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Stop the Hawaii 2045 General Plan: Protect Our Liberty!

  • Writer: Abbra Green
    Abbra Green
  • Jul 9
  • 4 min read

Updated: Jul 15

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The Hawaii County 2045 General Plan, finalized in July 2024, is a 25-year exhaustive framework dictating land use, housing, transportation, and environmental policies across the island. To put it bluntly, a direct assault on individual liberty, property rights, and free markets, with both global agendas and conflicts of interest among its creators. Similar initiatives are unfolding across the state of Hawaii, threatening local sovereignty statewide. We urge you to oppose this overreach before it transforms Hawaii. 



Why Oppose the Plan?


Spanning over 300 pages, the plan’s zoning laws and urban growth boundaries limit property development, with mandates like “Natural Beauty Sites” preservation. It centralizes power into a few unelected planners, ignoring local autonomy and personal initiative.


  • Policies protecting cultural and environmental areas restrict landowners’ rights to develop or sell, reducing property values without consent.


  • Government-led housing (“missing middle” units) sidelines private innovation, relying on public funds and regulations that crowd out market competition.


  • Capital improvements and impact fees (p. 220, 251) will enforce tax raises without consent.


  • Extensive code amendments (Housing for All, p. 249-255) for housing and business create major compliance burdens, regulating entrepreneurship and innovation.


Ties to UN Agenda 2030

The Hawaii 2045 General Plan is deeply entangled with the United Nations’ Agenda 2030, a global framework of 17 goals for sustainable development. These goals may sound benevolent, but they carry a heavy cost for local sovereignty. 


The plan’s push for zero carbon emissions by 2045, aggressive renewable energy mandates, and government-controlled housing projects mirrors UN goals for clean energy, climate action, and sustainable cities. Rooted in Hawaii’s 2050 Sustainability Plan and shaped by the state Planning Department’s engagement at a 2023 UN Association meeting, this alignment raises red flags about external influence over Hawaii’s future. These measures hand control to distant global entities, eroding the ability of local communities to chart their own path.


The plan’s environmental and social mandates impose restrictive regulations that threaten property rights and personal freedoms. Policies prioritizing “sustainable” development often limit a landowner’s ability to use their property as they deem fit, devaluing it without compensation. This globalist blueprint serves the interests of powerful elites, not Hawaii’s people. The hypocrisy of its loudest advocates (often linked to high-carbon lifestyles and conflicts of interest) only fuels distrust. This isn’t about saving the planet; it’s about control, and Hawaiians are right to question who truly benefits.

Conflicting Interests

The Jean K. Campbell Trust and Jeffrey S. Clapp Trust are linked to Zendo Kern, the previous Planning Director for Hawaii County, through a land project on the Big Island. Kern, who used to help the trusts as a consultant, later approved a plan for the same land after becoming director in late 2020, causing worries about fairness shortly after his appointment by Mitch Roth. The Hawaii 2045 General Plan, a 25-year guide for growth, could help the trusts change their land from farming to city use.


Kern’s actions unfairly favored big landowners. The trusts could make money by raising land value and selling it, or building homes and businesses. They might have wanted to use their investment in Kern to give insiders an edge, while appearing to support the community through the plan’s green goals.


Similar Initiatives Across Hawaii

The Hawaii 2045 General Plan isn’t an isolated scheme; it’s part of a coordinated push across the state, with individual counties rolling out their own versions of similar restrictive, top-down plans. These efforts, also cloaked in the language of sustainability and resilience, align closely with state mandates and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. And the cost is steep with the expense of local control, cultural heritage, and individual freedoms. Each island’s plan shares a troubling pattern of centralized power, erosion of property rights, and a one-size-fits-all vision that drowns out the unique voices and industries of Hawaii’s communities.


Maui’s General Plan 2030 and post-2023 wildfire recovery plans promise affordable housing and climate resilience but prioritize tourism-driven development, sidelining residents’ needs. Locals are pushing back, frustrated by policies that seem to favor corporate interests over community rebuilding. 


In Honolulu, the 2021 Oʻahu General Plan and 2025-2028 Housing Plan drive urban density and transit-oriented development, threatening to displace Native Hawaiian families and small businesses. 


Kauai’s 2018 Kauaʻi Kākou claims to aim for rural preservation (similar to Hawaii's General Plan), but faces fierce opposition for imposing rigid zoning laws and land-use restrictions that limit agricultural innovation and small-scale development. The plan's heavy-handed regulations threaten Native Hawaiian land stewardship practices and block affordable housing solutions by forcing bureaucratic control over community-driven initiatives.


Like Hawaii County’s plan, these initiatives are not well-received by residents, who see through the misleading rhetoric. The lack of transparency is glaring—public input is often sidelined. The true scope of these generation-altering plans is buried in dense documents and vague promises. This is a statewide assault on the Hawaiian way of life, orchestrated in lockstep to reshape our islands into a homogenized, globally compliant vision that serves elites, not locals.


Act Now to Stop It!

General plans across Hawaii’s counties threaten liberty, property rights, and free markets with restrictive zoning, tax hikes, and globalist ties. Here’s how you can fight back before it’s too late for the Big Island:



Act now to protect the Big Island’s sovereignty and freedom!

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