02-02-2022, 06:32 PM
I maintain that "some" of the traffic could be mitigated if everyone didn't have to drive to Hilo all the time for everything, and that adding more commercial services in Puna doesn't require much (if any) public funding.
As an added bonus, expressing this in the form of a ballot question would force the residents to commit to development or a road (or neither).
Consider: the measure as written pays for "surveys". It does not pay for "roads". These "surveys" will confirm what everyone already knows: there isn't money or available land for an alternate route. For the cost of these surveys, we could upzone the 20-acre parcels in HPP, maybe get a Lowe's on that empty 9 acres next to Puna Kai.
I don't want to drive to Hilo, but that's where everything is. This makes Puna a "bedroom community", by definition.
As an added bonus, expressing this in the form of a ballot question would force the residents to commit to development or a road (or neither).
Consider: the measure as written pays for "surveys". It does not pay for "roads". These "surveys" will confirm what everyone already knows: there isn't money or available land for an alternate route. For the cost of these surveys, we could upzone the 20-acre parcels in HPP, maybe get a Lowe's on that empty 9 acres next to Puna Kai.
I don't want to drive to Hilo, but that's where everything is. This makes Puna a "bedroom community", by definition.