2004-12-03 Planning Commission Minutes

Home

action, but for a farm worker housing project within the Ag district no rezoning is required. Mr. Yuen expressed his concern of people living in Ocean View or a great distance away from their place of work because the land is inexpensive but then create a major traffic congestion and there is no way to really improve the situation without building a completely new highway. He said this is why he continues to push for some rezoning in the Kailua-Kona area, so there would be less people having to travel a great distance, noting it is better to build two miles of road between Kealahehe Parkway and Palani than some day having to replace Highway 11 between Napoopoo and Ocean View. In response to Commissioner Fujikawas inquiry, Mr. Yuen explained what the County classifies as affordable homes, referring to the HUD formula and noting it depended a lot upon the interest rates of the mortgage. Commissioner Fujikawa questioned why the State could not give the County land to createaffordablehousingintheareapasttheairport.Mr.YuennotedthatintheLaiopua project the State transferred most of the lands to Hawaiian Homes to develop housing. He said most of the State lands are ceded and tied up in a law suit that says the State does not have the right to sell these lands to the general public for housing, noting the ceded lands are State lands that were originally owned by the Hawaiian Kingdom. He said a piece of State land is inexpensive by virtue of it being State land but one has to find a good location to piggy-back the infrastructure to in order to provide affordable housing. Commissioner Springer questioned if the State could develop rental properties on their properties so there would be no alienation of the land itself from the ceded inventory, noting she did not think the Legislature has approved any payments to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs at this time. Mr. Yuen noted they could and he does know the State is interested, but he was not sure how OHA is treating rental income now from housing. Commissioner Springer also questioned if developers could make contributions to something like a mortgage fund for people that qualify either within their employment pool or in the general public so that properties closer to the workplace might become accessible to people if they can cover the down payment. Mr. Yuen noted that some of the resorts have programs like that and satisfied their affordable housing requirement. He said those programs are good and really help the employee but the problem with it is they do not necessarily address the supply side of the picture where people are bidding for that same pool of houses that are out there in the market, noting the County has to do things that encourage the supply of more units into the price range or it will just bid up the units that are existing. Agricultural Zoning In response to Commissioner Springers inquiry, Mr. Yuen said the DraftGeneralPlandesignatestheareaalongtheKawaihaeRoadasruralandtheCounty zoning that correlates to Rural is either an RA or FA zone. Commissioner Springer noted herconcernoftheinclusionofRAdesignation. 5