Few dispute the need for affordable housing, especially for senior citizens, but the issue is symbolic of how neighborhoods like the North Shore, West Side, Kakaako and Waimanalo must fight the onslaught of developers and the connected. The list of projects that have degraded neighborhoods is long.
In the case of Manoa Banyan Court, there is little evidence to support this build; thus, Charles Wong, president of the Lin Yee Chung Association, resorts to classic attacks: name-calling, pitting one group against another (“Residents split on plan for senior housing in Manoa,” Star-Advertiser, Jan. 8).
Manoa residents are not elitist. Families have lived here for generations; nearly half my neighbors are retired. Seniors are anti-seniors? Illogical. Average incomes in Manoa are higher than other places, but that would hardly qualify us as “affluent.” Creating imagined class or other conflicts is a red herring.
The state and/or city might even purchase the land, thus protecting the clear environmental threat, and the cemetery could fund its maintenance needs and protect the Manoa neighborhood.
Les Inouye
Manoa
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