2005-01-21 TSUFFOLKOPUAA - Laserfiche WebLink

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all the way through Kona Vistas, and to Pualani Estates. And the Lako Street intersection, I understand they said that the, the engineer told me yesterday that they have finished the road design, and they have awarded the contract to Isemoto, and theyre concluding some final reports. And we hope that within a year were going to be looking at two accesses coming off of Hualalai Road, which then means everyone living up in Holualoa and central area and Hualalai Road can come right down across the lighted intersection to a Neighborhood Commercial area; and we feel like this mitigates the traffic congestion and problems. Because if you look at what happens right now people will have to go from Holualoa all the way down Mamalahoa Highway to Pualani Road, and all the way down Pualani to Crossroads and Lanihau. Were trying to do something thats going to benefit our community where were going to lessen some of the traffic. The rental housing project, very important to our community. Single-family homes are, someone was saying earlier that theyre up over, like theres like a hundred under 500,000.Idontthinktheresmorethan12or15homesonthemarketnowforunder 500,000. It has gotten to be a critical issue here. Working with the Planning Director, our project, were looking at maybe a Neighborhood Commercial and a hundred multi- family units; and we will abide by the, whatever the County Council comes up. Whether its 20 percent or 30 percent affordable housing, well build it within that community. Weve gotten the assurance from Suffolk Development. They also, whether its 20 percent or 30 percent, they will create the rental housing on those guidelines. So we feel like if you have a neighborhood shopping center and some of the people down south can move into town and have a grocery store right there, if the husband has a car and the wife doesnt, she can walk to grocery store. And we need to do more things like that to help mitigate traffic. If we dont, its just going to get worse. And even our project as we propose it, if you folks approve it and it goes before the County Council and we get it approved, for us to go through the engineering to get a design approved by DOT, we have a FEMA issue of a flood plain running through the project so we have to go through the County and FEMA, and that process, to get the plans processed and approved and actually developed, is probably going to take us three years. So we wont be building apartments or shopping centers for that period of time. Our community is really going to be suffering by then. Thats why we need to consider projects like this that are going to mitigate some of the traffic woes and not add to them. FUKE:If I can just kind of supplement and directly answer your question, so, by increasing the inventory at the affordable housing range, then it could possibly minimize people having to find places in Hawaiian Ocean View and Waikoloa. SPRINGER:Thank you, gentlemen. Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Yeah, I have heard, you know, like prices like $250,000, for example, mentioned when people talk about affordable housing as single-family units. But Im wondering for rental housing, what kind of range are we looking at for, say, a single bedroom, two-bedroom, that sort of thing? 14