2009-11-06 TBOSCHETTI - Laserfiche WebLink

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person to the Big Island. He has many properties within the State of Hawaii, one of them is he’s the owner of the Hilo Shopping Center and has been conducting business there for all these years since his purchase. So he is a member of the community; and I think that he is not one of those, like they say, is going to make his money and run away to the mainland. So we’d ask for your support for this application. WOODWARD: All right, thank you. Any questions for Mr. Lim? All right, seeing none, you may be seated. Thank you very much. Would anybody care to make a motion? Commissioner Domingo. DOMINGO: Mr. Chairman, for the purpose of discussion, I move that we send a favorable recommendation to the Planning Committee with regards to Rezoning No. 09-103. WOODWARD: Do we have a second? KERN: Second. WOODWARD: All right. We have a motion and it has been seconded. Discussion? IWASHITA: Mr. Chair? WOODWARD: Commissioner Iwashita. IWASHITA: Thank you. I just wanted to establish on the record that, a little bit more on the comments that I made while questioning the testifier. And that is that the Members of the Commission know that I’m really concerned about the need for a community development plan for Hilo. And my rationale is that the community development plan process would involve the community in the way that the testifier was asking about. There are multiple community meetings, it takes over a year, maybe two, to go through the process. And these issues about what neighborhoods are going to be looking like, how people are going to be getting around, are we going to do what’s called smart growth or not, are we going to have sustainable communities, are we going to have urban sprawl like Oahu and Maui, you know, those are the kinds of things that come up. And for Hilo in my mind it’s particularly important because we really need to figure out what this city is going to look like in the next 20, 30 years so that it’s some place where people want to come to live, you know, and someplace where our children want to stay and live and work. So that is something that, and the Commissioners know that in the past I voted against change of zones because there has not been a revision of the 1972, or something like that. There is a Hilo Community Development Plan, we have one; but if you look in the recommendation in the documents here, it’s always dismissed because it’s, you know, almost 40 years old. And the argument is that there have been General Plan amendments, multiple times since then, so pretty much we can ignore it even though the Hilo Community Development Plan may say this area -. Well, I know for sure House Lots, it’s always an issue for me at House Lots because back in 2005 the General Plan was amended to change House Lots from Low Density Urban to Medium Density Urban; and House Lots was always, well, basically up until then you 12 EXHIBIT A