COM 0471.005 2008-2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The Honorable J Yoshimoto, Chairman and Members of the County Council Page 2 Rezoning decisions should be made on their merits, guided by the General Plan and Community Development Plans. If a site is a not appropriate for the development proposed by the rezoning, it should be denied. The denial can be based on many different reasons, including traffic congestion, flooding, historic sites, inconsistency with the LUP AG map, the desire to avoid sprawl or protect open space, and any of the other factors that constitute 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 in Hilo, the distance from fire stations would be a legitimate reason to deny rezoning, even though the South Hilo district might have enough firefighters. But this can be addressed when the,rezoning is considered, rather than apply an inflexible district-wide rule. The number of fire personnel authorized in any area is completely under the control of the County government. If the County wants a policy of a certain number of firefighters per station, it is entirely up to the County to appropriate the necessary funding. Thus, a private landowner seeking rezoning has no power to force the County to hire more firefighters, and it is not fair to penalize the landowner if the County has not hired enough to meet its own standards. This bill would be unfair to smaller landowners who may not have the financial means to provide the required infrastructure as a condition of rezoning approval. It would also 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 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 lack of developed parks is not caused by rezonings in the last decade or so. During this period, most large rezonings have required substantial park improvements, such as Parker 2020 or Palamanui. While there are many smaller rezonings, these cumulatively do not add as many units as the large rezonings, and for the last fifteen years, have had "fair share" assessments that at least require them to contribute toward the capital costs of new parks. The major shortages of parks on the island occur in the subdivisions created in the period of rampant subdividing, from the late 1950's to the early 1970's, and in areas that were primarily zoned before 1990, like Waikoloa Village and Kailua-Kona. There is no question that these areas are short of parks, especially ball fields, gyms, swimming pools, and other developed facilities. A rezoning ban would do nothing to increase the number of park facilities, or limit the number of park users. Puna has perhaps the greatest shortage per capita of any district, but rezoning is almost irrelevant to the overall growth of Puna because almost all development occurs in approved subdivisions. The handling of park requirements could be standardized and reviewed. The best vehicle to accomplish that is the County's Park Dedication Ordinance, Chapter 8 of the