With no disrespect intended for the departed Old Year, many people are feeling relieved to see 2015 receding in the rear-view mirror.
In addition to the national and global headlines, Hawaii residents were confronted with their own challenges. Homelessness was probably the most visible among them, along with distressing news about rail cost overruns and tax extensions, development battles, conflicts over land use and the ownership of Hawaii’s largest power utility.
The 2016 statewide campaign season also looms, and although this is itself a daunting prospect, an election year brings the opportunity to press political hopefuls to pursue improvements — and to hold them to their commitments.
Among ways Hawaii should advance a positive growth agenda, the following priorities easily rise to the top of the wish list:
>> On homelessness: City and state governments must work more closely on the full spectrum of solutions, those that protect the public welfare in the short term and that yield more affordable, permanent housing options.
There should be ongoing efforts to curb the entrench- ment of campsites that are unhealthy to the homeless in particular and deprive residents of access to public spaces.
The “Housing First” efforts to place the chronically homeless in community rentals made a good start this year but needs to accelerate, through public-private partnerships developing affordable units.
>> On the rail project: The transit-oriented development possibilities along the planned 20-mile Honolulu rail alignment offer the best means of reducing the shortage of affordable rentals, one of the factors driving families into homeless- ness. The state, which owns land along the route, should work with the city to incentivize private partners in developing rentals.
As for this crucially important project itself: Honolulu taxpayers, dismayed by the $6.57 billion rail project, are craving greater assurances that the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation will ride herd on the rising costs. Drilling down for information about subcontractor expenditures and keeping them in check are essential.
And as the planning and construction progress toward the urban core, HART must anticipate and mitigate better the impacts on businesses and neighborhoods.
>> On development: The transforming Kakaako is the centerpiece of Oahu redevelopment, changing the face of Honolulu’s waterfront. There are some indications that the area will be a youthful, vibrant place, filled with activity and commerce. Careful balance is required to ensure accommodations for those up and down the income scale.
And as it’s often promised, this is supposed to be a live-work-play community, so it should be livable for those who reside in the towers as well as the people just passing through. Open space, accomplished through setbacks and green landscaping touches, will help to turn the real estate into a real neighborhood.
The overseeing Hawaii Community Development Authority must see that best practices in urban planning are carried out.
>> On government efficiency: Simply put, Gov. David Ige has the right instinct to pursue the overhaul of the state’s geriatric information technology system. He needs to pursue that goal to its completion.
>> On Hawaiian values: The debates about a scheduled convention on Native Hawaiian self-governance, and the clash over the plans for a mammoth telescope atop Mauna Kea, underscore the host culture’s resurgence.
That can be a powerful asset. Native Hawaiian organizations have provided stewardship of natural resources, pushing government officials to be better stewards themselves.
But Western advances — such as the Thirty Meter Telescope — can coexist with that culture. They must do so, because a living Native Hawaiian community cannot thrive in estrangement from non-Hawaiians and from the realities of the 21st century.
Whatever happens with the TMT in the coming year — the Hawaii Supreme Court is insisting that the project hews to proper regulatory procedure — that recognition must prevail.
Hawaii is a complex, multicultural and multiethnic place, with the full complement of problems modernity brings. A roadmap to its future must outline the paths that everyone can follow. Its leaders owe the public policies that will serve the whole community.
