The Kaua`i County Council’s Planning Committee hopes to have its last discussion today concerning updates to the county’s 1987 General Plan. The council wants to schedule a vote at next week’s meeting, but first must agree on a revised Chapter
The Kaua`i County Council’s Planning Committee hopes to have its last
discussion today concerning updates to the county’s 1987 General Plan.
The
council wants to schedule a vote at next week’s meeting, but first must agree
on a revised Chapter 7.
For more than two years, the county Planning
Commission, community activists and business and community leaders, and now the
council have been massaging Chapter 7, which deals with the island’s economic
future.
Last amended in 1984, the revised chapter focuses more on tourism
than agriculture, which was a highlight of the 16-year-old plan.
Late
amendments were prepared this past week by the Planning Committee’s chairman,
Daryl Kaneshiro, and fellow council members Gary Hooser, Ron Kouchi and Randall
Valenciano.
Kouchi and Valenciano have filed a joint amendment deleting
land-use maps.
Critics have said the maps were taken as a right by
developers.
Valenciano has proposed an amendment to adopt the projection of
24,000 to 30,500 average daily visitors in the year 2020 as recommended by the
state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism report,
“Population and Economic Projections for the State of Hawai`i to 2025.”
The
Planning Commission recommended using a figure of 32,000 visitors a day for the
purposes of planning facilities at Lihu’e Airport.
Some Citizen Advisory
Committee members favored a range that went as low as 19,000 visitors per
day.
The numerical projections are relied on for estimating needs for
infrastructure improvements and other proposed developments over the next 20
years.
Hooser proposed an amendment that would delete language supporting
redistricting “a limited amount of land on the Wainiha-Haena coastal plain from
state conservation to agricultural.”
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be
reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and[
HREF=”mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net”>dwilken@pulitzer.net]