09-03-2010, 12:28 PM
quote:
[i] As for commercial zoning and approval, they look at that as a pure local issue and they won't get involved unless it threatens their political position with their voters.
Well, HPP is somewhat unique in that it actually does have areas (20 acre parcels) set aside for commercial development, as well as for schools, parks, and other civic use. The problem is that these parcels were never zoned for those uses. HPP would be the ideal place to implement the Village Center concept from the Puna CDP because of those parcels. Zoning is only one problem, though, because the roads and utilities would no doubt need to be upgraded to handle such development. The HPPOA owns most of those parcels, but the Watamull family still owns at least one of the more commercially viable locations. It's all very complicated.