2006-06-02 THirayama - Laserfiche WebLink

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SIRACUSA:Yes, thank you. Last time we were here it had been mentioned that there had been a rental unit, a Single Family Residence on this property that had been demolished. And I asked your husband if it was demolished before or after you acquired the property. And he just said that it had been demolished before you acquired the property. And what I wanted to know was, because we are concerned about, you know, single family housing in the area, we want to encourage that still, if you could tell us why the structure was demolished. HIRAYAMA:Actually, Commissioner Siracusa, there were two homes on the property. SIRACUSA:Thank you for correcting me. HIRAYAMA:One was in the back and one was in the front. They were both in a very unsafe condition. And because we had problems on Kalanikoa Street, the house across the street from us where vagrants were living in it -- we had to tell the owners that please do something about it; so they did demolish the house across the street from our 514 residence on Kalanikoa -- so we were afraid; and because it was very dangerous, it was an unsafe condition. And we’re always aware of safety; and we didn’t want, you know, homeless people to go in there and just occupy the residence and cause a more dangerous situation. So that’s why we demolished both houses. Actually, we told the Fire Department to go and practice on the houses if they wanted to, but they said they didn’t do that any more. So we had to hire somebody to demolish both houses. And then we had to straighten up the area so people wouldn’t go in there. We tried to make it safe, that’s all we did. SIRACUSA:Thank you. But I wanted to clarify because we had some concern here that we didn’t want to set a precedent whereby someone would demolish the houses first so that the Commission couldn’t say, oh, we want to retain affordable housing in Hilo, and do that as a way to get around things. But obviously these houses were no longer viable for human habitation, so I want to thank you for bringing that out and explaining that more completely to myself and the rest of the Commissioners. HIRAYAMA:Thank you. ALAMEDA:Thank you, Mrs. Hirayama. You can stay there. We might have further questions for you. Any other thoughts or questions? Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:I have a question. Is it my understanding that if we were to use the current zoning height limitation which is 25 feet that would be, I mean, excuse me, 35 feet that would be acceptable to you? HIRAYAMA:Yes, because -. WATANABE:Cause I don’t see that as one of the conditions. But I’m hoping that we can generate enough votes -. HIRAYAMA:Yeah, well, at the last Commission hearing there was something mentioned about the height. And I think one of you, I don’t know who, mentioned that if we could live that height or, so we agreed. 5EXHIBIT A