Keep Tsunami-Stricken Isatomae Community Alive

The Isatomae Fukko Shopping Arcade (IFSA) is working very hard to organize attractions to bring visitors there. They seem to be succeeding in attracting a large number of people to events, especially during the summer. Some of scheduled events are “Japanese Ice Fish
Festival,” “Azalea Festival,” and “International Friendship Festival” in May, “Righteye Flounder Fishing Festival” and “Night Shops” in June, “Work Experience Opportunities for Junior High Students,” “Mini-soccer Day,” “Live Band Play,” “Decorated Cars,” and “Utatsu Summer Festival” in June, “Everybody’s Festival,” “Tour de Tohoku 2015” in September, “Mishima Shrine Festival,” “Kesema Oshima Shrine Festival” in October, “Abalone Festival” in December, “Senior High Futsal Festival” in January 2016 and “Junior High Futsal Festival” in February, and “Spring Wakame Festival” in March. People in IFSA are working extremely hard to bring people from outside to keep their business going.     

Governmental regulations related to an emergency situation in a disaster-stricken area were temporarily suspended to facilitate quick recovery and redevelopment. But now, before redevelopment is completed, the government started stopping the suspension and tightening up regulations. This change clearly started influencing the moving schedule of the IFSA. It was supposed to move to a temporary place in August 2015. Although an elevated land for a temporary location was completed, due to governmental document clearance, IFSA still needs to wait for a few months until November 2015. People in IFSA even found that electric poles moved from an old road to a new one even require governmental document clearance, possibly further delaying the schedule of move. Now, the Prefectural Government is requesting the Central Government to allow some exceptions to the regulations, especially when changes are only for a temporary location used until December 2016. Although IFSA people are used to this type of delay, they are disappointed because they just cannot follow their own plan.  

This type of delay is making people impatient even for their houses. A mountain was flattened for public housing areas, and the Minami-sanriku-town Government asked who would like to move in. Previously fifty houses were planned, but now the number was reduced to 45. One piece of land for a house is about 330 m², costing about 3.52 million yen, which is rather inexpensive. But a new house has to be built with only 2 million yen subsidy and the rest self-financed. Besides, due to a huge demand for construction, the cost of house building is rising extremely high. Now, construction companies from the Tokyo area are taking a significant portion of orders with a fairly high price. Local carpenters can construct much more inexpensively, though they can construct only up to five houses per year, requiring a new customer to wait for four or five years before a house is completed. Most of local money is now sucked up by Tokyo construction companies. Some present shop owners at IFSA are planning to operate their business from their houses. But unfortunately, in December 2016 they may not have their houses ready for both living and conducting their businesses. Some people without sufficient saving or with remaining debt, just cannot plan to move forward in their lives.

In the previous report, I reported that the 7-11 Convenience Store will take over a half of the space in the Final Shopping place. Because of their ATM operation, a local bank and even a post office are hesitating to move into the Final Sopping place. Again a monopolistic situation of a Tokyo company is reducing options previously very familiar to local people. Post-disaster struggles and frustration still continue without the end of tunnel in sight.  

Links:

• Isatomae Fukko Shopping Arcade Homepage