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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-05-22 TKONAHEIGHTS PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT MAY 22, 2008 KONA HEIGHTS, LLC (SLU 07- A regularly advertised hearing on the application of 000018/REZ 07-000075/SMA 07-00024) was called to order at 11:00 a.m. at the King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel, 75-5660 Palani Road, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, with Chairman Rodney Watanabe presiding. PRESENT: Takashi Domingo ABSENT & EXCUSED: C. Kimo Alameda Lani Bowman Andrew Iwashita (Left at 12:30 p.m.) Shelly Ogata Alvin Rho Rene’ Siracusa Rodney Watanabe Rell Woodward Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner  Maija Cottle, Staff Planner Jhq`mDlkdq+Qdoqdrdms`shudneCdo`qsldmsneOtakhbVnqjr And approximately 30 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: KONA HEIGHTS, LLC (SLU 07-000018/REZ 07-000075/SMA 07-000024) a.State Land Use Boundary Amendment for 11.054 acres of land from an Agricultural to an Urban District. b.Change of Zone for 11.054 acres of land from an Agricultural 5-acre (A-5a) to a Single- Family Residential 7,500-square foot (RS-7.5) district. c.Special Management Area Use Permit to allow the development of a 65-lot single-family residential subdivision and related improvements. The property is located at the south end of Naniloa Street and adjacent to the White Sands Beach Estates and Keauhou View Estates Subdivisions, Kapalaalaea, North Kona, Hawaii, TMK: 7-7-8:121. WATANABE: We are now on Agenda Item No. 2. The applicant is Kona Heights, LLC. This is a State Land Use 07-000018 and also REZ 07-000075 and it also involves SMA 07-000024. This involves a land area of eleven and a half (sic) acres approximately. Mr. Darrow? EXHIBIT B 1 DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I can direct the Planning Commission’s attention to the presentation on the wall. The applicant in this next case is Kona Heights LLC. Just for reference, this is again in the North Kona District, more specifically we’re looking at Alii Drive on the left side of the map running in a north-south direction. The thick white line running through the top, to the bottom of the map is the proposed Kahaluu to Keauhou Parkway or also known as the Alii Highway. The project location is identified with a black outline. Just for reference we have the Keauhou View Estates as well as the White Sands Beach Estates right in this area; and we have the Alii Heights Subdivision in this area near the proposed location. Again, we have the colors of the map representing the zoning of the area, the County zoning. The yellow represents RS-7.5 zoning. The light brown represents Single-Family Residential 15,000 square feet. Currently the property is identified in green which identifies it as Agricultural-5 acres. This next shot brings it in a little closer. Again, we can see the surrounding subdivisions in the area, Keauhou View Estates and White Sands Beach Estates and the Alii Heights up on the upper side. The General Plan for this area shows Low Density Urban on the fringe of the Urban Expansion Area. The Low Density Urban is identified with yellow, the hatched area is identified as the Urban Expansion area. The site plan submitted by the applicants, what I’ll do is I’m going to go forward and come back to that. This is an aerial photo of the location of the map. Again, we see the surrounding subdivisions that have been built out. The area of the applicant is identified in this particular area. We have the proposed Kahaluu to Keauhou Parkway in this location and we have Alii Drive running in the north-south direction. Kona Heights LLC is requesting a State Land Use Boundary Amendment for approximately 11.054 acres from Agricultural to Urban, to the Urban District. They’re also requesting a change of zone for the eleven acres, approximately eleven-acre area from Agricultural-5 acres to Single Family 7,500 square feet or RS 7.5. Lastly, they are requesting a Special Management Area Use Permit as this property is located within the Special Management Area. This is to allow the development of a 65-lot Single Family Residential subdivision and related improvements. I’m going back to the applicant’s submitted site plan. This is a proposed layout. On the left portion of the map we have Naniloa Street which will be the proposed access to this possible, one of the proposed accesses into the subdivision. Additionally, we have two connector roads that would be connecting to any development that occurs to the south. These are identified with the two arrows coming out from the bottom portion of the map. Lastly, there is a proposed mauka-makai street that may connect through the property to the west that is currently undeveloped at this time. The applicant is working with the owner to the west to be able to try to secure an access to Alii Drive. On the right side of the map we show the proposed Kahaluu to Keauhou Parkway. These are the floor plans. The applicant is proposing to do one-story models as well as two- story models. We have an elevation on the lower portion of the map that shows what the one-story and two-story units may look like from the side view as well as the floor plans. EXHIBIT B 2 This would be the floor plan for the two-story units. This would be the floor plans for the one-story units. Just for reference, this is a picture that is taken from Naniloa Street facing towards the proposed entrance from Naniloa Street to the property. Right now this is a stubout. This road running in a mauka-makai direction or from the left to the right side of the map is Queen Kalama Street. This project is what is called a LEED project; and if I can just take a minute and describe that. The project will be a sustainable low rise residential community developed with guiding principals of community connectivity, pedestrian amenities, and awareness of place. The project has been registered with the US Green Building Council as a LEED, L-E-E-D, which stands for Leadership, and Energy and Energy and Environmental Design committed to green development. So this is a registered LEED project. The applicant, again, is proposing to have 65 units on this project. After, if these applications are approved, the applicant is proposing to come in with a Planned Unit Development and that will be done administratively within the Planning Department’s office. Also, the applicant states that for affordable housing they are proposing to be able to comply with that condition on a property owned by the applicant to the mauka side of the property. Lastly, there are two archaeological sites on the property that are required to be preserved and they are going to be preserved with buffers on site. We have received quite a number of letters this morning as well as another submittal from the applicant that has proposed revised conditions; and these have been submitted to the Planning Commission. Additionally, we have sent out a revised Special Management Area Use Permit -; and the reason for that is we needed to revise several of the conditions. One of the conditions is that the effective date of the SMA Permit will be the effective date of the change of zone, that way that, because the SMA Permit will be approved by the Commission and not go up to the Council. If it is approved here the effective date won’t happen until, or if the change of zone is approved at Council -. I believe, well, I wanted to just touch upon, there are some conditions, conditions of the change of zone that should be mentioned. Condition E -. These conditions speak to the alternatives that the applicant has in regards to road improvements or access improvements. The applicant has two alternatives, in reference to Condition E. Alternative No. 1 would be to, let’s see here, correct -. This is Condition E in the change of zone. The applicant can either put in a mauka-makai connector road on the property located to the west that connects the project site to Alii Drive. If the applicant does do that then they won’t require, they will not be required to do Alternative No. 2. Alternative No. 2 is that the applicant will be required to do improvements at the Queen Kalama and Alii Drive intersection and this would include pavement widening, retaining structures, relocation of utilities, improvement of site distance, as well as a left-turn lane; and that will be Alternative No. 2. Condition F requires that the project have two connector roads to the south property, and it shows on the applicant’s site plan that they have that proposed in there. Additionally, it says that all streets within the project shall be constructed with curbs, gutters and sidewalks if they are part of a route providing connections between Naniloa Street, Alii Drive, and the adjacent property to EXHIBIT B 3 the south. Lastly Condition J, this is a condition having to do with noise abatement measures that will need to be addressed. The Planning Director is recommending that the Planning Commission send a favorable recommendation to the Hawaii County Council for the State Land Use Boundary Amendment as well as the Change of Zone, and he is recommending that the Planning Commission approve the Special Management Area Use Permit. Are there any questions? WATANABE: Yes, Mr. Rho. RHO: You mentioned affordable housing requirements and one of the maps that you showed, you show – that map – the black outline is where the development as presently being proposed? DARROW: Correct. RHO: And you said mauka of it and mauka of the proposed Alii Parkway is where the affordable housing is going to be or is being proposed? HAYASHI: Yeah, it’s not at this location where Jeff had pointed out. If you can show the bigger map, Jeff, of this. Okay, that would, the affordable housing would be located on these lots here; and these are also owned by the applicant. They are coming before, they have applied for a State Land Use Boundary Amendment with the State Land Use Commission. That will be discussed at a later time by the Land Use Commission. But the proposal is to provide an affordable housing requirement for the makai property on the mauka portion. WATANABE: Ms. Siracusa. SIRACUSA: I would like to understand why, this seems like it’s coming before us jumping the gun because the County Council passed Resolution 529-08 which was the moratorium on upzoning in North and South Kona until the community development plan could be adopted by ordinance or December 1, 2008, whichever shall occur first. It seems to me that this coming before us now, what I’m wondering is are we supposed to be approving or denying it based on tentatively what will happen at that point or are we trying to circumvent that whole resolution? I don’t understand why we’re getting it now. WATANABE: Ms. Siracusa, I believe the Planning Director explained that in his write-up, and indicated that applications for rezoning are subject to different rules that supersede a resolution that you’re speaking to and -. SIRACUSA: I’ve read the Planning Director’s response -. WATANABE: And so we do have to respond. SIRACUSA: It didn’t answer my concerns. EXHIBIT B 4 WATANABE: But we still have to respond by law. SIRACUSA: I’m wondering why the applicant has chosen to do it at this time st instead of waiting until December 1 and then submitting it so that we don’t have to deal with that whole question. WATANABE: Well -. DARROW: If it’s okay with Commissioner Siracusa, if we could defer that question to the applicant? SIRACUSA: I will do that. DARROW: Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Okay, just for clarification though I believe the rules allow for affordable housing to be developed or placed within the 15-mile radius so it does not necessarily have to be on the parcel in question. Is that correct, Mr. Darrow? DARROW: Correct. WATANABE: Thank you. Mr. Yuen. YUEN: Just on that same point, the proposed rezoning condition is the standard affordable housing condition which would allow them, they could do it on site, they could do it some place else within a 15-mile radius, they could purchase affordable housing credits if they’re available. There are a number of options for them. They’re only, I think, expressing their current plan of putting affordable housing on the mauka property. If that, for example, like if the property does not get rezoned and reclassified then that plan will fall through but they’ll still have to do affordable housing somehow. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Also, for further clarification since we have that zoning map up there, Mr. Darrow, is that area where the proposed affordable housing located within the Urban Expansion area? DARROW: That is correct. WATANABE: Okay -. DARROW: That would be in this general location. WATANABE: Yeah, okay. Thank you. So basically the GP says we’re going to expand there. Okay, do we have any further -, yes, Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: Quick question. Pardon my ignorance, but the access to the potential affordable housing would be from where? EXHIBIT B 5 DARROW: At this time I’m not familiar with that project so if, maybe the Director might know. WATANABE: Mr. Yuen. YUEN: There would, you see the series of, in brown, there’s a grid of streets in there? BOWMAN: Yes. YUEN: That’s Towne Development, and it’s subdivided out. There are two streets that stubout to the south property. The access to that, to that area would have to come from those side streets and then go to Laaloa, and then from Laaloa to -. BOWMAN: Could you show Laaloa, sorry. YUEN: Yeah, that’s Laaloa. And currently Laaloa only goes to Alii Drive. Laaloa would have, under the current plans there’d be a major intersection between Laaloa and the Kahaluu-Keauhou Parkway; and, also, Laaloa would eventually, is supposed to be extended up to Kuakini. BOWMAN: And Kuakini is where? YUEN: There. BOWMAN: So there couldn’t be access from Kuakini? YUEN: When Laaloa is extended to Kuakini, yes. BOWMAN: Thank you. WATANABE: Do we have any further questions for staff? Thank you. Then may I call up the applicants, please. Please raise your right hand so I can swear you in. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do. WATANABE: Thank you. Mr. Lim, I assume you’re going to begin so, you know, the drill, name and address. LIM: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission. Steven Lim from Carlsmith Ball. We’re here today representing Kona Heights LLC. With us today are the principals, Mr. Ernest Mansi, Dave Golden and Greg Golden. We’ve got with us also the project planners Group 70 International, with one of their principals, George Atta, sitting next to me and Gladys Quinto who’s seated in the back there. EXHIBIT B 6 And we’ve got our project community consultants James Ken and Associates represented by Trish Malone who’s back there. And Carlsmith by myself and Jennifer Benckwho’s right here. We’re going to be turning the presentation of the project over to Mr. Atta. He’ll give us a brief overview of the project, touching upon the LEEDS and the other issues that have been raised by the Commissioners thus far. Then we’ll go into a discussion of our proposed conditions that we submitted to you today in my letter. Thank you very much. WATANABE: Thank you. Yeah, state your address, please, Mr. Atta. ATTA: My name is George Atta, I’m with Group 70 International. My address is 925 Bethel Street, Honolulu, Hawaii. Actually the staff did a fairly good comprehensive overview of the project so I’m just going to add some additional highlights which I think are relevant to the overall description of the project. First of all, we’re looking at an average price point of about $650,000 as for the market homes. Of course, the affordable hosing will be within the affordable housing range. And we have been in discussion with the Housing Office and we will be attempting to, we will be targeting 30 percent of our credits for affordable housing. The LEED situation actually is something that’s also very important to us. So we will be, we’ve been in discussion with the Department of Water Supply to reduce the water consumption. So to reiterate LEED is a new, I guess, methodology for building green buildings. And as staff mentioned, we’re a registered LEED Project. What that means is that every house, every structure in this development will at least meet a minimum of a, LEED certified, so it will be every building will be a green building. We’ve also added upgrades so that we will have options for individual homeowners to add photovoltaic panels on their roofs. So they will have standard solar hot water heater and as an add-on they will also have photovoltaics and other options. And we’re still evolving some of the options that we have. As part of the LEED criteria we are planning fixtures and things within the house as well as landscape designs that will cut the per-unit consumption of water by 30 percent; and that will reduce the overall water demand for the project. We have a cultural advisory committee; and working with them they’ve asked that we maintain our landscaped concept and palette so that it’s compatible with Kona. So we will be having a native species palette that will be working and it will also be a zeriscape palette so that it will be compatible with the climate. One thing we would like to mention, if you look at the overall General Plan map, we view our project as an in-fill project because the zoning to the, Keauhou to the south already has all of the zoning for development, and both the north and the south side has already been placed in the State Urban District. So this strip of land, our eleven-acre parcel, is in a small strip of land that is in Ag and so we think it qualifies as an in-fill development. We note that the Kona CDP refers to a preference for developments that are in-fill and of a slightly higher density, and that one of the TOD locations is just along Alii Drive; and so we’re close to the TOD location. And, we’re an in-fill development and with slightly density; and we think those are elements of the Kona CDP that we’re consistent with. So we think we’ve been, I mean, we’ve had Trish Malone attending the meetings and keeping us abreast as to what the elements of the Plan as I think most of you are aware, the Plan has been evolving over a long EXHIBIT B 7 period of time. So we’ve been keeping track and trying to make our project consistent with the CDP. I think Chris Yuen mentioned the connectivity and, yeah, we’re showing the connectivity. So we’re planning for the connectivity. There’s an emergency access that is on the top side of the last, first cul-de-sac. That’s based on discussions we’ve had with the Public Works about the need for emergency access so that -. Right now we don’t show a road connection to Alii, the proposed Parkway; but we’re going to be designing that cul-de-sac so that emergency vehicles and regular vehicles in the event of an emergency can also use that as an access out of the property. And as was mentioned earlier we are working with the property owner to the west, Metzler Group, and we have a written agreement for construction access to Alii Drive, so none of the construction vehicles will go through. I think we’re very close to getting agreement on a permanent access as well. So our first preference is to turn the Alii Drive connection as the primary access to the project. And so, you know, while things are not finalized on the permanent access I think we’re close to an agreement on that. And we’ve been talking also to KIC about their plans in trying to make our plans of connectivity related to theirs, and so that discussion is on-going right now. And I don’t know, Steve-? LIM: Okay. I think you received this morning our letter transmitting our proposed conditions of approval in red-line format. ATTA: