2019-08-01 Hearing Transcript - Admin Matters #2

Home

from now. You know, and that's the value of a commission, right? That's the value of getting all the heads on both sides of the island to come to compromise on this. So, I kind of tend, at this part of the process, not to want to throw in a major way to swing one way or another. I rather get all the ideas out on the table, and we'll go from there. CLARKSON: Let me make—one of the things that might be helpful, I think, is some data, too. I'm going to make work for your staff. Is, you know, how often is it that permits are applied for and the project doesn't happen. How often is it that rezones are granted by ordinance by the Council and nothing happens except the resale of the property? I mean, you know, what are we, what are we looking at as the real problem here? DARROW: That's actually not that difficult to be able to get an answer for. I mean, the way that I would be able to find that information is just going back in our logs and look at how many time extensions came before the Commission and/or the Council where an applicant originally you'll see it on our permits because it will say applicant so and so formerly this applicant. So, you know right off the bat that it's no longer the original applicant. It's changed. And, so that's easy to find. I can also be able to easily find how many time extensions have come before the Commission and the Council let's say over the past ten years. That's pretty, a good number to use. It should be easy. The difficulty is like Commissioner Aguinaldo last hearing said how many rezonings are out there sitting in limbo. Well, we have rezonings that go way back to, you know, sixties, and we just haven't had the staff or the time to go back and look at every single one of those to see if they're in limbo, if they've been completed, or if they are just dead. CLARKSON: I don't even understand what that means. How can a rezone be in limbo? DARROW: It happens all the time just like what we were saying. You have a piece of property that came in, it was zoned, and they had conditions, but they didn't do the conditions, and so the property just sat there until somebody in the future comes along and says I want to buy that and they realize they have to go to the Planning Commission or the Council to reignite the conditions. So, it's just been sitting in limbo ever since. You can't get a Building Permit. You can't get a Plan Approval. You can't do anything on it until you go back to Commission and Council. CLARKSON: These were time conditions? DARROW: Correct. CLARKSON: Oh, okay, I'm sorry. DARROW: Yeah, so that's where—and, you know, we've asked this Director as well as other Directors. Do you want us to initiate revocation on these zonings? And, they say, no that doesn't make sense because if we revert it back to its original, it's going against what is actually EXHIBIT D 13