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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0045.033 2002-2004 VNtV os MAW 40~ ~ V Harry Kim _ Christopher J. Yuen Mnror Dire<~:~r "r'uF,M~•'~ Roy R. Takemoto Deputy Director ~DLTtt~~I 0~ ~tlflTtTtT PLANNING DEPARTMENT 101 Pauahi Street, Suite 3 Hilo, Hawaii 96720-3043 (808)961-8288 Fax(808)961-8742 June 14, 2004 - u Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL 25 Aupuni Street , Hilo, HI 96720 Dear Chair Elarionoff and Members of the Committee on Planning: SUBJECT: GENERAL PLAN COMMENTS ON BILL NO. 163, DRAFT 2 1 am writing to present some initial comments on Draft 2, Bill 163, the proposed redraft of the General Plan released by the Chair of the Planning Committee and the Council Chair on June 8. In summary, my recommendation is that if the Council wishes to adopt a much-condensed version of the General Plan similar to Draft 2, it should include some of the major policies and map changes that were in the proposed new Genera] Plan that was sent to the Council in Draft 1, but have been deleted in Draft 2. In January 2002, the Council received the Planning Director's comprehensive redraft of the General Plan, including many new amendments. (I will refer to this January 2002 draft, which is Bill 163, Draft 1, as "Draft 1."Page references are to the "Ramseyered" version, with the green cover.) Since January, 2002, we have been at the stage in the General Plan review process where the Council must act on the Planning Director's amendments, propose modifications to those amendments, and initiate new amendments that it might want to suggest. Any new amendments proposed by the Council, and any modifications to the Planning Director's amendments, must be reviewed by the Planning Director and the Planning Commission before the Council can take final action on them. For example, if the Council votes to enact the changes in Draft 2, these have to be sent to the Planning Hawaii County is an equal opportunity provider and employer. Comm. No.,_ ~ ' 3~ Ref. To:__, Ref. Uate IIIN 1 4.1 A- Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 2 June 14, 2004 Director and reviewed by the Planning Commission before the Council can take final action to pass a new General Plan. This review process will itself take some time-- months, probably--and so I wanted to comment on Draft 2 as soon as possible, and remain in close consultation with the Council, because if the Council wants to make significant changes to amendments after the next round of Planning Director and Planning Commission review, this will create the need for yet another period of review and comment by the Director and Commission. Therefore, the Council should try to thoroughly work out issues with the General Plan as much as possible before voting to send a new draft back to the Planning Director and Commission for review, so that this can be the final stage before enactment. The Council has not yet considered or voted on Draft 2, nor has it voted on Draft I. The comments in this letter aze somewhat preliminazy because Draft 2 is a major revision of the Draft 1 draft, and has been publicly available only since June 8, but I wanted to make some comments before the June 14 and 15 Council workshops. Draft 2 is obviously the product of a tremendous amount of work and deserves careful study. Reorganization Draft 2 is a major reorganization. The text consists primazily of the "objectives" (a renaming of the "goals" in the current General Plan), "policies", and "standards". The descriptive text (such things as descriptions of the water systems or flood history of various districts) would be moved to a "County Profile", which would be printed separately, and not adopted by ordinance. The text portion of Draft 2, if adopted in its present form, would consist of about 50 pages, versus about 300 pages in Draft 1. The current (1989) General Plan is organized like Draft 2, but the other descriptive material was also enacted by ordinance, as the "General Plan Support Document", and bound together with the goals and policies, resulting in a bulky document similaz in size to Draft 1. Moving the descriptive material to a sepazate document is the only feasible way to significantly reduce the bulk of the General Plan. This is a good reorganization, and the descriptive material, while useful and important, does not have to be enacted as law, unlike the various policies and maps. As I will discuss in more detail later though, dropping the "courses of action" deletes many of the more specific policy recommendations. Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 3 June 14, 2004 Draft 2 also reorganizes some of the elements into an "Infrastructure" element, and combines the Natural Beauty, Environmental Quality, and Natural Resources elements into one. These are useful and sensible reorganizations. Vision Statements The inclusion of an overall "Vision Statement" and individual district "Vision Statements" is a significant positive innovation in Draft 2. The various Vision Statements that have been drafted have many features that would probably enjoy a broad base of support. Specific LUPAG Map Changes Draft 2 retains most of the important Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide (LUPAG) map changes proposed in Draft 1. These include the elimination of resort areas next to Spencer Park and the Pu'ukohola Heiau in Kawaihae (F-8), and at O'oma (G-7). Draft 2 also properly incorporates the compromises at Kohanaiki (G-9, G-10a, and G-1 Ob), and at