LIHU‘E — A trio of bills that could go a long way toward curtailing unintended land uses and promoting agriculture on the Garden Isle have piled up on the Kaua‘i County Council’s to-do list. Proposed ordinances seeking to address the
LIHU‘E — A trio of bills that could go a long way toward curtailing unintended land uses and promoting agriculture on the Garden Isle have piled up on the Kaua‘i County Council’s to-do list.
Proposed ordinances seeking to address the interrelated issues of transient vacation rentals on agricultural land, density limits in the open zone and farm worker housing could fundamentally shape the future of Kaua‘i’s ‘aina and may be a defining moment for the county.
“Do we want to bite off that much at this time?” Council Vice Chair and Planning Committee Chair Jay Furfaro said Tuesday, noting how “sophisticated” and “complicated” the matter is. “I think we’ve got to do them incrementally and see how one impacts on the other.”
Two of the bills will return to the Planning Committee floor today, but Furfaro said he expects Draft Bill 2298 — which would open the door for single-family TVRs to continue on land zoned agricultural until the government concludes its Important Ag Lands study — to again be deferred at the request of the Office of the County Attorney.
Legal questions about the enforcement of Ordinances 864 and 876, passed in 2008 and 2009, respectively, and conformance with state law have been swirling around Bill 2298 since its introduction. The council convened executive sessions to discuss the issue with attorneys on Dec. 16 and Jan. 21.
Furfaro said legal questions, specifically concerns about lawsuits from TVR operators claiming the legislation amounts to a taking of their vested rights, have been posed.
“How do we make certain if we stop them, what protects us that we can do that?” Furfaro said. “We’re going to take something from them … Can they then argue that they had a right?”
Furfaro said he believes the IAL study is not referenced enough in the bill as currently written because “what we’re doing is only until the important ag land stakeholders help us with some more identification of critical needs.”
“The important ag lands piece is ultimately going to be the control point,” he said.
Other bills that seek to address questions about densities in ag and open zones — including a proposal, now in workshop and scheduled to come back to the council on March 10, that would carve out a definition and allow additional densities for farm worker housing — “is some part of the puzzle to the whole thing,” Furfaro said.
Open density
Bill 2339, introduced last year by Councilman Tim Bynum at the request of the Carvalho administration to close the “density bonus” in the open zone, is also scheduled to be discussed today.
“The open density bill is just one important step to reduce the incentive to build on agricultural land,” Bynum said Tuesday.
The bill would reduce the number of densities allowed on many large parcels, curtailing the number of tough-to-reverse agricultural subdivisions that serve as “de facto residential” areas and lead to inefficient and unsustainable growth outside of urban districts, Bynum said.
For example, Kahiliholo Road going up Kalihiwai Ridge on the North Shore might service 50 families, while Kawaihau Road in Kapa‘a might service hundreds or thousands of residents in the same length of road and at the same maintenance cost to the county, he said.
While the bill, if implemented, might slow the proliferation of ag subdivisions around the island, much of the damage has already been done and stronger ideas like a moratorium on ag development or a requirement that subdividers provide a legitimate farm plan might be called for, he said.
Bynum said he hopes his bill will be passed today after being amended to clarify that developers with pending subdivision applications that have already earned tentative approval will be allowed to continue, while new applications will be subject to the new terms.
Furfaro said Bill 2339 overlaps with Bill 2022, which has sat dormant in committee for years awaiting workshop and would cover both the agricultural and open zones by employing complex smart growth and clustering principles.
Pointing to the 2000 General Plan’s Policy for Future Growth as “clearly not refined enough” and “a little short on controls and adequate policies on how we’re supposed to get there,” Furfaro said preserving agricultural land remains a primary goal and there are “opportunities to strengthen our rules.”
For more information about TVR legislation, visit www.kauai.gov/planning/tvr.
