2016-02-04 Hearing Transcript - PD Initiated Redevelopment Area Banyan Drive

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OGUSS: I do. HEAUKULANI: Could you please state your name for the record? OGUSS: Carl Oguss. HEAUKULANI: And where do you reside, sir? OGUSS: At 121 Banyan Drive, Country Club parcel. HEAUKULANI: Thank you. Go ahead, sir. OGUSS: Yes, hi, I’m glad that the County is taking an active interest in Banyan Drive. We have had certainly many economic problems over the years. These seem fairly clearly connected to the fact that back in the 1960’s, the Hilo area overdeveloped the number of hotel rooms in the hopes that availability would equal demand, and that turned out not to be the case. Approximately half of the hotels in Hilo, including these, went broke and changed to other uses or in some cases had fire or other damage and the owners choose not to rebuild. There just wasn’t the demand for it. Even now, and including the West side of our County, we only have about 75 percent occupancy. What I would like us to consider are really two things. One has to do with the direction that any future use of Banyan Drive should take, but the other and since you’re not deciding that issue yourselves today, the other is whether or not we should designate this entire area a “blighted area” and then go on to redevelopment. As a taxpayer and community member, we all realize that any action by this Commission has to serve the general welfare. That means the average person, the majority of people and their most essential needs. What this community needs very definitely is more affordable housing. What the community also needs is better medical services. You may have seen in the newspaper just the other day extended care is looking to further reduce their capacity which creates a problem when you have a loved one in extended care, and they have been sent down to Kaʽū or Hāmākua, which has been the trend, to keep the bed use at about half of its original potential and to send people to private institutions in other places. It means you’ve got a very long drive before you can go and visit those relatives in extended care. Extended care is facing a backlog of only $6 million. To really have a good impact on our community, we should consider what our priorities are. I would be loathed to see you spend any County funds on redeveloping Banyan Drive as, in a manner that would further reduce affordable housing. You may or may not realize it, but between three properties there—Country Club, Reed’s Bay, and Bayview Banyan Apartments—you’ve got about a thousand people living there. These are units that if we decided to redevelop as another way of perhaps talking about improving hotel-resort use, those people would have to move. This would be a nightmare for them. 6 EXHIBIT C