We on the Windward side have just learned that a Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting officer is going to recommend that cemetery expansion into preservation land in the Koolaupoko Sustainable Communities Plan be allowed because "other plans permit it."

We — the Kaneohe Neighborhood Board, Kailua Neighborhood Board, Kahaluu Neighborhood Board, our state congressional people, immediate community and a larger coalition, Life of the Land and Kaneohe Outdoor Circle — vehemently opposed the expansion of the Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery all last year, showing up at numerous meetings and hearings, circulating petitions, waving and, lastly, testifying in a contested case hearing before the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.

The land board voted in our favor: to disallow expansion of the cemetery into land that the mainland company knew was preservation when it acquired it.

The city’s own chart shows the way decisions are made about land use, with the land board at the top and filtering down to the Sustainable Communities Plans.

We citizens are willing to put our hearts and souls into these things that affect our communities, but we only have so much time and so much energy. We have lives, we have jobs.

The firm that runs this and many other cemeteries makes money by enlarging its cemeteries. That is its only goal and it has the money and can stay in the fray forever, through many CEOs if necessary. This is true of many company-versus-the citizens or government-versus-the citizens issues.

We live on an island; there is only so much land, and we need it for building more and more houses, more and more infrastructure, more businesses and disposing of more and more garbage.

The decision to preserve some of our land for future generations — be it for water preservation, green belts, tree canopies, parks and playgrounds for all of the people — becomes more important. This has got to be recognized in all government documents, including Sustainable Communities Plans, which are the primary guidelines for the city in most cases of land use.

The issue of cemeteries in general is a touchy one for some people, but it need not be. We have to have land for the living. Other countries and municipalities have found many ways to address the issue of disposing of the deceased. In Switzerland (one lady testified), they bury people in biodegradable clothing and caskets and keep burying family members on top of each other. This way, she said, I can visit my relatives from hundreds of years back all at once. Others spoke of burying under trees or planting trees in one’s honor (as we do in the Outdoor Circle), thus enhancing and protecting the greenness of neighborhoods and helping trap water, unlike huge areas of bulldozed land for cemeteries, which are then planted with only grass, permitting runoff, especially on hills, and using up water, rather than helping preserve it, in addition to adding to chemical runoffs.

The cemetery in question here, Hawaiian Memorial Park, has a large area dedicated to huge plots which "house" only one or two people and are on the hill "with a view." This attitude honors only a few with lots of money and does nothing to enhance the community at large.

It’s time to come to grips with attitudes like this, which are encouraged by cemetery owners who make money only by continuing to grow.

Gretchen Gould is with the Kaneohe Outdoor Circle.