Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz Is Trying to Restore the Heartland of Oahu
For many Hawaii residents, the rural town of Wahiawa in central Oahu is just a place you drive through when traveling to the beaches on the North Shore or commuting to urban Honolulu.
Fast food restaurants line the small stretch of Kamehameha Highway that snakes through the town. Cars heading north are greeted by signs advertising a pawnshop and several chain stores.
Time has changed Wahiawa. It was long surrounded by Hawaii’s prosperous pineapple plantations, which were one of the state鈥檚 main economic motors for most of the 20th century.
Decades later, the town鈥檚 farming character has faded. Fields lay fallow, unused farm equipment gathers rust and the elements are chipping away at old barn roofs. Wahiawa residents say crime has gotten worse and young adults are leaving town in search of opportunity.
But Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz is hoping to change all that.
If You Build It…
The 40-year-old Dela Cruz has only been in the Senate since 2011. But he鈥檚 introduced a slew of bills this year aimed at restoring the area by improving food production around his hometown, and they鈥檙e gaining traction.
When the lawmaker talks about the need for jobs in the area, he speaks with urgency.
鈥淲hen I was a kid, the place was booming,鈥 he said, describing the fields that are languishing.
The town was once at the center of the state’s pineapple industry. Wahiawa is where James Dole in 1901.
But the in neighboring Waialua closed in 1996. Today, Dole Plantation is more of a tourist stop than any sort of major economic force. That demise reflects the statewide reality that Hawaii’s agricultural economy is .
In Wahiawa, residents tend to earn less and are more likely to live below the poverty line than the average person in the state. Dela Cruz compares what happened in the town with the impact of the decline of the coal and auto industries on cities that relied on them.
It wasn鈥檛 just the jobs that were lost, Dela Cruz said, it was the sense of community.
He introduced six bills this session to help catalyze the area’s farm economy and help transform Wahiawa into an agricultural business hub.
The measure that has garnered the most attention is , which would allow the state to trade land slated for development in Kapolei in exchange for land owned by the Dole Food Co.
Much of that land is designated for conservation but Dela Cruz wants to hand over 6,000 acres of farmland to the , the development arm of the state Department of Agriculture, so that the agency can offer long-term leases to Hawaii farmers and spur local food production.
The state imports around 90 percent of its food and has pledged to improve food security.
Other measures, like , aim to promote farming by designating a foreign trade zone in the area to help farmers lower their overhead costs. Sen. Dela Cruz is also pushing , which would create a new program in conjunction with the university to help train new farmers and , which would establish an agricultural technology park.
The senator is also advocating for non-agricultural measures to help improve the town’s economy. aims to make Wahiawa a center for geriatric research and would create an agency to facilitate public-private partnerships, starting with a single pilot project in Wahiawa.
Gill Mara, a real estate agent who was born and raised in Wahiawa, said he supports Dela Cruz鈥檚 vision because he wants the area to reclaim its sense of 鈥減restige.鈥
鈥淎 lot of people in town (Honolulu) don鈥檛 even know where Wahiawa is,鈥 he said.
Others are excited about the possibility of generating jobs so that residents don鈥檛 have to drive an hour to the big city for work. Alex Kanamu, a businessman in Wahiawa, worries that once his four children grow up, they鈥檒l leave for good.
Even if he does well financially, Kanamu said, 鈥淭o me, it鈥檚 not success if I don鈥檛 have my kids.”
Too Ambitious?
Lawmakers have been talking for decades about the need to preserve agricultural land on Oahu. But with Hawaii鈥檚 growing population and housing shortage, it has become more profitable to use land to build houses than to grow food.
Sen. Clayton Hee, who represents part of central and north Oahu, has been a strong advocate for protecting Hawaii鈥檚 farmland. He is even a plaintiff in a lawsuit to prevent Koa Ridge in central Oahu from being turned into a master planned community.
Hee said he鈥檚 not familiar with all of Dela Cruz鈥檚 measures, but supports any efforts to preserve agricultural land in central Oahu.
But even though Hee co-signed the land-exchange bill, he鈥檚 not sure how the Agriculture Development Corp. will manage the land. “The main concern is they don’t have a track record to speak of,鈥 Hee said. 鈥淲hether or not they are able to hit the ground running is yet to be seen.”
The agency was established in 1994, but only owns about 1,200 acres of land on Oahu, most of which it purchased from Galbraith Estate as recently as December 2012.
There鈥檚 also a political question.
Dela Cruz has only been in the Senate for a few years but some of his initiatives are viewed with suspicion because he sponsored the legislation that created the Public Land Development Corporation in 2011.
The PLDC was a state agency charged with developing state land through public-private partnerships. Dela Cruz’s bill allowed the agency to override some county and environmental land use regulations.
The public backlash against the agency was so strong that the acronym 鈥淧LDC鈥 became a rallying cry in the state Capitol for Hawaii residents frustrated with the increasing urbanization of the islands and the lack of transparency in the political process.
Lawmakers abolished the PLDC last year in response to public opposition.
“I’m not going to hide and not take risks because I’m afraid,” Dela Cruz said.聽“If everyone is going to be afraid of introducing bills at the Legislature because of the PLDC we’re never going to have any ideas.”
Still, as a result of the PLDC fiasco, Dela Cruz may have to earn back some public trust to get his bills passed.
While the state land swap has the support of the majority of the Senate, it could have a harder time in the House, especially given intense public scrutiny of bills that promote large-scale agriculture that might involve pesticide use and genetically engineered crops.
Practical and political concerns aside, even if Dela Cruz’s vision does succeed, there鈥檚 the question of what new farming jobs might mean for the people of Wahiawa.
Randy Kamisato, a music teacher at Leleihua High School who was born and raised in Wahiawa, said that he鈥檚 not convinced his students will graduate from high school to the farm.
鈥淭hey say, 鈥楬ell no I’m not going to work at McDonalds,鈥欌 he said. 鈥淪o what makes you think that they would do physical labor?鈥
But, he added, more jobs in any industry would definitely help the community.
