HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0106.076 2004-2006 Page 1 of 1
Murashige, Laura
From: dan Olson [danco56@prodigy.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2005 11:14 PM
To: Safarik, Gary; Jacobson, Bab; Ikeda, Donald; Pilago, K. Angel; Holschuh, Fred; Hoffmann, Pete;
Arakaki, James; Isbell, Virginia; Higa, Stacy
Subject: Bills 29--32 In opposition
Please feel Crec to call or F.-mail for further clarifications, thank you for taking the time to read this.
Comm. No. ~0~9(0
Ref. To: P'esesMr
Ref. J~!e, JUL _
7/ 18/2005
July I8, Z00-5
Aloha Council Members;
I,et me start out by apologizing fur resorting to F,-mail to send you my opinions, but 1 fear [hat
will
not properly express all of my concerns at Che second reading for Bills 29 - 32 on Friday. 1 don't
want
to forget anything under the pressures of teleconferencing and time limits, so 1 will bother you
with
a preamble now. 1 feel that Ihis could be a good project, but the district is not ready for it, and
the
proposed mitigation is not nearly sufficient to offset the impacts to our community. In an effort
to
keep this short, 1 will just outline my points of concern, please feel free to call me or E-mail if
you
would like me to elaborate further.
1. Just to clear up any potential misunderstanding, the Kona Traffic Safety Committee, of
which I am
co-chair, is neither for or against this project. We never voted, although my personal
feeling is that
we are probably slightly more against. We did make some recomendations as a minimum
of
traffic features we felt were needed. 1 am pretty sure that these suggestions were prefaced
with,
" If Approved".
2. Nlease ask either the Public Works Dept. or the State Dept. of Transportation what effect
the
proposed traffic light will have nn the capacity of the highway at that point If you cannot
get an
answer from either of them, ask anybody in Kailua what the traffic light at the Police
station road
has dune in that area, with Icss side traffic than the project will generate. The now bad
situation
will become worse, by a large percentage.
3. Government services in nearly all aspects, in nearly all areas of our Island are already over
used
or extended in some way or another. Adding close to 1,500 additional people to the islands
population will not do anything to lighten that load, and I feel that your first responsibility
is to
your current constituencies.
4. Who is going to check mi the rental rates to insure compliance, at this point 1 am not at all
sure
that we even know who the real owners are. Our county has enough to do without trying to
enforce
more housing regulations for the nett twenty years. I can assure you that a loophole or two
will he
found, that is how people become wealthy enough to build this sort of project, by
manipulating a
system. 1 would challenge any of you to show us examples of a good rent control project.
Can we
guarantee that the apartments will go to current residents, or that they will be moving
cbser to
their jobs'.' Can we even guarantee that they will be of average income levels? These are
only a
few of the many pitfalls that I can think of with trying to provide "affordable" housing. I
am sure
that there are many more.
5. 1 would also as a last point like to encourage your review of the General Plan that
thankfully
was passed by your hody,just this Spring. The transportation section is fairly specific
about
trying to improve and maximize the traffic slow along the highway, it would be my
contention
that approving these projects will be a giant step in the wrong direction. Please
reconsider your
approval votes of the first reading.
Dan Olson 331-0441 or E-mail to DANC056~nprodigy.net
7~-3J4 Nani Kailua Drive
Kailua Kona HI 96740