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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-08-20 Leeward Exh A (SLU 20-000053 & REZ 20-000241) LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT AUGUST 20, 2020 A regularly advertised hearing on the applications of DANNY JULKOWSKI (PUA MELIA, LLC) (SLU 20-000053/REZ 20-000241) was called to order at 9:49 a.m. via livestream online meeting, with Chairperson Nancy Carr Smith presiding. COMMISSIONERS IN ATTENDANCE: Nancy Carr Smith, Perry Kealoha, Max Newberg, Mark Van Pernis, Michael Vitousek and Faith "Faye" Yates ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: J Yoshimoto, Esq. (Counsel for the Commission), Michael Yee (Planning Director), John Mukai, Esq. (Counsel for the Planning Director), Alex Roy (Planner), Jeff Darrow (Planning Program Manager), Maija Jackson (Planner), Christian Kay (Planner), Tracie-Lee Camero (Planner), Rachelle Ley (Secretary to the Planning Director), Kim Tanaka (Board and Commission Secretary) and Noriko Sauer (Leeward Planning Commission Secretary) APPLICANT: DANNY JULKOWSKI (PUA MELIA, LLC) (SLU 20-000053/REZ 20-000241) Applications for a State Land Use Boundary Amendment from Agricultural to Urban for 11.707 acres of land and a Change of Zone from an Open (0) and Residential and Agricultural 1-acre (RA-la) to a Village Commercial-10,000 square feet(CV-10) zoning district for 11.707 acres of land. The subject property is located south of Waikoloa Road, approximately 0.3 miles east of the intersection of Pua Melia Street and Waikoloa Road at Waikoloa, South Kohala, Hawaii, TMK: (3) 6-8-002:057. Secretary's Note: "- - -" indicates that there were technical and/or internet difficulties, which made the conversation inaudible. CARR SMITH: Moving on to Agenda Item No. 2. Applicant is Danny - - -where is that feedback coming from? KERN: I think it's coming from Christian and Alex's - - - CARR - -CARR SMITH: Danny Julkowski, Pua Melia, LLC. This is SLU 20-000053 and REZ, Rezone, 20-000241; applications for a State Land Use Boundary Amendment from Agricultural to Urban for 11.707 acres of land and a Change of Zone from an Open and Residential and Agricultural 1-acre to Village Commercial-10,000 square feet zoning district for 11.707 acres of land. The subject property is located south of Waikoloa Road, approximately three-tenth of a mile east of the intersection of Pua Melia Street and Waikoloa Road at Waikoloa, South Kohala, Hawaii, TMK excuse me (3) 6-8-002:057. Staff? 1 EXHIBIT A ROY: Sorry, we're having a little trouble here to share the content; it's not picking up the right screen for some reason. Everybody see that—can they hear me? Where's theok, everybody hear me all right? OkayI have no idea—okay, I'm going to go ahead and start. This application, Danny Julkowski, is for a Change of Zone application Rezone 20-000241 and for the State Land Use Boundary Amendment application SLU 20-000053. Here's a location map of the project site that's outlined in red. The property, you can see that it's just east of Waikoloa Village Golf Club, and south of Waikoloa Village proper on the south side of- - -Pua Melia Street loop. So - - - Agricultural 1-acre - - -to Village Commercial, or CV-10, which is Village Commercial-10,000 square feet, for the entire 11.707 acres of land. Additionally, the applicant is requesting CARR SMITH: Alex - - - excuse me, you're, you're breaking up a little bit. The sound is not that great. We're not hearing every word you say clearly. ROY: Okay. Can you hear me any better? CARR SMITH: Yeah, go ahead. ROY: Okay. So, the applicant is requesting a Change of Zone from an Open and Residential - - - additionally, the applicant is requesting a State Land Use Boundary Amendment from Agricultural to Urban for the entire 11.707 acres of land. The applicants proposed use of this property is to subdivide the parcel into nine buildable lots and one road lot. They include a proposed housing development and commercial development. Here's a map of the county zoning. The property is outlined in red. As you can see, it is both zoned Open and RA-la. It is south of Waikoloa Road. Take note of the Agricultural and Open designations across the street and the Open and RA south of the property. Across the street, Pua Melia, and at the intersection you see that there's a CV-10, which is the Waikoloa Plaza development, which is currently ongoing, and then north of Waikoloa Road you see Open and RM-1.5 that is the golf course and the Waikoloa Village development. Directly across the street is an undeveloped section of Village Commercial-20, so it's Village Commercial 20,000-square foot, but has yet to be developed. Here's a map of the State Land Use Boundary. The property is all within the Rural State Land Use Boundary, adjacent to Agricultural, and then you see the Urban of Waikoloa and Waikoloa Village and Plaza west of the subject property. Here's the General Plan, or LUPAG Map, showing the parcel as entirely within Rural and Open. Across the street is EA, which is Extensive Agriculture. West of the subject property in the Waikoloa Village, Waikoloa Plaza, is Medium Density Urban and Open. Here's an aerial photograph of the subject property. You can see that it's pretty barren, but please take note of the large drainage area that cuts through the entire property; you can see that paralleling Waikoloa Road in this diagram. Across the street from the subject property is a, is a horse barns and animal husbandry area, that's the Waikoloa Stables. West of Pua Melia Street 2 EXHIBIT A and the subject property is the Fire Department and post office, and then the Waikoloa development which hasn't shown up in this aerial. You can also see the Waikoloa Village Golf Course and some of the development there in the top left-hand corner of the picture. This is the applicant's site plan. The large triangular lot is where the residential component's going to be. Then you have five smaller lots on the south side of the property, which is going to be some unknown commercial, and then three other lots. The large lot, the applicant is planning to do a hardware store, and they have a plan for that. You can see that there's two other remnant lots surrounding that. Here's a conceptual plan for `Ohana Estates that would go into that triangular—so this will be the residential component of the project fit within, tight within that triangular new lot that would be created. Here's a plan of the proposed hardware store that would be on one of the larger commercial lots. You could see Proposed Lot 1, Waikoloa Road on the north, on the top, of the property, and then the entrance and cul-de-sac that would take you to the residential. Also note that the parking lot area was, is slated to be right over the drainage ditch, so it's unclear if that was taken into account. Here's a view of the property entrance looking west, so towards Waikoloa Village, and the property entrance, the approximate property entrance is on the left-hand side there. Here's a view of the property entrance and looking east on Waikoloa Road. You can see it's generally very barren and dry, which is typical. Here's a view of the property from Waikoloa Road. This is an aerial photograph, a bleak aerial photograph; I wanted to show the drainage ditch, you can see, which is flowing from the right-hand side of the picture to the left hand, so it's flowing towards Waikoloa Villages. The entrance,proposed entrance is approximately 1,500 feet from the intersection of Pua Melia and Waikoloa Road. And so, the entrance here would take you to the residential section and the commercial sections, and it's not, it's directly across the street from the horse barns but not their entrance. At this time the Planning Director is recommending that we forward an unfavorable recommendation to the County Council for the Change of Zone Application No. 20-000241. Additionally, the Planning Director recommends forwarding an unfavorable recommendation to the County Council for State Land Use Boundary Amendment Application No. 20-000[0]53. That's it. CARR SMITH: That concludes your presentation? Okay. You didn't really touch on the CDP. Did you have anything to present on how the CDP felt about this area? ROY: Yeah, well, first of all, go back to the zoning map. So one of the issues, of course, is this does not align with the GP, doesn't align with the CDP in that the area is designated as Open and 3 EXHIBIT A Rural and is not adjacent to the Medium Density Urban. And, in fact, someone who, if the residential component was constructed, someone would have to walk almost a mile to get to