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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0695.003 2022-2024 p/PCPLL D Dill 128 GOMt4.On From: Maki Morinoue Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 7:22 AM To: Council Testimony Cc: Kierkiewicz, Ashley; Kagiwada,Jennifer; Inaba, Holeka; Kimball, Heather; Kanealii- Kleinfelder, Matt;Villegas, Rebecca; Lee Loy, Sue; Evans, Cynthia F.W.; Galimba, Michelle M. COUNTYCLERK Subject: Written testimony- Support Bill 128 COUNTYOFHAWAI'I RECEIVED Tiim 4:t3.a.M. By 14 Aloha County Council Member, Date FE8 U 6 21 ' I support Bill 128. This comes in late as it is challenging to keep up with the amount of hewa created by leaders looking for profit over Hawaiian Value. Please let me know how our County Council members voted. I want to put my testimony in for the record anyway. I thank Council Chair Kimball and Dr. Holeka Inaba for introducing Bill 128. This brings much-needed requirements that a developer obtain approval from the housing administrator before initiating the transfer of excess credits and that the housing administrator validate the transfer upon completion of the transaction. Our local community has great unease as we hear and see development being passed by the majority in the County Council without anyone understanding these affordable housing credits. Many of the rezoning are not proving that they can and will add affordable housing or can articulate what this affordable housing credit means or does. Yet it passes towards developing our AG lands into Residential lands, further chopping and degrading what we could use to call in the rain as properly managed food forests, addressing food security instead. When owners are pressed for further details on 'affordable housing,' they tend to fumble and not clearly articulate what that means or looks like. Most often, I find offshore investors, and Zendo Kern and his team do not have the intent for affordable housing within each proposal but rather pass along these ' credits' like bitcoin—some etheric value to society. We must manage these affordable housing credits, actualize them, and hold offshore developers accountable. Our landscape here on the West Coast of Hawai'i no longer has economic diversity—no cultural landscape. Puako is a disgusting mansion row that goes against our Hawai'i State Constitution as it is not safe to fish, not even safe for humans to enter the water there. There are no cultural landscapes to utilize on land anymore while successfully pushing out Hawaiians and kama'aina as housing taxes skyrocket all along our west coast....and Kona to Waikoloa has been taken over by empty multi-homeowners who can afford to leave their homes empty. We have been taken over by the extremely wealthy while creating mass housing development to mitigate the way our County Council has voted off our lands to the extremely wealthy. We are designing projects that do not create economic diversity within our neighborhood that reflects our culture. We create suppressive buildings for our working class and wonder why crime keeps rising on this island. It has become a Floridian urban sprawl dictated by HOA and the wealthy, which I find dangerous. This is a good start to a very convoluted current method. Mahalo Maki Morinoue Holualoa, HI 96725 I Comm. No. tt -- Ref.To: 2I ll1d 1 Ref. Date F B - 7 2024