[Editor's
Note: Normally these columns are scheduled to appear every other Sunday
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Island Breath: Moratoria: A case of more is better
by Juan Wilson on 12 August 2007
as printed in the Garden Island News and reproduced with permission by Kauai Publishing
THE MAYOR'S MORATORIUM
This past week Kauai Mayor Bryan Baptiste released his plan for a
moratorium on the subdivision of agricultural land. The goal is to halt
the conversion of large tracts of farmland into suburban California
style McMansions.
Even at this late stage, the mayor should be congratulated for seeing
the crisis we face with the loss of prime agricultural land. Baptste
has been on the right side of some important issues during his tenure.
• Public Access
In 2004 he fought for public access to Papa`a Bay Beach against Peter
Guber's Mandalay Corp. The mayor lost but has been consistent in
supporting public beach access and said, "The County is committed to
taking the steps necessary to maintain public access to Papa'a Beach
for the people of Kauai."
• Gated Communities
In 2005 the mayor took a stand against gated communities on Kauai. He
said "I envision our island with integrated communities where people of
various socioeconomic levels and cultures can live together without
gates or barriers that hinder access. In this island paradise,
communities should be welcoming and accessible to everyone."
• Coconut Coast Resorts
In 2006 Baptiste offered his view on the two Waipouli developments that
would have destroyed what is left of Kauai's Coconut Coast, saying. "As
presented, I don’t think the two proposed Waipouli developments are
good for Kauai".
We support his current plan for a moratorium on agricultural subdivisions ... but with three caveats:
1) As proposed in the plan, the thirteen current applications for
agland subdivisions should not be exempted from the moratorium. These
projects will have a big impact. The unfortunate fact is, much of the
U.S. real estate investment market is crumbling. It is possible that
the worst damage coming to Kauai is just getting into the pipeline now.
If projects are wrong for Kauai, and don't have permits, they should
not go forward.
2) We do need "Affordable" housing, but not on agland. "Affordable" is
often a code word for "Suburban Sprawl". "Affordable Sprawl" is denser
and will do even more damage to agland than the upscale McMansions.
However, affordable housing for resident farmers could be excluded from
the agland moratorium under strictly controlled conditions. Other
affordable housing should be built in towns on on land zoned for
residential use.
3) By definition a moratorium is a deliberate temporary delay of a
planned activity. It is not a ban. It is not permanent. We might start
with a moratorium, but the mayor needs to complete the next step and
create a comprehensive plan that will preserve prime agland for our
food independence and preserve the beauty of Kauai.
ADDITIONAL MORATORIA
It is quite obvious the world is at a crossroads. People everywhere are
realizing that continuing on the path we have been on could lead to our
destruction. There are too many of us burning up too much stuff. It is
no accident that we face extinction as we reach peak oil consumption
and record population levels.
We need a general moratorium - a time-out to cool off. But that needs
to be coordinated with a change in direction. We must conceive and
create a world economy that does not require growth in population or
increasing consumption to be viable. Nothing short of that will avoid a
catastrophic collapse of our civilization.
Kauai is a small planet unto itself surrounded by a blue ocean and blue
sky. Like the world at large, we are at a crossroads. Bryan Baptiste is
our mayor at a time we must begin living our lives as if there will be
a tomorrow. Some suggestions for the mayor on things we should do on
our way to the future:
• Do not rely on more suburban sprawl
Recently, the business of America has been building suburban boxes and
filling them up with "made in China" merchandise. But right now, the
"big" problem with the U.S. economy is the meltdown of the suburban
housing market. The housing lenders, builders and buyers are in a
perfect storm of bad credit and bad financing. Yes, the problem will
manifest itself later here than the mainland, but we should resist
"building out" Kauai as the engine of our economy. It will only a serve
the short term interest of a few, and leave less to love about Kauai.
Let's have a moratorium on all residential suburban subdivisions tracts.
