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Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0372.190 2024-2026From: Sara Steiner Sent: Tuesday, October 7, 2025 10:22 AM To: Council Testimony Subject: OPPOSE BILL 66 Hi County General Plan to Steal Our Land! Sara Steiner o n CD 13-430 Pohoiki Road C, o cCD Pahoa, Hawaii 96778 i via email October 7, 2025 RE: SPECIAL MEETINGS OF PCPL•UED � .. OPPOSE BILL 66 Cr- OPPOSE 2045 Hawaii County General Plan Dear Chair Kierkiewicz, Council: I oppose just about everything in the 2045 Hawaii County General Plan. I have noticed that most of the testifiers at both the Planning Commission and County Council meetings are overwhelmingly AGAINST the plan and for varying excellent reasons. Even Mayor Kimo Alameda stated in prior written testimony the 2045GP is way too complicated and kind of like micromanaging our lives instead of a general plan that the communities around the island get to decide whatthey want in their specific areas. I am asking that you all notice what your constituents want and vote according to our wishes, not acquiescing to some new world order manuals written by artificial intelligence. As it is now, the 2045 GP claims the County wants a "Thriving, Diverse, and Regenerative Economy" yet the plan moving forward is to cram everyone into existing urban clusters so the state and county don't have to develop and maintain any Level of Service on the roadways or water infrastructure and other necessities of life for rural residents to thrive, diversify and regenerate their economy. The plan shows only expanding a small fraction of already existing roads and water and sewer infrastructure in Hilo, Waimea and Kona -thereby keeping the Status Quo of bedroom communities who need to travel to Hilo, Kona or Waimea for work. Who owns all that newly designated urban cluster land? It will be real interesting to see! How is urban clustering make us thrive? We are already diverse, except for our land is becoming unaffordable for regular folks and local families, so the diversity is being gentrified by rich folks, many who don't even live here, just tax investments to make more money off the beauty of Hawaii. It is shameful that.Hawa!i is run as a Third World pay -to -play state and it is shameful the County condones it against the wishes of the locals. Comm. 0 3 Ref. To: t Ref. Date - &909; The plan claims to be driven by climate change yet shows an urban cluster designation right in the Banyan Drive Golf Course in the Tsunami Zone. The plan claims to be driven by Community Development Plans, yet I can find no Hilo CDP and why is there none? Do the people of Hilo not get to choose what happens in their neck of the woods? The One Water plan is theft of a natural resource that falls out of the sky and runs underground to the sea and is not owned by the County or State of Hawaii or the United States Federal Government and therefore you do not get to take land where water resources are located in the name of protecting the water from the humans. All State and County and Federal Lands are owned by the people, for the people, not for exploitation to the highest bidder. The 2045 Plan is using lava maps from the 2018 eruption and older eruptions to dictate what land use your land will be changed to if this plan is adopted. The problem is the maps are JUNK! If I go to the 2045 GP and look at my property on Pohoiki Road, I find it half -covered in 2018 lava. That is absurd, as no lava came on my property at all during the 2018 eruption, nor the three lots above me. If the map is wrong on my TMK, how many other TMKs around the island risk losing use of their land because it is located on a more recent lava flow? Tens of thousands of landowners around the island need to be given proper notice of this rezoning theft of their AG land in their biannual tax bills and yearly assessments not by unmonitored Facebook pages and meetings you wouldn't know about unless you troll the County website regularly. Otherwise, the County is just are thieves without due process or compensation. The 2045 plan steals everyone's land that was covered in lava in 2018—turning it into a brand new land use designation "Natural" which seems to mean you don't get to use your land as you want you have to leave it natural and you can only plant certain plants and have to remove invasive species as the County dictates. In the middle of all this nature and residential subdivisions is a heavy toxic polluting industry in Lower Puna, Puna Geothermal Ventures, yet I don't see any heavy industry zoned at their location, just AG land.... How can that be? It seems the plan is create "Natural" areas to "Regenerate" but don't see how that is improving the economy when you are removing 10s of thousands of acres as AG land all around the island. Most of the island is "Conservation" already, meaning very limited what you can do with it. There is plenty of regenerative conservation areas on the island already. The 2045 GP is using "scenic viewpoints" as a secondary way to take people's land from AG to Natural, like since the new costal view from your lava lot is so lovely the County thinks you shouldn't be allowed to build on it or use it because then the public won't be able to enjoy the view. There is no rhyme or reason to the land use designations from AG to Nature. Look at that entire strip of substandard subdivision lots on both sides of Highway 11 from Keaau to Volcano. Look atthe one strip that changes to urban while the rest above and below that strip are now Natural if the plan passes. How is the County gonna pay all these landowners for the removal of use of their land? Who decides what areas stay AG in Puna and how are you notifying those 40Ktmks they are losing their AG designation. Who decided that Hawaiian Homelands gets to turn "Heavy Industrial"? Don't you think you have polluted Keaukaha enpugh,already? Share the love equally, it is called Environmental Justice where the polluting industries are spread around —yes, even to the areas the rich folks live at! You like having treated sewage? Treat it in your own neighborhood, don't pipe it all down to sea -level Keaukaha where the Hawaiians live and the water is rising! Stop kicking this dead horse. No more wasting hundred hours making spreadsheets trying to justify the steal! Please, send this plan back to Planning Commission with a recommendation to form a Hilo Community Development Plan ASAP and then you keep the 2005 GP for another year or two and develop an equitable plan off the 2005 template. You have more than enough testimony against 2045 and there is no reason to keep wasting time trying to make excuses to justify its existence!!! This isn't the mainland, I don't know one single person who wants to be in smart cities where electronic devices think for us while poisoning us at the same time. We want our healthy communities all over the island and the fresh air and oceanM That is howwe thrive and regenerate and stay diverse!!! Sara Steiner