10-21-2006, 12:11 PM
Growth Management Working Group Meeting
Thursday, Oct 19, 2006, 4PM at Shipman's Kea'au office
Next meeting: Oct 26, 2006, 4PM at Shipman's Kea'au office
Attendance: Pete Adams, David Fukumoto, Christine Mingo, Judy Stenger, Rob Tucker, Bill Walter
No formal minutes were taken. We discussed the basic concepts of growth management and land usage to clarify what our mission is in the working group. We then discussed a number of principles or goals that we would like to have come about as a result of the "management of growth" in Puna. Finally, we discussed a number of our own specific concerns and how they interacted with these principles. As I had promoted defining concepts and developing principles as a starting point for our group I will record some of the discussion from my notes. These are all only starting points of discussion and reflect my thoughts and understanding of the points and not necessarily anyone else's opinion.
First we talked about what is growth and what is management.
Growth can be several things: it can be an just an increase in population numbers overall. It can also be a change in the distribution of population, that is, an increase in density of population in certain locations. For instance, scattered and disorderly increases in population density are called "sprawl" which seems to be uniformly considered a bad mode of population growth.
"Management" in the context of planning for population growth seemed to imply guidance of growth rather than attempting to outright control whether or not growth occurs, as professional planners like to remind us. Management also is seen to supply principles, "why" we are doing something, plus implementation, the "how" of the principles.
I will develop a list of the principles that were brought up by the group. However early into discussion it became clear that even a straightforward principle that we all agreed on could have unexpected or undesirable consequences that needed to be accounted for. A good example is the first one.
- Retain the rural and agricultural character of Puna.
This seems to be one of the most common sentiments expressed by citizens in planning meetings. However, it was quickly pointed out that success in retaining a rural character almost certainly depends on some increase in non-rural land usage in Puna. If many important services are located outside of Puna, clogged roads, more oil dependence and lost job opportunities are the likely results. This is the point of the Village Center discussed at our initial Land Use meeting and is an example of shifts in population distribution as a result of growth. It was pointed out that this support function of relatively intensely developed areas can also be served by Village Commercial zoning and cluster developments.
- Establish new major roads rather than simply enlarging existing ones to route traffic both more conveniently to where people live, provide more direct routes and reduce congestion pressure.
Simply increasing the number of lanes of traffic seems to be consistently a long term losing strategy. 'Oahu would not be arguing over mass transit if simply widening H-1 was any solution. Look at practically any major city or metropolitan area on the mainland. Many in those locations are feeling "paved over" with only limited and temporary relief from additional road construction. However rational this approach may be, the big consequence here is that land has to be taken to create any new routes. Both private subdivisions and individual owners have strenuously objected in the past. This idea will require strong leadership to be implemented.
- Parcel usage should reflect parcel zoning particularly on smaller (1 acre or less) lots.
Agricultural zoning confers tax advantages to landowners. However it is frequently noted that little or no agricultural activity is carried out on the property. This discrepancy becomes rather glaring as property values increase and the "gentrification" of areas occurs. Then high-end houses, as the joke goes, raise a couple of fruit trees and a garden and bask in significantly lower taxes. Maui is a good example of this today. A residential zoning (R or RA) brings this situaltion back into balance. However, the process of working within existing state land use areas may be difficult. For instance, in Volcano the R10 and R20 lots are SLU "urban" areas. I don't know whether this designation is possible in SLU ag areas. The FA (family agricultural) zoning was created for ag areas and may be possible (I have a posting on Rob's "Ag use not for Ag" topic with the definitions of this zones.
- No more substandard subdivisions.
This we all seemed to agree on. However, I am not sure how "substandard" is defined. In our personal case, part of our title included a legal statement from the county that they did not have to supply water to our parcel (thus defining at least part of substandard), but we would be required to connect if it ever was supplied. Does substandard include electricity and sewage treatment also? Recently a neighbor submitted a subdivision request to create five new parcels on 40 acres. Under this principle what would he need to provide to become standard? If it is a water supply, would catchment suffice? If not, would he have to drill a well? On Maui even on agricultural land any sewage system within 1000 feet of a well had to be an aerobic waste water treatment system, typically costing over $15,000 apiece. Not true here, but a reasonable bet would be that the Big island will be become much more "Maui-like" than not (median house price is now over $600,000).
- No sprawl
Sprawl is usually taken to be either strip malls lining highways between more intensive populated locations or scattered pockets of anomalous zoning, such as small suburbs in the middle of an agricultural area. Not only do either of these phenomena erode the original character of an area, they tend to create friction problems between the zonings. The classic case is the effect of farm smells and noise on residential neighbors.
