Imagining a new Lahaina Town

As we grieve for those who perished in the Aug. 8, 2023 Lahaina fire, let us continue our healing by imagining what a new Lahaina Town can become. We know that the reconstruction of Lahaina Town will cost between $10 billion and $20 billion, and take many years to complete. Let’s do it right, and leave our descendants with a town they can be proud of and a platform that they can build on.

Here are four elements to a reimagined Lahaina Town:

• A memorial park on Front Street between Shaw Street and Papalaua Street, 150 feet from the ocean’s high-water mark – in accordance with the county’s building statute and the West Maui Comprehensive Plan (sea level rise of 3.2 feet).

• Lahaina as the Cultural Capital of Hawaii – the commercially zoned area between Papalaua and Shaw to the highway should be designated as the Cultural Capital of Hawaii.

• Double zoning density of the residential zoned areas of Lahaina Town, including the areas makai of the highway. Strict design guidelines in place so that the residential areas maintain conformity, beauty and green space.

• Hills greened with fire-resistant indigenous plants and trees to retard future wildfires; investigate the use of solar-powered sea water desalination to irrigate the fallow lands and safeguard the existing aquifer and stream water.

These four ideas could create a Lahaina Town that would be resilient to future fires and be an attraction to visitors from Hawaii, the Mainland and the Pacific islands… and form a base on which future generations can build.

Imagine …

We drive to Lahaina Town, park our car in one of the large parking lots at the edge of town. There we are supplied with a smaller motorized vehicle (golf cart, wheelchair, scooter, bicycle) to continue our visit.

We begin our visit at the Memorial Park along the ocean; there are non-permanent structures for food, for artists, for music, for carvers, for dance, an open air theater for locally written and produced plays; an open air theater for films created and produced in Lahaina Town. We see non-permanent structures for healers and educators. Some of the historic Lahaina Town buildings have been rebuilt, and there is a museum documenting the history of Lahaina Town. Next to a revitalized harbor is an institute for marine studies and sea level rise; an institute to teach voyagers how to build seafaring canoes and to live on the ocean in a small canoe for weeks. At the ocean, the Hokule’a and its associated voyaging canoes are anchored, and the crews of the Hokule’a are the teachers at the institute.

If our visit is in the first two weeks of November, the memorial park hosts a hula festival modeled on the Merri Monarch Festival — perhaps it could be a mid-year Merri Monarch festival run by the committee that runs the Merri Monarch festival in Hilo. There are movies every night, some created by the students and graduates of a film school located in the commercial zone of Lahaina Town, and produced at the film studio up-hill. At the Shaw Street end of the memorial park, we visit revitalized Moku’ula, with enough water to make it what it once was. Shops, restaurants and art galleries line the mauka end of the memorial park. There are places for us to sit in the shade and take in the wonder of the ocean, watch the whales, look up at the greened hillsides.

The current commercially zoned area of Lahaina houses art schools, dance studios, music venues, a food innovation center, areas for the research and practice of the healing arts (both traditional and modern), a film school associated with a film studio built up hill from the main Lahaina Town. The commercially zoned area of Lahaina segmented for each of these activities, with associated shops and galleries. We are free to go to any of these institutes, where we are shown the work of artists in residence, given a sampling of the work that is done there — a hula lesson by accomplished teachers; the basics of Polynesian and Hawaiian art; etc.

Mauka of Wainee Street and south of Dickenson, the commercial area gives way to residential lots, churches and community centers. Those homes and institutes have been rebuilt under a new zoning category, allowing for two dwelling units, effectively doubling the housing stock of the community.

Strict design guidelines reflect the historic architecture of Lahaina Town and create enough green space and foliage to make the residential areas a verdant and pleasant place. Residents of these areas arrive to their homes using special entrances at Prison, Dickenson and Lahainaluna.

Mauka of the highway are the town’s grocery stores, gas stations, banks, doctor offices, vet clinics and other commercial establishments serving the local community. And mauka of these commercial areas are the main residential areas of Lahaina Town, extending between the highway and the bypass. These residential areas are also allowed two dwellings per lot and governed by the same strict design guidelines that apply to the makai residential areas of Lahaina Town. We don’t see any concrete block apartment buildings, and green spaces and abundant foliage offer a sense of peace and serenity.

