HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommunication No. 2022-13- Keola Childs TestimonyKona CDP Action Committee Testimony
May 12, 2022
Colin Keola Childs
Infrastructure Priorities for North Kona CDP Planning Area
•The infrastructure priority for North Kona should be principled development of the
CDP’s “Kona Urban Area.”
•The infrastructure priority for the CDP’s “Kona Urban Area” should be the
development of one, single large-scale “Transit-Oriented Development” (TOD)
surrounding present-day Kailua-Kona. “Large Scale” means a planned city area of
roughly 3,000 acres, centered on the intersection of Qn. K and Palani Road with a
radius of a half-mile north, mauka and south. Just for preliminary thinking purposes,
I’m suggesting that it would run north to the planned Kona Regional Park on the
north side of the Police Station, mauka to Qn. Lil. Village on Palani, and south to
Hualalai Road/Qn. K. intersection. The long-awaited Kamakana Villages affordable
housing development would be almost dead-center.
o The potential road network from all three public schools just outside this new
urban core – Elementary, Intermediate and High – should be quickly obvious,
but if I had another 3 minutes, I’d point out the key arterials linking
throughout this proposed future city core area I’ve described and shown on the
one-page handout.
•According to Census Data, the entire County of Hawaii has added not quite 1,000
housing units a year for the period from 2007 – 2020. There is no official breakout
for our island districts, but if North Kona had HALF of that (unlikely, but to make a
point), that’s only 500 housing units/year from Kona Hospital to Kukio, including
mauka farm dwellings and ohana dwellings on existing house lots. That means no
more than 300 dwelling units/year to establish all the TODS envisioned in the CDP;
that’s less than 1,000 adults and children per year. For reasons that I don’t have time
to get into here, we can’t expect any TOD to be viable with less than about 10,000
people absolute minimum as a bare-bones start-up, so to make our Plan work, we
have to concentrate that development to one spot to the exist reasonable and possible.
Waikoloa Village population is supposedly under 7,000 people, and you can see how
limited the services are there. It’s a good benchmark for what’s feasible and what
isn’t.
•The infrastructure priorities for development of this single TOD – the creation of the
city of Kailua-Kona – are simply three:
o Priority No. 1. Water. We must unite to put down the blockade of new water
wells to serve this Kealakehe region, in the so-called Keauhou Aquifer. It’s
an absurd situation, where the NPS has, I’m told by an informed County
official, convinced the CWRM to not issue any more well permits in this area
because of theoretically compromising the brackish water quality of
Aimakapa and Kaloko Ponds. This is bizarre for several reasons, but the most
important one is that these ponds, according to State and County projections
Communication Number 2022-13
of Sea Level Rise, will have three more feet of ocean water in them in the next
60-100 years, rendering the entire debate about salt-water intrusion from
BELOW at total farce. WE MUST HAVE WATER in central North Kona!
Priority No. 1.
o Priority No. 2. Sewage Treatment. All the homes and businesses we need,
and all the homes we need right there at the doorstep on existing K-K and
within the core of the future K-K, need to have proper sewage treatment. We
can provide this feasibly with housing at 10 units per acre, pocket parks, and
business areas, but not with everything spread out like we’ve been doing up
and down the coast in Kona.
o Priority No. 3. Roads WITHIN and SUPPORTING the K-K core area.
This means not building roads with County money that don’t connect existing
residential areas with the core area. For example, the planned extension of
Ane K. Hwy. to Palamanui will not save any time going to or from existing
neighborhoods several miles mauka, whereas an extension of Holoholo Street
to Kealakaa St. would directly connect Kona Highlands, Wonderview,
Coastview, Kona Acres, and the someday-soon Stanford Carr development on
Hina Lani St. to the School District, and down Manawalea to Ane K. as it is
today. And someday, on down to Makalapua and Kona Commons at Qn. K.
THAT’s where outside-of-core area money and time should be spent as to
roads, NOT Ane K. north to nearly nothing for the next 40 years. The
mentioned Manawalea and Makalapua extensions and linkages are examples
of roads WITHIN the proposed K-K Core area that will make this core area
“pop” in functionality, and for transit feasibility. Not mention that kids could
ride bikes “on contour” minimal slopes” all the way from Kona Highlands to
elementary and intermediate schools if a bike path were provided.
• Three priorities: Water, Sewage Treatment, and directly supporting Roads for a
single, Kailua-Kona TOD of approximately 5 square miles.
Communication Number 2022-13
Communication Number 2022-13