• I’ll take coconuts over sunken development • Speak up, Kaua‘i I’ll take coconuts over sunken development Ann Broadbent Leighton’s letter about the coconut trees on both sides of the highway at Waipouli confused me (“Developers and coconut groves,” Letters,
• I’ll take coconuts over sunken development
• Speak up, Kaua‘i
I’ll take coconuts over sunken development
Ann Broadbent Leighton’s letter about the coconut trees on both sides of the highway at Waipouli confused me (“Developers and coconut groves,” Letters, Jan. 26).
On one hand, she waxes entirely emotional about her great-grandfather having planted these trees almost 100 years ago, how amazingly well they’ve done despite imperfect conditions — outliving their expected lifespan, many continuing to thrive. She then tells us these glorious trees are covered under the Historical Tree Ordinance, and it’s all a nice Hawaiian story until, suddenly, she skids in her tracks, jettisons great-grandpa, and says hey, everything gets old and dies, so get over it.
One wonders why Leighton was moved to write anything at all. Either we care deeply about our flora, fauna, kupuna’s hard work and island history — and we diligently protect what remains, and handle change with delicacy and vision — or we don’t. Leighton wants it both ways, and accuses I’m not sure who of putting emotions and assumptions in front of principles and facts.
Regarding principles, if Leighton favors development of the coconut palm groves, then she shouldn’t bring this ancient relative into the picture, because it laughs in his face. If she favors protecting the coconut grove, then she should use that ‘ohana connection to help preserve it. But it’s ingenuous to span four generations and get all folkloric just to validate a viewpoint about Eastside development.
Regarding facts, it’s a glaring one that the Waipouli traffic is regularly out of control, not even considering the impact of the almost-completed development next to Kintaro’s. It’s also a fact that the developers wanting to build at Waipouli agreed to construct turn lanes at the Coconut Marketplace, and are now back-pedaling on that agreement.
As for assumptions, the following may or may not be based on one, but I’ll take a grove of coconut trees any day over a half-built, half-sunk resort that sits there till eternity if, by some bizarre and unforeseen turning of the global tides, we should have a downturn in the economy or continued global warming.
• Wendy Raebeck, Wailua
Speak up, Kaua‘i
While I appreciate being offered background information, history and personal narrative, I believe the much larger issue at hand is being missed entirely (“Developers and coconut groves,” Letters, Jan. 26).
Namely, that not all decisions made in the past are for the betterment of the present or future. We must always be willing to reassess historical decisions and their impact on our current situation in light of the world and times in which we live.
The author states: “decision(s) (were) made by county officials using the best information possible” and that “They had the interest of Kaua‘i’s people and her land in mind when this comprehensive island-wide zoning went into effect.”
Another idea the author eloquently draws analogy to is that times have changed and change is inevitable. However, we need to understand that what may have been best seen through the lens of four decades prior is not necessarily so from our current perspective. This seems to have been completely glossed over, or simply veiled in the story that the coconut trees have outlived their usefulness and a new resort will be built; she states that we need to gracefully accept this passage of time.
Unfortunately, regarding the lack of infrastructure improvement in the Wailua/Kapa‘a area the author mentions, the public has heard discussion of this for a number of years without any of the upgrades being implemented. In the meantime, the Waipouli Condominiums Project has been completed, the Courtyards at Waipouli Project is nearing completion, and now the potential for further overload of Kuhio Highway by the approval of these new projects will only add to what is a miserable transportation corridor.
The question the author poses regarding whether saddling the developer with these costs is fair misses the point again. If development is allowed to continue at the pace at which the Planning Commission has approved and the county does not implement the necessary upgrades, someone is going to have to pay for it.
Unfortunately, it is currently Kaua‘i’s people and her visitors who sit tiresomely in their cars. It will only get worse and more development without the improvements to support them simply means more problems, primarily for those that live here, in particular in Wailua/Kapa‘a.
My hope is also “that we can dance gracefully with the future as it unfolds,” but not do so with our heads in the sand or lost in memories and decisions made a generation ago before traffic lights were on Kaua‘i.
Let us keep principles and facts of the impact of continued runaway development on Kaua‘i’s people and her land in mind every time someone says “that decision was made decades ago and there is nothing one can do about it.”
• Jeff Demma, Wailua
