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Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0307.019 2006-2008 AK[NAKA & ASSOCIATES, LIMITED ALSTON HUNT FLOYD & ING ASHFORD & WRISTON HAWAII LEEWARD PLANNING CONFERENCE BAYS DEAVER LUING ROSE BABA P.O. BOX 2159 • KAMUELA, HAWA1185713.2159 BELT COLLINS HAWAII, LIMITED . LADES SCHUTTE FLEMING & WRIGHT _ ~ CASTLE & COOKE WAIKOLOA, LLC CENTEX DESTINATION PROPERTIES CEd7RAL PACIFIC BANK LS May 2007 CLERK REALTY CORPORATION COOPER @ COOPER, LLC D.R. NORTON, INC., SCHULER DIVISION In Consideration of DE LUZ ENTERPRISES, INC. BIII NO. 318 . FFRST HAWAIIAN BANK FOREST SOLUTIONS, INC. An Ordinance Amending Chapter 25, ArtICIe 2, DIVISIOn 4, GREEN WELL FARMS, INC. Hawai' i County Code 1983 (2005 Edition) By Adding HAWAII LAND COMPANY HAWAII PLANING MILL, LIMITED A New Section Related to Concurrency Conditions HAWAII ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY HOKULI'A HOLUALOA COMPANIES HUALALAI RESORT The Honorable Pete Hoffmann, Chair IMANAKA KUDO & FUJIMOTO and Members of the Hawai' i County Council JACOBY DEVELOPMENT, INC. JARDINE INVESTMENT PROPERTIES, LLC 333 Kilauea Avenue (Ben Franklin Building) KAHUA RANCH, LIMITED 2nd Floor, Council Room KAI HAWAII, INC. Hllo, HI 96720 KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS NT CORP. KAUPULEHU DEVELOPMENTS KEALAKEKUA RANCH, LIMITED KEALIA RANCH AIOha Chair Hoffmann and Mem berS Of the HaWdl I COUnty COU nCII: KEAUHOU KONA CONSTRUCf10N CORP. KE KAILANI DEVELOPMENT, LLC KITCHELL CONTRACTORS I am ]acqui Hoover, President of the Hawai' i Leeward Planning Conference KOBAYASHI GROUP, LLC (HLPC) whose seventy-five members are committed to sound planning, KOHALA RANCH DEVELOPMENT CORP. KTA SUPER STORES wise use of our resources, and effective govern ment prOCESS. LANIHAU PROPERTIES, LLC L'ORANGE & ASSOCIATES HLPC agrees with the Hawai' i County Planning Commission that "Stated as M & EHPACI FICI NC ELOPMENT, LLC a general principle, it is impossible to disagree with the concept Of MacFARMS OF HAWAII Concurrency. The difficulty is in putting it into practice, particularly with the MARVL GROUP, INC. MAUNA KEA PROPERTIES, INC. conditions that exist in Hawai' i County, and coming out with policies that MAUNA LANI SERVICE, INC. have the intended resu Its." M[CANDLESS LAND & CATTLE COMPANY McCORRISTON MILLER MUKAI MtKINNON MENEHUNE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, INC. In our letter of April 18, 2007, we offered some initial comments on an MOOERS ENTERPRISES, LLC earlier draft of Bill 318 Which we noted at the time contains some fair) THE NATURE CONSERVANCY OF HAWAII , y NORTH KONA VILLAGE, LLC technlCal prOVISIOnS. OKAHARA&ASSOCIATES, INC. PA'AHANA ENTERPRISES, LLC PACIFIC RESOURCE PARTNERSHIP We have SInCe evaluated those provisions In more detail, as a result Of PARKER RANCH which we strongly urge the County Council to give further consideration to PBRHAWAII the Bill before its final ado tlOn. PONOHOLO RANCH, LIMITED p QUEEN EM MA LAND COMPANY THE QUEEN LILI'UOKALANI TRUST As we understand the draft 2 now before the Count Councll it calls for R.M. TOWILL CORPORATION ( ) Y i RIEHM OWENSBY PLANNERS ARCHITECTS each rezoning application to be supported by a TrafFlc Impact Assessment RYAN ASSOCIATES Report (TIAR). That report is to do all of the following: sAM O. HIROTA, INC. SURETY KOHALA CORPORATION TITLE GUARANTY ESCROW SERVICES, INC. • Identify all public roads and highways in Hawaii County which are TSA CORPORATION likel t0 be used b the residents or occu ants of the ro'ect for W'~'IMEA WATER SERVICES, INC. v v P P I WASTE MANAGEMENT OF HAWAII which the rezoning is sought; WATER RESOURCES INTERNATIONAL, INC. WES THOMAS ASSOCIATES WEST HAWAII CONCRETE • Determine the current level of service of each of those roads and WILSON OKAMOTO CORPORATION highways; WIMBERLY ALLISON TONG & GOO Jacqui L. Hoover Pre5lden[ ,~,3 07. ~ 9 P•O. BOX 2159 KAMUELA, HAWAII 96743 Ref. TOt N~"~9 TEL: 808.885.9588 FAX: 808.685.9590 Ref. Dp}@ hloc0lhawallantel.net www. h a wa I I I eewa rd o l a n n i n a. o ra Estimate the level of service likely to be experienced on each such road or highway five years into the future, taking into account "other approved or proposed development that is expected to impact the project area, with reasonable assumptions about the build-out of such development." • Identify and evaluate alternative plans for mitigating the impacts likely to be created by the project, if the current or projected level of service on any given road or highway is below level C. The evaluation is to include "budgetary cost estimates for the capital and operating costs of promising alternative plans." If the TIAR for any proposed project determines that the current or projected level of service on any road or highway is less than level C, then "any rezoning of the property, if approved, shall contain conditions that require mitigation of adverse traffic effects before occupancy of the project is permitted, or that occupancy be delayed until the level of service has reached the acceptable level and is no longer projected to be worse that the acceptable level." We strongly believe that this approach needs further consideration. As noted in previous testimony and again in our analysis of the current draft under consideration, the role of the public sector continues to be missing from the