bwerb
Hoser/English Translator, eh
I always liked the bumpersticker I saw in California way, way back...it said simply "If you love California, take someone with you when you leave."
Stop the Development Mentality
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Charlie99:As to the original topic, the answer it pretty easy. We all have our places in paradise already, so let's shut the door and not let anybody else in.
I'm all on board with this, as soon as I move there
Charlie99
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The Oregonians do ask that you go east, not north.bwerb:
The bumper stickers I've spotted in Oregon include "Don't Californicate Oregon", and the much older "Keep Oregon Green. Spend your money and LEAVE". Oregon Governor Tom McCall used the more civil, but similar sayings "Come and visit but go home", and "Come again and again. But, for heaven’s sake, don’t move here to live."
The anti-California attitudes in Oregon and Washington seem to have peaked a decade ago. It will be interesting to see how the anti-development, anti-tourism, anti-immigrant attitudes evolve in Hawaii.
Shaka Doug
Contributor
It's better than the one I've seen here that says:
"Welcome to Hawaii,
Now Go Home!"
Wouldn't it be a shame to see that bumper sticker on every car on Maui?? We can't have that and don't want to get to that point. Where do you draw the line?? Not an easy question to answer.
Development is a sad fact of life, not just here. We all see it and we are all part of the problem and the solution. Careful consideration for the impact of development must be stepped up to a higher level. Old restrictions need to be looked at and modified and improved to make this new development more eco friendly, not just for the time of construction but for the future of the building itself, the people who use it and the environment it imposes on.
What kind of rules are regulating these developers anyway? What is the fine for pollution or silting a reef? I've heard reports that it is just easier to pay the fine than prevent the fine sometimes. That sucks.
Local people will be the ones who have to bear the burden of this fight. The Maui County Council might have something to say about it. What is their position? Do they even have one on this particular situation yet?
When does the Renaissance officially close, anyway?
"Welcome to Hawaii,
Now Go Home!"
Wouldn't it be a shame to see that bumper sticker on every car on Maui?? We can't have that and don't want to get to that point. Where do you draw the line?? Not an easy question to answer.
Development is a sad fact of life, not just here. We all see it and we are all part of the problem and the solution. Careful consideration for the impact of development must be stepped up to a higher level. Old restrictions need to be looked at and modified and improved to make this new development more eco friendly, not just for the time of construction but for the future of the building itself, the people who use it and the environment it imposes on.
What kind of rules are regulating these developers anyway? What is the fine for pollution or silting a reef? I've heard reports that it is just easier to pay the fine than prevent the fine sometimes. That sucks.
Local people will be the ones who have to bear the burden of this fight. The Maui County Council might have something to say about it. What is their position? Do they even have one on this particular situation yet?
When does the Renaissance officially close, anyway?
OP
I just got off the phone with my friend Cora who helped organize the No Mall at Sharks Cove campaign. The Sharks Cove Mall is dead in the water, the option to buy date has passed. The property is still for sale but the process would have to be started over by the next prospective developer.
The tide shifted with the EIS process. After the initial EIS, there is a period where those concerned may ask questions about the EIS and all the properly submitted questions must be answered. Cora's letter was 50 pages, there was never any response from the developer.
My next step is to find out if there was an EIS for this project and if not why. If there was, it could have been too long ago and nobody asked any questions.
The Renaissance is scheduled to close Jan 17, with contracting for landscaping removal possibly already completed. Today the general manager said "this is the closest we've been to a proposed closing date without an extension, otherwise I would buy a quieter lawn mower", which is less final than the noises his underlings are making.
The tide shifted with the EIS process. After the initial EIS, there is a period where those concerned may ask questions about the EIS and all the properly submitted questions must be answered. Cora's letter was 50 pages, there was never any response from the developer.
My next step is to find out if there was an EIS for this project and if not why. If there was, it could have been too long ago and nobody asked any questions.
The Renaissance is scheduled to close Jan 17, with contracting for landscaping removal possibly already completed. Today the general manager said "this is the closest we've been to a proposed closing date without an extension, otherwise I would buy a quieter lawn mower", which is less final than the noises his underlings are making.
catherine96821:
I got a lot of grief moving to Oregon from California. My mindset when I moved there was "never never never tell them how we did it in California, and that mindset seemed to work. The other thing was the ones giving me grief about moving to Oregon were mostly inbred idiots with the occasional tooth in their mouth.
I didn't really care much what they had to offer for long.
When we move to Maui, and we will, I will ignore local politics, police corruption or whatever else seems to be the local topic of the day. I will move to Maui for the reasons I already have and not try to change what doesn't appear perfect.
