2007-04-05 TAOAO - Laserfiche WebLink

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This area of Hilo is a neighborhood in transition. When these residential lots were zoned for houses many years ago, Hilo was a small town and Punahele Street was on the outskirts of town with very little traffic. Since that time Komohana Street has been extended, the County Jail has been built, the medical buildings and the County Employee Federal Credit Union have all been built in the nearby area. In addition, nearby is a very large Intermediate School and a very, very large High School. These have also grown in size. Punahele Street is a very busy commercial area! The desire of five or six houses in the area to keep Punahele Street as a quiet neighborhood is an already lost dream. Hundreds of cars pass by these houses daily with or without one of these lots being for Punahale Professional Building which we’re asking for it to be used for parking for 20 cars. Punahele Professional Building is asking for the one residentially zoned lot that Punahale Professional Building owns to be rezoned in order to support the majority of the use of the area. If this rezoning is granted, we will keep up the fence that is currently in place, we will keep the gate that is in place and we will provide security for that lot. Although there has not been a vote taken, but if the rezoning is not granted, Punahele Professional Building has absolutely no reason to keep the fence up, no reason to keep the chain- link fence up. Our only obligation what we found in our appeal was that although it had not been done in the ten years we have to have a barrier hedge between our own property and this residential lot which we also own; and we are in the process of putting up that barrier now. So that’s our only obligation, and I think these neighbors need to understand that. They love it how it is now, it’s all fenced and gated and nobody can walk through it at all. That will not have to stay that way. If we don’t get our rezoning, the fence goes away. I don’t think there’s any requirement in the County that you mandate a residential lot have a 6-footer chain-link fence around it or to have a gate locked all the time. So those will go away and it will return. Again, if the zoning is not granted, there’s no reason to keep those in place. Then it will return to its use that it was before. Prior to us clearing the lot, completely clearing the lot, and fencing it about a year and a half ago, the former usage included the neighbors, including the County jail, using it for a parking lot, including the residential neighbors using it as a parking lot when they had extra guests over or parties or activities, the neighbors using it for staging when they had construction projects on their adjacent properties, the neighbors using it as a rubbish dump for their yard cuttings. So, again, if we don’t get our rezoning, there’s no reason it can’t return to its prior usage which was a parking lot. And I understand possibly, and I can appreciate that there might have been obscene activities going on at that time. I’m a little hardpressed to think that our doctors, professional nurses are doing those activities in a parking lot on their way to work at 6 o’clock in the morning or on their way home at 6 o’clock at night. But, otherwise -. This area of Hilo has grown and changed since the 1970’s. It will never again be a quiet residential neighborhood on a deadend street. Unless you take the jail away, the schools away, and Komohana Street away, then it can return to being a quiet neighborhood. EXHIBIT C 12