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prospectively, is going to try and come here and ask this body to allow a change of zone
<br />in order to try and meet this need; and the Commission well knows my view about those
<br />kind of applications. And so I’m going to, if you will bear with me for a moment, you
<br />know, I have a couple of words about this implementation of our policy and our General
<br />Plan, and how really this case is an example of how it doesn’t work, it hasn’t worked.
<br />And even since our adoption of the most recent amendments to the General Plan in the
<br />beginning of 05, you know, we’re well past 2 ½ years since that was done, and there
<br />really hasn’t been a change in how our planning system works. We still do the same
<br />things, we still have zoning changes that come in that, as far as I’m concerned, you know,
<br />are not really well thought out. It’s not really an implementation of policy that the
<br />General Plan is supposed to reflect. And I, you know, I’m going to go back to the
<br />Envision Presentation earlier this morning and I really think that, you know, when the
<br />presenters indicate that they’re involved and they are committed to making Downtown
<br />Hilo better, that is the scale and that is the process that I see for this whole island we
<br />really should be implementing. I’m going to take that back. I’m not going to say should.
<br />I believe that if we really want to have this island developed in a manner unlike Oahu, in
<br />a manner unlike Maui where the green spaces on Oahu are, you know, pretty much gone,
<br />most of it -. You know, Hawaii Kai used to be farms, Kahala used to be farms, the whole
<br />Ewa plain was all in agriculture; and they’re gone. And it was all planned, all planned.
<br />And I just heard a piece on MPRS yesterday afternoon about South Jersey, a place that I
<br />am very familiar with because I lived there for three years, and how they’re approving
<br />subdivisions or developments, you know, 5,000 to 6,000 homes at a time just because of
<br />the pressures of urban sprawl. And if we don’t start doing things differently in the
<br />manner that the Downtown Envision Process is going along, then we don’t have any
<br />different future to look to, you know. And so when it comes to policy and effective
<br />implementation of policy, I don’t think this case is an example, or it is one in which we
<br />should “set an example,” or be fearful because of the precedents that it might have. We
<br />have an ineffective process. That’s what we have. The applicant should not have to be
<br />here. There should be sufficient space available to handle 1500 square feet of
<br />commercial storage. Excuse me? Why should that be a problem? That should not be a
<br />problem. Why is it a problem? In my humble opinion it’s a problem because we have a
<br />failed process. We have a failed system. And what we’re doing here today is simply, in
<br />my mind, I’m recognizing that that’s what it is, it’s a failed system. We’re taking a
<br />simple action to grant undisputed efforts of the applicant to sustain her agricultural
<br />operations and run this other business. I really don’t have a problem with that. I have a
<br />problem with the process. I don’t think that our current policy set up can be used or
<br />should be used, I go back to that, to argue against the granting of this application. What
<br />we should be doing is implementing island-wide community development plan steering
<br />committees. In my mind at least 13 of them, if not 20, on the smaller scale so that the
<br />community can get involved and that we can have an effective process where the
<br />community, including the business community, especially the developers, you know, can
<br />get in and start marshalling the financial assets that we need in order to, you know, have a
<br />better island and protect our agricultural areas and all of that. But it needs to be done on
<br />a different level. I speak in favor of approving this application.
<br />GRAHAM: Thank you, Commissioner Iwashita. Commissioner Woodward.
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