2004-09-16 TCONTINENTALSMA 03-016

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GALDONES:Okay. Any further discussion? Before we proceed, I havea request from the commissioners to take a short break, so Miss Rohr, would you indulge us? Im going to call for a five-minutes recess. RECESSEDThe Chair called a short recess at 12:30 p.m. RECONVENEDThe meeting reconvened at 12:40 p.m. GALDONES:The Hawai`i County Planning Commission is back in order. Miss Rohr, you are still under oath. Miss Rohr, we would appreciate it if youd be able to help us to expedite this along, so if you could make your presentation as expeditiously as possible. Im not trying to rush you. However, but if you could help us, we would appreciate that. You may proceed. ROHR:This is complicated. The negotiated, I mean the settlement agreement does not allow the Planning Director to make any changes within his office. So what gets done here is it. I dont think that the shoreline access in this project is to the law. If you read Chapter 34, there are distances for shoreline access. I think were missing one. Im asking that you make as a condition, this application, an additional shoreline access at this point down by the power plant, because the distance is too far. The law provides for shoreline access in the case of RS zoning every 800 to 1,000 feet; in the case of Ag land, its, maybe the Corporation Counsel could tell us thedistance.ItsChapter34requirements. LIM:Chairman,IguessImightmakeacommentthatmighthelpsomeofthe resolution of this issue. Chapter 34 was enacted in response to a state law that required the counties to implement public access in any subdivision applications. Chapter 34 still has to have the Planning Directors rules to actually get, to implement them. And so what weve been doing with the Planning Director on this and on other projects is to try to see what the best workable access was that was as close as possible to the requirements of Chapter 34. And Chapter 34 only requires pedestrian access mauka/makai at certain designated intervals. And as you see from the provisions that weve given here, the public is allowed to drive down pretty much all the way close to the water from the main highway. So if you were to follow the strict requirements of Chapter 34, all you would have is, you know, every 1,000 to 1,500 feet 10-foot-wide mauka/makai public access alignments where theyve got to walk 3 or 4 miles down towards the ocean. Thats all that Chapter 34 requires. So I think that the public access plan that weve developed with driving down to pretty much near the water, parking lots, and then further walking down more than adequately meets the requirements of Chapter 34. YUEN:Let me just follow up on that. The public access here meets both the spirit and the letter of Chapter 34. In an agricultural area, which is what were dealing with here, the location of the accesses is supposed to be 1,500 to 2,500 feet apart; and it does not actually call for a continuous lateral access. It calls for an access to the shore. So what we have is we have 3