LIHU‘E — A project decades in the making took another step toward fruition last Wednesday when an administration official presented the county’s final master plan for the Kilauea Agricultural Park to the Kaua‘i County Council at the Historic County Building.
LIHU‘E — A project decades in the making took another step toward fruition last Wednesday when an administration official presented the county’s final master plan for the Kilauea Agricultural Park to the Kaua‘i County Council at the Historic County Building.
The proposal — presented by Beth Tokioka, executive assistant to Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. — was adapted from three previously published options by consultant Kimura International after extensive input from residents and other officials.
“Not everything made it into the final plan,” Tokioka told the council. “Eventually we have to come up with a plan if we are to move forward.”
The proposal for the 75-acre plot alongside Kilauea Road between Quarry Road and the gated Sea Cliff Plantations community was most similar to the third of the three original plans in that it includes a sunshine market on the park’s western edge, but differed considerably from all three previous plans in many respects, she said.
An ongoing debate over the relative importance of organic and conventional farming techniques was settled with organic farming apparently gaining the upper hand. Four organic lots will comprise roughly 22 acres, a 35 percent increase from the third original proposal, while five conventional farm plots will total less than 20 acres, a 13 percent decrease. A pair of interior roadways will separate the organic lots from the conventional ones.
Total farm acreage dropped by nearly 12 percent due to a dramatic increase in the area allocated to a windbreak buffer on the park’s northern and eastern edges.
The community gardens area in the end became much smaller than originally proposed. It will encompass 125 lots measuring 20 feet by 20 feet.
Other key features are a parking area with 84 stalls, four one-acre incubator farm lots designed to serve as homes for beginning farmers before they graduate to larger plots, a centralized composting/recycling area with a co-op facility, and an energy farm that will likely employ solar or photovoltaic panels.
Another asset — an irrigation reservoir planned for a natural depression on the site — could help mitigate a serious challenge facing the park. With Kilauea already “strapped” for water supply, Tokioka said the reservoir could hold up to a million gallons of water. The Department of Water is considering digging for a well on the land, but the issue of water supply could lead the county to look for farmers who specialize in crops that are less “thirsty,” Tokioka said.
The final master plan also saw a marked increase in price tag. Tokioka estimated the total cost at $4.3 million; previous estimates ranged from $2.4 million to $3.6 million.
Tokioka said $2.5 million has already been set aside for construction in the county’s six-year capital improvement projects plan, and the rest could be culled through a bond float, grants or further county funding. The energy farm will be used primarily to power the park and any excess electricity could be sold to generate additional revenue.
The projected revenue from each farmer’s 50-year lease — $75 to $100 per acre per year for an annual haul of $3,000 to $4,000 — will be of little help.
At the conclusion of the council meeting, Chair Bill “Kaipo” Asing asked Tokioka to put a “definite timetable on awarding the lots” to farmers.
“If we don’t do that and set a timetable … then it’s going to be something that could go on and on and on,” Asing said. “The community and everyone has been patient and I think we need to set a time and do the best we can with that time.”
Kilauea Neighborhood Association President Keone Kealoha voiced optimism and thanked the administration and the council for moving the process forward.
“There are some people who have been waiting a long time to see this,” he said, referring to the original permit approval in the early 1980s. “The community is very interested in seeing this move ahead.”
For more information on the plan, visit www.kauai.gov.
