2006-05-05 TMochida - Laserfiche WebLink

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Hirayama application generally, you know, would be applicable here. So Ill try to be very brief relative to that. Specifically, you know, the property now, what the Commissioners are considering is a 1.54 acre property, roughly 67,400 square foot area. The thought by the applicant, Mr. Mochida whos a contractor, was to do a townhouse type of project specifically designed to help address the housing needs, you know, not necessarily only in Hilo but for the whole island, but in this particular instance for the Hilo area. And its not intended to be like a rental project or a low- and moderate-income housing project. There is obviously going to be, if the project is approved, its going to be saddled with a 20 percent affordable housing requirement which hes prepared to honor and fulfill. But his initial plan was, you know, the quick and dirty way out of this, you know, from a contractors standpoint is that youve got 67,000 square feet of land and just using existing zoning, you know, create a 6-lot subdivision and put up two homes on each of them, you know, like on ohana. But what that does not do, of course, is that it does not foster a sense of homeownershipwhichiswhathewantedtocreatelike,youknow,whichatownhousewould provide that kind of opportunity, a sense of home ownership. And I think thats kind of very critical because when you have a sense of home ownership as opposed to straight-on rental, you know, you create a greater sense of cohesiveness within the community as opposed to having a lot of transients living within that area. And a lot of it is motivated by his discussions with Mr. Aburamen who grew up and lived in a home for a good number of his years and which, you know, he felt that based on like how this area has gradually been transitioned out from long-term residents to rentals to a variety of different type of commercial and industrial uses. And thats kind of like the genesis behind this whole program. The project if it gets approved and gets developed, tentatively, you know, is expected to be marketed at about $325,000 to $400,000 per unit, so youre not really looking at a very low-end type. Its a relatively moderate to moderately high end, you know, something comparable, maybe a little bit better than the Pacific townhouse project off of Kukuau Street. Specifically, the original plan called for a 34-unit project. But now because the Aburamens property is not included, basically youre looking at a, the proposal is like a 25-unit project. The Planning Director has recommended, and which we think it only makes good sense his recommendation is to require a minimum of two parking stalls per unit as opposed to the conventional requirement which is 1.25. What has been proposed right now, however, is like basically each unit would have access to four stalls. Cause, you know, you would have two covered parking stalls and in the back of the parking area, I mean, the parking stalls of course obviously you would have that theater style parking right in the back of that for guests. In addition to that like theres like ample room at both ends of the proposed cul-de-sacs within the project to provide for additional guest parking if its needed. Your staff pointed out some of the infrastructure issues. Like water is available. Theyre going to hook up to the County sewer system; and the Public Works has recommended and the Planning Director also recommended that they set aside additional right-of-way within their property and construct curb, gutter and sidewalk. And I think that, you know, as I responded to the other application regarding the drainage system as part of the permit approval process the applicant is going to have to develop two separate sets of drainage plans, one, specifically as it relates to the project itself, they have to, as required by the County Public Works Departments requirements, they have to develop a drainage plan that contains all of the project-generated water on the site. And, likewise, they have to develop a construction plan for the sidewalk 5EXHIBIT C