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Iionorabie Leningrad Elarionoff; Chair and Members of the Committee ou Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 5 June 14, 2004 Despite a major effort in the past year, spearheaded by an Agricultural Working Group of about 50 active participants, including all county planning directors, the IAL bill died in conference committee this past session. We should not continue to wait for state action. The state land use law, H.R.S. Chap. 205, and the zoning enabling law, Chap. 46, clearly give the county the power to enact programs to protect agricultural land through the General Plan and zoning. County action will not replace the constitutional mandate on the State, and any county lands identified for protection will not have to meet the 2/3 standard for rezoning established by the state constitution for important agricultural lands, but the County should be diligent in trying to protect good ag land. Unfortunately, some passages in Draft 2 suggest that the County should not take any action until the state has acted, such as "When identified by the State, protect and encourage the utilization of the County's important agricultural lands." (p.42). It is not essential that the term "Important Agricultural Land" be used, as long as the _ ~ policies exist that protect these lands, whatever they are called. Some of the areas mapped as important in Draft 1 are open to question, and I am willing to work on better mapping. in particrdar, the category of "fair for 2 or more crops, on an irrigated basis", can be re- examined. Significance of the LUPAG Maps and Role of the General Plan Under the current General Plan, any rezoning must be consistent with the LUPAG maps. If not, the rezoning is inconsistent with the General Plan and must be rejected. Sec. 3- 15(b) of the County Charter provides that "no public improvement, project, subdivision, or zoning ordinances, shall be initiated or adopted unless the same conforms to and implements the General Plan." The requirement for map conformance explains why, For example, projects such as Prince Kuhio Plaza or the "Hawaiian Riviera" needed to obtain a General Plan map amendment before they could even be considered for rezoning. Without the requirement of map consistency, the General Plan is not a guide to rezoning. The verbal policy statements in the General Plan are so broad that some can always be found that will justify a particular rezoning action. Although it has been the practice for many years to require map cousistency, to remove all doubt from this point, Draft 1 contained an explicit statement on this, on p. 340, along with some Curther guidance on the relationship between the General Plan and rezoning.