Kokubun pitches 'green' projects
by Nancy Cook Lauer
Stephens Media Capitol Bureau
nclauer@stephensmedia.com
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 8:17 AM HST
HONOLULU -- Developers, tear down those gates.

That's the message Sen. Russell Kokubun is sending in a bill unveiled Monday that would fast-track state permits in return for the developer creating a sustainable, accessible community.

"What we're saying is, there will be no more gated communities. If you want to be a community of the future, you're not going to restrict egress and ingress," Kokubun said. "You create a disparity between economic classes. And I think the Hawaii of 2050 that I envision eliminates that."

There's been a lot of talk in the Legislature lately about "sustainable communities," but Kokubun, D-South Hilo, Puna, Ka'u, has put a definition to it in the bill that is one of 15 in the Senate's majority package.

Kokubun's bill (SB 1925) would guarantee a developer permits in 360 days for developments over 50 units if the development doesn't have gates, recycles at least 75 percent of its garbage and 100 percent of its wastewater, generates at least half of its own electricity and sets aside half of its acreage for open space.

If the developer submits plans complying with those requirements, the state must complete the permit process within 360 days or the development is automatically granted. The law would not affect county permits.

The House is working on a streamlined permit process too, especially for state and county projects, but it doesn't go as far as the Senate one does for private developers.

Environmentalists loved the concept of sustainable communities, but they decried the incentive of the automatic permit, even though the law -allowing them expires in five years unless the Legislature renews it. "I'm hoping that there will be some courageous developer that will see the need for this," Kokubun said. "I think the market will drive this thing. I think the people of Hawaii will drive this thing."

Jeff Mikulina, director of the Hawaii Chapter of the Sierra Club, worries that a fast-track process -- even if, as Senate leaders assert, none of the steps are skipped -- could result in less public input on big developments in the state.

"It's a very interesting concept and certainly generates a lot of thought and discussion," Mikulina said. "But we see automatic approval as antithetical to smart planning. The concept, 'measure twice, cut once,' would certainly apply here."

Henry Curtis, director of Life of the Land, said he's all for the requirements -- but they should apply to all developments as a matter of course. Curtis said one Oahu development actually has a gated community within a gated community.

"That should be the standard," Curtis said. "It's not so much rewarding people who do it properly as punishing those who don't."

Other parts of the majority bill package will require a supermajority of the Legislature before any agency sells or trades state lands, requires the governor to submit quarterly and semiannual updates of the budget and financial plan to the Legislature, provides whistleblower protection to government employees, creates a unit in the state Office of the Auditor to investigate waste, fraud, abuse and malfeasance, and promotes high-technology enterprises.

Only one health-care initiative is part of the Senate majority package - a three-year pilot program to pay half of the insurance premium for every uninsured child in the state. But Health Committee Chairman David Ige, D-Pearl City, Aiea, said a number of bills dealing with accessibility to health care and reforming medical malpractice insurance have been filed by lawmakers but aren't in the majority package.

http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/articles/2007/01/30/local/local02.txt