Keopuka (H-1), that were negotiated after the Draft 1 draft. Draft 2 does reject some of the proposed map changes in Draft 1. While I would like to comment on some of these later, I would like to mention a few now. Draft 2 retains the "Hawaiian Riviera" major resort project at Pohue Bay in Ka'u, and associated urban and industrial areas. Draft 1 had deleted these (I-3, I-4, and I-5). This proposed resort was originally added to the General Plan in 1988. There has been no discernable action on this project since a court action invalidated its LUC reclassification about ten years ago. The coastal property is currently in the State Land Use Conservation District. I continue to recommend that it be deleted because the project is not viable, it diminishes the credibility of the General Plan to show a major resort in this location, and even if it were viable, we should not continue promoting new coastal mega-resorts. Draft 2 also takes out amendment A-4, which would shrink the "alternate urban expansion" area around Kea'au. The current General Plan has an urban expansion area of about 3000 acres on the west (mauka) side of the Volcano Highway. This is far larger than needed for the expansion of Kea'au town. Even including the undeveloped Gateway project (32 acres), the present town of Kea'au is not a tenth the size of the urban expansion area. Most of the 3000 acres is prime agricultural land. The purpose of A-4 was to focus future urban development closer to the existing town. Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 4 June 14, 2004 Draft 2 would also reject I-8, which designated coastal lands between Honuapo and Ninole Cove as Conservation. Draft 2 also reduces the proposed H-1 "Conservation" area (Keopuka-Kealakekua Bay) by deleting the state land State land at Kaawaloa (around the Captain Cook Monument) and the Captain Cook Ranch lands, above the cliff at Kealakekua Bay. The County General Plan should recognize the significance of these areas by putting them in Conservation. "Important Agricultural Lands" Draft 2 eliminates the "Important Agricultural Lands" LUPAG designation in Draft 1, and returns to the former "Intensive" and "Extensive" agricultural categories. Draft 2 also takes out some of the specific policy statements that were meant to protect important agricultural land from being converted to non-agricultural uses, such as "Important agricultural lands shall not be rezoned to parcels too small to support economically viable farming units", and "Discourage speculative residential development on agricultural land." (p. 350.) The present General Plan and Draft 2, while describing "Intensive" agricultural land as areas more suited to crops, do not give clear policies for how such lands should be treated in rezoning and other land use decisions versus the "Extensive" agricultural lands. This island has 1.2 million acres in the State Land Use Agricultural district, ranging in quality from recent lava flows to highly-productive farmlands. The idea behind designating important agricultural land is to identify areas deserving of protection as a base for commercial agriculture. The County land use system, and particularly the General Plan, should contain policies to discourage the conversion of prime agricultural land to residential estates, because this fragments farm land into units too small to support commercial farms, and the potential of creating these residential estates tends to drive up land prices so that farming is uneconomical. The "Report" for Draft 2 explains the deletion of "Important Agricultural Lands" by noting that the State Constitution requires the "State" to identify important ag lands, implying that this is not a county function. In 1978, the voters of the state enacted a constitutional amendment requiring the state to identify important ag lands. The first step is that the State Legislature must enact a law specifying the standards and criteria for this process, but in 25 years, the Legislature has never passed a bill taking this first step. Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 5 June 14, 2004 Despite a major effort in the past year, speazheaded by an Agricultural Working Group of about 50 active participants, including all county planning directors, the IAL bill died in conference committee this past session. We should not continue to wait for state action. The state land use law, H.R.S. Chap. 205, and the zoning enabling law, Chap. 46, clearly give the county the power to enact programs to protect agricultural land through the General Plan and zoning. County action will not replace the constitutional mandate on the State, and any county lands identified for protection will not have to meet the 2/3 standard for rezoning established by the state constitution for important agricultural lands, but the County should be diligent in trying to protect good ag land. Unfortunately, some passages in Draft 2 suggest that the County should not take any action until the state has acted, such as "When identified by the State, protect and encourage the utilization of the County's important agricultural lands." (p.42). It is not essential that the term "Important Agricultural Land" be used, as long as the policies exist that protect these lands, whatever they are called. Some of the areas mapped as important in Draft 1 aze open to question, and I am willing to work on better mapping. In particular, the category of"fair for 2 or more crops, on an irrigated basis", can be re- examined. Significance of the LUPAG Maps and