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Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0027.027 2000-2002 2/20/01(-`l, 3 20 ~M ~ 1!2 P O Box 1185 L'olcano, HI 96785 TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO BILL 195 RC{EIVED Hine B _ Chair Aralcaki and members of the Council, Ca1~ ~ ~ C'ouiMy CourcJl Changing the zoning for W H Shtprnan Ltd m Kea au, as proposed m Bill 195 is bad planning If for no other reason. please consider this Who should benefit when the public spends trtoaey ~ Once upon a time, a road was built to Puna Shiprttan then built a shopptng center at the intersec4on of this road and the Volcano Htghway Thts shopptng center led to st~tficant congestion on the road So, the State of Hawai i spent millions of our tax dollars (gas tax and money we sent to Washington D C) to build a new road to bypass the shopptng center and other commetrtal operations Now, Shipman wants to build a new shopptng center that will add congestton at the entrance to the bypass that was dust built. That makes no sense LVhat is going to happen next? We will have more traffic probleim And the state will be required to spend more o(our money to rmttgate these problems Traffic 'dot only will this create anew the problem that the bypass was built to solve, but it will also add traffic delays to those of dnving to and from L'olcano. If the shopptng center were placed on the other side of the 6ighwa}•, we wouldnt face new delays from traffic entering and leaving on the ballpark side of the highway Those of us who dove up that highwa}• regularly will be forced to stop to accommodate patrons of this new retail operation We will waste gas at the traffic lights And our time Beauty You don't see much of the ugliness of Nttrutz Htghway near the airport in Honolulu anymore The state built an overpass But that ugliness happened incrementally And tt will happen here LL'hat do we want tounsts driving up to the National Pazk to seep A bunch of stop rnal Ise 1'romtses of "mitigating visual impacts" and creating vegeution buffers are hollow LVitness the Kaloko Industrial Pazk south of the airport This zoning proposal contazne no enforceable provision to ensure that a greenbelt is preserved and that the new• mall is hidden from view Sewage i -•J T ; ~ ~;1 ~1? i C'. • Comm. Na 2 ' Z FSIe No. Ref. To: lii.t. D.•_ 2 0 2001 2/2~i01 i~ 3 20 PM p 2/2 Where will the sewage be disposed How will it be treated SettinRprecedenis The revised bill practically prorruses that the county will rezone the other parcel That's bad planning and bad policy Few Benefits Several temporary. construction fobs will be created But no permanent fobs will be created Retail operations of this nature do not create fobs They take~obs from elsewhere Think about it The money that will 6e spent at the new Shipman facility is not new money, it is simply money [hat is spent elsewhere now A better wav 4~-e could be bwlding a livable community where people can walk to the grocery store and the park Instead, we are monng blindly forward building automobile-centnc malls Shipman owns plenty of land around Kea au proper that could be developed appropnately Instead of developing a parcel of land that is directly adjacent to Kea au (which Shipman owns), this protect is proposed a good distance from Kea'au proper This parcel should not be developed at least for another few decades 'fhe county doesn't owe Shiprnan anything Why grant this zoning? Shipman has no vested nghts to this zone change R'hat purpose does bad planning sen•e~