PCDP – Suburban Sprawl or Community Building?
August 13, 2009
The Puna Community Development Plan has presented for the community’s consideration the following two mutually-exclusive ‘choices’ regarding investment of financial and political resources.
(1) Twentieth Century Suburban Sprawl.
Invest in widening of Highway 130 to increase capacity for car travel between Puna and Hilo. The effect will be to perpetuate Puna’s status as a ‘bedroom community,’ with residents reliant on travel beyond the District to access most government, commercial, and social services, as well as for employment, arts, and entertainment. Daily lives of Puna residents will be ever more oriented outside the District, and less toward their community and each other.
There are multiple examples across the USA going back at least 20 years or more where highways have been widened for the purpose of increasing capacity for car travel between a ‘bedroom community’ and a distant center. Typically, after no more than 10, and as little as 5, years, the capacity of additional lanes is exceeded and congestion has returned. In a phrase, “Widening a highway to relieve congestion is like loosening your belt to reduce your weight!”
(2) Twenty-First Century Community Building.
Invest in development of infrastructure and services necessary for village and town centers in Puna. The effect will be to empower the Puna community to be more self-reliant. Puna residents will access most public, commercial, and social services within Puna; doing so by driving short distances or not driving at all.
Makuu Market, which began in 2001 opening one day per week with minimal infrastructure, is now a phenomenal success and proof positive that a community gathering place can increase local economic activity and social interaction within, and to the benefit of, the Puna community.
Entrepreneurs are building custom and business relationships in fresh food production, prepared food service, creative and healing arts, and more. There is a substantial and flourishing market for re-using resources (household goods, tools, clothing, books, etc).
The social interactions as well as the market transactions on one day per week for 5 years at Makuu Market have helped build 7-days-a-week community relationships and social support networks across the entire District.
As a Puna resident, my ‘choice’ is Twenty-First Century Community Building.
Furthermore, there is abundant evidence collected throughout the PCDP process that this same ‘choice’ is overwhelmingly preferred by the broader community.
The Relationship Between Rezoning and the Price of Agricultural Land
August 14, 2009
The Hawaii County General Plan states that “agricultural land values have risen beyond their value for agricultural purposes.” The General Plan also identifies increasing land values as a major impediment to the expansion of agriculture, even as expansion of agriculture is also given as a goal of that Plan.
To achieve the goal of expansion of agriculture, County policy and subsequent action must not continue to contribute to agricultural land prices rising beyond the value of the land for agricultural purposes.
Significant in the determination of price for any land are expectations regarding potential future benefits to be derived from that land such as monetary reward, aesthetic appreciation, or lifestyle satisfaction.
Research in the past decade has analyzed how prices of agricultural land are impacted by agricultural returns and zoning of agricultural land. The research has provided strong evidence that agricultural “land prices reflect not only the uses of land, but the potential uses,” specifically the value of the option of future income “from [non-agricultural] land development.”
This research demonstrates that when there appears to be an option or opportunity in the future to sell agricultural land for irreversible land conversion, the value of agricultural land is inflated beyond the returns achievable through agricultural use. A broad implication of the research is that non-agricultural factors, rather than farm income, have been the primary cause of farmland conversion.
The dramatic increase in the price of agricultural land in Hawaii County in recent years has been due to expectations of benefits unrelated to agricultural production on the land.
Creation of expectations about an option or opportunity in the future to sell agricultural land for irreversible land conversion is what has happened in this county, as speculative investors have observed that irreversible land conversion is so easily done by rezoning. Agricultural land prices in Hawaii County have been inflated by a de facto policy revealed through the practice of indiscriminate rezoning.
So long as non-agriculture speculation continues to determine market price of agricultural land, that price will continue to be higher than local agriculture can pay.
Needed, sooner rather than later, is unambiguous zoning and subdivision policy that, in print and in practice, halts and no longer abides arbitrary irreversible conversion of agricultural land. When proactively and consistently implemented, this policy must change expectations regarding land use options so as to create a clear differentiation between the market price of land to be used for agricultural purposes and the market price of land to be used for non-agricultural purposes. This differentiation will in turn make agricultural land more affordable for farming and contribute to the expansion of agriculture in the County.
Key References
“Farmland Conversion: Perceptions and Evidence,” Nicolai V Kuminoff and Daniel A. Sumner. 2001. American Agricultural Economics Association, Chicago.
“Modeling Farmland Conversion with New GIS Data,” Nicolai V Kuminoff and Daniel A. Sumner. 2001. American Agricultural Economics Association, Chicago.
“Agricultural, Land Values and the Value of Rights to Future Land Development” in Land Economics, 77(1), pp.56-67. 2001. A.J.Plantinga and D.J. Miller.