2008-07-22 Kailua Village Design Commission Minutes

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2.Design review of the proposed 149-unit Kumulani Multi-Family Complex on 6.558 acres. The buildings will either be two or three stories in height. Applicant: Michael Riehm of Riehm Owensby Planners Architects. Land owner: Samson LLC. TMK: 7-5-010:013. Located on the north side of Hualalai Road, near the intersection with Aloha Kona Drive, south of the Regency at Hualalai. Staff Presentation Ms. Newlon described the proposed development, showed its location on an enlarged aerial photograph of Kailua Village and explained the subject parcel was “split zoned” into two different zoning districts – Multiple-family Residential (RM) and Village Commercial (CV) – which both allow multi-family residential use and at the 149 unit density as proposed. She noted the owner had brought this project before KVDC for review at its August 8, 2006 meeting. Ms. Newlon noted that although the proposed number of parking stalls (237) exceeded the 187 stalls required for the development per Zoning Code, 25 tandem parking stalls (to accommodate 50 cars) were proposed. She explained that because the Zoning Code requires that all parking stalls be individually accessible, the Planning Director would have to approve the tandem design in order for them to be allowed. Ms. Newlon said that while the proposed buildings complied with the height and setback requirements for the two zoning districts for the site, the front yard landscaping buffer strip, swimming pool and surrounding paved area would all have to be moved five feet back toward the interior of the site so as to be behind the five foot wide road widening strip required by the County’s rezoning ordinance for this site. Where the portion of the site in the CV zoning district abuts other properties in the RM zoning district, a 42” high screening hedge would be required. She noted that most of the proposed trees were among those specified in the Master Plan for Kailua-Kona, but a few were not. Ms. Newlon noted the site was transected by a historic archaeological feature, the Great Wall of Kuakini, which also demarcated the zoning boundary between the RM and the CV districts. She said that the Wall had been previously breached in the center of the site, and that is where the common driveway is shown to lay; a ten foot wide protective buffer would be established along the portions of the Wall within the site. She also noted that the site included a known burial site which was to be walled and protected with landscaping outside of the walled area. Requirements for widening, shoulder and driveway intersection improvements along the site’s Hualalai Road frontage, as imposed by the Department of Public Works and the County Council pursuant to its rezoning ordinances for this site, were explained. The placement of the fourteen multi-unit buildings and the mix of smaller parking areas around many of the buildings were noted, with the buildings in the lower portion of the site placed close to Hualalai Road frontage and those in the upper portion set back from the site’s common boundary with houselots fronting Hualalai Road in that area. 3