Oh, Steve -. LIM: I’m sorry. ATTA: One thing I forgot, yeah, this is a last-minute thing, I just forgot. On the site plan at the entrance to Naniloa Drive, there had been concerns about open space and park, and while our overall plan was to put our park -. You know, our original plan was to do all of our park dedication on the mauka parcel, if possible, or to pay the park dedication fee if we didn’t get the mauka rezoning. We have, we’ve been in discussion with some of the community people over the last couple of days; and this morning we’ve decided to make a commitment to convert this first parcel, it’s about 5,000 square feet, right at the entrance, and turn that into a park with a tot lot on it. So that’s a change in our site plan that we’ve just made; and we’ve made a commitment to do. So that will meet some of the park dedication as well as some of the increase in the open space that this site plan represents. That’s an additional part of our proposal right now. LIM: I think what we’ll be proposing is a condition be added to the ones that I’m going to be talking about right now, is there’s, relating to this recreational areas, something to the effect that the applicant shall provide a recreational area of approximately 5,000 square feet at the Naniloa Street entry to the proposed subdivision which shall be maintained by the Owners Association. Okay, moving on to the submittal that we made today -. SIRACUSA: Could, excuse me, could I ask a question before you move on? Is that -? EXHIBIT B 8 WATANABE: Go ahead. SIRACUSA: Okay, you were pointing to that upper left-hand corner and saying that’s where you’re considering the park. But I just pulled that, the map, and that shows that that’s where the archaeological sites are.So could you address that, how you’re going to work those two functions in? ATTA: Actually, the arch site is -. WATANABE: Mike, please. Thank you. ATTA: Okay, the arch site actually is, most of the arch site really is on the makai parcel that doesn’t belong to us; and part of that spills over into our site. So in reality the entrance road separates the arch site from the thing. So when we mentioned this parcel, this parcel does not have the arch sites. So, yeah, so there really is no conflict cause the arch site is in this area here, across the street from the park. BOWMAN: Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Can we hold our questions maybe till they’re done with their presentation? BOWMAN: Sure. WATANABE: Mr. Lim, you want to proceed? LIM: Well, if they have questions, I guess, on the application itself maybe we can answer those and we can handle everything at the end. Please go ahead. WATANABE: Oh, okay. Then Ms. Bowman you had a question? BOWMAN: Thank you. Five thousand square feet is not considered a park. So it would be, could you maybe elaborate on that? LIM: We’re envisioning this to be a recreational area, like a tot lot. We haven’t talked with -. BOWMAN: A tot lot, I’m sorry -? LIM: Right. It’s one of those that is not a ballpark or those types of things; and this is intended to provide some buffer to the adjacent property owner also. BOWMAN: Okay, just that one lot as a buffer? EXHIBIT B 9 ATTA: Well, it’s mainly just a small open space, a place where you can have a safe place enclosed where kids could play and then also maybe you could have a picnic or two for that community. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: I have a follow-up to that. But you’re not proposing to eliminate any of the buffer area above this? ATTA: No. Yeah, this is in addition. WATANABE: Yeah, that would front the proposed Parkway? ATTA: Right. WATANABE: Thank you. ATTA: Yeah, this is in addition to park dedication requirements which we will still meet. So this does not take away anything from any of the earlier commitments we’ve made or any of the requirements for park decision. BOWMAN: So this would be in addition? ATTA: This would be in addition. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you for that clarification. WATANABE: Yes, Ms. Siracusa? SIRACUSA: Yes. Mr. Atta, a little earlier you mentioned that your plan was consistent with the Kona Community Development Plan. ATTA: We think so. We’ve been trying to make it so. SIRACUSA: Yeah, I have, I would like to inform you that besides receiving all of this this morning to digest in 20 minutes, thank you, we also received the Kona Community Development Plan; and we have not, of course, had an opportunity to review that because that’s on the CD. So, therefore, we cannot judge whether we would agree with your take on it that the two documents are consistent with each other. I for one prefer to make my own decisions on those sorts of things. And so I would come to the question I asked before of Mr. Darrow. And that is that considering that we’re moving within only about, you know, a little more than six months to the deadline for the Kona Community Development Plan, why you chose to jump the gun and present this to us now rather than waiting until the Community Development Plan had been approved by ordinance; and then we could all, we would have seen whatever it is and be able to base our decisions on that? Why, you know, why now? EXHIBIT B 10 ATTA: I guess this development process is a long process, even for the private owners who have to plan things and, you know, pay for studies and stuff like that. When we were starting this, David and Greg Golden and Ernie Mansi have been actually involved in it for two, a little over two years, almost three years from when they first started looking at the property. The CDP, the original deadline for completion of the CDP was much earlier at that time and we were kind of started our studies with the idea and thinking that the CDP would be completed by the end of last year; and so that was the timing that we were initially going with. We understand that it got extended as the work of the committee involved more, and more, you know, more communication with the community. And so that’s why the timing doesn’t fit. We had made it with the original schedule in mind; and so that’s how come we submitted it within that timetable. But we’re, you know, we’re aware of the moratorium so we know that the rezoning will be, you know, conditional on the CDP approval; and we understood that. But, you know, as in development timing is important, both from a pricing and market standpoint; and so there’s always a risk involved. We’re trying to minimize the lag times and delay and be ready. So, and we thought we were doing it. Obviously when the CDP deadline extended then that changed it.But some of the financing and planning, you know, is due to that schedule. And so that’s why we submitted it. It was never with any intention of trying to supersede or preempt any of the, you know, the work of the CDP there. Cause we’ve been keeping in close contact with that. SIRACUSA: Follow-up? WATANABE: Follow-up. th SIRACUSA: I do notice that the resolution was signed on March 12 so you did have time to ask for a delay to have this come to us later on. I really wished you had because it’s an awful lot of material to present us with and ask us to make a decision that may or not really be consistent with the CDP, which we haven’t seen yet. And I like to feel that, you know, I’m being diligent in reviewing all the material before I make my decisions; and you’ve sort of taken that away from me, and I’m not happy with that. So I just want you to know that, that that, there may have been all these other reasons but it still means that the Commissioners do not have an opportunity to adequately study this matter and study it in relation to the draft CDP. WATANABE: Mr. Rho. RHO: In the background report, Applicant Exhibit 9, are you familiar with that? LIM: This is -? RHO: And I have questions on paragraphs 2, 3, and the last paragraph. It says on the second paragraph that the developer will fulfill County park requirements by providing a three-acre park on nearby land. And you mentioned in passing something about that park would be mauka of the property. Is that on the same, in the same area as that affordable housing? EXHIBIT B 11 ATTA: Yes, it is. RHO: And would the developer then subtract the 5,000 square feet from that three acres? ATTA: No, we wouldn’t. RHO: Would the developer increase the three-acre commitment? ATTA: Well, at this point we haven’t. And I do want to clarify that the three- acre park actually we will continue to, we have two additional acres that are in private use that we are not planning to dedicate to the County; but it will be part of the reserved open space that the park dedication asks for. So we have the three-acre parcel that we’re working with Parks Department to design so that they can accept it. And then we have, we already have two additional acres in common areas that will be reserved as open space related to park dedication. So we actually have five acres up there. And so this 5,000 -. RHO: But they’re, are they contiguous? ATTA: The one-acre mewsare common areas between our eight-plex multi- family units, so they’re not contiguous to the park. They’re spread into the development as neighborhood open areas that multi-family units will be able to use right in front of their doorways. RHO: And specifically, well, going a little bit away from this paragraph 2, is there any plan, and I don’t see it in the plan, but maybe you can clarify, is there any plan to have a rec center for the little subdivision? ATTA: There won’t be a rec center. I mean, it’s, the site itself is long and narrow so even putting a standard ball field was a bit of a challenge. What we will have -. RHO: How about a swimming pool? ATTA: We won’t have things like that. What we will have beside the playing field there is a comfort station and a small pavilion that would allow some community activities. rd RHO: On the 3 paragraph of water commitment, and apparently based on the Board of Water Supply -. ATTA: What paragraph are you looking at now? RHO: The third. ATTA: Third, and same exhibit? EXHIBIT B 12 RHO: Yes. ATTA: Same exhibit. RHO: Same exhibit. My understanding is the Board of Water Supply says they only, or you don’t have enough commitment for water. And you folks are saying that you do based on this LEED registered project. ATTA: Yes. RHO: But in that same paragraph you folks write “As such, the water demands for the project should be at least 30 percent less than that of traditional residential subdivisions. Applicant is also exploring the option of participating in privately owned water systems that will eventually be dedicated to the County.” So it, the way I read it is you’re not really sure that whatever you guys are doing in terms of green is going to cover that water commitment; therefore you’re going to explore this private water system. So I just wanted a clarification on that. ATTA: The private water system is Plan B; and I think that this notion of a LEED water reduction thing, it’s a new thing in Hawaii. And I don’t think there’s a neighborhood development in Kona that’s 100 percent LEED. So we’ve done our calculations, we’ve worked with our landscape architects with the different kinds of design features and measures for reducing the demand and based on our calculations we can meet it. But, you know, and the Board of Water, and we’ve been talking to them, they said, okay, sounds like a good idea but how can we be sure that it will work; and so we provided backup information from the mainland and EPA statistics and they’ve been, basically saying, okay, we’re willing to give it a try but they don’t want to be stuck with a situation where for some reason we might not make it like -. And so there’s, I guess, an agreement with the Department of Water Supply that we will monitor, as we’re developing the project, there will be a master water meter to kind of watch whether we are actually are meeting our 30 percent or more water reduction targets. And after 50 units which is the number of credits we have based on the standard thing there will be an assessment. And if we’ve shown that we actually are meeting those targets then they’re okay with the additional 15 units. So it’s a, kind of like almost like a performance based agreement. You know, if we can show we can do it, then they’ll be okay with 65 units. If, you know, as we’re developing we’re not showing that we can prove it, then we’ll be, you know, we’ll stay within the traditional amount; and that’s what it is. And so from our side we have been talking about getting additional water credits. That’s as a Plan B. Our Plan A is to do this LEED and to make it work. RHO: And then on that last paragraph you write “Development of the property is not expected to have any significant impact on the area, roads” and then it goes on to “sewers, drainage police and fire protection.” But from what I’ve read, in the short time that we’ve had your documents, all the documents, there seems to be a problem with the roads. I mean, it’s, you have, well, from what I’ve read there are conflicting statements as to EXHIBIT B 13 whether or not the project really affects the roads to the extent that it’s detrimental, I guess, is my best way to express it. So do you have any more, well, any comments besides what’s written in these documents about the roadways? ATTA: I don’t know about additional, and I do want to make a general statement, and I’d like to bring down our traffic engineer if there are any specific questions. But I guess the word “significant” or, is really the issue. I mean obviously any development will have some impact on the adjacent traffic area. Our proposed project is 65 units and based on certain occupancy and certain housing types there are certain factors about how much traffic it actually will generate. Some of the comments that we’re aware of are about existing conditions on Queen Kalama, Alii Drive and Laaloa connections to Kuakini, and the level of service on Kuakini right now being at E. We’re aware of those existing conditions. They exist with or without our project. And the worsening conditions probably will continue with or without our project. So when you talk about significance it’s, part of it is a question of different people have different measures. I think one of the, the concurrency requirements about significant impact is that you’re not supposed to connect up to a major roadway at a Level of Service E. And so the question is whether our project would raise any of the major streets in the area to a Level of Service E; and I don’t think based on our traffic engineer’s study it doesn’t do that. So, you know, that’s one measure. Somebody else may have a different measure. So, you know, because we don’t trigger that measure, we think that’s why we came to the conclusion that it’s not a significant impact. And so, you know, I think that’s my general answer. I don’t know if there’s a specific question that needs to be addressed that our traffic engineer can address. We are definitely looking at the, as I mentioned, we had a construction access and we’re close to a permanent access on the west road. If the west road, if that connection becomes our permanent access and which we think it will be, then the issues on Queen Kalama become, we think at least from our project impact, it will be a minor impact. It doesn’t change the fact that there is an existing problem there. WATANABE: Ms. Bowman? BOWMAN: I have a question. Going back to your water requirements and the first 50, and then if you suffice you will build the next 15. Will they be similar in character? ATTA: Yes. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: Along those lines, while we’re on that, you did hand in the proposed Condition C which addresses that, yeah? ATTA: Yes. WATANABE: Which is Phase I consisting of a maximum of 50 lots. I believe these are the results from the discussions with Department of Water Works? ATTA: Yes, it is, yeah. EXHIBIT B 14 WATANABE: For staff, do we have that in the proposed conditions right now? YUEN: Well, Norman discussed this with Department of Water Supply and my understanding is that they prefer the current condition. I’m not averse to changing the condition if you feel there’s something with the current condition that keeps you from implementing this 50 and 15 agreement. But we’re satisfied with a more general water condition where then you have to work it out with the Department of Water Supply as to how you implement this. I don’t see something in our Condition B that prevents you from going ahead with this master meter 50 and 15 proposal. So -. LIM: We agree. Part of the reason why we included the condition as a formal submittal to the Commission was that we were talking with the Department of Water Supply; and these are the elements we talked about that were acceptable to both parties. So if the Planning Director is preferring to leave out our proposed Condition C, then that’s fine with us. WATANABE: Yeah. You still agree that that’s the process you’ll follow anyway, right? ATTA: I think, you know, if, I mean, the record of this Planning Commission shows that that’s the understanding, yeah, we don’t have any problem with that. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Ms. Siracusa. SIRACUSA: Yes. If by any chance things don’t work out with the Water Department and you have to reduce to 50 houses, okay, Plan B, what then happens with the land that those 15 houses would have been on? Would you consider converting that acreage to park space? ATTA: At this pint, I don’t think we’ve discussed it or thought about it enough to make any commitment on what that would be -. SIRACUSA: How much acreage would that be? ATTA: Well, we’re looking at, I guess, 15 lots by 4500 square feet, so -. Let’s see, well, one and a half acres, yeah. Yeah, about one and a half acres. We may end up making bigger lots. SIRACUSA: Better than what you’re asking for now. WATANABE: Okay. Yes, Mr. Domingo. DOMINGO: Yeah. How will you folks satisfy the affordable housing issue? EXHIBIT B 15 ATTA: Right now our plan is to do 30 percent affordable and to do it on that mauka land. That’s our plan. DOMINGO: On property? ATTA: Yes. WATANABE: Did you say 30 percent? ATTA: Yes. That’s been, that’s what we started from the start. We know that the County requirement is 20 percent but from the very beginning we’ve been saying that, you know, we’ll be doing 30 percent, although the condition is just standard County, and that’s fine. But, you know, from our plans we’ve always had 30 percent as our plan. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Yes, Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: I want to apologize because I think, like Ms. Siracusa, I have not had time to really embellish your project. But, in my review, you know, you state that the project barely exceeds the 50 trip minimum threshold for the TIAR and you have noted that Alii Drive is already, has problems. There’s a certain thing as a holding capacity and sometimes if you go over that threshold -. So I think we need to be cognizant of that. And it says a development that will generate 50 or more trips at the a.m. or p.m. peak hour, so I don’t know, that’s a.m. or p.m. peak hour -. ATTA: I think the p.m. peak is the key but to clarify that I’d like to bring Randy Okaneku our traffic engineer to give a more detailed and broader explanation on that analysis. Randy? WATANABE: Okay, Mr. Kaneko (sic), would you raise your right hand, please. