2005-05-12 TYAMADA - Laserfiche WebLink

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As the people move in, our community development plan is supposed to address circulation systems, public transportation, public safety, and all the things that were talking about, actually, today. What Im suggesting is that do we have the luxury of waiting two or three years to develop some type of a long-term and long-range plan thats going to be any better than what were actually debating around the table today. And I would submit that we have a lot of talent today and in the near future to discuss some of these issues. Because I think the people in Puna deserve this attention, because in the past they never had this attention. It has always been a situation where were underserved, and then the continual population increase has only become focused during Mayor Kims administration. SPRINGER:Thank you, Mr. Safarik. Mr. Yuen. YUEN:Id like to jump in here here cause were talking about some of the big pictureissuesconnectedwithallofthis;andsoIwantedtomakemypositiononthisreally explicit and really clear. We, Council Member Safarik and I agree in a lot of respects on this. If you look at the 19 -, if you go back to the County General Plan, if you go back to the 1989 General Plan, Keaau is a commercial area and Pahoa is a commercial area, and nothing in between. In the General Plan revision in 2000-2001, partially, before I was the Director but also when I came on board, there was a recognition that you need to have some commercial opportunity in the area in between that, because actually the population center is situated almost directly between those two towns. Roughly, in the corridor between Shower and Ainaloa Boulevard, you have something like 15,500 lots in those subdivisions that are all served by Highway 130 in the middle. Then on, then you have about a 3-mile gap on one side to Pahoa and you have about a 3-mile gap on the other side to Keaau. So its not a question of if there should be designated commercial areas in those subdivisions, or to serve those subdivisions. The question is only where. We start off way behind because especially on the mauka side of the highway none of those subdivision were planned out to have any kind of commercial areas. They consist of even-sized lots. At least in Paradise Park, the Watumulls reserved several 20-acre parcels, and they kept the ownership of those. And those can be commercial areas in the long run, they were probably thinking ahead. There are also some park areas of 20 acres or so, but there are also these commercial areas. I believe in Orchidland and Ainaloa Boulevard, all the lots are the same size. So if anybody wants to come in and do a commercial, the first thing, you have to do this assembly problem, you know, you have to consolidate some lots to do this in the first place; and there was never a place set up that is, where there is any kind of intersection, or theres any kind of favored spot for the commercial. So naturally, you know, left to its own devices, the commercial wants to gravitate toward the highway. So we recognize that the commercials have to go somewhere near the highway, but we dont want it to run along the highway. In the 2000-2001 General Plan process and amendments, the Planning Department put forward Orchidland Drive as being one of these commercial areas, because you would already gave the special permits for few uses along Orchidland Drive; and Orchidland Drive is the main, as far as the roads into Orchidland is one of the main roads. Its a heavily used road at Orchidland. We 20 EXHIBIT A