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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, January 26, 2003

Farmland boom hurting growers

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer

Farmers across the state are finding their livelihoods threatened by neighbors who build expensive homes on agricultural land but don't want to farm.

Kaua'i farmer John Wooten tends to his tomatoes at 'Aliomanu Estates. He says the island needs to preserve lands for farming.

Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser

Agricultural zoning, meant to preserve and promote farming and the rural lifestyle, allows for dwellings if some type of agricultural activity is taking place on the property. Some owners of ag lots make a sincere effort to raise crops or livestock, but others skirt the requirement with token activities such as planting a stand of protea bushes or macadamia or coffee trees. In other cases, lack of enforcement provides little incentive to do even that.

"If you pay a million dollars for a lot, how are you going to create a sustainable agricultural effort and make a profit? You're not," said Kona attorney Robert Kim, who represents community groups fighting luxury subdivisions on agricultural land.

Most of the state's top planning officials concede the problem exists, but say they don't know how to fix it. Most agree a long-term solution is to move poorer ag land out of the agricultural district and into the rural district, which is designed for less intensive farming or for rural residential uses.

"This is a very hot issue. In real agriculture, people get up early in the morning and run the tractor. These things are not that compatible with upscale residential uses, frankly," said Big Island Planning Director Chris Yuen.

At 'Aliomanu Estates, an agricultural subdivision on the east coast of Kaua'i, truck crop farmer Constantin Samoilov said salty winds killed his vegetables and fruit trees after a subdivision design committee ordered him to cut down his windbreak of banana trees because they blocked the view.

"They said if I don't cut them, they would come and cut them and send me the bill. And if I don't pay them, they would put a lien against my property," Samoilov said. He has put his property up for sale and is looking for a new place to farm.

The president of the 'Aliomanu Estates community association, Bob Barker, said each resident of the subdivision had signed an agreement to abide by certain rules. "Before any of the lots were sold, the developer put together a series of CC&Rs (covenants, conditions and restrictions) that encouraged agriculture, but set it up so residents would not interfere unreasonably with view planes," said Barker, who grows Tahitian lime trees on three acres of his lot. He said he has had no trouble with salt air damaging his trees.

Samoilov and other farmers are supporting a bill in the Kaua'i County Council that would make it illegal to put any restrictions on farming on agricultural land.

Similar battles are playing out across the state as people seeking a rural lifestyle move into subdivisions on agricultural land and insist on limiting certain agricultural activities. The conflict has accelerated in the past decade as large swathes of former sugar land have opened to development.

"We've had the same problem," said Maui County Planning Director Michael Foley. "We review the CC&Rs on agricultural subdivisions and require them to change them if they restrict agriculture. But I think it's possible for them, a year later, to stick it back in, and we wouldn't know about it."

The Legislature passed a "right-to-farm" bill years ago to prevent nuisance lawsuits filed against farmers by neighbors. Experts differ on whether it can be used by a farmer to fight restrictive CC&Rs in court.

Farmers Constantin Samoilov, left, and John Wooten stand on Wooten's farm, where windbreaks and fruit trees have been ordered removed by the 'Aliomanu Estates design committee.

Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser

State Rep. Ezra Kanoho, D-15th (Central Kaua'i), chairman of the state House Committee on Water, Land Use and Hawaiian Affairs, said he would try again this session to pass a bill that would establish standards to identify the state's best agricultural lands so they can be given proper protection, while poor lands could be moved into other zoning categories.

He concedes the issue is politically charged. For example, the 'Aliomanu Estates project is on the coastline and has both salty air and great views. Although farmers are growing crops there, Kanoho said it might be better zoned nonagricultural.

Maui County Councilwoman Jo Anne Johnson said people who buy agricultural land have a simple responsibility: "You're required to accept all the things that go with agriculture."

The sentiment is echoed by Native Hawaiian taro farmer Ke'eaumoku Kapu, who is fighting development near Kaua'ula Valley on West Maui. "If you're buying agricultural land, you need to be doing farming," he said.

His lawyer, Richard McCarty, said one lot near Kapu's taro fields is listed for nearly $3 million.

"That's inconsistent with agriculture. Buyers don't understand what farming on Maui is about. You can't support a $3 million house with a few avocado trees growing on rocks," McCarty said.

A number of Hawai'i residents say one problem is that the state has tossed thousands of acres into the agricultural district that aren't particularly good for farming.

"The state should encourage the counties to take the lead in a major redistricting of lands into more appropriate categories," said John Ray, president of the Hawai'i Leeward Planning Conference, a lobbying firm that represents large landowners and developers on the Big Island.

He links the popularity of agricultural subdivisions to a lack of alternatives for large-lot rural living. There is no shortage of poor agricultural land, just as there is no shortage of good agricultural land with deep soils, he said.

More rural-designated land would create a new liquidity in that class, said John Summers, administrative planning officer with the Maui County Planing Department.

Counties, meanwhile, are doing what they can to protect farming. Yuen said the Big Island has regulations that prohibit restrictions on most farming activities on agricultural parcels of five acres or more, but not on older subdivisions or smaller lots. Yuen would like to protect farming rights, and will discourage upscale subdivisions on better agricultural lands in the future.

Foley said his office is working on guidelines that would require Maui property buyers to provide evidence of an agricultural plan before building permits could be issued, "so they're not going to just mow the lawn and call it farming."

Kaua'i business and real estate attorney Patrick Childs said planners also could reject farming restrictions on lands with the best soils, and allow more restrictions where soils are poor.

Several residents said it is important to Hawai'i that farmland be preserved rather than cut up into large residential-style lots.

Hawai'i Farm Bureau Federation President Tom Hill said "there's all kinds of issues, from green space to environment, jobs, lifestyle, self-sufficiency."

Kaua'i farmer John Wooten, who lives in 'Aliomanu Estates, said Kaua'i residents learned the importance of local farming after Hurricane Iniki temporarily cut off supplies from O'ahu and the Mainland in 1992.

"People were talking about farming and self-sufficiency ad infinitum," he said.