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? OKANEKU: I do. WATANABE: And would you formally state name and address, please, for the record. OKANEKU: My name is Randall Okaneku. I’m with the Traffic Management Consultant. I prepared the traffic study for La‘ipala Makai. My address is 1188 Bishop Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813. WATANABE: You may proceed. OKANEKU: I want to clarify the questions on Alii Drive. The problem on Alii Drive is not the facility itself. It’s the intersection of Alii Drive and Queen Kalama Avenue. That’s where the problem occurs, the current problem occurs right now. The sight distance is EXHIBIT B 16 a problem in both directions where if you’re coming down Queen Kalama you look to the left there’s a, I don’t know my landscaping, but there’s a -. ATTA: Bougainvillea. OKANEKU: Bougainvillea brush that obstructs the view to the left; and to the right there’s a cut rock’s face that’s obstruct the view to the right. So as far as Alii Drive, their capacity there is probably, my projections anyway, looks to, that to the year 2020 it won’t go beyond the Level of Service D, which is considered a minimum acceptable level of service by the County. So as far as the, the facility itself there’s a lot of capacity there. And it’s just that one intersection itself there’s a physical constraint, not necessarily an operational one but a physical one which translate into a safety, you know, constraint. Sight distance there is, my guess it would be around 200 feet, which is sufficient for what we would term call stopping sight distance, which is the minimum, the bare minimum where somebody traveling Alii Drive sees somebody coming out of Queen Kalama would be able to stop safely without a crash. But the current standard is that a person coming out of Kalama, Queen Kalama Avenue should be able to turn onto Alii Drive without interfering at all with Alii Drive. So that’s the optimum condition where somebody turning onto Alii Drive won’t slow down traffic on Alii Drive or create a crash. WATANABE: We have any, Mr. -? RHO: Therefore, the turn lanes? OKANEKU: Yes. That’s, well, one of the, I guess, mitigation measures. But the turn lane doesn’t satisfy the sight distance yet. That just reduces the delay on Alii Drive traffic. You still need to clear the corner, basically the corner sight distance from Queen Kalama looking out toward Alii Drive. RHO: In the report it’s Exhibit 3, and further on it’s Exhibit, if you can just mark it, it’s Exhibit 3, Exhibit 4 -. DARROW: Commissioner Rho, would this be -? RHO: And Exhibit, you don’t have that? DARROW: Would this be the Planning Department’s exhibits or the Applicant’s exhibits? RHO: I guess it’s the Planning Department’s, 15, 15, 3 and 4. It’s near the back of the thick document. And as all the other Commissioners mentioned, I didn’t get a chance to read everything in this document, especially the last couple of pages. And my understanding is the last couple of pages you folks are responding to some of the comments made by either the Police Department, the Traffic Safety Committee or the Public Works Department. And admitting that, I wanted to ask you about specifically Exhibit 3, page 3, EXHIBIT B 17 yeah, page 3, the last page of that exhibit, Exhibit 3, page 3; and it’s the paragraph numbered No. 1 near the top of the page. LIM: Exhibit 3, page 3. OKANEKU: Are you looking at the traffic study itself, on page 3? RHO: Yes. OKANEKU: Okay. RHO: The topic is traffic and then it starts with “We reviewed the traffic st analysis report dated October 31.” DARROW: I’m sorry, if I could interrupt for a minute. Steve, I think they’re talking about the Public Work’s memo. That’s our Planning Department’s Exhibit 3, page 3, as well as the Planning Department’s Exhibit 4 and 15. OKANEKU: Okay, go ahead. RHO: In No. 1, the first sentence says “The report does not evaluate the facility Level of Service on Alii Drive in the project vicinity.” The second sentence reads “The TIAR only evaluates the intersection LOS at Alii Drive and Queen Kalama Avenue.” So is that a, in your mind anyway, a factual statement? OKANEKU: Well, yes. This letter was written in review of a 2007 study that was done last year. That was actually prepared prior to the concurrency standards that were developed in the last year as well. So the update of the traffic study does satisfy the concurrency standards as far as looking at Alii Drive, the Parkway, Kuakini Highway and going, you know, to a 20-year timeframe. So -. RHO: So if I actually read that section of the report or that report would it give me an alpha listing or alpha category for Alii Drive, like A, B, C, D or E, or F? OKANEKU: Yes. And the discussion does have it, yes. RHO: And so can you tell me what that alpha would be? OKANEKU: Okay. Let’s see, if you just want to focus on, I guess the p.m. peak period is the critical period. I mean it’s a lot, traffic is a lot higher than the morning. Okay, the existing level of service on Alii Drive during the p.m. peak is Level of Service D and will continue to be Level of Service D pretty much throughout the analysis through all the different timeframes, given Kahaluu Parkway being constructed. I did further analysis where if Kahaluu Parkway, Kahaluu to Keauhou Park is not constructed the Alii Drive would operate at Level of Service D up to the year 2020, at which point it would degrade to Level of Service E, without the Parkway now, yeah. EXHIBIT B 18 RHO: Okay, then on, if you turn the page there’s another letter from that st same engineer dated April 21, still about traffic. And then the third, are you there? OKANEKU: Yes. RHO: And the third paragraph it reads “The report further assumes that” and I’m not sure, maybe he’s referring to the old report or the new report, “The report further assumes that proposed Laaloa Avenue Extension and Alii Highway will be completed by the year 2016, and then most of the traffic will be coming to the development from Kuakini Highway by way of Laaloa Avenue. However, the report also shows that Kuakini Highway now has and will continue to have Level of Service ‘E’ by definition a ‘worse than the acceptable level of service’ under the Hawaii County Code …..” Do you agree with that statement? OKANEKU: Yes. RHO: So, this is not a question, so I’ll skip that. On Exhibit 4 it’s from John Dawrs, Assistant Chief, Police Department; and in his letter paragraph 3, he writes “Staff specifically recommends against any further rezoning in this area until such time as the proposed Kahaluu-Keauhou Parkway has been completed and is open to traffic.” And his letter talks about safety issues, etc., etc. So in general do you folks agree with his letter or do you folks have problems with his letter? WATANABE: Mr. Lim? LIM: No, we don’t agree with the letter; and I think Mr. Okaneku was just trying to answer your questions, you know. With respect to the last point, I think we agree that Kuakini Highway is and will continue to be at Level of Service E; and that’s why we did an updated report in this month; and you should have that in your file, too. It’s a May letter from Mr. Okaneku that basically says he had analyzed the project traffic assuming that none of the roads were built and that we would only be taking access off of Alii Drive. And that would be resulting in traffic Level of Service D all the way through year 2020. RHO: So, can I ask another question related to all of that. If the Alii Parkway is completed, Alii Drive is as is, and Kuakini Highway is as is, will Kuakini still be Level E? OKANEKU: Yes. RHO: Yes? OKANEKU: Yes. It will operate as far as from a -. It will operate as it is operating now with the growth. Now through, you know, the next 20 years with Kahaluu Parkway pretty much will absorb the growth, traffic growth from Kuakini Drive. So -. EXHIBIT B 19 RHO: How about Alii Drive, would it stay at D? OKANEKU: Alii, yes, it will stay at D. RHO: And, of course, you don’t have any projection for Alii Parkway? OKANEKU: I have that also as D. RHO: You have D -. OKANEKU: Yes. RHO: D and E? OKANEKU: Yes. Yeah, D, D, right. Okay, right. RHO: And E on the top? OKANEKU: E at the top. Kuakini is still, you know, functions as the arterial. The other two are pretty much minor arterial where Kuakini pretty much is the Belt Road, so it still will carry the brunt or the biggest load of traffic. So Parkway pretty much, just like I said, absorbs the growth of traffic in the region, not necessarily improves any facility, at least not in the long-term anyway. RHO: And there’s also Exhibit 15 which is the Kona Traffic Safety Committee. OKANEKU: Okay, got it. RHO: Did you have any comments about anything in that letter? OKANEKU: I don’t generally have a problem with the 65 unit subdivision with a single access. That’s not uncommon. When the numbers get up to, you know, 200 dwelling units then it becomes a problem as far as access for fire, emergency vehicles, that kind of thing. As far as, you know, the shopping trips, I mean, that’s typical of any residential subdivision. You know, there’s no store within, especially a small subdivision. If it’s a, you know, 1000-unit development you would expect some kind of a commercial property. Whereas, you know, just a small infill, you know, project like this, yes, everybody is driving in and out, going to school, going to work, or going shopping. RHO: And then I have a last question which doesn’t have anything to do with this really, except I’m curious as to whether or not you or your firm has conducted traffic studies in Kona previously. OKANEKU: Yes. I’ve done the traffic study for the Keauhou Resort, most recently anyway. EXHIBIT B 20 WATANABE: Okay. Along those lines, since you did indicate that Kuakini will remain at Grade E, yeah, did – and I don’t know if this was within the scope of your study, but – did you do a study if the proposed Bypass Road – I’m not talking about the Parkway, but the Bypass Road that extends beyond that – if that were built, what then would happen to the flow of Kuakini Highway? OKANEKU: No, I have not done that kind of analysis yet. WATANABE: That was kind of outside the scope then? OKANEKU: I have inquired with State DOT as far as the status of Kuakini Highway. Now they’re, I think some time this year they’re going to be beginning a planning study for the widening of Kuakini Highway, which would probably go from Henry Street, well, Queen K and Henry Street and all the way to Kamehameha III Road. So, but -. WATANABE: Yeah, because really our problem is that we don’t have workforce housing and most of the people are going back home in the evening hours and so, yeah, naturally Kuakini can’t improve until you have the Bypass Road that comes out, I guess it exits or joins at Napoopoo junctions, yeah? And, you know, we’re not bypassing anything other than that. So we still got Kainaliu as a bottleneck. OKANEKU: Well, the Bypass you’re talking about, the Hokulia Bypass? WATANABE: Right. OKANEKU: Oh, okay. WATANABE: Right, right, right. Did you do any analysis as to how that Bypass would help or potentially help Kuakini? OKANEKU: I’ve reviewed that as part of the Keauhou Resort analysis because that was done by another project to the south of us. I mean, it would, you know, divert some of the Kuakini traffic through the Kealakehe, not Kealakehe -. LIM: Kealakekua? OKANEKU: Kealakekua, right. WATANABE: Right. OKANEKU: Captain Cook area, okay, that, Kainaliu and through that area. But once it gets into the Keauhou Resort area, then without, you know, the Alii Parkway, first of all, then traffic diverts back up to, you have Kuakini or down to Alii Drive. And the Parkway is pretty much an extension of that Bypass until it hits, you know, well, Lako at first and then beyond up to Kuakini. So that in itself is a segment that won’t affect this, you EXHIBIT B 21 know, area specifically. I mean it’s just, it will be the Parkway that’s going to really affect this corridor right here. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Yes. BOWMAN: Just a quick clarification. Your updated traffic impact analysis report th was the February 28 right? OKANEKU: Two thousand and eight. Yes. BOWMAN: Yes, 2008. Thank you. WATANABE: Yes, Ms. Siracusa. SIRACUSA: I’m not a traffic engineer but I have a lot of experience being stuck in traffic, and I’m pretty good in demographics. So I’m looking at this, the Level of Service E and the statement that it would not become a Level of Service F even if there were road improvements. But, you know, the population is going up, we have cumulative impacts every time more, every time we have another year with more babies being born and we have more people on this island. We have massive natural population increase. In addition to that we have in-migration to a tremendous extent. And it seems to me that these cumulative impacts have not been factored in when looking at how a Level of Service E could stay the same in eight years of population growth. I, you know, have been monitoring for many years the vital statistics column in the newspaper; and they used to come out only once a month and there would be maybe ten to 15 babies born. Now it comes out every week and there’s about 60. So we’re looking at a major, you know, geometrical expansion just in natural population. And it doesn’t seem to be taking into consideration at all how we have eight years from now, it’s 2008, until 2016, if they’re on schedule, hello, and here you’re talking about putting in 65 units where even if there’s only one car per unit you’re talking about an additional 120 trips a day in and out. Right? And in most cases those units would have two people in them and very often with two cars, so you’re doubling that.And I just, it doesn’t seem to me that this is a realistic evaluation of the levels of service that we can expect, considering where we’re starting from now, considering that the Police Department has already said that, hey, we already have a traffic problem. Would you please address this. OKANEKU: Okay, in my analysis when you talk about cumulative growth, what I usually do in a traffic analysis, I start with the baseline which is the existing condition; and on top of that I will add on what I call a background growth which pretty much is a combination of historical and regional expectation of population growth in the immediate area which I calculated about two percent. So that’s two percent per year. Okay? Now on top of that I added on the Keauhou Resort which is going to add 2,500 units into the resort over a 20-year timeframe, and then on top of that I added the Hokulia project which is another 700 plus units in over a ten-year timeframe I think I projected. So, I mean, there is some redundancy in there cause you would expect that Keauhou, Hokulia is part of that background growth. But because they’re so near and they’re, I guess, on the verge of becoming reality that I included that on top of the background growth. So there is a growth EXHIBIT B 22 as far as, maybe not geometric but there is a growth pattern projected for the next eight years and beyond. WATANABE: You have a follow-up? SIRACUSA: Follow-up. Yeah, there are also a lot of projects for condominiums and that sort of thing that have been permitted and not yet built yet; and I don’t know if you took those into consideration. But it’s not a straight two percent a year; it’s an exponential increase in percentage, the population growth. WATANABE: Well -. Yes, Mr. Iwashita. IWASHITA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m looking at page – what is this – 10 of the February 28, 2008 supplement to your TIAR. And I guess my question is as to the Kahaluu- Keauhou Parkway if that’s not actually built by 2016, if it’s not going to actually be built to 2025 then that affects the credibility of your report, is that correct? OKANEKU: Yes. IWASHITA: And same thing for the Keauhou-Napoopoo Bypass Road, the assumption is that it will actually be completed and fully utilized by 2016, and if that doesn’t actually come to pass then that’s again would affect the credibility of your report, is that correct? OKANEKU: Well, that does not affect this project as much as the Parkway does cause, again, that’s to the south, you know. But -. IWASHITA: Okay. The -. OKANEKU: If I may, you know, the supplement that Steve had mentioned earlier, th the May 15, we had, I had done a supplemental analysis on the scenario where, like you say, the Parkway is not built, Laaloa Avenue is not extended, so basically we’re back to Alii Drive as our primary access. And that analysis, actually that analysis was the basis for the first study. But we didn’t do a regional study so this, the supplemental actually is the regional analysis if these Parkway and the Laaloa are not constructed. And the conclusion there is that, you know, Alii Drive will remain at Level of Service D through the year 2019, I think, and that 2020 I expect it to go to Level of Service E. So, again, you know, there’s a timeframe as far as well beyond 2016, you know, that Alii Drive from a regional standpoint, you know would still fall within acceptable levels of service. IWASHITA: And 2020 is twelve years from now, right? OKANEKU: Yes. IWASHITA: And so you’re saying that Alii Drive may go to E in that projection, right? EXHIBIT B 23 OKANEKU: At that point, yeah. IWASHITA: And that assumes that Kahaluu-Keauhou Parkway is not built? OKANEKU: That’s correct. IWASHITA: The Laaloa Extension is not built? OKANEKU: That’s correct. IWASHITA: All of those, right? Okay. So to me that’s, you know, it’s not, this is why we ask for this, for the concurrency, right? And we really don’t want Alii Drive to be another Fort Weaver Road. We don’t want to get close to that, right? And so, okay, thank you. The other thing is that all the Commissioners know I’m a community development plan fanatic. So I’m going to ask you, does your, this is part of a draft, Volume I, Kona Community Development Plan that we just got in our little folder today; and it’s not adopted, it has transportation kind of elements to it. I’m assuming, and correct me if I’m wrong, that your study does not in any way address any of the provisions of the proposed Kona Community Development Plan? OKANEKU: No, I have not had an opportunity to look at that as well. IWASHITA: Okay. And, and, I, conjecture and ask if you’ll respond to my conjecture that looking at and adopting what actually is, may, you know, hopefully becomes law at some point in the Community Development Plan and its provisions for transportation in the Plan, that that may very well affect the outcome of your TIAR? OKANEKU: Um, I mean not having reviewed the Plan itself but, I mean, I would suspect that the Development Plan would include a lot of the facilities that had been in the pipeline for some time that is not, you know, bringing something brand new out that hasn’t been looked at. IWASHITA: All I’m saying is that the Plan, the intent of the Plan, right, includes elements for providing transportation, different types of transit requirements or projections and so depending on what ultimately ends up, you know, what it ultimately, those elements ultimately – either too much or not enough coffee – depending on how the final provisions of the transportation elements of the Plan end up and also depending on what the concentrations of development and the nature of the types of development that are envisioned for this area of this development that those factors, especially that last part cause in my mind two percent really, that’s your assumption. I’m not, you know, if you look at where we are today and where we’re projecting to be in the next 20 years I don’t think that where Maui was in 1985 and I don’t think from ’85 till today you can say two percent is what the actual growth has been on an annualized basis. We’re where Honolulu was in the mid seventies maybe; and to go from the population growth of Honolulu in the mid-seventies till today we’re pushing a million people, right, that’s not two percent. And to me those are the kind of considerations EXHIBIT B 24 that this Community Development Plan for Kona needs to address, and to me once it becomes law that, I am a really strong advocate for, you know, really not doing this piece- meal kind of zoning changes because we’re going to end up with Fort Weaver Road or lots of them. We have a potential of having lots more Fort Weaver Roads -. WATANABE: Okay. IWASHITA: You know, and so -. WATANABE: Okay, but, Mr. Iwashita, maybe we could concentrate on -. IWASHITA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll end up with my question. So my question is do you agree with me or not that your considering the final version of the Kona Community Development Plan would be important in order to come up with a valid TIAR? WATANABE: You may respond, Mr. Okaneku. . OKANEKU: If I were looking at a, you know, a 2,000 unit development I would say yes. And if I’m looking at, you know, 100-unit development, it -, you know, when you look at the grand scheme of things, the 100-unit development is just like a drop, you know, in a floodway. I mean this is -. IWSAHITA: I agree with you 100 percent. But we have to consider not only the 65 units in this development. We have to consider the proposed affordable housing on the other property that this applicant owns and we have to consider the cumulative effect of all the other potential developments in the area. Right? And so that’s why I’m saying considering this would be important because it would seem to me that your assumption of two percent has to be measured against what actually comes out. Wouldn’t you agree? WATANABE: Okay, well, we are not -. OKANEKU: Can I respond to that? WATANABE: Excuse me. I want to remind you we’re not deliberating on this yet; we’re just asking questions of the developer. We’ll deliberate and you can justify your Community Development Plan and your other assumptions during deliberation. IWASHITA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m trying to make my record. WATANABE: Well, if I go back to the last four years you’ve exceeded that. IWASHITA: Well, except, about, about three, Mr. Chair, but I want to -. WATANABE: Three and a half, three and a half. IWASHITA: I want to make my record in this case. EXHIBIT B 25 ATTA: I would like to respond to that though. I don’t think, we don’t feel that it’s a piece-meal decision because both at the General Plan level and at the CDP level this area that we’re talking about is designated for Low Density Residential and the mauka area is designated as Urban Expansion with an earlier indication of Medium Density Residential. Both of those designations, both at the General Plan and the CDP levels, are consistent with what we’re proposing. So we think we’re working within that framework that this is not a piece-meal idea. Okay. