Introduction

Hawaii's coastal landscapes may be the state's most important asset. The beaches and breathtaking scenery of the coast provide the foundation for the state's tourist economy, attracting millions of visitors a year from all over the world. The coastline contains a priceless heritage of cultural resources and sacred spaces whose protection is critical to preserving what remains of a local sense of place. Open space along the shoreline contains streams, wetlands, and habitat for Hawaii's rare plant and animal communities; it buffers marine waters and coral reefs from urban and agricultural runoff; and it offers the best solution we have for protecting coastal communities from the impacts of hazards such as coastal erosion, tsunamis, storm surges, and sea level rise caused by global climate change.

The State and county governments have created an extensive planning and regulatory regime ostensibly intended to protect those coastal landscapes. During the 1960s and 1970s, Hawaii adopted one of the most comprehensive systems of land use regulation in the country, including a statewide zoning system and a statutory state plan. Coastal conservation was a key goal in the state's adoption of a coastal zone management program a decade later. State and county governments have also engaged in extensive planning efforts to protect open space. But virtually none of this thoughtful and worthwhile effort has had much effect on the coastline itself, and the state has achieved only mixed success in preserving open space along its coastlines. In the past four decades, many of its coastal lands have been the site of intense urbanization and resort development, encroaching upon vital open space and the scenic, cultural and environmental benefits which that open space provides. Preservation efforts have largely been episodic, often in response to public opposition to the proposed development of some parcel along a popular beach.

The thesis seeks to examine the ways in which Hawaii has tried to plan and protect coastal open space and to suggest several strategies which might improve that effort. Although it looks at open space protection on a statewide basis, the paper focuses on the island of Maui as a case study, particularly on that island's leeward coast--an area which has experienced intense residential and resort development within the past four decades.

The paper begins by looking at the evolution of coastal land use in Hawaii since the islands were first settled by the Polynesians---the factors which influenced changes in the way that land was used and the patterns and impact of resort and urban development in the past 40 years or so. It then reviews briefly the regulatory and planning regime which Hawaii adopted in the 1960s and 1970s to regulate land use and manage the coastal zone.

Next it examines the particular values which coastal open space may represent for Hawaii. Open space is often treated as an ambiguous public good, and most of the planning studies and discussion about the subject in Hawaii usually recognize only its scenic or recreation value. But there are a number of other important and specific reasons for the state to protect significant areas of connected coast land. One is the preservation of other social or cultural values, such as protection of native Hawaiian cultural resources or a traditional island sense of place. Open space may also be the most effective tool we have to mitigate coastal hazards---coastal erosion and beach loss, tsunamis, hurricanes, and sea-level rise caused by global climate change. In addition, preserving land as open space is important for the protection or restoration of coastal ecosystems: maintaining nearshore water quality and the health of coral reefs; preserving wetlands, streams and aquatic life; and protecting or restoring terrestrial habitat and ecosystems. Chapter III examines these various functional values as they apply to Hawaii's unique environment. It also briefly reviews some of the models which have been used to assign an economic value to open space.

This paper then analyzes what Hawaii has done to plan and preserve coastal open space and the particular reasons why land use controls and open space planning have largely failed to produce a coherent vision for an island's coastline. Open space has been the subject of many planning studies commissioned by the State or counties, particularly during the development boom of the 1970s. Some plans were specifically designed to develop general state or county programs to protect open space resources; others had open-space protection as a key component in a a more general community design plan. One statewide study in 1972, for example, said that Hawaii faced an "environmental crisis" as a result of piece-meal planning, rapid growth, and intense coastal resort and residential development. Conditions emulated the pattern of environmental deterioration in California and Florida but were potentially more serious, it said, because Hawaii was more dependent on the health and scenic quality of its environment than mainland states. The study concluded that "conservation and wise use of [the state's] marine and coastal resources must be a central element of all planning," and it recommended a series of actions to help preserve important open spaces, particularly along the shoreline.1

Similar studies followed---some more useful than others---but almost all of their major recommendations were ignored, and in the past 30 years Maui and the other major islands have continued to sacrifice coastal open space to resort, residential and urban development. Based on a review of the literature and interviews conducted this spring in Hawaii, the paper examines some of the reasons why all of that planning and regulatory effort has achieved only mixed results. The hope here is to demonstrate that the Hawaii coast is not some darkling plain where ignorant, narrow interests clash by night, but a complex place of diffficult issues which defy easy resolution.

One of the major obstacles to effective open space planning and preservation has been the lack of a broad vision and consensus regarding the importance of the coastal landscape to an island such as Maui. The study argues, however, that developing such a vision and consensus would serve the best interests of each of the stakeholders in Hawaii's coastal lands---political leaders, the tourist industry, developers, conservationists, and the local community.

