Poipu Sardine Can?
Nearly a dozen construction projects are under way that will add 4,500 homes and apartments to Kauai’s south shore. The Kauai County Council failed to pass a resolution last year imposing a moratorium on new development. Some residents are turning out to air complaints about new projects and zoning changes. Developers are contributing money to help ease traffic congestion. Some residents are still wary of new construction and its impact on the community and the lifestyle that many desire.
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Filed under Traffic & Development |17 Responses to “Poipu Sardine Can?”
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Please stop developing KAUAI until our roads are ready for more cars & pedestrians. It is obvious that our roads are maxed out. Please make the right choice, even if that involves sacrificing dollars.
Why not use the old cane road for a by-pass? Regardless of what is done on Kuhio Highway, everything bottle necks and we are back to a jam.
Kaua’i is a beautiful place.I have traveled extensively and wish to share a small part of my observations.Places have improved,buildings constructed for tourism (economy) great. Very little in way of transportation, how do the tourist and locals get from point A to B ?? Inadequate roads. inferior traffic control. Good example is Las Vegas. Now all of you at one time or another visited Las Vegas. As a test and except for weekends, get up early, and be on the freeway @ 6:am. Or get a better picture, sleep in and get on the same freeway @ noon-time. Same problem, congestion! The billions of dollars spent on improving the freeways and surface streets when completed were already obsolete. Did we use the funds correctly? Yes! but the timing way too slow. Don’t do this to Kauai. Make the developers pay for a part of it and a tourist tax is in order. Don’t ever believe that the tourist industry will lose money. People just die to visit fair Hawaii. Perhaps the profit projections for the tourist industry should not be so high. Aloha until next time.
After watching what happens in the rest of the state and the world could anyone think there is a good reason for more development on a small Island like Kauai or anywhere in the state? Something is “fishy” in the county council when the members, who lived here their whole lives, allow project after project to be built without caring about the quality of life for the rest of us. (Is it money or what?)
Does anyone remember what Poipu looked like the day after Iniki hit 15 years ago? It will look like that again, it’s not if, but when. Where will the developers be then? Counting their profits while taxpayers foot the bill. All development should be stopped, unless it is development for people who live and work on the island. Luxury development being built to lure more obscenely rich people from off island is benefitting nobody but a small minority of developers, construction workers and real estate agents. Kauai does not need more infrastructure it needs to end urban sprawl. To those pimping out the aina as if it were a whore, WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE and don’t forget the karmic wheel never stops spinning.
The old cane road for a by-pass is an excellent idea, and why not add a bike path - shared use, separate from the highway? A bike path built alongside every new road (and existing road) might alleviate some of the traffic problems while offering a healthy alternative to driving.
The traffic on Kauai has gotten the worst its been yet, it drives me crazy siting in kapaa and lihue traffic i no like even drive to places i used to like to go just because of the fear of traffic. And the developers don’t care, they just come here from the mainland build there hotels and go back to the mainland. How many developers do you think actually live here? Our county needs to make some serious changes, they zoned the land without the proper infrastructure a long time ago, but they still have to power to change zoning. So why don’t they? Corruption.
We need a high road literally and figuretively.A road around the base of the mountain that has access to each town. Also development needs to be stopped or severely regulated so that we don’t kill the goose that laid the Golden Egg.The only reason people return to Kauai is because we are not Maui and not Oahu, So we need to stop this head long rush into Becoming Maui!!
Well they pulled the plug on re-developing the CoCo palms resort. They say its because the County wouldn’t approve a fancy spa on the premises. …hum?
http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2007/09/14/news/news01.txt
Wider roads or more roads are not for the people of Kaua’i, they are for the developers! Make no mistake, if you improve the infrastructure, THEY WILL COME! When a developer helps fund a new road or puts in a turn lane, everyone acts like they did it for us and they are a good neighbor. They did it so they can bring in thousands of more people, THEY needed the improvment. If it was not for over-development , we would not all be sitting in traffic.
Look at Honolulu with all their freeways and mega high-ways, they are still sitting in traffic. If you build them, it will just JUSTIFY over-development.
What we need is a moratorium on ALL development except affordable housing, limit the amount of rental cars on the island, and keep our 2 lanes. (and add some cane haul roads).
KONA IS CORRECT !
Kukui’ula actually said “Down to Earth million dollar homes” in an article in the garden island. A spokesperson said “We can’t afford not to do the right thing”. I agree, so fill in what you’ve dug up, move inland, and start building affordable housing. This unnecessary greed driven development, if allowed to continue, will be the exact same insurance nightmare that the state of Florida has everywhere right now.It is impossible to get affordable insurance ANYWHERE on the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic side of Florida. Everything is for sale and nobody is buying. These developers will never stop building until we rise up and stop them. Do you personally believe that all development should stop right now? I would guess at least 65% of people living on island would answer yes to that question. Let’s find out.
Why don’t our leaders address the traffic issue? The only way to significantly affect the traffic problem will be to build new roads and/or enhance existing roads. Although everyone complains about the traffic problem, little is done to improve it. A first step would be to conduct traffic studies like the one done in Poipu for other areas of congestion. Then follow up with an action plan to add or improve roads!
KAIULANI LEE as RACHEL CARSON: I believe that natural beauty has a necessary place in the development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, whenever we substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of this Earth, we’ve retarded some part of man’s spiritual growth. In contemplating the exceeding beauty of this Earth, I have found calmness and courage. For there is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, in the ebb and flow of tides, in the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature. The assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.
Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself in his cities of steel and concrete, away from the realities of earth, water, the growing seed. And intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into experiments toward the destruction of himself and his world. There is certainly no single remedy for this condition. And I can offer no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe, and I do believe, that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and the realities of this universe about us, the less taste we shall have for its destruction.
That’s what I want to say.
Stop building new roads and use tax dollars to maintain existing roads.
Passing road improvements on to developers only raises the price for housing. They are not going to invest without a return. The return comes on the sale of the lots and structures. We need to develop our transportation by looking at developing a “country road†concept with cane roads. Sand or gravel can be used to support this type road structure. How about using our sugar cane rail right of ways for transportation? We have ohana that have invested in restoring the equipment why not the rails? Sounds fun to me.
Development - Visitor’s come to Kauai because of this islands God given beauty. Our tax dollars, along with private sources, bring people to our island. This is new money for our economy and jobs for those that are native to Kauai and for those that have chosen to be part of the Kauai Ohana.
Everything beautiful that brings people to this island will be gone if controls on development are not implemented. Once we have allowed our beauty to be developed (i.e. million dollar houses taking the place of our mountain views, houses taking our tree, houses taking our native flowers, walls from private communities that obstruct views) people that travel to Kauai will eventually have to love looking at houses. Just look at Oahu. Oahu’s beauty, for the most part, and spirit of aloha is gone.
The beauty of the aina and aloha of Kauai are ours. We need a government that lives within its means and acts on the resident’s behalf not tourist. If we do not get serious about our islands Ohana and our Aina, Kauai will be consumed by the highest bidders that will eventually dictate how the rest of us will live on an island with only our memories.
Please stop building on Kauai, and destroying this beautiful island. It’s already overdeveloped as it is. Look what has happened to Oahu, and the Big Island! Kauai does not need any more Hotels or Condos.
The Horror!
Hello my name is Rodney and i’m a studnt at kamehameha schools on oahu. I’m doing research for the road problems on Kauai on my project. And i find it a major problem to the island, because more and more people are coming in to the island causing traffic and traveling problems across the island. But if you could please email me or send me information on how people can help then i would appreciate it.thank you