Chuck "Doc" Burrows, shown at Kawainui Marsh, is one of many environmentally-minded windward side voters looking to the City Council to support green issues. . - Photo: KWO Archives

Lifestyle, environmental concerns face O'ahu's Windward side

Special mail-in election ends April 23

By Liza Simon-Tuiolosega / Ka Wai Ola

Windward O'ahu voters will elect a City Council person to take the place of Barbara Marshall, who died Feb. 22 after an eight-month battle with colon cancer. The special election to represent parts of Kāne'ohe, Kailua and Waimānalo has attracted 11 candidates, eight of whom are Native Hawaiian.

If looks alone told the whole story, then the list of Hawaiian-focused concerns facing District 3 would be short. The district's communities nestle between the Ko'olau Mountains and quiet beaches. Some people still hunt, fish and farm in the old style. But voters here say help is needed in preserving the area's "country" feel – and many are looking for a council person who will support community initiatives to solve the problems they face.

"If we have decent ground cover, maintained streams and we haven't over-built, then we offer a waterway for a large portion of the island during downpours and a catchment system during droughts," said Kailua Neighborhood Board member Linda Ure, adding that city zoning changes have harmed green open spaces and natural resources that belong to the public. Ure said she's seen instances where county-approved construction on or near preservation land has caused irreversible damage to wildlife habitat and productive farmland and that permitting practices are behind the Windward side's proliferation of so-called gentleman's farms – large lots designated for agriculture but used mainly as spacious residences.

In 2000, Ure and other civic-minded residents from all over District 3 saw their Ko'olaupoko Sustainable Communities plan adopted by the Honolulu City Council. It stresses cohesive land-use planning and the ahupua'a concept, but the plan was never fully implemented, due to growing city budget constraints, some claim. The Harris administration, creator of the sustainable communities project, cited the Ko'olaupoko plan in setting aside $750,000 for a gateway park at Kawainui Marsh in Kailua, but it's unlikely that the appropriation will be kept in the current proposed city administration budget, suffering from a projected $50 million shortfall.

"To put aside environmental issues in hard times is terribly shortsighted. It's how we got into this mess to begin with," said Chuck "Doc" Burrows, who spearheaded a fight to restore Kailua's Kawainui Marsh after decades of waste discharge into the waterway and other misuses.

While the 800-acre Kawainui is recognized as one of the nation's most important wetlands, the marsh could be coping with pollutants once again if the county council approves expansion of a neighboring industrial park's wastewater treatment facility. Meanwhile, Burrows, a retired science teacher, is upbeat about support from the Kailua Hawaiian Civic Club and the environmental nonprofit 'Ahahui I Ka Lōkahi in maintaining the marsh, including O'ahu's oldest and largest heiau. "The City Council processes are very slow and it takes great political skill to get things done, so the community role is to speak up about our natural treasures," Burrows said.

In Waimānalo, Mabel Spencer, a veteran member of the town's neighborhood board, says residents of the predominately Hawaiian community have fought hard to get city improvements to the beach park facilities as a key to solving escalating social problems. "The underlying issue is a lack of affordable housing, causing generations to squeeze under one roof," she said. "The beach is a stress reliever, and it's the only diversion everyone can afford. We need it be a good environment."

Spencer has worked through her neighborhood board to get the city to bring groundskeepers and lifeguards into the park. "Things do not come easy to us," she said. "Hawaiians silently suffer – especially the older generation. And I have empathy for them but we want the next generation to be different, vocal, involved in community processes."

That eight of the 11 candidates vying for the District 3 council seat claim Native Hawaiian ancestry should provide inspiration to many of her Kanaka Maoli neighbors to vote, though Spencer said a candidate's ethnicity is no guarantee of truly connecting with Waimānalo residents.

Waimānalo is facing a growth spurt, with a state plan to widen Kamehameha Highway and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands' construction of 100 new homes. The latter project would seem to address to affordable-housing crunch, but success is dependent on a long-awaited upgrade to the town's troublesome, city-run sewage treatment facility now near
completion.

The plant couldn't handle the population growth in the 1980s, causing wastewater to spill into the ocean. Beach closures were common for more than a decade, adding to a perception that Waimānalo's problems were neglected by the city, Spencer said. With resumed growth, some fear new pressure on sewage infrastructure and repeated problems.

