Honolulu, Hawaii news, sports & weather – KITV Channel 4

(Aunty on TV at the 2:30 time frame)

Some things really bother Aunty.  Some are small kind stuff, like personal issues such as age spots on her face.

One big thing that really bothers Aunty is when our Hawaii paradise is under attack.  You know the words to that song by Joni Mitchell, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone.  They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.”

Those lyrics are so sad – bulldozing away wonderful mango, avocado, lychee trees and old houses – with an asphalt parking lot.  Imagine this happening to your neighborhood: contractors come in, remove all of the trees and put up a monster house with 20+ bedrooms with the minimum amount of setback allowed.  That is taking away paradise in a worse way than a parking lot.  In fact, a parking lot would be far more welcome because these monster houses do not build with enough parking on the lot for a potential 20+ cars.

Recent news articles and news reports have brought these eyesores out for our view.  Aunty feels so bad for the broken hearted residents of Koko Drive, where a monster house has invaded their quiet street with a massive 16 bedroom 3 story house, and another one soon on its way, with 16 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms.  These are not houses.  They are apartments.

These monstrosities have to be stopped.  Thankfully, our district’s councilman, Trevor Ozawa (808-768-5004), is introducing a bill to change the current regulations, and councilwomen, Ann Kobayashi (808-768-5005) and Carol Fukunaga (808-768-5006) are asking for a moratorium on the permitting and construction of these huge houses.

However, we all need to get involved for these measures to be passed.  Show up at your neighborhood board meetings.  Call the mayor’s office (808-768-4141), call your city councilperson, send in testimonies.  It could happen to you next door, so what you do today will affect your piece of paradise in the future.  Go to the public hearings at City Hall.  Aunty testified at the November 16 meeting.  We locals were very underrepresented, and most of the testimonies were by foreign contractors and their representatives who are opposed to changes in the regulations to limit building size in residential neighborhoods.  Their reasoning was that what they were doing was actually good for Hawaii.  Ha!

Please get out and reach out to whoever you can grab.  Otherwise, our residential single family home neighborhoods will turn into a high density apartment housing like Makiki.

Aunty is on a mission, not just for herself, but to protect our fragile island paradise.  The next City Council meeting on zoning will probably be in December.  Aunty will be there, hopefully with smaller bags under her eyes.