I received some documentation on the Marpi homestead project from a friend. Please e-mail me at edpropst@gmail.com if you would like it forwarded to you.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Marpi Homestead Project info
I received some documentation on the Marpi homestead project from a friend. Please e-mail me at edpropst@gmail.com if you would like it forwarded to you.
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16 comments:
Looks like the elbow-shaped road through the middle of the homestead area is the road up the hill to Suicide Cliff (uphill being to the north), meaning that the homestead area would be on both sides of the Suicide Cliff road, from about the intersection with "Matansa Drive" (the road along the back of the MCC golf course) upwards. Is that right?
It appears that way judging from the map.
At least the new Marpi Homestead already will have a sidewalk on the main road leading to it and through it, as well as some landscaping. Maybe the subdivision can be named “Flametree Heights” in Chamorro.
Or “Fitial's Folly” in Refaluwasch.
You'd lose the alliteration in translation.
It already has a name, the Marpi Point Village Homestead.
The haoles have Mt. Tapotchao and Wireless Ridge. It's about time the locals got some prime mountain-top view lot property!
Homesteads are understandable, but not in Marpi. Sorry, but this sucks.
Ed, what homesteads have you been looking at lately? Studio tin shack homes?
In fact, most of the average sized one to two bedroom homes you see in Kagman were built on homestead lands. They're not eyesores and not everyone can afford french windows and a healthy green lawn.
"They're not eyesores and not everyone can afford french windows and a healthy green lawn."
Who is talking about french windows and green lawns? It would not matter if they all did, or if all of the homes were fancy. The complaint is on any development in the heart of Marpi, something that will change the look and feel of a very natural and pristine habitat that should be protected at all costs.
As a friend of mine wrote in an e-mail to me, perhaps they can learn a thing or two about Easter Island.
First, I firmly believe the residents of Saipan are the only ones who should decide the proper use of their own land. I felt the need to comment after reading the letter from Jesse Torres about the use of the land in Marpi, but I offer these comments only as the views of a visitor of recent years.
When I think of Saipan (and that is often) Marpi is an important part of that image. The quiet, unspoiled view from the cliffs, the surf pounding the rocky coast, and Bird Island are among the most vivid images of Saipan that come to mind. I'm sure many others who have visited Saipan feel the same.
When I read about a new hotel going up in the Marpi area, I wonder why it is needed when the visitor numbers and hotel occupancy have declined and so many hotel rooms sit empty. Is there land available for homesteads in other areas that are already under development? Please carefully consider the best long-term use of the beautiful Marpi area for the people of Saipan, not just a quick solution in difficult times. This area is unique in the Marianas-Guam, Tinian, and Rota don't have anything quite like it. Keep it like it is for future generations.
Gary Boothe
Brandon, South Dakota
How exactly do the haoles "have" Mt. Tapochau and Wireless ridge? Aren't all those haole homes built on land leased from locals? And there are local homes up there too, just not such ostentatious ones. (The ostentatious local homes are elsewhere.)
Anyway, those opposed to this particular homestead project are going to have to distinguish very carefully in their rhetoric between concern for preserving the integrity of environmental, scenic and historic sites (which is a position with considerable public appeal) and arrogant haole disdain for homesteads and all those who occupy them (which is not).
I would expect, for example, that sympathy for the anti-Marpi-homestead position diminishes with each use of the term "tin shack."
Hear, hear!
Southern Guam is beautifully scenic and largely undisturbed. It would be would be wonderful if northern Saipan could remain the same.
Cactus, I agree with you that is rather arrogant when people believe homesteads are nothing but a bunch of tin shacks. There are tin shacks, as well as wooden shacks, all over Saipan. There are also beautiful homes spread throughout our island as well.
It does not matter if we had more mansions than tin shacks, or all mansions built in Marpi. Those who I have spoken to want no development in Marpi, whether it is a homestead or another golf course or a shopping mall.
Leave Marpi alone. That is the general consensus of our community, regardless of whether they are Chamorro, Carolinian, Chuukese, Pohnpeian, Palauan, Yapese, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Samoan, "haole" or hapa.
We have talked extensively about conservation of our waters. What about our very limited land here in the Marianas? Is it a good goal to want to develop every square inch of the Marianas, or would it be best to leave some of the land as a preservation, untouched and unscathed, for generations to appreciate and admire.
Leave Marpi alone. It's that simple.
Homesteads ARE largely about tin shacks and abandoned building projects. A lot of Kagman homestead dwellings ARE eyesores. A quick drive through Kagman shows many abandoned plots, some directly across from the LauLau resort. They've got nothing to do with arrogant Haoles and everything to do with mismanagement of the homestead program.
Does anyone know how many homestead applicants there are or what the default rate for homesteaders is?
What about power, water and sewage services for this new homestead?
Wouldn't it be better for the NMI to reclaim abandoned, in default, and derelict homestead properties to reissue them to locals needing housing that will improve the homestead property while complying to the terms required?
Our homestead areas are disgusting and the persons most aware of that are local families that mortgaged to build a nice house, maintained the property well, and then watched the home values plummet because their neighbors scammed the money and either left it vacant or tried to call a tin shack an improvement.
If we build another homestead area, it will be another disgrace. It would be some planning to destroy Pau Pau Beach and Marpi in the same year.
Maybe it is retaliation by this administration for federalization and the Monument!!
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Homesteads are great, but not in Marpi. Use up public lands in other parts of Saipan first. (Abandoned houses in Capitol Hill, abandoned houses in Lower Miha in Garapan, Abandoned homesteads in Kagman, public land in the south, east, and west of Saipan)
There is only one Marpi in this world and we must preserve it before it's gone. Once it's gone, it's gone baby gone.
I know homesteads are created under Article XI, but the reason for so many tin shacks lies firmly in Article XII.
Banks don't want to lend when, if they foreclose, they have a ten-year limit to dispose of the property. So they don't lend.
Where else in the United States does a property owner have to finance new construction essentially out of one's own resources?
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