Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 26, Number 3, 1 April 2009 — Lifestyle, environmental concers face O'ahu's Windward side [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Lifestyle, environmental concers face O'ahu's Windward side

Special mail-in eleeūon ends April 23 By Liza Simūn-Tuiūlasega Public Affairs Specialist Windward O'ahu voters will elect a City Council person to take the plaee of Barbara Marshall, who died Feb. 22 after an eight-month battle with eolon cancer. The special eleehon to represent parts of Kāne'ohe, Kailua and Waimānalo has attracted 1 1 candidates, eight of whom are Native Hawaiian. If looks alone told the whole story, then the list of Hawaiian-focused concerns facing District 3 would be short. The district's communities nestle between the Ko'olau Mountains and quiet beaches. Some people still hunt, fish and farm in the old style. But voters here say help is needed in preserving the area's "country" feel - and many are looking for a eouneil person who will support community initiatives to solve the problems they face. "If we have decent ground cover, maintained streams and we haven't over-built, then we offer a waterway for a large portion of the island during downpours and a catchment system during droughts," said Kailua Neighborhood Board member Linda Ure, adding that city zoning changes have harmed green open spaces and natural resources that belong to the public. Ure said she's seen instances where county-approved construction on or near preservation land has caused irreversible damage to wildlife habitat and productive farmland and that permitting practices are behind the Windward side's proliferation of

so-called gentleman's farms - large lots designated for agriculture but used mainly as spacious residences. In 2000, Ure and other civic-mind-ed residents from all over District 3 saw their Ko'olaupoko Sustainable Communities plan adopted by the Honolulu City Council. It stresses cohesive land-use planning and the ahupua'a concept, but the plan was never fully implemented, due to growing city budget constraints, some elaim. The Harris administration, creator of the sustainable communities project, cited the Ko'olaupoko plan in setting aside $750,000 for a gateway park at Kawainui Marsh in Kailua, but it's unlikely that the appropriation will be kept in the current proposed city administration budget, suffering from a projected $50 million shortfall. "To put aside environmental issues in hard times is terribly shortsighted. It's how we got into this mess to begin with," said Chuck "Doc" Burrows, who spearheaded a fight to restore Kailua's Kawainui Marsh after decades of waste discharge into the waterway and other misuses. While the 800-acre Kawainui is recognized as one of the nation's most important wetlands, the marsh could be coping with pollutants onee again if the county eouneil approves expansion of a neighboring industrial park's wastewater treatment facility. Meanwhile, Burrows, a retired science teacher, is upbeat about support from the Kailua Hawaiian Civic Club and the environmental nonprofit 'Ahahui I Ka Lōkahi in maintaining the marsh, including 0'ahu's oldest and largest heiau. "The City Council processes are very slow and it takes great poliīieal skill to get things done, so the community role is to speak up about our natural treasures,"

Burrows said. In Waimānalo, Mabel Spencer, a veteran member of the town's neighborhood board, says residents of the predominately Hawaiian community have fought hard to get city improvements to the beach park facilities as a key to solving escalating social problems. "The underlying issue is a laek of affordable housing, causing generations to squeeze under one roof," she said. "The beach is a stress reliever, and it's the only diversion everyone ean afford. We need it be a good environment." Spencer has worked through her neighborhood board to get the city to bring groundskeepers and lifeguards into the park. "Things do not eome easy to us," she said. "Hawaiians silently suffer - especially the older generation. And I have empathy for them but we want the next generation to be different, vocal, involved in community processes." That eight of the 1 1 candidates vying for the District 3 eouneil seat elaim Native Hawaiian ancestry should provide inspiration to many of her Kanaka Maoli neighbors to vote, though Spencer said a candidate's ethnicity is no guarantee of truly connecting with Waimānalo residents. Waimānalo is facing a growth spurt, with a state plan to widen Kamehameha Highway and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands' construction of 100 new homes. The latter project would seem to address to afford-able-housing crunch, but success is dependent on a long-awaited upgrade to the town's troublesome, city-run sewage treatment facility now near completion. The plant couldn't handle the population growth in the 1980s, causing wastewater to spill into the oeean.

