06-06-2026, 01:05 PM
Which has its upsides if you actually like where you live.
Provided you don't mind the lack of jobs and services, sure. Not a bad lifestyle choice, but it takes up all your time.
Oahu has 32X more people per sq mile...
...and that's why Oahu gets to tell Puna how to live. Granted, the General Plan doesn't come from Oahu, but all the State land-use regulations do.
We're facing a similar paradigm here: people in the cities trying to dictate rural land-use issues they simply don't understand. Ironically, these same people fail to realize that rural development is where all the "affordable" housing is -- if you build a house for your personal occupation which is outside city limits and not connected to municipal water/sewer, there are no building codes and inspections are optional. While this regulatory posture is functionally equivalent to most of Puna, ours is codified into law rather than being left to non-enforcement.
Provided you don't mind the lack of jobs and services, sure. Not a bad lifestyle choice, but it takes up all your time.
Oahu has 32X more people per sq mile...
...and that's why Oahu gets to tell Puna how to live. Granted, the General Plan doesn't come from Oahu, but all the State land-use regulations do.
We're facing a similar paradigm here: people in the cities trying to dictate rural land-use issues they simply don't understand. Ironically, these same people fail to realize that rural development is where all the "affordable" housing is -- if you build a house for your personal occupation which is outside city limits and not connected to municipal water/sewer, there are no building codes and inspections are optional. While this regulatory posture is functionally equivalent to most of Puna, ours is codified into law rather than being left to non-enforcement.