• Superferry not so super • Vacation rentals impact local quality of life • Buying home solely as investment hurts locals Superferry not so super Terry O’Halloran’s editorial disputing Juan Wilson’s column about the Superferry’s true impact makes the Hawaii
• Superferry not so super
• Vacation rentals impact local quality of life
• Buying home solely as investment hurts locals
Superferry not so super
Terry O’Halloran’s editorial disputing Juan Wilson’s column about the Superferry’s true impact makes the Hawaii Superferry seem an innocent business venture to benefit local people. Untrue.
In an April 8, 2005, interview with Pacific Business News, former Secretary of the Navy John H. Lehman, the single largest investor, said “There’s going to be regular usage by platoons of Stryker vehicles … It’s a big advantage to the military. It makes it much cheaper and more efficient for them to train soldiers.” Said vehicles do use weaponry containing depleted uranium munitions.
Superferry corporate officers will have us believe they are doing everything in their power to protect marine mammals, holding up their Whale Avoidance Policy approved by the Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary’s Advisory Council. It does seem a conflict of interest that both the president and executive vice president of the Superferry are members of this advisory council, with Mr. O’Halloran being chair. At the height of whale season, the Superferry will travel at twice the recommended speed of vessels traveling through whale sanctuaries. Their Web site says they will use collision avoidance sonar. Untrue.
Their policy shows that they could only slow or change course in time to avoid a whale strike if they spot the whale at least 500 meters away. Their nighttime avoidance policy for not approaching a whale closer than 500 meters is night vision binoculars.
Both of these policies will be useless in the case of mother and calf moving slowly just below the surface in the path of the dual hulls.
The chairman of the board said Hawaii Superferry did much market research and found “ … an overwhelming desire among the public for the ferry.” Ask the 6,000 Kauaians who signed the petition requesting an EIS to help protect our island which Hawaii Superferry refused to do.
No one I have asked knows of a single person who was surveyed about their desire for the ferry. We did not hear about the Superferry until it was a done deal. I imagine this explains the attitude of the Hawaii Superferry team, which simply refused to answer questions they did not like at the last two public meetings.
As for Hawaii Superferry being a cheap alternative to interisland travel, do the math. Go to their Web site and see what it would cost for your family and two bicycles to visit Maui. Adding the enormous fuel surcharge and hotel bills, this is far more expensive than flying and renting a car.
Let’s see how responsibly the Hawaii Superferry team behaves when the many predicted environmental and cultural disasters they cause begin to happen. Check out www.superferryimpact.com, which monitors news and facts about Hawaii Superferry.
Cindy Granholm
Princeville
Vacation rentals impact local quality of life
Steve Martin’s letter was quite amusing (“Get your own island,” Letters, Aug. 6) as I’m sure this is the mentality of all vacation rental owners: “My business, so butt out.”
However, he forgot one important fact: This is America and each and every one of us has the freedom to verbally state our opinions, even if you don’t like what we’re saying. After all, isn’t this what Bush’s war is all about (can’t fix our problems in the good old U.S.A., so let’s spend billions to try to fix other countries’ problems to protect our freedom of speech, liberty, etc.).
If everyone were running a “legal business,” as Martin says to make “ends meet,” that would be one thing. When it impacts the quality of life for others, due to greed, then that’s another thing.
When an absentee vacation rental owner buys into the market to “invest” just to turn a dime, that doesn’t support his argument of “doing business to make their mortgage payments” — or support themselves, for that matter. Were they to rent that same property at a normal monthly rental rate versus their inflated daily/weekly rental rate, do you think that absentee vacation rental owner would still consider it a wise investment?
I’m not a rocket scientist, but I believe the housing prices will rise when the inventory is low and the prices will drop when the housing market is flooded. So Martin’s argument that vacation rentals do not impact the affordability/availability of rentals for “locals” doesn’t fly either. Unless you’re driving around with blinders on, I’m sure you, too, are noticing vacation rentals popping up in normal neighborhoods; which I’m sure used to be rented by a “local” family at one time or another. Were you to put all those vacation rentals back in to the housing pool, the prices may very well not be $600,000-plus.
And because I believe all these “vacation renters” contribute to the traffic problem, which impedes my ability to get to work to support my affairs, then they are bothering me. At which, I’d suggest all you wannabe hotel/motel owners go invest in your own little island and go live happily ever after without our opinions.
Francine M. Grace
Kalaheo
Buying home solely as investment hurts locals
In response to Steve Martin’s letter on Aug. 6, when he states that rentals are high because everyone has a mortgage of $600,000, it shows exactly how in touch with Hawai‘i he is.
Not everyone just bought their house in the last four years as an “investment.”
Most people on Kaua‘i have a much lower mortgage, aside from the people who keep borrowing off of their house for new cars, vacations to Las Vegas and such.
Supply and demand are simple principles that I am sure he can understand.
Whenever you have less of a product, it becomes more expensive. Period!
Almost 20 percent of available home rentals today on the Garden Isle are vacation rentals.
People who bought their house at an inflated rate as an investment are harming the locals of Kaua‘i by trying to make them pay off their ridiculous mortgage.
And the locals who already own their houses but rent them out for high prices should be ashamed of themselves — if they can feel shame.
I do not bad mouth vacation rentals, I merely point out the obvious truth about them and how they affect Kaua‘i today.
Affordable housing should exist for all residents of Kaua‘i, and they will exist again, no matter who our mayor is now or what damage he does while he is here.
Or for that matter, what damage our prior mayor did while she was in office.
Mr. Martin, it is my business what you do with your property if you harm Kaua‘i while making a quick buck.
What people like you do is hurt the local people of Kaua‘i and make them leave for the Mainland or move in with their parents instead of being able to support their own families here.
Dennis Chaquette
Kapa‘a
