Zoning for What? Housing for Whom?

In last month's column, I suggested that we again have reached a crucial juncture with regard to land-use planning in Hawaii.

Several things are at work. The pressure to build affordable housing has risen to new heights of intensity. With the decline of plantation agriculture, we have tens of thousands of acres of unused and underutilized agricultural land. We have a state administration that talks mostly about streamlining government, rather than preserving resources. Finally, we seem to lack sufficient dialogue to ward off poor short-term decisions.

As a matter of urgent priority, the varying elements should be untangled and subjected to informed and well-reasoned conversation at many levels.

We should begin with evidence that good planning can result in sound tradeoffs between housing and development on the one hand, and agriculture and open space on the other. With the right kind of programs, we can tilt the over-heated housing market to better serve the longer-term interests of our community.

As of today, our resources are being pulled into the second-home market of highly affluent people from elsewhere. The second pull is military housing construction. Who has noticed that in the competition for skilled workmen, the cost of even simple repairs and renovation is skyrocketing? And that more and more young people are being pulled into, and becoming dependent on, construction jobs?

As an alternative, we need to address the housing needs of hard-pressed working families, young people and poor people (more and more of whom are homeless). In this regard, the idea of new homebuyers subsidizing "affordable" housing for next-door neighbors has been tried and found wanting. What we should return to is the philosophy of widely spreading the cost of a sound housing policy.

By that I refer to a combination of devices that my administration employed: state-backed revenue bonds, innovative state collaboration with federal loan programs, state acquisition of land on the front end, and state financing of infrastructure. These combined off- and on-site costs were financed by a revolving loan fund, which was paid down by developers and, ultimately, the home buyers. Developers, for their part, were challenged to build reasonably priced housing at lesser profit margins, because of state policies that eliminated most of the risk.

While encouraging homeownership, we can apply similar approaches to expanding, thereby easing the rental market, which is also a key part of a healthy community. Recent legislation seems to be a step toward reasserting broad public responsibility for housing, but the test lies in commitment and the artful application of varied and complex ideas.

With the right housing programs, we can ask more intelligently, "Where does the land come from? For what purposes should it be rezoned? What is the right balance of density and livability?"

First, where possible, new or intensified development should occur in pre-existing urban lands. Second, development should not eat up prime agricultural lands (which are finally being defined per the mandates of the 1978 Constitution), even if the land is currently fallow. Third, we should encourage creative approaches to apartment, townhouse, multiplex and other forms of dense, common-wall construction.

The more farsighted business interests must begin to speak up. What comes through publicly from the business community is the narrow and short-term view - the cry for fast action by government regardless of the content of a development proposal, the cry for less regulation and more rezoning. These are the cliches that coalesce around the call to abolish the State Land Use Commission.

Where are the voices of our long-term good? Where are the businesses of yesterday that were actively concerned about their employees having decent housing and stable communities? Where are the voices of the travel industry that acknowledged their stake in good planning and open space? Where are the investors, consumers and citizens who are concerned that their children's possibilities for the good life might be foreclosed?

George R. Ariyoshi is the former president of Prince Resorts Hawaii Inc., a subsidiary of Seibu Railway Co. Ltd. An attorney by profession, Ariyoshi served in elective office in Hawaii from 1954 until 1986. A protégé of the late Gov. John A. Burns, Ariyoshi served as governor of Hawaii from 1973 until 1986. He was the first Japanese American to be elected governor in the United States. In the years since he left the state Capitol, Ariyoshi has been active in Hawaii and international business circles, particularly in Asia.

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