COM 0060.000 2010-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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BOWMAN: And just to clarify — I'm sorry I missed — so unfavorable with the bill, and the bill was initiated by the State? I'm sorry. ARAI: I'm sorry, the bill was initiated by the County Council and was transmitted to the Planning Commission for its consideration. HOUSEL: Daryn, does the Planning Department have specific recommendations on how to correct this problem? ARAI: We did make one recommendation is that we think that they should explore opportunities to support the efforts of the State and the County Civil Defense agencies to implement measures to provide tsunami sirens where there are none or where there is a deficiency. So we'd rather they pursue that avenue rather than trying to implement it through an existing administrative review process that was never designed in the first place to deal with these type of more regional problems. NELSON: So this recommendation by the Planning Director is not in favor of it, and we are talking about Chapter 25 adding a new division relating tsunami sirens. ARAI: Yes. We are not in favor of this proposed bill. BOWMAN: May I ask? So if we are not in favor of it, then what's the next step? If we forward it down, I mean -. LEITHEAD TODD: If you do an unfavorable recommendation, it goes back to the County Council, and at that point it's up to them. Our concerns are that we just think that it's, partially it is in the inappropriate place, and the way it triggers -. You can have a situation where, the way it's set up, an application comes in and it gets triggered, and yet the particular parcel of land that it may trigger is not the appropriate place to put a siren and they may not have control over the place that you want to put the siren. Also, because it's, at a rezoning, you know, you can put conditions in; we think that trying to put the condition in at plan approval is the wrong place to do it, because plan approval is where you are supposed to look for whether they've complied with the conditions of typically with a rezoning ordinance or typically with the Subdivision Code. This is adding a new condition and trying to put it in through the plan approval. And it also may unfairly place the entire burden of the siren on an applicant that may have difficulty bearing that burden, because one siren alone can be $100,000, and so it doesn't have that kind of evaluation. So we think that the place to determine whether someone has to put a siren up should be at rezoning, and it should be a condition that goes up as a recommendation from the Planning Commission and is then subsequently approved by the County Council, as opposed to being triggered through at an administrative process within the Department. BOWMAN: And the applicant would be responsible for the cost of the siren? LEITHEAD TODD: Yeah, and putting it in the right place. And the problem is is that, you know, you could, like this was really geared towards Waikoloa, and you've got quite a bit of development there and none of those developments would be required to contribute to the cost of this; but if you had somebody coming in with a new application to build something, you know, relatively small, but it met the aggregate of 50 people, they would end up bearing the whole burden. And yet, they might not be at the location where you want to put the siren up, and they may not have control over where you want to put the siren; because if the siren is going to be maintained and serviced by, 2