2022-01-20 Leeward Exh B (Item 3 Planning Dept Presentation)

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So in this presentation, as you mentioned, the regional areas that we'll cover are North and South Kohala and North and South Kona. We will focus mostly on the urban areas as it pertains to land use, and the most critical infrastructure typically is water, wastewater, roads, and also parks. I will also go through some current Planning initiatives that we in the department are undertaking and involve some State agencies as well. And then some of the related agencies involved with infrastructure overall are MTA, which is Mass Transit, Department of Water Supply, Department of Environmental Management, Department of Public Works, the State Department of Transportation, Office of Housing and Community Development, and then Department of Parks and Recreation for the county. So we'll start our tour with North Kohala and move our way down. Many of you already and often see our land use maps. On the left is the State Land Use for North Kohala showing where the urban areas are near Kawaihae in the lower part and then up in Haw! and Kapa`au up in the north, and then the same for the General Plan showing where the urban areas are in general, most of the land being either in Ag or in Conservation,which you see here in the blue. So the general goals in North Kohala really focus on growth management, access, housing, and infrastructure. Particularly with growth management it speaks to, the CDP speaks to, and also the General Plan, to focus development in existing town centers, including infill and things of that nature, and preserving open space and agriculture for historic and cultural resources. Access, as many of you probably already know, North Kohala is pretty famous for its work with public access, and it has made a lot of progress in that regard and continues to do so. I also want to point out I think it's not always talked about, we talk a lot about shoreline access, but there's also a lot of mauka access that we need to keep in mind—so I just point that out that it's not just shoreline and coastal access but also mauka. Affordable housing you'll see as a common theme in all of our CDPs and in the General Plan to find creative solutions to affordable housing and something that this administration is currently focusing on. And then infrastructure facilities is another, is another piece of it. The North Kohala CDP does not have as many details in this particular CDP; the way it's formulated, it's a bit more general. But the priority policies revolve around cultural and historic preservation, recognizing—which is critical for many of our villages—recognizing the rural context of our communities, which is very difficult to compare perhaps with other communities in the State or even other counties in the State; we have a, we have a distinct rural community sort of framework on our island. Also, it is pretty clear in the CDP and in the GP related to upzonings to be very cautious, in the CDP with upzonings as it relates to being consistent with the goals and policies, which I know this Commission is good about. Recognizing agricultural subdivisions and confirming that they are for agricultural uses. Just paying special attention to SMA, or Special Management Area, areas and applications related to that, particularly with residences and subdivisions. Making sure that all development proposals have adequate infrastructure, which is typically part of reason ordinances that come out of this Commission. And then minimizing land speculation in North Kohala really to save land values for affordable housing purposes, and also just making sure that, again, similar to having development in infill in the urban areas and preserving those open space and culturally significant areas. 2 EXHIBIT B