Lots of other people already working on everyones problems so, not my job
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thanks Steve. I heard that it actually passed and that the developer was threatened, from a reliable source, so I was just curious.
Let us know how to help.
Did they do an environmental impact study already? Oh...EIS, got it.
Let us know how to help.
Did they do an environmental impact study already? Oh...EIS, got it.
Am I the only conservative that got run out of “tolerant” Bezerkly because I was a baby killing search and rescue pilot who happened to wear an AF uniform?
It’s interesting that so many people are ready to assume the worst, judge the developers as guilty before the fact, and demand a preemptive strike against them – but many times they’re the same people that are the first to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt and oppose any action until he killed another 500,000 people. Did anyone bother thinking through that a new resort will probably be built with greater water and energy efficiency and actually improve parts of the environment?
I don’t know much about Hawaii, but it sounds like everyone is in agreement (developers, politicians, employees, conservations, and environmentalists) that this is an exceptionally valuable piece of real estate – even if for different reasons. Every piece of land is valuable to someone for some purpose and the greatness of capitalism is that it lets all people unencumbered by non-stakeholding bureaucrats determine the true worth of all property, so if this is such a prime piece of ground for environmental purposes than why doesn’t one of the wealthy environmental groups simply buy the resort and do what they think is best? In Florida we solve many of these problems by having conservation groups that buy up environmentally sensitive land or we use special public funding set aside to purchase the land.
Now if you have a land holder that is doing something on his property that is reducing the value of an adjoining property then we have laws and civil courts to make that adjoining property owner whole again – but only when the damage is properly and fairly quantified. Many of the cases I’ve seen where development has caused silting it has been due to fill or beach replenishment done with finer materials than the original sand, so it should be pretty simple to set standards for that one – and if the new resort fails to meet that obligation simply make the fine large enough to buy up twice as much ocean front for conservation as what the resort currently has. They might even like that idea if it drove out some of the room competition.
From the tone of some in this thread it reminds me of what I witnessed a few weeks ago when a conservationist reef presentation was given to an environmentalist group – and it’s not very productive. In that meeting there was more anger toward developers, oil companies, capitalists, and anyone that disagreed with them than there was love for the planet. I wrote a political editorial after that meeting pointing out why that attitude would fail to protect any of the planet and that meeting made me think of something Golda Meier said years ago. She pointed out that there would never be peace in the middle east until Palestinians learned to love their children more than they hated the Jews – and in this case there will never be environmental progress until people truly love the environment more than they hate the developers and actually learn to love the developers enough to work for a way of making both prosper. There is no reason for this debate to be a zero sum win/lose battle when it could be a win/win.
Remember through all the knee jerk venom about developer’s profits that capitalism and the personal stewardship of land that it entails has done more to protect the planet in the long-term big-picture than all the hunter gatherer societies and government controlled socialist’s plans has ever achieved. Also keep in mind that many have become numb to the constant Cassandra warnings of eminent doom, as they understand this great planet of ours is more resilient than many want us to believe, and the public is beginning to demand proof rather than chicken little rants before they will respond.
Now where’s some of that damn global warming when we’re setting a new record cold tonight and I’ve got an OW class in an outdoor pool in the morning.
It’s interesting that so many people are ready to assume the worst, judge the developers as guilty before the fact, and demand a preemptive strike against them – but many times they’re the same people that are the first to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt and oppose any action until he killed another 500,000 people. Did anyone bother thinking through that a new resort will probably be built with greater water and energy efficiency and actually improve parts of the environment?
I don’t know much about Hawaii, but it sounds like everyone is in agreement (developers, politicians, employees, conservations, and environmentalists) that this is an exceptionally valuable piece of real estate – even if for different reasons. Every piece of land is valuable to someone for some purpose and the greatness of capitalism is that it lets all people unencumbered by non-stakeholding bureaucrats determine the true worth of all property, so if this is such a prime piece of ground for environmental purposes than why doesn’t one of the wealthy environmental groups simply buy the resort and do what they think is best? In Florida we solve many of these problems by having conservation groups that buy up environmentally sensitive land or we use special public funding set aside to purchase the land.
Now if you have a land holder that is doing something on his property that is reducing the value of an adjoining property then we have laws and civil courts to make that adjoining property owner whole again – but only when the damage is properly and fairly quantified. Many of the cases I’ve seen where development has caused silting it has been due to fill or beach replenishment done with finer materials than the original sand, so it should be pretty simple to set standards for that one – and if the new resort fails to meet that obligation simply make the fine large enough to buy up twice as much ocean front for conservation as what the resort currently has. They might even like that idea if it drove out some of the room competition.