Waikoloa Village, as they'd have to come from the back of the property and then walk all the way down Waikoloa Road. So this doesn't fit within the idea and the intent of putting together commercial development in areas where it's already slated; as you can see, the Medium Density Urban zoning would support that, whereas the Open and Rural does not. One of the big issues is the lack of infrastructure and the lack of available wastewater that has not really been settled as of now. And then the, really the idea that this doesn't fit within the intent of the CDP, which was to minimize and, over development, commercial development and spot zoning, which we really believe that this is a spot zoning. And so, the spot zoning doesn't fit within both the CDP and the GP as, you know, effective development measures. So, we decided based on those, based on the fact it doesn't fit within the CDP, the GP, and the severe lack of infrastructure improvements, its lack of wastewater there is water that's available, but it's unclear if its, if the facilities need to be constructed in order to take that. It's a private water company and sewer company that would need to expand its service area, and that requires LUC, Land Use uh not LUC PUC, the Public Utilities Commission approval. The applicant provided no alternatives, so if the wastewater, if the PUC fails to approve the expansion, then there's no alternative. And then on top of that, the, the drainage area, and the fact that there was no TIAR that was provided the community actually provided a report, the Action Committee for the South Kohala CDP provided a report that talked about the intersection of Pua Melia and Waikoloa Road being extremely dangerous right now. So, to add on a new commercial development near this that would affect that intersection without improvements planned is, goes against the CDP a hundred percent. CARR SMITH: Thank you very much, Alex. Commissioners? Alex, could you pull down your screen so I can see my commissioners, please? Thank you very much. Commissioners, do you have any questions for staff? Max, this is your community; I'm curious as to what you have to say. NEWBERG: Yes, good morning everyone. As a 17-year resident of South Kohala, we've seen danger in the past, not to mention the, the large wildfire in 2005, which is kind of alluded to this situation that we have in South Kohala that is hopefully being slated to rectify. I don't know exactly what our population is at this time. It's a humble working community that's developed out of a proposed idea long ago to be a retirement community. Anyone who's been to Waikoloa Village can see that the roads are in terrible shape. Waikoloa Road leading into that area is in bad shape, and we have a commercial development beginning with Waikoloa Plaza, and I think a dangerous situation is getting worse. And that's, that's echoed by the entire community. And before I go any further, I would like to ask if there's any knowledge of where that area is at regarding traffic signaling. CARR SMITH: You're asking - - - NEWBERG: - - - CARR - -CARR SMITH: - - -you're asking Planning Department staff if there's a signal planned for the entrance? Or for the main intersection? 4 EXHIBIT A NEWBERG: Right, I wanted to ask, although it's not maybe particular to this development particularly, I was just curious if there's anything in motion or, or proposed, for this area to have a traffic signal light at that main intersection of Waikoloa Road and Waikoloa Boulevard. ROY: I can answer that. I can say that the proposal that agencies believe would rectify the situation is a traffic circle, or roundabout, or whatever you call it. There is no plans or permits or any proposals to do any intersection improvements at this time. NEWBERG: So, I think that's the tragic situation. To give more context to it—it's just my personal story but it's echoed again throughout Waikoloa Village and the surrounding area in South Kohalain 2005, it went from a situation within about 30 minutes on the radio being reported as the fire is a mile away from the Village, there's no reason to evacuate—hadn't I been at the time in the field working at a site that I could visually see Waikoloa Village and see the fire itself jumping the firestopwe quickly ended up in a situation at lunchtime where I had to evacuate myself, my animal, and my pregnant wife. And it was literally a situation where the community was shutting down because the fire had jumped and was at the intersection. And they started instructing the people to go to the back of the Village. And while that situation doesn't affect this proposed project, it alludes to the larger issue of the traffic that would be incurred by this project, should it be approved. Is there any proposal put forth other than the use of the property? Is there any proposal, in lieu of a TIAR, of how they're going to run the entrance and, you know, egress and access onto this property? Is that in the proposal at all? ROY: No, the applicant stated that it would, infrastructure improvements would be, you know, done as needed or as requested by agencies, you know. There was some turn improvements, which would be necessary, but there's no light, I don't think, that was proposed of any sort. CARR SMITH: I'm sure the applicant will address that when they make their presentation. You have any other comments, Max? NEWBERG: Not at this time. CARR SMITH: Okay. All right. Jeff, did you have something to add? DARROW: I just want to point out to the Commissioners Exhibit No. 6, which was the comments that we received from Public Works, and they, they touch upon each of these areas including access to the property and what they want to see. This has happened in the past where DPW is placing the burden for the roundabout, the construction of the roundabout, clearly on the shoulders of the developer. And so, again, that's what we're seeing in this case. And if you, again, refer to Exhibit 6, it goes into detail about that. CARR SMITH: Thank you. Commissioners? Mr. Van Pernis, go ahead. VAN PERNIS: I don't know whether this will be covered again, but this project looks like it'll generate a lot of traffic, and a turn lane will be necessary. When will that be imposed and who's responsibility will it be? 5 EXHIBIT A CARR SMITH: Alex? ROY: Yeah, I mean, as Jeff said, there are requirements that would be necessary for ingress and egress, and I would assume that they would be required to be installed prior to occupancy or Plan Approval, or something like that, which is typical. But, other than that, I'm not sure. We have to defer to DPW. But, yeah, typically, they would not be able to - - -until those infrastructure improvements are put in. CARR SMITH: Thank you. Mark, did you have anything else? VAN PERNIS: My next question would be for the applicant, whether they're willing to commit to building that turn lane. CARR SMITH: Okay, we'll deal with that when we get there. Faye, do you have anything? YATES: No. CARR SMITH: No? YATES: No. CARR SMITH: Perry? Mike? Questions? Either of you have questions, or? Okay? All right, very good. Thank you, Alex. All right, we'll move on to the applicant's presentation. We have Zendo Kern online as the applicant's representative and Danny Julkowski as the applicant. Can I swear you folks in please? Oh, there's so many people on the screen, I can't find you. There you are. There you are. All right. Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Leeward Planning Commission? KERN: Yes. CARR SMITH: Mr. Julkowski? JULKOWSKL Yes, yes. CARR SMITH: Thank you. Please state your name and area of residence. Zendo. KERN: Yeah, hi, good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Planning Commission. Zendo Kern, Planning Consultant. I live on the Big Island, here representing the applicants. CARR SMITH: Okay, thank you. Did you receive the Planning Director's background and recommendation report? KERN: I did. We did. 6 EXHIBIT A CARR SMITH: Okay. Would you like to comment on the recommendations, and go ahead and give us your presentation? KERN: Yes, please. Thank you very much. Again, good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Leeward Planning Commission, all the Planning Department staff, Corporation Counsel, and anybody else viewing this. So, what we have here is an interesting, challenging project. What we've heard is a presentation from the Planning Department that talked about some of the basic land use components of it. I know there's some concerns. What we haven't heard today, and what we haven't talked about, is the story about how we got here. I'm going to talk a little bit on my side about this, and then I'll have Mr. Julkowski share his story. I'm not going to go into the personal depths of his story, so there might be a little bit of overlap, but I'll try to limit that to the best of our ability. I got a call over a year ago, probably a year and a half ago, yeah, over a year and a half ago by a person and at that point in time that was employed by the County and said I have a 201 H, I have a client that has a 201H application that involves affordable housing and a hardware store and it's just about to, you know, basically it need to button it up and it's good to go, simple, easy project. So, I said, you know, sure, I'm happy to assist and help with that. And so, I did, I got involved, and the first thing I did from there after a talk with Mr. Julkowski and got my head around the project was like okay, this seems to make sense to me. We went and talked, I went and talked with the Planning Department about it, and at that point in time the Planning Department was not supporting the 201H application as Housing was, and generally speaking, when there's a conflict with Planning and Housing, it's, it gets complicated. So, I said, "well, why don't we look at it from just a straight change of zone perspective and take the 201H application out of there?" So that conversation went on. What we looked for was a LUPAG Map determination; so that's the Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map, which you can see is about,just on the makai border of the property as a MD use. So that would be ideally what you'd want is a Medium Density Urban in that area. And in one of the first meetings it looked like that was going to be favorable to get that LUPAG Map determination. And a few months later that changed, and so it was no longer supported. So, I was like, okay, it is what it is, we need to continue to move forward. And so, we have been moving forward with the original intention of the affordable housing and the, the commercial lots, as well as a hardware store. So there is some, a few things to point out when we talk about a, say, for example, the TIAR, which I think would be something that we'd want to have as a condition, if this were to be approved. But when we have, once things kind of went further south with the Planning Department, and it was basically stated that this will not be supported, it became very challenging for the applicant to spend a lot more additional money on these, these items, especially when you hear the rest of the story. So, since then I've been trying to address this and, and work it out. I do think it's important that—so what was called out was residential housing, which actually committed to, it's going to be committed to doing affordable housing within the affordable housing guidelines. So, it's not regular homes; it's to be the affordable, 80 to 100 percent AMI. 7 EXHIBIT A The intersection question that came up, that has been being punted for as long as I can remember being on Council for the roundabout area, and it continues to be punted. Meanwhile, there's a large-scale commercial development closer to that intersection than this request; yet nothing happens. That's interesting. I think it's also important to look at the map when you guys looked at the LUPAG Map, the Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map, that across the street it shows it as EA or Extensive Ag, but it's actually zoned CV-10, the same request that we have in a similar nature. So it's obviously been, been done. When I looked at this, I said, you know, is it, is it perfect? Maybe it's not perfect, but you have commercial across the street, you've got commercial 300 feet makai of it and in the Village, and you basically have commercial around this project, and that little triangle piece would essentially close out the area of potential commercial growth in that area. If this was, you know, a half mile or a mile up, up the street, it just wouldn't make sense. So I would say here that it's subjective enough to,to make sense. Water is available to the property. Waikoloa Water Company said it is, and there's a letter to that, to that effect. Wastewater will need to be addressed, and it's clear that there's certain elements that do need to be addressed, such as egress, ingress, TIAR, and some wastewater, but I think it'd be - - - CARR - -CARR SMITH: Zendo, pause for a second here. Rachelle, is - - - Rachelle? - - - All right, we know this is challenging trying to bring people in and test them and have them stand by so, I think the feedback is gone now. Zendo, if you can continue. KERN: Thank you very much, I appreciate that. So, yeah, water's available, wastewater needs to be resolved. So long story short on that is the applicant has been more than willing to address the issues that are coming up, the mitigation measures that need to occur within reason, but I do believe that everybody here could agree that if you're coming up, especially when you hear the rest of the story, if you're coming up against a, a firm no support, you're going to want to limit the amount that you spend until you can get a little further along. And if there is support, I think the applicant is, again, happy to do that, and that can be done in, stated in the conditions and worked out in a manner that's it's creating a good project and safety. So, simply, it's got, you know, commercial zoning all around it. It's hereI think it's also really important to put out that this original property was the affordable housing component for Waikoloa Highlands that had 80-some units going in on there, slated for that. And then that changed. So I think I'm going to take a quick pause at this point in time, turn it over to Mr. Julkowski so he can share his story about how he got here, and then we can close it out, and then we are happy to answer any questions and get into a dialogue. Mr. Julkowski, you available? Please unmute, if you're speaking. CARR SMITH: He turned off his camera. KERN: - - -just came on; I see a, the corner, there's—can you see that?—like a caution symbol? 8 EXHIBIT A CARR SMITH: Yeah, mm-hmm, I don't know what that means. KERN: I haven't seen that in the WebEx meetings yet. DARROW: That means low internet signal. KERN: Okay. CARR SMITH: - - - Mr. Julkowski, are you able to join us via video or at least unmute and let us know your status? There you are. D. JULKOWSKL - - - CARR - -CARR SMITH: I believe so, but it looks—Mr. Julkowski? Perhaps you could not use the video and just D. JULKOWSKL Yes - - - CARR - -CARR SMITH: try the audio. Where are you? Mr. Julkowski, could you try unmuting and try speaking to us please? D. JULKOWSKL Can you hear us now J. JULKOWSKL Can you hear us? CARR SMITH: Yes, yes. D. JULKOWSKL Okay. I'm Danny CARR SMITH: Please go ahead and introduce yourself. D. JULKOWSKL I'm Danny Julkowski, my son Jacob Julkowski J. JULKOWSKI: Hi. D. JULKOWSKL We live in Northern Minnesota. And we'll go back a little bit in history. We own a home out in Kohala Ranch for 14 years. We were looking at different areas to move our family out, and we'd been looking at pieces of property, and one day we decided we had enough of it. And on January of 2018, a County employee contacted us and asked us if we were interested in purchasing the piece of property that we had purchased that we had boughten. At that timeI had known this guy from the past because he had been trying to get us to do affordable housing, because at one time I was a general contractoranyways, we talked back and forth, he came up with a price, and that we decided we'd go with it. He wanted a little bit more, and I said, "I don't have that type of funds. I can work with this." So, we had multiple meetings at the Housing Department. I signed documents at your County buildings with lawyers to that I would do the affordable housing. So, we invested quite a bit of money. Telling us that 9 EXHIBIT A they're going to help us; if we do the housing, they'll help us through this whole project. Then one day I get a phone call by the FBI saying, "What do you know about this project?" And from that point on before that I had threatening phone calls towards my family, because we wouldn't back off. I had a life investment in this thing, and I just can't walk away from a life investment. I was promised a lot of things from the County. County would say if you would work with us with the housing, then we'd help you with the other problems with the water and sewer. I would like to make a couple corrections; I do have a paper from both the Water Department and the Sewer, with the sewer for the housing, and sewer and water