HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0898.065 2020-2022 Pt Counb I
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CC1IHi Y CLE COMM.8Q8
COUNTY OF H i
1023 APR 17 PM El: 06
Aloha,
My Name is David Blancett-Maddock. I own and live in my home in Hawaii County. I
am testifying in support of Councilman Holeka to override the Mayor's veto of Bill 194.
This Body is not acting inappropriately when it decides not to entrust the extension of
time to non-elected officials. By maintaining proper decisional authority, County Council
is simply doing its job, as an elected body, to ensure that the purposes and intent it had
for the zone change are carried out and realized before they become stale and harmful
to our community.
This Council had the votes to over-ride a Mayor's veto. Do not cave in now.
I am so embarrassed by the Mayor's letter of veto. To suggest that it is improper for
this Council to reserve the right of extension to itself is absurd. To insult Council's
integrity, competence and intelligence is sadly ironic, when the Mayor has appointed the
least qualified planning director in history. Sometimes these petty attacks are all one
has when the facts are not on ones' side.
We all know that the loophole in this legislation has been allowing individuals and
developers to land-bank properties with never-ending extensions that allow them to
partially develop properties and resell the balance without meeting their promises to the
community to provide low-income housing, protect cultural treasures and protect trails.
Sweet deals that are completely outdated make these individuals and developers
wealthy on zoning values with no accountability to the public over decades for the
detriment they create to now overburdened roads, water supplies and services. And,
the never-ending line of successors to these grants permit the original owners from
accountability for their promises to the community for affordable housing and
preservation of the Hawaiian cultural treasures.
Comm. No.
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Ref.To: P i(AO
Ref. Date APR. 1 9 2023
Why are there no affordable housing units of any kind? Why is there only 75 feet of the
Judd Trail remaining? Why are precious water supplies still dedicated to owners who
purchased them decades ago at bargain prices but never used them, perpetuating
shortages and rate hikes to those who need them and would use them now.
Right now, proposed developments are before you that have taken decades without
giving anything back. One developer purchased the remaining 69 acres of a larger
development for around $600,000 in 2015, 30 years after the original developer
completed only the first phase, then abandoned it before fulfilling any of the promises
and obligations for affordable housing and preservation. The new developer admitted
that they have no backers to complete the development and will only get them if another
20-year renewable extension is granted —and this extension request comes after they
let the last extension period expired by years. How do you even grant an extension to
an expired extension?
Zoning exists to encourage rational and productive development. Not to give a few rich
people entitlements to future investments. The developers know that these properties
are only valuable if zoned commercial or high density. Your zoning decisions should
not be used to make these lands extremely valuable for investment predators.
20 years is a long time to tie up land and zoning. 40 years, or 60 years is an
unconscionable period to postpone the burdens of development on future generations.
Traffic impacts, cultural impacts, construction dust, noise and congestion impacts, water
and other resource impacts are all exacerbated by unnecessary delay of these projects.
Please stand by your vote to pass Bill 194. You are doing the right thing for the
community.