This paper suggests two conceptual models as options to stimulate people to think about the value of coastal open space and help develop such a long-term vision. They are not offered as the best solutions, but simply to invite other ideas of "what might be." The first is a proposal to restore the entire shoreline of the Kihei area on Maui into an urban greenway over a period of one or two generations. Admittedly radical, it may also be the best long-term solution for the health of the community. The second model is based upon the concept of conservation development, and Chapter V analyzes that concept and how it might be used to preserve and integrate open space in the inevitable coastal development that will continue to occur on Maui. The paper concludes with a review of two potential institutional mechanisms which could be used to build and implement a more effective vision for the coast: a community-based coalition patterned after some of the collaborative conservation efforts that have recently formed in the Intermountain West; and the creation of a nonregulatory, problem-solving state agency patterned after the California Coastal Conservancy.

The intent of this thesis is to offer an interdisciplinary examination of what has worked, what hasn't worked and why. From the lessons learned by that experience, the goal is to suggest strategies which the community, policy makers and planners can understand and use to introduce better open-space and coastal management strategies for Maui and the state as a whole. The conclusions are solely my own. But the research and methodology are based on (a) a broad-based literature review of each of the issues discussed here; and (b) personal interviews with a cross section of people in Hawaii involved in government, academic studies, and community affairs.

Several points should be mentioned at the outset. Although there are a variety of possible definitions of open space, in this paper the term is used to describe any area that is generally free from major structural development. It encompasses a range of places, including wetlands, beach parks, agricultural fields, recreation areas, conservation reserves, and floodplains.

I have also omitted analysis of some otherwise important topics from this paper. The discussion is limited to open space in coastal areas---generally within a mile or two of the shoreline. Protection of open space in upcountry areas is also a contentious issue in Hawaii, particularly as agricultural lands are turned into large-acre subdivisions or "gentlemen's estates." But I have restricted the thesis to only coastal areas for several reasons. In many ways, Hawaii is its coasts. A newcomer quickly learns that directions are not given in terms of cardinal points, but in terms of mauka (toward the mountains) or makai (toward the sea).2 These words are not simply local jargon. They are the normal terms by which places and locations are described in conversation, reports, newspapers and legal documents, and they reflect an orientation to the ocean which coastal states on the mainland do not share.

Half of Hawaii lives within five miles of the water's edge, and the lure of the coast for residential and resort development can change the character of an island forever. Hawaii's coastal landscape represent some of the most valuable and contentious real estate in the world. And, as one writer has observed, "the most beleaguered group of ecosystems on this planet [are] those that form the interface between land and ocean."3 It is coastal open space then, rather than open space in general, that is the focus of this paper.

Another useful subject is also beyond the scope of this paper: I have not tried to analyze any of the various legal or regulatory mechanisms for protecting open space. By now, land trusts, conservation organizations and public agencies have developed a common set of tools for protection. Land can be preserved through regulatory measures, such as agricultural or conservation zoning, impact fees, or mandatory dedications of land. Governments can purchase the land itself, using various possible funding sources: bond issues, sales taxes, real estate transfer taxes, special districts, special assessment areas, and business improvement districts. Public/private partnerships, such as those between a government agency and a private land trust, provide another alternative for funding acquisition of open space. And finally, conservation easements are an increasingly effective and acceptable device to protect land from development, while also keeping it in the hands of private owners.4 There is already an extensive body of literature on each of these tools, and a recent study for the Hawaii coastal zone management program has examined them all in the context of the state's needs and legal structures.5 It is not that these tools are unknown in Hawaii; the problem is that they are underutilized.

Although I have restricted the scope somewhat, the intent of this paper to is discuss the topic in an integrated, interdisciplinary way and to offer some practical conclusions and recommendations which might be useful to landscape architects and planners and to people in Hawaii. From an academic standpoint, this paper offers a case study in the limitations of planning in a difficult political and cultural arena, as well as an analysis of the particular values of coastal open space in an island environment. For people on Maui, perhaps it will suggest some new ways of looking at their coastline and several strategies which they might use to help preserve their island paradise.

1 Overview Corporation. From the Mountain to the Sea: State of Hawaii Comprehensive Open Space Plan (Report prepared tor the Department of Planning and Economic Development, State of Hawaii; Washington DC: 1972).

2 A note on spellina: During the past several decades, there has been an increased emphasis in Hawaii on spelling Hawaiian place names and other Hawaiian words by using two punctuation marks: the glottal stop (or reversed apostrophe) indicating a short pause between two vowels, and the macron ( ), placed over a vowel to indicate its long, stressed pronunciation in a word. For example, Hawaii is now often spelled as "Hawai'in; Maalaea is spelled as "Ma'alaea." Many of the recent materials cited in the bibliography utilize this form of spelling; but most of the earlier ones do not. Out of expediency and a desire for uniformity, this paper sticks to the older, conservative spelling of Hawaiian place names throughout the text (including cited materials which may have actually used the more correct form of spelling); I have used the preferred form with the glottal stop here only when incorporating (and italicizing) Hawaiian words in the text.

3 Dasmann (1973), quoted in Bryan H. Farrell, "Cooperative Tourism in the Coastal Zone," Coastal Zone Management Journal 14:1/2(1986),113-130, at 114.

4 See: John Tibbetts, Open Space Conservation: Investing in Your Community's Economic Health (Cambridge MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1998).

5 John H. Bay, Methods and Strategies for Acquiring Coastal Lands (Report prepared for Office of State Planning, Coastal Zone Management Program, State of Hawaii; June 1994).