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Mr. Yuen, I believe you had some comments and I’ll get back to you, Mr. Rho. YUEN: You know, I just wanted to, if I could I just wanted to, there have been a number of questions asked about the CDP and statements made and we certainly did try to look at this in relation to the draft CDP. What George Atta just said in relation to the location of the development is correct. The draft CDP generally follows the General Plan in terms of where Kona should urbanize in terms of location. The urban area within this Community Development Plan is roughly the same as the urban area in the LUPAG Map. What is different about the CDP is that it has different preferred forms of development within the urban area which would be transit-oriented development, traditional neighborhood design. This particular project because of the size of the project would be considered in-fill in the Community Development Plan. The location would be considered as a suitable location for a predominantly residential-type project of this density. We did also try to analyze that with respect to proposed roads in the community development plan. That’s why you see this discussion of Alternative 1; and then we have a map that shows where this, we have a map taken out of the Community Development Plan that shows where the project fits in with the proposed roads. As far as the question of the overall growth of the area, the Development, you have to recognize that the Development Plan and the County do not prohibit people from having babies nor from moving into Kona. So this becomes a question of how you have people, where you have people live, the style or the form in which they live and, rather than a question of the absolute numbers. You can decrease the footprint or the impact that people have by manipulating those kinds of factors. You know, in some respects unfortunately we’ve gone in the opposite direction for a long time. We would, and certainly if you look at the traffic counts of the early 1990s to the early 2000s you actually see a much greater increase in traffic than in population. So some of our lifestyle was moving in actually the wrong direction. And so we have tried to analyze this with respect to the Community, this particular application with respect to the Community Development Plan. And we can answer, you know, any more specific questions that people have about that. IWASHITA: I would like an answer to my question, Mr. Chair. WATANABE: The question, I’m afraid to ask, was? IWASHITA: Specific to the TIAR. EXHIBIT B 26 OKANEKU: Well, I guess, the one way I can respond to that is your job is a lot harder than mine. You do have to look at the big picture while the study is looking at, you know, the impact of 65 units; and that’s basically what my job is, to look at the impact of 65 units, not the impact of whatever projection that you would want to, you know, put on to this -. IWASHITA: So your testimony is that your TIAR does not really address the cumulative affect of other developments in the area? OKANEKU: No, it does. Like I said it included a two percent background growth, it includes 2,500 units at Keauhou Resort, and 700 units at Hokulia. So those are the nearby major resorts. There are probably other in-fill, oh, as well as Alii Heights. But, you mean, there are other in-fill projects like this that, you know, because they are smaller and would be included in that two percent background growth. IWASHITA: So you would agree that if for some reason those assumptions you made are not correct that the validity of your TIAR is minimized or reduced? OKANEKU: Sure, cause with that, that is the -. IWASHITA: Sure, thank you. WATANABE: Mr. Domingo? DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m somewhat amused because I’m recalling some of the points of conversations we had with regards to the Kohala LLC application; and now we’re looking at this particular application. And, you know, it’s somewhat lopsided and it doesn’t really paint a clear picture for me, at least, of what I’m seeing. You know, with that traffic report, match you one question, have you driven along Alii Drive and Kuakini Highway and all the way up to the Old Mamalahoa Highway in the morning and evening rush hour traffic? OKANEKU: Sure, yes. DOMINGO: And it doesn’t, one who would be living here does not seem to care about that situation? Is that your opinion? OKANEKU: Well, I don’t have an emotional attachment to either highway. I mean that -. DOMINGO: You’re looking at only figures, right? OKANEKU: No, I mean -. DOMINGO: You’re looking at statistical figures? EXHIBIT B 27 OKANEKU: I’m looking at it from an engineering standpoint. So, I mean, whether or not, you know, I have to drive it every day, I don’t drive it every day, but I mean, I do it whenever, you know, I have to do a study. So, I mean, that’s basically my exposure to, you know, the West Hawaii traffic. DOMINGO: You know, that’s the dilemma we’re faced here in West Hawaii, now on the Big Island, is that whenever we consider projects of this nature, it’s always brought to our attention the fact that the traffic is heavy and it’s unbearable. And, you know, I think you have a good, your proposal is good, the project would be a complement to the Big Island. But I think the timing, you know, the timing right now is somewhat, you know, throws everything off; and I have a problem with that. WATANABE: Okay, Mr. Rho. RHO: On your report on page 2 of your report dated February 28, 2008, Section C, and I guess it’s No. 1. It says “Capacity Analysis Methodology” and below that paragraph or two paragraphs you have a Table l, Levels of Service Criteria. And then on the left side of that table is LOS, I think it’s Levels of Service, I’m only now getting to understand all of this. But my question, I have a couple of questions. One is when you did this report, do you have access and did you look at other studies that were done for various other projects in Kona in the same area? OKANEKU: Yes. RHO: You did? OKANEKU: Yes. RHO: So going back to this chart LOS A, B, C, D and F; and F is unacceptable, that’s what it says. OKANEKU: Okay. RHO: And I’m not sure how E is described but basically it’s undesirable condition, according to this paragraph above. My question is whether or not you can give an A+, A-, C+, C- grade for each of the categories? I mean I’m not asking you to do this officially. I don’t want to create a new system. I just want to know whether or not it’s possible. OKANEKU: Well, for example, Level of Service, okay, Level of Service E, there’s another parameter or to measure effectiveness that we use, it’s what we call volume to capacity ratio which is a more precise number -. RHO: I’m sure I won’t understand that. EXHIBIT B 28 OKANEKU: It’s a ratio of the amount of cars that are on a facility that can be carried. So basically it’s like a pipeline, like a water pipeline. If capacity is say 2,000 cars per hour and there’s a 1,000 cars on the two-lane highway, it’s at 50 percent capacity, so that basically is the, you know, more precise measurement than Level of Service. And now there’s not necessarily a one to one correspondence but basically the Level of Service E can range anywhere from 60 percent of capacity up to about 95 percent of capacity. So there’s a big range for Level of Service E. RHO: So actually you can go E+ and E-? OKANEKU: Or E-, yes. RHO: Okay, so getting to my question though, we already agreed that the three roads, roadways, Alii Parkway, Alii Drive and Kuakini Highway, we already agreed on the letter, it was E, D, D? OKANEKU: Right. RHO: Is that not true? OKANEKU: Yes. Kuakini is at E and the other two are at D. RHO: D, D. OKANEKU: Right. RHO: So I wanted to know whether or not you could tell me whether or not it was D-, D-, and E-. OKANEKU: Well, the Kuakini will be an E+. RHO: E+. OKANEKU: Yes, cause it’s at the higher level of the Level of Service E, with the Parkway now. And that -. RHO: Okay, with the Parkway, right. OKANEKU: With the Parkway. And the Parkway itself, let’s see. I should have put a table but I didn’t think this was that complicated. But usually I put a table where it lines it up so you can see it, you know, side by side, but, instead of searching through it. But, anyway, okay Alii Drive and the Parkway, well, pretty much at D. I mean it’s not plus or minus. It’s petty much dead center of what you’d expect of Level of Service D. But again, that’s -. RHO: In the middle it would get a solid D? EXHIBIT B 29 OKANEKU: Yeah, but that’s still, you know, about 35 to 40 percent of capacity. So, again, from capacity standpoint there’s still a lot of, you know, I mean the cup is not full yet, not by any means. But still from an operational standpoint, you know, it’s at Level of Service D. RHO: So capacity is not -. OKANEKU: It’s at about 37 percent, around there, of the capacity of the roadway. RHO: And the definition for D is minimum acceptable operating level of service? OKANEKU: Yes. RHO: By County standards? OKANEKU: Yes. RHO: Okay. So my last question is at what point would you and your company recommend that no development occur? Is it D, or D-, or would you actually go to F, or E, actually the next one is E? OKANEKU: Well, I -. RHO: I would assume that you wouldn’t recommend this if it was F. OKANEKU: No. F would be a theoretical capacity. So basically, you now, anything over, their ban includes more than the roadways can carry and obviously you can’t add any more to the pipeline. Whereas -. RHO: Right. So we have E-, I think we agreed to E-, D, D, right? OKANEKU: E, well, E+, E+ is the -. RHO: E+, D, D? OKANEKU: Right. RHO: Okay, so at what point would you recommend that no development occur? And while you’re thinking -. OKANEKU: Well, again, I would go to capacity. I mean I would go to capacity of any facility and infrastructure, whether it’s water, or sewer -. RHO: No, so what letter would be capacity? EXHIBIT B 30 OKANEKU: It would be at the E-. RHO: E-? OKANEKU: Yeah. RHO: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: Okay. BOWMAN: Can I just -? WATANABE: Yes. Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: Ask a quick question. E+ Kuakini with the Parkway? OKANEKU: Yes. BOWMAN: So what would it be without the Parkway, E-? OKANEKU: I haven’t looked at that. I haven’t looked at that scenario. I was only concerned with Alii Drive. I didn’t look up there. BOWMAN: Thank you. WATANABE: Okay, I think we’re done with the questioning then, I believe. Okay, I want to thank you for your answers. Look, it has been a long morning. We’re going to take a break for lunch. We’re actually running a little late. Shall we reconvene at about, yeah, closer to two, I think, maybe quarter of two, two o’clock. Yeah, so we’ll take a lunch recess. RECESSED The Chair called a lunch recess at 12:30 p.m. Commissioner Iwashita left the meeting at this time. RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 2:10 p.m. WATANABE: Will the Commission meeting please come back to order. We’re still on our Agenda Item No. 2. I had hoped we’d be far beyond this by now. But, and I do have 15 testifiers to call up. Once again I want to remind you that we do have a long evening today. We have quite a few other items to address. And so please restrict your testimony to three minutes at the max. And let’s not be redundant, meaning if you wish to voice the same concerns then please be brief. Along with that, you know, I want to remind the Commissioners, this is the time that we set aside for the public to be heard; and it’s not necessarily the time when the Commissioners necessarily need to dominate the conversation. So if we can, you know, try and save our comments for later when we’re in deliberation and restrict ourselves to a questioning period so that we can fully understand the concerns that are EXHIBIT B 31 being voiced by the public, then I think we can move this proceeding along a little faster. So I’m going to ask for your cooperation in that, okay? And with that, let me call up the first four people who signed up. That will be George Wilson, Patricia Worrell, Joe Fagundes, and Mary Ellen Smith. So, Joseph, I believe, oh good. They’re all here. Okay, would you kindly raise your right hand please so I can swear you in. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. I believe probably George Wilson, right? So would you state your name and address for the record and then you may begin your testimony. WILSON: My name is George Wilson, and I live at 77 212 Mahiehie Street, Kailua-Kona. I have lived adjacent to the proposed Kona Heights development for the past six years which gives me some familiarity with the area in question. I do not know a single person living in this area who thinks that what we really need right now is another high population density housing development. Over the past six years more and more housing developments have been approved and built in the Kona area resulting in a rapidly increasing population base. But infrastructure hasn’t nearly kept pace with this growth. Salinity is already creeping into the water pump from Keauhou pumping station, traffic is terrible and constantly getting worse. Police and Fire Departments staffing have not kept pace with this population growth. All of these problems get worse every year and yet more and more housing developments continue to be approved and built. There’s no end in site to any of these problems. Those of us lucky enough to have been born here or to have moved here know how special and wonderful Kona is. I for one am determined to keep it that way. The area of this proposed development is one of the most beautiful and culturally sacred areas on the Big Island. Do we really want to destroy the charm and character of this beautiful sacred area and pave it over with asphalt for more high density housing? I certainly don’t and I hope others agree with me. I am opposed to changing the current zoning Agricultural use, 5 acre minimum, a level of development which I believe is compatible with preserving the special character of this area. I would like to make a few comments on the infrastructure problems of this specific development. First and most obvious is roads. Kona Heights proposes to build 65 new homes, all of which have only one access in or out at present, Naniloa Street. The County does not intend to give them access to Alii Parkway when and if it is ever built. Currently there is no approval for a direct connection to Alii Drive which may or may not occur in the future. This will create serious traffic congestion on Naniloa and both roads which connect it to Alii Drive, Queen Kalama and Laaloa. In the past two years alone, two major traffic accidents have occurred at the intersection of Laaloa and Alii Drive.The extra load from the 65 homes will only make that already bad situation worse. But there is yet more serious concern. What happens in case a fire in the area or a tsunami? Kona Heights plus all the other hundreds of homes in the area, more than 600 households in all, have only one way out, Alii Drive; and only two small crowded streets accessing it. It is a disaster waiting to happen. For all these reasons I oppose approval of a change in zoning and of the proposed development. Thank you. EXHIBIT B 32 WATANABE: Okay. Thank you for your testimony. Do we have any questions of Mr. Wilson? Ms. Bowman? BOWMAN: Just a quick question. You mentioned that it is a sacred area. Could you expound on that? WILSON: Well, the word Laaloa in the Hawaiian language means very sacred. This entire area was densely populated by native Hawaiians originally and there are a couple of sites that have been identified by the archaeological group that has looked there. But I think the entire area around Kahaluu has been densely populated for quite some time and cultural artifacts are periodically found in that area. BOWMAN: And you’re right adjacent to that area so your area probably was once, I mean I’m just asking -. WILSON: Well, yeah and – BOWMAN: The whole entire area? WILSON: Yeah. I think the development that I’m in, there were areas also identified there which were felt to be inappropriate for building. And those areas also were marked off and not built on. BOWMAN: And I believe they’re doing that in this. WILSON: I think that’s true but in my view there’s a difference between having, you know, some development, if we have a continuous line of small houses on 7,500-foot lots running for miles and miles, to me that’s quite different than having, you know, parts that are, you know, not too large which have granted serious problems. Now you might think that’s being hypocritical and perhaps it is.But I think that overdevelopment, you know, when I moved to California it was a lovely place. Twenty-five years later it was a parking lot and they called that progress. And at some point I think you have to put some bounds on things in order to preserve something. BOWMAN: Thank you. WATANABE: Any further questions? Okay, Mr. Fagundes. FAGUNDES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ve submitted a written -. WATANABE: Name and address first, please. FAGUNDES: Oh, Joseph Fagundes. I’m here on behalf of the Stephens family. My address is 75-170 Hualalia Road, Suite D-214. I submitted to the Commission our very brief written testimony earlier today before testifying and to not be redundant to what the EXHIBIT B 33 gentleman has said to my left, our major concern is Naniloa Street which we can see at the top left of this diagram. In fact, if I could impose upon staff to bring up that photograph of the entry. Naniloa Street has two houses on it, one on the mauka side – this stubout is Naniloa Street – one on the mauka side, one on the makai side. And there, on the left, that’s my client’s house. You can see that street; it’s not something that Director Yuen would approve in a new subdivision. It’s very narrow, there are no curbs, no sidewalks, no gutters. There are obviously children throughout this entire area and just mauka of this development of course is the Alii Heights which has added several hundred other residences. In the traffic study by the developer there is absolutely nothing other than a brief mention of, oh, yeah, we’re going to use Naniloa Street. There has been no study with respect to the impact upon Naniloa Street by these 65 new residences. And there has been a lot of discussion about the impact on Alii Drive and the impact on Queen Kalama. But there has been absolutely no mention about Naniloa; and this is their only entrance. Now I did hear the developer and I applaud the developer that they’re trying to negotiate for a permanent access directly through the Metzler property to Alii Drive; and that could possibly mitigate some of the potential danger by increasing sight distance to the intersection either way on Alii Drive. However, another 130 cars a day coming down this little road and going into Queen Kalama which is now full of cars from the new subdivisions I think is a dangerous situation. My clients believe it’s dangerous, and we urge the Commission to deny this application. