2023-03-16 Leeward Exh A (Items 1 Frank Sirlin PL-SMA-2022-000024)

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PIPAN: So, in terms of cumulative impacts I hear what you're saying. There is this memory of what Puako was and it's changed from that, and it continues to change from that. How can we quantify that in terms of a cumulative impact or the contribution of a single home to this impact. What we're talking about here in terms of the SMA is we're placing an already permitted home that was developed decades ago with a new home with arguably less impacts based on its retreat from the shoreline, its improvement in the wastewater handling, right, and its maintenance of that permitted shoreline access, not blocking that. So, I think in terms of cumulative impact this is actually benefiting the SMA. It's improving on the current state. The home as it is currently blocks views to the shoreline across the property. So, it's not like that's changing appreciably. DEFRANCO: Thank you. I want to make a comment too because I don't see Puako as a gated community. There's public beach access roads that are open for everybody to go to the beach. It is sad that a lot of things have changed and, in our time, here viewing things but they have changed and now we're not here too really, we can't single out this one as the one that is the tipping point. I think the tipping point already happened. I think if you look at those overheads that we were provided with the homes around him are substantial homes with no setback because they didn't have to comply. So, now we have what we're being asked to do is to look at the compliance of the SMA that they have put forward. There're many parts to this discussion and many of us have different feelings and connections with these communities and surfing there and diving there and friends there and barbecuing there. But, when I see this application, I see someone who wants to be in Hawaii. Maybe everybody has a different idea what it means to live Hawaii or to live in a Hawaiian home or community or anything like that. But he is coming in with the respect for Hawaii in purchasing something that he feels that by complying with the rules, the SMA rules of doing the setback, of stepping up to the sewage system that he's willing to put in. This applicant is following the guidelines. So, I mean even though we may feel like the cumulative events that happened in Hawaii in general it's difficult, it's difficult to the position that we all are in to look at it and to say we can't go backwards. So, here we are and if you look at that overhead and you see what his neighbors look like. They're already all built out and they are only 20 feet away from the ocean and you have someone who's coming in and repurposing, no, coming in more of the right way of looking at it. It didn't feel like to me that a 5-bedroom home, I don't see it as a McMansion. I see a McMansion as a 10-bedroom home, with 10 baths, with 10-bathrooms. We all have a different idea of what that means. But I see an applicant who is conforming to the regulations. But I also sympathize with all of us being in this position of being raised here or being part of Hawaii and seeing it disappear the historic aspects of it being gone. Those feelings being gone. KNOWLES: I don't disagree Madame Chairwoman. I think the question in my mind is how do we elevate the discussion around what an SMA Use Permit, what the phrase cumulative environmental impact in the context of an SMA Use Permit actually means given the changing landscape. So, it isn't that I'm singling out Mr. Sirlin as the problem. What I'm singling out is the problem is this mind frame of looking at— DEFRANCO: Right. 19 EXHIBIT A