-economic studies, vehicular
circulation studies, solid waste studies, visitor industry studies—data on
which to make wise decisions.
A tremendous expenditure of time and money
has gone into this process. It would be a shame to see the results compromised
simply for the lack of enough information to make wise
decisions.
