Hoopili and Koa Ridge Just Aren't Pono

“Jobs and housing.” Have you noticed? Developers always use the same argument: their project is always about “jobs and housing.” And who could oppose them?

We don’t. We simply ask: what sort of jobs and where is the housing?

Hawaii needs affordable places to live. And we need good, sustainable jobs. Too many construction workers are currently unemployed - partly because of an over reliance on a boom-and-bust construction market. On the other side of the coin, by one estimate Honolulu has the second highest number of homeless per capita in the United States. Our homeless problem shames us in so many ways: poor governance; bad schools, unhealthy economic and social disparities. And above all a shameful shortage of affordable housing.

So are more suburban mega-developments the answer?

The Sierra Club doesn’t think so. We opposed Koa Ridge because it would have splurged 5,000 homes over some of our best remaining farmland while making many of Oahu's most glaring problems even worse: traffic congestion, pollution, over-dependence on ever-more expensive imported energy, mounting food insecurity. It would have sprawled yet more tons of concrete across the ‘aina, gobbling up our keiki’s birthright and undermining our largest industry - tourism. Above all: it would have done little for affordable housing.

For those same reasons the Sierra Club is getting ready to tackle D.R. Horton’s proposed Ho‘opili mega-development which would plant 11,750 housing units on some of the most productive farmland in the state – the place where an incredible 20% of our local produce is grown.

These developments just aren’t pono. They’re not smart.

Housing -- and the many types of jobs it creates -- should be the product of carefully laid plans to direct smart growth for the families of today and for our kids.

Pono growth does not pit preservation of prime farmland against urban development.

Pono growth should consider both Hawaii's current and longterm food needs, and the security of future generations.

We have a practical, as well as a moral obligation, to resist the rush to exhaust precious limited resources in the pursuit of short-term gain. Over the last 50 years Oahu’s preferred planning model has been suburban sprawl. In that time, we paved 50 percent of our prime farmland: the land with the best soil, the best water access, the best capacity for growing food.

Tens of thousands of suburban single-family homes now cover much of central and leeward Oahu, all connected by a limited freeway system. Tens of thousands more homes are already zoned and entitled in new suburbs with names like Makaiwa Hills, Royal Kunia, Waiawa Ridge and Kapolei West.

As a result, at rush hour, H1 is now one of the most congested freeways in the nation. Commuters on O‘ahu lose an average 26 hours every year stuck in traffic, which means less time with our families and tons of CO2 every year, needlessly pumped into the air.

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