Huhu at Hale Honu

The move to have the state buy Turtle Bay is a brilliant strategy, because it will advance the goals of North Shore preservationists whether the state buys Turtle Bay or not. Hawaii readers of this blog will know that Gov. Linda Lingle, in her State of the State address this week, stunned lawmakers and the public alike with a proposal, not previously disclosed to anyone including the current Turtle Bay owners, to prevent rampant development of Oahu's North Shore by simply acquiring the resort. The purchase would be expensive, but the state could afford it more easily than most buyers, and in any case the governor says she has a bunch of ideas for various ways to raise the money. It is not merely feasible, it is sensible, since blocking Turtle Bay's owners from building several more hotels will take off a lot of pressure to add roads and other infrastructure that will cost even more than the resort. But that's not the inspiration for the idea. Gov. Lingle made it plain that it's a quality of life issue. She cited not merely the desire of North Shore residents to keep the country country, but asserted that the North Shore is an escape valve for southern Oahu residents, for whom the availability of a pleasant ride to the North Shore is an important part of their happiness in Honolulu even if they only undertake the journey once in awhile. The current owners of Turtle Bay kindly made the issue stark by proposing that the northeast corner of Oahu should have five hotels, asserting at the same time that the effect on traffic would be negligible. They could not have spurred more community opposition if they had called a press conference dressed like Snidley Whiplash. They would always have been opposed by people with bumper stickers for brains; by taking such a nanocephalic view of things, they drew reasonable people into the opposition as well. Public sentiment matters most when it is broad as well as heartfelt, as when development of Sandy Beach was blocked. Hawaii Superferry provides an example of how even passionate opposition is not enough to block a project if opponents' views are not widely held by the majority of the public. The owners of Turtle Bay so mishandled their own situation, however, that even Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide backed out of a plan to acquire the resort. What makes Gov. Lingle's announcement brilliant is that it will deter other mainland investors from even looking at acquiring Turtle Bay. Deep-pocketed but shallow-brained investment firms, who are moving a little more carefully these days anyhow, will now know that the main selling point of Turtle Bay at the price the owners want, the well-ripened and utterly outdated approvals for more development, not only have passionate opposition from North Shore residents but also determined opposition from government, whose chief executive saw so much breadth in the opposition that she knew she could get headlines merely by suggesting that the state buy the resort. Two weekends ago I drove to the North Shore to view the big waves from the air conditioned comfort of my T-bird (I have my quality of life issues, too) and got a reminder of how gridlocked the North Shore can get with only one hotel at Turtle Bay. The day the owners of the resort said with a straight face that more hotels would not seriously impact traffic was, I suspect, the day a lot of people -- including state officials -- decided the owners were either too evil or too stupid to be allowed to tamper with the North Shore.  Postscript: Since writing this, I have seen some local commentators whom I respect, and whose commentaries and editorials I enjoy reading, take contrary views. One line of thinking is that Ko Olina looks nice, so maybe Turtle Bay could be developed and still look nice. This isn't persuasive and after pondering it over the weekend I think I can explain why. Northeast Oahu is still fairly rural and scenic. More hotels will make it less so, period. Ko Olina, on the other hand, has a power plant on one side, Campbell Industrial Park with two oil refineries on the other, and, inland, the island's only dump. Compared to all that, Ko Olina is indeed an improvement. It even improves the drive to the scenic Leeward Coast, but only in relation to these other things. The governor's point about the important of the North Shore to people who live in the city is, I think, as one who lives in Waikiki, a valid one, and one that can be extended to include the drive around Makapu'u Point, the Upper Windward Coast, and the Leeward Coast. The quality of life here depends on limiting growth in the areas that are still scenic. Some Democrats in the legislature feel the same way, but everyone is struggling with land use law because the only way to slow growth is to tell some landowners they cannot consider their holdings as an entitlement to degrade the scenery, after so many other landowners got to do just that.