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“Charrette” Kick-Off Connects Old and New – Tradition Shows the Way

Oct 22, 2009

KAILUA-KONA, HI — As the community and the project team began the weeklong workshop to plan Honokohau Village, revered elders reminded everyone of principles embedded deeply into Hawaiian tradition:

Respect for the land and what it demands of those who are its stewards, for the wisdom of those who’ve come before, and for one another.

Mahealani Pai delivered the noontime blessing, reminding those in attendance of the traditions that can help guide participants in the week’s “charrette”. Aunty Elizabeth echoed those sentiments later. “To share with love from your heart brings truth,” she said. And Wally Lau underlined the lessons learned from thousands of years:

When people recognize all the ways in which we are connected with one another and with all of nature, there can be harmony and balance in human affairs. When there are disconnects, issues arise, obscuring the way forward.

We are all on this journey (wa’a) together, Lau told the opening day group. If we keep our vision and hold steady, we’ll arrive at our intended destination. Working together (laulima) is essential to this journey.

Click one of the following photos to initiate a slideshow from the day, or continue reading below.

The appeal to the wisdom of the past was a perfect way to begin a workshop designed to be an intense collaboration between the community, the County, and the PlaceMakers consultants hired to help apply community goals reflected in the Kona Community Development Plan (CDP). For an overview of project objectives, check out the BIG PICTURE post directly to the right of this column. And to drill down more deeply into the ideas behind the weeklong progress, go to the FAQ section.

The working sessions of the opening day featured discussions on what are considered signature components of Kona’s character and how those much-admired elements can be reflected in Village Design Guidelines for Honokohau Village. Everyone is invited to weigh in on the discussion, from residents and local business people to the real estate development professionals who’ll have to develop strategies for delivering what the community wants while minding their own bottom lines. You’ll hear more about those challenges as the week goes on.

The final event of the evening, a Visual Preference Survey exercise in which people discussed design and construction approaches they preferred for Kona, was so enthusiastically received the session lasted an hour longer than scheduled. It’s a healthy indication of the collaborative spirit invoked by the kupuna earlier in the day. And it’s a good omen for days to come.

Check out the day-by-day charrette schedule for opportunities to participate. And if you’re trying to figure out how to best use limited free time to get involved, check out our advice in “Interested but Time-Strapped?”.

Don’t forget you can also follow each day’s events on these website pages. You’re invited to comment in the section below each post. So you can participate in the charrette even when you can’t be on-site.

FILED UNDER:   Charrette Information

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  • Big Ideas Become Reality as Kona
    “Charrette” Applies Community Development Goals

    “This is a whole new way of planning,” says Margaret K. Masunaga, deputy director, County of Hawai`i Planning Department. “That’s what makes this so exciting.”

    The immediate focus of this new planning experience in Kona is the Honokohau Village, a 80-acre site that includes the new West Hawai`i Civic Center. But the broader aim is educational.

    As County Planning Director Bobby Jean Leithead Todd explains in this video, this is the first major project to be planned under the award-winning Kona Community Development Plan (CDP), enacted into law in September of 2008. During the multi-day public “charrette," residents and community leaders, developers and builders, and County officials and staff will get to see how new guidelines apply to a real project in a real place.

    “We’ll use this experience to learn from and to teach one another,” says Masunaga, who was hired by Mayor Billy Kenoi and Planning Director Bobby Jean Leithead Todd to oversee Planning Department activities in West Hawai`i. Masunaga is a resident of Captain Cook in South Kona and lives on a Kona coffee farm.

    “By the time we’re finished, we’ll all know exactly what it means when we say ‘TOD’ and what the term implies for development in Kona,” says Masunaga.

    TOD stands for Transit-Oriented Development, a neighborhood development approach encouraged under the new Kona CDP. The transit orientation comes into play when development can be designed to make the most of not only personal automobile travel, but also biking, walking, and transit. A TOD, in fact, maximizes the advantages of mobility choices so that people representing a wide range of ages, abilities, and incomes can share the advantages of living, working, and playing in a compact, walkable community.

    The Kona CDP provides much more than guidance for TODs, of course. It prescribes goals for putting Kona-appropriate development in the right places, in the right scale for those places, and in the right relationships to surroundings. The upcoming Kona charrette will customize Village Design Guidelines described in general in the Kona CDP specifically for the 40-acre, transit-oriented site around the West Hawai`i Civic Center.

    “So we’re not just talking about planning for transit, walking, biking, and cars,” says Masunaga. “We’ll also use the charrette to set standards for Honokohau Village that will include building setbacks and heights, the width of streets and sidewalks, the mix of building types, allowable density ranges, and the placement of public parks and other open space. The result will be a village design that encourages a true neighborhood atmosphere.”

    Conventional planning approaches often complicate community-building goals. “In the not so distant past,” says Masunaga, “we planned subdivisions that were disconnected from one another and where people without access to automobiles were isolated. The disconnections affected all sorts of other things, including infrastructure investment, environmental protection, and public services like police and fire fighting. “

    “One of my dreams,” Masunaga says, “is that my seven-year-old daughter will be able to safely walk just about anywhere she needs to go for her daily needs. That’s not possible in most places in Kona now.

    “Mahalo nui loa to everyone who made the Kona CDP a reality. Now we can implement the policies to guide the Planning Department and the Planning Director on how we want Kona to look like in the next twenty years and into the next generation.”