for the whole project. I would have to put septic in for the store, but other than that, I do have a letter from the Department to get both of those. So, I wanted to make that clear. A secondary thing I do have is that there is a ten-foot right-of-way that we could always plan to make that a walkway so the public would not have to walk on the highway; they could walk directly across with the ten-foot right-of-way right onto a sidewalk, and cutting that whole time away walking all the way around that whole thing. But there's a ten-foot easement that we're planning the sidewalk and walk it right to a sidewalk. That's been with our plan with our, when we were going do this. But the main thing is that the County came to us, County employees, sat down with County employees, and told us that they were going to work with us. So, I purchased that property based on County employees telling me that I was going to be able to do this. And then, all of a sudden, they get fired and disappeared. And I'm, then, I'm standing alone. I had been told to maybe contact somebody and see if they could help you out, and I contacted Zendo. And he has brought us to this point right now. But we didn't come to you guys; the County came to us with this project and then walked away from us and left us high and dry. That's all I have to say. KERN: Thank you, Mr. Julkowski. So, as I was saying, there's a lot of back story to this, a lot of complications to this. It's pretty, a sad, sad situation, honestly. My goal and hope professionally was to try to complete the project in a manner that was originally represented. At the - - - Mr. Julkowski has been more than willing to do that. I mean if this was in maybe a different location, again, half a mile up the street, I would not be involved, but how it does round out a commercial section of that area, it does seem logical based on the other elements that we had already discussed. It's, it's on the verge, it's right there in, in the gray area of meeting the criteria and not; there are certain components of the CDP that it does meet as far as affordable housing and economic opportunities. Certainly, there is also an EIS done on the entire property that there was no significant impacts, no major issues. So, you know, overall, the project is poised for that. I think it's, I do think it's important to look at this. I do think that when it goes to Council, there's going to be a lot of discussion, a lot of debate. I'm interested to hear the Commission's side on this. But when somebody in this, in this capacity gets handed a project like this, and they pay 1.5 million dollars for a property that it gets, when it's green lit to do something that they were told to be done, and the rug gets pulled out from underneath their feet, that's pretty a sad day. And so, we're not saying that because, you know,just think you should just rubber stamp it, but I think it does take some serious consideration. It should be considered, as well as the other land use elements that this project actually does meet. Again, CV zoning right to the makai side of it, CV zoning across the street, CV zoning in an area that has a LUPAG Map of EA. How does that vary and how does that differ from this project? And we're not asking for any special exemptions. And we're also going to be, we're going to be doing affordable housing, and if we can get this through,then Mr. Julkowski will also have a hardware store, which will offer another level of needed service in that area. So overall, I think it actually 10 EXHIBIT A does help the community, obviously with mitigating measures. So, with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. Thank you for that. All right, Commissioners? Mr. Van Pernis. VAN PERNIS: Yes, I'd like to ask if the applicants are willing to commit to building a turn lane into their project? KERN: Commissioner Van Pernis, I believe that a further discussion - - -to occur with DPW and the applicants can speak to this, but as far as I'm aware, within reason the applicants are willing to do what they need to do to allow the project to move forward and provide the necessary level of safety. VAN PERNIS: Will they commit at this point? They'll go to DPW and try to negotiate to have some other resolution? I'm asking whether they will commit now in this proceeding. CARR SMITH: Mr. Van Pernis, I don't, personally don't think that it's appropriate for us to ask them to commit to something that they don't know about yet. I think DPW will make the determination as what is needed, and then they'll be faced with that at that time. KERN: And I will say this that, that there will need to be,prior to the hardware store going in, there will need to be a TIAR, Traffic Impact Analysis Report. We will have traffic engineer and they will work with DPW to, again, make sure that the project is safe. CARR SMITH: Thank you. Commissioners, I'd like some input on this. Mr. Vitousek. VITOUSEK: Yeah, I was just wondering about the history with Waikoloa Mauka, LLC, if this was part of the land where the zoning was reverted? KERN: It, it was, it's all part of that whole original project. Maija or Jeff VITOUSEK: Could, could you give a KERN: —can you jump in on that? VITOUSEK: Can you give a brief discussion of what the land use boundaries were and then are now reverted to? KERN: Jeff? DARROW: I can speak to that. The previous State Land Use Boundary, Boundary for that particular property reflected the zoning. So where you see Open Zoning, the General or the I'm sorry the State Land Use for the entire project, as well as Waikoloa Mauka, was Rural. And so, there was a pretty lengthy State Land Use Commission reversion hearing where they ended up reverting the State Land Use District Boundary Amendment back to Agriculture. And 11 EXHIBIT A so, one of the reasons why they reverted it was because the applicant, which was Waikoloa Mauka, or Waikoloa Highlands, - - - did not comply with the conditions that they were required to, one of them being affordable housing. And that became a big part of that hearing where it was the understanding of the applicant by giving up this 11.7-acre to a non-profit agency for the sole purpose of building affordable housing, that that would comply. But as Mr. Julkowski mentioned and Zendo mentioned, there was some things that happened that are actually, I believe, under investigation right now, and we are where we are. Currently, the State Land Use designation is now Ag for the property. The zoning is Open and Rural, and the General Plan reflects the zoning. And, you know, there's discussion as to the whole background of this, but as far as Planning goes, Planning looks at it from a Planning standpoint; we have certain criteria that we look out for approval or favorable recommendation or unfavorable when it comes to change of zones. We differ in our interpretation of where the General Plan line lays as far as medium density, we, we've listed in detail as to the reasons why the Planning Director is recommending unfavorable. VITOUSEK: And so, this CARR SMITH: - - -, Sorry. VITOUSEK: Okay, so this area was part of the Waikoloa Highlands, and a part of the condition of the Land Use Boundary Amendment was that this piece be built as affordable housing? DARROW: It was a requirement in the State Land Use, as well as the Change of Zone, to do affordable housing. The applicant ended up subdividing a portion out and transferring it to what was thought to be a non-profit corporation. And again, that's, that whole thing's got a little unclear, I might say, and it's still being looked at at this point. VITOUSEK: But that was the previous applicant, right? DARROW: Correct. VITOUSEK: So DARROW: The land that, that transfer happened to an entity called Plumeria at Waikoloa. That entity ended up selling it to Pua Melia, which is the entity with Danny Julkowski. VITOUSEK: Okay, so the Waikoloa Highlands, they planned for this to be the affordable housing component of their development, and then transferred it to a non-profit who was intending to build it. They failed in their compliance and then sold to the current applicant? DARROW: Well, I'll just say that the understanding for the Waikoloa Highlands and Mauka was that when they did that transfer to that particular non-profit corporation, that they complied with their affordable housing agreement. Again, there's been questions as to whether the legality of that transfer, and then that particular entity ended up selling it to Mr. Julkowski - - - 12 - -12 EXHIBIT A VITOUSEK: Got it, got it. I think I got that part, but, well, I guess the question is that if this area