The Honolulu Planning Commission is expected to hold a public hearing today to consider updates to a nearly 20-year-old development document focused on the city’s prime urban areas.

The panel is scheduled to mull a bill to repeal the city’s existing Primary Urban Center Development Plan, which stretches from Kahala to Pearl City and comprises the southern coastline, mountain watershed areas and the most populous parts of the city’s eight planning areas for Oahu.

The urban center plan also includes major economic hubs — namely, downtown Honolulu, the airport area and the island’s main hotel and resort spot, Waikiki — the city says.

Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, the city Department of Planning and Permitting director, said the plan in question was first adopted in 2004.

“The Proposed Revised Plan includes many needed updates to address issues such as climate change and sea level rise, alignment with the city’s adopted Transit Oriented Development Neighborhood Plans, and to reflect current policies such as Complete Streets,” she told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser via email.

Proposed revisions come under topics like growth and development, housing, parks and public open space, mobility and connectivity, healthy communities, sea level rise and coastal hazards planning, water resources, economic development and public services, she added.

According to Takeuchi Apuna, DPP prepares and revises eight regional development and sustainable communities plans for the island, which all implement long-range policies and goals of the Oahu General Plan, the city’s guiding development document.

“These plans are required by City Charter and are adopted by City Council ordinance,” she added.

Development plans and sustainable-communities plans are “updated through a public process that informs zoning, infrastructure investments, and other city codes and standards,” she said.

“Periodic revisions are essential to ensure that the plans remain effective, in step with current trends and issues and reflective of community input,” she said.

The Planning Commission — which holds its last meeting of the year today — will make its recommendations to the City Council at the close of its review of the Urban Center Development Plan, she added.

“When the Planning Commission’s recommendations are forwarded to the City Council, the City Council will then schedule its own public hearing and additional readings for completing final changes and adoption, likely early next year,” Takeuchi Apuna said.

The Planning Commission meeting begins at 1 p.m. at Mission Memorial Auditorium, Mission Memorial Building, 550 S. King St.

Meanwhile, on the topic of sea level rise, DPP kicked off a nearly $400,000 pilot project in August to study impacts of climate change on Oahu’s prime tourist zone.

DPP says it started the study — “Adapt Waikiki 2050” — to look at the toll taken on the island’s global, beachfront destination, which annually generates billions of dollars in tourism revenue to the island as well as the state.

Eventually, the “Adapt Waikiki 2050” plan will make recommendations to the city.

Coinciding with DPP’s study of Waikiki, the Honolulu City Council is also considering potential legislation over sea level rise and its impact on the 30,000-room tourist zone.

On Aug. 31, Council Chair Tommy Waters introduced Resolution 207, which seeks to amend the city’s Land Use Ordinance in order to have greater regulation over the inspection and maintenance of Waikiki’s shoreline hotels.

If adopted in bill form, the resolution — which is still undergoing Council scrutiny — will require hotels built on a shoreline lot in the Waikiki Special District to have a structural inspection performed within three years of the bill’s adoption and then every four years thereafter.

As proposed, the bill would mandate that owners of Waikiki shoreline hotels arrange for structural inspections to be performed and be responsible for all costs associated with those inspections.

According to Waters, his resolution urges public safety first with regard to a changing global climate.

“Sea level rise isn’t a distant threat; it’s happening now, and we must take tangible steps to ensure that impacted areas like Waikiki remain safe and thriving,” Waters said Oct. 18 during the Council’s Executive Management Committee meeting.

At that meeting, hoteliers opposed the resolution, claiming it would impose greater costs.

Sean Dee, Outrigger Hospitality Group’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer, said Resolution 207 also “duplicates existing practices for hotel owners and narrowly targets hotels in Waikiki.”

He added that Outrigger properties undergo “major renovations” every seven to 10 years — work that typically costs the company $50 million to $100 million per property.