2010-03-05 TPD CDH - Laserfiche WebLink

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PRICKETT: I know that we have designated certain buildings in Hilo as historic. And while I sympathize with the landowners who feel that they’re losing potential and losing height, I would just throw this out on the table. It is often a convention in urban areas on the mainland when a building is designated as historic and worth preserving. That landowner is allowed to transfer his development rights to another site in the urban area, therefore, preserving his economic potential. And I’m not a planner, I’m not a developer, but I’m just wondering if you feel that if there is a historical area, if you designate an historical area of the Downtown that should be kept at a lower height, maybe if that needs to be done and is popular you might placate or, yes, you might placate those owners by offering them some other transfer of equal value. Do you see what I’m saying? Because although I don’t own any land Downtown I would be, I would be mortified if I bought land with a certain potential and then that potential were taken away from me. So I just wonder if there’s some reconciliation that might go on there. It seems to me that areas, that historic buildings and areas that are kept lower have to be supported by robust growth and development in surrounding structures, because it’s the growth and the development that draws in the people who would support the activities going on in historical structures or an historical area. So I’m less likely to be in favor of a blanket limitation on height, but one that is rather a little bit more judicial that considers case-by-case or area-by- area. But for sure it seems to me that you’ve got to have this robust economic development for Downtown economic health to have busy streets, vibrant streets. And I certainly support increased residential Downtown; and I don’t, it seems to me that largely now we have low- income residential. Well, I’m 64 and when I’m 84 I might well want to live Downtown where I’m close to services, close to shopping, near the hospital and can use an elevator. And we have young professionals who might want to locate their office Downtown and maintain their residence Downtown. Middle income people who would staff the businesses Downtown, and those people coming and going, I think Monica mentioned, that kind of traffic Downtown is what clamps down crime, criminals flee eyes. So I’m here as the devil’s advocate to encourage you to think very carefully about the disincentive of this blanket height restriction. Thank you. WOODWARD: Thank you. Any questions? Commissioner Iwashita. IWASHITA: Thanks for your testimony today. I don’t have a question as much as a comment. Lot of what you say I agree with in terms of what’s needed for revitalizing Downtown Hilo and, you know, make it better than today and probably better than how it ever was. I just want to make my last plug. One of the testifiers talked about, I guess it was Mr. Koehnen, how -. I guess my spin on it would be like crazy ideas come from very few crazy people, and I’m going to put myself in that category right now cause I, with regard to -. I view the County’s role in all of this, the primary role, as the only entity that can provide the infrastructure to really promote the accessibility, you know, to Downtown Hilo. And in the plans that we see, you know, parking is always brought up as a problem. And in my mind there’s really no way to practically solve that, you know, build enough garages to have enough cars come down to create the population. So in the long run when there’s three, four, five hundred thousand people living on this island I, my vision is that or my idea, I don’t know if it’s a vision, is that there needs to be train stations that stop in various places Downtown that provide the accessibility from around the island into 17 EXHIBIT C