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<br />ONO: Well, let me clarify while I’m looking at, or pursue what I’m looking at. Most units, couples, have two
<br />cars. So here you’re reducing from 1,000 to 500 and you’re only looking at one parking. I don’t think that’s
<br />realistic if, you know -.
<br />
<br />ARAI: Well, right now the way the Code stands is that you could put a residential unit in Downtown Hilo with
<br />no parking. So if -.
<br />
<br />ONO: Yeah, but if we’re making recommendations -?
<br />
<br />ARAI: Right -.
<br />
<br />ONO: Don’t you -?
<br />
<br />ARAI: Well, I think that’s why there are series of compromises in any bill. You try to strike a balance. In this
<br />particular case, because of the way the bill is constructed -. You’ll notice the recommendation is without
<br />prejudice. It’s because the Planning Director has not, sort of, vetted this whole thing through. When the new
<br />bill gets submitted, we’re going to distribute it to the affected agencies, we’re also going to ask the Downtown
<br />Hilo Association to comment on it and get their input, at which point the Director will offer its recommendation.
<br />
<br />KERN: Madam Director?
<br />
<br />LEITHEAD TODD: Yeah. I wanted to say that amongst the various CDPs and some of the community
<br />development efforts is the idea that you live, work, play especially in areas of higher density. So if you look at
<br />the Kona CDP, the idea is that you try to get people out of their cars. Downtown Hilo currently does not have a
<br />parking requirement for any of those buildings. It’s all on-street parking. There is one or two that have a few,
<br />you know, parking stalls off. And the vision of some of the people who are involved with Downtown Hilo is
<br />that if you’ve got commercial, residential, shopping opportunities, coupled with bus service so you have a bus
<br />stop in the area where you can go, that it lessens the need to have cars. Now that’s a long-range vision. There
<br />are people who live in Downtown Hilo who don’t have cars; and they can go to KTA, they can go to Sack N
<br />Save. If they want to go some place, they’ll take a cab, go to Mooheau get a bus ride. This proposed bill, you
<br />know, we’re still waiting for the next one, actually is imposing a parking requirement where there’s currently no
<br />parking requirement Downtown. And it was based to some extent looking at other urban areas like San
<br />Francisco, what was the requirement on the number of stalls. It may not reflect the way we currently live in our
<br />homes. You know, hey, I’ve got two cars my house, right? One time we had four. And so I think a lot of the
<br />bills that you see, both in Kona as well as in Hilo which are more urban, is this kind of vision that they’re trying
<br />to increase mass transit and decrease the use of vehicles. Whether that actually plays out or not, I don’t know.
<br />But that’s sort of the vision of where some people are going with the designs -- both for the, some, when we
<br />did -- on the Kona side we did the Kamakana Villages, the affordable housing project. And the people in
<br />Downtown Hilo, they actually want to attract a residential component. Whether this is the bill or not, we don’t
<br />know. But there is that goal of trying to revitalize Downtown Hilo by having a residential component so that
<br />people are there more than just 8 to 4 or 8 to 5.
<br />
<br />KERN: Thank you, Madam Director. Commissioner Au?
<br />
<br />AU: You know, I’m surprised that the Hilo Downtown Association didn’t respond. I know you said you’re
<br />going to give them a chance to respond later, but I’m surprised that they didn’t come and -. Or do you know
<br />where they stand on this?
<br />
<br />ARAI: The bill was never transmitted to them. And, because as soon as the bill came in, we saw that there
<br />were issues regarding the way the bill was constructed. So we didn’t bother to send it to them. We were
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