Mahalo to those who attended or send comments to the recent General Plan committee meeting on March 14.

The Council Committee DID hear our message and adopted a chart of Growth Boundaries & land use planning forms that included “a separate, defined Country Town” designation, renamed as “small town” (this is because many council members felt that only Makawao was a “country town”, but they agreed that places like haiku, Paia, waikapu, etc were “small towns” and were neither Urban or Rural. )

Good news: all the needed categories of preservation like Greenways, Greenbelts and Sensitive lands are also still “on the chart” whicih means we can ask tat they show up on planning maps. Categories of Ag lands are also listed on the chart again, although not as a specific Ag overlay District..

The Council Committee made it through the general text of chapter 8th (Directed Growth) and began discussion of the text relating to the first growth boundary maps: Central maui. NO MAPS HAVE BEEN REVIEWED YET, so any comments you may have, still have time to be made!

The Council begins budget discussions next week, so future discussions of MIP may be in later April or May. We hope that the directprs’s reviewed maps for South maui and the North shore will be released by April.

Mahalo for helping spread the word and letting your voice be heard.

Without you, the council could easily have adopted the current Planning Director’s Land Use chart which
1) placed Country Towns as a future choice in a Rural Growth Boundary (creating potential conflicts for towns like Paia, Waikapu, Hana, Makawao and Haiku that have a mix of urban, rural and ag zoning) and
2) had no listing or definition of important preservation categories or Ag lands