LIHU’E – The first three chapters of a discussion draft of the General Plan
Update will be reviewed today at a Citizens Advisory Committee meeting at 4
p.m. at the Lihue Civic Center.
At a press conference yesterday County
Planning Director Dee Crowell outlined some of the land use issues addressed in
the draft.
The discussion draft, he said, includes a vision of what
planners and citizens think the island may look like in the year 2020,
intertwined with information about where we are now, how we got here, where we
want to go and how we want to get there.
He is quick to point out that the
entire discussion draft doesn’t have the full support of the CAC.
Crowell
said, for example, that visitor projections to the year 2020 are an area of
disagreement for CAC members and the general public as well.
Three major
themes of the discussion draft are recognition of the economy, open space and
rural character of the island, and recreational opportunities for residents and
visitors.
As the visitor industry is the current and (likely) future driver
of the island economy, much emphasis is placed on ensuring that visitor
attractions, roads, transportation facilities, parks, and other things enjoyed
by both visitors and residents are kept in the best shape possible.
The
General Plan that finally emerges and becomes law, Crowell said, will only be a
useful planning tool if it gains widespread community support.
“What’s
important about the General Plan is the vision,” Crowell said.
On some
specific matters, bed-and-breakfast operations are addressed in the plan, with
the department examining ways to make it easier for operators to get permits,
the planning director said.
A bill may need to pass the state Legislature
to relax state Land Use Commission requirements for such operations, though, he
added.
The county, he added, hasn’t required permits for vacation rentals
because they’d be hard to regulate, and that segment of the visitor industry
hasn’t been identified as a problem.
Regarding residential development on
former agricultural lands, Crowell said he feels there is a consensus that the
way former agricultural lands at Kilauea have been and continue to be developed
is not good.
There’s a disparity between what’s required to develop an
agricultural subdivision and what’s needed to develop an urban subdivision, and
the General Plan attempts to address that disparity, he said.
Crowell said
Princeville’s mauka development is included on preliminary land-use maps
because it’s the kind of project that needs to be discussed in the context of
the General Plan. Princeville is looking at a master-planned community concept
including a school site.
Robinson Family Partners, he said, asked the
county to designate as resort property lands from the Russian Fort to
Kaumakani, which lie makai of Kaumualii Highway.
The Planning Department
is recommending, however, that only a 170-acre parcel be changed from
agriculture to resort on the county’s land use maps. The Robinson Family
proposes to develop that land for its Kapalawai Resort.
The family’s
developer, Lewis P. Geyser, president of Destination Villages, Limited
Liability Company, has completed a draft environmental impact statement for a
250-unit resort on 170 acres of land between Waimea and Pakala makai of the
highway, and is expected to apply soon for county permits required to build the
resort.
At yesterday’s press conference, Crowell defended the department’s
inclusion of a controversial Kilauea development proposal on the preliminary
land-use maps.
The Kilauea Neighborhood Association asked the department
not to include developer Jim O’Connor’s Kilauea North plan in the General
Plan.
Crowell said planners don’t like to see requests for establishment of
churches and schools on agricultural parcels because, if approved, such uses
represent “the beginning of another town.”
These kinds of requests have
been frequent in the Kilauea area, he said. A planned development like Kilauea
North would be a natural site for schools and churches, he added.
“We’d
like to see an area where we can point them.”
Planner Keith Nitta said it
is important to include the Kilauea North plan on maps for discussion
purposes.
But Kalihiwai resident Beryl Blaich feels including the project
on the discussion draft map totally ignores the sentiment of the Kilauea
Neighborhood Association.
“Too many people in Kilauea spent so much time on
that survey, knocking door-to-door, and talking to people,” she said.
It
appears, she said, that the Planning Department is in “favor of the whole
thing—lock, stock and barrel.”
Crowell and Nitta reiterated that the
discussion draft is the first of several GPU drafts to be submitted to public
scrutiny before it is signed into law.
The plan is divided into two parts
— the text, which Crowell calls the story, and the land-use maps, which
pinpoint areas designated for future growth, or lack of future growth.
The
General Plan sets some direction in terms of where planners believe urban
growth should occur and where further agricultural uses should be developed,
which open-space corridors should be preserved, and similar items.
Robin
Foster, a planning consultant from PlanPacific in Honolulu hired by the county
to facilitate the General Plan Update process, all said the General Plan
doesn’t vest any development rights. Those rights are conveyed by county zoning
and state Land Use Commission approvals.
The General Plan is primarily a
way to guide potential future zoning decisions, Foster said.
In Hawaii,
three basic levels of approval are needed in order for a land owner to develop
his or her property, Crowell said: the state Land Use Commission, General Plan
and county zoning.
Just because a land owner has a preferable General Plan
land-use designation doesn’t mean the bulldozers are ready to roll, he
said.
So even if the Robinson and O’Connor proposals are included in the
final version of the General Plan, developers will still need to get LUC,
Planning Commission and County Council approval of their specific development
proposals before being able to move forward, Crowell said.
A round of
community meetings regarding the discussion draft will begin next week.
