Wao nahele kane,
Back to your topic.
I tend to agree with you when you say “
the COH promotes citizen inequalities through its Zoning applications and has actually thus far has gotten away with it”. The example you give (hotel) is not the one I would have chosen though.
The Puna District provides a broad example of your point. The 80,000 “agricultural” lots in Puna were a collaboration between the county and large landowners to generate short term profit for the landowners and long term profit for the county.
By classifying these properties as agricultural the county provided a veneer to avoid the need, then and now, for delivery of infrastructure and services which a classification of “residential” might have required. The lands involved are of marginal agricultural value or the large landowners would not have parted with them. These were not grazing lands, sugar cane lands or croplands. Thin soils, rocky ground - already mostly harvested for timber. HPM stands for
Hawaii
Planing
Mill. HPM sold all Puna's lumber to the mainland and now imports mainland lumber back into Puna.
The Shipman lands which adjoin HPP - now quite fertile - were just as marginal years ago. The reason that the Shipman farming and grazing lands makai of the Keaau Bypass are productive now is due to the fact that the sugar cane harvesting, done largely by bulldozers, scooped up the cane with massive amounts of dirt. The cane and dirt was transported to the sugar mill in Keaau where the first process was washing off the soils. Those soils were collected in wash off channels and then spread over Shipman's acreage resulting in long term improvement of their acreage.
As constructed the whole apparatus resembles a milking parlor. Absentee owners - and later the on site residents, are milked for property taxes with minimal legal requirement to provide service. There has been a steady positive cash flow from Puna to the county for decades.
Note that Ag land is taxed at a higher rate than residential land. The owners of these thousands of lots have been subsidizing the county for decades. Advantage Hilo / Disadvantage Puna.
When you ask:
Why are the people of this county allowing such activity to occur? It is a good question.
For many years - perhaps forty years - the majority of the Puna lot owners were not residents. They were mainland, off island and foreign investors. The resident population was very small. Only in the past fifteen years or so, as we have seen Puna clock the highest rate of population growth in the state, has the resident population grown to a critical mass. As we examine this rate of growth and project it forward several things become apparent.
One is that the disparity of services and the unmet needs of the district become embarrassingly clear.
Another is that the devotion of the establishment - the county government (both obvious and invisible) to maintaining this inequity becomes exposed.
A third is that the people of Puna , becoming more aware of the situation, are organizing to challenge the status quo. Friends of Puna’s Future (
www.fopf.org), which I am current president of, is not alone in taking on this effort. The questions you pose in this topic are examples of that fact.
I have not studied the zoning situation in all districts. There are likely other examples of what you and I would agree show inequities. I am not sure that these inequities were intended as class discrimination but that is what they have become.
Serious and massive overhaul of the zoning codes are in order.
This year, 2010, is a critical moment. One reason it is critical is that this election may result in a better atmosphere to balance the inequities or it may result in a continued atmosphere to maintain the inequities.
Another reason 2010 is noteworthy is that it is a census year. The census will establish the accepted number of residents in Puna. This census data may form the basis for civil rights complaints being filed with the Federal government. It may take Federal intervention to correct a half century of inequities. It could also be achieved by pragmatic and democratic leadership.
So while you may be annoyed that I cautioned you on your manner here perhaps you will agree that we think along similar lines on this subject.
Aloha.
Assume the best and ask questions.
Punaweb moderator
