Do we in this generation really have the right to pave over so much of Oahu? What makes us important enough to so irreparably alter paradise? Shouldn't those yet to come have some decisions?

In the mid-'70s, when we decided to place the second city on the Ewa plain, people thought it would take two or three centuries to fill it with houses. Just 40 years later, there is only one parcel—the planned Ho'opili project—that is not already zoned and scheduled for housing construction in the next 20 years.

Decades ago, we drew an Urban Growth Boundary to limit the “;sprawl”; in Leeward and Central Oahu. We have now reached those boundaries. Ho'opili in Leeward and Koa Ridge in Central are the only lands left that have no rights to development. Both are being farmed. Both have our highest quality soils and good water. Both may very well be necessary in the future for our survival or that of our descendants.

AND both have been before the Land Use Commission this year with petitions to rezone them from agriculture to urban.

Before we take those last two pieces, we need to ask if that is fair. Is it pono? Once land is covered with housing, it can never be reclaimed. When it's gone, it's gone.

Beyond that, these are the farmlands with the clean water. The farms where crops that touch the ground can be grown—all of the fresh vegetables and melons we have had in recent years. What are we doing to ourselves?

There are 33,000 homes already zoned and waiting to be built in Leeward, and another 14,000 in Central. That can keep us busy for years. It's time now to shift focus to the next phase, which is to go back and in-fill, and to revitalize older areas. Development won't stop just because we stop sprawling. Construction jobs won't disappear. We will just work elsewhere.

Gov. Linda Lingle, in her 2007 State of the Union address, said “;the time has come to move beyond a land-development based economy.”;

An overwhelming majority of our island people share this view. Three recent polls have shown that 78 percent, 87 percent and 87 percent of us want to preserve the farmlands, and save the beauty and open space of this island. These numbers are also consistent with our experience in door-to-door petitioning.

There is a terribly important bill before the Legislature that will tip the balance in favor of saving our farmlands, keeping available the fresh local produce we now eat, and giving us the food security we will need should calamity cut us off from the rest of the world.

The bill is House Bill 2290. Sections 3 and 4 of the bill advise the Land Use Commission of the Legislature's will to preserve currently cultivated, prime agricultural lands on Oahu. And it requires that redistricting these important lands from “;agriculture”; to “;urban”; requires a two-thirds vote of the commission.

HB2290 has sailed through the Senate. The next step is a conference committee. Developers will be exerting great pressure to defeat it. A strong show of citizen support could move it ahead. Please write a short note supporting HB2290 and asking conferees to especially support Sections 3 and 4.

Kioni Dudley, a retired professor and high school teacher, is president of the Friends of Makakilo.