From the tone of some in this thread it reminds me of what I witnessed a few weeks ago when a conservationist reef presentation was given to an environmentalist group – and it’s not very productive. In that meeting there was more anger toward developers, oil companies, capitalists, and anyone that disagreed with them than there was love for the planet. I wrote a political editorial after that meeting pointing out why that attitude would fail to protect any of the planet and that meeting made me think of something Golda Meier said years ago. She pointed out that there would never be peace in the middle east until Palestinians learned to love their children more than they hated the Jews – and in this case there will never be environmental progress until people truly love the environment more than they hate the developers and actually learn to love the developers enough to work for a way of making both prosper. There is no reason for this debate to be a zero sum win/lose battle when it could be a win/win.
Remember through all the knee jerk venom about developer’s profits that capitalism and the personal stewardship of land that it entails has done more to protect the planet in the long-term big-picture than all the hunter gatherer societies and government controlled socialist’s plans has ever achieved. Also keep in mind that many have become numb to the constant Cassandra warnings of eminent doom, as they understand this great planet of ours is more resilient than many want us to believe, and the public is beginning to demand proof rather than chicken little rants before they will respond.
Now where’s some of that damn global warming when we’re setting a new record cold tonight and I’ve got an OW class in an outdoor pool in the morning.
OP
Pictures, video and logbooks like Dougs are probably invaluble for this last minute battle. I only have a couple years photos of Ulua. Unlike the Sharks Cove mall project (sticking out like a sore thumb), St. Regis Wailea is just another Wailea Resort developement project. The permit process appears to have had limited public involvement.
I contend that allowing the project to start mid way through Jan. shows that both the County of Maui and Starwood Hotels have little regard for possible damage to Ulua and the surrounding reefs. I have seen two serious downpoor/runoff events there in the last 10 months and I can not imagine a catchment system that would stop those torrents.
Wailea resorts have pretty much the highest room rates in the Islands and the Renaissance has very high occupancy numbers, so profit is happening. Grabbing for higher and higher returns at the expence of the environment is the part that's wrong. if they would take this environmental risk to start a few months earlier than prudent, they do not belong on the Wailea Coast!
With a quarter of the St. Regis funds this property could be remodeled into a really nice W. The traffic would be less from a construction standpoint, much less perfectly good resort materials would be wasted in the landfill and we would not lose existing rooms, so more would not need to be built. There would also be plenty of profit.
Profit is the language these people speak. That is why I feel a public relations campaign threatening the bottom line of Starwood is the only way at this late date. If we could get mention on PBS, Discovery, NGC, Animal Planet, CNN, etc. as calling for a boycot of Starwood properties over the Wailea St. Regis project, as well as maybe support from some major travel entities, they would have to at least postpone untill drier months.
How many years does Hawaii have before the travel era wanes. Rising fuel costs, increasing terrorism, natural disaster, infectious disease, there are many reasons this good time will eventualy end. I contend that very few of the new developements in Hawaii have a shepherding feel to them. It seems much more like grab all you can before it's over. That's the Developement Mentality I'm looking to stop.
I contend that allowing the project to start mid way through Jan. shows that both the County of Maui and Starwood Hotels have little regard for possible damage to Ulua and the surrounding reefs. I have seen two serious downpoor/runoff events there in the last 10 months and I can not imagine a catchment system that would stop those torrents.
Wailea resorts have pretty much the highest room rates in the Islands and the Renaissance has very high occupancy numbers, so profit is happening. Grabbing for higher and higher returns at the expence of the environment is the part that's wrong. if they would take this environmental risk to start a few months earlier than prudent, they do not belong on the Wailea Coast!
With a quarter of the St. Regis funds this property could be remodeled into a really nice W. The traffic would be less from a construction standpoint, much less perfectly good resort materials would be wasted in the landfill and we would not lose existing rooms, so more would not need to be built. There would also be plenty of profit.
Profit is the language these people speak. That is why I feel a public relations campaign threatening the bottom line of Starwood is the only way at this late date. If we could get mention on PBS, Discovery, NGC, Animal Planet, CNN, etc. as calling for a boycot of Starwood properties over the Wailea St. Regis project, as well as maybe support from some major travel entities, they would have to at least postpone untill drier months.
How many years does Hawaii have before the travel era wanes. Rising fuel costs, increasing terrorism, natural disaster, infectious disease, there are many reasons this good time will eventualy end. I contend that very few of the new developements in Hawaii have a shepherding feel to them. It seems much more like grab all you can before it's over. That's the Developement Mentality I'm looking to stop.
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