2024-09-06 PL-INT-2024-008544 GP 2045 Draft Comments & Email Response - C. Flaherty

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1. Why was the zoom link for today's online webinar not e-mailed to prior participants in the General Plan Comprehensive Review until yesterday? We posted the link to the website and in social media posts. A reminder was sent out yesterday. We had over 120 people who preregistered. 2. Given the General Plan Comprehensive Review specifically requires the Planning Department conduct "public workshops", what is the Planning Department's definition of a workshop? There is no specific definition of workshop, but given it is the term used in the 2005 GP chapter 16 related to the comprehensive review process, we are using the same term. As answered in the webinar last night, early on in the process we did more technical and subject matter workshops and charrettes that were more interactive. Then later in the process, we held open house style workshops with subject matter stations and staff/agency representatives to talk story and answer questions one-on-one with participants. This style was chosen because the public can engage directly with staff to get more information, and we have found over the years that we receive many more comments from the public this way. We have been hearing for the last year to have more of presentation style and this lends itself to presenting the final recommended draft as we have done last and this week. 3. Why wasn't Ramseyer formatting used to show changes between the 9/23 draft GP2045 and the 7/24 draft GP when the two are substantially the same, thereby once and again forcing the public to play seek-and-find for changes? We did a little reorganizing (like shifting the biocultural section to the front). We also shifted a few policies around based on comments and caught a number of mistakes or errors that were corrected. Providing this in Ramseyer format would have been more confusion for most members of the public. 4. Given all goals, policies, standards, and courses of action in the current General Plan were reviewed and evaluated for inclusion in the draft 9/23 and 7/24 GP2045s, why does the General Plan Policy Rationale not identify the specific goals, policies, standards, and courses of action that were or were not included in the draft GP2045s, thereby enabling the general public and decision-makers to determine whether or not they agreed with the Planning Director's recommendations? Although many policies came from the 2005 GP, CDPs, and other planning documents, not all are verbatim, and this was ultimately developed as a new plan that does not lend itself to the Ramseyer style of revisions. It basically would have been a deletion of the old plan and insertion of the new, which would not be helpful. There is also a lot of information in the CDP's regionally that is no longer needed in the GP. Otherwise, they would continue to be redundant. It is very common in the planning profession to overhaul a long-range planning document, revisit all aspects, and rewrite and replace it with a new document. This has been done recently in Kauai and before that Maui. There are countless examples across the country. 5. Why doesn't the Planning Department have a list of the changes between the current GP land use map and the 7/24 draft GP2045 with the location of each change clearly identified and the reason for each change, especially given the Planning Dept could not have prepared the draft GP2045 without having produced this information? 2