2006-03-09 TBigislando - Laserfiche WebLink

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One of the amendments in the General Plan says that we should encourage, that the Commercial should be on the major streets. And if you know the area, Kekuanaoa is a major, major street in Hilo. It takes people from the airport to the main part of Hilo; and there are lots of people going on Kekuanaoa every day. Lanikaula, and Lanikaula and Kawili are also major streets; and there have been quite a few rezonings along both Lanikaula and Kawili. Manono is another major street for people going across. And the major streets are the better locations for Commercial zoning; and so theres an amendment that says something like that. And then the side streets like Leilani Street or Hinano Street off of, say from Hinano Street going from Kekuanaoa toward Lanikaula Street, my feeling is that if somebody wants to come in and rezone one of those lots for a townhouse, a small apartment building, that sort of use, that thats compatible with the neighborhood; but I would not encourage it for Commercial. And the General Plan Amendment basically says that. So that is my picture of how to be more refined from just saying Medium Density Urban. Asfarasthisapplicationhere,certainly,youknow,KekuanaoaStreet,asfarastheresidential component to it, I have to say, to me, its not going to be a great residential area in the coming years. I mean, its just a really busy street that naturally channels people from the airport area, from Kanoelehua into the rest of urban Hilo. Upper part of Kekuanaoa not too far from this you have the Department of Water Supply building, you have Leos Rubbish, then at the top of Kekuanaoa you have Hilo Motors. And I just dont think its a -. Its a street where I think its inevitable to transition to more of a Commercial use. As far as, again, Big Island Candies, one of the things that probably made it palatable as a rezoning in 97-98 was that years ago there was a business there called Orchids of Hawaii. Actually I had my second job there. And they did tour business, they had tour busses going in there. That was what they did, they sold flowers to the tourists off of busses. After that closed it was Paradise Plants, not as busy but still a commercial business. So it was something that had evolved within the neighborhood. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Yes, question for the Director. If this whole proposal, this proposed rezoning is going to wait on the General Plan Amendment, how is that going to affect the timeline? YUEN:Well, it just wouldnt come into effect unless and until the General Plan came into effect. And -. SIRACUSA:So the clock wouldnt start ticking until the General Plan Amendment had passed? YUEN:It just wouldnt take effect; and so in a way it doesnt really matter which passes first. But just in a timeline of trying to move this along, and we had the application and we didnt want to move it to -. We had a negative recommendation before we, while we had the General Pan Amendment pending, but before the actual decision had been made to forward it. We had workshops on the General Plan Amendment but theres not a final decision to forward this on, so we had to go through that, and now we have forwarded it on. So the timeline on the General Plan -. The General Plan Interim Amendments may get acted upon at different 22EXHIBIT C