Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-01-20 TLava Kuakini PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT January 20, 2006 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of LAVA KUAKINI, INC. (SLU 05- was called to order at 9:14 a.m. at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort, 78- 004/REZ 05-013) 6740 Alii Drive, Keauhou, Hawaii with Chairman C. Kimo Alameda presiding. PRESENT:C. Kimo AlamedaABSENT & EXCUSED: Allen Salavea Jeffrey McCall Rene€ Siracusa Hannah Springer Andrew Iwashita Fred Galdones Chris Yuen, DeputyPlanning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel And approximately 16 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: LAVA KUAKINI, INC. (SLU 05-004/REZ 05-013) Continued hearing on the following requests: a. State Land Use boundary amendment for 14 acres from theAgricultural to the Urban District. b. Change of Zone for 14 acres from an Agricultural 5-acre (A-5a) to a Multiple Family Residentialƒ2,500squarefoot(RM-2.5)district.Thepropertyislocatedalongthenortheast side of Kuakini Highway, adjacent to and south of the Kona Hillcrest Subdivision, Kahului 1 , st North Kona, Hawaii, TMK: 7-5-17: portions of 2 and 5. ALAMEDA:All right moving right along. Agenda item number 2. Applicant Lava Kuakini Inc. SLU, it€s a 2 process here. There€s a State Land Use Boundary Amendment, 05- 004 and a Rezoning 05-013. I€ll let the staff share with us the background. Go ahead Mr. Darrow. th DARROW:Thank you Mr. Chairman. At out last hearing December 8, a motion was madetosendafavorablerecommendationinthematteroftheStateLandUseBoundary amendment from Agricultural to Urban. The motion did not pass 4 to 1. As a result the Change ofZoneapplicationwascontinueduntilthishearingtoday. EXHIBIT A 1 ALAMEDA:Any questions Commissioners for staff? Will the applicant or his representative please come forward? How about I swear all you guys in one time? Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Hawaii County Planning Commission? APPLICANTS:I do. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Mr. Lim could you please start off with sharing your name and your address for the record. LIM:Thank you Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. Steven Lim from Carlsmith Ball, P.O. Box 686, Hilo, Hawaii. With me today to my right are Barry Crivello and Ed Rapoza who are members of the LLC, developing the property. ALAMEDA:Thankyou.Couldyoupleasestateyournameandareyouguysgoingto share anything today or? LIM:I think mostly we€re here to answer questions. I think we€ve received the thrd January 19, 2006, 3 revised conditions for the project from the Planning Director just 5 minutes ago so we€re still reviewing those but I think I understand most of the changes. I do have some comments but I think maybe what we€ll do is we€ll see if we can answer questions from the Commission at this time first. ALAMEDA:Let me ask Mr. Darrow, could you highlight some of the changes for our fellow Commissioners? DARROW:Since our last meeting the Planning Department has received several correspondence just for the Commissioners information. Two e-mails, one is from Robert Ward and another from Leila Rantz those should have been handed out to the Commissioners. The, additionally since our last hearing we€ve had 2 revisions to the conditions. One revision it€ll nd mention2 revision on the title, was quite a lengthy revision, there were numerous changes. rd The latest revision which states 3 revision at the top of the title page incorporates all revisions up to that date including some minor changes that were brought up by the representative from the Department of Public Works. If I could get the changes available. The most recent-. Most of the changes that occurred were changes that were brought up at our last hearing. I don€t know if you folks recall those but many of it just had to do with properly getting the wording correct on most of these conditions. Again with the latest revisions they were just minor clerical or be able to have the condition worded in a properly manner. YUEN:Excuse me Jeff you know we have 3 members of the Commission I believe who weren€t here last time so I wonder if you could take 2 or 3 minutes just to locate the project and discuss just very generally what the project is about? DARROW:If I can take a minute. If I can direct the Commissioner€s attention to the locationmap.TheareaofthisapplicationiswithintheNorthKonaDistrictofHawaii.This white line moving in a north-south direction is Queen Kaahumanu Highway. Running parallel EXHIBIT A 2 with that line is Alii Drive, the red line represents the SMA. The area of the application is identified with a blue dot. This is directly east of the Kona Sea Villas condominium project. Directly south of the Kona Hillcrest Subdivision identified in yellow. The colors on the map indicate zoning. The light shaded green area where the application is identified as agricultural 5 acres. The darker zoning or darker colors represent multiple family residential. And the yellow identifies single family residential zoning. If I can direct your attention to the submitted site plan by the developer. This is the proposed layout of the particular development by the applicant. The applicant is requesting a change of zone, correction a State Land Use boundary amendment from agricultural to urban for 14 acres. Additionally they€re requesting a change of zone from agricultural 5 acres to multiple family residential 2 point-, to 2,500 square feet or RM 2.5. The applicant is proposing a affordable housing project in which a minimum of the housing of 50% of the housing will be affordable. As far as identification on the map, this particular line here is Kuakini Highway. This particular area here is the proposed Alii Highway bypass or the Kahului to Keauhou Parkway as referred to in the application. At this time the applicant€s proposal is thataccesswillbeinthisareaonKuakiniHighwayandfromKuakiniHighwayaportiononto the Alii Highway bypass into the project until this particular area is constructed at a later time. The applicant is proposing 212 units within 51 structures as well as parking and a small park area on the site plan. The Planning Director is recommending that the Planning Commission send a favorable recommendation for both applications to the Hawaii County Council. Are there any questions? Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:In our correspondence we have a-. In the correspondence that we received th dated January 11, there€s a discussion of access from Oni Oni rather than Kuakini. Jeff could you point out Oni Oni to us and maybe give us a bit of a discussion if that was considered at all and if it is decided against, why? DARROW:The Oni Oni Street is within the Kona Hillcrest Subdivision. It€s this little stub-out in this particular area. If I can have the Director go into more detail about this but both Public Works and the Director and I believe the community as well within the past has indicated that they did not want access through the property. YUEN:Well, I€m not sure the correspondence that you€re talking about. There is astub-outfromKonaHillcrest.Itcouldnotlongtermprovidedirectaccessintothisproperty because the Alii Parkway would be in between. In the long term planning there may be a connectionmadeacrosstheAliiParkwaythatwouldconnectonbothsidesbutthat€snot,that€s an unresolved issue at this point. So at the time of construction on the property or before, before constructionofthepropertythisissuewouldbefinalizedastowheretheaccesstotheParkway would be from the property and whether it would come across from Oni Oni. The Hillcrest-. OurunderstandingofopinionwithintheHillcrestSubdivisionisnottowantOniOnitoconnect to Alii Parkway at the present time. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Watanabe and then Commissioner Siracusa. Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:This would be more for the benefit of those Commissioners that weren€t in attendance at the last meeting when we discussed this. But in addition to one of the public EXHIBIT A 3 benefits like this. The first one was the dedication of the land at no cost for Alii Parkway but I think the one that might be a little bit confusing and I€d like the Director hopefully to comment on this is that 50% requirement on the affordable housing. Because its my understanding that if the developer is only able to build, proxies out at a 140% of median income then that would imply that 100% of the units would then be in the affordable range. Am I correct in my interpretation? ALAMEDA:Director Yuen? YUEN:That€s right. At (inaudible) conditions which was a clarification made by the applicant at the last meeting is that they€ll generate housing credits equal to not less than 50% of the total number of units developed. And the way the housing credits work is that the top end of what is considered affordable which is 140% of median income you only earn a half credit. So if you did all affordable at the top end then the project would have to be 100% affordable. WATANABE:I have a follow-up to that. ALAMEDA:Go ahead. WATANABE:You know, is there a way, we have that requirement in and that€s great and becauseit€sachangeofzoneitdoesgototheCountyCouncilforapprovalweonlymakethe recommendation as this body. But is there a way for that affordable requirement to be reduced without going to County Council in the future, if they find that economically its unfeasible? ALAMEDA:Director? YUEN:Not if it€s put in as a condition on an ordinance. WATANABE:So any changes to that condition would require County Council approval. YUEN:That€s right. WATANABE:Oh, thank you. ALAMEDA:Thank you Commissioner Watanabe for bringing that up. Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Yes, Jeff last year we, this Commission approved a housing development by Suffolk and Pua€a. Would you point out on the map where they are in relationship to this proposal? DARROW:Thank you Commissioner Siracusa. In, this is the area of the application that we are looking at identified with a blue dot. Just a little further south, south-east we have the location of the previous approved Suffolk Development as well as Pua€a Development in this particular area. Pua€a Development runs along the highway. Suffolk Investment is identified just below that area. EXHIBIT A 4 SIRACUSA:Thank you and do you remember more or less how many units we€re talking about for those 2? DARROW:If you can give me one second. SIRACUSA:Just, just general figures. DARROW:I believe it was 250 affordablehousing rental units for Suffolk and then Pua€a was a commercial development but the Director also required I believe 50 houses to be constructed at one point and then as commercial development grew then it was required to build an additional 50 units for that particular project. SIRACUSA:So, if we add these 212 units to those figures you€re looking at well over 500unitswithinthatcircumscribedarea.Thankyou.SoI€mthinkingaboutcumulativetraffic impacts here. ALAMEDA:Thank you. SIRACUSA:Just to let you know where my mind is working on. ALAMEDA:Okay. Other questions for our staff? Commissioner? Let€s go to Commissioner Graham and then Commissioner Watanabe. Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:All right since I was the lone dissenting voter at our last meeting where we had only 5 Commissioners I just wanted to bring forth to the Commissioners and to the public you know remind what was the essence of my nay vote. And it basically was the traffic issue that Commissioner Siracusa alludes to right now. And in this case if you notice in our background report on this proposal, Exhibit C is from the Department of Public Works and Mr. Emler testified before us last time. And in the first page of that Exhibit C in his bold face type he recommended that the applicant should not be given this development entitlement until Kuakini Highway was widened to 4 lanes in front of the project or that if it were to be given that it would be conditioned on the completion of that widening. And we also got a letter from the Kona Traffic Safety Committee and Mr. Gimpel is also here today and referring to the same thing that the infrastructure in the area doesn€t really support all the additional traffic that would be generated. So, in addition to saying that I would maybe take this opportunity as the Planning Director if you would indicate to us why it is then in this particular instance you chose to go against the recommendation of the Department of Public Works and recommend favorable approval? ALAMEDA:Director? YUEN:Sure. We have a terrible housing problem in, well on the island as a whole. And in Kailua Kona particularly. Although we have a lot of housing being produced almost none of its being produced at affordable levels because its being done on zoning that either occurred without affordable housing conditions or projects that were released from EXHIBIT A 5 affordable housing conditions in the 1990€s or early 2000€s period. If you want to have affordable, so the end result is if we want to have affordable housing in West Hawaii you have to rezone sites to have that be done and put the conditions on that and stick to those conditions. As far as the sites that are already zoned and are being developed, because you have a big demand and you have a big market to sell to second home buyers, people moving from other locations in the United States, the market tends to develop for that group of people. You can sell a house. The median sales price for last year in north Kona for a single family home is $620,000. Well, there€s a market and people, people are buying them. So there€s a market that will buy a $600,000 house. So, from the developers point of view if you already have zoning and you€re doing a housing project, if you can sell a $600,000 house why are you