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LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT NOVEMBER 24, 2010 A regularly advertised hearing on the COUNTY COUNCIL INITIATED AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 25, RELATING TO TSUNAMI SIRENS was called to order at 11:31 a.m. in the King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel, Ballroom I, 75 -5660 Palani Road, Kailua -Kona, Hawaii, with Chairman Frederic Housel presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Frederic Housel, Brandi Beaudet, Lani Bowman, Thomas Hickcox and Richard Nelson ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Geraldine Giffin and Wayne Iokepa STAFF PRESENT: Brandon Gonzalez (Deputy Corporation Counsel), BJ Leithead Todd (Planning Director), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Jeff Darrow (Staff Planner) and Maija Cottle (Staff Planner) And one person from the public in attendance. INITIATOR: COUNTY COUNCIL Amendment to Chapter 25 (Zoning), Article 4, of the Hawaii County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended), by adding a new division relating to Tsunami Sirens. HOUSEL: The next item on the agenda is the initiator is the County Council, and this is an amendment to Chapter 25, Article 4, of the Hawaii County Code by adding a new division relating to tsunami sirens. Daryn, could you present a little more information on this thing? ARAI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Proposed Bill 291 Draft 2 basically requires that through plan approval the Department triggers the need to install a tsunami siren when the project is situated within the tsunami evacuation area, and when the project is situated more than a mile from the nearest existing tsunami siren. While we agree with the basic merits of the bill, or the concept of the bill, to install sirens where needed and where there is an existing deficiency, we are not supportive of this proposed bill simply because we believe the mechanism that they are using is inappropriate and could cause more problems than it seeks to fix. The plan approval process is really an administrative review process within the Planning Department; it is simply meant to make sure that the project has the required number of parking, has the appropriate amount of landscaping, that the height of a structure doesn't exceed the maximum height limit in the zone district; it is not designed to fix a regional infrastructural deficiency. And so that is why we believe that implementing or trying to fix deficiency in the tsunami siren system should be something that is administered, say, through the State or County Civil Defense programs, rather than trying to implement it through an administrative review process that was really designed to deal with onsite requirements and not regional infrastructural deficiencies. The background report and recommendation that we've distributed to you goes through various scenarios or areas of concern that explains why we have a problem with the proposed bill. So with that being said, the Director is recommending an unfavorable recommendation of the proposed Bill 291 Draft 2. 1