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Mr. Fagundes? Okay, Ma’am, state your name and address please, and you may proceed. WORRELL: My name is Patricia Worrell. My husband and I have owned our home at 77-6553 Kahananui, Kailua-Kona for 22 years. We appreciate the chance to express to you our thoughts of the proposed Kona Heights LLC development. Seventy-five of the closest neighbors to this currently landlocked proposed development have signed a declaration. I believe that you have a copy. I made it very brief and very truthful so that 75 people could sign it. It says “We the neighbors of applicant Kona Heights LLC ask the Planning Commission County of Hawaii to reject applicant and until planned connecting roadways can be positively established in the area. All traffic from an area one mile long, .8 miles wide dumps out onto Alii Drive, our only evacuation exit. We ask for a postponement of these very dense proposed projects until some other ingress and egress can be positively established.” I want to emphasize positively established, legally established, signed things between Metzler, signed things between all of these things. I think that you are smart enough to realize that none have been positively established. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Ms. Worrell? None. Okay, then Mary Ellen. M. SMITH: Good morning, thank you. I live at, my name is Mary Ellen Smith, I live at 77-262 Maliko, and that’s in Alii Heights mauka; and that’s on the northern border of the upper parcel. I concur with the speakers who are asking that this approval be denied. I feel that the infrastructure is sorely lacking. Approval of the project should be put on hold until Laaloa’s extension to Kuakini Highway and the Alii Parkway are both completed and in place. Our only access road as other people have said is very narrow and very busy and will EXHIBIT B 34 only get more so. The specific concerns that I have are that the developer proposes to use Naniloa and Queen Kaahumanu (sic) and you had a picture of Naniloa but here’s the picture of Queen Kalama; it’s very narrow, very busy, parking on both sides, and does not meet I’ve been told County standards of today. One of the alternatives suggested by the County Planning Department is to have the developer perhaps build a left-turn lane on Alii Drive. Here is a picture of the location between Alii Drive and Queen Kaahumanu (sic) intersection. There’s no room. There’s no room to build a left-turn lane. Even if the developer is able to build a road through the parcel fronting Alii Drive, there’s no room for a left-turn lane. They’re going to have the same problems there. It’s just a little ways down the road. The second thing, the developer proposed this plan as compatible with the character and design of adjacent neighborhoods. But planned lot sizes of 4,500 square feet in the makai parcel are significantly smaller than the 7,500- to 10,000 plus- square foot lots in the adjacent White Sands Village and Keauhou View Estates Subdivisions. Smaller, more affordable and clustered homes are more appropriate in the makai parcel adjacent to several multi-family units in White Sands Village. But the developer has not planned affordable housing in the makai section. Instead – I understand that may have something to do with the County’s wishes – instead, he has plans to increase affordable housing to 37 percent instead of the 20 percent required and to place 98 affordable units in three rows of eight-unit buildings in the more expensive mauka project. This project is adjacent to Alii Heights homes which are between 15,000 and 40,000 square foot lots. Plans will effectively create three great walls of Kona that could be up to 45 feet high, unless the County asks him to keep it to 35, and running north-south on the hillside. This plan will block views of many adjacent residents. This developer should be satisfying the affordable requirement in each project phase, not just putting them all in the upper phase. If unable to put 13 affordable units in the makai section perhaps building the affordable housing elsewhere within the 15 mile radius which was mentioned earlier today as permitted is a better option. While this project will be a LEED project with very worthy attributes there’s no consideration given for how it impacts the surrounding landowners. This development has a big negative effect on our roads, view and property value. I feel it should not be approved at this time, especially in this economic climate and I urge you to reject it at this time. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. You know, before I ask if there are any questions, Ms. Smith, would you kindly, I hope you can provide those photos. M. SMITH: Oh, these pictures, I gave you a packet. WATANABE: We have, okay. Oh, they’re in there, oh, okay, oh, okay. M. SMITH: Yes, there were eight packets that went around and those pictures were included. WATANABE: Okay, so we have a copy for the record. M. SMITH: Yes. EXHIBIT B 35 WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Ms. Smith? Okay, thank you. You all may be seated then. WORRELL: Did you receive my 78 signatures? WATANABE: I believe we probably have it. WOODWARD: We’ve got it. WORRELL: Thank you. WATANABE: Okay. Let’s proceed to the next four. I have Laurie Fish-Gusman, Mary Ann Stone, Doctor Ted Leaf, and Virginia Isbell. Okay. QUINTO: Virginia Isbell is missing. WATANABE: Yeah, she’s not here. Okay. Yes, Ma’am. QUINTO: I’m going to read her testimony on behalf of her -. WATANABE: Oh, you came up for, that’s why I was kind of confused. Okay, okay. So then I can call -. I guess, Dr. Leif is not present then. QUINTO: I’m also reading his, if that’s okay. WATANABE: Oh, you’re reading his also. Okay. Okay, great. Well, maybe we should begin with you then. Oh, wait, right hand please. Raise your right hand please, Ma’am. Yeah. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. WATANABE: Okay. Thank you. And maybe we should begin with you cause I, Ma’am? I’m not familiar with your name -. QUINTO: Gladys. WATANABE: Maybe we can begin with you. You have two testimonies to read. QUINTO: Yes. Good afternoon, Members of the Commission. My name is Gladys Quinto. My address is 925 Bethel Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813. I am here to present the testimony on behalf of Virginia Isbell. I was informed that she circulated a packet to all the members and I think I’ll just read it verbatim, I guess. Aloha. My name is Virginia Isbell and I am here to testify in strong support of the proposed La‘ipala Makai residential project. EXHIBIT B 36 The DRAFT Kona Community Development Plan (CDP), released just this month, includes in its eight “Guiding Principles” – which she attached as one of the sheets in the packet – that the future growth for Kona should be guided by a principle of respect for the land, environment and natural resources; provide connectivity and transportation choices, such as sidewalks, trails and bike lanes; offer a broad range of mixed housing choices. The Kona CDP includes Consistency with Sustainable and Smart Growth Principles – which she also included some information on, in the packet – in other words, utilize compact building design; create a range of housing opportunities and choices; create walkable communities; foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place; mix land uses; strengthen and direct development towards existing communities. La‘ipala Makai is a proposed residential project that appears to “mirror” the Kona CDP. La‘ipala Makai also includes the “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” (LEED) that was created in 1994. LEED has grown from one standard for new construction to a comprehensive system of six interrelated standards covering all aspects of the development and construction process: “Green Building” – establishing a common standard of measurement; promotes integrated, whole-building design practices; recognizes environmental leadership in the building industry; stimulates green competition; raises consumer awareness of green building benefits; and transforms the building market. La‘ipala Makai will be the first registered LEED project on the Big Island and fits like a glove with the Kona CDP. Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony, and I encourage the Planning Commission to act favorably on this application. WATANABE: Well, would you be prepared to answer any questions that any of the Commissioners have? QUINTO: Based on her testimony, yes. WATANABE: Does anyone have any questions of Virginia? It doesn’t look like it. Then why don’t you proceed to the next one then, which is -. QUINTO: Should I state my name again? WATANABE: Dr. Leaf’s? QUINTO: Should I state my name again and -? WATANABE: No, no, no, you already did that. Thank you. EXHIBIT B 37 QUINTO: Okay. So Dr. Leaf’s testimony is addressed to Planning Director Christopher Yuen. Dear Mr. Yuen: This is written testimony in support of the La‘ipala Makai project proposed to be developed in Kailua-Kona. While 65 single family homes will increase the traffic somewhat, it should be insignificant and the design of La‘ipala Makai will benefit our community. Furthermore, the owners are working on securing a second access point to the project which will be a condition of approval and help ease the traffic situation in the area. La‘ipala Makai is the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), ND, which stands for Neighborhood Design, registered private residential project in Hawaii County. The LEED design of this project will, for one, reduce overall water consumption by approximately 30 percent per unit. Our community will certainly benefit and we should encourage more projects that follow this prototype. La‘ipala Makai is also an in-fill project that is designed to connect with other communities resulting in alternatives in traffic flow. The County has already planned for this connectivity as there are existing road stubouts at Naniloa Street into the project. Without this project roads will end or remain in cul-de-sacs forcing cars onto existing main arterials such as Alii Drive in order to get from one neighborhood to another. The people proposing La‘ipala Makai have taken great care to help preserve the culture of the area where retaining a cultural advisory committee of lineal descendents and cultural practitioners. The group has also been working with the community for over a year and has been very responsive to their concerns by implementing some suggestions into their plans. Cordially yours, Dr. Ted Leaf and Diane Stone. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions? No. Thank you. Ms. Gusman? STONE: Mary Ann Stone. WATANABE: Mary Ann, I’m sorry. STONE: I’m Mary Ann Stone. I live at 77-159 Kai Poi Place. I’ve been a resident of the Old White Sands Subdivision for over 10 years. First of all, I want to thank all of you for all the great questions that you’re asking; and I think that’s wonderful. I also want to thank the developers because the developers have really gone out of their way to address community concerns and make a project acceptable to the community or try to make it acceptable to the community. However, I feel that these develops are really having a struggle because of the history that the White Sands area has; and that’s basically the Towne development of 450 homes. As everybody remembers, it was 249 homes and no more would be built unless we had a connector road up to the highway. Chris, the Planning Department, signed off on that. We now have 450 homes. We do not have a park; and that’s really criminal, I’m sorry to say. The Y has got plans but the Y has no money. So we’re still without a park, we’re still without a connection. And so now we’re looking at adding another 65 homes into this subdivision. And it’s a great project, I really feel. I’ve talked to the developers, I feel that it is a great project. EXHIBIT B 38 Unfortunately somebody mentioned that the developers are going to be responsible for putting a turn lane in Queen Kalama. I begged the Department of Public Works to put in a turn lane at Laaloa. They did pave it but they told me it wasn’t wide enough. So if you look at Laaloa and you look at Queen Kalama there’s not going to be a turn lane; and it really gets dangerous. And so I guess basically I have a couple of other things. The fact that Alii Drive -, you can’t look at it as a main thoroughfare. You know, it should go down to about 15 to 20 miles an hour. We should have three-way stops. Please don’t put any traffic signals on Alii Drive. That’s not what that street was meant for. And just, Lako, this is my Laaloa. The County has now connected Lako with Laaloa saying, oh, let’s see, it may not be connected for years. They’ve just got through spending millions of dollars with these consultants, CMHN2. What have we got? We’ve got millions of dollars that the County has spent to figure out how to do this; and I realty thought that the Planning Department should be able to do this. So, again, when you’ve got a good project and people spend a lot of money, it’s the history before that is making it difficult for these folks. So I support the project. I think the timing is poor. I think we need some more connector roads. And please move Laaloa further ahead sooner. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for the testifier? Thank you, ma’am. And so I believe, Laurie Ann? FISH-GUSMAN: Yes, hi. WATANABE: Yes, please. FISH-GUSMAN: I live at 77-125 Queen Kalama. SIRACUSA: Please use your mike. FISH-GUSMAN: Oh, I’m sorry, Queen Kalama Avenue, and my house is right on the corner of Queen Kalama and Naniloa. And I’ve actually, everyone here has pretty much covered what I was going to talk about, except for the fact that Queen Kalama is already so unsafe. In the last, I’ve lived in that neighborhood since 1994 but the house that I’m presently in I’ve lived in for twelve years. And in the last nine years I’ve pulled two people out of the street in Queen Kalama. One broke both legs on the second day of summer, seven- year old kid, and the other one was an adult three and a half years ago that broke one leg and is unable to work. We already have so much volume of traffic in the area and it just, you know, I’m not really opposed to them building this, it’s just not using our roads as access. So, I mean, I had a house fire at my house three years ago and because of the traffic situation in Kona, I mean, I probably lost, you know, a lot more than I would have lost. And I just hope that you guys, you know, think about it before you okay anything. WATANABE: Thank you. FISH-GUSMAN: Thank you. EXHIBIT B 39 WATANABE: Yes, Ms. Siracusa. SIRACUSA: Well, you say that you don’t think that Naniloa is an appropriate street for their access. If you were the designer, where would you put their access? FISH-GUSMAN: From where they’re at down Alii Drive. If you go down to the end of Queen Kalama even though they’ve talked about the bougainvillea that sticks out, if you look at the aerial map you can tell that the road goes like this and you can’t see the cars that are coming from the Keauhou area. SIRACUSA: Excuse me, Jeff is going to bring up that aerial map. FISH-GUSMAN: It’s like you can’t see them coming. A lot of people don’t go 30 miles and hour. They go 45. And by the time you’re pulling out, they’re right there. I mean it’s extremely dangerous. And there are a lot of people that walk up and down Queen Kalama and there’s no sidewalks. You know, I mean it’s totally unsafe I think to use as a highway for them to get in and out. And if you’re talking about 65 homes in and out that’s 130 cars, you know. And most families have at least two; and me myself I leave the house at three times a day probably, you know, picking up kids from school, going to make errands, I mean, that’s a lot of traffic. So I mean the neighborhood is 30 years old that’s being already used for all this traffic that’s above us, you know. So thank you for listening. WATANABE: Ms. Gusman, you mentioned that there’s another area. Is that area the area, the Metzler property? FISH-GUSMAN: Yeah, the Metzler, yeah, yeah. WATANABE: The one that they’re currently negotiating? FISH-GUSMAN: Yeah. WATANABE: Okay. FISH-GUSMAN: And actually I know a lot of kids that used to go out in that property back there, hunting and stuff and I’ve heard there are a lot burial sites out there; and they’ve brought up the fact there’s an archaeological site right next to that dead-end. I’m wondering does it move into the dead-end, are they going to cover part of it up with the street or, I mean, has anybody checked that out or -? WATANABE: Yeah, but maybe more to the point that that proposed Metzler site or access doesn’t have an issue with sight distance to your knowledge? FISH-GUSMAN: They said that they were going to use it for construction; but other than that they’re going to use our roads to get in and out of those -. EXHIBIT B 40 WATANABE: I understand. But at the same time they’re also proceeding with trying to acquire a permanent access through there. So I’m wondering if that particular entry does not have an issue with sight distance as Laaloa Road has. Is there a good sight distance? I mean, if -. FISH-GUSMAN: It’s not really that far away, no. But the visibility of getting in and out of that, you know. -. WATANABE: Is good? FISH-GUSMAN: Yeah, and, I mean, it would cut down on our traffic, too, you know, and also the fact that, I mean, Alii Drive right now is the only way that’s in and out of this whole subdivision. I mean there’re a lot of homes up there now and if we had, you know, an actual disaster how are we all going to get out of there on Alii Drive, you know. WATANABE: Thank you. FISH-GUSMAN: Thank you. WATANABE: Do we have any further -? Yes, Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: Pardon my ignorance but where is the alternative area that you’re talking about, the Metzler -? DARROW: Just for reference, we have Queen Kalama located here, Naniloa that is the proposed access in this location. This is the Metzler property that they’re referring to; and then they would be looking at an access directly through this property to Alii Drive. BOWMAN: Okay, and the Queen -? DARROW: This would be in this particular area. BOWMAN: And the stub? DARROW: The stubout is right here. