MauiLifeStyleBlog

The Maui News, Monday, September 17, 2007

Maui towns need limits

The basic structure of government in the islands often comes as a surprise that creates confusion among newcomers. Unlike most places on the Mainland, there are just two levels of government in the islands. There is the state government and there are the county governments. That's it - no townships and no municipalities.

Not having delineated towns also leads to major planning issues. One of the goals of the current revision of the general plan is to put "city limits" around urban areas. Maui was once considered rural. Populations were centered around sugar mills, pineapple plantations, ranches and the harbor, with thousands of acres of fields and pastures around them. Although there is still plenty of room for "country living" in the county, a better definition for Maui today would be ex-urban, not yet suburban and not exactly urban.

A major focus of current planning efforts, brought into sharp relief by the controversy over transient vacation rentals, is to confine urban sprawl and protect the open space that is so vital to Maui's overall appeal to residents and to visitors.

Attempts to limit sprawl in the past foundered on the shoals of profit. Owners of land on the edges of what are now urban areas could see limitations on development possibilities. They are right, but if Maui is to avoid unplanned development, residential/urban areas must be defined.

One result of the unplanned development of Maui has been the rise of transient vacation rentals in rural areas. Current plans call for banning the so-called TVRs from ag-zoned land even though individual parcels are too small to be economically viable as farms.

The times are a-changing. It may be that the future of agriculture lies with combining tourism with food production. That seems to be the idea behind requiring a B&B operator in the ag zone to earn $35,000 a year from agriculture.

After years of anything-goes land use policies, the county must tighten controls, but it should do so with a mind that is open to new possibilities that would fit with the overall goal - a Maui that retains the best of its past while being prepared for the future.

Copyright © 2007 The Maui News.