During his “State of the City” speech last week, Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle defended the planned rail system as a defense against sprawl and urbanization of other parts of the island.
Here’s the key paragraph that caught my attention:
Rail will ‘keep the country, country’. It will ‘keep Kailua, Kailua’. It will ‘keep East Honolulu, East Honolulu’. It will preserve a way of life for smaller communities on the North Shore or the Windward side. These can see less growth in their areas because the rail system is designed to allow the areas from Kapolei to the urban core to accommodate our island’s expected population growth. Unless we want more growth everywhere else on the island, we must provide rail transit for people along the corridor.
Fact check: Mostly false.
It sounds good, and would be true if transit oriented development were coupled with curbs on significant development outside the transit corridor. But in the context of the Carlisle administration’s policy, the claim is largely not true. Carlisle has actually been backing controversial developments in other parts of the island as well as transit oriented development along the rail line.
In practice, the Carlisle administration seems to be bent on delivering both types of development. Build the rail, pave the country.
Carlisle stated his support for development around the island in a speech to a Kaneohe business group last year. Note the reference to “fast tracking” of development plans.
The mayor described major development projects proposed for Oahu’s windward side, and the fast tracking process of the Department of Planning and Permitting. “Community growth is inevitable, population growth is inevitable, and although theses projects are controversial, we have to take steps to accommodate that growth and do it in correct fashion,” he said.
One example has been the Carlisle administration’s support of the Mormon plan, Envision Laie, which would create a major suburban development of up to 1,200 new homes on agricultural land in Malaekahana, with supporting commercial and retail areas, in addition to the new Marriott hotel, and an expanded BYUH campus.
Not much “Keep the country, country” in that plan, or in the expansion of the Turtle Bay Resort.
So while claiming that rail will “keep the country, country,” Carlisle has letting other developments get fast-tracked past public opposition.
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“Build the rail, pave the country ” IS the slogan for Mayor Peter Carlisle, Ernie Martin, Ikaikai Andersen, and Donovan Dela Cruz. These politicians speak through both sides of their mouths.
Envision Laie, the outrageous Laie Marriott Courtyard, the attempted selling of Haleiwa park land to Andy Andersen, the Industrial Purple Spot for Tom Enomoto in Lualualei Valley.
They don’t follow the General Plan. They follow the money. The developers and David Tanoue
are leading the way.
The Marriotts are major contributors to Mitt Romney campaign. Facebook postings also show Steven Wheelwright of Brigham Young University Hawaii hosting fund-raising at his home on the BYU-Hawaii campus.
It’s shibai that Brigham Young University Hawaii needs a whole new city – homes, shopping center, office and retail centers, churches, industrial parks – in Malaekahana for its expansion.
As they say, think about it.
How true, how true about the two mouths.
Carlisle also has his hands in two pockets——the voters and the developers.
We should actually face the stark reality that Peter Carlisle is Mayor D.R. Horton.
I think Peter’s comments were made as he was again departing on a junket to far away places. Meow.
Problem is we should have had “curbs on significant development” all around he island, But never did. This island is not an outlying extensive area near el lay. It does not need and will not benefit from mainland solutions. (which as we see are not even a solution on the mainland in many instances) It is a finite fragile land mass with its own characteristics and can not handle rail, or the overdevelopment everyone wants to see. Our infrastructure cannot handle more development . The ‘aina and oceans and reefs surrounding, can not handle what overdeveloment we have already and its resultant traffic, pollution, etc.. Hawaii will be ruined (not that it is not already) if a loud monolithic eyesore such as rail is erected through the city. Already visitors, potential tourists claim why visit Hawaii it looks like any other generic overly developed destination. Waikiki looks like Wilshire blvd.
ah, it pains me to say this but your response is somewhat ethnocentristic and possibly racist.
Mainland cities ALSO have ‘fragile land’. Ever flown into San Francisco and seen the red salt ponds and ghost town of Drawbridge? How about Love Canal. Mainland experts can provide a balance pro and con. Both sides should be heard and grilled.
If I want advice on something I’ve never done I listen to someone who has experienced it before. I don’t close my ears simply because they are a different skin color or from a different place.
As Hawaii grows and modernizes we cannot reinvent the wheel. What we can do is adapt and choose the best solution and modify it for our needs while avoiding the shortcomings of the mainland version.
Alex Santiago says we cannot afford NOT to do Rail. Breene Harimoto states that it is too late to turn back. Both of these guys are simply Kamikaze pilots flying on a path straight into assured death/destruction rather than taking a step back to consider alternatives.
