2018-05-03 Hearing Transcript - Hamakua CDP

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On December 19, 2016, the Hamakua Community Development Plan (CDP) Steering Committee recommended approval of a revised version of the March 2016 draft Hamakua CDP. After reviewing agency comments, the Planning Director has recommended revisions to the CDP. Pursuant to Section 2-28.1 of the Hawaii County Code, within sixty days after receipt of the Planning Director's recommendation on a draft community development plan or any amendment thereof, the Windward Planning Commission shall transmit the draft community development plan or any amendment with its recommendation through the Mayor to the County Council. Likewise, pursuant to Section 15.1 of the General Plan, the County Council may modify or amend the community development plan before enacting it by ordinance, but it shall give the Steering Committee and Windward Planning Commission an opportunity to review and comment upon substantive amendments and modifications before final adoption of the plan. The purpose of this meeting and public hearing is to afford all interested persons a reasonable opportunity to comment on the Hamakua CDP and for the Commission to review the CDP and consider its recommendation to the County Council. Good enough? And, with that, Bethany, would you start the presentation on the CDP, please. MORRISON: Thank you, Chair Clarkson. Good morning, Planning Commissioners. My name is Bethany Morrison. I'm a long-range planner with our Planning [sic] Division in the Planning Department, and I was also part of the CDP project team. I also live in the planning area and am honored to present the Hamakua Community Development Plan to you today. I also want to acknowledge the Steering Committee members that are present today. We have Brad Kurokawa and Glenn Carvalho, and Farrah -Marie Gomes joining us as well. Thank you folks for your time and efforts today. For today's presentation, I'd like to provide you with an overview of what the Hamakua CDP includes. This will give you some context about community development plans, the purpose and scope of those plans, what the steering committees' roles are, the process—the planning process that we went through, the outputs of that process, as well as the Planning Director's Background and Recommendation. And, of course, I'll be happy to answer any questions you folks have. Before we get into the Hamakua Community Development Plan or CDP, I wanted to give you some context about the County's planning efforts. In 1971, the County adopted the first General Plan, and that is the long-range planning document for the County. It has been updated along the way, but it has had limited community engagement because it's really an island -wide scale plan. It doesn't get into the specifics of the community's needs. And, so starting in 2005, with the 2005 update to the General Plan, a new chapter was added calling for community development plans, and this was to engage community members into planning for their community. Community planning is very important to keep a balanced perspective, and we have already had four community development plans—actually five now adopted. Ka`u is the last one that was adopted last year. But, prior to that in 2008, we had the Kona, South Kohala, North Kohala, and Puna all adopted, and in the meantime, we started EXHIBIT D 2