Maui County Council Reviews Maui Island Plan

WAILUKU – As she relaunched the Maui County Council’s review of the Maui Island Plan on Thursday, Council Member Gladys Baisa said she hoped to accomplish a final vote on the document by the end of the year. Baisa said the council’s General Plan Committee would go through the plan from the beginning, even though a council committee already completed an initial review of seven of the plan’s 10 chapters during the 2009-10 term. But Baisa said she hoped to keep meetings moving at a brisk pace, reviewing and making a final decision on “sticky areas,” rather than rehashing the entire document line by line. “This is very, very important,” Baisa told colleagues. “Let’s all work together and imua – we’re going to get this done.” The council is already four months past its October 2010 deadline to make a final vote on the Maui Island Plan. County attorney James Giroux advised council members that they had the power to set themselves a new due date. But he advised them to do so soon. “It’s nice to be the king,” Giroux said. “You’re in charge of your deadline.” The committee on Thursday breezed through a review of the plan’s introduction, discussing and voting on proposed changes to the Planning Department’s working draft of the document. Actions included approving a change recommended by Planning Director Will Spence to clarify that the plan would not be applied to building, electrical and other “ministerial” permits that are approved based solely on compliance with county building codes. Instead, the Maui Island Plan policies and maps would be applied to discretionary permits that require a subjective review by officials. Spence, who took over the Planning Department at the beginning of the year, previously worked as a planning consultant who advised small landowners and family projects. He said he would bring that perspective to his review of a plan he felt often had been crafted more with large landowners and controversial projects in mind. “In casting a really broad net . . . that net is also catching these little guys, who are already struggling to get through these county processes,” he said. * Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.