Laʻi ʻOpua

By Jeffrey Cabanting-Rafael



If you take promotional materials at face value, the road to a greener tomorrow starts with the Department of Hawaiian Homelands La’i ‘Opua project.

La’i ‘Opua is a 100-unit village under construction on 3 acres of land in Kealakehe on Hawaii Island’s west side. The site of the village is above Kealakehe High School and Honokohau Boat Harbor. The community features single-family homes provided by Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL) and, in many ways, they are standard.

However these homes will be equipped with photovoltaic and solar water heating panels to reduce the consumption of electricity coming from the grid. They are also structured to take advantage of the wind, with windows located and sized to increase natural ventilation.

Outside the homes, specially constructed driveways will be made of pervious concrete, a surface that allows water to run down driveways onto the landscape. The developers point to this technology as one of the features that will make La’i Opua a modern-day ahupua’a. Other features contributing to the ahupua’a concept include the promotion of community farming, the Hale Community Center, and the “story time” area where kupuna (grandparents) can share their mana’o with the children of the community and restore a connection to old Hawaii.

In a recent media release, Kaulana Parks, the chairman of DHHL stated, “We are continuing to build upon our foundation of being a master-planned community developer by capitalizing on energy efficient technology. We have always built affordable homes, and now we are building homes that are energy-efficient.”

Local organizations with an interest in self-sufficiency, such as Kamehameha Schools, Ka’ula Farms and The Queen Lili’uokalani Foundation, will assist community members in achieving the goal of producing their own food. Understanding it may be several years before the families in La’i ‘Opua will be sufficient on their own, the planners have established a two-year window for local practitioners to teach classes and give other forms of support.

La’i ‘Opua is the first self-sufficient community project DHHL hopes to build but it is not the agency’s only plan for this type of development. Kaulana Parks discussed the project during an “Energy Futures” broadcast with Donalyn Dela Cruz on KIPO Radio last month. Parks stated that the department hopes La’i ‘Opua will be the proving ground for larger projects. If everything goes well with La’i ‘Opua, then DHHL will go on with the Kau Puni project in Waianae on the island of Oahu. Here the plan is to build Kau Puni on 300 acres where it will be the department’s first large-scale, self-sufficient community.

During the live broadcast on KIPO, Parks also revealed a plan by DHHL to have a program that will educate people (buyers, contractors, etc.) to use efficient appliances that would help ease impacts on the environment at an inexpensive price.

“We are fulfilling our commitment to provide those on the wait list an opportunity for homeownership through this program that allows the lessee time to prepare to be homeowners,” said Parks in a previous news release.

As of now, there are 45 families offered a home in La’i ‘Opua. The 3-acre project in Kealakehe is aimed to be finished in December of 2010 according to Parks, who also said the families are eager to be a part of the community — one which he believes will change the way the world lives.

While La’i ‘Opua sounds like a great project, there are many things happening there with negative environmental impacts. According to the project’s site and house plans available at the Armstrong Builders website, there are only 45 units which will be equipped with green features. Armstrong Builders will serve as the contractor for the project. These 45 houses are part of an overall community of 4,263 homes scheduled for construction in the area.

Chuck Flaherty of ‘Apono Hawaii is a member of the Kona community with a longstanding involvement in development related issues there. (‘Apono Hawaii is a sponsor of the Youth News project.) Flaherty had this to say: “Bottom line is [45] supposedly green homes out of 4,263 is a joke.”

Flaherty expressed his concern with Youth News over the damage DHHL is inflicting on the natural dryland forests in the vicinity of La’i ‘Opua. In the area, there are five dryland forest species no longer located anywhere else in the world. Flaherty stated that dividing the forests into smaller areas is damaging. He also told Youth News that he has personally witnessed bulldozers destroying endangered plants and that while DHHL is supposed to avoid knocking down the endangered trees because they are in a preserve, he is concerned that trees are still coming down. He also sited concerns among tenants about the home designs.

For more information on La’i ‘Opua:
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2001/11/18/news/story4.html

http://www.hawaiibusiness.com/Hawaii-Business/January-2010/Steering-Growth-Short-Version/

http://www.armstrongbuilders.com/main/laiopua.html

http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/development-projects/lai-opua-plant-mitigation-and-preserve/PresentationBoard2.pdf

http://208.106.154.79/story.aspx?126367d3-1f05-4705-a1a7-b0a7d7e4016a