03-07-2017, 04:47 AM
quote:
Originally posted by randomq
As to the shady subdividing without services: many of us could not afford to be here if not for that money-grab.
Thank you randomq for the briefest nod to reality. Everyone seems to want to play the blame game as to why things don't meet their standard of perfection - and no one wants to look in the mirror and think about how they might have contributed to the current situation (or how their desired "improvements" may make a bad situation worse).
From a hazards perspective, none of the lower - and many of the upper - Puna residential subdivisions should exist. They will all, one day, be covered by lava flows. Maybe sooner, maybe later. But I can comfortably guarantee that it will happen. Everyone living in those subdivisions made a choice to purchase Brand X because it was cheaper than buying in Hilo (which is, admittedly, not free of lava flow hazard itself, albeit at a much lower overall risk). A far more appropriate land use for Lower Puna is farming and ranching - with much lower (sunk) infrastructure and capital costs per acre - and therefor losses - when the flows do come.
I won't fault Shipman for doing their best to ensure that agriculture is viable on their lands - including fighting, to their last breath, the installation of a network of roads that will expose their lessees to crop thefts that appear beyond the capacity of the County government to control.
Since this thread is titled "ah, the unintended consequences" I'll offer an imaginary future, as several thousand home owners watch lava flows covering their largest single asset, asking each other "who the dumb F's were that installed those four lane highways to Pahoa, to make it more convenient to build a home and live in Lower Puna, when they knew that those homes were going to be covered by lava flows?"
You've freely elected to buy and/or build in subdivisions that exist because of bad/irresponsible/venal (call it what you will) decisions made in the past with easily foreseeable consequences in the future. That doesn't mean that the County has to continue to make irresponsible decisions that will make those foreseeable consequences even worse for the future area residents or for the rest of the county's residents.
Apologies to any and all that I may have offended, but that's the reality that I see.