Spencer favors adding a reclamation facility to further bolster the efficiency of the upgraded sewage treatment plant, which is temporarily under the state but due to return to city control. "The total cost for (the added protection) would be quite high. With the city budget in bad shape, we need partnerships more than ever to foot the bill," said Spencer. "But in recent years, we've been blessed by a good City Council and by more residents taking ownership of the environment, she said, referring to a recent project where residents obtained city funds to construct a wheelchair-accessible area for kūpuna at Waimānalo Beach Park. "There is a new feeling that whatever improvements we get, we have to mālama," Spencer added.

Still, many see signs that the sour economy is spreading social upheaval throughout the Windward side, an area where residents often trace neighborhood roots back several generations. "I see friends from high school living on the beach. They lost their jobs and have no place to go," said Waimānalo Homesteader Ilima Ho-Lastimosa, director of a Windward area teen cultural-education program, operated by DHHL and nonprofit funding.

Paul Richards of the Waimānalo Hawaiian Homestead Association sees cultural education programs and self-sufficient economic enterprise as the key for balancing rural life and development in Waimānalo. To support this, the association has a plan for a business park so that "business will breed business with local talent" – offsetting job loss in the recession. But all this will require support from the new council person to address Honolulu Board of Water Supply concerns about the adequacy of existing infrastructure at the proposed park site of an old quarry.

For Mahealani Cypher, president of the Ko'olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, social problems are inseparable from increasing urbanization of the Windward side. "In the '70s and '80s we looked at how much growth a community can absorb without destroying quality of life," said Cypher. "Now we realize we can't just say 'yes' to a project until we know that the roads, infrastructure and social structure can support the growth."

Cypher said when it comes to city planning, small things add up. She points to a Kāne'ohe neighborhood where growth led to rush-hour congestion where the residential Makalua Street intersects with Kamehameha Highway, the main artery. When residents asked the city to modify a traffic light to alleviate the snarl, the City Council rejected the request. Cypher said the neighborhood's traffic problem serves as an example of what can happen when the city allows expansion when it shouldn't. The problem, she said, could have been avoided had the city properly analyzed traffic patterns and taken a more holistic approach to planning beforehand.

"In Kāne'ohe, we have no more room for big development, but many landowners are trying expand what they have, and it adds up," she said. That may explain why many Kāne'ohe residents are rallying against a proposed expansion of the Hawai'i Memorial Park Cemetery and are also opposed to the Bay View Golf Course's plans to build a new subdivision combining affordable and luxury homes. The Bay View project wouldn't consume more land, but it could impact the Waikalua Hawaiian fishpond, adjacent to the golf course, said James Kealiiaihoku McClellan of the Kāne'ohe Neighborhood Board.

"As a Native Hawaiian, I see the fishpond as the basis for a lifestyle that we have the chance to revive," said McClellan, who also sees the juxtaposition of new luxury homes in the residential neighborhood as opening the way for more social dislocation. "I hope that our new city council member will tackle this and see that it is unacceptable," he said. McClellan said he would like to see the City Council pass an ordinance to address a loophole in state law that exempts qualified developers from certain city permitting requirements and waives zoning codes for land use on the condition that affordable housing be added to a proposed project. "The state's 201-H (statute) was never meant to be used as the loophole it's become," said McClellan.

Cypher, a former Honolulu County clerk, said the City Council person's job is necessarily hard. Districts are larger than those of state lawmakers and, therefore, encompass more diverse interests. But two things she would ask of the next District 3 representative is to meet with constituents as much as possible and not get lost in the power maneuvers at City Hall.

As for supporting Native Hawaiian interests, she said the incoming council person must trust the help offered by Native Hawaiians who have aloha for the 'āina and the 'ohana. "There are so many Native Hawaiians with a passion for environmental and cultural preservation," she said, suggesting that Kanaka Maoli would come out to support the city's "adopt-a-park" program and other volunteer opportunities, if the city did more to let the public know how to participate. "Our Native Hawaiian families are not just looking for the government to come and do everything for them. They want to give back."