2009-09-18 THUKOPA - Laserfiche WebLink

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HOUSEL: Well, as a commissioner I feel very uncomfortable being asked to approve something thatÓs undefined. WATANABE: Uh huh. Any further discussion on that? Madam Director. LEITHEAD TODD: Mr. HouselÓs concerns are typically addressed at subdivision and not at rezoning. At subdivision the applicant comes in with their prel going to create lots and where the roads are going to go, and then that map is sent out for comment by all of the departments and we incorporate those comments including comments from Department of Public Works in terms of the road alignment, sight distance and necessary infrastructure as delineated, one, in the rezoning ordinance, and as required by the Subdivision Code. Generally speaking, when somebody is coming in for entitlements, the reason you donÓt see something set in stone is you donÓt go and hire the engineers and everybody else to do all of that work, if you donÓt know whether you are going to have an entitlement to develop the property, because thatÓs frankly from our property ownerÓs standpoint thatÓs pretty much throwing money away because you donÓt know if you have a right to develop it. So typically what happens in this process is that you have a conceptual plan that gives you kind of an idea of what may or may not look like; but when it ultimately comes to t approval, it may look different as already what they had initially envisioned is starting to change. Maija, can you go back to the map of, where it shows Huallai? Yeah. If you look at that and sight distance, if you are familiar with Huallai, the DPWÓs request to basically move the entrance to the mauka portion of the land makes sense because wherever you are going to have an entrance in or out and left and right turn lanes, you need to be looking at sight distance. And given the piece of property, moving it to the far mauka corner makes the most sense in terms of the sight distance. The difficulty that we sometimes have when we are looking at things is where you site something may not be the ideal spot on Huallai Road. But we are not dealing with the other properties; we donÓt have those other properties in front of us Î what we do have is this. So given this particular application, the Public Works is trying to get it sited as best as they can to try and take care of those issues of sight distance; but by moving it as far mauka as you ca one hand it makes it difficult to line that up in any kind of a straight line to the existing stub-out in Pualani, and given topography in this area, the applicantÓs problem is going to be putting in a road that has the appropriate slope and grade, works in all the drainage features, and to meet County dedicable standards. And so sometimes especially in Kona itÓs really hard to do straight lines. You end up having to do something thatÓs a little bit more meandering in order to get the requisite slope that you need so that you arenÓt basically redoing KaÒiminani Drive. And so there are some unique issues and typically itÓs addressed at subdivision. I understand your concern that itÓs kind of, well, is this what itÓs really going to look like. What you know is that there will be a maximum of 53 lots, and that the size may vary because they you have assurances from the conditions of the rezone that they have to build to a certain standard, and you have assurances from the rezone that they have to build their intersection with Huallai meeting with the requirements of the Department of Public Works as to sight distance and requiring additional right-of-way so that we can preserve the ability to possibly improve Huallai in the future. But if youÓve driven on Huallai, you know that it presents some very difficult problems in terms of improving it partially Î sight distance, the way it curves, some of the areas mauka of this the property drops off significantly from the road. And so I donÓt know how much in the future Huallai because I think itÓll be a very expensive project especially the EXHIBIT A 19