COM 0526.004 2010-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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19 January, 2012 Statement by Daniel Taylor, resident of Volcano RE: Application for change of zone from RS -10 to CV -10 (Souza, Mtn View) To the County Council Planning Committee: I regret this application for a change of zone designation from Residential to Commercial is being made without the benefit of a Village Center Long Range Plan for Mountain View. Absent a community- driven long range village center plan, Council and other planning entities do not know the vision residents of Mountain View might have for their community, and you must rely only on the generalized and preliminary zone designations made by State, County, and non- resident entities. The Puna Community Development Plan presents a preliminary village center plan (PCDP, Fig 5- 5,) which indicates a residential zone classification for the property under consideration. Indeed, most of Mountain View village is zoned for residential use, and a very small area is zoned for commercial use. Clearly, more commercial zoning would be desirable for Mountain View. It would be desirable to know where residents of Mountain View village want any more commercial zoned land, and what kind of commercial activities they consider to be appropriate. The auto repair shop proposed for this zone change application might appear to be in an area that is suitable for commercial use. However, the nearest access to the Volcano Highway is the junction with Nichols Road, but this junction does not have suitable visibility in either direction and surely would constitute a hazard to traffic turning into or out of this road. Access via the mauka end of Nichols Rd, via N Pszyk Rd, would require traffic to use a narrow, thinly paved lane where the several residences there tie quite close to the roadway. They, and particularly the property next -door to the applicant's proposed auto shop, would be negatively impacted. Residents of the Mountain View community are negligent for not providing County Council with guidance in the matter of this zone change application. They have been slow to organize around the issue of long range community planning. The penalty for this is their being subject to zone change approvals that they may later regret. Surely the applicant cannot be required to wait for the community to prepare a plan, nor can the applicant be expected to provoke a planning effort, as urgent as it is. My appeal to County Council is to be sensitive to a need for comprehensive land use zonation for small, undeveloped, rural areas like Mountain View and to anticipate that eventually the members of the community will provide you with a clearer vision of what they want for their village. If this change of zone application is approved, I surely hope you will impose mitigating features that would protect the applicant's neighbors, and would not deliver yet another element of visual blight along this cluttered segment of the Volcano highway corridor. Comm. No. 526. V Ref. To, Ref. Date JAN 1 9 ZOi2