Project could revitalize Anahola
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau
ANAHOLA, Kaua'i — Windswept Anahola is a sprawling, largely Hawaiian community looking for focus.
Some residents are hoping a nonprofit effort called Project Faith can provide that. But even supporters of the project, with its commercial, cultural, educational and elderly housing components, worry that dissent in the community could get in its way.
The project would be on a blighted piece of land now strewn with junked cars, appliances and sacks of trash. The property — a 20-acre Hawaiian Home Lands parcel under license to Project Faith — would be cleaned up with government help, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Brownfields cleanup and redevelopment program.
Sugar and pineapple fields once flanked the Hawaiian Home Lands settlement, but pineapple disappeared three decades ago and sugar left in the 1990s. Neighboring scenic bluffs and bucolic beaches are now being developed as luxury homesites by movie moguls and Mainland developers.
But Anahola, while scenic, in many ways is still in the middle of nowhere. The closest gas station or public school is a five-mile drive south to Kapa'a. The town core, such as it is, has a post office, convenience store and a couple of take-out lunch places to serve the area's 2,000 residents, 72 percent of them Native Hawaiian.
In a 2002 community survey financed by the Brownfields Program and conducted by the New Mexico firm Santa Fe Planning and Research, Anahola residents identified what they felt were the region's needs.
More than 90 percent want a community gathering place and a community kitchen. Nearly 75 percent said the community needs housing for the elderly and a school.
Nearly half said they want to own a business. Many said they need a cultural center where they can learn about Hawaiian medicine, language, history and culture.
Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser
The Anahola Homesteaders Council's Project Faith tries to address those issues. Its plan calls for a phased development starting with a small commercial center with a gas station, offices for social service agencies, and perhaps a medical clinic. An adjacent cultural center would have a large halau or instructional and performance center.
Jimmy Torio of the Anahola Homesteaders Council is a driving force behind Project Faith. Its plan includes a small commercial center with a gas station, social service offices and perhaps a medical clinic.
A craft and farm goods sales area would provide ways for Anahola folks to generate income. A Hawaiian learning center is envisioned as a school without walls, where students would learn their lessons out in the open.
There would be two residential projects for the elderly, one an independent-living complex and the other an assisted-care facility.
"Many of our Hawaiian families in Anahola are living on top of each other, several generations in one house. Many of the older folks would like an opportunity to move into a quiet place of their own," said Jimmy Torio, executive director of the Anahola Homesteaders Council and the sparkplug behind Project Faith.
But some in Anahola do not support the plan.
"It's such a good idea — really, really good. But I'm afraid a majority of the community does not support it, mainly because of personality issues," said noted lei-maker Irmalee Pomroy, who was among those who initiated the concept.
The key personality issue involves Torio himself. He is both the main force pushing Project Faith forward and a lightning rod for criticism over his aggressive style.
Torio concedes the community isn't entirely behind the project, but said it is the result of four years of discussions.
"This is good for our community. It may not satisfy all, but it will address needs," he said.
Beth Tokioka, Kaua'i County economic development director said it is good that there's a lot of community discussion.
"There appears to be a lot of dialogue, a lot of studying of what that community needs. It has evolved and I think it will probably continue to evolve. ... His (Torio's) project seems to be seen by the EPA as a real signature project. The project seems to have legs right now," Tokioka said.
The complex has been in planning since the early 1990s, but it got a boost when the EPA came to Hawai'i a few years ago, working with the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, looking for environmentally damaged sites that could be redeveloped through the Brownfields Program.
The program, created in 1995, is designed to empower states, communities and other interests to work together to safely clean up and re-use for economic development purposes properties that may contain hazardous substances.
The land on the southern side of Anahola, a former sugar field just mauka of Kuhio Highway, seemed perfect. It was a site for illegal dumping, there was the possible presence of agricultural chemicals, and there was a community group with a redevelopment plan.
"Here they found a community that not only had a brownfield situation, but had a plan, a 'green' building plan. The combination was compelling," said Haviland Wright, director of the Small Business Development Center on Kaua'i, which is a joint project of the U.S. Small Business Administration and the University of Hawai'i-Hilo.
A survey of soil contamination is complete. It's not bad, but any schoolyard would need a layer of clean soil on top of the existing ground to isolate children from possible contaminants, Torio said. And consultants have completed a $15,000 first phase of planning for the Project Faith complex.
The consulting firms Ferraro Choi and Belt Collins developed the sustainable master plan, which calls for a pedestrian-friendly "green" complex with native trees for shade, water conservation strategies, onsite wastewater treatment, renewable energy facilities and a design that promotes interaction between residents of different generations.
Participants in the project are the EPA, Kaua'i County, DBEDT, the state departments of Health and Hawaiian Home Lands, the Anahola Homesteaders Council and the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
Torio said the entire project could cost between $26 million and $30 million. He hopes grants of various kinds will cover 70 percent of the cost, and that loans will pay for the remainder. But it won't happen quickly.
"He's thinking incrementally and approaching it in a real systematic and pragmatic way," Tokioka said.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
