Kaua’i General Plan Place Types Strategy

Since 2012, Opticos has been working closely with Kaua’i County to assist in creating more compact and connected communities under Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho’s Holo Holo 2020 sustainability initiative, which has led to numerous efforts to make Kaua’i more walkable, bikeable, and transit-friendly. Opticos’ work has included consulting on the Kaua’i County General Plan as well as the South Kaua’i, West Kaua’i, and Lihu’e Community Plans.

In collaboration with SSFM International, Opticos has been working to integrate walkable community types into the General Plan land use framework. The Opticos team facilitated a series of multi-day workshops on the West Side and North Shore of Kaua’i that aim to understand individual communities’ desired “degree of change” with regards to various aspects of the built environment and ways in which the General Plan land use can guide this anticipated change. Place Types have been utilized to summarize size, intensity, and character, and correlate land use designations with new, form-based zoning districts.

Our work on Kaua’i continued with the South Kaua’i Form-Based Code and the adoption of the West Kaua’i Community Plan and Form-Based Code in December 2020.