going to make a $250,000 house and sell it. There€s just no reason to do that, no incentive to do it. So we have to have, we have to accept having sites that we€re going to have to zone in Kona to have housing if we want to get people, if we want people to be able to live here. The traffic aspect and-. The traffic aspect, housing for people for-, and by and large the people that are going to be attracted to a projectlikethisarepeoplewhohavejobsinthearea,whonowcommutefromlongdistances elsewhere. And there are many people who are like this, who would like to live closer to where their employment is. Who can€t, who would like to take a job in Kailua-Kona for example who can€t take a job there because they can€t find a place to live. So, by not, the effect on traffic is that by not having housing for people near where their jobs are you€re forcing people to commute a long distance. You€re forcing people to live in Ocean View, to live in Honokaa, to live even farther away and drive on exactly the same roads that everybody else, and for longer distances. So you€re not solving the traffic problem by choking off housing within the Kailua Kona area. Now this, turning to this site in as, turning to this site in particular, you can€t just stop there and say well we have to have housing and so we€re going to approve this. You always have to look at the site in question. This is a very good site for housing. There are 2 issues with the site and there are always problems with any site. And the 2 issues with the site are the drainage way on one side, the Waiaha drainage way. We€ve handled that with conditions of zoning they can stay out of the drainage way and develop this site. And the other one and the bigger one that was a concern to Public Works was the fact that the Alii Parkway or Kahului, Keauhou Parkway is supposed to run on one side of the site. Now, we have to, you have to understand too the Parkway, the right of way, is not-, has not ever been acquired by the County. This is on the-, what we€re showing there is and what we€re saying to be dedicated is currently you know on the private property. But it does, there is a complication to the fact that a major highway, you€re going to put housing in there and then at some later date a major highway is going to go alongside. So what, and I do believe that in the conditions we€ve handled that, all of the, all the issues associated with that. How the, and there€s going to have to be a change in how the access is done once that goes in there. And, we can go through that in a lot of detail but it is a workable situation to have this housing go in there and it€s not, it€s a little. To me it€s a little unfair to tell a landowner that we€re going to, someday we€re going to build a highway through your property that we haven€t acquired yet, we haven€t funded yet, we€ve never acquired right of way but we€re going to hold your zoning until we do that. I mean we€re going to keep you say in the current Ag-5a zoning until such time the County wants to, is ready to build this highway. So rather than in effect putting a moratorium on their property we€re trying to work with the landowner in accommodating-. The fact that it€s very important that this road go through there at some point in the future and, but without saying that you€re on hold with everything until we put the road in there and then come talk. So, and then the final thing I€d like to say is that while EXHIBIT A 6 there€s no mistake about the administration, the Mayor€s position on this. When the letter came out that you referred to from the Department of Public Engineering, Public Works Engineering Branch, I did go see the Mayor about this. You know I specifically went because I was concerned about, I have this recommendation from public works to put this site on hold and I explained what I thought would be, what was the overriding issue here and the overriding concern about getting housing underway in Kona. And the Mayor, the Mayor definitely agreed with that and the Mayor, this has come up again, the Mayor still agrees with that, it€s still the Administration€s position to support this rezoning. ALAMEDA:Let me ask Commissioner Graham any follow-up to that? GRAHAM:No, it€s okay. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Commissioner Watanabe. WATANABE:I have a question for the Director and it€s to Condition K, which is conditionforinterconnectingstreetswithinthesubdivision.Andfrommyrecollectionofthelast discussion I guess we couldn€t make that a County dedicable road because the, you know the parcel is not large enough for that and it wouldn€t make it economically feasible. The developer had expressed some concerns about maintenance and liability etc. I see these worked into the condition K. My question I guess is cause I think having the connector is important. My question is you know what if the subdivision above that you know says oh well but we don€t want to share in the maintenance and the liability. Does that mean then it doesn€t connect then they just place a barrier there? YUEN:Well the way I envision this playing out. The mauka side is not, is zoned Ag-5a right now. So, if anybody were to come in and want to do something in there like another housing project they€d have to come in for zoning. And hopefully the idea of, the concepts are still the same and being respected and that then as a condition of zoning you would say, you have to have a connection between these 2 projects and you have to share in the liability and maintenance of the fact that you have the ability to go over this other property to get out to Kuakini. Otherwise we€re perpetuating one of the big problems in traffic in Kona is that everything is on a little cul-de-sac pod and everything has to come out to the main road and there€s no way for people to make their way through the neighborhoods and have alternatives on how they get from one place to another. WATANABE:Thank you. So basically what you€re saying is this body would have some control over that then? YUEN:Right it could be done as a condition of the rezoning of any adjoining property. We can€t do it right now, because the property is not here before us. ALAMEDA:Other questions for our staff, applicant or Director? How about Commissioner Springer and then Commissioner Siracusa? EXHIBIT A 7 SPRINGER:Thank you. I€m wondering if Mr. Emler might be able to speak into the th discussion regarding the September 26 memo from the Department of Public Works and having heard the Planning Director€s response to those concerns does that ameliorate the concerns that you raised in the memo? th EMLER:Well the reason for the comments beginning on my September 26 and th then following up with a revised memo dated, you got that, dated November 28, 2005, should be on the record. We didn€t actually-. I think there€s been some perhaps misreading of our comments or not fully getting the, an understanding of the comment because what I said was to avoid environmental conflicts and not necessarily focusing just on traffic issues. Traffic is an issue always of course and we made general comments to the traffic issues under the traffic heading there, recommending that, well just saying that a Traffic Impact Analysis was warranted because of the number of units but-. And that€s to identify improvements that would be needed to Kuakini Highway or Alii Highway, the Alii Highway connection there. To identify those type of improvements or impacts to the infrastructure. But the reason for our comment was because we€re planning these projects right there. And 4 lane highway fronting it with a large drainage project, a 5 box, 5-2 box culvert right there, right in the front of the project for Waiaha drainage way. Also the Alii Highway, Kahului to Keauhou Parkway project, which is going to involve a lotofearthmovingandsoforthandofcourseyouhavealotofenvironmentalproblemswith residence along those alignments when we want to come in and put in roads. We don€t want to have, I don€t think we want to approve something that is going to possibly create problems increase the cost for us to put in our projects and generate complaints that€s going to make it more difficult for us to get our project done. Because the County will be the developer of those projects and we€ll be expected to mitigate the impacts from them. Does that explain for you? ALAMEDA:Commissioner Springer follow up? SPRINGER:Thank you Mr. Emler is there a timetable for these proposed, various proposed actions by the County? EMLER:The Kuakini Highway widening Phase II project is in the planning phase right now. The earliest we propose to begin construction on that would be late 2008, beginning 2009. The Alii Highway, Kahului to Keauhou Project my understanding of that is it€s not in the current STIP schedule for this next 3-year schedule. Although Phase II could be put back in at any time should we have a resolution of some issues on that. The Phase I which is the part that is fronting this project I believe would not come up until the next 3-year improvement project phase I could be wrong about that. I wanted to, I tried to make a phone call before this meeting cause I figured the question was going to come up but I wasn€t able to get through to check that. I€m sorry I don€t have a definite answer on that. SPRINGER:And the drainage? EMLER:The drainage project could be either part of the Alii Highway project or Kuakini widening project depending on which one comes first we would handle that under one of those contracts. EXHIBIT A 8 SPRINGER:Thank you. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Director? YUEN:On this question of when these things will be built up. Alii Parkway this would be Phase II, Phase I being Keauhou to Lako Street. To explain funding a little bit. Federal funding which normally big road projects like this are done with Federal funds, they pay for 80%. There€s a plan for how these funds get programmed called the STIP. The STIP has you know some projects will have design funding in the STIP that doesn€t mean they€re going to get built right away, the only ones you can say are going to get built within the timeframe of the STIP are where there€s construction funds programmed for the STIP. The current STIP goes fiscal year €06 to €08 and Phase II is definitely not on the STIP for construction. So we can€t say that it€s going to be, we could say that it€s not going to be done in €06-€08 time period but we can€t say when it€s going to be done after that. There€s a lot of competition to get on this fundinglistbecausetheyaremorepotentialthatpeoplewouldliketoseebuiltfloatingoutthere than there is money in the STIP. There€s a statewide allocation. This island gets a percentage of that traditionally. It varies from year to year because of projects being ready to go on different islands at different times with over, over a several year period we€re not going to get more than our share. And if you were to look at it, much of the money goes not necessary for new highways but for enhancements to existing highways such as guardrails, bridge repairs, curve straightening, shoulder improvements and the like. So this is a long answer but there isn€t a set time where we can say, we are going to have the funding in hand to do this through outside funding for the Phase II. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Springer any follow up before I go to Commissioner Siracusa? SPRINGER:Yes, thank you. Mr. Director when you talk about the commuting of worker residents to outlying areas. Say it€s a 1-hour commute out to Ocean View Estates from Kailua Kona at this time. If by loading the residential density in the Kailua area were creating a 1 hour commute time from Keahole Air-, from within the Kailua region. I€m having a hard time seeing the benefit. Instead of a commute over great distance, a long time over great distance we seem to be increasing the potential for a long time commute over a short distance. I€m just wondering if you can clarify that. YUEN:Well let€s take the scenario. Let€s take the person who, say you rent a house in Ocean View and they work at the McDonald€s in Kailua Kona. Currently how do they get there? They drive 45 miles on Highway 11, they go through Kainaliu through the little crawl congesting that whole area. They drop, they made, once they get toward Kailua Kona, they have a couple of ways to get down to McDonalds but say they go down, say they make the first turn they can to go down Kuakini Highway and they come down Kuakini and get to McDonald€s. Now, say their alternative is they get to buy or rent a place in this complex. They€re right there. They€re not adding any traffic to Kuakini to McDonald€s, they were going to do that anyway but you€re taking out 45 miles of driving that now they don€t have to do. They€re taking out 45 miles of other road that their car was going to come on if you didn€t have them a place that€s closer to be. So if you and this is what is happening today. It may not be that you, you know the EXHIBIT A 9 person who is, who is, you know they may have a place in Ocean View and they may be happy living there. What you€re taking off the road is the next person because although some of these jobs actually are going begging right now, you know sooner or later the jobs will they€ll find people to fill them. But they€re going to be coming from some place. So, if you put people right there and I€m giving you the most ideal scenario here. This is a person who is right here. But there are a lot of people like that and most of them if you didn€t have say what they call Hamburger Hill in Kailua. You know there€s a lot of affordable housing in there and people come out of there and they work in the immediate area, a lot of them do and they€re not on the highway. So that€s the idea behind bringing people closer to the job areas is that sure you€re (inaudible) you€re, you have a car that€s in the central part of the town and it€s circulating in there but you€re taking them off of 40, 50 miles of other highway that otherwise they€re going to be congesting as well. SPRINGER:Thank you. ALAMEDA:Any follow up again Commissioner Springer? Thank you for the question.CommissionerSiracusa? SIRACUSA:Yes,firstofallIwantedtocorrectCommissionerGrahambecausehe wasn€t the sole nay vote, I was the other one. Thank you very much. GRAHAM:Okay. ALAMEDA:You stand corrected. SIRACUSA:And, second of all I believe it was Mr. Gimpel who brought it up in his last testimony that so the guy moves from Ocean View into this development. Then somebody else moves into his house in Ocean View and hasto travel the same road into Kailua Kona to-. So, I mean I don€t think you€re really reducingthe traffic. My concern is that we€re and I€m really conflicted here because I€m a supporter of affordable housing. I know that if I were to go out and try to buy a house right now there€s no way I could afford to do it, I€d be living on the beach and then you€d kick me out for living under blue tarps. So, at the same time you know I feel that here we have these other developments that haven€t been built yet, the Suffolk and the Pua€a. We have all the existing traffic and this is going to add to it. And yet we€re putting off a TIAR and I don€t understand why we can€t have a TIAR, which will also look at the cumulative impacts of what€s going to be built not just what€s on the ground at this very moment. So that we can make a much more informed decision. That€s where I feel very uncomfortable. I feel that I don€t have all the information at my fingertips that I feel I should have in order to unconflict myself on this. ALAMEDA:Would you like to phrase that in a question or is that pretty much your statement? SIRACUSA:Well I would like to ask either the Director or Mr. Emler why they feel that, what€s the problem, why can€t we have a TIAR before the fact? EXHIBIT A 10 ALAMEDA:Director Yuen? YUEN:Well first let me talk about that, that, the 2-person scenario that Mr. Gimpel raises. And we discussed that, you€re not necessarily, and he and I discussed this as well. I think we€re in agreement now that you€re not necessarily taking out that person that is in Ocean View. But now we have ascenario where you have 2 people who have jobs in Kailua Kona. Okay, one of them is already in Ocean View. Now, where is the other one living? If you don€t give them a place to live in Kailua Kona where are they going to live? So, and the answer is they€re going to live in Ocean View or they€re going to live in where€s the next affordable, I don€t know where the next affordable place is now. North Kohala median home price is $750,000, Waimea and South Kohala is over $500,000, Hamakua is over $400,000. This is the over, this is a reality that we have to deal with. And they have people, you€re real fortunate you have a place to live I know people€s kids don€t have a place to live. So we have to create places for people to live. The Suffolk and Pua€a if they get off the ground that€s great. I can, I can, there€sdefinitelymoreofadeficitinhousingthanjustSuffolkandPua€ainWestHawaii.And the final thing on the TIAR. The TIAR is going to show you how badly congested an existing road is going to be. This is really in, of all the places that you could put housing, this is going to be one of the best served by a road system. You€re going to have a 4-lane road on Kuakini coming up to here going into Kailua Kona and hopefully we get the Parkway and you have another highway to get out here. So it€s going to look better than any other spot as far as the immediate road connections to be able to get to a good highway from this location. ALAMEDA:Follow up Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:I€m wondering if maybe we€re asking the wrong questions and instead of saying where are these people going to live to get to the job in Kona is saying why don€t we provide some jobs in Ocean View? And then they won€t have to do that long commute. So maybe we€re, you know instead of looking at where are people gonna live, we should say well, let€s look at where are people gonna work. ALAMEDA:Any other questions for our applicants? Our staff or our Director? Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:I got one follow-up question for Mr. Elmer (sic.) because Mr. Elmer (sic.) had referred to I guess somebody environmental concerns and the build out that€s going to occur there and I was wondering if he had an opportunity to read condition W within the conditions. And it refers to noise abatement etc. for the Parkway that€s projected to go in there and-. Because you had referred to some of the costs that might be passed onto the County and I€m wondering if this condition satisfies you to some degree at least? ALAMEDA:And before you start Mr. Emler could you please state your name and address just for the record and your position in the County so we know for the record where you come out of. EMLER:My name is Kiran Emler with-. My address too? EXHIBIT A 11 ALAMEDA:That would be good. EMLER:83-5406 Middle Keei Road, Captain Cook. I didn€t review Condition W before I came to the meeting so-. I wasn€t paying a lot of attention to this one the last couple of days there was others. Well you€re assigning the responsibility to the development. In other words it would be an association of property owners I would assume that would be responsible for sound abatement measures to reduce the sound within the project. Now, it would probably be advisable for them to be looking at how they would do this during the project construction and part of the project construction rather than it coming up at a later date when the homeowners have already established a certain amount of mortgage that they have to pay and then all of a sudden something else comes up. I don€t know how they€re going to establish this. They€ll, of course they€ll have homeowner€s fees, association fees. So it would come out of some kind of association fee I would suppose but I don€t know. ALAMEDA:CommissionerWatanabe? EMLER:IthinkthatquestionreallyshouldbeansweredbythePlanningDirector. He, he did the-, proposed the condition. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Watanabe? You maybe want to rephrase your question or I€m not sure if? WATANABE:Maybe-. As I recall in the last meeting there was some discussion about where the landscaping would occur and within what easement and etc. And I do believe there were some commitments there, maybe you can refresh our memory Mr. Director. ALAMEDA:Director Yuen? YUEN:This Condition W about putting in the noise abatement measures is really there as a matter of caution. And that€s to avoid the problem referred to by Mr. Emler of adding costs to the County when it builds a project. To get Federal funding, there€s some analysis of this in the Background and Recommendation. To get Federal funding for a project, the Federal Highway Administration has standards for how noisy the highway should be adjacent to existing residential areas. So, they, if you bring a highway that reaches a noise above a certain level then something has to be done, sound barriers and the like. So, this problem actually does already exist along the right of way of-, potentially exists in that there are other condominiums that have either been, that have zoning or have actually been built and other housing have been built along the other right of way. There€s an analysis of this that€s done in the EIS, the original EIS and was updated in the mid-1990€s. It looks from the analysis as though this area would be okay and not have a noise problem particularly because one of the big things is that the, it has a lot to do with speed limit in the area. Cars make a lot more noise when they€re going fast. The speed limit on this section because it€s a real short section between Kuakini and Queen Kaahumanu Highway, the speed limit would be low. Plus the analysis was done based on 4 lanes and a huge volume of traffic. The current plan is to make the highway 2 lanes. But, so, we, and the applicant does have a problem with this condition. I think that we could work this thing through, if they gave a professional opinion on this. You know we€re working off of something that was EXHIBIT A 12 done generically, without a specific design, you know without a specific application. But, so, but this condition is really a matter of caution so the County won€t have to bear this kind of cost. But it€s something that under, under the current design in planning it really probably will not kick in. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Watanabe follow up? WATANABE:No I, thank you. ALAMEDA:Fellow Commissioners our applicants are here. Our staffs here. Do you have follow up Mr. Darrow? DARROW:Thank you Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to answer your question more specific in regards to the updated conditions and also reiterate more specifically Commissioner Siracusa€squestionregardingPua€aDevelopmentandSuffolk.Pua€aDevelopmentwasrequired in conditions to be able to put in 50 multiple family residential units. And at a time when the commercial gross floor area exceeded 60,000 square feet they were required to add 50 more multiple family residential units. The Suffolk Investment project was a 250 unit affordable rental housing project. So I wanted to reiterate that. In regards to the recent revised conditions as I mentioned prior we€ve submitted 2 revisions to the Commissioners. The most elaborate was the second revised conditions. If I could just briefly go through the changes these were a big part of our last meeting. Condition C which talks about construction commencement was changed from 3 years to 5 years as far as the effect, the construction commencement. Condition D the change in a wording sense was that the applicant shall generate affordable housing credits on site equal to 50% of the units developed to be more specific. Condition E the sentence was added regarding the TIAR. The TIAR shall include a schedule of improvements describing when each improvement shall be required in the development of the project. Condition G we added the phrase including the intersection with Kuakini Highway and Kuakini Highway improvements phase II as determined by the Department of Public Works. Condition J in our last meeting was quite a lengthy condition. That€s been broken up into Condition H and I to make it a little shorter and basically deals with the issue that the Director spoke about earlier in regards to access to the property at this time and in the future when the Keahole-, Kahului to Keauhou Parkway is constructed. Condition J was just changed, it was previous Condition I and has been relocated after this condition. And then earlier Commissioner Watanabe spoke about the easement on the property and that was, a portion was added. Basically the rest of the conditions again were just minor adjustments. There was one change in the third revision that I€d like to bring to your attention and mainly it€s just to be more specific regarding the construction of project utilities in the right-of-ways of Kuakini Highway and the Kahului to Keauhou Parkway. Condition L it states the applicant shall not install utilities in the Kahului to Keauhou Parkway and Kuakini Highway right-of-ways unless approved by the Department of Public Works. So that should bring you up to speed on the revised conditions. Thank you. ALAMEDA:I will take one more question from the Commissioners and then turn it over to the applicants to-. I just want to get a sense of kind of where they€re at from our discussion cause they might be able to answer some of our further questions. So Commissioner Iwashita? EXHIBIT A 13 IWASHITA:I had a-, it€s like a question about the where the Community Development Plan process is for this area at this time. If we€re looking at completion of that process by the Department within the next year or so I don€t know what kind of timeframe. Is this on? ALAMEDA:Director? YUEN:Should be a year or so till the plan is completed then it would go to Planning Commission and Council. This site is General Planned as an urban area under the current County General Plan that was approved in February 2005. ALAMEDA:Follow up? IWASHITA:The reason I bring it up is that the, the level of concerns about traffic and soforthandIthinkyouknowwehave,weeachhaveourviewsandouropinionsaboutyou know how it will, how all of those concerns will be worked out. I really believe that the Community Development Plan process with the developers and the community and getting you know everyone involved especially in this area where I agree with the Director that you know this particular area is going to be a very significant housing area and you know there€s commercial development approved and I think rather than in a piece meal process which we always have to work on and you know work off General Plan urban designation and those kind of things. To me you know that€s the legal basis to go forward, part of it, but it doesn€t really provide a cohesive way to approach development in this significant area that the Community Development Plan process is going to take a year and we€re looking at here a proposal allowing developer 5 years with extensions to get this project started and completed. That I feel it€s probably, I would feel a lot more comfortable that this development, all the other developments in this area would go through the Community Development Plan process and then when the, essentially the community agrees on not just this particular project but this project together with the comprehensive development of this entire triangular area looking at now that€s Ag and gonna be ultimately, according to the General Plan, be used in urban designation that