2009-11-06 TPDtele - Laserfiche WebLink

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LEITHEAD TODD: The concern over that is because of Federal legislation that a blanket denial of telecommunications antennas in Residential areas might be viewed as running afoul of Federal legislation protecting them. The other thing is what you do sometimes in Residential areas is that you can require that it be put on an existing building, you know, as opposed to a free-standing, also are requirements that the distance from, you know, neighboring properties. Those are the kinds of things you can do in Use. The difficulty in providing towers is because you have to have a certain radius of service. And so sometimes the only place that you can put it may be in a Residential area in order to have the service. But by requiring a Use Permit it means that the Planning Commission has the opportunity to review it and determine whether it’s appropriate. WOODWARD: Commissioner Iwashita. IWASHITA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to get a clarification that this change in our County Code is not going to, I don’t know, is there any conflict of law issue with the State law? LEITHEAD TODD: This, the State law now permits telecommunications towers in State Land Use Ag. But what the other Counties have is regulations within their own County Ag and other areas that say you have to come in and have a use permit. And what occurred at the State Legislature -. This is a bill that kind of slipped under the radar as far as the County of Hawaii was concerned. I think possibly because the former director did not think it was going to impact our lands. And the testimony was primarily from City and County, and I believe it was maybe Maui County; and they had no objection. But the reason they had no objection is they were already requiring Use Permits under their County Zoning. So even though the State passed the legislation it didn’t impact their counties. We were the only one that said that, our current language said that they were permitted; and we were only requiring the special use permits because they weren’t a permitted use in the State Land Use Ag. WOODWARD: All right, thank you. We do have one person signed up to testify from the public. If there are no further questions for staff, Danette Mettler. Good morning, actually good afternoon. METTLER: Good afternoon. WOODWARD: If you’ll raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? METTLER: I do. WOODWARD: Very good. If you’ll give us your name and addressed and then you may begin your testimony. METTLER: My name is Danette Mettler. My address is 76-6357 Kololia Street, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. I represent Verizon Wireless as an outside consultant and I have been 3 EXHIBIT C