2010-06-04 T-COUNCIL - Laserfiche WebLink

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th Now we can flash forward a little bit into December 18 of 20 -, 2009 when with no public notice an agenda item was filed with Council right at the holidays for a one bill, Bill 194, to amend the Puna CDP. Now it took us several or ten days to even realize this had been put on the agenda over the holidays. And when we finally got a copy of it and got to look at it, we found that this one bill, Bill 194, contained approximately 83 amendme amendments, to 56 amendments, now weÓre up to 83 amendments. And instead of really going back into the community, which Chris Yuen never went to the community to talk about his 21 amendments and the rest of the Council never really came to the community to talk about amendments -. We had to start asking ourselves what is this plan? Is this a community plan or is this a community plan subject to the veto of the largest landowner in the district? Now IÓm really not trying to be mean, IÓm not trying to be angry. IÓm really trying to be simple and blunt and clear so that we can abbreviate this conversation and not tiptoe around everything. But Chris Yuen to our knowledge really consulted with one individual in the development of amendments to the CDP, which was the largest landowner in Puna. And those amendments had been brought forth by wagon and cart and packed basket through processes to land in a big lump as Bill 194 now at your lap. Now we were a little astonished to see Bill 194 hit Council with so many amendments in it that it really didnÓt consist of a bunch of amendments any more, but consisted of a rewriting of the Puna Community Development Plan, quite factually. We also were confused on how do we deal with Bill 194 with its 150 pages in a coherent manner with what we perceive to be substantive and non-substantive amendments within it, up to 80 something in number. Because it was written as a single bill, we think it had to go forward with either a single recommendation, eit for or against, from the Action Committee, from the Planning Director, and from the Planning Commission. We do not see a mechanism presented at Council being to take Bill 194 and deal with it in its sundry parts. And while there are things within Bill 194 that amend the CDP in ways that Friends of PunaÓs Future approves of them and supports, there are other things which we are extremely uncomfortable with. When we heard talk that there is no language in the Code to empower floating zones, we listened to that language. And then we read the newspaper and we see that the planning group for the city of Hilo has just amended the planning language so that they can pursue something in the way they want to pursue it within Hilo. So Hilo has the ability to amend the planning code, you know, to within their community design criteria. But Puna is told, well, if itÓs not already in the Code we canÓt go there, itÓs not -. So, anyway, I think we have a legal problem. I think trying to wrapped up in one little bundle with a bow on it and try to pretend youÓre dealing with 83 different parts or 83 different things, you can pick and choose not, is a little bit confusing to us. We see this as one bill, it is a rewriting of the CDP, it is being put forward to that purpose. We agree that amendments are needed. We have Friends of PunaÓs Future concurrently taking two other steps now, one of which was what we felt was the, a simple and elegant and mission purpose, suitable amendment, was our Village Center Steering Committee amendment. We presented this appropriately to the Planning Department who took it to the Action Committee. Our proposal was simple. While the CD dealt with the district as a whole in a big broad way, the village centers required more input from 11 EXHIBIT B