Mayor Roth vetoes County Council bill in order to preserve planning, zoning flexibility

Hawaiʻi County Mayor Mitch Roth vetoed Bill 194 on Thursday, citing concerns over the bill’s potential impact on the County’s ability to condition rezoning ordinances, provide affordable housing and facilitate development projects, according to a news release from his office.

The bill proposed to remove the Planning Commission’s, Council’s and the Planning Department’s authority to grant and/or add administrative time extensions for the performance of conditions within rezoning ordinances.

Instead, any request for a time extension would require an additional County Council approval, turning what was once an administrative procedure into a political process, Roth wrote to the County Council in a letter about his veto.

In the letter, Roth said the bill would add expense, uncertainty, and difficulty to the rezoning process, limiting the County’s flexibility to condition rezoning ordinances appropriately.

He wrote the bill also would impede the County’s ability to provide residents with housing and facilities like hospitals, schools, and job centers, ultimately punishing unsophisticated applicants and adding unnecessary costs to the development process.

The mayor’s recommendation is not to pass Bill 194 in any form and allow the existing process to remain in place. He emphasized his administration’s commitment to providing housing for residents and said the bill would impede that goal.