was previously designated to be affordable housing, and then the reason that the previous development zoning and land use boundaries had to be reverted was because this area was not completed with affordable housing. DARROW: It- - -yeah, there was a number of factors; this was just one of those. VITOUSEK: Right. DARROW: So they didn't just look at this particular condition, but this condition was a big part. VITOUSEK: Yeah, there was a host of conditions that were not met, and I totally understand that. But, you know, the fact that the community benefit component in creating affordable housing in this area was one of the critical factors in reverting the zoning means that having affordable housing in this area is, is important to the, to the community. I would love to know more about the history of the, the document, if there is any documentation, from Housing and indicating what the discussions were like on the County level, because, you know, hearing the testimony, it seems like the applicants are in a very tough spot because of kind of lack of communication, perhaps, from the County - - - DARROW: - -DARROW: So this, another question that might be needed to look at is if this is an affordable housing project, is there still the opportunity to go through a 201H project, which was originally proposed, versus zoning. VITOUSEK: Right. KERN: If I could dive - - - CARR - -CARR SMITH: Go ahead Zendo. KERN: Thank you so much. Yeah, Commissioner Vitousek, something really funky happened between that community component of having 80-something affordable units for Highlands being transferred to that non-profit to being sold for profit to my clients. Obviously, my clients are still willing to comply with as much of the affordable housing as they, as they possibly - - - so - - so it's kind of a compromised situation. It's really funky. I refrain from adding in a bunch of background stuff into the report just to kind of try to keep it clean in this discussion here. This obviously doesn't look well on the County level, and again, I think it's, it's a trying one that's right on the verge. CARR SMITH: Thank you. KERN: And,just, I, I actually did speak to the original consultant that negotiated for 80-something units, and he said he didn't even know what happened; it's like something really, really funky happened from that time it transferred—supposedly go to the non-profit and through. 13 EXHIBIT A VITOUSEK: Is there any records of the agreements with Housing that we can look at? KERN: I'll let Mr. Julkowski speak to that. I do know there's some ongoing investigations that I don't really know much about, but, Mr. Julkowski? D. JULKOWSKL Everybody who was working with that project with me is now gone, been released from the County. The, I can't go deep whatever I talked with the FBI, I can't, it's being worked on at Hawaiian Homes. And J. JULKOWSKL We've talked to the FBI, and there's a[inaudible]we are still not allowed to talk about everything that happened. D. JULKOWSKL We can't name names J. JULKOWSKL We can't- - - anything until after they finalize their investigation. VITOUSEK: Fair enough, but I mean is there, is there anything in writing from these agencies? I mean, you know, verbal agreements are one thing, but- - - D. - -D. JULKOWSKL - - - sat down and I have papers with a County employee's name on it and stuff, who helped me do all the affordable housing papers, and the reason why I did what I did so I have to explain why I've done. I wasn't asking for money for this project, and so I said I needed to sell these lots off. And at that time I was talking to some people with medical from Waimea to maybe put in a clinic in there because they didn't have in the area, and this would've been a good area for a clinic, and so that's what we were planning to do with that whole group of deals and with those five lots. I had to sell those for help to put in the infrastructure because once I got my cost, it was tremendous, it was high. And so, I figured I'd sell these lots off to help us with the cost of putting the infrastructure in, and making the affordable housing stay affordable housing, instead of making it getting very expensive. So, the only thing I have is what I worked with the County and stuff, and I have a lot of papers here. If I was there, I would show you guys some of the stuff, but because we're not there, it's very difficult. But I worked with, in many meetings, with different people with the County that we met and talked at the County building, when they were in that older building next to the river there. We had many, many meetings there. I would have to fly out two-day notice and fly out there and sit down and have another meeting and stuff. And so I thought everything was good. They told me to finish up the affordable housing, I saidI was supposed to meet with the individual, I flew out there and nobody showed up, whatever, and then I called him, and he says, "I'm no longer with the County." And I said, "What? You know you told me to fly out here," and he says, "things happened." And from that point onI don't know what happened, I really don't know. We haven't, we've done everything what we were asked to do, over and above what I wanted to do, because I said, "Let's insure this thing before I start doing prints." And all this stuff is very, very costly; if you've done any of this stuff, you understand what I'm talking about. And I was kept telling do more, do more, do more. And I did it. And to then be put off to the side like I'd done something wrongI'm hoping to get this taken care of because we have done nothing wrong. CARR SMITH: Can you remind me for the record what your name is? 14 EXHIBIT A D. JULKOWSKL Danny Julkowski. CARR SMITH: Okay, you're Danny. D. JULKOWSKL I'm Danny, this is Jacob. J. JULKOWSKL I'm Jake. CARR SMITH: Jake. Got it. Thank you, okay. KERN: And just so, Commissioner Vitousek, there, there is actual paperwork document to, to demonstrate the story. CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. Do I get the sense that the Director has a comment? If you want to unmute. Go ahead. YEE: Hi. So, I really have to caution that, in these misdeeds that might have occurred, it did not, none of the current Planning staff were involved in this. I'd really caution that if there were some misdeeds, the remedy should be sought somewhere else; it shouldn't be like litigated here at Planning Commission. We have an application, and we should review it for, for those merits. And so, I'd, I'd really caution that, as sympathetic as we can be that there might have been promises made from other departments, it shouldn't change our recommendation in terms of, from a zoning aspect. That's all I can say. CARR SMITH: Fair enough, thank you. Max, go ahead. NEWBERG: - - - CARR - -CARR SMITH: Unmute Max. NEWBERG: Thank you, Madam Chair. So—and I apologize if I'm not finding it in the documents here—so I've heard for the affordable component, can we be specific what we're speaking about? I've heard 80 - - - and then how many units on this proposal? I see nine building lots, but can I get confirmation of what this affordable component is? J. JULKOWSKL There's 32 and there's basically NEWBERG: just the percentage of AMI - - -units. CARR SMITH: Go ahead, Danny. D. JULKOWSKL There's 32 units. Some are duplexes, most of them are townhouses, four units. They're all affordable housing. That's the way we had set it aside, as all affordable housing. And then we also, we were talking, they asked me to put a small room in for a meeting room; I agreed to that. I agreed to everything. All the cul-de-sacs meet, I met with the Fire 15 EXHIBIT A Department; they said they all met their specs on the cul-de-sacs and stuff. We have two cul-de-sacs in it. We've done, like I said, we've done what we were asked to do. But that's - - - NEWBERG: - -NEWBERG: Thank you, Mr. Julkowski. So, to confirm, 32 units? D. JULKOWSKL Thirty-two units. NEWBERG: Some are - - - and some are duplexes? D. JULKOWSKL Yes, some are duple because the areas are too small to put anything larger in. Mainly to get the parking because they wanted NEWBERG: Thank you. D. JULKOWSKL to get the extra parking in. CARR SMITH: Thank you. NEWBERG: Yeah, I see that it runs in towards the triangle side that there'sI just wanted to confirm the, the units and the - - -. Thank you for that clarity. That's all I have at this time. D. JULKOWSKI: Thank you. CARR SMITH: - - - okay. KERN: And just on that, too, the applicant would be obviously happy to put that in writing committing to it. The last thing we'd want to do is say we were going to do something