Crowell: GPU success linked to broad support

LIHU’E – The first three chapters of a discussion draft of the General Plan

Update will be reviewed today at a Citizens Advisory Committee meeting at 4

p.m. at the Lihue Civic Center.

At a press conference yesterday County

Planning Director Dee Crowell outlined some of the land use issues addressed in

the draft.

The discussion draft, he said, includes a vision of what

planners and citizens think the island may look like in the year 2020,

intertwined with information about where we are now, how we got here, where we

want to go and how we want to get there.

He is quick to point out that the

entire discussion draft doesn’t have the full support of the CAC.

Crowell

said, for example, that visitor projections to the year 2020 are an area of

disagreement for CAC members and the general public as well.

Three major

themes of the discussion draft are recognition of the economy, open space and

rural character of the island, and recreational opportunities for residents and

visitors.

As the visitor industry is the current and (likely) future driver

of the island economy, much emphasis is placed on ensuring that visitor

attractions, roads, transportation facilities, parks, and other things enjoyed

by both visitors and residents are kept in the best shape possible.

The

General Plan that finally emerges and becomes law, Crowell said, will only be a

useful planning tool if it gains widespread community support.

“What’s

important about the General Plan is the vision,” Crowell said.

On some

specific matters, bed-and-breakfast operations are addressed in the plan, with

the department examining ways to make it easier for operators to get permits,

the planning director said.

A bill may need to pass the state Legislature

to relax state Land Use Commission requirements for such operations, though, he

added.

The county, he added, hasn’t required permits for vacation rentals

because they’d be hard to regulate, and that segment of the visitor industry

hasn’t been identified as a problem.

Regarding residential development on

former agricultural lands, Crowell said he feels there is a consensus that the

way former agricultural lands at Kilauea have been and continue to be developed

is not good.

There’s a disparity between what’s required to develop an

agricultural subdivision and what’s needed to develop an urban subdivision, and

the General Plan attempts to address that disparity, he said.

Crowell said

Princeville’s mauka development is included on preliminary land-use maps

because it’s the kind of project that needs to be discussed in the context of

the General Plan. Princeville is looking at a master-planned community concept

including a school site.

Robinson Family Partners, he said, asked the

county to designate as resort property lands from the Russian Fort to

Kaumakani, which lie makai of Kaumualii Highway.

The Planning Department

is recommending, however, that only a 170-acre parcel be changed from

agriculture to resort on the county’s land use maps. The Robinson Family

proposes to develop that land for its Kapalawai Resort.

The family’s

developer, Lewis P. Geyser, president of Destination Villages, Limited

Liability Company, has completed a draft environmental impact statement for a

250-unit resort on 170 acres of land between Waimea and Pakala makai of the

highway, and is expected to apply soon for county permits required to build the

resort.

At yesterday’s press conference, Crowell defended the department’s

inclusion of a controversial Kilauea development proposal on the preliminary

land-use maps.

The Kilauea Neighborhood Association asked the department

not to include developer Jim O’Connor’s Kilauea North plan in the General

Plan.

Crowell said planners don’t like to see requests for establishment of

churches and schools on agricultural parcels because, if approved, such uses

represent “the beginning of another town.”

These kinds of requests have

been frequent in the Kilauea area, he said. A planned development like Kilauea

North would be a natural site for schools and churches, he added.

“We’d

like to see an area where we can point them.”

Planner Keith Nitta said it

is important to include the Kilauea North plan on maps for discussion

purposes.

But Kalihiwai resident Beryl Blaich feels including the project

on the discussion draft map totally ignores the sentiment of the Kilauea

Neighborhood Association.

“Too many people in Kilauea spent so much time on

that survey, knocking door-to-door, and talking to people,” she said.

It

appears, she said, that the Planning Department is in “favor of the whole

thing—lock, stock and barrel.”

Crowell and Nitta reiterated that the

discussion draft is the first of several GPU drafts to be submitted to public

scrutiny before it is signed into law.

The plan is divided into two parts

— the text, which Crowell calls the story, and the land-use maps, which

pinpoint areas designated for future growth, or lack of future growth.

The

General Plan sets some direction in terms of where planners believe urban

growth should occur and where further agricultural uses should be developed,

which open-space corridors should be preserved, and similar items.

Robin

Foster, a planning consultant from PlanPacific in Honolulu hired by the county

to facilitate the General Plan Update process, all said the General Plan

doesn’t vest any development rights. Those rights are conveyed by county zoning

and state Land Use Commission approvals.

The General Plan is primarily a

way to guide potential future zoning decisions, Foster said.

In Hawaii,

three basic levels of approval are needed in order for a land owner to develop

his or her property, Crowell said: the state Land Use Commission, General Plan

and county zoning.

Just because a land owner has a preferable General Plan

land-use designation doesn’t mean the bulldozers are ready to roll, he

said.

So even if the Robinson and O’Connor proposals are included in the

final version of the General Plan, developers will still need to get LUC,

Planning Commission and County Council approval of their specific development

proposals before being able to move forward, Crowell said.

A round of

community meetings regarding the discussion draft will begin next week.