I just received this notice yesterday. Sorry for the late notice!

Aloha,
The City and County of Honolulu’s Ko‘olau Loa Sustainable Communities Plan which covers Ka’a’awa to Kawela, is under review and will be discussed at an upcoming meeting (see attached):

Date: Thursday, January 29, 2009
Time: 6:30 to 9:30 pm
Place: Hau‘ula Elementary School Cafeteria (54-046 Kamehameha Highway)

Please help us to get the word out by sharing this flyer with others in your community.

Mahalo,
Lori Honma

Lori Honma
Department of Planning and Permitting
Community Planning Branch
650 South King Street, 7th Floor
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813
#(808)768-8036 (Fax #527-6743)

According to one person involved in the process: “We need more real input from the Community and not just the developers.”

This planning process has not gone well, despite active participation from members of Koolauloa neighborhoods.

This meeting will apparently focus on a further delay in the plan’s timetable from Mormon officials.

Creighton Mattoon, a long-time community leader in Punaluu, sent this message at the end of last week.

The five-year review is now five years behind schedule. We are reviewing the 1999 Sustainable Communities Plan and we have not had a meeting of the full membership of the PAC for eight months. Some of us have attended two meetings to plan for Community Meeting #2 scheduled for January 29 at the Hau`ula Elementary School.

Yesterday at the second planning meeting HRI made a request to even further delay the process because their leaders in Salt Lake City have directed them to conduct planning on a larger scale in order to resolve serious financial problems involving their holdings in La`ie, including PCC and BYUH. Some of us have already voiced opposition to this proposal since it would be unfair to the other communities in the Ko`olauloa planning area who would be affected by a delay which could exceed another year. We feel that the current process should continue without further delay and HRI can file their proposal at a later date.

We indicated that it is our understanding that any party can request for an amendment to the SCP at any time and that there is no requirement that it be submitted during the five-year review process. We even offered to work with them. The DPP rep at the meeting unfortunately was less than encouraging.

In a January 21 letter to city officials, Mattoon, along with his wife, Cathy, and neighborhood board chair Dee Dee Letts, called for the city to reject the request to further delay the planning process.

They argue, in part:

This iteration of the Sustainable Plan is long overdue and we have been slowed even further due to contract amendments required “because we ask too many questions, want too much information and thus have exhausted the budget for this plan” – this is our community and if we do not have proper information to base our decisions on then the plan will not benefit the community.

La`ie is an important community and economic engine in our area but it is not the only thing that this plan addresses that is of interest to us and neighboring communities