COM 0400.168 2002-2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Honorable Chair and members of the Council September 13, 2004 Page 2 3. Let us not forget that this project will double its required share of affordable housing. It will not be 10% but 20%. It will not be payment of fees. It will be homes, homes on-site, not off-site. 4. Let us not forget that this project will create a community, a village. In the current issue of the Hawaii Island Journal, the editor wrote that "We need to build communities on this island that provide jobs for their citizens and that obviate the need for people to drive hours to their work, a need that clogs our highways and feeds the misconception that we need to build more roads. We don't need more roads, we need creative solutions." I can't agree more; and in my opinion, this project would help fulfill those objectives. This project would be a community, complete with a full complement of mixed uses: retail, office, business/family hotel, market and affordable homes, and parks, including the coastal park located about a mile from the project site. It would NOT be a Heavy Industrial Park OR a community characterized by lavish single-and multiple-family residences and a golf course for the wealthy. 5. Let us not forget that this project will service the retail and office needs of the existing and planned residential population north of Kailua and South Kohala, as well as employment generators like the adjoining NELHA, the resorts in South Kohala, and the future West Hawaii campus of the University of Hawaii. In so doing, it would minimize the need for residents living in areas like Waikoloa or Kona Palisades to drive into Kailua and contribute to the traffic along the Highway. 6. Let us not forget that this project will help redirect growth to the northern quadrant of North Kona and in so doing, minimize the pressure to urbanize our better agricultural lands south of Palani Road and in South Kona. Redirecting residential growth is aided by supportive commercial uses, like this project.