like that and that not happen. CARR SMITH: Thank you. Alex? ROY: Just a couple things to clarify. The easement that Mr. Julkowski spoke of is a utility easement; it's not an access easement. So that would have to be rewritten, and an access agreement would have to be coordinated between the property owners. So that's definitely - - -. And number two, Waikoloa Plaza is building currently, in the process of building a hardware store. So, Mr. Julkowski's would be the second hardware store in this area. KERN: On that response, the hardware store that's going in down below is more of a smaller convenience-type item without lumber and actual real, real heavy-duty building materials. Mr. Julkowski would actually be providing more of a building material type of a hardware store. So, while they're similar in nature, they would be supplying different components. And again, this project was slated for over 80 affordable units. The impact from this would be similar in nature. CARR SMITH: Thank you. Alex, I know that you said that they didn't have commitments for water and sewer, and I know that Mr. Julkowski said that they do have a letter, and in my 16 EXHIBIT A background report I do have a letter from Hawaii Water Service dated January 6 that says that they are within the existing service territories, and that they ROY: Yeah, for water, but all the infrastructure has to be built. And wastewater there is none; absolutely, there's no system. In fact, the system, the area has to be approved, and the expansion area to include this has to be approved by the PUC. And while it's great that the private entity provided a letter saying they would pursue that, they still have a long way to go to get PUC approval to expand their service area and then develop that wastewater system for commercial development and the 32-unit apartment complex. So, yes, water is available and based on but the other concern that we - - - commercial activities, it's hard to say how much water would be necessary. You know, there are many different ways that you could use water. Some would be more or less, so without knowing specifics, I don't think anybody could say how much water is necessary for this entire development of the 11.707 acres. CARR SMITH: Thank you. Anybody else? Faye or Perry, do you have any input here? DARROW: Max is raising his hand, Chair. CARR SMITH: Sorry. Hi Max, go ahead. NEWBERG: Hi. So, toward Zendo's comments regarding the commercial aspect, mainly the hardware store, construction supply, is there a, is it conceptual? Are you, are you looking to partner with like specific stores or, regarding the construction materials, things of that nature? KERN: I'll let Dan - - - Mr. Julkowski is currently a hardware store operator, and I'll let him speak to those particulars. D. JULKOWSKL I,just to give a little background on me, I've been self-employed for 42 years. I've been a general contractor quite a few years, the last 24 years. I have two lumber yards: one in Cook, Minnesota, the other one in Tower, Minnesota. They're both True Value stores. I have a full commitment with True Value. We are more leaning towards what I call Ace; I'll be honest, because I've checked them out, I wouldn't be doing this unless I know a little bit about the people I work with and stuff. They're more, I would say a craft store, where I would be more into a, where a contractor to come in to actually be able to do a project, a plumbing project, especially irrigation, that's really big in that area. Theirs is a four-foot area; ours would be a 16- or 20-foot area. So, it would be more of an area covering that department. That's what our stores are known for. We're more of a, a Destination, True Value calls them Destination True Values. Ours is, I'll be honest with you, it's more designed around women. Women tend to do more shopping than men these days, going out, so we kind of designed this more for ladies and stuff to come in. We have housewares, we have an auto, but it's not like starters and stuff, it's just the stuff you use every day, oils, lubrication, stuff like that, but also we'd have tires for your golf cart or something. So, it covers more of an area. Ours is—and I do have the layout of everything, I'm glad to send you guys how it's laid out. The other thing, too, I have to make a correction; for some reason somebody has the store turned the wrong way on that layout, that first layout you guys gave us. It doesn't, it's not that way. It's, actually, the parking is, as you drive in, for some reason it got turned. And we are not in—I call the waterway—we are not in 17 EXHIBIT A the waterway. I had that surveyed—where is it[inaudible]—out of Kona. But they, that was also laid in to make sure we're not— J. otJ. JULKOWSKL We're not disturbing the waterway. D. JULKOWSKI: We're not J. JULKOWSKL We're not messing with the waterway. D. JULKOWSKL We're not touching that. J. JULKOWSKL It's staying the way it is, we're not moving it, we're not redirecting it. It's, we're building around the waterway. D. JULKOWSKL Yes, so we want to make that clear. So CARR SMITH: Thank you. NEWBERG: I appreciate the clarity, Mr. Julkowski. It, I know it's been something that's been prosed, sorry,proposed for a long time to have something of this nature in South Kohala. And just so I know, you're intending to also have building materials? D. JULKOWSKL Not really into deep in lumber. We'll have - - - 2x4's and lx stuff, but not deep, deep in lumber. We are supplying all the lumber, and we do have this all set up through True Value. We were going to supply all the lumber for the homes only to reduce the cost of the homes, saving us about 800,000 dollars by supplying our own. And actually, when I, somebody else that was talking to us that was supposed to be doing some affordable housing on the other side, all of a sudden became really interested and says that's kind of like a really nice deal that you can do this. I said but it's for our project and stuff like that. It's just to keep the costs down, you know; we've become the middle man and we don't have to go so deep into raising the cost of the goods and stuff like that and trying to keep the costs of goods down. We're just taking our costs and bring it over to the housing. Trying to keep the costs down. And that's why we need to do the hardware store first so we can do the housing to keep the cost down. Because, like you know, right now everything's so high, and we're dealing right now in Minnesota, costs of goods are almost doubled now in lumber. And so to try to keep the costs down,just trying to, you know, have us supply the materials other than going through different vendors and NEWBERG: Thank you, I appreciate the clarity. Thank you, sir. D. JULKOWSKL Yes. CARR SMITH: Just one moment, please. All right KEALOHA: Chair? Quick question. And I'm sorry CARR SMITH: Go ahead, Perry. 18 EXHIBIT A KEALOHA: I'm sorry if I missed it in the background report, but when did you acquire this property? D. JULKOWSKL May 10h of, I closed on May 10, 2018. So, I, we have a clear title. It went through a title company. We did everything correct. We had a look at our, my personal lawyer looked at it, seen no faults, and I had to stomach that, but- - -we did everything correct. That's what I'd like to say. KEALOHA: So, can the County tell me what the zoning was at the time of the acquisition in 2018? It was already Ag at that point? D. JULKOWSKL Correct. CARR SMITH: I'm a little puzzled as to how affordable housing was designated for that area with the current zoning, but—go ahead, Jeff. DARROW: So, the reversion happened, I think just at the near the end of 2018, and beginning of 2019. So, the property was zoned State Land Use Rural, and the County zoning is as it is now, Open and Rural. The reason why there was affordable housing and even commercial being proposed is because they were going through a 201H project, which gives the opportunity to have certain exemptions, as well as allowances, such as to identify the zoning you need for that particular type of project. CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. KEALOHA: Is there a reason that the reversion occurred in 2019, after they acquired the property, or was that something,just that was kind of,just a circumstantial timing issue? DARROW: Well, again, as we were talking about earlier, there was a transfer of the property from Waikoloa Highlands to an entity, and that entity ended up selling it to Mr. Julkowski. That timing happened before the reversion of the State Land Use Designation. KEALOHA: But the reversion was already in the works at the time? Or was that