Musings: Emotional Impacts

You know the Hawaii media scene is in dire straits when Civil Beat laments the loss of Hawaii Reporter and its “independent voice.”

Of course, it wasn't exactly independent, because it was funded for a time by the conservative Watchdog.com, and its coverage was similarly skewed. Which is why it's no surprise that its founder, Malia Zimmerman, is headed for a gig at Fox News. But Hawaii Reporter was, at least, a different voice.

Still, Civil Beat's dirge on Malia's departure begs the question: Why doesn't Civil Beat do more independent investigative reporting? Its got money, reporters, editors. Yet its coverage overall is tepid, and it rarely departs from the Star-Advertiser/TV news lineup, other than to offer news flashes like “the cost of living is really high in Hawaii because land is so expensive.” Ya don't say....

Independent Kauai journalist Jan TenBruggencate has written back-to-back posts on the GMO issue that are worth reading on his Raising Islands blog. One post delves into how even though the agrochemical companies get all the attention from activists, they're just one piece of the biotech pie:

But around the world, the genetic modification techniques are being used to solve regional and small-crop issues—and the work is being done by regional and local institutions. And some of is being done to solve major global nutrition issues—without a profit motive at all.

What, no profit motive? Gee, that makes it hard to dismiss the technology as the devious work of evil corporatists bent on ruling the food supply, and thus the world, doesn't it? Don't you just hate it when facts mess up a perfectly good social media meme?

His second post debunks another myth linking GMO wheat to gluten-intolerance and celiac disease. Except there isn't any GMO wheat commercially sold in North America. Oops.....

Someone left a clever comment on a post I wrote last week about the push to kill the Mahaulepu dairy, which includes a lawsuit by the Hyatt claiming its guests will be forced to endure biting flies and an unbearable stench:

Bad for marketing if the Hyatt loses. Will they tell their guests what they say in the lawsuit?

Good question….

On a related note, I heard that an Aha Moku meeting, held last week to select a moku representative for Mahaulepu and establish a position on the dairy, attracted about 60 people, including 15 guys wearing tee-shirts with this slogan: 

Needless to say, the meeting got tense when the dairy opponents met their opponents.

Meanwhile, folks are gearing up for another fight. This one is over the proposal to build HoKua Place, a 769-unit housing project on 97 acres above the Kapaa Middle School. The developers are seeking a land use amendment to change the designation from agriculture to urban, claiming the site is close to schools, commercial centers and other urban amenities.

Yeah, but to get to those services you've gotta drive on Olohena Road, a narrow dangerous two-lane strip of pavement that feeds into Kapaa town and the bypass road. Add cars from the HoKua Place project to those that will be generated by Coco Palms and the two new Coconut Marketplace resorts and the question becomes: Just how many cars can be dumped into the Kapaa-Wailua corridor before traffic comes to a complete standstill?

Looks like we're about to find out….

The project calls for 36 house and “large lot” (10,000 square feet) packages selling for $800,000 to $950,000; 50 medium lot (7,500 square feet) packages priced at $650,000 to $700,000; 500 four-plex units for $250,000 to $300,000 each; and 183 affordable rental units at a density of 12 units per acre.

The developers are rarin' to go, seeing as how the “housing market is poised to right itself.” The EIS preparation notice further enthuses:

The historically low level of permitting activity indicates there will be little or no competitive interference in the short run to this project’s offerings coming from other housing development on the island. The Market Analysis notes that these expected prices, particularly the affordable ones, are below the historical trend for Kauaʻi housing. Thus, sales are expected to start up strongly.

Also planned are a 3.1-acre park adjacent to the school, where the county could relocate the Kapaa swimming pool, and a 1.4-acre commercial parcel for a “country type store and small personal service types of uses.” Another 1-acre parcel on the makai side of Olohena would be either more commercial, or police and fire substations.

But other than two bus stops, and a bike-walking path from the middle school to town, the project offers no road improvements other than a “channelized intersection on Kapaʻa Bypass Road.” Which means a souped-up roundabout.

Surely more should be required than that. And when, exactly, are the county and state going to look at the big picture issue of Kapaa traffic?

Though the developers describe the project as “rural-like” and “sustainable” — two meaningless phrases — the call to action against it is characterized as “maintaining our Kauai rural lifestyle, which is severely threatened at this time.”

What caught my eye was a request that the EIS “should include include social, emotional and community impacts before it goes any further.”

Emotional impacts. Now that's a new one. But as we've seen with the anti-GMO and anti-dairy movements, emotions are becoming an increasingly important component in land use issues. They're hard to measure, and perhaps impossible to mitigate, especially when they reach a certain fever pitch. 

And they're definitely not going away.