General Plan on long road
The latest version of the General Plan – a document that will serve as a guide
for future land-use decisions on Kaua’i – is entering the stretch run of a
series of public hearings.
Since Oct. 18, the Kaua’i County Council’s
Planning Committee has conducted the first four of five hearings in communities
around the island – Lihu’e, Kilauea, Koloa, Kapa’a. The finale is scheduled for
6 p.m. next Wednesday at Waimea Neighborhood Center.
The community
sessions are part of a process that will end with the full council deciding to
approve proposed changes to the plan or send it back to virtually square-one
for more massaging.
At issue, among other things, are how commercial and
agriculture uses of land will or won’t mix, possible expansions of public
transportation, the amount of visitors Kaua’i can comfortably accommodate and
the additional roads and other infrastructure the island needs.
Citizens’
viewpoints have ranged from anti-development to controlling it in a way that
maintains the island’s character.
Those comments and others were heard at
the council committee hearing last Wednesday in Kapa’a:
l Annie Leighton
called for balance between the needs of residents and those wishing to come
here to live and play.
l Cheryl Lovell Obatake, a member of a citizens
advisory committee that worked on the General Plan, said Kaua’i has been chosen
as the pilot island for a statewide Coastal Zone Management initiative
regarding Native Hawaiian access rights. She expressed concern about potential
burial sites being disturbed during construction of a planned bike and walking
path from Kalapaki to Anahola.
l Donna Berman said the land needs to be
preserved. She opposed any more timeshare or hotel development thought the
decision to allow a fossil fuel-burning power plant “is a disaster that we will
regret.”
“Please be very careful how you sculpt the next 10 to 20 years of
Kaua’i’s future,” Berman told the council members.
l Sergei Bliss said
development provides little in the way of jobs for residents. He said people
building homes here bring in containers of materials and import labor to do the
work, meaning they buy little from local stores, nor hire resident
workers.
Kaua’i has the state’s highest unemployment rate among the
counties, and a growing homeless problem as well, Bliss continued. The council
should go through the General Plan with a fine-tooth comb and see how it
benefits residents, he said.
For true democracy, each community should be
allowed to vote on every development proposed, he concluded.
l Nani
Marston, a North Shore resident representing herself and her employer, Trex
Enterprises, said implementation of the General Plan is critical to the homes,
dreams and aspirations of families and communities. The draft plan addresses
most important issues, she said, including community planning and community
development, water systems, transportation, and participatory planning.
l
Ken Stokes said a consensual, community-based planning document was in the
works in February and March, after the draft was moving under citizens advisory
committee. “And then, that process was aborted” for the benefit of the county
Planning Commission, Stokes said.
“Its not done, guys. Send it back. Let
us finish a consensual document,” he told the council members.
The visitor
census targets are one of the crucial issues of the General Plan, he continued.
“These are not just numbers,” he said of the advisory committee’s wish for
slower growth with a lower average daily visitor count by 2020, and the
Planning Commission’s desire for faster growth.
Council members are seeking
re-election without the electorate knowing their positions on the General Plan,
Stokes said. He predicted the council will approve the document right after the
Nov. 7 general election.
l Maile Baird, reading a statement from Jackie
Rodrigues, said alternative visitor accommodations are proper in visitor
destination areas and resort portions of the island, but not in agricultural,
rural and open areas of Kaua’i.
l Robert Measel Jr. suggested county
attorneys verify the legality of certain sections of the General Plan final
draft.
l Jack Lundgren said the island’s agriculture irrigation systems
need special attention if farming is to continue on Kaua’i, he favors the lower
population and visitor projections, and he would like to see expanded public
transit that includes regular service to the airport, so visitors won’t all be
required to rent cars to get around.
Princeville Mauka and Kilauea North
proposals were deleted from land-use maps and wording in the General Plan by
the citizens advisory committee and were re-inserted by the Planning
Commission. Lundgren said he would prefer small development at Kilauea rather
than allow Princeville Mauka to be built.
l Roger Cable implored the
council to put the General Plan into place, but not to stop there. Look at the
realistic numbers in the plan and plan the necessary infrastructure, he
advised.
