HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0027.006 2000-2002
. Bonnie Goodell Plannlnafor8uatalnablllty www.bonniegoodell.com
P.O. Box 6, Volcano MI 987860006 (808) 967.7776 oma~pkn®Intarpao.net
1/23/01 Testimony against Bill 195, rezoning for a shopping center for W.H. ShtpmBii~~, , _ ~ ~ 1 7 r'
This shopping center >s dependent upaai denying ahoppeis the choice of shopping nearer
Theo homes as by transit, walking or biking. Last November, Matthew Simmons,
president of so investment bank specializing m energy, and advisor to our new President
said "Today we ere in the early days of the most severe energy cnais the world has ever
known. Today's energy cnais >s the equivalent of a Perfect Storm, ...s convergence
of pending shortages m all three forms of energy. oil, natural gas, and electricity This
has never happened before " Mr. Simmons explains that more fossil energy cm be found
only by paying much more for it. He compares our time to 1938, when World War R
was already underway, we just refused to acknowledge it.
Ten years ago, Congress enacted ISTEA, to help us shift to transit, bilre and walking
choicss, andtransit-based land use pattema of compact, walkable, neighborhood retail
Elsewhere, that transformation is proceeding rapidly. Transit use >s nvw growing faster
than auto use m the U.S Ten years ago, Puna community said they wanted transit not
highways. Hawaiian Paradise Park produced a plan for sic civic and commercial
netghbotfiood centers m I~IPP
A small shopping center and en elementary school site in Hawaiian Paradise Park were
turned down m 1993 and 4, even though they would have eliminated many highway inps
Many other small p[olecta have been blacked since In 1993, W H. Shipman had already ~ ? _
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planned their future shopping center end made a deal with the DOE for two new schools,
all at bypass junctions Shipman's planner was also working for Hawaii Dept of
Transportation, which was then planning the bypass HDOT was either completely
ignorant of Shrpman's plane for use of the bypass, or was vwlating federal planamg
requuemenffi for highways
The current population of HPP, based on then house count, is about the same as North
Hilo and Hemakiia combined North Hilo and Hamekua have 105 commercial parcels
HPP has none North Hilo/Hamakua have 27 full-time police officers HPP has none
North Hilo/Hamakua have 69 acres of improved county parka, looked after by fifteen full
time parka staff, HPP has neither staff nor parks. North Hilo/I-lamakua have 21
firefighters, and four public schools HPP has two firefighters, no schools
50,000 small landowners in Puna have bcen denied the opportunity to develop a viable
local economy~uat so W.1L Shipman can sell this outof--date auto-dependent mall Puna
drivers are paying for a bypass designed to impoverish them The mirumum wage jobs
in Hilo and at thin shopping center cannot now support the cost of the car needed to get to
them, so people hitchhike, and do without insurance. What about when gea prices keep
going up, and 30,000 people can't even buy groceries, much leas get a job without
driving at least twenty miles For fifty yeazs the economisffi of First Hawairan Bank end
Bank of Hawaii have card we are disabled by the concenhation of commercial land m the
hinds of a few large landowners in Puna, d is way beyond handicap, to economic
genocide Deny this application, so you can approve hundreds of others