2007-09-07 TENVISION - Laserfiche WebLink

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we’re seeing is phenomenal, I think. I describe that as phenomenal growth taking place and demands are coming in fast. And I was thinking if there’s anything in your vision of the future that something like that could be done. GRAHAM: Mr. Yuen? YUEN: Well, the long-range idea in the Planning Department is that we will have community development plans for all districts of the island. We started with North and South Kona because of the degree of activity there. We lumped that into one. A feedback that we got was that people wanted to see smaller areas rather than regional, but that also means more plans. So we also, we started on Puna. And we’re doing North and South Kohala, but it’s separate instead of doing together, as is the case of Kona. So we have four on-going right now. In a couple of months, the staff has been working on it, that we have available in the Planning Department. And we are going to meet and decide are we going to launch another one in the next budget cycle. Because if we did then we would go - you know, we prepare a budget request for the 2008-2009 budget that starts in June 2008, actually July 2008 - and try to get funding for that, and see whether we’re far enough along to either move staff out or if we can add staff, because it is quite a bit that’s being juggled right now. So if we did one in the Hilo area, we’d probably do a South Hilo District, because of this idea of covering the whole island. What happens though, especially on the land use side, there are hot areas in any district where if you think about what happens with the Commission here a lot of the rezoning that we see is really Waiakea House Lots area. So that might be an area of special focus. But the Planning Department will do one, eventually do plans for the whole island; but it’s a question of resources and timing right now. So that decision we’re going to get to pretty soon. DOMINGO: But going back to this, I think it’s a positive movement in the right direction and I think it’s wonderful. Perhaps in time to come there will be special themes that you would concentrate on.I know of some other areas for economic development, you know, they’re attracting tourists to come to that area because of a certain thing. Aside from that, I don’t have any questions. I just congratulate you guys for doing what you’re going. GRAHAM: Thank you, Commissioner Domingo. Anything further from our Commissioners? Commissioner Siracusa. SIRACUSA: Thanks for coming in to give us the update on this plan. I was on the Commission and so I’ve been sort of following from the sidelines what has been going on; and I’ve been very interested in it, especially because I’m also involved with the Puna Community Development Plan. I have noticed that some of the older structures have now been at least repainted and in some cases renovated; and that was a very happy thing to see. And I was wondering if your group had anything to do with that, if you’ve been encouraging property owners to spruce up their places, and if not why not? But then if you have, is that on your plan to EXHIBIT A 7