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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, March 20, 2001


Neighbor Islands feel impact of growth

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer

New U.S. Census population figures confirm what Neighbor Island residents already know: There are a lot more folks on the roads, in the schools and buying homes. And high growth has an inordinately large impact.

"It feels like a lot more" than the actual numbers suggest, said Chris Yuen, planning director for Hawai'i County.

Statewide, the Census counted 1.21 million residents, an increase of 9.3 percent from 1990.

Most of those people — 876,156 — live on O'ahu, where growth during the 10-year Census period was less than 5 percent.

The Big Island remained the second most-populated county in the state, with 148,677 residents, an increase of nearly 24 percent. At the same time, Maui County's population grew nearly 28 percent, to 128,094 residents. On Kaua'i, the Census counted 58,463 residents, an increase of a little more than 14 percent.

Meanwhile, tiny Kalawao County on the remote Kalaupapa Peninsula saw its population grow from 130 to 147 residents, a 13 percent increase.

No one should be surprised by population growth on the Neighbor Islands, said Pearl Imada Iboshi, who serves as state economist in the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

"I think this shift to the Neighbor Islands is part of the long-term thinking in the state for a long time," she said.

In the past 10 years, the Census says, Hawai'i and Maui counties added one person for every four already there in 1990.

Kaua'i added roughly one for every seven. Honolulu added just one for every 21.

"Given the land availability and the present dense population, there's a limit to how much (O'ahu) can grow," Iboshi said. "I think it's inevitable that we'll see faster rates of growth on Maui and Hawai'i than O'ahu."

But Neighbor Island residents, particularly in the regions of stunning growth such as Kihei on Maui, which grew 50 percent in the past decade, and Kona and Puna on Hawai'i, may not consider that a bonus.

For one thing, the Census numbers don't include a lot of the people who are on the roads, such as the 40,000 or so tourists on Maui each day, the thousands of "snowbirds" who stay only for the cold season but don't call themselves residents, and the transient boardsailors and other sports enthusiasts, said Dick Mayer, professor of geography/economics at Maui Community College.

"I am convinced that the 28 percent (growth) underestimates the impact. I would guess that the actual (Maui) number is pretty close to 180,000 to 190,000," Mayer said, compared with the Census figure of 128,000.

If state and county officials focus in their planning on the resident populations and fail to recognize that Maui every day has a third more people on it, it means facilities such as roads, schools and water systems will always be far behind the actual need, he said.

Marni Herkes, president of the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce, said the price of dramatic growth in Kona has been systemic traffic congestion.

"We seem to have a road meeting every night," she said.

There's plenty of money and there are lot of jobs available, but housing inventory is essentially nil, and people seeking affordable homes must live far from the economic engine of Kona tourism, and must drive exceedingly long distances from inexpensive housing areas to where the jobs are, Herkes said.

Big Island Planning Director Yuen said rural Puna's population has surged by 11,000 people in the decade.

His sense is that many of these are young families going to lower-cost home sites, while the people moving into the busy Kona region are retirees and buyers of second homes who can afford steeper prices.