you know we€re looking at right now if this is approved 500 units? More than 500 living units? SIRACUSA:562. IWASHITA:Okay, almost, whatever it is. That ultimately you know we have enough acreage where we can have a thousand, two thousand plus living units. And what we haven€t talked about today is where are all these, the kids that are going to be living in this, in these units, where are they going to go to school? You know I, and looking through all of this material, there is, like maybe 3 sentences that talk about the schools. I think ideally part of the Community Development Plan process should include, seems like there, there€s enough living units in this area to support a school, an elementary school. And so that the kids could walk to school and you know part of the traffic analysis that hasn€t been talked about is that if we have affordable housing which I would expect to have a higher, higher number of children per household, that would be of school age, that hasn€t been addressed at all here. In fact I think it€s, I would characterize the way it€s been not addressed in this proposal. And all of those concerns well that is a major concern I think that, that must be addressed in the Community Development Plan EXHIBIT A 14 process especially for such a large area as this. So you know this concurrency issue with regard to traffic I think sort of pales when you consider you know for this particular project I just sort of ransom numbers. If we have a hundred affordable units and 85% of those units have children and if you assume .75 child per household in that formula then you€re talking about 80 kids or so plus or minus that€s gonna have to go to school and right now the way it is they€re going to have to be driven to school. And they won€t-. But they€re not driving to school in Kailua. They€re driving to school, they€re being-. They€re probably riding a bus out in Ocean View, or Puna or Honokaa or someplace like that and that€s how they€re getting to school. When they live in this community within a mile of the school where they have to attend, they€re going to be driven to school. Okay, so-, and, and you know we don€t have any information. I, general knowledge I think like Kealakehe Intermediate School is overcrowded right now today without 560 units being built that can have several hundred kids dozens of which would have to go to this overcrowded school today. We don€t have any plans. There is, we have no information in this record how these issues are going to be addressed. That€s why I go back to my initial question abouttheCommunityDevelopmentPlanbecauseweattheCountyatthislevelwehaveno jurisdiction over this schools, how they€re going to develop, where are they going to be built, how are they going to be expanded? So, my concern is that you know we really looking at the rollout of this area in considering this project. I would not want to just you know speculate really about all these other effects that this and all the other projects that ultimately will be built in this area will have on schools and traffic and so forth. The Community Development Plan process I think if its done correctly will provide a comprehensive basis for the community to come before this body and agree this is how we should do it. For this project and for all the projects in this area. And that would, my druthers is that this project and all the other projects in this area be considered in the Community Development process. That everybody as much as possible agree to how its going to be rolled-out and that, that, with that Community Development Plan being submitted to this body, approved by the Council, then we€ll you know this process of approving this project for zoning and so forth will be relatively issue less. ALAMEDA:Thank you Commissioner Iwashita. Let me just remind fellow commissioners that we, we€re still in the first leg of this application now. We still haven€t heard from the applicants in terms of their response to our discussion. We still have testimony and then we have pretty much what we€re doing now you know deliberations. So at the question segment of our application I want to remind you guys to keep to the questions and let€s save the statements for when the applicants sit down and when we really can discuss. I know, I know it€s sometimes it€s tempting to share your perspective but we want to just honor the process. So let me, Mr. Lim any response to some of our discussion? LIM:I was going to suggest maybe to try to coordinate it. If we could take the public testimony then we would come back and address the questions and we have some comments on the proposed conditions also. I think that€d be worked better then we can just do our presentation one time. ALAMEDA:Okay. LIM:Thank you. EXHIBIT A 15 ALAMEDA:Any objection to that fellow commissioners? Any other questions then for our staff or Director before we move to testimony and deliberation? All right thank you, you may be seated. We have testimony. Mr. Wallace Ishibashi will you please come forward? Can I swear you in? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Hawaii County Planning Commission? ISHIBASHI:Yes I do. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Could you please state your name and address for the record and then you may proceed. ISHIBASHI:Wallace Ishibashi. 27-469 Mamalahoa Highway. Aloha Mr. Chairman. ALAMEDA:Aloha. ISHIBASHI:Fellow Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity again to speak beforeyouatthistime.Ispokeatthelasthearinginregardstosupportofthisproject. Affordable housing is a major issue that I see our Planning Director has the good foresight and seeing the need for affordable housing. And I want to commend this developer in doing so. The cost of housing is getting so great that it€s out of reach. The traffic, we always going be dealing with traffic already it€s a reality of living in Hawaii. There€s no ifs, ands or buts we should have a better road system way before any of these projects ever came forward. So it€s, it€s a way of life already in Hawaii we going have to deal with that. But my main concern is having affordable housing for the workers and you know a lot of workers they breaking the laws of the job that they€re employed at. They sleeping in the parking lot, which is illegal, they cannot be sleeping. But when you weigh, weighing the long drive back to Hilo or the long drive back to Kau it€s, you rather sleep in the parking lot for your own safety. And they jeopardizing their jobs by doing so and having houses little bit closer to the work site is little bit better than driving that long distance. So again I, I support this project and I wish the Commissioners consider this knowing that there is a fact of traffic in Hawaii already. No ifs, ands or buts we faced with that from now on, way into the future. So I ask the Commissioner€s favorable consideration to this project and thank the developers for recognizing the needs of the community and average working people who has a great plan and goal to have the American dream of owning a home, which is getting out of touch right now in Hawaii. And I thank you for this time. Any questions? ALAMEDA:Fellow Commissioners any questions for Mr. Ishibashi? Seeing none, thank you Mr. Ishibashi you may be seated. ISHIBASHI:Thank you ALAMEDA:All right. Moving right along. I guess we can invite the applicants and its representatives back up to the table. LIM:Mr. Chairman we€re going to be joined by Mr. Kevin Blalog just shortly he had to use the little boy€s room. EXHIBIT A 16 ALAMEDA:Sure when he comes I€ll swear him in and get his name and address for the record. You€ve heard the discussion. If you would like to, rather wait for Mr. Blalog or? LIM:No I think we can start now. ALAMEDA:Okay. LIM:We€re you know, in processing the project we had certain project goals that we explained to those who were here at the last meetings. Why, who we were and why we€re doing it and I think maybe you know I€ll have Mr. Rapoza lead off with a statement just to reiterate that and then what I€ll do is I€ll get into the technical aspects after that. ALAMEDA:Okay. Mr. Rapoza could you please state your name and address for the record?Ialreadysworeyouinyoucanjustspeakintothemike. RAPOZA:EdwardRapoza.P.O.Box2077,KailuaKona.Commissioners,Planning Director, staff, thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. I€m a developer and realtor in this community and I deal with housing on a daily basis. And I support the Planning Director in his thoughts regarding affordable housing and market housing and confirm that market housing in Kailua Kona is a-, the median house is well over 600,000 now. Most of the community cannot afford housing in Kailua Kona let alone most of the island has gone. And it€s not just on this island but on many of the other islands. The current government statewide has identified affordable housing as a critical need. The Kailua Kona area in particular has been identified by this administration as a critical area for affordable housing. Some time ago I attended an affordable housing forum put on by Mayor Kim€s administration, which all of the department heads attended. Developers, Planners and it was determined at that time by the administration that a affordable housing need within the county was at a critical condition. We, I attended that, that meeting. I encouraged several of my colleagues, Mr. Crivello, Mr. Lim and Mr. Blalog and another owner who is part of our membership is Phil Tinguely of Tinguely Development that, who also attended the affordable housing forum put on by Mayor Kim€s administration. With the information from that we decided and I convinced my colleagues here that let€s get involved and make something happen. We€re all business leaders in the community. We live and work in this community and it€s time for us to give back to the community. So we set out to select a piece of property that we could purchase to take into an affordable housing forum and we committed at that forum that we would make a difference. And went out and selected a property that was fronted by a sewer line, fronted by a waterline, General Planned Urban, infrastructure of roadways that would surround it for ease of access so that we could bring affordable housing to the market. Then we made that commitment and we purchased the property and made an application, which is before you today. Let me tell you a little bit about my passion for it. I grew up in, on the West side here of the island, born and raised in Honaunau. And I€ve been a part of the community, graduated from Konawaena High School and this is my home and I€m pleased to be able to raise my family here. And, I have done very well in the real estate market but this is one way that I€m choosing to give back and there€s this-. I think there€s this misnomer of everyone living in Ocean View that is going to buy these units. That€s not true. These are people that live and work right in this community that are EXHIBIT A 17 doubled up and tripled up in housing that€s already existing in town, that work in town, that have kids that go to school in this town. It€s not everybody just in Ocean View that is-. And yes Ocean View is a particular area that a lot of affordable housing is being built. But even Ocean View affordable housing quote in Ocean View is now starting to exceed 300,000. So when is it going to stop? When are all of us going to make a difference? We can€t wait for the roads to be built, which we€d all desire, to have affordable housing. I€d like to address a couple of other issues that gives you a little background on how we bought this property. We didn€t select the property to go out and build market housing which we could have a market housing proposal in front of you. The Kuakini Highway informational meeting that was put on by the Department of Public Works, I attended that meeting. I don€t know if any of you had attended the meeting or I believe Ki Emler was there. More than half of the people that testified at that meeting said that there was not a traffic impact on Kuakini Highway at this time. Now I support the widening of Kuakini Highway but more than half of the residences that attended, that live and work around that Kuakini Highway, the Phase II proposal testified that they didn€t feel that that€s where the moneyshouldbespent.Howeverit€sbeingproposedtobewidenedandIsupportthewidening of that. The Alii Parkway has not been acquired in the section that we are proposing this. We are proposing to dedicate our half of what the Alii Parkway would need and which would be a first segment in achieving further roadways to be able to have connectivity. In addition to that the Alii Highway, to our dismay in Kona has been proposed for over 30 years and I wish they would just build something. As a member of the public that live and work in this community we€ve had too many delays on roadways and yet another study is being proposed at this time. It€s very unfortunate that this highway is not in at this point. And I can€t say enough about that. We would appreciate the opportunity to bring housing to the community and your support would be needed to do that. So, with that I€ll turn it over to my colleagues thank you. ALAMEDA:Before that any questions for Mr. Rapoza? Mr. Crivello could you state your name and address for the record. CRIVELLO:Yeah my name is Barry Crivello. I live at 73-4341 Papaana Place, Kailua- Kona. I also work at Hualalai and Kuakini Highway so I see the traffic pattern every day. And I deal with the noise and I€m right on top of it. When Ed Rapoza came to us and talked about this I was very excited because I do believe in the public/private partnership. I€m the past President of the Friends of the Children€s Justice Center and through that experience I€ve learned that the private sector and individuals could come together with governmental agencies to make a difference. For those people who don€t really have a voice in our community I€d be a little bit surprised that you know it seems like there€s almost an adversarial relationship with us. When we€re trying to do something to really help those people who don€t have anyone to help them. And the one thing that I wish some of the members of the Planning Commission would understand is is that time is of the essence because there€s an inverse relationship between interest rates and affordable houses. And if anybody has seen what the cost of construction is lately they would realize trying to do affordable project is pretty risky business. We want to do this and we want to do it I think for the right reasons because we have all prospered I think everybody here has prospered during this economic boom except for the local residents. And who is their voice, who€s trying to do something for them? We€re not some luxury developers who can do all these things because we€re going to make some incredible profits. We€re trying EXHIBIT A 18 to put units on the ground. We were asked to try to do something and we€re trying to respond to that. Your help in that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Any questions for Commissioner Crivello? Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:It€s not exactly a question. But Mr. Crivello did mention that he felt that there was an adversarial relationship and I just wanted to point out that our job especially on things that have to ultimately end up with the County Council€s level is to explore every bit of the question from all sides. And that€s why we ask a lot of the questions we do in order to give the Council an indication that we did a complete job of looking into the matter. So please don€t interpret it as adversarial, interpret it as a full investigation. CRIVELLO:Thank you. ALAMEDA:Yes our Commission, we leave no stone unturned. Mr. Lim? Or Mr. Blalogcanyoupleaseraiseyourrighthand?Doyouswearoraffirmtotellthetruthnowbefore the Hawaii County Planning Commission? BLALOG:I do. ALAMEDA:Can you please state your name and address for the record? BLALOG:Kevin Blalog, P.O. Box 368, Paauilo, HI 96776. ALAMEDA:All right thank you. Would you like to comment? BLALOG:All kind of. Okay I got a different perspective than the, I call these the professionals. I€m the, what is it, blue-collar worker? Is that the working guy? ALAMEDA:All right you give us the blue-collar synopsis then. BLALOG:These guys are all white collars. I think to understand the whole issue of the housing and where we€re trying to go and what€s going on in the County and. Right now in the year 2006, just take the time we€re in. You gotta put into perspective Chris brought up someone working at McDonalds and although was a, kind of a joke about the driving that€s not a joke about the pay. Right now, I think it€s a misnomer that people can afford something that cost 300,000, 400,000, 500,000. Oh well my friend in construction makes $44.00 an hour. Well that construction guy making $44.00 an hour really only sees $22.00 an hour. Because $22.00 an hour go for a thing called a benefit package. His wife that works down at the hotel is lucky to make $15.00 an hour. This is gross numbers. So maybe for the year they make $70,000 to $80,000. Great. What can you afford when you have 2 people who need to go to work and here we come with traffic and cars. Now they have car notes. What type of home can they afford. I€m from Paauilo. I have a, my family€s relative who subdivided acreage into 5 acre lots. He did what was allowed through the current code. There€s a large parcel of land, it€s zoned Ag-5 and he can create 5-acre lots. He doesn€t need to come in front of the Planning Commission. Now EXHIBIT A 19 what does anyone think a 5-acre lot in Paauilo sell for? Its Ag land. It should be pretty cheap because it€s for a farmer. But is it cheap? No. No ones going to buy a 5-acre Ag lot in Paauilo for even 300,000. Don€t ever kid yourself. Let alone with a house on it. We€re trying to sell units at $230,000. And people making $70,000 will just qualify. They got cars. This is the reality. I was, you know I don€t talk to our Mayor often but we met with the Mayor over this exact project after our last meeting. We asked them what are we seeing wrong? What are we not doing? And he humbled me when he said, well you know what this is a priority of my administration because everyday there€s at least another hundred people homeless. Homeless. They don€t have a roof over their head. And I told him you know what, that€s what I brought up at the Planning Commission meeting. I know people who sleep in cars. I know people who sleep at Hapuna Beach. We can€t solve every issue. Eh, I sat behind that table. I know some of you know that. It€s beautiful to think you can put in the right schools, in the right places, with the right roads and wait for the right plan. Eh, that€s the ideal. But there is a crisis that we all, whether we can achieve our deal or not have to come to grips with. The crisis is even CommissionerSiracusabroughtupshecouldn€taffordahouse.Thecrisisiswehavetohelp these people. Eh, we€re, most of us are fortunate. We have roofs over our heads. My colleague Mr. Rapoza was not exaggerating. I dare anyone and I think Mr. Galdones could confirm this. That would dare to go into the Hamakua Community from Honokaa all the way to Pepeekeo if you want and see how many Asian families, there€s 2-3 families to a house. I dare anyone. Ask him when you have your discussion. We aren€t trying, we aren€t going to solve all the problems we aren€t. But we€re here to make a difference at a time when it€s very much needed. And I think if you lead by example then it€s an easy issue down the road that people understand that you know what, if we can€t have a home for someone to live in then we€re going to have other problems bigger than where do they go to school. And that€s the con-, you know, it€s hard, it€s really hard to look at everything. But I€m involved in this because us, the working class we like roofs over our head. When my daughter was born I almost claimed personal bankruptcy. I wasn€t where I am today. She was premature, she went to Kapiolani. I was renting a house, I was late with my rent payment and the people knew my daughter was in Kapiolani and they charged me interest and they told me if I didn€t pay it, the penalty, I had to move out. And the road I drove up was a dirt road and my car couldn€t make it so I had to carry my baby. So there are issues out there. There€s a lot of issues. But, what€s the main issue we€re here for today? We have a nice room, we have water, we have sewer. We don€t have schools. It€s zoned urban. Eh, we€re trying to do the right thing as local guys‚ who see a tremendous need, tremendous, I can€t emphasize it enough unless you work with the people that tell you, they don€t have a place to stay. And I€ve had people like that. And it€s not because of what you pay them. Sometimes they make poor decisions but we have to be in a position to help the majority of the people. That€s what we€re here for. We€re not, we will not, and I can tell you this, I am not going to get rich off of this deal. I can guarantee you that. It€s not about the money and you know a lot of these conditions because of my knowledge in construction, some of them I€m pulling my hairs because they€re expensive. We€re coming in with an affordable housing project. We aren€t coming in with market value. It€d be nice to have even a partnership with the County‚ and say oh gee you need to put in streetlights, eh since it€s affordable maybe we can share a cost. But we aren€t even asking for that. We€re saying, there€s a need, we think we can make it pencil. We discuss what the conditions are and we€re saying okay. We aren€t fighting nobody. We just want to put people in homes who are tired of not having a place to live or living 2-3 in a home. So anyway, that€s kind of what I got to say and I-. EXHIBIT A 20 ALAMEDA:Thank you. BLALOG:If there€s any questions I€ll answer. ALAMEDA:Any questions? All right Mr. Lim? Any closing remarks or? RAPOZA:Just a couple of more comments with respect to Mr. Iwashita€s comments to schools. Recently I was involved in getting the Innovations Public Charter School to move just above and mauka of this property. This body approved a use permit on Ag land. I was instrumental in getting that school site for, securing that school site for the school. I have my own children both attend that school now. And, we are continuing the effort to build that school at this juncture so there is a school nearby that is a public charter school. Second, is and under the Suffolk Development there€s a 5-acre parcel that is slated for a school site. Our public charterschool,Innovations,isoneoftheschoolsthatisinconsiderationforthatsiteandweare pursuing that site to be able to put in the elementary school kids there and then the current school site location, have that go to a middle school. So I€m very involved in the community in trying to create places for kids to attend schools, which I believe in as well being a public school product of the community here myself. The other thing that I€d like to point out that there seems to be some reference to all of these units that are going to be built in this location. And I wanted to point out one major difference in our proposed project than the Suffolk one that maybe Mr. Graham and Ms. Siracusa refers to on the Suffolk site having so many units approved there. Those units are approved as rental units. They will not be for sale. Our project will be sold to individuals that they may enjoy home ownership as every American would like to have, the American dream of home ownership and this is proposed to be of course affordable home ownership. And then you know there€s made reference to the Community Develop Plan. I feel to passionately about our community that I applied personally to be on the Steering Committee for that and have been selected by the Mayor as part of the Community Development Plan Steering Committee. And in closing in further community efforts recently besides this proposed affordable housing project, which is something I really feel passionately about as you can tell. And my colleague Mr. Crivello talks about partnership between private and government entities we successfully this year also got, or last year got a beach park, which I was instrumental in obtaining and got to the County of Hawaii for a open space out on Alii Drive, which now we are completing with our own funds to clear and put Honuls Beach, Waiaha Beach Park into an open space. And we€re not, we cleaned it up with our own funds. And got the Community leaders to donate time, money, effort etc. and we now have a beautiful beach park in that location. So, I€m doing everything in my power to try to give back to the community in many different ways. And I would look forward and you serving on this Commission is your way of giving back and we would look forward to the support on affordable housing not only for our project. I€d like to say that if one of the suggestions that I had, if we want affordable housing in a community you should flood the market with affordable housing land. It€s sheer supply and demand. One of the things that I think the County should do is to, anything, anywhere in the General Plan and the Community Development Plan and this is one of the suggestions that I€m going to have on the Community Development Plan. If this body and/or the Council can make a resolution that all lands that are 15 acres or less that the County has jurisdiction over that is General Planned Urban, should automatically be zoned by resolution for affordable housing. Not for market EXHIBIT A 21 housing, for affordable housing. And then you€ll see affordable housing in this community. The fact that we have to come through the process like this only delays our ability to pass on savings to the customer. And, we€ve been in this process now for I believe going on 4 months. And this is only as Mr. Chairman has reminded everyone, this is only the first leg of it. Then we have to go to Council and then we have to go through subdivision. If we€re lucky we would get this project on in 2007 sometime. So, in my opinion one of the things we can do as a community is support affordable housing and flood the market with affordable housing. That would actually bring prices down. And more people in the cross section could afford housing. More people could afford rent, etc. Thank you. