COM 0762.067 2004-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Honorable Stacy K. Higa, Chair and Members of the County Council Hawaii County Council Page 2 June 1, 2006 To improve the potential for public input, Draft 5 requires that the Planning Department publish a semi-monthly list of subdivision applications received. Current law requires no public notice of subdivisions, except for posting of signs. This should increase public awareness of pending subdivisions. There is also an amendment to sec.23-62(e) to make it more explicit that while a tentative approval of a preliminary plat is valid even though certain information may be missing from the application, the subdivision itself has to conform to the substantive requirements of the code. These would be road construction, water supply, drainage, lot sizes, and the like. The amendments say that although the planning director can waive or defer some information, the requirements of drainage, sewage, and water supply must be addressed as conditions of tentative approval. The section regarding road grades and widths, sec. 23-50, is no longer affected by Bill 246 under these amendments, as requested by Councilmember Hoffinann. Some of the testimony complains of problems with planning that have little or nothing to do with subdivisions, but I thought it would be useful to review with the council what has been done with the subdivision process in the past few years. Since December 2000, the Planning Department has: • Ended the practice of using "condominium property regimes" or "CPR's" to subdivide land, with the help of the council in passing Ordinance 02-111. CPR's were misused to create the equivalent of lots that never went through the subdivision process, and which usually violated the zoning code. This was becoming the predominant method of dividing land in the agricultural district, rather than true subdivisions. • Stopped the abuse of questionable lots such as road lots, "plantation camp lots", pole anchor lots, tank site lots, and the like, to be counted as "pre-existing lots" for consolidation and resubdivision, again with the help of the council, in passing Ord. 02-110. • Implemented the public access requirements in Chap. 34 of the Hawaii County Code for the first time and used them to secure more than twelve miles of shoreline public access.