County launches coastal management education tool – West Hawaii Today

Residents interested in learning more about coastal zoning on Hawaii Island have a new tool at their fingertips.

The Hawaii County Planning Department recently launched an interactive Coastal Zone Management Atlas website.

In addition to providing an overview of different coastal ecosystems in the county, the site allows users to search an address and select various filters to view potential coastal hazards and regulations specific to that site, among other features.

“It really allows people to zoom in on their community or property, if they’re a property owner, and understand all of the very technical pieces that there are to consider about our coastal zone,” said Bethany Morrison, the planning program manager for the Long-Range Panning Division at the county.

She said her office often gets questions from residents about Hawaii’s Special Management Area, which covers the land along the coast of the island and has specific regulations and requirements for development permits.

“So, this will give them a much deeper dive into what is the Special Management Area? What are those permit requirements? Is my property even in the Special Management Area?” She said. “All of those questions that we get, we’re trying to provide some resources for them.”

The tool was developed with the assistance of Tetra Tech and funded with an award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and used data provided by the University of Hawaii at Hilo to create the mapping component. It took about six months and $26,267 to create. Morrison said it is part of a larger, ongoing project to re-evaluate the county’s shoreline setback policies.

“We are the only county that doesn’t have any type of erosion rate-based setbacks,” she said. “Our current shoreline setback is 40 feet, kind of regardless of what type of shoreline you’re on, what type of hazards there are – it’s just a standard sort of distance.”

Which she said does not account for other factors that could be important.

“In some cases, 40 feet is plenty, and in some cases, it’s not, depending on where you are and what’s happening, so we initiated this project to really understand what changes are happening along our shoreline, and if there’s a way to include those changes in the calculation of our setbacks,” she said.

She said she views the atlas as a valuable precursor to any changes to the setback requirements that might be introduced.

“Before we get to that, we want people to have a really good understanding of what’s happening along our coastline and be able to explore things for themselves before we try and introduce any type of changes to our regulations,” she said. “So, that’s a big purpose, is to just get this out there, being used, having people understand what those pieces are — hazards, ecosystems that we want to protect — all those kinds of details.”

She said the site will be updated as new data becomes available.

The county hosted a webinar earlier this month to introduce the new tool and answer questions.

Another one is scheduled for May 7 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Anyone interested can register at: tinyurl.com/2pxat5n8.

The Coastal Zone Management Atlas can be viewed at: tinyurl.com/mstvyjyp.

Email Grace Inez Adams at grace.adams@hawaiitribune-herald.com.