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This is my summary, plus commentary, of one of the articles from "Big Island - Growing Pains," a special section in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Sunday, 4/28/13. Hawaii News - Honolulu Star-Advertiser
FROM 1958 TO 1973 large private developers (many of them politically connected) got permission from the county to subdivide some 52,500 lots in Puna — and about one-quarter of them now have houses on them, according to the 2011 Puna community plan.
...
Today there are about 45,300 people living in the Puna district, more than double the total in 1990.
But cheap land comes at a price.
Subdivisions in Puna, whose population is forecast to exceed Hilo's within the decade, have no water or sewer lines, no publicly funded road upkeep (and many unpaved roads) and no home mail delivery. Some don't have access to electricity.
A loaf of bread, a doctor's visit or access to key county services oftentimes requires a 30-minute drive to Hilo. Internet service is poor (think dial-up) to nonexistent. And there are large cellphone dead spots.
This kind of subdivision development - with no infrastructure, just bulldozed private roads and lot markers - is no longer allowed, but those bad decisions from 55 years ago, which were the rule for 15 years, are still dominating elements of daily life in Puna today. And to a large degree, they also influence the kind of people who are willing to invest in the area and live there.
First, the roads. They're awful. Only the main highway from Keaau to the coast and a handful of secondary roads are paved and government maintained. By far the majority of roads in the district are privately owned and maintained. But most (all?) of the HOAs are ineffective at raising sufficient money to improve their roads, so unpaved gravel roads over rough lava, with major drainage and pothole problems are the rule. Street signs are the exception in many places. And the county can't help much, even if they had the funds, which they don't, because state law prohibits using public funds to pave private roads. A recent proposed bill to make an exception, to allow diverting a portion of fuel taxes to this purpose in Puna, never made it out of legislative committee. And another suggestion, to create an improvement district that would be able to assess a special fee in the area on top of county taxes does not have wide support.
I'll add this explanation for mainlanders... there are only 2 levels of government on Hawai'i, state and county, and they are currently the only two entities with taxing authority. There is no "town level" government.
Second, public utilities are largely non-existent. In a few population centers county well water is available to a limited area, but the majority of Puna residents either have rainwater catchment systems, or have water hauled to their cistern, or a few have well water. Sewer service does not exist, so cesspools and septic systems are the rule, but groundwater pollution issues are forcing the closing of some cesspools and some wells.
Helco, the electric power provider on the island, also has spotty service availability outside the main population centers, and it is horrendously expensive to install and to use (3X the average mainland cost), so alternative power sources like solar panels and diesel generators are in wide use. Telephone service and cable/internet are similarly limited. So, the area is mostly rural and rugged in nature. Meanwhile people keep moving in, further increasing the burden on already overextended services, and increasing traffic.
The county is dealing with the limits on what they can provide within the private subdivisions by devoting available resources to improvement projects it can legally furnish, like new Police and Fire facilities, better waste-transfer facility and services, improvements to the Pahoa aquatic center, planning a big public park, etc.
So, with a rapidly growing population, and absolutely no way to limit population growth, Puna District has major infrastructure issues that everybody agrees need urgently to be addressed, but which nobody really seems to know what to do about.
I read the group of articles on the big island and am 3/4 of the way through Land and Power in Hawaii. It appears Puna will have some painful growth in front of it. Development without infrastructure was a bad decision 50 years ago, but the folks who live in Puna do so because they weighed cost vs services and decided Puna was worth the cost, even without services.
I don't believe Puna will magically get services, without Puna land owners paying for the services. And that is the problem. The folks in Puna have already chosen cost over services and they aren't likely to change their minds.
Until Puna becomes a health risk, it will probably stay without services. After all who wants to pay to bring services to Puna?
I read the group of articles on the big island and am 3/4 of the way through Land and Power in Hawaii. It appears Puna will have some painful growth in front of it. Development without infrastructure was a bad decision 50 years ago, but the folks who live in Puna do so because they weighed cost vs services and decided Puna was worth the cost, even without services.
I don't believe Puna will magically get services, without Puna land owners paying for the services. And that is the problem. The folks in Puna have already chosen cost over services and they aren't likely to change their minds.
