2008-05-08 TPUNAcdp - Laserfiche WebLink

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to close on Oahu; and I was deeply involved in the Waipahu community planning process. So although I’m not from Puna, we do come with some expertise in that area and background in that area. LURF appreciates the opportunity to provide our comments to the Puna Community Development Plan. And at the outset we’d like to commend the consultant, PlanPacific, and the Steering Committee Members, the community members, and the Planning Department for their efforts relating to the Puna CDP. However, we respectfully request that the Planning Commission either defer action or make a negative recommendation to the Council on the Puna CDP, not because it’s a bad document but to allow the Puna community, key stakeholders, and the Puna CDP Steering Committee more time to review critical additional data and issues. I’ve listed seven issues and I’ll go through them as quickly as I can. No. 1, the Puna CDP should include crucial information, data and professional input on key issues such as population growth, economics and marketing. We understand that that key data was not provided to the Steering Committee, nor considered by them. Thus, the Puna CDP does not reflect the future growth of Puna and its relevance to the future of the County of Hawaii. I was frankly shocked to see the statistics that the Puna area is expected, their population is expected to be bigger, huger than both North Hilo and South Hilo, huger than North Hilo and South Hilo put together; and that’s Puna. And the planning that’s reflected or, I guess, the proposals reflected in the Puna CDP surely do not support that type of statistics. And as raised by Commissioner Iwashita, this is especially, especially essential for purposes of planning infrastructure and raising the funds to fund the infrastructure for this area. Secondly and most importantly, this plan is inconsistent with the Hawaii County General Plan. The Hawaii County General Plan 2005 states “Expanded commercial services to the needs of population growth in the Puna District shall be encouraged in Keaau.” Instead, the plan calls for all these small regional shopping centers and commercial areas. And, again, not from here, not from Puna but all across the United States and Hawaii, you have to build a critical mass. You have to have a critical mass of people in areas before these shopping centers, I guess stores into move these shopping centers. So these shopping center sites may remain dormant or unused for quite a long time. With respect to the next issue, inconsistency with other existing and concurrent community planning efforts, the Puna CDP is not consistent with other existing and concurrent community planning efforts, such as the Keaau Town Conceptual Master Plan, the Hawaiian Paradise Park Master Plan and the Volcano 2020 Master Plan. We believe that the Puna CDP should take its time, go back and review those plans, and address the existing and concurrent community planning efforts. Fourth, the Puna CDP should be revised to allow more flexibility. The Community Development Plans provide a vision for the future, and thus should be flexible enough to address future changes and needs. I talked about the huge population increase that’s expected for the Puna area. However, the Puna CDP in Table 5-1 and accompanying maps include very restrictive and inflexible requirements for retail and commercial areas to service the needs of such an expanded community. They call for commercial areas of 14