2019-04-09 Kailua Village Design Commission Minutes

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Commission, and yet it had gone ahead and installed, and was still maintaining, the illegal signs;  Misrepresentations and lack of required explanations by Planet Fitness. Explanations of hardship was required in order to apply for a variance. The applicant completely failed to meet the requirement, which alone would call for a mandatory denial of the application;  Lack of equity of Planet Fitness. While no sign construction was allowed without a permit, Planet Fitness had intentionally refused to comply with the code and constructed the signs, the cost of which should not constitute hardship as the reason for a variance;  Necessity of enforcement action against Planet Fitness. The Planning \[Public Works per HCC Chapter 3 Sign Code \] Director was required to take enforcement action by the Sign Code, and lack of enforcement was actually serving Planet Fitness at the expense of the County and its people; and,  Planet Fitness had been advised multiple times of the requirement to apply for the Commission review, but had chosen to proceed with the installation of illegal signs, in spite of its representation to the Commission that it would submit their signage plan. He concluded by saying that Planet Fitness’s action was a direct challenge to the law, to the Commission and to the County and its people, as if to say that the Kailua Village was not a special place and could not be a special place. He urged the Commission to show everyone the authority of the Commission and the County. Mr. Chase Villafana, the applicant for New Business No. 3, a sign variance application for Planet Fitness, thanked the Commission for its review of his application. He gave some background information about Planet Fitness that it was a national gym company, which promoted health and wellness for everybody, in particular the large population that wanted to go to a gym but could not afford to do so, by offering affordable fees. He said that the company had spent a few years before coming to Kona to learn about the permitting process and community’s desires through meetings with community members, which had lead them to the building they were now in. He said that he had been advised of different methods for the permitting process, and he had submitted this sign permit application accordingly. He stated that the company had been in the sign permitting process for between five and six months, and because of the length of time, it had opened for business and the signs had been installed during that period. He noted that the sign had been made to match the size variance approved in 1997 for the previous tenant, Borders Books and Music (“Borders”), which was 167 square feet. Ms. Fanny Au Hoy, a former member of the Commission and representing herself and the Daughters of Hawai‘i, provided comments on New Business No. 3, a sign variance application for Planet Fitness. She first asked Mr. Villafana whether he was a resident of Kailua-Kona, and Mr. Villafana answered with a no. She spoke in opposition to the application for the reason that:  The community had established rules and guidelines that everybody needed to comply with, including Planet Fitness;  The Kailua Village was a small village that was historical and cultural, not a strip, and the community was against large signs and neon signs because they wanted to keep the village historical and cultural;  The community was not anti-gym, as there were already other gyms within the village, but unlike those existing gyms, Planet Fitness was advantageously located at a very prominent street corner and therefore should not require two huge signs; 2