Mayor: ‘Time out’ warranted for ag lands

Community members will have another chance to provide input on a bill that would place a temporary moratorium on the creation of new agricultural subdivisions.

Mayor Bryan Baptiste first proposed this ordinance six months ago after determining it a necessary measure to protect Kaua‘i’s remaining agricultural land from being irreparably fragmented.

County Council has slated a public hearing at 1:30 p.m. Feb. 13 at the Historic County Building.

The mayor sent the proposed legislation to the county Planning Commission on Aug. 3, urging an expedited review and asking for the “time out” to begin that same date.

The bill’s current form has evolved to make the moratorium start on the effective date of the ordinance. This would allow all tentative subdivision approvals granted up to that point, whenever that may be, to proceed.

Roughly 13 applicants had received tentative subdivision approvals when the mayor drafted his letter to the commission last summer. The number of current pending applications could not be confirmed by press time.

Baptiste, concerned residents and developers voiced their opinions on the proposed moratorium at the commission’s public hearing Oct. 9 at the Mo‘ikeha Building.

The mayor said the key to this legislation is to “get it in place as quickly as possible.” Otherwise, “we’re defeating the purpose.”

“ We’ve had more gentleman estates than we have necessarily true agriculture,” he said, according to the public hearing transcript. “For us to keep our rural character, we have to keep our agricultural land in some sort of agriculture. … Discussion has to take place today and we have to set the parameters necessary through those discussions to decide as an island how we want to proceed.”

Engineer and businessman Clyde Kodani asked the commission at the hearing to consider including the applications that have been submitted in addition to those that have received tentative approval in its recommendation on what should be grandfathered.

He noted the time and money developers expend just to prepare an application for the department, which includes doing topographic surveys, map preparation and a proposed subdivision layout.

County Planner Dale Cua and Planning Director Ian Costa on Nov. 21 signed off on the department’s staff report, which recommended changing the effective date of the moratorium.

The Planning Commission at its Nov. 27 meeting recommended approval of the proposed bill as recommended by the department and further amended by commissioners.

Council passed its first reading of the bill Jan. 17, when it scheduled the public hearing and referred the legislation to the Planning Committee.

Most council work on proposed legislation is done in committee before it returns to the council floor for approval at the second and final reading. The bill will be on the agenda for the Planning Committee’s meeting Feb. 20 at Council Chambers, according to County Clerk Peter Nakamura.

The legislation says the intent is to protect and preserve existing agricultural lands while the County Council and the Planning Department work toward developing new legislation and regulations to that end.

Pushing for an expedited process at the Oct. 9 hearing, Baptiste said “this legislation is not supposed to have all the answers. … It’s supposed to give us time out so we can work on that.”

The mayor tried unsuccessfully eight years ago to pass a similar measure when he served as a council member.

“I took a licking,” he said at the hearing. “But times are different.”

Baptiste said the economy was bad then, but it was “still the right thing to do.”

Kaua‘i is still missing a lot of the framework it needs to build an island the way residents have envisioned, he said.

The mayor noted lacking laws regulating gated communities and conditions on conveyances.

For more information, visit www.kauai.gov

• Nathan Eagle, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or neagle@kauaipubco.com