Role of the General Plan Under the current General Plan, any rezoning must be consistent with the LUPAG maps. If not, the rezoning is inconsistent with the General Plan and must be rejected. Sec. 3- 15(b) of the County Charter provides that "no public improvement, project, subdivision, or zoning ordinances, shall be initiated or adopted unless the same conforms to and implements the General Plan." The requirement for map conformance explains why, for example, projects such as Prince Kuhio Plaza or the "Hawaiian Riviera" needed to obtain a General Plan map amendment before they could even be considered for rezoning. Without the requirement of map consistency, the General Plan is not a guide to rezoning. The verbal policy statements in the General Plan are so broad that some can always be found that will justify a particular rezoning action. Although it has been the practice for many years to require map consistency, to remove all doubt from this point, Draft I contained an explicit statement on this, on p. 340, along with some further guidance on the relationship between the General Plan and rezoning. Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 6 June 14, 2004 Draft 2 removes this statement, and some of the language may create some confusion, particularly language about the General Plan maps becoming more general and being supplemented by more specific community development plan (CDP) maps. The language on p. 340 of Draft 1 is important and should be retained. Although it would be a good idea for the County to move toward more specific CDP's, we cannot abandon the legally binding nature of the LUPAG maps before formulating the CDP's. The City and County of Honolulu, for example, has a very short and broad General Plan, with non-specific maps, but it also has District Development Plans with much more specific maps. Rezoning in Honolulu must conform to those Development Plan maps. We also have to be realistic about our ability to prepare and enact CDP's. The County has not enacted a CDP by ordinance since 1979, and only three plans have been enacted by resolution since 1987 (Kailua, Keahole to Kailua, and Hawaiian Paradise Park). All plans require hard choices, and so will become points of contention. (If the plan ducks the choices in a haze of generalities and ambiguities, it is worthless.) So the CDP's will take time to adopt. The statement in the "Introduction" to Draft 2 that the General Plan "is not intended to be regulatory" needs some explanation. The General Plan is not itself a regulation in the sense that, for example, the zoning code is a regulation. So a parcel that is zoned for residential use maybe used for residential, even if the property is "Open" in the LUPAG map, and a building permit cannot be denied based upon the LUPAG map alone. But the General Plan and LUPAG maps do have the force and effect of law, and discretionary decisions such as rezonings and SMA permits have to follow the General Plan and LUPAG map. LUPAG map consistency does not mean that the boundaries in the LUPAG maps are precise. The 1989 LUPAG map is on a scale of roughly 1"=11,000'. It was meant to indicate the general location of various land uses, not to be precisely scaled. (Except for map amendments that were adopted by specific metes and bounds.) Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 7 June 14, 2004 Community Development Plan Process While emphasizing the importance of such plans, Draft 2 deletes the process specified in Draft 1 for adopting CDP's by ordinance. Plans adopted by resolution lack teeth. The CDP's should be enacted by ordinance. "Floating Zones" The current (1989) General Plan and previous General Plan contained the concept of "floating zone" for industrial and retreat resort uses. The "floating zone" means that the Council could rezone such uses as a "floating zone" even if their specific location is not shown on the LUPAG maps. (Note that if LUPAG map consistency had not been required, everything would be a "floating zone" and there would be no need to have it as a separate concept in the General Plan.) Draft 1 removed the "floating zone", because it is not consistent with the idea that one should plan ahead for land uses. There does tend to be a difficulty, however, in that many of the rural areas do not have aeeas zoned for the kinds ofservice-oriented light industrial uses that aze often necessary, and do not have "Industrial" designations on the LUPAG maps. So Draft 1 stated in the "Courses of Action" that such uses could be zoned within certain areas not specifically mapped for industrial uses, like within the Honalo area. If the Council wishes to continue the "floating zone" on a limited basis, the General Plan should specify the reasons that a floating zone can be utilized, and the general locations. Otherwise, it becomes an invitation to spot zoning. Conservation Lands Draft 2 eliminates language in Draft 1 (on p. 347) that would allow small-scale recreational facilities in Conservation. This should be retained. Among other reasons, the County must sometimes review SMA (Special Management Area) permits in Conservation areas, for example, for public parks. This language makes it clear that such facilities maybe consistent with the Conservation designation. Other Policy Changes Draft 2 eliminates the "Courses of Action" that are in the current General Plan and in Draft 1. While some of these aze included within other policies, many have been Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 8 June 14, 2004 eliminated