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It’s the first — and arguably most controversial — order of business on the City Council’s agenda Monday morning: David Tanoue’s nomination to serve as director of the Department of Planning and Permitting.

Tanoue’s colleagues and City Council members have given glowing testimony about him, and five council members have already expressed their strong support for him.

But Tanoue has outspoken critics, too. Of the people Mayor Peter Carlisle has tapped for permanent city leadership positions, Tanoue is the only one thus far who has drawn public opposition. Members of environmental groups and some residents in rural areas where big development projects are planned say he’s too development-oriented, and focuses wholly on permitting without a planning vision.

“He’s making it the department of permitting and planning,” said Robert Harris, director of the Sierra Club Hawaii Chapter. “The foremost concern is if you scrutinize what the city is doing, there is no effort to look at long-term consequences. We don’t have a long-term agricultural plan, we don’t have a long-term energy plan, we don’t have a long-term development plan.”

A staffer in Tanoue’s office said he was out of the office when Civil Beat called for comment last week, and wouldn’t disclose whether he’d attend his confirmation hearing Monday. But Tanoue told Civil Beat two weeks ago that it’s not his job to judge major development projects on their merits, but merely on their legality.

“Planning is definitely about critical analysis.”

The head of the urban planning program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa said that is not what today’s students are taught.

“Planning is definitely about critical analysis, and that’s one of the things we emphasize,” said Dolores Foley, director of the school’s Urban Planning Department. “Whether it’s environmental impact assessments or some other aspect of projects, planning is all about analyzing their worth and the pros and cons.”

Foley said she had no comment about Tanoue, specifically, but emphasized “analytical thinking” as a critical component of city planning.

Tanoue said his perspective about his role emerges from his attorney background. He earned a law degree from the University of Hawaii in 1990, four years after completing a bachelor’s degree in biology. Tanoue was appointed director of the Department of Planning and Permitting last year under former Mayor Mufi Hannemann. (Tanoue supported Hannemann’s run for governor, and gave at least $1,000 to Hannemann’s ultimately unsuccessful campaign). Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle nominated Tanoue to stay on as director of DPP shortly after he was sworn in as mayor last month.

Before that, Tanoue worked as a city lawyer and as an attorney in the private sector. Some of the highlights from his are as follows:

1990 – 1997
Attorney
Law Offices of Michael F. McCarthy, private legal practice focusing in the areas of admiralty, construction, real estate, and business litigation.

1997 – 2001
Director of contracting and general counsel
, a Honolulu planning and design firm. include ABC stores, Alexander & Baldwin, Castle and Cook, Dole, Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate, the University of Hawaii, the City and County of Honolulu, several high-end hotels and fashion chains, along with major fast-food chains.

2001 – 2004
Deputy Corporation Counsel, Honolulu Land Use & Development Department of Corporation Counsel
Senior Deputy responsible for providing legal counsel to the Department of Planning & Permitting. Lead Deputy for high-profile cases including Outrigger Beachwalk Development, Hilton Waikikian Tower Development and Litigation, Wal-Mart Keeaumoku Development and Litigation, Wal-Mart Manana Development, Waimanalo Gulch Landfill, and Military Housing Privatization.

2005 – 2009
Deputy Director, Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting
Responsible for administration of the city’s Land Use Ordinance, and various building and development ordinances and codes.

2009 – Present
Director, Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting
Manages more than 330 employees in areas relating to long-range planning; building and construction; land use and development.

Paths to Planning

Planning directors in other cities say industry leaders come from all kinds of professional backgrounds — including legal and even journalistic roots — but they also emphasize their roles as critical thinkers about the major projects that cross their desks.

“Here, (our department is) called City Planning and Community Investment,” said William Anderson, the director of City Planning & Community Investment in San Diego. “I really wanted to be more proactive than regulatory, so we combined long-range planning with economic development.”

Anderson has a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Harvard University, and has worked as an economics research consultant. His economics training plays a role in his job as planning director, but isn’t the leading factor in an approach he describes as “holistic.”

Anderson said he sees planning as “integral to economic development, especially for cities” but emphasizes his department is fiercely protective of pursuing such growth in appropriate areas. The planning values he cites from San Diego’s general plan include:

• community character
• urban design
• environmental quality
• sustainability

“Here, we’re very protective of our canyons and habitat areas,” Anderson said. “We are very protective of those environmental resources, knowing that we still need to provide housing and workplaces and all that. So in the areas that are developing, we want to make it easier for good development to be implemented in order to protect our natural environment. On a regional scale, we’re trying to get more future growth in urban areas to protect our backcountry.”

In Seattle, the director of city planning said he sees a major facet of his role as critically assessing the development proposals by focusing on solid planning policies.

“Our professional role is to be advocates for good public policy,” said Marshall Foster, director of the Seattle Department of Planning and Development. “That’s an essential role that planning directors. We try to focus on having a strong policy foundation, so we can limit the amount of negotiating specific projects.”

Foster earned a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and has a professional background in public sector planning. He was the director of “green initiatives” for the city of San Francisco before taking the top city planning job in Seattle. Planning policy there has shifted, and Foster said the focus is largely on the natural world.

“More and more, the decisions we make about planning have to do with how we’re responding to climate change,” Foster said. “Another big one — especially for cities like yours — is how you grow in step with the natural environment. Here in Washington state and Seattle, we really focus on trying to preserve our farmlands and natural environment. We put more density where it belongs, in the center city. We’ve got a natural setting that we love, much like you do. So that’s a big theme in city planning.”

Looking to the Future

Those who oppose Tanoue are overwhelmingly environmentalists. At the last full City Council meeting earlier this month, council members suggested the outcry over Tanoue’s nomination is based on persistent opposition to controversial projects he has helped move forward.

In other words, it is suggested that people aren’t opposing Tanoue, but a handful of projects he has advanced. The Sierra Club’s Harris rejects that stance, and says Tanoue has failed to develop and implement sound planning policy to help guide responsible planning Honolulu.

“One example, he’s been a big proponent of TOD, transit-oriented development,” Harris said. “In espousing the benefits of that, he says it’s going to take away the growth in rural areas. As a general comment, that’s true, but the city has to have the compatible regulations in place to say no new development in rural areas, to force the development in transit-oriented areas. Development is going to occur in the cheapest spots it can.”

Environmental groups are likely to turn out again for Monday’s City Council hearing, and will likely voice their opposition to Tanoue’s confirmation. But the bigger question is how they’ll work with him in the likely event he earns the council’s approval.

“What we can do is try and force the city to do some type of long-term planning,” Harris said. “Let’s create an agriculture plan, let’s create an energy plan. Let’s really look at these things in the long term. Unfortunately, the city hasn’t done that yet.”