Maui overdevelopment makes for sad sights

We love to visit Maui. Just as we love Oregon, our home. So it's sad to see overdevelopment trashing the livability of both beautiful places.

Measure 37, which seriously watered down Oregon's land use laws, is causing subdivisions to sprout on irreplaceable farm and forest land. I don't know what Maui's problem is--basic greed and complacency, I suppose.

Maybe when you live here, it's like the old "boiling a frog alive" metaphor. Development occurs so slowly and steadily, you get used to it, not noticing how hot the overdevelopment water is becoming.

My wife and I notice, since we only come here for a short time once a year. And at least some locals do. I read a letter to the editor in the Maui News a few days ago. The guy had counted the number of large construction cranes between Lahaina and Kapalua.

It was about a dozen, I recall. Here's a couple of them, towering over the few palm trees that remain at Kapalua Bay.

We're staying at the nearby Napili Kai Beach Resort. Sitting on Napili Beach you can hear the incessant noise of construction equipment back-up beeps coming from Kapalua.

This couple was getting married on the Kapalua Bay beach when I walked by. The minister's conch shell and singing was beautifully Hawaiian. The back-up beeps that marred the ceremony weren't.

That's how Maui is becoming: an increasingly uncomfortable blend of natural beauty and manmade ugliness.

A parking lot at the Kapalua shopping area used to be shaded by these magnificent trees, whose name I don't know. This tree is near where we park at Napili Kai. The front desk person didn't know the name of the tree either.

Whatever kind of tree it is, the developers at Kapalua chopped the tops of them off. Sad sight. Maybe they'll survive. But not as they were. Which pretty much sums up Maui.

In three lines this web page did its own summing up of the island:

Pros: "There's something for everyone on Beautiful Maui"
Cons: "Growing too fast."
In A Nutshell: "Get there before the developers do any more damage."

What's most striking is the growing gap between the wealthy folks who buy the oceanfront developments, and the regular folk who already live here.

Again, a lot like Oregon, where rich out-of-staters drive up the price of properties in desirable places like Bend and Ashland, making it tough for locals to afford a home.

The Kapalua construction is discreetly walled off from the view of drivers-by. This poster shows who will be living here, now that the trees have been cut down and much of the oceanfront condo'ed over. She doesn't look like a native Hawaiian, does she?

I feel entitled today to criticize the crushing of Maui's once pristine environment. A plastic bag blew off the beach this morning while we were ensconced on our mats.

It dropped into the ocean. Laurel said, "Somebody needs to get it." I said, "It looks like that man is." But he wasn't. He made a few desultory strokes toward it, but it already was being blown by the wind out to sea.

"A sea turtle could eat it!" Laurel exclaimed. "I don't have my fins, or I'd retrieve it." "I'll do it," I told her confidently. I was about ready to go for my daily 20-30 minute swim back and forth across Napili Bay anyway.

What I didn't realize, though, was that swimming straight out past the reef (finless) against some fairly large waves was a lot tougher than swimming sideways across the bay. Plus, the bag kept being blown further out.

I began to have my doubts that I'd ever reach it. But my admiration for the Wonder Pets helped keep me going. I kept hearing their voices in my head: "There's an animal in distress…We've got to help it!...This is serious."

I reached the plastic bag. Stuck it in my swimming trunks. Used some large waves to propel me back toward shore. A minor environmental crisis averted.

Hopefully there are lots of people who live on Maui who're willing to similarly expend some energy saving the livability of their island. Don't take it for granted, my friends.

We're seeing Oregon become a different (and worse) place because of overdevelopment. Learn from our bad example. Don't let it happen here anymore than it already has.

Comments

[Rain]

This is that exponential population growth and add to it an exponential greed growth. A lot of second and third homes are not afforded the old-fashioned way-- saving up money and a small beach house somewhere. We are living in a time where greed and there is never enough money is the rule of the day. It's all over the world from what I have read in any desirable place to live. Sad

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Brian,

I've heard it alledged that the "New World Order" would like to solve this overcrowding problem by reducing the human population from its present 6.5 billion to only about 500,000,000. The elite regard most poor people as generally useless anyway (although some few might be kept around as servants).

Robert Paul Howard

[Carol Ann]

We gave up on Maui many years ago when the National Bird(the building crane) became prevalent. We then went to Molokai for several years because it was quiet, but the surf where we stayed was too strong to swim in. And then our last move was to St. Lucia--farther away, but a lot more simple and pristine.

[Tucson Bob]

The last time I was on Maui was in 1981 and I thought it was overdeveloped then, basically ruined even though some natural beauty remained. I guess even in Hong Kong you can find beauty if you look in the right direction with the right attitude.

Kauai was OK on my stay there in 1972. Some resort development and traffic going into Lihue at times was a harbinger of growth to come, but overall, the island was still mellow except for crowding at the better surf spots.

Oahu was already toast by my first visit in 1967. Waikiki was foul, and litter lined the roads out in the Makaha area which to this day is hazzardous for tourists. Something had happened to the youth in Hawaii by then. Many are aggressive and hostile. They feel justified in assaulting or ripping off non-natives, tourists, or anyone they don't like.

One afternoon at Waikiki there was a long-haired guy (I mention hair length because this was 1967) sitting on a bench minding his own business. There was a group of drunk locals nearby and one really big dude took exception to this and went over and punch-shoved the long haired guy off the bench, then returned to his group laughing. The long-hair just went ahead and sat back down on the bench like nothing happened. The big guy came back and punched him off the bench again. The long-hair said simply "don't do that again" and proceeded to sit on the bench once more. The big guy failed to follow instructions and attempted to punch him once more. The long-hair stood up and laid into this guy. I have never seen anything like it and I've been in and around a fair number of fights. This was a complete destruction by a highly trained fighter. The long-hair then calmly walked away leaving the big guy face down unconscious in the sand, his labored breathing gurgling through a pool of his own blood. He was badly hurt. His buddies came over and carried him away. True story.

This has stayed in my memory because of the calmness through the whole thing by the long-hair. He had a sort of indifferent non-chalance even when he was pounding the guy to a pulp that was uncanny. It was more like a movie script than anything you would expect to see in real life.

Anyway, Hawaii is mostly trashed.