Until Puna becomes a health risk, it will probably stay without services. After all who wants to pay to bring services to Puna?
Ah Yes, the old "You get what you pay for" phenomenon. Health risk or not, no tickee, no laundry.
It would be lovely to reinstate the railway service between Pahoa and Hilo. Railroad Avenue is called that for a reason. In areas such as Portland, they have light rail that runs alongside the highway and other surface roads, putting in some light rail between Pahoa and Hilo would take a lot of stress off the one road that now connects them. Passenger service and light cargo service would be good.
If the island somehow could manage it, reinstating the railway between Hilo and Pauuilo on the Hamakua coast would make a tourist destination of epic proportions. It would even be useful for traffic and cargo, too. The old Hamakua railway line was either going over a bridge or through a tunnel, so it would be too expensive to revive (more than likely) but the one between Pahoa and Hilo is mostly flat ground and the old railway bed is probably still there somewhere.
It would be lovely to reinstate the railway service between Pahoa and Hilo. Railroad Avenue is called that for a reason. In areas such as Portland, they have light rail that runs alongside the highway and other surface roads, putting in some light rail between Pahoa and Hilo would take a lot of stress off the one road that now connects them. Passenger service and light cargo service would be good.
If the island somehow could manage it, reinstating the railway between Hilo and Pauuilo on the Hamakua coast would make a tourist destination of epic proportions. It would even be useful for traffic and cargo, too. The old Hamakua railway line was either going over a bridge or through a tunnel, so it would be too expensive to revive (more than likely) but the one between Pahoa and Hilo is mostly flat ground and the old railway bed is probably still there somewhere.
Assuming that such a system could, in fact, be profitable, and that a developer and financing could be gotten, how long would the approval process take to act on the applicaiton, and what are the chances it would receive favorable action?
It would be lovely to reinstate the railway service between Pahoa and Hilo. Railroad Avenue is called that for a reason.
It's a lovely thought, yes, but I don't think that would fly for two reasons... I don't think the population base is large enough to support it*, and I don't think the county has any interest in encouraging further population growth in Puna, which will just further exacerbate all the current problems.
*In the article about the dangers of Highway 130, notice the struggle over spending $130 million to widen and upgrade the existing road! Struggle, as in... there are no current plans to do any of it.
Irony... as I was doublechecking that dollar amount, I noticed a bulletin that Hwy 130 was closed near the entrance to Pahoa due to a crash.
It would be lovely to reinstate the railway service between Pahoa and Hilo. Railroad Avenue is called that for a reason. In areas such as Portland, they have light rail that runs alongside the highway and other surface roads, putting in some light rail between Pahoa and Hilo would take a lot of stress off the one road that now connects them. Passenger service and light cargo service would be good.
If the island somehow could manage it, reinstating the railway between Hilo and Pauuilo on the Hamakua coast would make a tourist destination of epic proportions. It would even be useful for traffic and cargo, too. The old Hamakua railway line was either going over a bridge or through a tunnel, so it would be too expensive to revive (more than likely) but the one between Pahoa and Hilo is mostly flat ground and the old railway bed is probably still there somewhere.
That would be nice, however the PDX light rail system cost over 3 billion dollars. The first 15 miles cost 215 million dollars in 1980's currency, or rougly 15 million dollars per mile. In today's currency with the new environmental studies, the Hawaiian Haircut, etc, I suspect it would be about $50 million per mile for a barebone light rail.
Puna is where TPTB have decided to put the Hilo overflow so you'd think a rail system there would be easy to get approval for if there was some way to fund it. Railroad Avenue would be the likely route since it already was a heavy railway at one point so the foundation should still be there. Land prices are down and it would be less expensive to build it now than to wait until it got super crowded.
If the tracks were built to a standard width so a variety of different engines and cars could fit on it, they could start out with the least expensive and work up to the most sustainable eventually, one would think.
Next time I run across one of our council people, I'll hopefully remember to mention it to them. Light rail, heavy rail, any rail would be good for the expanding diversified agricultural industry, too.
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