2012-05-03 Windward Transcript John Hegarty

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did not pay for the environmental impact study that we had foresight over 10 years ago to have because we did see these concerns coming down the road. And those environmental impact studies, I am not an expert there. That is why we pay to have this –. KERN: I'm sorry, I am going to have to keep you right directly to the point that Commissioner Au asked. GALIMBA: Okay. KERN: Did you get your question answered? AU: Yes, I did. KERN: Okay. GALIMBA: Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any other discussion from my Fellow Commissioners? I have a few things to say, as usual. You know, land use is always a very challenging endeavor, especially when we’re in a way where we’re planning backwards with the way that Puna, you know, subdivisions had been developed in the past. It wasn’t done with a real comprehensive thought-out process of where we’re going to have future growth. There is some area there for future growth. I also had the opportunity to attend a large planning workshop on Kauai last year, and really the emphasis on planning, new planning, is to create livable, walkable communities to mitigate traffic and safety. And actually, you know, with the price of fuel going up and various needs, we don’t really have that opportunity in a lot of areas of Puna right now. And, you know, we approved one in HPP for a convenience store, so that has been kind of, precedence has been set there to a degree. We’re constantly facing the challenge in Puna with Highway 130, huge challenge. And unfortunately there’s not much we can do about it on the Council, excuse me, on the County level, other than work within our means as a County to mitigate that traffic. And one of the ways that I talked about mitigating that traffic is through some services in our area. So people that would otherwise be, maybe getting onto the highway to go pick up a small item or, you know, eggs or what you might call, don’t have to get on there anymore. I highly doubt that people will be coming from outside of the subdivision to patronize the store. That’s my opinion. And it seems to be kind of that way with other areas that I’ve seen. I would be inclined to see something like this go through with the proper restrictions myself. I know I’m not going to, I’m probably going to lose a few friends here but I do think -. You know I remember Pohoiki back in the day when Pohoiki used to be wide open. We used to go down there, pull up on the beach and do our thing. And when the Park, when they started barricading us off down there, ho, we were upset. We didn’t like it, we didn’t care for it. And, you know, we took a lot of issues with that. And time went on and I go back down there and talk to all the people that patronize Pohoiki, and they’re like this is great, the park is awesome, this is good. We have pathways there, we have showers; and I go down there with my daughter. And it’s actually, it came out to be a benefit. So sometimes at the beginning of something it doesn’t appear to be a benefit and it’s going to change the makeup of a community somewhat, can sometimes come to be a benefit in the long run with the proper conditions. One of the beauties of the special use permit is that we can put conditions on there that try to find that balance. Where if it’s a change of zone it’s harder to do those conditions and they’re open to doing what they would like to do. You know, based on Rule 6 of the, of our charter here, it is an unusual use of the land. So it does fit the criteria for a special use permit. The General Plan as I’ve always said generally doesn’t serve Puna. The CDP is challenging. There are some great elements of it and there’s also some elements of it that don’t make sense. And a lot of the time with what happened at the end with the CDP is the planning consultant that was hired lived Oahu and she made circles around different areas on where she wanted that growth to occur. That’s one of the 13 EXHIBIT A