Today, we stand at a threshold of another burst of growth on Oahu.
Kakaako is afire, racing to build as many high-rises as it can hold. Koa Ridge is prepped and ready to build 3,500 units. The city is rushing Ho‘opili through the zoning process, chafing to build 12,000 houses on the best farmland in the world.
So much building, all at once, will take more workers than we have. So we will bring workers from the mainland to build houses primarily for rich people who don’t yet live here, starting a whole new round of in-migration and building to meet its needs.
And where will island people live? The City Council is considering changes to ohana housing rules, so that more locals can be crammed together on less land. Is all of this what the people want?
With developers, unions, banks, big business and Pacific Resource Partners controlling our government, we can do little but watch as they pave over paradise for profit.
Yet suddenly, there is a chance for change. The U.S. Army must reduce its numbers and its expenses. Installations in Hawaii are extremely costly, training for troops is limited, and direct deployment to battlefields is impossible. Unless it meets with strong opposition, the plan is to withdraw 19,800 troops from Hawaii in the next few years. Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Army Airfield could be vacated.
What good could come from this? At Scho-field, there are 3,600 houses built or refurbished in the last 10 years that would suddenly be empty. Off-post, thousands more homes currently rented by soldiers would also be freed up. This could suddenly eliminate pressure to build in Kakaako, or at Ho‘opili or Koa Ridge. There would be plenty of housing for years to come. Home prices and rent prices would ease. Buyers and renters could have more money in their pockets for a better life. There would be no need to import building-trades workers from the mainland.
The housing at Schofield could serve many needs. It could provide homes at affordable rent for young people now living with parents. Other houses there might become legal bed-and-breakfasts, filling a need for alternative tourism, reducing the demand for more hotels and keeping Turtle Bay traffic from growing. The barracks buildings might become apartments, college dorms, boarding schools or nursing homes. Businesses in Wahiawa would never have to worry about mass deployments, and the new residents of Schofield would finally shop in town rather than on the base.
A myriad of business opportunities for locals would open up: to take over gas stations, markets, motels, clinics, auto shops, craft shops and preschools. Office spaces for busines-ses. Cocktail clubs, a movie theater, fields for sports programs all would await entrepreneurs to purchase or run them.
The city would not need to build fire stations, police stations, water and sewage, or maintenance yards. They’re already there, as is a second access road to the Leeward Coast (Kolekole).
Wheeler offers a full airfield with possibilities for new flying schools, cargo flights, sight-seeing businesses and interisland carriers. There are also acres of farmland where crops that thrive in the upland could be grown.
Best of all, perhaps, if there is no need for Ho‘opili and Koa Ridge, people on Oahu’s west side could be spared an additional 15,000 cars to freeway rush-hour traffic, and saved from the daily gridlock that would come with it.
Downsizing is good for our people. But it must be all 19,800 troops or nothing. Keeping 10,000 might feel good, but Schofield would then stay open, and none of the advantages mentioned above would be possible. Everybody would lose.
If you support Army downsizing, let your voice be heard. (See www.OC4AD.com).
