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KANUHA: Aye.
<br /> DELA CRUZ: Aye.
<br /> DEFRANCO: Aye. All those opposed? None, okay. All right, so now we are going to have
<br /> Sidney Fuke, come forward, the consultant for the applicant. Mr. Fuke, will you please raise
<br /> your right hand and swear to tell the truth today to the Leeward Planning Commission? Please,
<br /> and state your name and the town you live in.
<br /> FUKE: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, members of the Commission. I so affirm. My
<br /> name is Sidney Fuke. I'm a planning consultant. I'm here assisting the applicant landowner,
<br /> Robert Cowell, who is in the back and also his representative, John Shaw.
<br /> I really don't know why I'm saying things because I think your last testifier kind of said all the
<br /> stuff I was going to say. Essentially, that, you know, the property is, based on the General Plan,
<br /> you look at the Kona Community Development Plan, it's, it's where all your regulatory
<br /> documents say that this is where growth should go. And it's a classic infill. You saw the zoning
<br /> map; you saw a number of commercial village zone, RS-10, RS-15, and some Ag-1 zone, and
<br /> this is kind of like falls right in between. The land is certainly not agriculturally used. Its
<br /> classification is E, or very poor.
<br /> I kind of wanted to just give you a little bit background in terms of why the applicant landowner
<br /> is proposing this project. It's, right now it's zoned Ag-l. It's about 6.87 acres. So based on the
<br /> existing zoning, the applicant would be in a position to create like six one-acre size lots. Now, if
<br /> you were to do that, then there would be no affordable housing requirement. There would be no
<br /> requirement for County-dedicable standard road; you can have just a 20-foot-wide roadway. No
<br /> fair share impact fee. And obviously, if, you know, some of you live in the North Kona and
<br /> South Kona area, so you understand the value of the land now, one acre versus like trying to sell
<br /> a property that's about 10 or 15,000 square feet, so it's going to be much higher, and obviously,
<br /> you are going to be pricing more and more local people out of the market. Now, this, the owner
<br /> was able to secure 25 water commitments for this site, so the other option could be, well, why
<br /> don't you do a 25-lot subdivision? So if you were to do a 25-lot subdivision, the zoning would
<br /> have been like RS-7.5—some people pointed out some of the traffic issues in that area then
<br /> you further compound the problem. Then again, you know, with that then, you know, you kind
<br /> of destroy the, it would not be really consistent with the so-called rural area in that area, you
<br /> know, when you have much smaller loss. But so what they then looked at is that, okay, maybe
<br /> we ought to look at something in between. Something in between is what's before you right
<br /> now,just a 15-lot subdivision, the lot size consisting approximately about 14 or 15,000 square
<br /> feet in size, [inaudible] excess water. But tied in with that, because they have to go through the
<br /> zone change process, a couple things have to happen: One is that there is an affordable housing
<br /> requirement, so that's 20 percent they already have to sell it at the affordable housing rate, but
<br /> more critically, because the lots are smaller for the market, the average market rate will be
<br /> considerably less than selling it as a one-acre lot size; the other thing too is that, you know, they
<br /> now have to pay a fair share, so, that, they are willing to accept. The access issue that was
<br /> brought up earlier would thus be somewhat less dangerous than having a 25-lot subdivision.
<br /> 7
<br /> EXHIBIT E
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