You are right, the Rail will be a monolithic eyesore that will forever change Honolulu and leave us in chains.
So true, Big Braddah!
“your response is somewhat ethnocentristic and possibly racist.” haahahaha… ah the occasional comedy relief Ian’s column affords us. Everything is yellow to the jaundiced eye. EVERYthing is “racist” nowadays! “Uh Hi. I’d like a big mac and a coke” “YOU are RACIST!”
Your response, in return, is quite maybe wacky and has the potential to kinda sorta be extra loopy and crazy.
Fact Check: “curbs on significant development outside the transit corridor . . . is largely not true”
Starting in 1997 and concluding in 2004, the City Council adopted development plans and sustainable communities plans which include an urban growth boundary which protects thousands of agricultural and open space land from development. No urban development has yet been approved for areas outside that boundary.
The Envision Laie controversy is about whether the growth boundary should be amended in that area.
Correction: thousands of acres of agricultural and open space land
OK, so who do we vote for? Who is best for Koolau Loa?
In regards to hoopili, should the city just walk away from the long standing urban growth boundaries? Those lines represent a planning policy that has been around for decades. Are we reaching a point as a community where those very boundaries are reconsidered? Seems at least likely given the heft of those opposing Horton at the LUC.
The headline says “keep the country, county” and the quote is “keep the country, country.”
With rail, it’s where you sit. You live in the areas that will directly benefit, you support it. You live in the areas that doesn’t, you don’t.
“Community growth is inevitable, population growth is inevitable”…
So sit back and enjoy it?
If you want to fact-check the Mayor on “keeping the country, country” as well as on transparency/keeping politics out of government – examine the Mayor’s attempt to close a 3.5 acre coastal park (Haleiwa Beach Park Mauka) on the North Shore and sell it to political insider Andy Anderson.
When was the last time the City closed an actively used park and then sold it?
Under this Administration whose park will be sold next?
Come to Haleiwa on a weekend and see for yourself how heavily used this area (right next to Jameson’s Restaurant) is and how much demand there is for parking….
We don’t keep the country, country by selling off coastal parks.
Just got my bill today:
Digital Cable Pack (Standard TV, Digital Variety Pack) $70.95
DVR Box $30.85
Extra Box $19.00
HD Entertainment Pack $10.45
Sports Pack $5.95
Road Runner $44.95
Digital Phone $39.95
Voice Mail $ 3.95
Total with taxes, etc. $246.22
I am trying to find it in the Civil Beat archives, but cannot. It’s an article on Hoopili, and in the comment section one man writes that he is a full-time realtor, and he think that Hoopili is not in the self-interest of the real estate industry. Adding new housing when there is a housing glut will drive down prices and lead to more houses going underwater and into default. What is worse is that as soon as people buy into homes in Hoopili, this would drive down prices so that these new houses in Hoopili would themselves be underwater. They would be heading into foreclosure as soon as they were purchased.
There was also a recent CB article on the proposal to have local realtors manage rental properties owned by out-of-state investors in order to insure that taxes are being paid on the units. Now, my impression is that such people would be wealthy, and maybe some are, but the ones who are responding in the comment section seem middle class. They are just breaking even as it is, they claim, and will have to sell their local property if this bill becomes law. Again this would be expected to have a depressing effect on the local real estate market. I am guessing that this will probably become law because the State is so strapped for cash that it will do anything to raise funds.
Likewise, developing the Third City between Diamond Head and Kalihi: this will drive down home prices. However, the good thing about building apartments is that at least people will have someplace to move to when they are driven from their homes. Perhaps apartments are the way of the future, especially considering peak oil. The Star Advertiser recently wrote a column that stated that there is a mini-boom of proposed condo development slated for town, but it will be limited. I suspect that it might be bigger and more sustained than imagined, however, if one looks at bigger trends. We might be in for some sustained condo development, while houses will fall in value for some time.
But the message hear for the home building industry and trade unions is “Be careful what you ask for.” They will be adding to a glut, and that will only make the market worse. Now there is a demand for houses, of course, otherwise houses would be free. But these prospective home buyers will find that they are buying into a market that is still overvalued, perhaps greatly. In some areas of the US, there is still a bubble in real estate, and that might include pretty much everything outside of east Oahu.
Also, I don’t think that the State or City can afford to build new infrastructure even while what we already have now rots. The developers really need to pay their own way. Impact fees are a scam, they never pay the full cost of infrastructure (which is why developers don’t just pay for it themselves).