After living in Kaaawa for most of three decades, we watched the whole process of pseudo community consultation carried out by government planners and decision-makers time and again. Even when strong community sentiment was clearly expressed, it was more often than not ignored or minimized.

I think Lee Cataluna got it right in her Honolulu Star-Advertiser column last week.

Oh, sure, politicians and “community engagement professionals” representing various development projects will hold meetings in a school cafeteria a couple of times before the construction vehicles start rolling. They’ll have serious looking people in reverse-print aloha shirts sitting impassively through hours of testimony and earnest pleas.

They may even call these meetings “listening sessions,” which means that they won’t answer any questions, and then they’ll go ahead and do whatever they planned to do all along, though perhaps they’ll write a check to a community organization or an after-school program to try to buy some acquiescence. It’s too often about quelling the voices of opposition, not giving them credence.

But community members — moms and dads who work all day at jobs they don’t even like just to afford to live in the same town where they grew up, grandparents who worked hard all their lives thinking of the future, grandparents who are spending their retirement years raising their grandchildren, people who just want to go about their lives without undue burdens — they don’t feel heard. Listening is not hearing. Truly hearing the voices of the community means taking the messages to heart and being open to changing plans or waiting until all questions are addressed.

At the base of the problem is that it’s either a state or county agency, or a private developer, that has the resources to hire an army of planners, and then direct their plan towards their desired outcome. The community, on the other hand, usually doesn’t have a unified voice and almost certainly won’t have the resources to hire their own planners and researchers to refine and sharpen their critique.

One result is that communities are on the defensive from the start, having to find errors in what the developers propose rather than being able to shape their own plans from the beginning.

I recall a story told by friends a number of years ago. They were very proud of their son, who had a brand new law degree and was on the job market. During an interview for a local government position, the interviewer posed a hypothetical question. Something like this—“So there’s a controversial development project that has generated community protests, and you’re assigned to check out the legal issues. What would you do?”

So their son thought about it, and explained that he would interview key community members to understand what was behind their complaints, and then look at how the project could be changed to reasonably accommodate the community concerns.

Before he could elaborate, the interviewer cut him off. ”No,” he explained. “You would make it come out right.” Meaning, of course, that he would find reasons that the development as proposed was the best course of action and the community complaints unfounded.

That story is either literally true or, possibly, simply expresses a cynical view of how these planning processes really work, one based in past experience.

Now we have a number of communities up in arms, from the TMT to Kahuku, in situations where the planning process ended up obtaining all the necessary permits and approvals, but obviously failed to identify and accommate serious community concerns, leading to late-stage protests at the point where serious money has been invested and changes, even if justified, are very difficult to make.

Under current law, where an environmental impact statement is required, it is the developer or agency proposing the underlying project that hires the consultants and directs their work. Often, it could be argued, proceeding with that “make it come out right” approach.

What if the law required the affected communities to be provided the resources to hire their own planners and consultants early in the planning process?

Those agencies that have to approve permits would have the benefit of a fuller factual base to work with, communities would have a clearer voice, the likelihood of litigation would hopefully be reduced, and the public would get better results.

Of course, there would have to be criteria for determining which development plans, and which communities, would qualify to receive these planning resources, but that’s not a huge hurdle.

Looking at the costs of failed planning for Honolulu’s rail, for the TMT, for those giant wind turbines standing over 600 feet tall over Kahuku, the costs of empowering community planning seem more reasonable by comparison.