Stricter adherence to master plan urged
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
The city needs a more reasoned approach to prioritizing construction projects, City Council Chairman Gary Okino said during a planning committee meeting yesterday.
Okino's remarks came during a discussion on a resolution that would ask the administration to make sure neighborhood construction projects, including traffic calming devices, are part of a community master plan before they are included in the administration's construction budget.
"You need prior planning to identify the really important projects to make a difference to your community," Okino said.
City Planning Director Eric Crispin said the administration supports the resolution's intent, but cautioned that it could lead to projects taking even longer to implement.
"If you were to not allow a single project to go through except to the extent that it's tied into an existing master plan, I think that would have some very serious and potentially negative consequences with respect to implementing (capital improvement projects) in the city as a whole," Crispin said.
Okino countered: "If you're going to go through this vision-team process, it should be based on a master plan. I'm not saying that you cannot do projects that need to be done."
Resolution 03-75 was not up for action yesterday, and Councilwoman Barbara Marshall, chairwoman of the committee, said they would continue the discussion after Crispin submitted information on how many communities have master plans and how much it would cost to proceed.
"I think you can hear the depth of the concern from the committee and our council and the struggle that we're having right now with the budget and with serving our communities and at the same time preserving the taxpayer dollar," she said.
Crispin estimated that about 20 percent of O'ahu communities are covered by master plans and it would take two years to develop plans for the rest of the island.
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
