11/24/2010
Should we limit our HSCA goals to cover only properties of 2 acres or greater?
Recommends for us to make a specific area of land that these changes would apply to, since larger land area makes it easier to have less impact on neighbors. Would be good to have some formula about density of people per acre.
John:
* Need for people/dwelling density on a piece of land can potentially be addressed via zoning type changes. For example, there are basically zero acres in all of Puna district zoned multifamily residential. Yet multifamily residential zoning categories already exist in county zoning code. And there is a process for requesting a change of zoning type.
Townhomes, condos, apartments are typical multifamily building patterns; co-housing is a more people-community-eco-focused recent evolution. It is a long shot to rezone Puna ag land to multifamily, and, it really needs to happen in particular in and around existing village centers and/or intended future village centers. Nothing sustainable about low density auto-based sprawl as we know it, regardless of how otherwise “alternative” it may be.
‘Ohana dwellings – another piece of this puzzle.
May be something HSCA wants to work on supporting…bringing back the ‘ohana dwelling permit option on ag zoned land.
Would be useful for any community situation with a permitted farm dwelling because it would enable possibly building one more permitted dwelling for additional family members.
That is, years ago one could apply to build an additional permitted dwelling on the same lot (in ag zoned areas) for ‘ohana use (e.g. family members).
This was eliminated in around 2001 0r 2002.
In around 2008 there was some movement towards bringing it back, however so far that has not moved forward.
Basically the Planning Director needs to choose to recommend it, and then the Council would need to approve it.
So urging the planning director to recommend it is a starting point – as well as organizing whoever might join in urging the PD to recommend it. Council members could be some of those doing the urging.