2017-10-25 Environmental Management Commission Minutes

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should grow by about another 100,000. Software has been able to map where the fastest growth patterns are, in Kaūʻ and Puna, which are typically underserved communities. They did a comprehensive review of all the CDPs and have a huge matrix of all General Plan policies and all CDP policies so they can compare them. The good news is that they are very consistent with each other. As an island, we have consistent goals on where we want to go and what we want from a development standpoint. This helps with the future of the General Plan, which will be a new animal incorporating years of community work and outreach through the general development regional plans. The scenario software they are using has allowed them to download all the information they have gathered. They have layers of GIS mapping from all the agencies that have it— federal, state, and county—and have incorporated the data into the mapping software program. This enables them to see not only the trends, but they can also see and map information from the CDPs, including the policies. They can look at individual topic focused layers. They can look at different scenarios, modeling pieces of goals and intentions, and see how they measure against one another. The software has the ability to look at very specific indicators in order to compare different scenarios to achieve a community’s goals. On the “Network Analysis” slide, Ms. Surprenant explained how the Fire Station Network Coverage shows the particular level of service between a fire station and the communities it is to reach. The “Active Parks Network Coverage” slide shows the service areas of the parks and how many acres can be reached by a community Commissioner Olson asked whether “service area” speaks to the adequacy of the service, and Ms. Surprenant said not in this particular case. The slide showed specifically active usable park land and households reached, but not necessarily the facilities within the park. Ms. Morrison said that adequacy of the level of service would be handled in a policy, not necessarily by a map that measures distance. Commissioner Olson said that to the average person, it is the level of service that really matters. Ms. Surprenant turned the presentation over to Ms. Morrison, to walk through some of the specific research. Ms. Morrison said she is a long-range planner with the Planning Department and would be going through the research and analysis on the different topic areas and sharing some of the findings regarding wastewater and solid waste, as these are big environmental issues that need to be recognized and considered in the strategies. There are coastal water quality issues, as many older residential and unsewered areas are creating water quality issues down the coast. They need to figure out how to deal with that in the General Plan and consider potential management strategies. Vice Chair Bennett asked why they were targeting Puakō and Kapoho on the slide, and Ms. Morrison explained those areas were just being used as examples. Water quality data shows there is an environmental issue in both of those communities. Other areas may have issues as well, such as Kealakekua Bay. 4