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Mr. Lim? LIM:Thank you Mr. Chairman. At the risk of boring you to death I€m going to go to the technical details on the proposed conditions. ALAMEDA:I€m sure we€d appreciate that. LIM:Okay. We€ve reviewed that just starting this morning. And the first commentIhaveisattheendofConditionH.Andthisistheconditionthatdealswiththe manner of access to the project both off of the Parkway and off of Kuakini Highway. As a general principal we believe that the specific details of access ways and rights in and rights out probably shouldn€t be in rezoning ordinances cause as you probably know the plans change. However you know we€re going to have no, we will support the proposed conditions but we will have comments on them. At the end of Condition H the last 2 sentences deal with the secondary access on Kuakini Highway. And Condition I, which I think is repeated to some degree in Condition I. So I would suggest that the last 2 sentences of Condition H be deleted and those ideas be incorporated somehow into Condition I. I wanted to ask the Planning Director for clarification on this proposed access to Kuakini Highway, which would be a right out movement only. Was it intended that when the Parkway comes in that that access would be closed. We€re not clear on that issue. I mean if it, we don€t think it should be because it gives another access out of the project. But I think that that kind of an idea is creeping in at the end of Condition H. ALAMEDA:Director? YUEN:No the idea was that, that it would be opened. And create a better circulation so that you can get to Kailua Kona from the project site directly down Kuakini without having to go up on the Parkway to Queen Kaahumanu. LIM:In that case then I would recommend the deletion of the last 2, last 3 sentences of Condition H starting with the Department of Public Works may approve and ending with until the Parkway is built. Those ideas are incorporated into Condition I, I believe. We would suggest an addition to the last sentence of Condition I so that it would state Access (2) shall be limited to right out only, unless otherwise approved by the Department of Public Works. And what that does is it gives flexibility to the project design. As I said plans change, the County does not have firm plans for what it€s doing for the Parkway and the timing of that. And EXHIBIT A 22 it still gives the County control of the access way. What I€m trying to preclude is having to come back through the process again just to put that phase in at a later date should conditions change. ALAMEDA:Director? YUEN:I don€t have a problem with adding the phrase unless otherwise approved by the Department of Public Works to the end of I. We€ve done a lot of fiddling with these conditions and I€m, so I€m not so concerned if there€s a little bit of redundancy. So I€d rather leave everything else the same unless there€s, unless you see a contradiction in it. I don€t see contradictions I see maybe we said the same thing twice, which doesn€t bother me. LIM:Okay, maybe the last sentence of Condition H where it says Access (2) shall remain gated and used for emergency access only until the Parkway is built. YUEN:ThatwasarequestbyMr.EmlerIbelieveyes?AndsoIprefertoleave that in. Their concern about having 2 accesses. You see before the Parkway is built you have your main access comes directly off of Kuakini anyway. So, there€s not a, and-. LIM:The main access will come off the Parkway alignment. YUEN:Well, it comes off the Parkway alignment then it comes to Kuakini near the full intersection at Kuakini. So, it€s not necessary to have a second access at that point because you have direct access to get to Kuakini and everybody€s going to go down, is going to go one way or another on Kuakini from the main intersection with Kuakini. I believe this, the concern was over the proximity of the 2 intersections in, when you€re coming in from Kuakini. It doesn€t add anything at that point and they would, then you would wind up having then 2 intersections. LIM:It would just be a right turn in a northerly direction so proximity shouldn€t matter I would assume. YUEN:Well maybe Mr. Emler can explain why he wanted that. It was strictly his request so he can explain why he wants the second access. This is the one that€s on Kuakini to be gated until the access to the Parkway is put in. ALAMEDA:Mr. Emler? EMLER:Yeah, the Director pretty much covered it. ALAMEDA:Let me just, sorry. A Commissioner has got up and left, I think maybe we should take a 5 is that okay? Let€s take 5-minute recess, bathrooms and we€ll be back right here in 5 minutes. RECESSED:The Chair called for a recess at 10:45 a.m. RECONVENED:The meeting was reconvened at 10:54 p.m. EXHIBIT A 23 ALAMEDA:Hawaii County Planning Commission now come back in order. I€d like to thank the public for your patience. We will be moving along I promise. Picking up where we left off I know Mr. Emler was at the podium and perhaps during the recess you guys came to a consensus on something so I€m just curious. Mr. Lim would you like to comment? LIM:Yes. We discussed the amendments to Condition H. And I think we€re in agreement that we would delete the last sentence in Exhibit H. This is to reflect the Public Works I guess position today that that access on the Kuakini Highway side of the project does not have to be gated and closed up. This was a leftover idea from when we proposing in and out movements so once it was amended to you know going north only, right turns out only then it becomes non-issue. ALAMEDA:Okay, I hear you I want tocheck with Mr. Director? YUEN:Correct. ALAMEDA:Okay. Continue. LIM:Condition I. We request that the phrase unless otherwise approved by the DepartmentofPublicWorksbeaddedtoConditionIattheend.SoitsaysAccess(2)shallbe limited to a right out only, unless otherwise approved by the Department of Public Works. ALAMEDA:Continue. LIM:Condition J. Oh excuse me Condition K. This is the Condition that requires that the coordinated development of this property be done with what€s known as Lot 1A, the property which is mauka and south of this property. Here on the desk here I€m showing you a map with the Hawaii Belt Road, Queen K Highway on the mauka side of the map. Our parcel the 14 acres outlined in green and lot 1A outlined in yellow. You€ll see that Lot 1A is significantly larger than our parcel. It€s about 71 acres, round figures and it stretches between Queen Kaahumanu Highway on the top and abuts Kuakini Highway on the makai side. The Condition K essentially is saying, is recognizing that the Waiaha drainage way runs mauka/makai through the properties and that the mauka portion of Lot 1A on the north side as it abuts the Hawaii, I mean as it abuts the proposed Parkway would be-, would require a separate access onto the Parkway unless we somehow coordinated the development between the 2 parcels. I think frankly our feeling is that this condition should be deleted and the reason why is it€s making the Lot 1A issues, development issues. It€s trying to solve the Lot 1A development issues on our property frankly. I mean Lot 1A as you can see from the map has numerous road frontage both on Queen K Highway and on Kuakini Highway. If this was a stand alone project, if Lot 1A was coming, sitting here before you today they€d either have to get access off Queen K or Kuakini and for that portion that€s just mauka of our property they would either have to get access off Queen K or they would bridge the Waiaha drainageway, which is an expensive proposition I agree. But it really is not our problem. I think its unfair for the County to be requiring one project, especially an affordable project that has condominium units and private roads to be providing access for another development project down to Kuakini. So we€d be EXHIBIT A 24 asking for deletion of that condition as we think that the Lot 1A development area has its own development challenges and we don€t think that we should be able to, we should be forced to solve the development challenge, give them access to the highway as a part of our conditions. If they want to buy that from us then that€s fine but for the County to force it on us without compensation we don€t think is proper. ALAMEDA:Feedback? Director? YUEN:This condition actually does 2 things as far as access and one is requiring coordinated access to the future Parkway and the second is requiring coordinated access to Kuakini through the project. The first one is from my point of view an absolute and the second one is also important but not quite so important. The first one, to explain the first one. What you have is looking at this map that he€s showing you their property is in green. On the right hand side and mauka and above their property is this Lot 1A. It€s, someday it€s quite likely that they€llbeyouknowsomekindofurbandevelopmentwillbeproposedforthisLot1A.Ifthat happens, although Lot 1A goes, is a big lot and it€s as a practical matter it€s split by the Waiaha Drainageway and somebody will try to develop that portion of Lot 1A that is on the left or north side of the Waiaha. The left side of the map, north side of the Waiaha Drainageway as a separate entity. We would not want that to have to come into the Alii Parkway at a separate access point where-. Because we€re trying to limit the number of access points that come in and out of the major roadways. And so we would want that to have an easement to come over this property. We€re just-, the subdivision, we€re just looking ahead on this. And so that€s the reason for requiring that easement. So that€s the first part of this. And we would, just to finish that, we would not want that property to come in, the other way they can come in and out is on Queen Kaahumanu. We wouldn€t want them to do that either. There€s a legal access point there now but if you have a rezoning to an urban use we wouldn€t want to see that you know clog up the main highway with another urban access point that people are coming in and out of. So we want to have one access point for these 2 lots on the future Parkway. The other thing that we€re saying is that, then that€s part 1 of Condition K. And the second part is that there be an interior circulation down to this other access point on Kuakini. And the reason for having that other access point on Kuakini, the practical aspect of it is that if you€re in that location and you want to get directly down to Kailua Kona if you don€t have that ability because, because the-, you only have a right out on the Parkway. You have to turn right out, you have to go up to Queen Kaahumanu, then you have to turn left, you have to get on that main highway and then go and then take another road to get down into Kailua Kona probably Hualalai Road or Nani Kailua. But, if you have an interior connection you can go down to Kuakini and go directly into Kailua Kona. LIM:We don€t have a issue with the Planning criteria. We do have a issue with forcing easement, giving somebody easement for free over our property as a condition of this rezoning. I think essentially what the Planning Director is proposing is that Lot 1A be given a free easement across our property to the public road. It says that the easement to the Kuakini access point in favor of Lot 1A shall be required only if it is rezoned with a condition requiring to share maintenance cost and liability, which addresses our concern for a larger development but it€s zoned 5 acres. Set 5-acre lots, 70 acres I don€t know what is that 14 lot, 5-acre lots could come through our project for free. We also have liability and maintenance issues cause these are EXHIBIT A 25 going to be private roads in a condominium development. So, I think there€s all kinds of reasons both legal and practical as to why this shouldn€t be forced. I mean this is something that should be enforced with the development of the Lot 1A parcel that€s located mauka of us. Make it their problem cause it is their problem today. What you€re doing is shifting the problem onto us now. ALAMEDA:Mr. Director? Or staff? Mr. Watanabe? WATANABE:I thought I kind of discussed that earlier in? It was my understanding that they wouldn€t be able to go through your property unless they were assured maintenance and liability agreement? And that€s why I was concerned about that condition to the extent that you know how, how, how could we enforce it? You know the fact that it€s not developed seems to indicate to me that when it is developed we will force that upon them you know assuming this body is consistent in their thinking and so to that extent I think maybe your concerns might be alleviated. I€m assuming that the body is going to be consistent in their thinking in the future. LIM:I think there€s 2 aspects to that issue for us. One is the aspect of the sharedmaintenanceandliability.Theotheraspectistheprivatepartycontractissue.Imean right now they need to or they should have to buy an easement through our project to develop that area that€s mauka of our project and north of the Waiaha drainage way. I mean that€s a difficult development piece to, to put in place and what you€re doing is solving that development problem for them on our back. I don€t know that I€ve ever seen you do that before. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Graham maybe you can add some light to this discussion? GRAHAM:Well, I€m just trying to see both sides. What you€re saying certainly sounds reasonable and appropriate, why should you be burdened with somebody else€s problem. But I think from what I can understand where the Planning Director€s coming from is you know he€d like to see only one easement, one access to the highway on that stretch. So if the other guys were coming in first I€m sure he would put that condition on them to give you that access. It€s not like he€s intending to penalize you. So, I think we€re just trying to do us in we€re not going to have a raise here, whoever gets it first is going to get their own access. So, he€s trying to make it so one access will serve both properties. So I understand his position also. