2016-09-28 BDHRA Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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request right away, ‘I want ocean view.’ For them to not have an ocean view limits our ability to succeed. So I would ask that when you are considering this plan to beautify Banyan Drive, that you consider the hotels being on the ocean and having ocean view, and hopefully not encroaching on that beautiful Lili‘uokalani Park. Thank you. DELIMA: Next we’ll have Michael Combs. COMBS: Thank you Brian. DELIMA: Good afternoon. COMBS: Thank you for allowing me to speak today. First I want to thank the Planning Department and the State, Gordon, and the cooperation in coming up with a very exciting General Plan and for the board, the Redevelopment Board, for all the time and effort you’ve come up with. As a resident of 121 Banyan Drive, I want to speak in favor of the proposal two, which includes the language for mixed use condominium. Tailgating on the concept that Hilo is one of the healthiest places in the world to live, for a variety of th different reasons, the classification of being designated a Blue Zone, one of the 20 healthy places with the longest‒‒longevity in the country. If we build on that, the direction for tourism to use a mixed use condominium for rehabilitation for the recovery of major operations with residents, long term residents with the snowbirds, is a very viable project. That concludes my presentation. Thank you very much. DELIMA: Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Combs. Next we have Carl Oguss. OGUSS: Good afternoon. Carl Oguss, I also live on Banyan Drive. First I want to make a few comments about the process that this has been through. It is interesting to note little decisions like when during the day during the week are meetings scheduled, because the scheduling of meetings during the time of day when you know many, many people, the majority of employed people, are not able to attend or give any kind of input at all speaks. It indicates the intention to have that result, the result of excluding their input. On that theme of having meetings like this that so intensely impact this community, either as taxpayers or as local residents who somehow are directly affected by the development of Banyan Drive, we have a really serious issue of when exactly was what we’re being proposed decided? I know that this is not the forum for questions, but I would guess that if you were to randomly call 100 citizens and ask them what they would find more useful in exactly this kind of process, question and answer sessions where real input before decisions are made can occur, or what’s called nemawashi in Japan, that’s an opportunity to say whatever you want to say and then be similarly ignored because it doesn’t matter, the decisions have already been made. This kind of process deserved input. It deserved input first on the issue of whether or not resort development was going to continue. That shouldn’t be taken as a fait accompli and I think you are gonna face legal challenges to that. We’re being told that either plan, and it’s gonna be one of the two, is gonna be promoting the private industry on Banyan Drive. Now, that would be Page 5 of 19 Banyan Drive Hawai‘i Redevelopment Agency September 28, 2016, Minutes