Dear Manoa Neighborhood Board,
There are many reasons to oppose Manoa Banyan Court. From the way it was hidden from the community for as long as possible, to the way almost any community input is ignored by the Cemetery leadership and developers (whose reputations are very concerning) to the radical size and excesses of the project. But I would focus on a few specific points having to do with community safety. The land is zoned as forest preservation with good reason. There is very little absorbent green-space in the valley with most of it paved or lawns (turf-grass does not compare to intact forest in water absorption and retention), and with over 125 inches of annual rainfall across upper Manoa (165 inches at Lyon Arboreutum), and even more upstream, there are frequent intense rainfall events. This is not the same climate as downtown, there are orders of magnitude more rain throughout the year. The forest in that corridor lies right along a drainage and serves to mitigate floods by absorbing intense rainfall falling there and upstream which is slowly released into Manoa Stream. Converting essentially all of the forest to roofs and concrete (and turf-grass) will make flooding events more frequent and more intense. This is a fact, not conjecture. The intention of the 201H exemption was to encourage developers to create more low income housing instead of high-cost investment properties for out of state investors. The exemption was not intended to allow a mismanaged entity to circumvent important environmentally-based zoning laws to develop forest lands we need for flood mitigation and water quality. Furthermore, during the more frequent droughts caused by climate change, the forest space will hold and release water sustainably into Manoa stream. As more of the valley is paved, extremes will become the norm; floods will become worse and so too will the dry periods. With fewer trees to buffer the water cycle in the Valley it is conceivable that Manoa stream will run dry during droughts - completely changing the ecosystem, wiping out any Native Hawaiian Gobies and other fish, while greatly benefitting the mosquitos which are currently limited by the presence of fish. None of this is hypothetical; the impacts of forest loss are well understood. The addition of a dog park and community garden will not only fail to provide adequate mitigation, they will make things worse: lawns are not able to absorb nearly the water that forest can, nor will they store it during dry periods. The Cemetery needs to think beyond their own, immediate financial needs; there has to be some form of compromise. More low income housing is needed, and a lower density development might be compatible with both the neighborhood and the environmental services we need from the forest (like flood abatement) that the zoning originally was made to protect. However, allowing this large-scale development to proceed endangers the community, lowers environmental quality for all, and sets a precedent for the development of any area, regardless of the broader impacts. This proposed development is simply too big and too dense to ignore. Some kinds of zoning restrictions must be maintained for the greater good and public safety. The only option the Cemetery trust has considered at all is to build affordable housing and avoid the zoning laws, but the proposed high density housing and the additional tree removal for a community garden and a dog park-- when both already exist a mere 5 minute walk away at the Manoa District Park-- is gratuitous destruction of forested land with little concern for the impacts. The forest is needed for more than just aesthetics and this plan needs to be moderated to fit in with the environmental needs of the public and the hydrology of the valley. The intent of the affordable housing exemption is to make a dense urban core not to foster urban sprawl destroying neighborhoods and endangering our homes and environment with the elimination of green space along a flood prone area. - Dan Rubinoff
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