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:I think it also, cause as I recall in our first discussions that I had wondered whether we could make it County dedicable. And the answer at that Waikoloa meeting was that the property is not large enough you know to make it what County dedicable would be 60 feet easement? And so that€s why it was left as a substandard type of access road and, and-. And then, then the concern about maintenance and liability came into play. I mean if, ideally you would make it County dedicable and the County would assume the liability and maintenance yeah? LIM:Perhaps one easier solution is that we provide that we keep the standard language condition in Condition K and we just delete the portion requiring us to give access easement through the project all the way down to the Kuakini Highway. Our project plan is at EXHIBIT A 26 the mauka portion of the project to do either in concert with Lot 1A or on our own side a access way onto the Parkway alignment. And we€d have to align that with public works consent. But the idea being that both those parcels on the north side of the Waiaha drainage way would then take access out onto the Parkway. You know that would alleviate in large part our concerns. We could reach an agreement with the next door property I wanted to share, share the right of way or something like that. But the, and if you take off the Kuakini access point portion I think we could live with that. ALAMEDA:Mr. Director? YUEN:Well, I€m sticking with the condition as we€ve recommended it and that is my recommendation. On just a couple of things, first we have done this before. It€s something that I€ve been trying to look for in a number of locations. The most recent actually was this Pua€a rezoning which requires that Pua€a provide an easement. This would actually serve the sideofthisproperty,theothersideofthispropertythat€sontheothersideoftheWaiaha drainage way. That they would, they would give them access to the Pua€a frontage road for the same purpose to not-. Otherwise that project is going to have to come-. It€s, what happens, it€s not right, it€s not accurate to say that it€s the private owner€s problem because I€ve seen it become the public problem before. What happens is that some day they come in for some kind of urban zoning and they say and you look at the site and you say yeah that should be an urban site. And they say but you have to let us come out to the highway because we have no other access because on either side of us we have private property that we can€t get through, we have no ability to get through the private property. Well, to avoid, to see this coming and to avoid this happening is why we€re trying to put in conditions like this. The other example of this was Ooma 2, which was eventually vetoed but that did have also a condition requiring access across. I believe that the Kohanaiki€s SMA permit has a cross easement requirement as well. ALAMEDA:Mr. Watanabe? WATANABE:I have a question for the Director. Not that I€m promoting substandard roadways but would that help resolve the issue of connectivity where the County would be willing in this instance-. Because that roadway I believe even though substandard would be relatively short yeah? And I, you know I, I€m wondering if-? ALAMEDA:Mr. Director? YUEN:Yeah I can€t sit here and agree that the County would take dedication of a what would otherwise be a non-dedicable road. LIM:I think we€ve you know fleshed out the issue. We€re willing to let the Commission vote on this issue. So I€ll move on. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Continue. Wait hold on real fast. SIRACUSA:I wanted to ask the Director if it would be legal even for them to be required to sell the easement or to sell use of that easement to the other lot should that other lot EXHIBIT A 27 be developed in the future? So that they would be compensated, it wouldn€t be more, only just sharing maintenance and liabilities and they would be compensated for the actual use of the easement itself? YUEN:I don€t have a problem with that. SIRACUSA:Mr. Lim would you have a problem with that or is there some way that that could be worded in legally would that help your, address your concerns? LIM:Yes it would. I mean I prefer not to see the condition at all but if it has to be in there I€d rather have fair market compensation for the real property interest taken in addition to the sharing of maintenance cost and liability. SIRACUSA:Would you be willing Mr. Yuen to-? YUEN:Yes I have to work on-, I can put in the wording. It would require them to selltheeasementatfairmarketvaluebutyouknowitwouldstill.Thedifferencebetweenthat and the normal situation is that they have no, really they have no obligation to sell an easement to another party. All this, all this is legal in the context of a rezoning. You can put conditions on people€s rezoning. In some division situation we do something very similar we make people stub out roads to their property lines so that when the next subdivision develops you have, you have an inter-connectivity between the two developments. We€ve got problems, haven€t done enough of that but it€s in the subdivision code that you have to do it and you can make people do this. So, here we have a situation that€s probably not going to be developed as a-. And if this were developed as a subdivision we could make people stub out to the property line. The difference here is it€s probably not going to be developed as a subdivision and it€s probably going to be developed with one lot as a- and then another probably condominium type ownership. And so that subdivision code doesn€t come into play but it is something that, this is the kind of thing that is part of good planning and it€s not a legal problem. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Mr. Director you earlier said that a similar requirement has been made several prior approvals, zoning change approvals is that correct? YUEN:That€s right. IWASHITA:So if we add a compensation or a sale kind of provision that would be different, we would be changing the basis upon which this has been done? YUEN:I don€t really have a problem with that. You know, what happened here is that the, the subdivision just happened. You know, there€s a guy that owns the 70 acres and he made the subdivision and he made a subdivision in a way that does create a development problem with a portion of the property. I, the applicant is saying well let that guy hang that€s his problem. I€m going through the scenario that I€ve seen in the past that it tends to box in the future Planning Director that has to look at whether-. Oh well are you going leave this property EXHIBIT A 28 as a Ag zoned property because there€s a-, there€s this access problem. Are you going let them come out to the highway and cause the traffic problem on the highway so, I€m just trying to solve it. I hadn€t thought of the concept of requiring payment for the easement. I don€t have a problem, I don€t think it€s unfair to the owner of the larger property. He did do the subdivision this way. Nobody drew it up for him this way it was his choice. ALAMEDA:Thank you Commissioner Iwashita for bringing that up. Other questions or else we€re going to ask Mr. Lim to continue? Go ahead. LIM:Just a clarification on Condition O and we might be finished. Condition O states that-, it talks about the flood hazard districts on the property and that restrictive covenants in the deed should be included. It has a, it€s on the third sentence which states no residential lots may be created which lack a buildable area. This restriction may be removed by amendment of this, I guess its provision by the County Council, maybe that should be the word provision. The PlanningDirectorinourdiscussiononthebreakindicatedtomethatthiswouldnotpreclude development of the property for residential uses, single family residential lot uses utilizing the planned unit development tool, which is essentially a tool that can create lots that are less than the minimum building area pursuant to the zoning. The minimum building area for the multiple family residential zoned district is 7,500 square feet. The Planning Director indicated that this provision was a general condition just requiring that any lots that might be created would, would have a buildable area for the house itself and did not intend to preclude us from applying and processing a PUD. ALAMEDA:Okay. Mr. Director? YUEN:Correct. This is a standard condition that Department of Public Works asked us to put in some time ago where there might be a floodway affecting a property. And it doesn€t mean that, it doesn€t change the minimum lot size or it doesn€t set a minimum lot size. It just says that every residential lot has to have a, an area on it that€s big enough to put a house that€s outside of the floodway and so that€s all that€s that meant. ALAMEDA:Continue. LIM:Thank you and my last comment on Condition W, this is on the fourth line towards the end. It€s just a typographical thing. Covenants in all deeds to the subject property. And I think that€s all my technical comments on the proposed conditions of approval. I think we€d like to, obviously to thank the long effort by the Planning Commission on our behalf. The Traffic Impact Analysis Report will be conducted once we conduct the market study that Mr. Rapoza initially talked about as you recall. What our plan is is to go into the community and hold an affordable housing forum. And both for purpose of seeing what kind of demand is and primarily for the purpose of seeing what the type of units that people want. I mean they may want 2-bedroom, 2-baths or they may all want 1-bedroom, 1-bath. I think we have to match up what the demand is with their capacity to qualify for the affordable housing program. So once we get that, we€ll run our Traffic Impact Analysis and that€s why we€re deferring that until such time as we know really what we€re going to be doing. I mean it may be 212 multi-family units, it may be less because they want bigger units. We don€t know. We are always reserving the EXHIBIT A 29 option because of project financing or because of some of these infrastructure improvements may make the project infeasible that we might come in and do single family residential lots. But no matter what we still would comply with the applicable conditions as proposed on the affordable housing 50% requirement in Condition D of this ordinance. Thank you. ALAMEDA:Okay. Any questions for our applicants before I ask them to sit down and we can entertain Jeff€s question? Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:I just wanted to express my appreciation for all of you coming today and bringing the proposal. And I wanted to let you know I really appreciate personally your commitment to helping the affordable housing situation. And I appreciate the information about the schools because that, you know it has to be taken in, into consideration. ALAMEDA:You have any questions for them before we? IWASHITA:No just checking. I just had a clarification on this required sale language, howisthatgoingtobeaddressed? YUEN:IwillputthatintoConditionK.Andattheendofthesecondsentence and I€ll read the whole, I€ll start with the beginning of the sentence and the agreement would come to the end of it. The easement to the Kuakini access point in favor of Lot 1A shall be required only if Lot 1A is rezoned with a condition requiring it to share maintenance costs and liability for the easement and the owner of lot A shall be required to pay fair market value for the use of the easement. ALAMEDA:Mr. Lim? LIM:Our only comment would be if you take the rezone portion cause essentially like I said they could still do 14, 5-acre lots without a rezoning. ALAMEDA:Director? YUEN:Well if they did that the-, and just word it, we€re not requiring, well you need the easement to the. Well we€re only requiring an easement to a Kuakini access if Lot 1A is rezoned in the first place. LIM:Okay. ALAMEDA:Okay any other questions? Mr. Darrow? DARROW:Thank you Mr. Chairman. Chris just for clarification if I can repeat that last addition starting with your addition. And the owner of Lot 1A shall be required to compensate fair market value for the easement. Is that correct? YUEN:Well the wording was. And the owner of Lot 1A shall be required to pay fair market value for the use of the easement. EXHIBIT A 30 ALAMEDA:Mr. Darrow any follow-up? DARROW:Thank you. And also Mr. Lim if I could get your proposed change on Condition W one more time? th LIM:It€s just a simple addition of the word the‚ in the 4 line. Covenants in all deeds to the‚ subject property. DARROW:Thank you. ALAMEDA:Mr. Darrow any other? DARROW:Thank you Mr.Chair. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:I have a question for the Director with regard to this you know the interpretation with the zoning and what not. I understand your understanding to the situation as we would only require you know access through or the easement through their project if it€s rezoned. On the other hand I€m wondering where€s the access going to be if it€s not rezoned and they create you know 14, 5-acre or however many? Would that mean those would all then go onto the public and you€d have 5 more access? Or could we require an internal road that would then follow through their subdivision? YUEN:I think it€s very unlikely that the long term use of the remaining property is going to be subdivided into 5-acre lots with no further development on those lots. WATANABE:I would tend to agree with the economic value. YUEN:I€m not really worried about that scenario. If they did come in for a subdivision. One is they wouldn€t bridge the Waiaha drainage way for one thing and so you would, you€d only be dealing. And I€d have to look at that as a separate issue. But most of the property is on the southside of the Waiaha, most of the remaining acreage is on the southside of the Waiaha drainage way. Some of its on the other side of the Alii Parkway. There€s only a few acres that are on, that are mauka of this property and on this side of the Alii. So and I, I wouldn€t worry about it. WATANABE:Okay thank you. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Other questions for our applicants before I ask them to sit down? All right thank you very much you may be seated. We€ll be calling you up shortly as we briefly deliberate. Fellow Commissioners there€s alot on the table before us and through this process we€ve made a lot of statements so I think we kind of know what€s on the table. But there is an opportunity again for us to, to share our perspectives, our views. If you can keep it short to EXHIBIT A 31 the point I would appreciate that so that we could possibly entertain a motion and then move forward with this agenda item. Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Well some of the Commissioners haven€t said a word and I would really like to be apprised of their thoughts on the matter. ALAMEDA:Sure. SIRACUSA:Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Chair as a Commissioner who hasn€t said a word yet. You know we€ve been deliberating this for several months. I€ve kind of gone over things. I think most of the Commissioners here may have gotten a little bit of new information at this meeting. But for most of us I suspect you know we kind of knew where we were coming from before we came intothis,thislastmeeting.AsformepersonallyIthinkthisisagoodproject.It€sagoodtime. I think it is essential. There are some drawbacks but there are drawbacks to every, everything and I think, I just personally think this is you know I€m going to be voting in favor of this. I think this is a, this is I think essential I think for Kailua at this point in time. ALAMEDA:Thank you Commissioner McCall. How€s it Commissioner Galdones? You could feel free to share or you could pass. There€s no pressure. GALDONES:Thank you Mr. Chair. I was planning to save my statements for when we have the discussion on the motion but in line with the request by Commissioner Siracusa what our positions are I€m willing to state it at this particular time. The housing crisis that we have right now, not supposed to be happening. We€re not supposed to have that. The traffic problems that we have right now, we€re not supposed to have that. But guess what? This is not a perfect world. We are in a crisis for affordable housing right now. I have seen situations where employers are not able to get workers because there€s no homes for the workers to move into the community. And what they do is they import workers from Micronesia, Panape because there€s no affordable housing. I have a niece, she€s married to a policeman, she€s a schoolteacher. They can€t afford to buy a home. My son€s still living with me cause he can€t afford to buy a home. We have an opportunity to allow them to realize the American dream of owning a home. And so here the applicants are willing to provide that for us and I think I would be not doing my responsibilities by not providing this opportunity for our children and for our grandchildren. This opportunity for the workers that also we represent. This opportunity to be able to buy an affordable home. As far as the traffic problem that we have here. It was a great vision by I think then the Governor Burns to provide funding for Queen K. And then also provide the International Airport for Kona. We should have expanded more and have the hotels when they built the hotels to provide employee housing so that they don€t have to travel from Hilo to come to work at the Hilton Waikoloa. Unfortunately we didn€t do that. But there is a plan to take care of the traffic problem, the infrastructure here in Kona. But as the Director said it€s always where are we going to put the money? There€s always limited funding. This is where the community needs to get involved in the political action and determine what is most important to them and go to the government whether it be the County, the State or the Federal to provide moneys, provide funding so that these projects to take care of this traffic problem can be realized. There are EXHIBIT A 32 opportunities there. This is a great opportunity for us. I will not miss this opportunity. I will be voting in favor of this project. And as far as the school problem. We used to have on Konawaena High School. We have now Kealakehe. And if we provide a need for another school I€m sure that the government will also listen to us and if the cry is there for another school by providing this need I€m sure that they will also listen to that. As the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. ALAMEDA:Thank you Commissioner Galdones. Other Commissioners who didn€t feel they got their voice on the table? Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:Sure and I€ll maybe explain in a more broader brush you know what my problem is here with this application. When Mr. Ishibashi was testifying a little while ago he said I quote, We should have planned a better road system way before‚. And that€s very understandable but from my perspective we got all the plans. I remember coming down to Kona likeit€sgottabeatleast20yearsagoandourStateTrafficPlannerAlveyWrightgavea presentation and he was talking about how really bad the traffic would be in the future coming up from South Kona if some plan was not carried forward to deal with that issue. Our 1991 K to K plan says Queen Kaahumanu is planned as 4 to 6 lanes. This is 15 years ago and it has we€ll have grade separated interchanges at Kealakehe and the airport. Well listen that was a 20 year plan, we€ve got 15 years, we still got 2 lanes. We don€t have grade separated interchanges and we have a whole bunch of new interchanges so what I€m trying to say is the plans are already there. There are plans for properly handling the traffic infrastructure for this area have been here for a long time and government has not delivered. And I feel like as a Planning Commissioner the role is part representing the public and part representing the County. From the public perspective I feel like the County and the State they€re just government. So, here we€ve got government saying on one hand you know we know our duty is to provide infrastructure okay we€ll take care of that duty with our right hand. And our duty is to provide housing for the people to live here, that€s with our left hand. But there€s only one head and that€s government and that€s doing the both of them. And so somewhere along the line you have to say, you can€t keep saying we need more affordable housing we need all of this over here on the left side but we€re dropping the ball over here. And the government keeps dropping the ball over here. And so I feel like my position is I€m not asking that government make up all the past deficit before it can move more over here. All I€m saying is at least give me tit for tat if you want to move more over here we gotta have move more over here. And I appreciate the good intentions that the Planning Director and the Mayor in trying to provide affordable housing but I don€t think one hand alone is going to cut it and it€s the same head that responsible for both hands and I want to see the balance. So for that reason and the large perspective I just cannot solve a problem by more urbanization which I know is going to exacerbate the traffic issue. ALAMEDA:Thank you Commissioner Graham. Other Commissioners who didn€t feel they got their voice on the table before we move to a motion besides myself. My, I€m just you know as I look at all the conditions I€m incredibly humbled by the large amount of work that I think that our applicant, the Department, Public Works have put on this particular application. I mean the collaboration is phenomenal. And we never had, in my experience, I never had conditions that when through the whole alphabet and then some. So, you know and this is, that just tells me that, that there€s a lot of collaboration and effort to make this possible. And for me, EXHIBIT A 33 there is an affordable housing crisis. I€m you know in my mid-thirties and it€s tough to find a house. I have 5 children and might be growing I€m not sure yet but-, so I€m concerned you know as a young father. So none the less I do lean towards the affordable housing and the whole argument. And I also am humbled by the collaboration between the parties so for those 2 reasons I will voting in favor of this application. Do I hear a motion or should we invite the? Not yet. Should we invite the applicants back? TORIGOE:No. ALAMEDA:No. All right do I hear a motion? Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:I move that a favorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council on the application of State Land Use Boundary Amendment Docket SLU 05-004 inclusive of the amendment, amended conditions to Condition H, Condition I, Condition K and ConditionW. YUEN:Justapointinclarification,Ithinkthatthosewerenotnecessaryonthe State Land Use Boundary Amendment, those are all on the rezoning. WATANABE:Oh excuse. YUEN:We don€t really have, we don€t have the conditions on the boundary amendment, that€s just to take it to urban and then those are all conditions on the zoning. WATANABE:Right. ALAMEDA:We may be jumping ahead. Any motion on the boundary amendment? Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:Yeah, I move, what I said less the conditions how€s that? ALAMEDA:There€s a motion made by Commissioner Watanabe. MCCALL:Second. ALAMEDA:And a second made by Commissioner McCall regarding the boundary amendment. Roll call. DARROW:Thank you Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:Aye. ALAMEDA:Excuse me. Discussion? Thank you. Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:With regard to the applications before us I believe that with regard to the General Plan the application€s geographically well suited. I believe that the application has EXHIBIT A 34 proceeded according to purposeful purchasing and planning. I believe that the timing is right with regard to the target population and financing opportunities for them. If I were to vote against the application I would do so with reservations because of the affordable housing element. I€ll be voting in favor of the motion with regard-. I€ll be voting in favor of the motion but with reservations with regard to the traffic issues. But as Commissioner Graham has articulated there are 2 balls that have been dropped. I feel that I can address in a positive way the housing ball. And pick it up and place it into the able hands of the applicant at this time. ALAMEDA:Thank you Commissioner Springer. A motion was made and seconded. Roll call? DARROW:Thank you Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Galdones? GALDONES:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:No. DARROW:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Aye with reservations about the traffic issues. DARROW:Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:Yes. DARROW:And Mr. Chairman? ALAMEDA:Aye. DARROW:The motion passes 7 to 1. EXHIBIT A 35 ALAMEDA:We€re entertaining now a motion for the rezoning, Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:Okay, I move that a favorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council on the application for Change of Zone docket number REZ 05-013 based on the Planning Commissioner€s recommendations and proposed conditions as revised. ALAMEDA:So noted is there a second? SPRINGER:Second. ALAMEDA:There was a motion made by Commissioner Watanabe and Commissioner Springer beat out Commissioner McCall in the second. Discussion? Commissioner Iwashita. IWASHITA:Ijustwantedtoreiterateontherecordthatmythatmytheoverall concerns along the lines that Commissioner Graham expressed earlier I think we as the Commission always need to look at that and in this particular case what I am, what is moving me in terms of favoring the project is that there is a certain amount of coordination. And you know looking at the, the needs of having a school in the area where when that, when that€s ultimately built you know the (inaudible) several hundred kids that live in this area ultimately it appears will be able to walk to school. Those kind of concerns and that takes a lot out of traffic obviously. And I think that that€s really the direction that we as a community, the whole island needs to go in order to mitigate in part you know the traffic problems that that we are continue to experience more and more everyday. And so I just want to make that, make it clear on the record, that you know those concerns are always there. That again the community, I, I wanted to, and I forgot to mention earlier I wanted to commend Mr. Rapoza your great interest and direct involvement in the community development process and urge you to do whatever you can to get as much of the community involved in that process. Because in my, in my mind that is a way in which this body will be greatly assisted in future development proposals by having a Community Development Plan that addresses all of the issues. ALAMEDA:Thank you Commissioner Iwashita. Commissioner Galdones? GALDONES:Thank you Mr. Chair. I echo the same sentiment that has been expressed by my fellow Commissioners regarding the traffic problem here in Kona. Almost every application we bring here that has a development that adds to the density of the community traffic is also raised as a concern as an objection to any project. A plan is in place it€s a matter of funding for these plans from what I understand that Director Yuen is stating. And what I€d like to see is with the help of the Planning Department, Mr. Yuen, if somehow there€s a way of helping this community sort through this to have that infrastructure be in place sooner than what it is or have them realize that that plan, that it will take place it would help us also as Commissioners and also would help the Community because there€s no question there is a problem and it needs to be addressed. ALAMEDA:Thank you Commissioner Galdones. Point well taken. Other thoughts before we ask for roll? Very good Commissioners, staff? EXHIBIT A 36 DARROW:Thank you Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:Yes. DARROW:Commissioner Galdones? GALDONES:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:No. DARROW:CommissionerIwashita? IWASHITA:Aye. DARROW:CommissionerMcCall? MCCALL:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Aye. DARROW:And Mr. Chairman? ALAMEDA:Aye. DARROW:The motion passes 7 to 1. ALAMEDA:Mr. Lim, fellow applicants you will be notified. LIM:On behalf of the Lava Kuakini members thank you very much. ALAMEDA:Okay. This discussion ended at 11:41 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Lynette Marushige, West Hawaii Secretary EXHIBIT A 37