Hawaii Business

[tada]

Sounds like everything's happening on the Hilo side-

http://www.hawaiibusiness.com/Hawaii-Bus...Big-Ideas/

Other people want to make friends- I just want to make money.
James Cramer

[Rob Tucker]

It's an optimistic article but quite frankly promotes nothing particularly new. All of the six featured topics have been on the drawing board for a long, long time.

While it is politic to talk about how good it would be to have geothermal power the island or sell power elsewhere the fact remains that the current political structure - having geothermal power pegged to current oil prices - is not mentioned. The Public Utilities Commission is the established obstacle. This is where leadership could make a difference. Until the price of geo-power is allowed to compete with oil then it's all just happy talk for a magazine.

Where's the beef?

I would be very curious to know how Mayor Kenoi intends to increase tourism. Was some idea or proposal mentioned and I missed it? He did take a west coast tour for that purpose. I am unaware of any innovative ideas being brought forth.

[Bob Orts]

quote:

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Originally posted by Rob Tucker

I would be very curious to know how Mayor Kenoi intends to increase tourism. Was some idea or proposal mentioned and I missed it? He did take a west coast tour for that purpose. I am unaware of any innovative ideas being brought forth.

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If you read the zoning codes, buried within it is a little known fact that all zoning types (with the exception of Conservation) allows resort development. Technically, you can put a resort right smack in the middle of residential or agricultural zoned land. The only thing holding it back is the cumbersome and expensive process of getting a special use permit for the project. Additionally, the way the code is written, these projects must integrate with the community, not harm the community.

But, over the years, the people have been manipulated into allowing projects that should not have been approved, to be approved because of the skill of the developers/project marketers to make people see value in a project and ignore the negative. So, all government has to do is streamline the special use permit process, and devalue community input in that process. By doing this, developers of resorts and entertainment venues are no longer held back because of concerns about community opposition. The people will have less information available initially and their opposition can now be weight against the financial gains. Remember, the Council and Planning can take into consideration the positive financial value of a project over the negative impact of individual citizens. The time is now ripe for manipulating the code to move economic impact from a low consideration, to a high consideration.

You tell me where the current leadership will go with this.