2005-10-07 TENVISION - Laserfiche WebLink

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SPRINGER:So then part of the purpose in requesting the publication of the document be it to use it as a template when the County goes out to do the community development planning prescribed in the General Plan? GAGORIK:Its a starting point for that. SPRINGER:Thank you. TAKEMOTO:I can elaborate. Actually, you asked a good question because in the General Plan, the General Plan officially recognizes the General Plan itself plus community development plans; and theres no real specific mention of special area type plans like we have for Kailua-Kona. Although theres nothing in the General Plan, there is a master plan for Kailua- Kona. There has been a plan for Downtown Hilo which was, actually the genesis of that one was part of the Hawaii Redevelopment Agency, you know, as a response to the tsunami flooding. Butmaybewhatweneedtodoisthinkaboutofficiallyrecognizingtheneedforthespecialarea plans where there are special needs. But getting back to the specifics of this Downtown Hilo Plan, what it did for the Department, I think, is really open our eyes to a different way of approaching planning and as a, almost like an experimental methodology of what we can use when we get into the community development plans. And, in fact, it has already influenced us in how were approaching the community development plans for, the first one being Kona; and we also are initiating, for the areas that are not funded for community development plans, we are going into what were calling a community readiness program where were going out to the community applying the lesson from this Downtown Hilo, emphasizing the process of how we get the community involved, building the capacity of the community so that hopefully the outcome is a more aware community that is able to participate in the decision-making processes in more meaningful and effective ways. SPRINGER:Thank you. GALDONES:Thank you, Mr. Takemoto. Commissioner Siracusa. SIRACUSA:Yes. I found it very interesting -. You know, in taking part in lots of meetings in the past - certainly when the Puna Community Development Plan was calling town meetings and taking input from the community; and later on when we started working on applying for Pahoa weed and seed we started looking at what our assets were, and what are needs were, and where we wanted to go, and how we wanted to get it. And it was so interesting to see that a lot of the same concerns and issues that there are in Puna were also in Hilo. I like your plan a lot and I do want to say that it amazed me that the people in Hilo are a lot more like the people in Puna than anybody thought; and thats good. GALDONES:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:I really want to applaud all the effort that youve put into developing this plan. And I dont know if you were here earlier when you heard my comments about, you know, my strong beliefs that community development planning, you know, is really the direction to go; 7EXHIBIT B