Mormons are expected to pack a meeting tonight at Kahuku High School to press for approval of the city’s controversial draft Koolauloa Sustainable Communities Plan.
Scuttlebutt is that the church is holding a community dinner to attract its members to attend the meeting.
The city’s plan, which is really the result of an anti-planning process, would allow significant urbanization of the district by the real estate arm of the church, and permit full development of Turtle Bay. Both run counter to the city’s broader planning goals.
For more information on tonight’s meeting, and on the impact of this developer-oriented plan, visit the Defend Oahu Coalition site.
According to the city’s press release:
A community-wide meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 7, 2010, 6:30 p.m. in the Kahuku High School Cafeteria to present the public review draft of the revised Ko‘olau Loa Sustainable Communities Plan and receive public comments.
The draft revised plan was released in October 2010 and addresses the need for jobs and affordable workforce housing within the region by including a new community in Malaekahana and expansion of Brigham Young University and the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie. The draft revised plan also recognizes Turtle Bay Resort’s existing land use entitlements. These issues need to be examined and evaluated in the review process, as community consensus has not been reached.
But this summary hides fact that the city brushed aside an extensive community-based planning process and created its own plan in private consultation with developers.
A good summary appears in a comment on Civil Beat by Kevin Kelly:
In his article “Fight Over Future of Koolau Loa” Michael Levine leaves out a couple of important points regarding the Sustainable Communities Plan and the process to update it. A plan advisory committee (PAC) of Koolauloa resident spent almost 2 years visiting the various communities in Koolauloa and through public meetings and discussion created an updated draft of the plan. It is important to note that perhaps the most significant change in the revised plan was that the expansion of hotels at Turtle Bay was removed from the plan. The Envision Laie plan had not ever been discussed by the PAC during this process, but it had been rolled out in Laie with much fanfare in the month before the plan was submitted to the City & County. There was a presentation at a Neighborhood Board Meeting, a “scientific” survey of selected residents, and the engagement of a mainland marketing firm (not economic development firm) by Hawaii Reserves Inc (HRI), the development company for the Church of Latter Day Saints, to help sell the project to the folks outside Laie.
With the draft plan back in the hands of DPP, HRI, along with developers representing Turtle Bay, met privately with city officials regarding the community-authored draft plan. Many months later, when DPP released the final draft, not only did it include the Envision Laie project, but the full expansion of Turtle Bay was inserted back into the plan. The DPP had taken it upon themselves, without public comment, to insert 5 new hotels, over 1000 condominiums, almost 1000 new homes in a new town complete with a shopping center and light industrial area.
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Carlisle promises change. Where is it? Tanoue is just doing the same old same old from the Mufi Hannemann Administration.
I have never seen the city do a press release on Sustainable Plan before. It sounds like DPP is expecting a lawsuit already. This is DPP’s cover-up to show their ‘due diligence.’
The PAC committee knows the grassroots but DPP apparently does not want to listen to them but Hawaii Reserves and Turtle Bay.
As usual, DPP is the Department of Permitting and Permitting. There is no Planning.
Call the Mayor’s Complaint line at 768-4381, if you voted for CHANGE and OPEN C&C GOVERNMENT – away from Mufi and Company – now is the time to make your voices heard.
Hawaii Reserves is hiding in the basement. BYU the educational institution is now the mega-developer. Somebody tell me the motive for this Houdini act.
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2008/Apr/03/ln/hawaii804030367.html
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20101008_Housing_project_generates_strife.html
http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorials/20101013_Dont_skip_Laie_planning_steps.html
Consider this post from Star Advertiser:
BYUH currently has more land per student than HPU, UH Hilo, UH Manoa, Chaminade or KCC and it serves far fewer students than any of them. In fact, KCC serves more than 3 times the number of students on abut half the acreage (and that’s not counting the 25,000 non-credit students). Oddly enough, BYUH is more than twice as expansive as BYU in Provo (24 students/acre vs. 53 at BYU). Doubling the size of BYUH is not a sustainable practice. Good land management and facilities design is.
Laie is a hell of a plantation town.
Challenging BYU/PCC/HRI means
challenging “the church”.
They can ask a zealot Bishop to rescind your Temple Recommend. (must promise
to sustain your church leaders.)
Loss of Temple Recommend = loss of job.
This is how Laie operates – fear and intimidation.
Tanoue is only concerned about permitting and developing. Although he has hundreds of people at the DPP under him, he claims he doesn’t have the resources to enforce the laws on the books. He will let residential neighborhoods deteriorate and neighbors fighting neighbors because he won’t hire investigators to catch all the thousands of illegal B&Bs and TVUs. Carlisle must be the same way and I’ve got my fingers crossed that he’ll be a 2 year mayor who’s booted back to New Jersey where they can build all they want.
This is a big meeting! There are emails buzzing around. Steven Wheelwright made public announcements everywhere! Church meetings are shut down for tonight. The Laie Elementary School PTA meeting has been canceled. They are taking no prisoners.
It appears Steven Wheelwright is targeting the young marrieds and young families. This is the group that do not remember Hawaii Reserves’
age-old broken promises of affordable housing.
But this is the group that has the highest population of federal food subsidy WIC
(Women Infant Children) participants. They are
not potential home owners but lots of warm bodies is good.
It sounds like Steven Wheelwright is exploiting
big time. This is Laie vs the rest of Ko’olauloa.
I went to that meeting. There was free hamburger, hot-dogs, water bottles, and free t-shirts from the Laie busters.
It was good the city allowed speakers from both sides of the aisle to take turns to speak. Otherwise the Mormons were going to control the mike.
Those against putting EnvisonLaie and Turtle Bay scored points on substance. Those for scored points on dreams and hopes and brotherly kindness.
The BYU President Wheelwright reasons were unraveled by a Kelly Kevin. Probably the same guy from Kahuku who wrote the summary above.
Laie is a bunch of very self-centered and aggressive people. They are the center of the Universe. Some in blue-shirts looked really tired and gaunt. It must have been a long day. I wonder if they were forced to attend.
There were still plenty of speakers from both side. It was wrong for the city to cut everybody off at 8:30 pm. People should have a chance to speak.
It was nteresting to note the Keep the Country Country group has many successful keiki o ka aina who are surviving just fine. One s a doctor, one is a lawyer, psychologist.
The Star-Advertiser’s website is running a poll today about BYU’s development plan. “No” was ahead 2 to 1 when I added my No vote this morning, but in the last hour that’s totally reversed. I strongly suspect that BYU has contacted people to vote in their favor, so I hope others contact people to vote against them. Voting closes at 4pm today and will be published in tomorrow’s paper.
Vote NO now!
http://www.staradvertiser.com The Big Q
Brigham young University, The Polynesian Cultural and the 800 pounds gorilla developer should be awarded the ……..
biggest PR coup and Hoax in Hawaii.
Yea, tell me this is about BYU need for expansion. The media, KHON TV 2, Mayor Carlisle got conned into this hoax of the decade in Hawaii.
Please help Hawaiian culture, Hawaiian kuleana lands, Hawaiian ahupu’ua!
Please tell the city the truth. Send comments!
http://www.DefendOahuCoalition.org is helping us. We need everybody to speak the truth about Hawaii Reserves Inc and Brigham Young University and the Polynesian Cultural Center.
http://www.thehawaiiindependent.com/story/koolau-loa-neighborhood-board-support-for-envision-laie-ruled-null-and-void/
You look like me and you talk like me. Of course, it’s us Laie versus the rest of the communities! The big question is what Mayor Carlisle looks and talks like.