Equity and ecology should guide the rebuilding of Lahaina. Hawaii planners created opportunities for hotels and golf courses and welcomed the homes of the wealthy, which often are vacation properties. But, as I have seen, Hawaii residents who work in the hospitality industry are piled up in crowded bedrooms. Community- focused housing development lags.
Hawaii has to respect the intensified effects of climate change, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, wildfires burning down forests and towns, and the global carbon impact of tourism.
My suggestion is that Lahaina retreat from the water’s edge as it rebuilds. It should give priority to affordable housing and wide beaches.
Personally, I think that every luxury hotel should be required to construct a surrounding village of affordable housing for its workers.
Though not popular with real estate investors, Hawaii should forbid short-term rentals like Airbnb until there is on the islands a surplus of affordable housing.
John Sheridan
Portland, Ore.
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