entirely, and in some cases, even if they are meant to be contained in other policies, they have been rewritten in a way that they lose much of their specificity. The "Report" attached to Draft 2 makes the apt criticism that the current General Plan and Draft 1 are often inconsistent in that some "Courses of Action" that could easily apply to all districts are only listed for one or a few districts. While this is a valid observation, this could be fixed rather than dropping them entirely. The "Courses of Action" tend to be more specific and direct than the other policy recommendations. Among the dropped "Courses of Action" are those stating that commercial development in some districts should be centered around the existing towns rather than allowing strip or spot commercial development along the highways. Our small towns like Honoka'a, Honomu, and Pahoa are treasures. When new highways are built bypassing the older towns, new commercial businesses typically try to locate along the highway. The end result is a strip malUgas station/convenience store landscape that could be anywhere, rather than the unique identity of an older, traditional town. Typically, the older town withers, and the "bypass" nature of the highway is lost to the new commercial clutter. Partially by design, and partially by luck, we have not completely lost the character of our older small towns. I would suggest that in addition to retaining these courses of action, the Council also adopt a specific policy that commercial development not be permitted on the Hokulia Bypass Highway. This will help keep the commercial viability of communities like Captain Cook and Kealakekua along the Mamalahoa Highway, while preserving the Bypass Highway as an arterial route. Other important policies or courses of action deleted in Draft 2 from Draft 1: -"Require a study of significant cultural, social, and physical impacts of large developments prior to approval." (p. 41). -"The Waipi'o Valley area should be retained for limited recreational and agricultural activities due to its high susceptibility to flooding and tsunami inundation."(p. 99). "Maintain and re-establish forest cover in mauka areas to improve the capacity of the ground to absorb heavy rainfall." (p. 103). --"Protect the views of areas endowed with natural beauty by carefully considering the effects of proposed construction during all land use reviews." (p. 131). Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 9 June 14, 2004 -"Do not allow incompatible construction in azeas of natural beauty." (p. 131). -"Discourage intensive development in areas of high volcanic hazard." (p. 91). -"Encourage an overall conservation ethic in the use of Hawaii's resources by protecting, preserving, and conserving the critical and significant natural resources of Hawaii County." (p. 154). -"Review the County grading and grubbing ordinances to ensure that they adequately address potential erosion and runoff problems." (p.84). --"Seek assistance to develop a comprehensive flood study for the subdivisions between and along Highways 1 I and 130". (p. 93). -"Encourage the mapping of the floodways in North Kona to develop more effective flood control programs." (p. 103). -"Encourage the development of affordable retirement communities." (p. 170) --"Vacant lands in urban azeas and urban expansion azeas should be made available for residential uses before additional agricultural lands are converted into residential uses." (p. 170.) --(For North Kohala) "In reviewing Special Permit applications, rezonings, and other land use changes in the Agricultural District, great care should be given to preserve existing viewplanes to and along the coastline." (p. 364). -"Lands currently designated Resort should be utilized before new resorts are allowed in undeveloped coastal areas." (p. 410). It is not clear whether some of these have been deleted because the authors of Draft 2 disagree with them as policy goals, or whether they aze believed to be incorporated in other policies. The Council should make it clear when voting on various proposed policies whether it is a matter of disagreeing with them or that they aze stated in other words, and if they are, make sure that the intent of the policy is retained. Honorable Leningrad Elarionoff, Chair and Members of the Committee on Planning HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 10 June 14, 2004 Other Issues Draft 2 (at p. 5) states that the Council will decide whether future ten-year comprehensive reviews of the General Plan should be done. These are mandatory under current law, and should remain mandatory. The ten-year review forces a periodic evaluation of land use. Otherwise, decisions are only made on arezoning-by-rezoning basis, without re- examining the overall framework. A "Puna Makai" Minor resort (up to 500 rooms) is listed on p. 47, but no location is mapped. I am not sure of the reason for eliminating the acreage requirement for a major or intermediate resort: there should be a large area for a resort of this size, and all listed major or intermediate resorts meet the can-ent acreage requirement. I will be happy to discuss these issues and any others that the Council may wish to consider at the June 14 and 15 workshops. Sincerely . ~ CHRISTOPHER J. Planning Director CJY:pak Wpwin60/Chris/GP comments on Bill No. 163, Draft 2 cc: Mayor Harry Kim Mr. Roy Takemoto, Deputy Ms. Alice Kawaha, Planning Program Manager Ms. Connie Kiriu, Legislative Auditor Ms. Charmaine Doran, Assistant to Legislative Auditor