A document presented at the Maui Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by their Construction Industry PAC arm explains exactly why PC-021 has been proposed and how it will make Community Plans toothless exercises in uselessness.
Jencks, acting for developers, is hoping that County Council members will not understand that the impact of this is to invalidate all the Community and Island Plans and leave the public out of the planning process.
Writing the law in the reverse (requiring that the administration change their zoning to match what the citizens have determined in the Community Plans) might be reasonable. But this cuts out the Community Plans from having any effect on what can and cannot be built and where.
UPDATE:
The usual process for a bill like this would be for it to come from Planning Department, where Joe Alouette would spend months fine tuning and making sure it wouldn’t cause collateral damage.Then Planning would take it out to the 3 planning commissions, often twice if there are substantive comments. Then it would be sent around to agencies and Corp Counsel.
Only after all this careful review would it go to County Council.
Charlie Jencks’ plan to invalidate community
Certain concerned citizen groups on Maui have recently sought to challenge projects on the basis that the community plans provide for more restrictive uses than the corresponding zoning designations. Ultimately, one of these challenges could reach the Hawaii Supreme Court, which could, absent clarifying legislation, determine that more expansive uses allowed in the corresponding zoning are not allowed if not specifically enumerated in the in the community plan land use descriptions. If the Hawaii Supreme Court makes such a nonconformity ruling, then a significant number of existing uses on Maui would in effect be nonconforming structures and uses, because the uses are allowed by the zoning, but not specifically enLimeratectt I the corresponding community plan definition.
A finding of non-conformity would impact a significant number of properties in the areas community plan designated as light industrial and hotel to name a few. Many if not all of these uses can be assumed to have some degree of secured debt attached to them as well as property insurance that would be put at risk if a catastrophic event (such as a fire or a hurricane) were to impact the uses, in addition to a significant impact on County property tax revenues.
Proposed Solution
Corrective legislation will shortly be heard before the Maui County Council Planning Committee (June 18) that would address this inconsistency between our zoning code and the General Plan, by establishing that permitted land uses are governed by the language in the zoning code. As a landowner owning property that could be directly impacted by a bad judicial non-conforming ruling decision on these inconsistencies I am asking for your support when this legislation is heard by the Maui County Council.
Background on Problem
Community Plan Designations Differ from Zoning
Certain Land Use Categories used in all Maui Community Plans differ from the allowed uses in the corresponding zoning…