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Planning Director's Memo Dated May 1, 2008 to the CDP Steering Committees Regarding the CDP Legal Effect: Excerpts "A plan, like a CDP, is a guide to future actions. A plan exists to create a long-range framework and direction for specific decisions. It is not self -implementing, and it is not the action itself. A CDP, for example, may direct that rezoning in the CDP area follow certain criteria, but it does not in itself rezone land... "The CDPs and the General Plan are not directly regulatory in this sense: you will not be able to cite a member of the general public for violating some provision of CDP. Their regulatory effect is that they guide, and in some cases mandate, how other regulatory programs are handled. "In this letter, whenever it says that a provision in the CDP is "legally binding", or "mandatory", it means that a court could enforce the CDP to overturn a decision that had been made by the county council, planning commission, or other county decision-making body, based on language in the CDP. Or, that because of language in the CDP, a court could order the county to take certain actions. In practical terms, this is the real meaning of the CDP being legally binding or mandatory. As discussed below, because the CDP is enacted as a law of the county, the county council, mayor, and other county officials like the department heads are supposed to implement the CDP in good faith, but in many instances, reasonable people may differ on how to implement the CDP in a particular situation, and a court's role in overturning decisions made by the legislative and executive branches of government, within their spheres of authority, is limited... "Thus, any rezoning ordinance must be consistent with the General Plan .... The General Plan will sometimes prohibit certain zoning in an area, but it will rarely if ever mandate it because zoning also depends upon site-specific issues, like flooding, infrastructure, traffic, and historic sites, that are not fully analyzed at the General Plan LUPAG map level, and it is also subject to the timing of development: an area may be designated urban on the General Plan but it may be that it shouldn't be developed until infrastructure has been improved, or other areas are developed first. "A land use plan like the General Plan or CDP typically functions as a guide to other land use decisions, such as rezoning, although not always with mandatory language. So a CDP can have a policy that is worded in a way that is clearly mandatory and limits the range of decisions that can be made in the future... In contrast to such policies that are worded in a binding manner, and are relatively specific, the draft CDPs have a great number of policies and goals that are not legally binding: they do not mandate or prohibit certain decisions. These are what the GATRI court called "hortatory": they are general statements about goals and policies, but are broad and open to interpretation... "Typically, the planning department will make a recommendation on any zoning or other land use request that goes to the council or planning commission, and try to analyze it against the goals and policies of the General Plan. The planning department should try to do the same using the CDPs once they are enacted. P9. 5 Appendix Vi: Purpose and Scope: Hamakua CDP March 2o18