Beach closures were eommon for more than a decade, adding to a perception that Waimānalo's problems were neglected by the city, Spencer said. With resumed growth, some fear new pressure on sewage infrastructure and repeated problems. Spencer favors adding a reclamation facility to further bolster the efficiency of the upgraded sewage treatment plant, whieh is temporarily under the state but due to return to city control. "The total cost for (the added protection) would be quite high. With the city budget in bad shape, we need partnerships more than ever to foot the bill," said Spencer. "But in recent years, we've been blessed by a good City Council and by more residents taking ownership of the environment, she said, referring to a recent project where residents obtained city funds to construct a wheelchair-acces-sible area for kūpuna at Waimānalo Beach Park. "There is a new feeling that whatever improvements we get, we have to mālama," Spencer added. Still, many see signs that the sour economy is spreading social upheaval throughout the Windward side, an area where residents often trace neighborhood roots back several generations. "I see friends from high school living on the beach. They lost their jobs and have no plaee to go," said Waimānalo Homesteader Ilima Ho-Lastimosa, director of a Windward area teen eul-tural-education program, operated by DHHL and nonprofit funding. Paul Richards of the Waimānalo Hawaiian Homestead Association sees cultural education programs and selfsufficient eeonomie enterprise as the key for balancing rural life and development in Waimānalo. To support this, the association has a plan for a business park so that "business will breed busi-

ness with loeal talent" - offsetting job loss in the recession. But all this will require support from the new eouneil person to address Honolulu Board of Water Supply concerns about the adequacy of existing infrastructure at the proposed park site of an old quarry. For Mahealani Cypher, president of the Ko'olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, social problems are inseparable from increasing urbanization of the Windward side. "In the '70s and '80s we looked at how mueh growth a eommunity ean absorb without destroying quality of life," said Cypher. "Now we realize we can't just say 'yes' to a project until we know that the roads, infrastructure and social structure ean support the growth." Cypher said when it comes to city planning, small things add up. She points to a Kāne'ohe neighborhood where growth led to rush-hour eongestion where the residential Makalua Street intersects with Kamehameha Highway, the main artery. When residents asked the city to modify a traffic light to alleviate the snarl, the City Council rejected the request. Cypher said the neighborhood's traffic probSee ELEŪĪION on page 20

IMPQRTANT DATES APRIL 6 TO 21 Absentee walk-in voting at City Hall and Pali Golf Course Monday through Saturday, 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Closed Sundays and the April 10 holiday. APRIL 16 Last day to request an absentee mail ballots Absentee ballots may be requested online at honoluluelections.us. APRIL 23 Deadline for ballots to be received No polling places will be open on April 23, the last day of the election. Ballots will be accepted April 23 until 6 p.m. at the city clerk's office on the first floor of City Hall. APRIL 23 Results announced MAY 14 Earliest a candidate may take offlce For information, eall the city derk's office at 768-3800.

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Cūntinued fram page 04 lem serves as an example of what ean happen when the city allows expansion when it shouldn't. The problem, she said, could have been avoided had the city properly analyzed traffic patterns and taken a more holistic approach to planning beforehand. "In Kāne'ohe, we have no more room for big development, but many landowners are trying expand what they have, and it adds up." she said. That may explain why many Kāne'ohe residents are rallying against a proposed expansion of the Hawai'i Memorial Park Cemetery and are also opposed to the Bay View Golf Course's plans to build a new subdivision combining affordable and luxury homes. The Bay View project wouldn't consume more land, but it could impact the Waikalua Hawaiian fishpond, adjacent to the golf course, said James Kealiiaihoku McClellan of the Kāne'ohe Neighborhood Board. "As a Native Hawaiian, I see the fishpond as the basis for a lifestyle that we have the ehanee to revive," said McClellan, who also sees the juxtaposition of new luxury homes in the residential neighborhood as opening the way for more social dislocation. "I hope that our new city eouneil member will tackle this and see that it is unacceptable," he said. McClellan said he would like to see the City Council pass an ordinance to address a loophole in state law that exempts qualified developers from certain city permitting requirements and waives zoning codes for land use on the condition that affordable housing be added to a proposed project. "The state's 201H (statute) was never meant to be used as the loophole it's become," said McClellan. Cypher, a former Honolulu County clerk, said the City Council person's job is necessarily hard. Districts are larger than those of state lawmakers and, therefore, encompass more diverse interests. But two things she would ask of the next District 3 representative is to meet with constituents as mueh as possible and not get lost in the power maneuvers at City Hall. As for supporting Native Hawaiian interests, she said the incoming eouneil person must trust the help offered by Native Hawaiians who have aloha for the 'āina and the 'ohana. "There are so many Native Hawaiians with a passion for environmental and eultural preservation," she said, suggesting that Kanaka Maoli would eome out to support the city's "adopt-a-park" program and other volunteer opportunities, if the city did more to let the public know how to participate. "Our Native Hawaiian families are not just looking for the government to eome and do everything for them. They want to give back." ■