As we continue our visit to the land above the residentially zoned areas of Lahaina Town, we are told that these lands were once fallow and dry, helping wildfires to spread and destroy the town. Now, these lands are lush with native species of trees and foliage, selected to retard future wildfires and a fire detection mesh system installed to give early warnings of developing wildfires. Solar power is used to power the desalination plants and irrigation pumps. We are given a tour of the solar power installations and the desalination plant, shown the intricate network of pumps and irrigation pipes that allow for the greening of these five square miles of land. There are farms that produce food for the people of the town and the tourists who visit West Maui; the farmers work with the food innovation center located in the main commercial area of the town. We are told that in the forests above, sandalwood and koa trees are beginning to flourish.

We tour the 50-acre parcel that has been developed into a film studio and learn that up to five major motion pictures are produced here each year, employing upwards of 1,000 people — most of whom live in Lahaina and were trained at the film school below.

And so ends our tour of the new Lahaina Town.

As noted, $10-$20 billion will be spent to reconstruct Lahaina Town. Let’s do it in a new and different way — a way that will make us proud to have created beauty from disaster, to have honored the memories of those who perished here, and leave future generations with a canvas on which they can design their own dreams.

VIRENDRA NATH AND NANCY MAKOWSKI

Lahaina

Monsters of our own making

In the spirit of Halloween, I want to tell you a spooky story about a monster.

The mere whisper of the monster can be enough to terrify the community. Some speak in hushed tones and others shout with alarm and dread about how its large, shambling form is a grotesque violation of earthly and natural law, how it brings ruin to the area. They do their best to chase the monster away.

But instead, they should put more blame on the monster’s creators.

I’m not talking about some kind of Frankenstein monster here. Actually, I’m not really talking about a monster at all. I’m talking about so-called “monster homes,” the term given to extra-large houses built on single-family lots.

In the Frankenstein story by Mary Shelley, the “monster” was created by young scientist Victor Frankenstein, who refused to acknowledge that what he was doing was problematic. His ghoulish creation of a humanoid was a patchwork non-living matter that he eventually brought to life.

Monster homes, on the other hand, are the result of a patchwork of zoning laws, NIMBYism and land-use regulations imposed by government officials intent on micromanaging the pace and character of housing growth — which not surprisingly has stifled that growth and led to some of the highest housing prices in the nation.

Let’s face it: Just like other scapegoats for the housing crisis, monster homes are an easy target. They are often considered unsightly and unfair, and are believed to be the result of homeowners manipulating or exploiting existing zoning laws to maximize their size and the number of people they can house.

Monster homes do sometimes violate building regulations, and there already are penalties in place to address that. Still, the Honolulu City Council is considering a bill that would dramatically increase those penalties.

But just as scientist Frankenstein needed to reflect on his actions, we need to ask why monster homes came to be in the first place.

Fortunately, there are solutions that do not require torches or pitchforks. We simply have to put an end to the conditions that have created the monster homes.

Bigger fines and more regulations will likely encourage builders to find more loopholes to mutate the monster. Instead, we need to look at ways to grow housing to remove the incentive to build monster homes.

If we had enough regulatory flexibility to build multiunit structures in areas zoned for single-family homes, there would be no need for monster homes. Where we now have monster homes, we could have duplexes, triplexes or single-family homes with ohana units.

That’s why my colleagues and I at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii have been promoting regulatory changes that would allow lot-splitting, smaller lots, duplexes and triplexes in single-family lots and accessory dwelling units.

We also have proposed relaxing the rules regarding parking minimums, floor area ratios and setbacks — the kinds of details that are needed in order to make these broader reforms possible.

When it comes to monster homes, our state and county governments have played the role of Victor Frankenstein, recklessly creating the conditions for the monsters to grow.

As long as they resist moving away from these conditions, monster homes will persist.

All we need to drive a stake through the heart of monster homes is to pass reforms that will allow for more creative housing solutions.

E hana kākou! (Let’s work together!)

KELI’I AKINA, PH.D.

President & CEO,

Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

Israel’s great hypocrisy under Netanyahu

What would Moses say if he returned to Israel today? Moses, remember, is Israel’s Founding Father, who led Israel out of captivity to the Promised Land in Palestine.

Gaza is much like the land of Goshen where Pharaoh kept the children of Israel bottled up and oppressed for generations working in his brick factories.

Ancient Israel was an oppressed minority who had their own religion, wanted their own land, and wanted to be an independent state just like Palestinians do today. Why doesn’t Israel have more compassion for the plight of Palestinians today?

Pharaoh Netanyahu wants to keep Palestinians permanently under his foot and is willing to chase after and exterminate any who get in the way of his mighty hand.

Netanyahu and Biden, let Gazans and West Bankers go!

KIMBALL SHINKOSKEY

Woods Cross, Utah