Posted on: Monday, June 10, 2002

Harris urges community revamp

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

Neighborhood Board and vision team members need to take their work on making O'ahu neighborhoods more liveable to the next level, creating an islandwide sustainable community that can be a model for other urban areas across the Asia-Pacific region, Mayor Jeremy Harris said yesterday.

Harris told about 800 community members that their local work can be combined to make the city "an international leader in sustainability," especially for parts of Asia which are being overrun by urban problems.

"We can be the place where Asia turns when it needs to get information," Harris said.

The meeting, held in the 1,100-seat Stardust Theater aboard the cruise ship Norwegian Star docked at Pier 11, drew an enthusiastic group of volunteers and professional planners, who seemed almost as interested in getting a chance to tour the ship as participate in another weekend workshop.

"I think what we're doing here on making liveable communities is really important," said Russell Honma, a planner for the state Transportation Department. "It's nice that we get to do it in such a comfortable environment as a cruise ship."

Kim Coffee-Isaak, executive director of Hawai'i Craftsmen and a member of the Tantalus area vision team, said she came to make connections with other grass-roots planners and help build the future of O'ahu "from the bottom up."

She admitted though that the opportunity to tour the cruise ship before and after the two-hour workshop was an added incentive.

"If it was in just another hotel ballroom somewhere, I might have blown it off, but this gave added motivation to come," she said.

Those who attended the invitation-only workshop heard Harris talk about the growing population and environmental problems in the region's urban areas and how Honolulu is already a leader in sustainability, a popular planning buzzword that takes in conservation efforts and developing renewable resources.

"The old model of economic life is all based on consuming more and wasting more," Harris said. "We can be a leader in identifying what we've done wrong and how we can change that."

Then, in what might have been material for a gubernatorial campaign speech had he not withdrawn from the race just over a week ago, Harris outlined what he called the city's accomplishments in moving toward sustainability, including expanding the H-Power garbage-to-energy plant, establishing a new Asia-Pacific technology institute, developing a bus rapid transit system and cleaning up Hanauma Bay.

Before the presentation was done, however, many in the audience began drifting away, eager to see the new $400 million ship, which emphasizes its own recycling and sustainability programs.

The plan to hold one of the twice-a-year workshops aboard the ship was largely symbolic. The idea was to show people how actions taken on a relatively isolated community of a cruise ship could be applied to another largely isolated place, O'ahu, and how the city's efforts could then be expanded to an international arena, said city spokeswoman Carol Costa.