MIN COUNCIL 2025-10-22 2024-2026

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Hawaii County Council-25 October 22,2025 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 63 with the contents of Amend: Comm. 333.5 was carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder— 1. Excused: None. MR. ONISHL Okay, so you folks have heard testimony especially coming from the west side, their concerns. We have Planning Director Jeff Darrow in the Hilo chambers. And he and I talked about some of the concerns that were brought up. And so, Director, could you help us, and we can go by each, I guess, issue from the Kona CDP Action Committee on their concerns. (Note: At this time, Planning Director Jeffrey Darrow came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. DARROW: Sure. Thank you, Vice Chair Onishi. Jeff Darrow with the Planning Department. So again, this is in reference to Communication 333.6 from the Kona Community Development Plan Action Committee, their comments in regards to Bill 63. Overall, they recognize that the proposal is generally consistent with the community development plan, although they have some concerns regarding certain areas. I'll address those individually. The first concern was that Chapter 25 allows neighborhood parks,playgrounds, and so on and so forth within similar areas, such as commercial districts, multifamily. And they were asking whether or not there was a consideration to add neighborhood parks,playgrounds, etcetera, in the MCX District. We can do that. We're in the process right now of preparing the amendment to the comprehensive Zoning Code. That will come before the Council after the General Plan is adopted and amended. This particular matter, I can bring before our staff that are reviewing the changes and see if that will work. It doesn't seem like it would be out of character, given the majority of commercial land uses within the MCX District, as well as now the addition of the proposed residential uses. The next bullet is saying it should be viewed as an opportunity to increase urban density; therefore, single-family residential should not be included. Our concern with that is that if a particular business has a business owner that would like to live in the business, in the sense of smart growth principles, typically that would be a single-family type use. So we would request that the single-family residential use still be considered as part of this amendment. Page 36