MAYOR INVITES PUBLIC TO LEARN MORE ABOUT TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT

(Monday, April 5, 2010)—Mayor Mufi Hannemann invited the public to the City’s second island-wide Transit Oriented Development (TOD) meeting at the Farrington High School Auditorium on Tuesday, April 6^th with registration starting at 6 pm.  In addition to learning about the status of the City’s TOD program, TOD experts who have studied and actually built TOD projects will be available to share their experiences and wisdom with Honolulu.

            While in Honolulu, these national experts will be meeting with key community stakeholders to identify and develop methods to create a new source of community equity, wealth and capacity from the City’s rail transit project.  Local stakeholders include representatives from the banking industry, developers, landowners, and community organizations.  These working meetings are sponsored in part by the recent grant awarded to the City by the national philanthropic organization Living Cities.

            The public meeting at Farrington High School is the second island-wide workshop on TOD sponsored by the City.  The first one was held on July 14, 2007, at Leeward Community College.  That workshop represented the start of neighborhood TOD planning around each transit station.  It is important to recognize that every neighborhood is not the same; each has different needs, opportunities and challenges.

            “I am pleased and excited to once again, open up public discussion on the direction Honolulu is taking on transit-oriented development,” said Hannemann.  “Everyone living near a future transit station, or could be living near one in the future, should attend this workshop.  While the economy is not what it could be, it is a great time to plan for the future.  The economy will improve, and when it does, we should be well prepared to foster quality TOD.”

            The Mayor further stated, “I’ve said this many times in the last few years:  while transit is important, even more important to improving our quality of life is smart development around the stations.  With rail, we have an immense opportunity to reshape our communities for the better, and all of us should embrace its potential, guiding it to meet the goals and aspirations of each community.  It can provide more housing, including affordable housing.  It can provide more parks and open space.  It can create wonderful community meeting places, and better circulation.”

            David Tanoue, Director of the Department of Planning and Permitting stated, “With the help of our consultants, we are about midway through the TOD neighborhood planning process.  We have completed a final plan for the two stations in Waipahu, and working on the plans for East Kapolei, Pearl City and Aiea.  Planning for Kalihi and Downtown will start shortly.  So this is a good time for us to share what we have learned so far from the community.”

            “The public should enjoy the evening’s keynote speaker, Mr. Anthony Downs, of the Brookings Institute.  He is deeply knowledgeable about national development trends, particularly the relationship between transportation and housing,” said the City’s TOD administrator, Terrance Ware.

            Mr. Ware further stated, “This is also a good time for us, as a City, to begin the discussion on how best to allocate our modest resources to ‘incentivize’ good private projects.  The City cannot do it on its own, and must depend on the private market to take the lead.   So the City’s TOD program must respond to the needs of the market.  At the same time, it is critical that the community be engaged in order for TOD to be successful.”

While RSVP is requested, it is more important just to attend, even if you miss the RSVP deadline.  For more information on the Tuesday evening workshop, visit the DPP website,   http://honoluludpp.org/

Media contacts:  Planning & Permitting Director David Tanoue 768-8000,