2006-05-05 TMochida - Laserfiche WebLink

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In this particular situation, the nature of the project is such that you dont have the supporters, the usual supporters that would come out for like an affordable housing or housing project, because theyre not here. Unlike, you know, if you have a request for like a Charter School or a church or whatever, you have the members like coming up and you have a lot of supporters in that regards as opposed to like a housing project. But you do have neighbors who express concerns and you try to arrive at hopefully like a win-win situation; but youre kind of like, its very difficult. The other one is that, you know, I just noted that of the two testifiers Im somewhat indirectly related to them. Mr. Hirano is my wifes cousin and he spoke for it. Vicky Abe is my wifes, its all on my wifes side, my wifes sisters in-law. And so I know them personally; and Ive got a job to do. But having said that, I think that in listening to the substantive type of comments, you know, like therestheissueabouttheGeneralPlan,Imean,youknow,itwasinMediumDensity,itwent down back to Low Density, and then back again up to Medium Density. But make no mistake about it, this property is on the Medium Density side. Its the Abe-Saito side thats in the Industrial area. But not withstanding that, you know, from the General Plan standpoint, its Medium Density. And as I was indicating earlier, you know, its like calling for like a mixed type of use. You know, the question, however, is like as what Mr. Nekoba was pointing out, like maybe apartments should be or multiple family units should all be confined in one area; and he mentioned like that, you know, to Puueo. But when you think about it, like, well, is this where you want, like have all the apartments all confined to one area like in Puueo, or for that matter on the Hoolulu Park side of the Houselots area, or do you want to have more like a mixture of use? And, you know, Ive traveled, I have been fortunate enough to travel; and Ive gone to Japan like a number of times. And I find it so interesting that community because you have a mixture of uses, and they all get along. You have high rises, you have single family homes, and you have multiple family homes, you have commercial, you have industrial; and they all function as a community. And I think thats what I think is the intent behind the mixed zoning kind of concept; and you have a Medium Density that provides you with that kind of an opportunity to, you know, to capitalize on that kind of an opportunity. True, you know, there are some substantive issues. As I mentioned earlier, like from the density perspective Mr. Mochida could do a 6-lot subdivision, and do 12 units on the property, and not paying an impact fee, not doing an affordable housing, you know that kind of stuff. But it doesnt foster a true sense of community within that area. I mean thats kind of like from his perspective which I also share too. There are some environmental or infrastructure kind of questions like, you know, on the traffic. And, true, there are discussions about like, you know, if you look at the parking situation and apartments down at the Hoolulu Park end and most of those apartments were constructed prior to the current Zoning Code that we have, so everybody was just kind of doing the minimum, one stall for each apartment unit. What the Planning Department is suggesting here, which we agree, you know, given the car culture that we are in right now, a minimum of two parking stalls, and plus the two back-up areas. I realize what one of the, Rickys sister was talking about, about like the plan may be not being really reflective of, you know, if you do it by scale what could happen in that area. But, in fact, we do have scaled plans that show that if the plans are approved as being proposed, you not only have two covered stalls, but in the back of that you have a minimum of 18 to 20 feet to allow for tandem parking in that area. 22EXHIBIT C