overall dialogue. In particular, our analysis raises the following concerns and questions: Overall, should the task of identifying and prioritizing capital improvement projects, and appropriate funding mechanisms for implementation be undertaken by the private sector which does not have authority for implementation, or is this a role that leadership, i.e., the County and Council should assume? • Is it not more appropriate for Hawai' i County to determine the existing and projected levels of service on our existing roads and highways, rather than delegate that important task to a succession of private consultants working for developers? • Should the County be identifying the improvements needed to solve level of service problems, rather than delegating that responsibility to individual developers? o If in fact many of our existing roads and highways currently fail to provide the minimum required level of service, or are projected to do so in the near future, then each zoning applicant would be required to identify alternative solutions for each road or highway likely to be used by residents or users of the proposed new project -and to provide cost estimates to implement those solutions. This is an enormous, and we believe inappropriate, burden and responsibility to place on the proponent of a new project. Rather, liawai~ i County should be developing alternative plans to address roads and highways which provide, or are projected to provide, inadequate levels of service to their current and projected users; and new projects should contribute appropriately to that effort, as opposed to being delegated the role and responsibility for identifying areas that need attention and formulating (and leading the effort to rank) alternative solutions. HLPC re: COH Bill 318 D2 SO May 2007 Page 3 of 4 • Is it appropriate to establish a rule that new projects cannot move forward until there are funded solutions in hand to improve the level of service on every crowded road or highway on which the residents and users of the new project would drive? o Under Bill 318 D2, no new project could move forward until there are funded or bonded plans in place to enhance service levels on all roads and highways which (a) currently provide a low level of service or are projected to do so and (b) would be used by the residents or occupants of the new project. This is troubling for two reasons: It is highly likely that new residents will use many if not most of our roads and highways from time to time. We are not aware of any existing data base from which we or others can determine which roads and highways currently fall below the minimum accepted service levels or are likely to do so in the near future. As a result, we cannot determine if this proposed new requirement can ever be satisfied, practically speaking, Until we have information on that topic, we cannot tell if the community can reasonably expect this Bill to help redress the infrastructure imbalance or if it is instead likely to have the unintended consequence of stopping even beneficial new developments. Until we are confident this Bill will in fact contribute to a solution, we prefer not to risk undermining the activity on which so many of our residents rely for their livelihood. • There is no mechanism in the Bill for the proponent of a new project to solve a single very significant problem while leaving lesser or other problems to be solved later -this Bill in effect says, if your proposed project will touch twenty areas where there are traffic problems, you or others have to solve them all, or you cannot move forward. For example, imagine a project the proposed developer of which offers to provide one of the significant new highways or mauka-makai connectors which many of our communities have wanted for years. If that developer does not also come forward with a plan to address the impact the residents or users of his or her project would nonetheless have on other crowded roads or highways, this new ordinance would not give the County Council the latitude needed to allow the beneficial proposed project to move forward. In conclusion, we would like to reemphasize that we share what we believe to be a strong desire among most County residents that we all work together, expeditiously, to find effective ways to (1) redress the meaningful shortage of transportation infrastructure and (2) manage growth in the future so as to restore and then maintain an appropriate balance between residents and transportation infrastructure. We believe the community does not know enough at this point to determine whether this Bill will help in that effort or - by unintentionally stopping even beneficial new development projects -deprive us of what should be a meaningful source of energy and capital in our joint efforts to achieve these very important goals. HLPC re: COH Bill 318 D2 10 May 2007 Page 4 of 4 HLPC remains committed to working with the County to develop and implement along-term strategy for infrastructure and to develop a "toolbox" of initiatives on a wider spectrum that considers all of the factors that are related to our long-term planning needs. Thank you again for your leadership in finding and executing responsible solutions, and for this opportunity to express our views on this matter. Respectfully submitted, Jacqui L. Hoover President Hawai i Leeward Planning Conference