2007-06-05 TSUPERSTORES - Laserfiche WebLink

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for this island, for this culture, and it would be a travesty to have these big box stores here. Mahalo. GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Any questions from the Commissioners? SIRACUSA: Yes. GRAHAM: Commissioner Siracusa. SIRACUSA: Yeah, one of the members in the audience showed me a green, bright green paper, I see one there also, that has been circulating. And I don’t know if the other Commissioners have seen it but it seems to me that people are under the understanding that this body will make decisions for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. And so that question about whether the County has control over what happens, I would like to hear a legal opinion on that here. GRAHAM: If I may, Commissioner Siracusa, I don’t believe this body has any jurisdiction or any decision making in that regard right now. Would you just like it as a piece of information from the Planning Director? SIRACUSA: Well, what I mean is if the decision to put up a big box store, a superstore, on Hawaiian Home lands is not in our purview, if we have nothing to say about it, then a lot of people are sitting here and wasting their time. It’s only if their big box stores can be banned elsewhere on the island besides Hawaiian Home lands that it becomes relevant. CAMPBELL: Mr. Chairman, may I address that real succinctly? GRAHAM: Hold on a second, please. Mr. Yuen, would you like to speak to that at all? YUEN: Well, the question of County zoning jurisdiction over Hawaiian Home lands is one that actually goes back quite a long ways. The first controversy over that actually was in 1970-1971. And it’s a matter that has actually never been definitively litigated. But there have been a number of Corporation Counsel and State Attorney General opinions on the subject. It’s clear that the counties have no jurisdiction to prevent the use of Hawaiian Home lands for residential or pastoral purposes, and agricultural purposes, as decided by the Hawaiian Homes Commission. The situation with respect to the Commercial and Industrial leases is not absolutely clear; but there were Corporation Counsel and Attorney General opinions indicating that the County zoning did not apply to those sites. So for that reason the County did not take legal action and interfere with the building of the Wal-Mart Store that is currently in Hilo on Hawaiian Home’s site, even though it was not appropriately zoned for that site. In 2002 the County based upon this understanding entered into an MOA with the Department of Hawaiian Home that essentially said that with respect to County zoning that the Hawaiian Home could develop as it wished. Hawaiian Home is supposed to follow their own master plan but that the County would not hold Hawaiian Home to County zoning with respect to all sites, including these Commercial and Industrial sites. So the long and short of it is that to take, for example, the area that’s immediately behind Wal-Mart, that’s still in ML zone. And actually the Wal-Mart EXHIBIT D 6