2025-01-12 Rebecca Melendez TDR Program, Broadband Testimony

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From: Rebecca Melendez To: LPCtestimonv;WPCtestimonv;Planning General Plan Subject: Oppose General Plan TDR Program,Broadband,Smart Grid... Date: Sunday,January 12,2025 7:53:06 AM I am furious that the county uses confusing sentences in their General Plan and does not fully explain their true intentions. Please read my proof below. I am extremely angry that the county is trying to control where and how we live through the TDR program: 2045 General Plan Page 80 hUs://www.planning.hawaiicouniy.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/308136/63 8597487229830000 9.f Study the feasibility, issues, and opportunities related to the development of a TDR program to strategically preserve open space and achieve density to remain consistent with the land use pattern in accordance with the General Plan Land Use Maps. TDR is the Transfer of Development Rights (they do not let us know this. I had to research to find out what TDR meant) As I understand it,the TDR program allows the county full rights to say where homes can and cannot be built and whether private land is restricted. This restricts the right to build houses on private lands. If the county decides that property shouldn't be developed,we will lose our rights to build on privately owned land. "A TDR program seeks to preserve landowners' asset value by moving the right to build a house from a location where development is prohibited(e.g., for environmental reasons)to a location where development is encouraged." The county will decide the environmental reasons for incorporating land into the TDR program, which aims to give them full control over all the lands on Big Island and tell us where we can live. "In the place where development is encouraged under TDR, zoning is changed to permit more units to be built." This sentence explains that a TDR program builds "units," not houses, and gives the county full rights to tell people where they can and cannot build homes, and they will only be able to build "units"through the TDR program.htips://njaes.rutgers.edu/highlands/transfer-development- rights.phn I am outraged that the county is not trying to help solve problems on the Big Island but rather trying to create a 5G Smart City through their`Broadband and Smart Grid"that will cost billions to create and add years of serious traffic when we already have serious traffic issues. It's because their fibre cables(which they never mention in their GP) for their`Broadband/Smart Grid"have to go underground and require a lot of power, and Hawaii Electric already has power issues. Hawai'i Electric does NOT have the kind of power a Smart Grid needs, and this WILL add more issues to the island's already-existing power problems. hUs://www.hawaiianelectric.com/safeiy-and-outages/an-update-on-hawaii-island-power-generation