The Fight Over Hawaii’s ‘Important Agricultural Lands’…Many Oahu property owners are angry and worried their lives could be suddenly upended by a major land use proposal that has been in the works for decades.
When Honolulu city officials met with the public on April 8, 2015, to discuss a legal change that would affect some 1,800 land owners and 12% of Oahu’s land, the event at the Mililani Mauka Middle School Cafeteria was a big deal: not merely public relations outreach, but required by the law the city was helping implement.
More that 40 years in the making, Hawaii’s Important Agricultural Lands law is designed to preserve productive agriculture land and provide incentives for land owners to help expand Hawaii’s agriculture economy and increase agricultural self-sufficiency.
But, despite an effort for Oahu land that’s been in the works for years, many property owners are angry, saying they’ve been caught by surprise and that the city has blundered.
