2007-09-07 TSHEPARD - Laserfiche WebLink

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GRAHAM: You folks, I guess if we’re -. You didn’t have any questions for the testifier? WATANABE: No. GRAHAM: Okay, so thank you both, thank you all very much for your testimony. Mr. Yuen? YUEN: Let me start by talking a little about overall policy. Because the question of special permits, of course, comes constantly before the Planning Commission. And very often we have special permit applications and very often resulting from the Department actually having a complaint about a business in the Ag district, filing a citation, and then seeing a special permit application to legitimate the business. And it gets down to a question, there’s sort of an overall policy question of when should nonagricultural businesses be allowed by a special permit, and particularly businesses that normally go into a light industrial zone, and there’s quite a bit of interest. And the Department has to give, you know, people come in asking what the Department’s position is going to be as far as the recommendation, and so we have to have some overall principles. And so I did a staff memo some time ago for staff to advise, cause it’s not always going to be the director, and there’s a need to have some kind of consistency. And basically I have to tell you that we generally have a negative attitude towards special permits that have a zoned area, that they typically belong in a zoned, an industrial zoned type area. And, in particular, you’re going to see applications or interests in having warehouses. The other typical one that’s pretty popular to go into agricultural areas is a trucking baseyard or a contractor’s baseyard. And the reason for these is that the zoned areas, say go to Railroad Avenue or the Kanoelehua Industrial area, they tend to either be somewhat expensive or they’re on leased land. A lot of people don’t like to go on leases, a lot of what’s available is on State or DHHL leases. The level of infrastructure that’s needed to operate a warehouse or a contractor’s baseyard is fairly minimal. And so it can be much less expensive to go out to Paradise Park or Orchidland and buy an agricultural lot, grade it, and put a warehouse or a baseyard on it. And if you make it a practice that this is approved or allowed, this is generally what will happen because you can, you know, and this tends to be less true in Hamakua where the property is much more expensive. But you can get a 3-acre lot in Orchidland, might be $75,000 to $80,000, something like that, versus an industrial zoned acre. Actually, an industrially zoned and developed acre lot in Kona may be a million dollars, for example, as a point of comparison. So that’s the basic approach and we have made exceptions for situations where, and particularly in Puna where there’s a lot of need for the kind of services that are provided by these businesses; and there’s not a zoned location available, there really isn’t. And so we’ve had these short-term permits that with a time limit on them and then now tending to come in for a roll-over. You know, that being said, you know, I don’t have a big problem. And let me, this application is a little bit different in that it’s a very small operation occupying what is primarily an agricultural use. There is primarily an agricultural use on the property. And I don’t have a big problem with a time limit on this EXHIBIT B 10