2008-01-03 THUALALAI - Laserfiche WebLink

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GALDONES:Commissioners, any further questions or any further comments? MARTIN:IÓd like to -. GALDONES:Mr. Martin, before I allow you to do that again, I have another speaker who has not spoken yet. Mr. Goodale? GOODALE:My name is Frank Goodale. I live at 73-4503 Kohanaiki R approximately three lots away from the proposed subdivision. Given the nature of the discussion here -. And I have submitted my full comments to you there, so you have those and you can look through those. IÓll address them out of order since the topic is veered towards the last of my comments. First, and in addressing the issue of the overall road structure up in there and its ability to continue to support subdivisions of properties up in this area, I appreciate Florence KubotaÓs concerns on Palani and the concerns expressed by other people here. I think what weÓre seeing right now is that concern is now extending beyond Palani and does get up into the State intersection at Hinalani. In fact, that is becoming an intersection and the defining point of the triangle for accessing the entire Kona commercial areas. And what weÓre seeing is is the traffic, making that critical decision of where to go at that intersection currently. And what seems to be broken in here, and I donÓt think itÓs anybodyÓs here fault because youÓre not charged and I keep on hearing people defer to weÓre waiting for what the State is going to do. That process is whatÓs broken. We canÓt wait for what the State thinks is best for us. You, the Planning Director, we the County, we the people here at this table need to take it upon ourselves to determine what is best for this area. We cannot continue to defer on this issue. And we need lots, we need these lots, we need a lot of lots in here because the prices have gone up, 60 percent in the last two years. Building lots are no longer affordable or potentially even findable in the Kona area for local people who need to build houses. We need those lots, we need them desperately. However, we cannot continue to produce them if we do not have the infrastructure there to produce them. It was suggested by someone here that weÓre going to need to be getting into affordable housing in this area. I would counter that, specifically, stay out of affordable housing, work on the roads. We need the roads, we need the infrastructure. The private developer will take care of those houses. They certainly have in Hilo where you have gone ahead and put in a sufficient number of roadways in improvement of infrastructure. It has kept the property values lower there; and the private developer has been able to go in there and provide housing at reasonable cost to the local citizens. We wish the same to happen here in Kona. 16