Hawaii Business, June 2006
Keeping the Country, Country
by George R. Ariyoshi, Governor of Hawaii 1973-1986

The public announcement of the plan to build five hotels around Turtle Bay was accompanied by a commitment "to keeping the country, country."

One of the most important projects of my first term as governor was the Windward Regional Plan. It involved people on many levels, including a massive survey of public opinion. It strongly reflected a desire to keep the country truly in a country ambiance.

We did so. Generally, to this day, that plan has been followed. The Windward Side has remained a place of tranquility that helps both resident and visitor get in touch with an earlier-day Hawaii. I would wager, that if the Windward Plan were updated on a comparable scale today, the results would be similar.

The rationale for the 3,500 hotel rooms refers to land-use approvals granted in 1986, my last year as governor. At that time, the commission rezoned 236 acres for three, not five, hotels and fewer than 1,500 rooms. The remaining 2,000 units referred to condominium units. All of this was subject to nine conditions providing for parks, sewage treatment, a well, highway and roadway improvements, attention to an archaeological site, preservation of a bird sanctuary and the provision of low-cost housing for hotel workers.

Thereafter, the land was sold by a local estate to an international investor. Twenty years have elapsed. Major conditions have not been met in a timely way.

In the intervening years, the adjacent North Shore has been incrementally gentrified. It also has been popularized around the world via surf culture. As a result, there are complaints that the North Shore is becoming too congested. Congestion of the highways on the windward side of Turtle Bay are an issue as well. On the opposite side of Oahu, Ko Olina has developed as a destination resort. Unemployment is low.

Nonetheless, the developer is proposing to go forward as if 20 years were yesterday. The announcement says the developer is working on meeting the conditions of the Land Use Commission. It wants permits from the city, and it wants to proceed without performing an environmental impact statement.

A lawsuit fortunately has slowed the process and bought time for thought and discussion.

In my view, we had best do what we can to preserve the rural character of the Windward Side. Everyone seems to value it. People do want the country to be truly country.

We should keep hotels in clusters, rather than spreading them across the landscape. Essentially, we should aggregate hotel development in Waikiki and Ko Olina and let people enjoy the rest of Oahu on expeditions. Within that concept, Turtle Bay can continue to play a compatible role as a modest-size, local-feeling hotel resort.

Above all, we should shake up and invigorate our planning process. Conditional zoning should not stay on the books indefinitely. In this regard, possibly the 1986 state-level zoning should be revisited.

Long-time residents will recall that Kahuku Plantation, which closed in the early '70s, was nearby. Creation of jobs for plantation workers was part of the rationale for the original Turtle Bay (at first called Kuilima).

Turtle Bay is another instance in which we are still trying to define ourselves in the post-plantation era. To succeed, we need more thinking, more discussion and more planning. Otherwise, we will continue to drift from project to project, and, incrementally, we will lose what we hold most dear about Hawaii.

George R. Ariyoshi, chairman and cofounder of Convergence CT and Cellular Bioengineering, is the former president of Prince Resorts Hawaii Inc. He is active in international business circles, particularly in Asia. An attorney by profession, Ariyoshi served in elective office in Hawaii from 1954 to 1986. He served as governor of Hawaii from 1973 to 1986 and was the first Japanese American to be elected governor in the United States.