Town Meeting 2008_Panel Speeches

Home

Chris Yuen Focus Areas: Managing Growth; Preserving Our Environment One of the best things about living in Hawai'i is the sense of place and identity. We are different. Downtown Hilo is a big aspect of that. It's a traditional downtown —the kind of place that has been eclipsed around much of the country, replaced by the shopping mall or the big box stores with gigantic parking lots. I read a lot of planning articles, and one common theme is that everyone around the country has been rediscovering the values of the traditional downtown. Sidewalks, the storefronts up to the sidewalks, public squares, a mix of private businesses and public spaces, with most of the businesses unique. It creates an environment where you walk around, and see people you know. It fosters random interaction, and creates a social solidarity. The panel here is a great mix of people who were born here and chose to stay and people who were attracted to this place and made it their home. The audience, and this town, are much the same mix. Both groups share, I hope, the value of having this sense of having a different type of place here. There are lots of challenges, but let me talk about them from the perspective of the county government. The planning department has been happy to be one of the partners in the Envision 2025 project. Like the four CDP's that we've been involved in preparing in the past few years, it's a plan for action that will make for better communities. But the county, in addition to its role in planning and implementation of these plans also is an enforcer of rules. I was asked to talk about how some of these rules are also the challenges. These rules typically exist for a reason, mostly to prevent bad things from happening, but often, they can inhibit good things from happening as well. The building department has strict rules about building in the tsunami zone. Basically, new buildings have to go up high enough to let the wave pass underneath, so a new building in the tsunami zone really can't duplicate the storefront to the street look of the existing downtown. It also limits reconstruction of existing buildings, in the tsunami zone, to 50% of the current value in any one year, which does make it difficult to do extensive renovations. I really can't suggest much to do about these rules. To qualify the island for federal flood insurance, the federal government makes the county have rules like these.