- Create at least one large industrial zone within Puna
Puna's population is nearing the Hilo districts', yet has very little commercial industrial zoning. Hilo has nearly all of it. A major premise is that good jobs are frequently found in the industrial areas. These are perhaps analogous to the large state-controlled Ag Lot areas where agricultural interests lease large growing and processing parcels. By creating a large industrial zone (or maybe several) beginning workers can find good jobs close to home, existing workers would have more opportunities and traffic congestion would be reduced. New or expanded industrial-level companies could increase tax revenue and contribute to infrastructure improvements. The only question is "where?" Along with new roads this is likely to be a heated NIMBY (not in my back yard) issue. And then should big box stores be
- Do not create more subdivisions, guide growth into the existing subdivisions with their thousands of unoccupied lots.
Immediately this runs afoul of the need noted above to support agricultural areas with services to reduce traffic and encourage local interaction. Does everyone moving to Puna need to be an agriculturally oriented person? Presumably many people would prefer yes, but reality, in a variety of ways, precludes this. Perhaps any new subdivision should be held to quality standards of development (professional planning, sewage treatment, water supply, reasonable roads, etc.). What happens to my neighbor then with his five parcel subdivision? This is a difficult question given the vast oversupply of substandard lots and the desire (perhaps right?) of large-parcel landowners to move on to their desired goals. So one very useful point of information would be how many new subdivisions are on the drawing boards now?
- Prevent construction in the most dangerous lava and tsunami zones
The contention here is that it is not a wise choice for the county to allow building where predictions of inundation are much more likely to come true. Not only is it bad publicity but unsuspecting or naive people may well see their homes destroyed and their lives radically altered by being permitted to build. "Why did they allow us to do this?" is their complaint. A more sore point was any use of taxpayer dollars to bail out people who build where the danger is greatest. The quick response was that living anywhere on a volcanically active island in the middle of ocean should be sufficient warning for anyone. A more substantial objection is that specific locations where lava or a tsunami may strike is impossible to predict so preventing someone from building is an exercise in rather arbitrary authority.
Hopefully this is a beginning. More issues should be brought up and the existing ones dissected further.
Thursday, Oct 19, 2006, 4PM at Shipman's Kea'au office
Next meeting: Oct 26, 2006, 4PM at Shipman's Kea'au office
Attendance: Pete Adams, David Fukumoto, Christine Mingo, Judy Stenger, Rob Tucker, Bill Walter
No formal minutes were taken. We discussed the basic concepts of growth management and land usage to clarify what our mission is in the working group. We then discussed a number of principles or goals that we would like to have come about as a result of the "management of growth" in Puna. Finally, we discussed a number of our own specific concerns and how they interacted with these principles. As I had promoted defining concepts and developing principles as a starting point for our group I will record some of the discussion from my notes. These are all only starting points of discussion and reflect my thoughts and understanding of the points and not necessarily anyone else's opinion.
First we talked about what is growth and what is management.
Growth can be several things: it can be an just an increase in population numbers overall. It can also be a change in the distribution of population, that is, an increase in density of population in certain locations. For instance, scattered and disorderly increases in population density are called "sprawl" which seems to be uniformly considered a bad mode of population growth.
"Management" in the context of planning for population growth seemed to imply guidance of growth rather than attempting to outright control whether or not growth occurs, as professional planners like to remind us. Management also is seen to supply principles, "why" we are doing something, plus implementation, the "how" of the principles.
I will develop a list of the principles that were brought up by the group. However early into discussion it became clear that even a straightforward principle that we all agreed on could have unexpected or undesirable consequences that needed to be accounted for. A good example is the first one.
- Retain the rural and agricultural character of Puna.
This seems to be one of the most common sentiments expressed by citizens in planning meetings. However, it was quickly pointed out that success in retaining a rural character almost certainly depends on some increase in non-rural land usage in Puna. If many important services are located outside of Puna, clogged roads, more oil dependence and lost job opportunities are the likely results. This is the point of the Village Center discussed at our initial Land Use meeting and is an example of shifts in population distribution as a result of growth. It was pointed out that this support function of relatively intensely developed areas can also be served by Village Commercial zoning and cluster developments.
- Establish new major roads rather than simply enlarging existing ones to route traffic both more conveniently to where people live, provide more direct routes and reduce congestion pressure.
