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Shoreline setback bill heads to council
by Nathan Eagle - THE GARDEN ISLAND
After hearing from state experts last week, County Council members steered a shoreline setback bill out of committee that could change the face of oceanfront development for generations to come.
With draft legislation headed to the floor Tuesday, council members have said they expect to hash out and approve a final version of the bill by day’s end.
“Erosion waits for no one,” Councilman Mel Rapozo said during the meeting at the Historic County Building. “This bill is long overdue.”
The proposed ordinance is designed to protect coastal developments while ensuring greater public beach access.
The minimum setback and erosion rate multiplier have been critical points in the bill’s evolution over the past several months.
Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, who introduced the legislation’s second draft in April, has clung to a 40-foot minimum setback plus 70 times the annual coastal erosion rate — as recommended in the Hawai‘i Coastal Hazard Mitigation Guidebook.
But Councilman Jay Furfaro has pushed for a 50-year multiplier at least until the county Planning Department produces aerial photographs and other historic documentation to aid the decision. That work has been contracted and is expected to be completed within a year.
The proposed bill received split decisions earlier in committee, but some council members with lingering concerns changed their votes Tuesday just to bring the legislation to the council floor.
Councilwoman Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho said she will not support a bill that lacks proper enforcement power and a clause concerning due process rights.
Yukimura agreed to work on those legal aspects for next meeting.
County Planning Director Ian Costa said granting his position the power to fine would help enforce compliance. The current system, he added, takes months or years to levy a penalty through the courts.
University of Hawai‘i Coastal Geologist Dolan Eversole and Affiliate Faculty Dennis Hwang, who authored the Guidebook, delivered a presentation and answered council members’ questions at their most recent meeting.
The ocean is slowly swallowing the Hawaiian Islands, Hwang said, prompting an urgent need for science-based coastal development planning.
The Guidebook recommends the 40-foot setback plus 70 times the annual coastal erosion rate because the average life expectancy of a wood-framed coastal structure is 70 years, he said.
Maui, by contrast, has a 50-year, 25-foot shoreline setback policy that was implemented prior to the Guidebook’s publication.
Furfaro questioned the science cited in the Guidebook because it is based on averages from multiple regions, not specifically Hawai‘i.
Yukimura defended her figures as “conservative.”A 70-year rule still fails to protect 100 percent of the houses, she said, including her parents’ more than 100-year-old plantation home.
“We have to start acknowledging what’s happening to our shoreline,” Yukimura said. “At 70 years, most of the houses will be at the edge of the water.”
The “70/40” plan, she added, does not factor in projected sea level rise by the end of the century due to global warming.
Eversole said each foot the sea level rises equates to 150 feet of horizontal setback.
Hwang called the “70/40” rule protective and easy to implement at the design and planning stage of development. He stressed that changing the 40-foot setback or 70-year rate would produce an unscientific, “arbitrary” figure.
The county currently requires a 40-foot setback minus a possible 20-foot variance, Furfaro said, which everyone agrees is unacceptable.
Maui planner Thorne Abbott added his insight at the council’s request.
“What you’re dealing with now ... is what your kids are going to have to deal with,” he said, noting that regulating coastal development protects shorelines, conserves beach resources and helps landowners avoid unnecessary risks.
“Our beaches are our money,” Abbott said. “Nobody is going to pay 650 bucks for a hotel room without a beach.”
Two-thirds of the coastal erosion problem comes from manmade structures, he added.
“Our economy depends on smart planning,” Abbott said. “We’ve done a bad job.”
Yukimura said passing the bill with the “70/40” rule would create one of the nation’s strongest shoreline setback laws and “would be a model for others to follow.”
With draft legislation headed to the floor Tuesday, council members have said they expect to hash out and approve a final version of the bill by day’s end.
“Erosion waits for no one,” Councilman Mel Rapozo said during the meeting at the Historic County Building. “This bill is long overdue.”
The proposed ordinance is designed to protect coastal developments while ensuring greater public beach access.
The minimum setback and erosion rate multiplier have been critical points in the bill’s evolution over the past several months.
Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, who introduced the legislation’s second draft in April, has clung to a 40-foot minimum setback plus 70 times the annual coastal erosion rate — as recommended in the Hawai‘i Coastal Hazard Mitigation Guidebook.
But Councilman Jay Furfaro has pushed for a 50-year multiplier at least until the county Planning Department produces aerial photographs and other historic documentation to aid the decision. That work has been contracted and is expected to be completed within a year.
