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extent. And, we have, we continue to receive some comment about the draft plan, so I'll speak
<br />to some of the comments that have been shared as well to help you in your deliberations.
<br />First, a little context. It's important to understand the community development plans in terms of
<br />the evolution of community planning in the County of Hawaii. I, sometimes, refer to it
<br />developmentally and the County Planning Department's kind of have been an adolescent in
<br />terms of community planning through the CDP stage because prior to the 2005 General Plan,
<br />there wasn't an active community planning program. And, so in 2005, they explicitly included
<br />Chapter 15 in response to the public's desire to have a more active role and more meaningful
<br />role in the planning process. And, so this is the fifth of six CDP's that have been initiated since
<br />then, and they're fundamentally an effort at balancing different perspectives related to what
<br />needs to go into a strong community plan.
<br />I like to joke about "Community Planning 101" but, quite seriously, when you think about it's
<br />easy to embrace the idea of involving people in a greater, in a greater way in governance and in
<br />planning specifically. But, when you begin to think about how to do that, it raises a number of
<br />dilemmas and challenges.
<br />The first one is really, what is "the community?" Very often, people talk about or ask the
<br />question, "What does the community want?" And, usually, the answer to that is, "Well, depends
<br />on who you ask." Right? Because, communities are not homogenous; they're extremely diverse
<br />typically. And, so, when you sit down and start thinking about how to design a community
<br />planning process, you have to be very aware of that diversity within the community and make
<br />sure you're hearing from that diversity throughout the process and making sure people feel
<br />involved and heard through each step of the process.
<br />Another challenge you face in community planning is the need to balance critical perspectives.
<br />Obviously, community planning fundamentally is about hearing the local perspective in all its
<br />diversity and so you gotta fundamentally make sure a community plan is very much grounded in
<br />the local context—what you know about the place, what local people know about the place, and
<br />what they've identified as their core values and vision and goals moving forward.
<br />At the same time, in the same way, you don't—well, I don't build my own house. I would hire
<br />an architect if I was going to design a house. But, in the same way, in communities, they are
<br />often very clear about what they'd like to see but don't always have the skills like an architect. I
<br />would need to build a house, to actually design it, and get the structures right and make sure it
<br />stands up in a storm, that sort of thing. And so, local communities need to work also with
<br />planners and others who have industry and technical expertise that's needed. And, they help
<br />keep it practical and grounded in the law and in practice so that you're assured to get a plan that
<br />you can actually move forward in implementation, right?
<br />And, then, finally—and those folks are usually local folks that come in the form of planners,
<br />local consultants, etc., but there's also a whole lot of knowledge out there from community
<br />planning that's been done around the world successfully and so it's also important to look at how
<br />other people and other communities have solved similar challenges or achieved similar goals.
<br />And, so the third critical perspective to balance in community planning is, is really making good
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