2024-11-01 Chuck Flaherty Testimony GP 2045 2 of 2

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because GP2045 is a complete gut-and-replace of the current General Plan. Also, placing the GP2045 online in two different software platforms has disenfranchised a large number of people who have made sincere efforts to make informed comments, but are technologically- challenged. As a general statement, the draft GP2045 does not contain sufficient imperative and directive language to provide reasonable assurance that it will be implemented. That being said, there are documents that are relevant to the draft General Plan that should have been provided to the Commission. It may be that these documents are the ones that have been submitted today, but I will review the list with you to make sure. I've also attached them to this e-mail so they may be forwarded to the Commission's members. The most important of the documents not provided to the Commission is the draft General Plan 2040 that was released in August 2019 by then-Planning Director Michael Yee. The reason GP2040 is so important is because it shows the extent to which public access and cultural, historic, and scenic resource preservation policies and actions contained within GP2040 were removed and not included in GP2045. For instance, the Sustainability Objective on page 108 states, “Native Hawaiian language, values, and practices are integrated into all County processes.” This objective has been cleansed from the draft GP now before the Commission. Another document is a report titled “Hawai’i County Scenic Resources Inventory and Mapping Project, Scenic Resource Protection Programs and Strategies” prepared for the Planning Department in August 2016. The Policies and Actions in GP2040 included the programs and strategies recommended by this report. However, GP2045 removed these policies and actions and now GP2045 only contains a reference to the report. Another report not in the Commission’s initial board packet is the Trend Scenario and Land Use Allocation Technical Report, published in April 2016. This report contains important information, such as how many dwellings can be built with existing zoning, subdivision approvals, and building permits. Another critical report not included in the Commission’s initial board packet is the Technical Methodology for General Plan Land Use (2020-2024). This report was not released until August 2024. It should have been released a year earlier because it contains information that the public has been requesting since last September 2023, such as explanations of how the GP2045 land use maps were developed. I would like to give an example of why General Plan land use designations are so important. Let’s use the example of a property owner who wants to rezone and subdivide 300 acres in the state land use Agriculture district. If the property owner applies to rezone