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you. I just, since I’m not familiar. I haven’t been back there a long time. Thank you. WATANABE: Okay, are we all good? Thank you. FISH-GUSMAN: Thanks. WATANABE: May I call up the next four. I have Victory Yadon, Tamara Gouveia, Bob Smith, and Judy Chaput? Is that correct? EXHIBIT B 41 CHAPUT: Chaput. WATANABE: Chaput. All right. WORRELL: I use the least amount of time so I have something to say. I know the Metzlers. This is just a dream. Nothing has been legally signed or done, okay? WATANABE: Ma’am. Ma’am? WORRELL: Sir? WATANABE: Were you, what was your name, Ma’am? WORRELL: Patricia Worrell. WATANABE: Oh, okay. WORRELL: Sorry. WATANABE: Okay, then we have Chaput and Bob Smith, I guess. Tamara Gouveia, is she here? And Victor Yadon? Victor? How about Gene Calvert, is Gene Calvert here? No? Dana Waite, no Dana Waite here? PUBLIC: She had to pick up her kids. WATANABE: Okay, Gladys Quinto? QUINTO: I’ve already -. WATANABE: Oh, okay. Okay, so would you three raise your right hands please. Do you swear to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIER: I do. WATANABE: Thank you. I guess we can begin with you, Ma’am. CHAPUT: My name is Judy Chaput and I live on 77-160 Mahiehie Street; and I passed in some written testimony. I wasn’t planning to speak but I just want to add a couple of things. I was one of the original purchasers of a home in Keauhou View Estates back in the year 2000. And then at that time they promised us an Alii Bypass Highway and access to Kuakini Highway and a beautiful park with the YMCA; and years, and years, and years have gone by and we’re still waiting. And I feel that it’s a dangerous situation to be in a place where in case of a natural disaster or any flooding or downed wires on Alii Drive, or tsunami or hurricane that was just in the paper the other day, warning that we were apt to get a severe hurricane this season; we’d all be trapped. And I feel that before any more people are put in the same situation that we should be provided with the things that have already been EXHIBIT B 42 promised, those access roads out of our neighborhood. Also, I have a car and a truck and from my house it would be much shorter to drive to the Keauhou area using Queen Kalama but my husband refuses to go down that street with our low car. He’ll drive the extra distance to Laaloa and take a left from there because it’s so dangerous. And when I drive down that street with the truck I’m looking both ways as fast as I can, and then as soon as I don’t see cars coming from either side I step on the gas and hope that I make it out before somebody approaches me. So that is that situation. Also, there’s some discrepancy between what they’re talking about as far as the lot sizes. They’re calling those lots 7,500 square feet but also I’m told that includes the road area and that the actual sizes of the lots will be 4,500 square feet and they’re hoping to sell these homes for $650,000. Where right now in Keauhou View Estates homes that are actually on 7,500-square foot to 8,500-square foot lots are languishing on the market for months and they can’t get a price higher than $600,000 and some have gone for less than $500,000. So I don’t see the immediate urgency of building more homes in that area. So that’s what I have to say right now. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions? Yes, Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: Just a quick question. You referred to when you bought your home that they promised us, they, who were you referring to, the developer? CHAPUT: The real estate agents representing the development. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: Yes, Mr. Domingo. DOMINGO: You know, Mr. Chairman, that’s a critical, a very serious statement that has been made either by the realtor or the development, the developer, and then they use that as a reason as an attraction for buyers to purchase the property. And it doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t know what was actually said or what commitments were made. I was wondering if the Planning Department can look into the ordinance that permitted this development to take place and see if that commitment is written in the ordinance as law so that we can pursue that if we need to. I’d just like to know what the status of that issue is. WATANABE: Okay, I’m not sure how to handle that but I think it would be difficult for the County alone to pursue prosecution on that. I think it’s more an issue of a private person where potentially their rights were -. DOMINGO: Yeah, I know what you’re saying, Mr. Chairman, and I respect you for that. You know, for me because all of these were just given to us prior to the meeting and I personally feel that I still need to go through it and acquaint myself with the project in itself. But I think by that time when we bring it up for consideration at the next meeting, the Planning Department can look into the ordinance and see if the conditions contained in that ordinance were such that a park was supposed to be built or a connector road was supposed EXHIBIT B 43 to be built at the time the project was completed. I think it’s very important that we satisfy the questions that were asked and even for me. WATANABE: Okay, maybe I’m misunderstanding but I believe the testifier indicated that the developer said and not the County said. So I’m thinking that it may not even have an ordinance. DOMINGO: I know what you’re saying, Mr. Chairman, and perhaps that was, in actuality the situation was at that time, just the developer making that statement. And sometimes, sometimes, not all developers, some developers would say things that would make it more appealing for the sale of the property in order to sell it. But what I wanted to make sure is that as we look at the ordinance if there were conditions that would have required them to address that situation. WATANABE: Well, Mr. Yuen, would you care to respond to that cause I’m not -. YUEN: Well, if you’re referring to the Towne development they had a requirement to dedicate a park site, to dedicate land for a park site and the County approved their donating the property to the Y, an 11-acre parcel. The County has a right to get that property if the Y doesn’t develop the park site; and they haven’t developed it so far. We were in discussions with the Y about the timing on that. To tell the truth if the County had it, the County probably would not have developed the park site by now either. So the hope was that the Y was going to develop the facility. They were interested in the site, and so that was how that condition was fulfilled. WATANABE: So for clarification the developer, that Towne Center (sic), actually satisfied by donating the land -? YUEN: Right. WATANABE: The condition? Okay, thank you. Does that clarify that? DOMINGO: Yes, thank you. WATANABE: Okay. Yes, Ms. -. SIRACUSA: I was just wondering there are two Y organizations on this island, the YM and the YW, could you just, which one is it? YUEN: It’s the YM. WATANABE: Okay. I believe Tamara Gusman, is that correct? GOUVEIA: It’s Gouveia. WATANABE: I mean, excuse me. EXHIBIT B 44 GOUVEIA: That’s okay. It’s my handwriting. WATANABE: No, that’s my eyes. It’s not your handwriting. GOUVEIA: Hi, Tamara Gouveia. My address is 73-1427 Kaloko Drive here in Kona. I just, I grew up here. I moved here when I was eleven years old from Alaska. And I’ve lived from Ocean View, Holualoa, Kona Acres, Kohala, Waimea, Nani Kailua Drive, all over the place. So I just wanted to share my -, I’m also a real estate agent and a mortgage broker. I have five children and the growth of Kona is something that’s very important to me. That’s what I’m here for. I actually have one of my kids at Kahakai School that is in the same elevation; and I’ve had my kids there for five years. And even thought there’s a tsunami watch or warning, you know, there’s so much development that has gone on around this area and this particular development that I don’t see how this would make a negative impact to it. I think it’s actually going to help it to become more easily accessible with the road infrastructure that we have. I think that you folks are doing really great work in securing and looking at other avenues for a permanent access for the developer. I actually met the developer in August, I believe, about two years ago. So I’m real familiar with the project. I like the idea that they have, they’re honoring the green requirements for the building and limiting our natural resources with different types of fixtures, the water fixtures, electrical fixtures. You know, with just being able to use the solar instead of all the electrical needs, I think it’s going to help us a lot. The fact that our economy for Kona right now is slumpy and grumpy -. I work with a lot of local people because I have lived here all my life. I help them with their mortgages, with their home purchases. I’m looking forward to having some affordable housing that’s going to be closer than the 40 or 50 mile drive to Ocean View; I think that that’s more dangerous than, you know, some of the other aspects that we look at. Hiring the local families for putting the infrastructure in and building of the residential dwellings themselves. And I personally think that about 70 percent of the owners or potential buyers for this property is a lot like some of the other surrounding properties that are going to be second homeowners; and that again doesn’t necessarily put two cars with two people, you know, traffic on the road, you know. There are things that we need to address as people that live here and look at our infrastructure, and I think this is a really a great meeting. But overall I do believe that the developer is in compliance with the General Plan. Some of the archaeological sites that do exist on the property, I’m friends with the families and I share their concerns about it. I also have, one of my clients I represent some property that’s directly affected with it, with the development. And just happy to be here to be able to share my feelings about it. I think that the developer is taking into consideration all aspects. And that’s all I have. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Ms. Gouveia. No? Okay, then I guess we’re down to Mr. Yadon. No? B. SMITH: I’m Bob Smith. WATANABE: Oh, you’re Bob Smith. I’m sorry. EXHIBIT B 45 B. SMITH: It’s all right. WATANABE: Go ahead. B. SMITH: My name is Bob Smith. I live at 77-262 Maliko Street, Kailua-Kona, which is in Alii Heights. And thank you, Commission, for your service to the community. I’m opposed to the application. I agree with those who are opposed who went before me and spoke, especially Mary Ellen Smith, my wife; and I had to say that. One thing I wanted to mention, Laaloa, this is my understanding from talking to people at the County over the years and also the developer, the Towne LLC, was that the, originally the developer was responsible for completing Laaloa to Kuakini; and for some reason and perhaps because it’s, the landscape is quite steep at the top, the County released the developer from that obligation, that’s my understanding. And I know there have been planning groups working on Laaloa. Just this morning in the paper I read that the County has committed to not doing Laaloa, not building Laaloa until it can do so concurrently with Lako Street and that there are a number of problems with Lako Street because of some sacred areas. So whether or not Laaloa will ever be connected in our lifetimes I think is a real question; and this is part of my concern regarding the overall access, not just to the lower piece of property that Kona Vistas wants to develop but also the upper piece. And another concern I have is really related to that, is the way that this is being presented to the various approval bodies that need to approve the development; and I have some sympathy for the developers, it’s difficult to get things approved. But it seems awfully piecemeal to me that they’re bringing to the Commission just the makai piece, and there’s no affordable housing there, and that all the affordable housing is slated to go in the mauka piece that they’re developing later; and I don’t know how the County has any assurance that that will actually be done. Additionally, I don’t feel that the kind of development they’re looking at doing in the mauka piece is compatible with the large lot sizes as you see in Alii Heights, the 15,000 plus up to 40,000 square feet that are, as previously mentioned they’re talking about 96 units that would be in eight-plexes, two-story eight-plexes. Just generally I think the infrastructure should come first and all, in a broad definition of infrastructure, not just roads but other infrastructure. And I would encourage the Commission to not approve the applications and, at this point, at least honor the moratorium. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Mr. Smith? No? Thank you. You may be seated. Last call, Victor Yadon? I guess he’s not here. Okay, that’s all the testifiers I have signed up. I want to thank the testifiers for being concise and I also want to thank the Commissioners for cooperating and, I hope you understand I’m just trying to expedite matters. I’m not trying to silence the Commission. And with that then I think we can call up the applicants to see if they have any responses to the concerns that have been raised by the public. However, before I forget, I’d like to ask the Director, you know, at least two testifiers had mentioned that potentially larger lots on the mauka property where they’re designating for affordable housing would be a better location. Does this have anything to do with the vistas and the heights, vistas meaning viewplanes, and the heights so they didn’t EXHIBIT B 46 want to build multi-level buildings in the lower, you know, the makai parcel, or is there something else here? YUEN: No. Because the General Plan said, calls this a low density urban area in the LUPAG Map that the General Plan says low density urban is six units to an acre, is the standard for that. And so that’s what we told them would be -. WATANABE: Appropriate? YUEN: Consistent with the General Plan, right. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Well, you’ve heard the questions. Would you care to respond, Mr. Lim or George? ATTA: I guess I can start with some of them and Mr. Lim will follow up with anything else that I’ve missed. I guess there were several things that we obviously heard. One of the things was about view impacts which we also heard when we walked around the community, including Alii Heights and Keauhou View. What we have committed, although I guess it didn’t come out, is that on the first line of buildings along the edge of the property that abuts the Alii Heights and the Keauhou View and White Sands, we’ve committed to keep our buildings or our houses one story so that that would have the least amount of impact on views from their side. So that’s one thing we’ve already agreed to. On the issue of the comment made that we have nothing signed from the Metzlers, we have a signed contract, signed letter of agreement with them for the construction access, as I mentioned earlier. That one had been done and we have a signed letter from them; and I had mentioned that we were working on the permanent access. Regarding emergency access, I think, we feel that actually in the event of a tsunami we probably -, our project, because we’re trying for connectivity, probably would be helpful by giving another roadway that could go up mauka to the Alii Parkway site. So anybody that’s heading, you know, in a tsunami would just basically run uphill. And, you know, our road would go straight up to the Alii Parkway. So we think it actually helps get more roads going mauka. The comment about Alii Drive going, getting blocked up, I think in the event of that kind of a tsunami, anyway, people would be heading mauka, not trying to go into Alii Drive which is closer to the ocean. With regard to, I guess, the current economic situation here, I think and the pricing, the comment on pricing that was mentioned, I think most people are aware that pricing is dependent on the market and depends on which target population you’re trying to market. And we appreciate the comment that in the existing Keauhou View Estates prices are barely reaching $600,000 and we understand that. But with the real estate market, by the time we’re actually, hopefully after approvals and getting into the market we will obviously have to adjust our pricing and our plans accordingly.So I think that’s as much a market-driven thing. And, you know, we may have to adjust our floor plans or unit types to make sure the market is there, cause obviously we wouldn’t want to build something that doesn’t sell. And, I don’t know, now I’ll pass that on to Steve. EXHIBIT B 47 Oh, one other thing. Some of the comments about roadways and permanent access and things like that, we understand the concern that these things might not be built; and so to get something approved that might not get built is a concern, and we understand that. So we’re willing to accept some of them as a condition of approval, meaning that if the zone change, as a condition of zone change we need to get one of these conditions accepted before we can even build; we can live with a condition like that. WATANABE: But at least you’ve got the zoning, okay, thank you. Ms. Siracusa, you had some questions? SIRACUSA: I have two questions actually. WATANABE: Yes. SIRACUSA: And the first one is you mentioned that you had a signed letter of agreement with the Metzlers. ATTA: For the full construction access. SIRACUSA: Is that in our file? ATTA: I don’t know if that was submitted. SIRACUSA: I mean, you know, there’s so much here and we were only given it this morning, so there’s no way we could possibly read every little detail. LIM: Right, that is not in your file, and we probably wouldn’t have submitted as part of your file because of the, you know, it’s a private agreement between the parties. But it is a construction right of entry that was signed last Friday. We’ve been negotiating this with them for several months now and that’s part of I think what you see is part of all the other elements in the project. They had been working very closely with the community, and one of the big things they heard was we don’t want to have the construction traffic driving through our neighborhoods like we did for Alii Heights; so that’s one of the things that we jumped on and we finally did reach agreement with the -, actually the entity is the Kaupulehu Land LLC, and that’s what they’ve been calling the Metzler property and that’s the one just makai of this subject property. SIRACUSA: So just to, for clarification’s sake, this is a temporary easement and it’s only for the sake of the construction traffic and -. LIM: That’s correct, that’s correct. SIRACUSA: You are hoping that you can segue from that, I suppose, into a permanent easement and access. EXHIBIT B 48 LIM: Yes, we felt that the -. SIRACUSA: But that’s not what it is right now. LIM: That’s not what it is now. We’re talking both with the Kaupulehu Land landowner, which is makai, and also to Kamehameha Investment Corporation, which is to the south. SIRACUSA: Okay. My second question. When we were talking about the TIAR – obviously I haven’t had the chance to read that with the magnifying glass, either – so I would like to know what radius was used from the project site in determining the level