[Editor's
Note: Normally these columns are scheduled to appear every other
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Island Breath: Kauai Township Planning
by Juan Wilson to be published in TGI on 1 July 2007 Revision 1.1-070627
special to the Garden Island News © 2007 by Kauai Publishing
A VILLAGE - A MEADOW - A VILLAGE
In Europe you may visit one charming village that is famed for its
local cheese and wool, and then travel through a lovely rural landscape
to another village noted for a winery and an ancient monastery. Europe
seems so special and quaint to American visitors.
What is quaint? According to the dictionary, an adjective:
1) having an old-fashioned attractiveness or charm; oddly picturesque
2) strange, peculiar, or unusual in an interesting or pleasing way
3) skillfully or cleverly made
Western Europe is a densely populated part of the industrialized world.
What is so clever about European village life that has allowed it to
survive intact for a thousand years? It is so obvious, you can see it
from the air, yet planners here have hardly put it to practice.
When
flying over Ireland, France, Germany or Italy, you can see that each
village is separated from the next by woodlands or farmland. Each town
is a distinct community. Separated. Each has its own identity and
history. This is not possible without a respect for the past and
respect for the place. The Hawaiians had both - Americans have
neither.
SPRAWL - EDGE CITY - SPRAWL
Most Americans live in the middle of suburban sprawl. Such locations
have no history or sense of place - other than what their developers
named them - "Woodcrest", "Buena Vista", or "Bali Hai". Until recently
those locales were prairie, desert or canefield, but now they are part
of the dominant Car-Culture, and operated with the assumption that
Everywhere-is-Nowhere.
On the mainland we see a new phenomena growing at the perimeter of the
residential sprawl - they are called "Edge Cities". People don't live
there. Edge Cities are commercial-industrial developments out at the
interstate intersections where people go to work and play. Edge Cities
are where the Progressive Insurance Regional Center shares an exit ramp
with the Galleria Mall. Where the Manpower Office shares the parking
lot with Thank God It's Fridays. This relation of home, office, and
play is the old city-and-suburb model turned inside-out.
Here on Kauai; in Kapaa-Wailua, Hanamaulu-Puhi, and Koloa-Poipu, we are
beginning to see this phenomenon. As our county government
continues to promote development between our communities, that which
makes our towns distinct and meaningful will disappear. What will also
disappear is what makes Kauai meaningful.
TOWNSHIPS IN ADDITION TO DISTRICTS
In the last column, Jonathan Jay and I proposed establishing districts
that would follow traditional Hawaiian ones, but be new political
entities. In that plan seven districts would select
representatives as County Council members. Our motivation was to
establish a new island politics that would better represent the
interest of the environment (aina) and the people (kama'aina). We are
continuing to refine this idea and hope to get this issue on the next
election ballot. Contact us if you are interested in joining this
effort - email jonathan@dakauai.com.
I am pursuing another simultaneous effort to enhance an aina/kama'aina
powerbase. This would be establishing townships. In order to keep Kauai
"quaint", we could limit development to within the boundaries of
existing established communities, with each local planning it's own
internal "growth", or lack thereof. A parallel objective would be to
enhance the greenbelts of woods and agriculture that separate towns.
The Hawaii Constitution allows for self-organizing government below the
county level. This would include incorporated townships. Incidentally,
Connecticut, as a small state, decided to have no County governments at
all. Just the State and the Townships. Here government by island makes
sense, but that could include townships too.
As a preliminary example, I have made a list of 16 communities that
might be considered potential townships. They include Kekaha, Waimea,
Hanapepe, Kalaheo, Koloa, Poipu, Puhi, Nawiliwili, Hanamaulu, Wailua
Houselots, Wailua Homesteads, KawaiHau, Kapaa, Anahola, Kilauea, and
Hanalei. They had to be big enough and separate enough to qualify.
MAKE VILLAGES, NOT SUBURBS!
I recommend that each township have services for its residents that
could be reached on foot or by bike. That would dramatically reduce the
need to get into a car to get through the day. Each township would have
its own Mayor, Town Council, Public Works and Planning Office. Some
services would be from federal, state or county agencies. All together
they would include:
Post Office; Library; Public School; State/County/Town Offices;
Recreational Center; Athletic Fields, Shopping District; Permanent Open
Market Grounds
Many Kauai towns have several, but not all of these features. That
should be corrected, but the trend is going the wrong way. For example,
the Lingle supported DOE policy is to consolidate into fewer, bigger,
more uniform schools. As a result, more kids, before high-school, must
be bussed or driven out of their communities to be educated.
Here on Kauai, grades below the 6th have been eliminated from Waimea
Canyon Elementary to make it the regional Middle School. This while
Eleele School no longer handles the 6th grade, in order for it to be a
"standard" Elementary. As a result, children in both communities must
be bussed to the other to complete school through the 6th grade. It's
kind of like a Mad Hatter's Tea Party.
With township based planning each community would offer education
through middle school. This would mean all kids, until they started
high-school, could bike to their school, the library, the neighborhood
recreation center and give mom's poor Caravan some well earned down
time.
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