“Our island is being choked. Let’s unchoke it,” he said. Adopt the
document and keep the community involved in it, he added.
l “We feel that
it’s a developers’ plan,” not a people’s plan, said Paul Lemke. “We don’t need
people of that sort planning Kaua’i’s future.”
Better roads are needed
before the kind of development proposed in the General Plan is allowed on the
island, Lemke said. Many of the island’s roads were once trails, and inadequate
roads have led to accidents and higher car-insurance rates for residents, he
said.
“They’re out of their mind” to encourage alternative visitor
accommodations on agricultural and open lands, which would take visitors away
from the hotels, the backbone of the island’s main economic industry, Lemke
said.
l Lelan Nishek, Wailua Homesteads resident and owner and operator of
Kaua’i Nursery and Landscaping, said everyone can find fault with some portions
of the General Plan, but it should be adopted as soon as possible.
He said
prime agricultural lands and irrigation systems should be preserved for future
agricultural endeavors. The state, county and private sector need to work
together to preserve irrigation systems, he added.
Nishek also said he
would like more creative uses of wetlands on the East Side, including an
inshore marina along the Waika’ea Canal.
l Kapahi resident Susan Karstenson
started her testimony with the wishes of her 6-year-old grandson, who asked her
to tell the council that he wants to be able to continue riding his bike along
Kahuna Road in his neighborhood and fears growth proposed for the area would
prevent him from being able to do that safely.
She works at Hanalei, and
even in the face of record tourism arrival figures, many of the store owners
there report sales are flat she said. She asked if more visitors doesn’t
necessarily equate to more sales at local stores?
l Walt Barnes said the
island is changing rapidly from a two-industry to one-industry community, and
in the short term, officials must expand that single industry:
Tourism.
While many of the changes taking place are out of residents’
control, how the island reacts to those changes, and how those changes affect
the island, can be manipulated, he said.
Change frightens most people, so
they avoid it, he said. “If we wait for consensus, nothing is going to get
done,” said Barnes, asking council members to do their jobs and approve the
General Plan.
l Marge Dente of Waipouli said the plan should be sent back
to the Planning Commission and the advisory committee, industrial hemp might be
a profitable alternative to sugar on agricultural lands, and open wetlands are
of as much value to the island as resort and hotel property.
l Carol Lemke
said she is against allowing resort, retreat and commercial uses on
agricultural lands. “Sugar is not dead. It is not dying,” said Lemke, adding
that she has sent word to Texas Governor George W. Bush to subsidize sugar
should he be elected president.
“You’ve got to encourage sugar” and not
allow non-agricultural uses on agricultural lands, Lemke said.
l “If it’s
not broken, don’t fix it,” John Barretto Jr. said of the General Plan. The
problem is that the current General Plan never underwent a suggested annual
review, and the island moved toward gridlock, the County Council candidate
said.
The scale and pace of development must mirror community wishes and
infrastructure realities, he continued. The island has allowed too much
development too quickly, without enough money for infrastructure to keep up
with that development, he added.
The plan should be sent back to the
Planning Commission, Barretto said. “Just do it right,” he said, contending
people don’t care if it takes another two years to finish.
l David Martin
of Anahola said there has been a serious lack of community involvement in
resources planning. For example, the island must address stream-flow issues
before addressing irrigation systems and allowing even more stream diversion,
he said.
In Anahola, negotiations are taking place between the state
Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and county Department of Water for the county
agency to take over the DHHL water system there, he said.
l Michael Edwards
said public transportation will become as important an issue on the island as
the sale of Kaua’i Electric.
l “Adopt this plan,” Joe Prigge requested.
With 6,340 proposed visitor units planned, and over 1,000 with permits and
zoning approved for the Kawaihau district alone, he’s not in favor of any new
resort zoning until those permitted and zoned units are built, he
said.
Prigge, a County Council candidate, said he favors an idea that one
day a week be set aside for residents alone to use the island’s recreational
resources. He also likes the idea of a limit to the number of vacation rentals
in each district.
On his land in Kapahi, he could cut out one acre to build
and operate a vacation rental. But he wouldn’t, because he doesn’t want to
change the rural nature of his neighborhood, he said.
Staff Writer
Paul C. Curtis can be reached at pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext.
224).
