Posted on: Monday, November 5, 2001
Maui gets long-term planning team
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau
WAILUKU, Maui — In a move to bolster long-range planning in Maui County, Mayor James "Kimo" Apana has reorganized the Planning Department to include a team that will focus on long-term projects and "smart growth'' principles.
Apana also named Brian Miskae, his senior executive assistant and a former Maui planning director, as chief of the five-member long-range planning team.
Miskae will work on a traffic-impact fee study and other projects to steer the county on a course of "smart growth," which, among other things, ensures that infrastructure, such as roads and parks, are constructed simultaneously with development, Apana said.
Apana, who spoke at a recent smart growth planning conference on Maui, said he wants the county to take a closer look at long-range decisions involving water use, land use allocation, shoreline and beach preservation, beach camping, park acquisition, infrastructure development, view planes and open space.
One of the first responsibilities of the new program, he said, will be to review statutes and regulations as they relate to shoreline development and beach access to ensure they are in compliance with new state laws.
The county recently ran into problems with shoreline development in Pa'ia, where three homes are in various stages of construction on 5.7 acres. A stop-work order was issued after a county attorney determined that shoreline permit exemptions had been improperly issued.
Apana also wants to establish a Smart Growth Advisory Committee, create open-space districts, complete an Upcountry Greenways Master Plan Project and finish a Maui shoreline study that includes erosion maps.
Miskae's team will also be assigned to plan and carry out the South Maui and West Maui traffic impact assessment fee study, which was approved by the council years ago but never implemented. With growing traffic congestion on Maui, the council recently urged the mayor to conduct the study.
Miskae, who served as Maui County planning director from 1990 to 1995, began his planning career in 1968 with the Calgary Regional Planning Commission.