of service on the various streets that were discussed. LIM: I think the only streets that he -. SIRACUSA: I don’t see the -. LIM: Yeah, he had to leave. But his study covered Queen Kalama and Alii Drive. And he also in his last letter of this month studied if there was just a single access out to Alii Drive from the subject property, and that was to address the -. SIRACUSA: But how far along Alii Drive? LIM: I think that he probably – I have to guess – but I don’t think he went any further than the Laaloa, Queen Kalama and the Metzler property area. SIRACUSA: So we are only talking then about the immediate area and not how traffic from this area would impact the roads further in either direction. Is that correct? ATTA: Well, I don’t know how you would term immediate area. When Randy was responding to Mr. Rho, he mentioned that he was defining specific impacts of the individual project; and that’s how it’s defined. It’s not -, you asked for radius, there is no predetermined standard radius that is used because it depends on the size of the project and the roadway configuration. So what he did was he checked out the intersections at Laaloa and Alii, Queen Kalama and Alii, and then the hypothetical connection of Laaloa with Kuakini. He didn’t go further on down towards Keauhou because once you passed our project site and you have a certain trip volume that, because our project is a small project, we would not add any more traffic than what you find at the outside of the project. So our impact at least to the corridor is defined by the edge of the property because there is no other -, we wouldn’t be adding any more traffic a mile down the road. So it stays within the project impact area basically. And I would like to answer one question that was previously raised about and I forgot -, it was about the sightline question on whether this connection would be better than Queen Kalama although it’s fairly close. And the answer is yes for two reasons. If you look at the roadway, if you look at the corner of the Metzler property, the roadway is a slightly straighter EXHIBIT B 49 alignment of Alii Drive than it is right at Queen Kalama. So from a visual line’s perspective, if the sharper you are on the inside radius of a curve, the harder the sightlines are; the straighter the line, the better the sightline is. So from that configuration, it’s a better location. The other thing that is also a factor in whether this is a better location is that I think Randy mentioned that at Queen Kalama you have a rocky bluff on the right side of the road and then you have a bougainvillea hedge on the left side of the road; both of those things affect the sightlines. On this particular corner of the Metzler’s, first of all, you don’t have the cliff that would cause that kind of a visual impact. And second, because it’s a vacant site, you know, we would be able to keep a better setback from the road intersection of any kind of landscaping or plantings, and that would also preserve the sightline. So in that sense it would be a better intersection for egress and ingress on to the property. WATANABE: Yes, Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: I’m sorry, my visuals, you talked about -, Queen Kalama is that -, I’m sorry, okay, and the corner of Metzler’s that you were talking about that was not -? ATTA: It’s the bottom part of the Metzler’s -. BOWMAN: The bottom part in the middle or just at the edge -? ATTA: The corner, yeah, near the corner, the bottom -. BOWMAN: Right there, right -. ATTA: Yeah, it could be there or even towards the Keauhou side, but -. BOWMAN: Okay, and the sightline from Queen Kalama is better; that’s what you said. ATTA: That’s from the intersection at Queen Kalama. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: Okay. I have a follow-up question to that. That improvements that – I forget what option it was 1, I think, is it 1 or 2, I’m not sure – to improve that intersection, does the County now have roadway easements there to allow you to make the improvements to the sight distance -? ATTA: Well, it’s narrow. You are talking about the Queen Kalama intersection? WATANABE: Yes. ATTA: It’s narrow. We haven’t actually done any engineering assessment of it; so I can’t tell you for sure if there is enough space in the easement to carve back that small EXHIBIT B 50 cliff. I think the vegetation is actually in the private property, but I’m not sure, again, cause there is -, when you come out of Queen Kalama, on the left side there is a private property and then there are these hedges. I don’t know where the right-of-way ends exactly. So I can’t tell you if to cutback that hedge would require, would be just an action in the right-of- way or would actually go into the neighboring private property. I don’t know. WATANABE: Well, maybe, Chris, could you expound on that? You know, on some parcels we do have future road widening easements, but these particular parcels at the Kalama intersection, do we have any or is that just -? YUEN: We don’t have any kind of future road widening; it’s just what is the current right-of-way. And I don’t know the exact details of it. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Thanks. Yes, Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: I just have a quick question. When you were referring to your -, you might need to change your needs according to the market, but you – maybe this is ignorant of me – but you are committed to do the LEED. ATTA: Yes. BOWMAN: Okay. ATTA: Yeah, that’s not -, that’s our concept; that, we are not going to change. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: Yes. SIRACUSA: When you are ready to begin on the affordable housing part of that, did you also intend to do those according to the green building principles? ATTA: Yes. Every house supposed to be affordable on the market will have a solar as a standard and then individuals can buy up into the affordable takes on other things. WATANABE: Thank you -. SIRACUSA: Follow-up. WATANABE: Yes, follow-up. SIRACUSA: I’m wondering how come you didn’t bring us the two projects simultaneously. I mean, were you planning -, was that a question of financing? You need to sell the high-end homes first so you can have the money to build the affordable ones or was there another kind of strategic reason that I’m not fathoming? EXHIBIT B 51 ATTA: I think the major thing was a timing issue. And as you are all aware, the State Land Use Commission has a different process and additional steps and things. The County processing, it was specifically intended for the smaller parcels under 15 acres. And so there is a timing issue that -, for every developer time is an important issue in financing. So it was helpful for us to have at least a portion of us moving forward, to help us move the project forward, if that option was available; and we decided to request it. WATANABE: Follow-up? SIRACUSA: Yeah, my concern is like – and maybe you can explain why this shouldn’t be a concern – but what happens if, say, we grant you this application and then something happens with another entity of government where you can’t do the affordable housing, and yet we’ve already granted you this one on the basis that there would be. So how could that play out? ATTA: Okay, there are two ways that could play out. Since the County housing requirement on the condition requires us to build the affordable housing within the 15-mile radius, if for some reason we are not able to get the entitlements on the mauka side to build it there, we would either find another location and put the 13 houses that would come of the 65 makai lots or we would then, the other option available would be to pay the in-lieu fee per unit. So it will be either a money option or us finding another location and building 13 houses on it. SIRACUSA: Then I would ask the Director if that would be a viable alternative. YUEN: Those are all alternatives that they can -, there is also an alternative of buying excess housing credits from an affordable housing developer who has produced more of housing than they were required. WATANABE: Are you satisfied? Yes, Mr. Lim. LIM: I was going to mention that the ultimate fallback option is, of course, to build on site. ATTA: Right. We could do that, too, but that’s the last option we have. SIRACUSA: Okay, but it’s nice to have backup plans, isn’t it? WATANABE: Okay. Do we have any further questions? Mr. Lim, do you have something else to present? LIM: Very briefly. We have presented some conditions; and that’s my letter nd for you from this morning, May 22. Our Exhibit A is a redline version of the conditions that had been proposed by the Director. We’ve already spoken about the first underlined condition, which is Condition C, and because the Director feels we don’t need to do that, then we are willing to withdraw that portion of the condition. The next one on Page 2, which EXHIBIT B 52 is a continuation of what would be our Condition F, but your current Condition E, this relates to the Alternative 1, the Queen Kalama-Alii Drive intersection, or the Alternative 2 – I mean, excuse me – Alternative 1 is the new access drive, which would probably be either at the KIC lands or the Metzler lands, and Alternative 2 is the improvements of the Alii Drive and Queen Kalama intersection. We have added the last sentence there on the end of that Condition in the anticipation that although we hadn’t done any studies, because we didn’t control any of the lands fronting the Alii Drive-Queen Kalama street intersection, we may need some assistance from the County in working with those landowners. I think that the Planning Director has already informed us that he would not be in favor of that addition, and we will allow the Planning Commission to take its own vote on that. The additions to the next section, we changed the word, the roads connections to roads stubouts; these are changes that are kind of technical in nature. The road stubouts is a term that you’ve been using more in your rezoning ordinances. It also makes it clear that we are going to provide road stubouts on our side but we can’t guarantee that there will be a connection on the other side because that’s going to be up to primarily KIC, Kamehameha Investment Corporation. Because we are going to process a Planned Unit Development for the proposed subdivision, which would include variances from the minimum lot sizes from 7,500 square feet down to 4,500 square feet, we may also do other variances, which are such things as maybe the sidewalks, curbs and gutters only on one side of the streets or maybe reduce roadway width; and to the extent that we do those, we want to make sure that – because this condition requires that in the last sentence that if these streets are part of our route providing connection between Naniloa Street, Alii Drive and the KIC properties, which is a property to the south, that condition requires that the streets be dedicated to the County – and we want to make sure that, assuming that the Planned Unit Development was approved and we’ve got some lowered street requirements, that those would still be acceptable to the County for dedication and thus we would be able to comply with the condition. ATTA: And, Steve, can I explain that just a little bit. The only reason that we have that question is related to the archaeology at the entrance, and we are working with the State Historic Preservation right now about the preservation of those features. And the preservation may involve either walls or buffers right next to the those arch sites on the makai side of that street, and us turning the road sharply away from the arch site to avoid it. And that may result on one side -, us not being able to put a sidewalk on the makai side to avoid the wall or the arch site. And so that’s the reason that we are asking that the language be slightly flexible, so that the Planning Department or the Public Works can look at those potential options in the roadway design so that they may or may not be completely compliant with the standard subdivision roadway and arcs. So we just want to be able to work with the County on that. WATANABE: Do you have further -? LIM: And the last condition that we proposed for amendment is your Condition R and our Condition S, which is on Page 5, it’s at the very end of the fair share contribution section; and we are adding the statement that the applicant shall receive a credit against the fair share contributions required for road and traffic improvements, basically for the cost of the Alii Drive left-turn and the intersection improvements. These are offsite EXHIBIT B 53 improvements, which we understand are typically allowed as credits against the road and traffic fair share; and so we request that the Planning Commission add that on. WATANABE: But that would only be in the event that those actually occurred. LIM: That is correct. WATANABE: Yeah, cause you have a couple of options. LIM: Well, I think under either option we are going to have to do a left-turn lane and the intersection improvements. WATANABE: Oh, I see, I see, okay. LIM: And with that, I think that’s the discussion on the conditions. And we would ask the Commission for its support. We had also proposed earlier that one recreational area, the 5,000-square foot recreational area, we’d ask that be included as a condition of the Commission. And -. WATANABE: Mr. Lim, well, actually, I believe it was you, George, that had indicated earlier that you would not be opposed to a conditional timing issue to the grant of zoning. Did I hear you correctly on that? ATTA: I think I was just speaking generically that certain of these improvements there are maybe some issues of timing and sequencing. And we would not be opposed to -, you know, if the Commission feels that a particular condition is important to put in place, and that we wouldn’t be building something without that condition being met, we would be willing to accept that kind of a condition of zoning -. WATANABE: Okay, that type of condition includes access? ATTA: Yes, it includes access. WATANABE: Okay, okay. Thank you. SIRACUSA: Mr. Chair. WATANABE: Yes, Ms. Siracusa. SIRACUSA: I would -, we’ve heard the proposed changes to the conditions by the applicant. And I would like to hear what the Director’s feelings are about those, whether he approves or disapproves or wants to make, tweak a little bit or whatever. YUEN: Yes, thanks for asking. Following their Exhibit A and the lettering on that – I think that’s the easiest one to follow because the lettering is different between that and the draft ordinance in your packet – so the addition in F, at the end of F, we are opposed EXHIBIT B 54 to that. I could explain why, it’s kind of a technical reason, but we do oppose the change to F. The changes to G are okay. The idea of connections is the same as the idea of stubouts; but if they prefer stubouts, that’s fine. And the proposed change to S is okay. WATANABE: Okay, now, Mr. Director -. BOWMAN: Excuse me, S on Page -? YUEN: S on Page 5. They have two Ss -. BOWMAN: Five, yeah, okay. YUEN: Which makes it confusing. The first S, the bottom of the first S that they have -, because they went into a second S. WATANABE: Okay. Mr. Director, just to clarify, though, with regard to the building of the streets to dedicable County standards and the flexibility that they are asking because of the potential conflict with the archaeological sites – I believe that was in their Paragraph G, at the bottom of Paragraph G – are you okay with that? YUEN: Yes, you know, it’s still -, what would happen is that the County would have to agree that though -, because the County has to agree to the PUD, the County would have to agree that the streets are going to be dedicable even though there are some variation from the PUD standards; and that’s something that we can defer to be decided at that point. WATANABE: Okay. Yes, Mr. Darrow. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick reference, Condition C, Mr. Director, you have mentioned that you are against Condition C; you would want that taken out? YUEN: They withdrew that, I believe. LIM: That’s correct. We withdrew C. WATANABE: So then we would re-letter all of these.Did I have -, you know, to address the public concern, I’m also looking at a condition subject to timing of access. Do you have any cause -? We’d be overburdening this situation because we don’t know when Alii Parkway may come about; however, it seems like they are relatively close to acquiring permanent access to Alii Drive through the Metzler property. Do you think that’s something that we might include or is that something that -. LIM: On behalf of the applicant, we’d ask that that not be a condition because if you tie that to the negotiations with the private landowner, then it gives them a mound of leverage -. EXHIBIT B 55 WATANABE: Yeah, I’m a little worried about that also. LIM: That’s why we are willing to go with the Alternative 1 and Alternative 2. If we can work it out with Mr. Metzler or KIC for alternate access to Alii, that’s I think our preferred alternative. But in the event we can’t, we have to default, we’d like to back out into the Queen Kalama side on the Alternative No. 2, I think it is. WATANABE: Okay. But if you -, your negotiations with Kamehameha are really subject to the Parkway being built. Isn’t that correct? LIM: No. They have alternative means to go through what they call that area 26. You see that kind of the brown and the yellow area? That’s all Kamehameha Investment Corporation lands, too. WATANABE: So you could get easement and connect to an existing road, and -. LIM: Right. There is a, in the Kona CDP, there’s proposal of a major mauka-makai connector road right along the boundary there. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Yes, Ms. Siracusa. SIRACUSA: There have been some questions and discussion over the course of this matter today that related to the status of some of the State roads in Kona. And I was wondering if we could ask Ki to come up and give us sort of a status report on -. WATANABE: That would be fine. Are you prepared, Ki? Well, to give a, yeah, roundabout -. EMLER: I think the roadway projects that were most mentioned and most related to this would be Laaloa. And I noticed that there was an article in the West Hawaii Today this morning that tied Laaloa into Lako Street as though the Public Works had committed to having the both come on line at the same time. I did check with our communications people to see, to verify that that’s correct because I had not heard such a commitment; and I think there is going to be a discussion with the West Hawaii Today about doing a correction on that. WATANABE: Okay. So then what does that mean? Does that mean Laaloa is dead or not dead? EMLER: Right now, I think the latest status I know about that is that the EA process is still under way. They are going through what’s called context sensitive solution process with the community there. And we still have not gotten a final EA published on that; that’s my understanding. As far as the project’s status, I know there is a -, in the administration’s budget there was an item in the budget to include Laaloa improvements to the amount of about $12.5 million dollars for, I think, fiscal year 2008-2009. But that has not EXHIBIT B 56 been approved yet by the Council in second reading, so -. My understanding is they had first reading. WATANABE: Okay. EMLER: And then I know there is also -, they are trying to get bonding for a certain amount of that – I think it’s probably for the construction plan. I think they are trying to get that bonded. WATANABE: Okay, but basically what you are saying is it’s still in the County’s radar or -. EMLER: Not funded, no projected completion date at this time. