HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0011.001 2008-2010
To: County Council 1/23/09
Re: Bill 2 Kaloko North Kona
From Margaret Wille, Waimea resident: support in part, oppose in part, and comment
First, a general comment about Council's review of rezoning ordinances, then some
specific comments to Bill 2 a North Kona rezoning.
In the context of rezoning ordinances, at your last meeting, Councilman Greenwell made
a pitch for working towards a council policy for handling rezonings that provides a
respectful way of interacting on those proposed rezonings. I support that sentiment, and
think the sooner this general topic is addressed the better, so trust and respect rather than
ill-will is encouraged. In doing so I hope that you consider respect for the legal process
involved as well respect for each other as the representative of their district. I also hope
for consideration of respect for the work of the agency personnel charged with handling
rezoning applications. As well, of course, including respect for the developer and the
public who are impacted directly or cumulatively.
First I want to stress respect for the rezoning application process and respect for the
agency personnel involved in reviewing those applications. I worry that the trend is away
from the legal process and that instead the rezoning process is becoming a political
process of lobbying council members separate from the recommendations of department
personnel and public participation. In the past my observation is that the pattern is for
the developer to lobby the planning director to ignore recommendations made by public
works and in particular by the engineering department, as well as to ignore public input.
This has been a generally successful pattern that occurs behind closed doors with no
public transparency. I now see that behind closed doors lobbying expanding to
generalized lobbying of the CC with the likely result being continued weakening of the
recommendations of hardworking public servants - such as the engineering department.
Let me say I greatly admire Daryn Arai. I expect that Daryn is less likely to bend to
lobbying efforts than his predecessors and for this reason, so long as he is the acting
director of planning, I expect there will be increased lobbying of individual council
members.
Coming back to Councilman Greenwell's comments about creating a process that is less
divisive among Council members, I encourage you to consider affording the
Councilperson in whose district the proposed development is located more respect, not
just in terms of how many minutes they can speak but in terms of their substantive
positions. The Councilperson in the affected district is the representative of that District
and is the most knowledgeable about the foreseeable overall impact a development. In
my view, deference should be given to the position of that Councilperson, unless you find
that Council person's position illegal or clearly contrary to principles of fairness and
justice.
Comm. No._JL1
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Page 2 M. Wille 1/23/09 Bill 2
SPECIFIC COMMENTS: I now want to make a few comments specific to Bill 2.
1. Provision D: Includes a "forest reserve easement". I strongly support inclusion of a
forest reserve easement provision here and wish it to be included in more rezonings. The
reason for this forest reserve easement is to protect an important bird habitat - especially
to decrease the harm this development will have on the critical breeding habitat of the
Alala - an endangered bird, whose survival has reached an "extremely critical state".
There is no mention of the importance of this "forest reserve easement" to protect this
unique remaining bird habitat - which is concentrated in the specific area of this
development. I would have liked there to be a specific reference to this important reason
for including this large forest reserve easement.
I would encourage you to consider forest reserve easements as standard to all rezonings
in forested areas. It is our forests that provide our watersheds and our creature habitats,
and largely determine the rainfall and weather in the down slope areas. They also provide
a windbreak and prevent erosion and flooding.
2. Also in Provision D: The proposed ordinance states that Final Subdivision approval
shall be secured within 5 years and this easement shall be established prior to the time of
that final approval. I have several comments regarding this 5 year time frame, which I
should mention under Item O can be extended by the planning director for an additional 5
year period. I suggest that this forest reservation easement be required prior to the
issuance of any grading or grubbing permit, and not wait for 5 to 10 years when the
properties are about to be sold.
In case any of you are not aware, once a developer has preliminary subdivision approval,
that developer can fully develop the property and generally only needs final subdivision
approval to record the subdivision plan and sell the constructed houses and or lots.
In my opinion allowing a 5 year period for implementation of the development with an
allowable 5year extension is too long. I suggest you consider limiting approvals to 3
years, with extensions possible provided that extension is approved by the Council. In the
1980's and 1990's I lived in Maine and was a member of a town planning and
subdivision review board. We shorted the period for development approvals in order to
allow us to better plan for the needs of the town. I should also point out this was a
problem for planning when I was on the South Kohala CDP steering committee. We
found that approvals become banked and the land is held with those preliminary
approvals for years, and then possibly sold. This made planning for the area difficult. I
suggest you reduce the period of years for rezoning from 5 to 3 years with a 3 year
extension possible upon review by the Council with opportunity for public input.
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