When is enough, Enough?

The State and County Governments in Hawaii are looking for growth of population with more housing development.  This will help them to increase their tax base for their workers and programs. The drum for development is now constantly beating.  Our politicians cry, “We need more affordable housing to stop homelessness. We need more housing to keep our local people here, we need more housing to keep our children from leaving and having a brain drain, etc.”.

They tell us 50,000 more affordable homes to house 200,000+ people in the next 5 years are needed.  But what about our infrastructure, which is poor and broken.  You can ask Stuart Coleman of WAI and a founding head of the Surfrider Foundation on the current distress of our coastlines and reefs.  More and more folks are getting sick in our waters from cellulitis and staff infections from the pollution of cesspools and from our backed-up sewer systems.

What is the reality of Lahaina and how long will it take to rebuild?  How many new homes are to be built?  5,000, 15,000, or 25,000 as Maui has been desperate for housing too for the past several years. What are the plans and costs for new infrastructure for sewer and clean water and who will we pay for it?

Government wants more ADUs, but cans Monster Homes which are often rented to students and young families.  What’s the difference? Aesthetics?  Both provide housing, clog up the streets with parked cars because they don’t provide adequate on-site parking, and are overwhelming our sewer systems.

Moilili and Palolo cannot build more homes because of the lack of sewer capacity.

What is the capacity of our clean water resources on Oahu? Or Maui? Or for that matter, the Big Island?  Do we even have enough resources for an additional 200,000 to 500,000 people on Oahu in the next 5 to 20 years?

When is enough, Enough?  I believe we really have to look at the quality of life for our people going forward.  Everyone wants to live in Paradise, but at what cost?  Many folks are leaving here not because of housing, but because of taxes, overcrowding, traffic, and the cost of living. With the increased minimum wage costs, many small businesses are closing because they cannot afford labor and the rising costs of rents and taxes.

State government pays 67 cents of every tax dollar for employees' salaries, benefits, and retirement.  Anyone who has ever worked for the private sector knows if your company was working on this level it would be bankrupt in a few short years as this situation is not sustainable. Yet this is the way of Hawaii for the past two generations.  Can we continue this way without bankrupting the future of our children?

I could drone on and on, but how do we balance?  If politicians try to enact legislation to tax foreign nationals from buying or requiring local history of residency requirements before purchasing then our US constitution will be applied as we are a part of the United States of America.

Every country has their issues of foreign ownership; the Chinese in Africa and Vancouver, Russians in New York, the Saudis in London, etc..

I believe everyone, particularly politicians need to understand our Hawaiian Islands are finite, our resources are finite, and our lifestyle is finite and these limits will affect our future here.   

I believe we need to stop focusing on affordable housing and focus on rebuilding our state with new infrastructure and different jobs and not just Tourism.  We don’t want to kill Tourism, but we really need to diversify.  Governor Cayetano’s 1997 Revitalization Task Force which I was on stressed this 27 years ago.  Build more medical centers to provide for the Pacific and Asian areas.  Expand our University programs, work with the Feds to bring in new resources, etc.  When good jobs come, good housing will be there too.

Everyone needs to understand it’s got to be about quality, not quantity for our land to save our future.