Simply increasing the number of lanes of traffic seems to be consistently a long term losing strategy. 'Oahu would not be arguing over mass transit if simply widening H-1 was any solution. Look at practically any major city or metropolitan area on the mainland. Many in those locations are feeling "paved over" with only limited and temporary relief from additional road construction. However rational this approach may be, the big consequence here is that land has to be taken to create any new routes. Both private subdivisions and individual owners have strenuously objected in the past. This idea will require strong leadership to be implemented.
- Parcel usage should reflect parcel zoning particularly on smaller (1 acre or less) lots.
Agricultural zoning confers tax advantages to landowners. However it is frequently noted that little or no agricultural activity is carried out on the property. This discrepancy becomes rather glaring as property values increase and the "gentrification" of areas occurs. Then high-end houses, as the joke goes, raise a couple of fruit trees and a garden and bask in significantly lower taxes. Maui is a good example of this today. A residential zoning (R or RA) brings this situaltion back into balance. However, the process of working within existing state land use areas may be difficult. For instance, in Volcano the R10 and R20 lots are SLU "urban" areas. I don't know whether this designation is possible in SLU ag areas. The FA (family agricultural) zoning was created for ag areas and may be possible (I have a posting on Rob's "Ag use not for Ag" topic with the definitions of this zones.
- No more substandard subdivisions.
This we all seemed to agree on. However, I am not sure how "substandard" is defined. In our personal case, part of our title included a legal statement from the county that they did not have to supply water to our parcel (thus defining at least part of substandard), but we would be required to connect if it ever was supplied. Does substandard include electricity and sewage treatment also? Recently a neighbor submitted a subdivision request to create five new parcels on 40 acres. Under this principle what would he need to provide to become standard? If it is a water supply, would catchment suffice? If not, would he have to drill a well? On Maui even on agricultural land any sewage system within 1000 feet of a well had to be an aerobic waste water treatment system, typically costing over $15,000 apiece. Not true here, but a reasonable bet would be that the Big island will be become much more "Maui-like" than not (median house price is now over $600,000).
- No sprawl
Sprawl is usually taken to be either strip malls lining highways between more intensive populated locations or scattered pockets of anomalous zoning, such as small suburbs in the middle of an agricultural area. Not only do either of these phenomena erode the original character of an area, they tend to create friction problems between the zonings. The classic case is the effect of farm smells and noise on residential neighbors.
- Create at least one large industrial zone within Puna
Puna's population is nearing the Hilo districts', yet has very little commercial industrial zoning. Hilo has nearly all of it. A major premise is that good jobs are frequently found in the industrial areas. These are perhaps analogous to the large state-controlled Ag Lot areas where agricultural interests lease large growing and processing parcels. By creating a large industrial zone (or maybe several) beginning workers can find good jobs close to home, existing workers would have more opportunities and traffic congestion would be reduced. New or expanded industrial-level companies could increase tax revenue and contribute to infrastructure improvements. The only question is "where?" Along with new roads this is likely to be a heated NIMBY (not in my back yard) issue. And then should big box stores be
- Do not create more subdivisions, guide growth into the existing subdivisions with their thousands of unoccupied lots.
Immediately this runs afoul of the need noted above to support agricultural areas with services to reduce traffic and encourage local interaction. Does everyone moving to Puna need to be an agriculturally oriented person? Presumably many people would prefer yes, but reality, in a variety of ways, precludes this. Perhaps any new subdivision should be held to quality standards of development (professional planning, sewage treatment, water supply, reasonable roads, etc.). What happens to my neighbor then with his five parcel subdivision? This is a difficult question given the vast oversupply of substandard lots and the desire (perhaps right?) of large-parcel landowners to move on to their desired goals. So one very useful point of information would be how many new subdivisions are on the drawing boards now?
- Prevent construction in the most dangerous lava and tsunami zones
The contention here is that it is not a wise choice for the county to allow building where predictions of inundation are much more likely to come true. Not only is it bad publicity but unsuspecting or naive people may well see their homes destroyed and their lives radically altered by being permitted to build. "Why did they allow us to do this?" is their complaint. A more sore point was any use of taxpayer dollars to bail out people who build where the danger is greatest. The quick response was that living anywhere on a volcanically active island in the middle of ocean should be sufficient warning for anyone. A more substantial objection is that specific locations where lava or a tsunami may strike is impossible to predict so preventing someone from building is an exercise in rather arbitrary authority.
Hopefully this is a beginning. More issues should be brought up and the existing ones dissected further.