something that occurred post transition? DARROW: I, I can't recall exactly when the reversion started. I believe there was, it began, and there was some delays in going forward with the hearing, but the hearing actually occurred near the end of 2018, beginning of 2019. CARR SMITH: All right, Commissioners, any more comments, or questions? Mike. VITOUSEK: Yeah, my last question. So if, if this goes through and, you know, you have the zoning and the Land Use Boundaries you are able to complete the project, who would be developing it? 19 EXHIBIT A KERN: From my understanding Mr. Julkowski would be developing it. D. JULKOWSKL I have cont- I had push the button, I'm sorry we have contacted different contractors. By now they're long gone, so we'd have to start over again because this has been over a year and a half from the time we had everything in order to where we are today KERN: Yeah, let me clari D. JULKOWSKL it has to be started over again. KERN: Yeah, Danny, one, one second. So, a lot of times what happen is somebody will say we're going to do affordable housing, and what they'll do is they'll get the land entitled for that affordable housing and then, you know, they'll sell it to a non-profit, or turn it over to a non-profit to actually develop that housing. But our understanding was that you would actually, whether you'd be hiring contractors to do the work, but you guys would actually be the developers - - -the affordable housing, as well as infrastructure, etcetera. It also should be noted that the smaller CV lots would provide an opportunity for small business owners like a dentist or somebody like that to actually be able to have a lot and build a small commercial establishment on it, which is pretty hard to find in Waikoloa; everything is pretty large scale in that regard, so you're forced to rent. So, they would be the developers. CARR SMITH: Thank you. Anything else? Faye, hi, go ahead. YATES: I just have a question. Should, you know, this project go forward, are you going to be building the, doing the infrastructure and building that hardware store first before you get to the housing? And are you going to be bringing in all of the supplies after you build this hardware store to build your affordable housing? Everybody talks about affordable housing. To me, it always seems that they're saying affordable housing so that everybody will jump on it, because of course we want affordable housing. But my question is, are you going to do infrastructure, build your hardware store, and is the materials coming in through your hardware store to build this affordable housing? CARR SMITH: Go ahead, Mr. Julkowski. D. JULKOWSKL Yes. I, I actually did a deal that I handed in. Me, Tim Richardson, had a meeting at Planning, and I gave up a whole list of how we're going to do it. InsteadI'd like to, I'll just read it off to you—first thing is to have the property rezoned and subdivided. Next phase would be to do the infrastructure, the grading. Roads that are necessary would be the next phase. So, we'd be doing just infrastructure till the infrastructure's completed. The next would be being allowed to start looking at being able to sell the five lots so we can start creating some more revenue. I do have somebody to work with, but cost is up there. So, the next thing,phase four, would be building the store and getting it open. Then, to complete the rest of the infrastructure into the housing part of it, and then would be starting phase six, would be starting the duplexes and the fourplexes for the housing. And that's the way it was set up; that's the way it was given to the County when we had a meeting with the County prior to leaving the island back in, I believe it was in February, end of February, first of March, right in that period of time. And I 20 EXHIBIT A gave him a whole laid, this whole thing laid out, everything was laid out basically how we were going to do this—all the drawings, everything. And I can send you guys, or anybody, these copies. The County should have them. I gave a copy to everybody in Planning that I met with, and so, there is, they should have this at the County level. But this lays out the whole project, step for step. So CARR SMITH: Thank you. Anybody else? All right, well, I can see why there's a lot of frustration for you folks. I can see why Zendo thought that this would be an acceptable project based on its proximity and closeness to the main intersection. It just sounds like it's there's, there's more complications than meets the eye. And the, as far as your potential legal issues, Mr. Julkowski, I don't want to get into any of the details of that, but do you have any sense of how long that might take to get things to resolve? Go ahead. D. JULKOWSKL He, I talked to the FBI agent. He said at this time they don't, it's not, it's not completed at this point in time. I asked if he needed any more information or anything. He said at this time we're good. I had to meet with him for five hours, they questioned me, questioned everybody who was involved with it. It was, it was a long meeting. It was a stack of paper that was over a foot; he had questions for each one, and I had to answer these questions. And afterwards I, he, he told me, he said that he thought I'd really, he said this stuff must be fresh on your mind, because I was answering stuff from 2014 when this all came about, and when I met these people with the County that I worked with. So, this just started back in 2014. And I backed away from KERN: Madam Chair? D. JULKOWSKL I backed away from the whole project and I thought it was all over with. I was all done with it. Because I originally worked with them when they were going to do all that housing. If you would see that one drawing that I think that gentleman up on, it's the house, Christian, you had that one drawing, and you had that one piece that was missing? That was originally the piece that we were supposed to have, and the whole project fell apart, and we thought it was all over with. And for five, six, seven months, we heard nothing of nobody, and all of a sudden I ended up on the island, and the County employee chases me down and says, "Hey, that piece of property's available if you want to buy it." And, "because we can't do nothing with it," or whatever, and I, I didn't jump on it right away. It took us some time, and that was probably the first or second week of January. And we made them do things, we made them check for bombs, we had them check for all the stuff, make sure there was no historical things on it. They had done all that stuff for us because that was part of the agreement that we didn't want no surprises. And we ended up with one of the biggest surprises ever, so. Go ahead. KERN: Madam Chair, if I could just make one point of clarification CARR SMITH: Sure, go ahead. KERN: as far as I know, there's the, that investigation going on that wasn't started by Mr. Julkowski; it's something that's occurring that I know really nothing about other than that. Mr. Julkowski has not seeked any type of legal recourse on this at this time. Our conversation 21 EXHIBIT A has been, and this has been the whole case, he just wants to do his, what he's telling me is, "I just want to do the project." CARR SMITH: Right. KERN: "I bought it for this, I want to do the project,"you know, and if we're not going here then he'll have to do what he has to, you know, is going to do. But, you know, I thought that was admirable for that type of situation. So just wanted to make sure that we weren't crossing over legal types of issues. CARR SMITH: Understood. So that's, that's why you're here. You don't feel like the legal potential is going to get in the way. You just want to get the project done. KERN: Yeah, because whatever the investigation is really, it wasn't, it's happening, and that's going to be what's going to be, and, yeah, they just want to do the project. CARR SMITH: Okay. KERN: Thanks. CARR SMITH: Okay. Anything else, Commissioners? All right, very good. Thank you to Zendo and to Mr. Julkowski and the father. Appreciate it. Moving on, we do not have any public testimony for this agenda item. Is that still true, Rachelle? I believe so. LEY: I'm sorry, Nancy, somebody had called. What did you say? CARR SMITH: We have no public testimony for this agenda item, correct? LEY: Yes, that's correct. CARR SMITH: Okay, very good, thank you. All right, well, with that, I'd like to move toward a motion. ROY: Chair,just a reminder that you need to do one for the State Land Use and one for the Rezone. CARR SMITH: Understood, yes, understood, thank you. We would start with the