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much discretion that's left up to the County Council, to the Planning Commission, to work
<br /> through these on a case-by-case basis to figure out what is appropriate for this project, for this
<br /> area, for this community. And I think there are many, many opportunities, many, many projects
<br /> where it would not be appropriate to have a blanket administrative time extension by the Planning
<br /> Department, but I believe that there are instances where it would be beneficial to a small project,
<br /> to a small community, that we don't want to add the additional burden of going back to Planning
<br /> Commission,to Planning Committee, to first reading of Planning- first reading of County Council,
<br /> second reading of County Council, of adding that additional months, the additional time, the
<br /> thousands and thousands of dollars of planning consultant to go through that. Adding time and
<br /> money to the process adds to the expense of living in Hawaii that trickles down to the home
<br /> buyer. That makes property more expensive. So, you know, in the event of a project like an
<br /> affordable housing community that is being sued by the neighbor, perhaps in a rich luxury
<br /> subdivision,that don't want their property values to go down, and they have a delay because of
<br /> that lawsuit, that affordable housing community then has to come back to go through that full
<br /> process. It just adds time, it adds money, it makes it less affordable. Now, in other situations it's
<br /> very applicable, and I think rather than extending those timelines saying,yeah,the process is
<br /> difficult but they could have additional time to complete it, I think we want tighter timelines and
<br /> more information on how every step of the process will be met, and if they can't meet that in order
<br /> to do a kind of development project, then they don't belong here. And so I would advocate for
<br /> preserving the Council's discretion in deciding which project you think is a good project that you
<br /> want to give the best opportunity to complete,that has the best community benefit, that you can
<br /> say, yeah, we want this to move forward and we are willing to give administrative time extension
<br /> to save you time and money so that you can complete this community-benefit project. And in
<br /> other examples you look at it and say, you know, you are just trying to make money off of our
<br /> community and there may be some benefit for it, so we want you to proceed on an extremely tight
<br /> timeline, and if you can't do it, then you can't do it, and it's done, and you start from square one if
<br /> you can't do it. So personally, I feel like the language as exists reflects the current process where
<br /> the Council has that authority, and I think that we can all do a better job of making sure that
<br /> projects are held to a higher standard, and projects that deserve an administrative time extension
<br /> get it, projects that don't don't. And that comes from all of our review of these on a case-by-case
<br /> basis. So, to me, preserving that discretion is important. And I agree with the language as written,
<br /> but I don't agree with the recommended changes where there is no opportunity for an
<br /> administrative time extension under any circumstances.
<br /> DEFRANCO: Is this for our discussion time?
<br /> VITOUSEK: This is discussion, yeah.
<br /> DEFRANCO: Yeah, so I agree with you, Mike, I do. I think that, you know, we, well-crafted,
<br /> good that we are having this discussion, good that we are bringing it all up, and that's why,you
<br /> know, we've been drilled on the sunset clauses in looking at how they can take advantage, you
<br /> know, nobody wants that. We have to be very careful of that and very diligent of that. And that's
<br /> why we have all of these different processes to look at and to review it and to talk about it
<br /> individually because each of them are different, so.
<br /> VITOUSEK: Mahalo.
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<br /> EXHIBIT G (DRAFT)
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