2009-11-06 TBOSCHETTI - Laserfiche WebLink

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We are a local family. We have three young children. We bought the property because my children are Hawaiian and are going to be attending the Kamehameha Schools in Keaau, and the neighborhood we felt was a great fit for our needs.The residents in the area, a lot of them, have been there from the very beginning, are retired, a lot of neighborhood children and what not. It’s a safe area. And we felt that if that land got developed then it would conform with what our neighborhood was; and that would be fine. I’m a certified residential appraiser and I know, it is my professional experience that when your property values remain your highest it’s when you have uniformity and conformity in the neighborhood. When you are looking out in your front yard, or your back yard in our case, and you see a neighborhood that doesn’t look like your property, that’s when the typical buyer is not going to pay as much for that same property as another neighborhood. So our concerns are pretty fundamental and pretty basic. One, our property values, I know from my professional experience, will go down because now all of a sudden our back yard is a 4-story apartment building or a series of 4-story apartment buildings looking directly down into our yard. That’s not a desirable, it’s not desirable at all for us or for our neighborhood. I, also, we have concerns about safety. All of a sudden instead of being in a Single Family Residential Neighborhood now all of a sudden we have hundreds of people viewing directly into our home. And that’s something that is, you know, quite distressing. Our neighbors are all wonderful neighbors. We’re hard working families. We bought the properties with the understanding that it would be Single Family Residential. I think it’s really important that as neighbors we all come forward and make sure that we’re, you know, very clearly understood in what our points of views are, and our disappointment of any change that would allow further density, that would allow, you know, 4-story apartment buildings. This is, right there, that building. It’s a 4-story Bank of Hawaii Building. And you don’t see many of those in Hilo; and the ones that you do are all commercial in nature. And to have that right in our back yard is very upsetting, it’s very distressing; and it’s going to have an impact on our property values in a negative way. And what we want to know is what can we do as a neighborhood to ensure that our neighborhood characteristic stays the same. What is it that we can do so that we can make sure that you very clearly hear what our points of views and what our requests are. So that’s a question that I have for the Planning Commission right now. WOODWARD: Any questions of Ms. Nishida. Actually we ask the questions. Commissioner Iwashita. IWASHITA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will, the concern, we have multiple letters expressing basically similar concerns from your neighbors. And in terms of how this process works and addressing your concerns, you know, we all on the Commission need to consider the immediate impact, basically what you’re talking about, when the development occurs and also the long-term issues. So as far as what’s needed, well, basically our General Plan does allow for this type of zoning. It’s Medium Density Urban. If it was Low Density Urban then this kind of 7 EXHIBIT A