Maui County’s Community Plan Updates. What About Kihei Makena Community Plan?

The current (1998) KMCP is on the website at – http://www.co.maui.hi.us/documentcenter/view/1712   

Our expectation is it will be updated after it is twenty years old, (or more) in spite of law that requires update every ten years.

“A community plan should be an expression of the community’s will, its goals and priorities – not  those of the Planning Department or even council members”- R Hokama, after Lanai Community Plan was updated this year.

Honestly, have you ever looked at the Kihei-Makena Community Plan? It is compact, easily readable and addresses South Maui. It’s what was proposed by local resident volunteers as a vision for the future planning of the South Maui Community. It was presented to the Maui Planning Commission, and then onto the Council and signed in law. It is worth scanning to see if the plan was/is being followed. We would say no

Quite often disputes arise concerning the plan. It is law, passed by the County Council; No it is only a guide. Zoning has to be done to conform with the plan. No Zoning trumps the plan. Back and forth

What is indisputable is unpaid community volunteers spend an extreme amount of time developing what is offered to them by the County Planning Department. Individual residents and numerous groups are quizzed by the Department to formulate a plan which goes to the first volunteer group, the Community Plan Advisory Committee (C-PAC) These guys spend months under the direction of the Planning Department, accepting public testimony, while refining the offered plan.

Once concluded, they pass the document onto the next volunteer group, Maui County Planning Commission, where it is examined and refined, again continuing to accept testimony.

The Commission passes the plan on to the Council’s Planning Committee for more potential refinement, and more potential public testimony, before they pass it to the full Council to make it law. So it sure sounds like it should fit what Councilman Hokama states, above. “…an expression of the community’s will, its goals and priorities…”

So is that what KMCP is, and just as important, is that what is implemented or put into effect, or enforced, realized, actualized, executed or invoked? We have all see plans developed, put on a shelf, and forgotten:or simply ignored or violated

While the 1998 plan was developed by this process, look at the result. Do we have what the plan describes? If not, why not?

So when it is South Maui’s turn (2020?) will community members step up to devote months to the C-PAC? Will you?