• Do not rely on tourism to support us
Given the direction of energy prices and ongoing failure of the
mainland credit market, we can no longer rely on tourism as the
mainstay to our economy. Too many Americans are worried about their
monthly mortgage payment. Someday soon we are going to have a lot of
empty vacation condos and resort suites. We don't need to be building
more. We need a moratorium on the visitor-timshare-condos and those
concrete warehouse "resorts" with big pools, like the Waipouli Beach
Resort in Kapaa.
• Do not rely on ethanol from sugarcane
Creating an ethanol business may buy some time for Gay & Robinson
(the last sugarcane operation on the island). For a short time it may
preserve a way of life on the westside that combines some Hawaiian
culture with the remains of the bankrupt sugar industry, but basically
the ethanol plan is a boondoggle and cannot be characterized as a
"green" industry or even a viable business.
The justification for subsidizing this effort is produce our own
energy. However, coal (in the form of coal oil) and sugarcane (in the
form of molasses) will have to be imported to Kauai to sustain this
operation. The ethanol Energy-Return-on-Energy-Invested is not good,
and the resulting fuel will be at the expense of our topsoil and its
runoff into the ocean. Reluctantly, I think we need a moratorium on the
ethanol plant development.
THINGS TO ENCOURAGE
At all cost, we must avoid wasting our time and wasting the resources
we will need to solve our problems. We must disinvest in operations
that require fossil fuels and products manufactured faraway.
• Rely on our town centers and not cars
In a place like Kauai, the quality of our lives is better when we not
in our cars. To drive less we need to live near our town centers. New
real estate investments should be made on existing lots, in our
existing towns. Let's make Kauai towns worth living in.
There is a need to distribute office work, now done in Lihue, to our
outlying towns. This includes county and state employees as well as
banking, insurance, legal, and financial activities. Let people work
near or where they live. Retail shopping should be similarly
distributed to reduce those trips that burn a gallon of gasoline to get
a gallon of milk.
• Rely on doing business with each other
We can do business with each other. Trade and service between Kauai
residents is the best business. It builds wealth from what we have here
on the island - and that wealth stays here. Overall, a local
restaurant, using local produce is a better business for Kauai than a
mainland franchise shipping processed food.
Bartering systems can bolster a local economy. Here on Kauai there have
been some efforts over the years. Recently a new website
(http://kauaiabundance.com) began offering an abundance bulletin-board
to enable giving away and trading homegrown produce.
Local currencies are even more powerful. One of the best known is the
currency of Ithaca, New York - the Ithaca HOUR (worth about $10 and
redeemable for an hour's work). The world's largest local currency loan
was been made by the Ithaca system. Alternatives Federal Credit Union
received 3,000 Ithaca HOURS (worth $30,000), to pay for 5% of a
building construction project. Visit www.ithacahours.com for more.
We need more efforts like these that support the economic independence of Kauai.
• Rely on new agricultural opportunities
Kauai Coffee is already the largest coffee estate in America and
popular in Japan. We need to reinvent our economy based on additional
agricultural opportunities. Some are beginning to grow cacao, bamboo,
,neem , noni, awe, macadamia nuts and other cash crops that have a
worldwide appeal and can be branded as from Kauai.
In order so save our westside agricultural economy, Gay & Robinson
might better grow hemp than sugarcane. Hemp is among one of the most
productive and useful plants known. With hemp we can produce paper,
clothes, textiles, building materials, food, medicine, paint,
detergent, varnish, oil, ink, and fuel. Note: hemp oil is a more
efficient bio-fuel than ethanol.
Hemp can be grown in most locations and climates with only moderate
water and fertilizer requirements. Where hemp is grown, it has become a
valuable and environmentally friendly crop with a growth cycle of only
120 days. Farmers have reported excellent hemp growth on land that had
been cultivated steadily for a hundred years.
A One Act Play In Three Lines by Jonathan Jay
Bartender: Sir, you are obviously inebriated... I am afraid i'm going to...
Drunkard: yeah, but I already ordered 13 double vodka martinis!
Bartender: OK, but after that - Im going to have to cut you off.
Fin
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see also:
Island Breath: Mayor's Moratorium 8/4/07
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