The proposed bill received split decisions earlier in committee, but some council members with lingering concerns changed their votes Tuesday just to bring the legislation to the council floor.
Councilwoman Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho said she will not support a bill that lacks proper enforcement power and a clause concerning due process rights.
Yukimura agreed to work on those legal aspects for next meeting.
County Planning Director Ian Costa said granting his position the power to fine would help enforce compliance. The current system, he added, takes months or years to levy a penalty through the courts.
University of Hawai‘i Coastal Geologist Dolan Eversole and Affiliate Faculty Dennis Hwang, who authored the Guidebook, delivered a presentation and answered council members’ questions at their most recent meeting.
The ocean is slowly swallowing the Hawaiian Islands, Hwang said, prompting an urgent need for science-based coastal development planning.
The Guidebook recommends the 40-foot setback plus 70 times the annual coastal erosion rate because the average life expectancy of a wood-framed coastal structure is 70 years, he said.
Maui, by contrast, has a 50-year, 25-foot shoreline setback policy that was implemented prior to the Guidebook’s publication.
Furfaro questioned the science cited in the Guidebook because it is based on averages from multiple regions, not specifically Hawai‘i.
Yukimura defended her figures as “conservative.”A 70-year rule still fails to protect 100 percent of the houses, she said, including her parents’ more than 100-year-old plantation home.
“We have to start acknowledging what’s happening to our shoreline,” Yukimura said. “At 70 years, most of the houses will be at the edge of the water.”
The “70/40” plan, she added, does not factor in projected sea level rise by the end of the century due to global warming.
Eversole said each foot the sea level rises equates to 150 feet of horizontal setback.
Hwang called the “70/40” rule protective and easy to implement at the design and planning stage of development. He stressed that changing the 40-foot setback or 70-year rate would produce an unscientific, “arbitrary” figure.
The county currently requires a 40-foot setback minus a possible 20-foot variance, Furfaro said, which everyone agrees is unacceptable.
Maui planner Thorne Abbott added his insight at the council’s request.
“What you’re dealing with now ... is what your kids are going to have to deal with,” he said, noting that regulating coastal development protects shorelines, conserves beach resources and helps landowners avoid unnecessary risks.
“Our beaches are our money,” Abbott said. “Nobody is going to pay 650 bucks for a hotel room without a beach.”
Two-thirds of the coastal erosion problem comes from manmade structures, he added.
“Our economy depends on smart planning,” Abbott said. “We’ve done a bad job.”
Yukimura said passing the bill with the “70/40” rule would create one of the nation’s strongest shoreline setback laws and “would be a model for others to follow.”
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Ronald Pray wrote on Oct 17, 2009 5:14 AM:
I am a former U.S. Coast Guard Search and rescue team member at Barbers Point. I never read the scathing November 28 article about a rescue I did in 1977 while on leave.
In November of 1977 I had visited Kauai on leave and hiked the Na Pali coast to go camping. On the trail I saw some hikers in front of me ignore the cries of a man saying he was poisoned by mushrooms he had eaten. I know that there are many poisonous varieties from the orange mushrooms to the copelandia varieties which are deadly. I stopped and he was vomitting and telling me that he was dying. I laid my sleeping bag down onto the ground and made him comfortable then lit my coleman stove and cooked him soup to eat. He ate the soup and continued vomitting. He said that he needed immediate attention. I ecouraged him to vommit everything out of his stomache.
I asked him if he would be OK while I ran back to Haena for help and he said please do that.
I ran from his location sometimes skipping the zig-zags in the trails steep inclines jumping straight down to the trail below. I had injured my Achilles tendon by twisting my ankle which put me on light duty upon returning to Barbers Point.
I then knocked on the first door I found and asked them to contact the U.S. Coast Guard that there was a man stranded on the trail who needed immediate attention.
The Fire Department went in on the trail and found the man walking out on his own. This is why the writer in 1977 claimed that I had misread the situation and that is why he called my rescue "The Rescue that wasn't". I believe that had that man died, his death would have been on my ticket and given that rescuing folks was my business I had a responsibility to perform.
We may never know what part my inducing vomiting played in the recovery of this man. I'd like to believe that it played a major role in his quick recovery.
I am proud that I stood for the highest traditions of the U.S. Coast Guard on that fateful day on the Na Pali Coast.To this day, I have a lump in my Achilles Tendon which hurts on certain days to remind me of that day I ran into that man.
Malama Pono,
Former 3rd Class Petty Officer Ronald Pray "