Halt to development sought

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer

The day after a boisterous Makakilo Community Association meeting at which hundreds of Makakilo residents called for a moratorium on development in the Kapolei area, it was clear folks were only getting warmed up.

"The City Council can mandate a moratorium on building," Kioni Dudley said yesterday. "It's happened before."

Dudley, who facilitated the association meeting Wednesday, conceded that most residents would be satisfied if developers would agree significantly to slow development. But he says the association will push for a moratorium if that's what it takes.

At issue is the effect of rapid development on the area. Residents complain that an explosion of homes and businesses has put an unbearable strain on fragile road and water systems in the Kapolei community.

An additional 4,000 homes are planned for Kapolei within five years. Meanwhile, schools are overcrowded, traffic reaches gridlock every afternoon and Makakilo Drive — the only road leading into and out of the residential community located on the mountain side of Kapolei Town — is crumbling from overuse.

Residents say the city and state have not planned adequately for the onslaught of people, homes and businesses swarming over the region.

Several speakers at Wednesday night's meeting said they were not against reasonable development and an appropriate plan to accommodate it. But they were unanimously against more development than the local infrastructure can handle.

"I think we've exceeded the amount of development we can take right now," said Dudley. "Until we get another road out of there, we should just try to stop building."

Kapolei homeowner Dan Fletcher called for officials to open up old sugar cane haul roads around Kapolei so motorists would have an alternative route to Farrington Highway.

Fletcher has complained to city transportation officials about what he calls "cul-de-sac mentality in the planning of roads: one way in, and the same way out. Result: traffic hemorrhage.

"None of the shopping centers here have back entrances. Everyone must travel on one road. It stinks."

Mark Moses, R-40th (Makakilo, Kapolei, Royal Kunia), said he already had taken measures to ease some problems.

He noted the five-lane intersection at Fort Barrette Road and Farrington as a particularly vexing bottleneck, because the left-turn lane to the H-1 Freeway can handle only seven cars, and the traffic lights have not been properly synchronized.

Moses said state transportation officials, working with city officials, had told him the lights would be synchronized within days. Within two months, workers will extend the first left-turn lane to handle additional vehicles.

Moses, who is on Gov. Linda Lingle's Transportation Committee, said he had pushed for measures that would, among other things, pave Makakilo Drive by next year and begin work on another Kapolei access road within a couple of years.

"No one solution is going to fix our traffic problem," Moses said. "The governor has said point blank that she is going to pay a lot of attention to Kapolei and our traffic problems."

Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com