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. EMLER: There are others, you know, the Parkways I believe is on this State Transportation improvement list again; I believe it’s in there for 2010 – within a year one way or the other – for construction. Of course that has been delayed in the past for varying circumstances, but that’s my understanding of it right now. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Does that satisfy you, Ms. Siracusa? SIRACUSA: Yes, it does. Thank you. WATANABE: Oh, good. Okay. Mr. Director, with regard to the timing again, since I was kind of concerned about that other issue I brought up. But you know, we do have Alternatives 1 and 2. If you were to connect it to a timing issue to help satisfy the surrounding neighbors, would we connect that by saying certificate of occupancy is not going to be granted or -? How would you -, you know, you wouldn’t necessarily say groundbreaking would not begin until those conditions occurred. But if you don’t grant certificate of occupancy, no one is going to be there anyway. And I don’t think they are going to build that all out, if they know they can’t sell it for the next five years. So I’m thinking that that will be a pretty good controlling factor. YUEN: Well, specific improvements would be required to be bonded to obtain a final subdivision approval. WATANABE: Oh, bonded to, oh, okay. YUEN: Yes. They would have to bond them, and then they would have to go ahead and build them in connection with the whole subdivision project. So for example, if they had this alternative access to Alii Drive, they would come in with the plans for that at the same time they came in with the plans to subdivide the property; the whole thing would have a construction bond that would assure that the project would be completed. There EXHIBIT B 57 would be construction drawings that would be done, and then the cost estimated, and then a bond issued for all the work to be done at the same time. WATANABE: Okay, then do we need to revise that condition to some degree to set in the timing factor on that? Now I’m lost cause we’ve got -, Mr. Lim, maybe you can help us, which letter is that with regard to the alternate access? LIM: The alternate access is -. WATANABE: Oh, it’s F, yeah? LIM: Yes, I guess, my F, your E, I think it is -. WATANABE: Yeah -. LIM: But -. WATANABE: And it’s going to be your D, though -. LIM: I think -. WATANABE: No, your E because we’ve got rid of your C, right? LIM: Right. I think one of the two alternates, what Mr. Yuen said is correct is that the timing on occupancy or the subdivision will all fall under the normal subdivision processing; you know, we’ll come in with our subdivision plans for the lots, at the same time we’ll be coming in for the roadway and utilities and water servicing that subdivision, and that all gets bonded in one package and gets built. The County will be holding that bond to ensure that we do all of that and complete it in a timely fashion. WATANABE: So then we don’t need to alter this because it will be taken care of administratively through the PUD approval. LIM: That’s the standard procedure, yes. They wouldn’t let us open it up without it. WATANABE: Okay, okay. Do any other Commissioners have anything else? Yes, Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: Maybe overall – and forgive my ignorance – but the total area, how many roads actually join Alii Drive? It’s Laakoa and Queen Kalama? PUBLIC: Laaloa. BOWMAN: Laaloa and Queen Kalama both join from the -, and how many residences are there that use those two? I’m just trying to get an overall -. EXHIBIT B 58 PUBLIC: Six hundred. BOWMAN: Six hundred already, okay, residences that go down those two roads onto Alii Drive. And Alternative – where is Alternative 1 – okay, it says, “Construct a new alternate access road from Alii Drive to the project through currently vacant property to the west ….” meaning -, could you show -? SIRACUSA: That’s the Metzler. BOWMAN: That’s the Metzler? WATANABE: Right. BOWMAN: And you just have an agreement for the construction road. Okay. So what we are asking is that this then would be developed as another access just for this subdivision. YUEN: No. That would become a public road, and anybody could go in and out of it. BOWMAN: Would it be connected -, but what I’m saying is would it be connected in some way at -? PUBLIC: Naniloa. BOWMAN: Yeah, sorry I don’t know the names. YUEN: Yes. Naniloa has to be connected to the whole property, so -. BOWMAN: And Naniloa is that little stub -? PUBLIC: Right. BOWMAN: Okay, forgive me, I just got this today and I’m from Kohala, right, so I have excuse; we don’t have roads up there, no.Okay, so then actually, if this was done, there would be three outlets for those 665 houses. Okay, thank you. LIM: I’d like to clarify. On the Alternative 1 – and it’s good that she raised, I was going to talk about this – is that it says, “a new alternate access road from Alii Drive to the project through currently vacant property to the west ….;” we were interpreting that as being both the Kaupulehu land – but we’ve been calling it the Metzler property – and the Kamehameha Investment land. It’s either or, and not limiting it to only one. YUEN: Yes. EXHIBIT B 59 BOWMAN: So that could potentially be the yellow -. WATANABE: Mauka. BOWMAN: Mauka? WATANABE: No. BOWMAN: The yellow one. ATTA: Right. It could be potentially. BOWMAN: It could be potentially. Either or. And do we need to stub that out in here or just to the west, whatever west, how far west are we going? LIM: If the Director doesn’t mind, we would like to say to the west and/or the south. YUEN: I don’t mind. The intent was that whichever landowner they could work a deal with to come out with would be okay. It doesn’t really matter to the County. So if it clarifies it to say to the west or south, that’s fine. WATANABE: Okay. SIRACUSA: Question. WATANABE: Yes. SIRACUSA: But if we leave it at west and then it turns out that they can’t make a deal there and do it for south, then he would have to come back again to us, wouldn’t he? Because it would make a change here. So maybe we should just stick in “or south;” so we don’t have to go through that again. YUEN: Well, first of all, if it wasn’t changed, it would still -, the KIC property is also to the west – it’s to the south and the west. But that would work. If it improves it, if the applicant wants it to specifically say for the point of clarification west and south, that’s fine. And if they can’t work a deal, they have Alternative 2. LIM: We request that addition, please. Thank you. WATANABE: Okay. Do we have any other comments? Okay, no comments or questions? BOWMAN: I’m sorry. WATANABE: Yes, Ms. Bowman. EXHIBIT B 60 BOWMAN: South – you know me, we don’t know north-east-south-west; you are not from Kohala – so you are talking about the brown land or are you talking about access onto what will be the bypass? LIM: We are talking about -, it will come out either on the brown or the yellow and then go down towards Alii Drive. We haven’t worked at any planning on that at all. We are still in discussions with Kamehameha Investment Corporation. BOWMAN: But, but that would be -, again, there would be an outlet into the existing subdivision. So that could be used as alternate -, that’s my main thing is how can there be alternative routes? LIM: That’s the objective, and that’s what the Planning Director has been proposing. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: Okay. Does anyone care to make a motion? Yes, Jeff. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for clarification purposes for the Commission, Mr. Lim, earlier you had proposed a condition. If I can just state, I believe this is the condition: The applicant shall provide a recreational area of at least 5,000 square feet, which will be maintained by the homeowners’ association. LIM: I’ll try this again. The applicant shall provide a recreational area of at least 5,000 square feet at the Naniloa Street entry to the proposed subdivision, which shall be maintained by the owners’ association. DARROW: Thank you. WATANABE: This will be Condition – what? Is this a new condition? DARROW: This would be a new Condition -. WATANABE: What, you want to do that as C? DARROW: We can make it as C, if you would like that. WATANABE: Well, we are eliminating their C, right? DARROW: Correct. WATANABE: Okay, so then it’s the new C? DARROW: Okay. EXHIBIT B 61 WATANABE: Okay. Yes, Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: One more question. I know there’s a testifier that mentioned something about that road was not wide enough for a left-hand turn. Now, in Condition, Alternative 1, it also says, “It shall include a dedicated left turn lane at the Alii Drive intersection.” So how do we know that it’s wide enough to have that left-hand turn? WATANABE: Mr. Director. YUEN: Well, if you look at the green area there that goes down to the Alii Drive right-of-way, if necessary, as part of their agreement with the property owner, they could acquire additional land adjoining Alii Drive so that it could be wide enough to make a left-hand turn. BOWMAN: If it goes through that -. YUEN: If it goes through there, yes. BOWMAN: But if it doesn’t and if it goes further south -. YUEN: Same thing, right. Where it turns from green to yellow is where it becomes KIC property. KIC does own a vacant lot on the mauka side of Alii Drive; that first lot, the large lot that you see in yellow that’s on the mauka side of Alii Drive is owned by KIC and it’s vacant. The other lots, the small lots, you see have houses on them. So there is a vacant property on Alii Drive, KIC property, to which a mauka-makai connecting road can be built. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: Okay. Any comments, anybody? Yes, Mr. Darrow. DARROW: I was just going to mention that if -, just for order’s sake, that we usually look at the State Land Use Boundary Amendment first and the Change of Zone and then the SMA. WATANABE: Yeah, but we -, I understand what you are saying; however, our discussion really has been focused on the Change of Zone right now, and I hate to get so confused that we are not sure what conditions we are speaking to. Mr. Hayashi, you had some comments to add to that? Procedurally, is it -? HAYASHI: Procedurally, you need to recommend approval of the State Land Use Boundary Amendment first, and then go into the zone change and then to the SMA Use permit. WATANABE: To the SMA, okay, okay. EXHIBIT B 62 YUEN: The Boundary Amendment is simpler because we are not recommending any conditions on the Boundary Amendment; all the conditions would be on the Change of Zone. WATANABE: Okay. YUEN: So you don’t need to amend it. If you are going to go ahead with a favorable as we are recommending, you don’t need to do anything with the Boundary Amendment; just go ahead and pass the Boundary Amendment from Ag to Urban, then make the amendments to the Change of Zone. WATANABE: Yes, Mr. Domingo. DOMINGO: Mr. Chairman, in view of the fact I would move that we adopt State Land Use Boundary Amendment 07-00018. WATANABE: That will be, send a favorable recommendation to the County Council? DOMINGO: That is correct. WATANABE: Okay. Do I have a second on that? OGATA: Second. WATANABE: Okay. It’s been moved and seconded to send a favorable recommendation for the State Land Use Boundary Amendment. Any discussion on this? Yes, Ms. Bowman. BOWMAN: I just have a question. If we vote on the Boundary Amendment -. WATANABE: Right. BOWMAN: And maybe not necessarily vote on the other two, if we feel we don’t have enough -, or should we do them all at the same time? WATANABE: No, I think you could change the Boundary Amendment without necessarily approving the Change of Zone, I believe so. BOWMAN: My comment is because I don’t feel I’ve had enough time to really digest everything. But I understand that we need the State Land Use change first. WATANABE: Yeah, procedurally, otherwise we are approving something in the wrong Land Use area. BOWMAN: Right. Okay, thank you. EXHIBIT B 63 WATANABE: Any other comments? Mr. Darrow. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The motion before us is to send a favorable recommendation to the Hawaii County Council. With that, I’ll take the roll. Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ogata? OGATA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Bowman? BOWMAN: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Rho? RHO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA: Nay. DARROW: Commissioner Woodward? WOODWARD: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes, six to one. WATANABE: Okay. Then the next order of business would be the Change of Zone. Is that correct? DARROW: Correct. WATANABE: And the SMA would be the last one. The Change of Zone is what we have been discussing mainly. And may I suggest that we use the revised conditions attached to the Director’s recommendations, so that we don’t get confused on the lettering of what conditions we are approving, and that would be inclusive of the new Condition C, which regards the 5,000-square foot park on Naniloa Street, a revision to Condition F adding “west or south”, well, actually we’re just adding “or south,” and elimination in Condition F of the EXHIBIT B 64 ramsayered portion “in the event the applicant after commercially reasonable efforts is able to secure rights to real property interest” because the Director was opposed to that, and ramsayered Condition G, S – that’s it, I think. Am I correct? DARROW: Yes, Mr. Chairman. The only mention would be that in the applicant’s ramsayered version we did have two Ss; so that could -. WATANABE: Yeah, re-lettering then after that, from the second S on. Mr. Domingo. RHO: Mr. Chairman. WATANABE: Yes. RHO: If I may. WATANABE: Mr. Rho. RHO: I don’t want to make a motion at this point, but I did want to make a comment that I really think that we should postpone the balance of Agenda Item 2 until the next West Hawaii meeting. Basically because I personally feel like I haven’t read -, and I’m sure other people on the Commission feel the same way that we haven’t really thoroughly read all the material presented to us today. WATANABE: Okay. You are not the first one to express that concern. Yes, Mr. Domingo. DOMINGO: Mr. Chairman, I too would like to express that concern. Although I was critical about the issue of the roads and -. WATANABE: Timing? DOMINGO: The roads and everything in the traffic, because all of these were put together in a folder and given to us today, it didn’t give me enough time to go through it and to look at the recommendations of the Planning Director and everything. And you know, after discussion the concerns that I had with regards to the traffic and the roadway connections and everything came out clear to me, you know, I can finally feel comfortable with what’s being proposed here. But you know, just to be -. WATANABE: Sure. DOMINGO: More sure and to be certain in my mind, I think it will be appropriate if I’ll be given more time to review this. And I don’t know if we are working on some time constraints – I don’t think so. But I think for the sake of the Commission and the Commission being assigned to go through three big issues – the State Land Use Boundary Amendment, the zoning and then lastly the SMA permit – you know, in the short time that I’ve been on the Commission, I have never detained a project with an enormous amount of EXHIBIT B 65 material that we need to go through, which has been given to us previously; but on this one I feel that I didn’t have enough time. So I concur with some of the other Commissioners that we should be given some additional time to review it. WATANABE: Mr. Lim, well, you already have your, at least from us, our blessing on the State Land Use. And you see that there’s some concern from three of the seven present. LIM: I have talked to my clients and -. WATANABE: Could we possibly continue to -? LIM: They would agree to the Commission’s vote to continue. WATANABE: Yeah, so, well, I believe as Presiding Officer, I can, yeah? Or is it better that we take a vote now since we’ve proceeded so far through this? Okay, okay. Is it better if we take a vote? Yeah, okay. OGATA: I have a question. WATANABE: Yes. OGATA: A procedural question. WATANABE: Yes. OGATA: Do we close testimony now or would it be later? WATANABE: No, as I recall, we’re going to open testimony again, right, at the next hearing. And I assume that they are looking towards the next Kona meeting. So I’ve been informed that this is not a formal contested case; so it will be better that one of you make a motion to continue to the next Kona meeting. Would anyone care to do that? BOWMAN: I’ll try. WATANABE: Yeah. BOWMAN: I move that we continue the hearing of the Special Management Area Use Permit, SMA 07-000024, and the Change of Zone application, REZ07-000075, to our th next Kona meeting, which is June 20? WATANABE: I’m not certain -. SIRACUSA: Second. WATANABE: So we have a motion and a second. Any discussion required? Yes, Mr. Domingo. EXHIBIT B 66 DOMINGO: Mr. Chairman, aside from that, since we already took whatever the action we needed to take with the State Land Use Boundary Amendment issue, would that issue be forwarded to the Planning Commission even without the zoning? WATANABE: You are talking about the Council, County Council? DOMINGO: Yeah, to the County Council, pardon me. WATANABE: Yeah. I believe so. YUEN: Yes, it will be, but we’ll discuss this with Council staff. I don’t think that they would want to take up the Boundary Amendment without taking up the zoning at the same time. It might as well -, they’d want to look at both of them together. So the Council would probably just wait to see the zoning before it put it on its Planning Committee agenda. SIRACUSA: Chair. WATANABE: Yes, Ms. Siracusa. SIRACUSA: I just support this change because I agree that this is a tremendous amount of material to have to digest in such a short period of time. Part of our job is to exercise due diligence and we do it by reading everything carefully and analyzing it. And we were not afforded that opportunity today. There might be other issues that we would come across in reading this that we are not aware of, that were not raised during testimony that we might want to ask questions about also. And that’s why I voted against the SLU because I didn’t feel that I could really step forward and approve something that I was not 100 percent familiar with. And so I’m very glad to second the motion to continue that allow us the time to do that. WATANABE: Anyone else have any other comments, discussion? Mr. Darrow. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The motion before us is to continue both the Change of Zone application and the Special Management Area Use Permit application th until our next Kona meeting on June 20. With that, I’ll take the roll. Commissioner Bowman? BOWMAN: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Domingo? EXHIBIT B 67 DOMINGO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ogata? OGATA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Rho? RHO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Woodward? WOODWARD: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes, seven to zero. WATANABE: So we’ll see you at the next Kona meeting. LIM: I think you still have to vote on the SMA. WATANABE: No, no -. LIM: You did at the same time, same thing? WATANABE: We included both of those in the motion. LIM: Okay, I’m sorry. If during the deliberation and review of the materials, the Planning Commission determines that they would have a need of one or more of our witnesses, if you inform Mr. Hayashi, so we could have them appear. Thank you. WATANABE: Okay, that continues Agenda Item No. 2. The discussion ended at 3:58 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, Secretary Noriko Sauer, West Hawaii Secretary EXHIBIT B 68