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Pete Hoffmann, Chairman and Members of the County Council Page 2 doubled the developed park space in the district. At the same time, this rezoning ban would do nothing to increase the number of parks or police officers. It would penalize property owners by forbidding them from getting zoning changes when they cannot themselves remedy the situation with respect to parks, police, or fire ~ stations. It would, in fact, ban rezoning on the grounds that insufficient developed park space existed in the district, even though the zoning request might include i public park lands that would reduce the problem. Rezoning decisions should be made on their merits, guided by the General Plan and Community Development Plans. If a site is a not a good one for the development proposed by the rezoning, it should be denied. The denial can be based on many different reasons, like traffic congestion, flooding, historic sites, inconsistency with the LUPAG map, the desire to avoid sprawl or protect open space, and any of the other factors that go into good land use planning. The lack of public facilities to serve a development may be a legitimate reason for denying a rezoning. For example, if a large residential rezoning was proposed on Saddle Road, say fifteen miles above Hilo, the distance from police and fire stations would be a legitimate reason [o deny rezoning, even though the South Hilo district as a whole might have enough police officers and firefighters. But this can be addressed when the rezoning is considered, rather than apply an inflexible district- wide rule. The number of police and fire personnel authorized in any area is completely under the control of the County government. If the County wants a policy of "x" number of police officers per 1,000 population, or "x" number of firefighters per station, it is entirely up to the County to appropriate the necessary funding. A private landowner seeking rezoning has no power to get the County to hire more police officers or firefighters, and it is not fair to penalize the landowner if the County has not hired enough to meet its own standards. it is rare that a rezoning generates enough homes to create a demand for even one police officer. Using the 3 per 1,000 persons standard, and assuming that a home has 2.8 occupants on average (which is the County average), it would take about 120 new homes to create a demand for one more police officer. Only about ten (10) rezonings on the island in the past eight (8) years have potentially added l20 or more residential units. It would violate the State impact fee law for the County to require, as a condition of rezoning, that a landowner pay for the salaries or other operating expenses of police, fire, or other County personnel. The impact fee law allows only the assessment of fees for capital improvements. The concept is that the other taxes paid by the development, primarily property taxes, pays for the operating costs of County services, like other property owners. The wastewater provisions of the proposed bill, by essentially outlawing new zoning unless it was connected to a sewer treatment plant, would make it much more difficult and expensive to rezone new residential areas, particularly