State Land Use, I believe. Max. NEWBERG: Yeah, this is a, it's a little deeper than I thought we were going to get into as far as the situation. As a fellow Vikings fan, it's always good to meet another one. It seems unfortunate looking at everything in front of us today, despite the tragedy of thinking you have something to move forward, you know, I think others can contend that 1.5 million for 11 acres in that location is a great price. But you need to be able to do something with it. And, you know, before I move with the motion, I would just like to say I think I myself would feel a lot more comfortable having the County on board with something like this. And the fact that they're not, 22 EXHIBIT A I don't think it's anything nefarious by any means;just maybe a few things need to be discussed. With that said, I, I have a hard time looking at anything that would be anything but unfavorable. CARR SMITH: Are you making a motion, or not? NEWBERG: Madam Chair, I would like to make a motion for SLU 20-53; I move that an unfavorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council on the applicant's request for a State Land Use Boundary Amendment from Agricultural to Urban for 11.707 acres of land based on the Planning Director's recommendation. I'd also like to make a motion for REZ 20-241; I move that an unfavorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council on the applicant's request for a Change of Zone from Open and Residential and Agricultural 1-acre to a Village Commercial CV-10 zoning district based on the Planning Director's recommendation. CARR SMITH: Thank you, Max. Is there a second to that? Faye. YATES: Yes, I second the motion. CARR SMITH: All right, we've got a motion on the floor by Mr. Newberg and a second by Ms. Yates. Discussion time, folks? Go ahead, Mike. VITOUSEK: Sure. I can understand where Commissioner Newberg is coming from. I feel like we're in a really tough position again because of a perceived lack of consensus building between the applicant and the County. I can definitely see the applicant's perspective on why commercial development may be appropriate in that area, given that you're on a corner of an intersection that's entirely surrounded by commercial development. That being said, I don't necessarily think that we have enough information to fully assess the current project. You know? And I'm a guy who's never really comfortable adding conditions that they can be done later on; I'd want to have all the information up front in order to really assess the impact of adding commercial development into that area. I wish that the County and the applicant could take more time to try to coordinate a better consensus on how that can move forward with County support, but, as it is now, I would, I would have to agree with Commissioner Newberg. CARR SMITH: Mr. Kealoha. We're discussing the motion on the table, right? KEALOHA: Yeah. So, I'd like to kind of echo what's been said. When I look at the timeline, when the applicant stepped in to this project in 2014, there was a Rezone Ordinance No. 13-29, which was for timing of final subdivision approval, so when the applicant stepped into this, I can see where they thought they had a green light, and now things change; so, I suspect that there was fraud on someone's part along the way. Having said that, as the Planning Director mentioned, this is not the place to litigate any fraud that might have taken place, and it's unfortunate, but I don't think we have an option other than an unfavorable motion as well. VITOUSEK: And I would, if I could, interject on that one. I believe the addition of the commercial zoning is new; I believe the previous zoning of Rural and, you know, potentially Residential would have allowed for the affordable housing component, but I think that the new 23 EXHIBIT A component we're addressing here is that Commercial aspect. And correct me if I'm wrong on that one. CARR SMITH: Mr. Van Pernis. VAN PERNIS: Thank you, Madam Chair. To put it simply, this application is not ready for prime time. Maybe later, maybe with all the bases covered. The applicant needs to cover all the bases, not blame someone else. He needs to do it all himself. So, I would join in the previous statements. CARR SMITH: [Responding to Mr. Darrow raising his hand]Jeff, I'd just like to finish with the Commissioners, if I could, please. Faye, do you have any comments? YATES: No. CARR SMITH: No? Okay. Go ahead, Jeff. DARROW: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a,just for clarity, in these types of situations where we have two applications, we normally will take them separately. So, although we have a motion on the floor for two applications, we really should be focusing on one at a time, and then, you know, resolve one motion, and then move on to the next motion. CARR SMITH: Understood, understood. I have a real hard time supporting an unfavorable recommendation here. I'm not saying that it's ready for a favorable, but I wouldn't support the motion right now. I would rather see some other type of action taken to extend and revisit. But I won't be supporting the motion. Any other discussion? Go ahead, Mike. VITOUSEK: And, you know, I agree with you there. I, I believe that the, the option of deferral is always a possibility. Is that something that the applicants would be okay with, or is it hard and fast you need an answer today? CARR SMITH: Zendo? KERN: Thank you, and thank you all for the, for the consideration on this. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Julkowski, but we've been open to having a discussion and dialogue and working through these and we have, I have personally been on this for over a year with multiple meetings with the Planning Department, trying to find, you know, a, a, a balance. I think it's also understood why we haven't, you know, Mr. Julkowski hasn't invested significant more amounts of money on some of these things, that might help it when the Department is, you know, kind of adamantly against it at the moment, and with already the outlay of cash. You know, to put it simply, our side has been open to figuring something out that, that can be supported and favorable and work well with the community and have a general all-around win-win, without, without question CARR SMITH: - - -the goal. 24 EXHIBIT A KERN: That's the, without question, or I would not be here. CARR SMITH: Yeah. All right, any other discussion? So, I guess we have a motion on the table. KERN: I see Mr. Newberg, sorry. CARR SMITH: Go ahead, Max. NEWBERG: And again, you know, we're looking at, to echo Mr. Vitousek's comments, it seems like it's been a difficult road for you, Mr. Julkowski, already. You know, through this we're not trying to discourage you in moving forward, but what we have in front of us today just seems slightly incomplete. It would be, I think, speaking for the entire Big Island is that we, we are in need of affordable housing, and it's, I don't think it would ever be our intent to say no to that. So, you know, hopefully, further discussions can be made and move forward at some capacity. Thank you. CARR SMITH: All right. So, we need to vote on the motion that's on the table, correct, J? YOSHIMOTO: Yes, that's correct. So, you know, there are two motions on the table, so you could specify voting on the first motion, which is the SLU 20-53, and then take a second vote on the rezone. CARR SMITH: All right, very good. Staff, can we go ahead with the roll call vote for SLU 20-000053? ROY: Commissioner Newberg? NEWBERG: - - - CARR - -CARR SMITH: Unmute please. NEWBERG: Aye. ROY: Commissioner Yates? YATES: Aye. ROY: Commissioner Kealoha? KEALOHA: Aye. ROY: Commissioner Van Pernis? VAN PERNIS: Aye. 25 EXHIBIT A ROY: Commissioner Vitousek? VITOUSEK: Nay. ROY: And Chair Carr Smith? CARR SMITH: Nay. ROY: The vote is four to two, aye. Okay, on to Rezone-20-241. Commissioner Newberg? NEWBERG: Aye. ROY: Commissioner Yates? YATES: Aye. ROY: Commissioner Kealoha? KEALOHA: Aye. ROY: Commissioner Van Pernis? VAN PERNIS: Aye. ROY: Commissioner Vitousek? VITOUSEK: Nay. ROY: And Chair Carr Smith? CARR SMITH: Nay. ROY: Again, four to two, aye. Thank you. CARR SMITH: All right. Thank you very much. Sorry about that. KERN: Thank you all for your consideration, and everybody be safe, be well. CARR SMITH: Yeah, you, too. Thank you. You'll be notified in writing. All right, very good. Best of luck, Mr. Julkowski. D. JULKOWSKI: Thank you. CARR SMITH: Thank you. 26 EXHIBIT A The hearing was adjourned at 11:22 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, Secretary Leeward Planning Commission 27 EXHIBIT A