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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-11-07 TNANI KONA PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI`I HEARING TRANSCRIPT NOVEMBER 7, 2003 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of NANI KONA AINA, LLC (SLU 03-007/REZ 03-018) was called to order at 10:10 a.m. in the Ohana Keauhou Beach ` Resort, Kahaluu Ballroom, 78-6740 Alii Drive, North Kona, Hawai`i, with Vice Chair Hannah Springer presiding. PRESENT:Hannah SpringerABSENT AND EXCUSED:Fred Galdones Bill GrahamEarl Fujikawa Florence Kubota Jeffrey McCall Aurelio C. Mina, Jr. Francis Smith Bill Thibadeau Patricia O'Toole, Esq., Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher J. Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Staff Planner Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner Kiran Emler representing the Department of Public Works And approximately 40 people from the public in attendance. NANI KONA AINA, LLC (SLU 03-007/REZ 03-018) a.State Land Use Boundary Amendment for 14.533 acres from the Agricultural to the Urban district. b.Change of Zone for 14.533 acres from the Agricultural 5-acre (A-5a) to the Single Family Residential Î 10,000 square foot (RS-10) District. The property is located along the west (makai) side of HienaloliÎKahului Road, adjacent to and north of the Kona Heights Subdivision Î Unit II. Hienaloli, North Kona, Hawai`i, TMK: 7-5-10:66. SPRINGER:Members, right now moving on to Agenda Item 4. The Applicant is Nani Kona Aina, LLC. The action is SLU 03 -, the proposed action is SLU 03-007 and REZ 03-018. (a) is a State Land Use Boundary Amendment for 14.533 acres from the Agricultural to the Urban District. (b) is a Change of Zone for 14.533 acres from the Agricultural 5-acre '@,4`(snsgdRhmfkdE`lhkxQdrhcdmsh`ki0/+///square foot (RS-10) District. The property is located along the west (m`j`h(rhcdneGhdm`knkhiJ`gtkthRoad, adjacent to the north -, I'm 1 EXHIBIT B sorry, adjacent to and north of the Kona HeifgsrRtachuhrhnmiTmhsHH-Ghdm`knkh+MnqsgJnm`+ Hawai`i, TMK: 7-5-10:66. Aloha, Jeff. DARROW:Aloha. Thank you, Ms. Chairman and Members of the Planning Commission. If I can direct your attention to the location map, the area we're looking at is in the North Kona area, more specifically the Hienaloli area. The Applicant in this case is Nani Kona Aina, LLC, and as you had mentioned, they are requesting a State Land Use Boundary Amendment from Agricultural to Urban, as well as a Change of Zone from Agricultural 5- acres to Single Family Residential - 10,000 square feet for approximately 14.533 acres. The area is -, just to get your idea of where we're at, this is Queen Ka`ahumanu Highway running in a northerly-southerly direction. This is Nani Kailua Drive running in a mauka- makai direction. And the red dot signifies the parcel that we're looking at. Just to kind of bring your bearings in the area, other subdivisions in the area, we have the Kona Heights Subdivision identified here in green, and just south of that is the Kailua View Estates, and directly across from the proposed request is the Keaolani Subdivision. The Applicant intends to subdivide, if approved, intends to subdivide the parcel into 43 Single Family Residential RS-10 zoned lots, and that's identified here in blue. The -, I just wanted to bring your attention to several other rezonings in the area that have occurred recently. There was one that occurred this year in March, that was approved for approximately 10 acres, and that was from Agricultural 5-acres to Single Family Residential-20, RS-20, as well as another located near the highway that was for approximately 10 acres and, again, Agricultural-5 acres to RS-20, and these are located directly makai of the parcel that we are looking at for the request today. Another item that I want to bring to your attention is the Hienaloli Drainageway. As you can see, we have -, in pink we have the shaded X area and then in orange, more specifically, we have the Zone AE. A portion of that does appear on this map to go through the parcel in question. We did receive a submittal this morning from the Applicant's representative, and if I could pass this on to you. It's a -, if I'm not mistaken, I believe that's a revised map that -, for this drainageway, and the -. So there -. It appears with the revision that only a small portion of the parcel will be affected by this drainageway. The Planning Director is recommending a favorable recommendation for both the State Land Use Boundary Amendment and the Change of Zone be forwarded to the Hawai`i County Council. Are there any questions? SPRINGER:Commissioners, is there any -? Commissioner Graham. GRAHAM:Thank you, Jeff. It seems like one of the issues we are going to be dealing with is the amount of traffic load on that Nani Kailua Drive intersection. I wondered if you had any numbers for how large those other subdivisions are that are using the same road, 2 how many units might be in those other subdivisions that are already in place, not the new ones but the ones already in place, Kona Heights or -? DARROW:I'm sorry, I don't have those figures with me, but I can get them as soon as I can. GRAHAM:Oh, they may well come up in the testimony so -. DARROW:Yeah, we were relying on comments from the different agencies regarding traffic, and it appears that it's, it doesn't -, the comments from the State Department of Transportation appears to not trigger any major issues as well as there wasn't any request for a traffic report to be done. But there are concerns regarding the increase of traffic in the area, and so that is something we are definitely going to have to look at in this request. GRAHAM:Thank you. SPRINGER:Commissioners, any other questions? Commissioner McCall. MCCALL:Yeah, could you go -, I didn't -, maybe I wasn't paying attention. Your thing about the drainageways, is this is a stream bed and or how often are we expecting flow in this and -? I'm not -. DARROW:It's an identified drainageway, and in certain storm events, this will be an area that will be flooding. I believe it's -, I don't know the exact figures. It might be hundred year storms that might affect this particular drainageway. But again, with the new map revision, it appears that this isn't going to be a real big issue with this property. MCCALL:Why is that? DARROW:The drainageway actually comes this way, and just a very small portion, which you will be able to see on the map that's going around is going to be within that parcel, and it's only -, it appears that it's only the shaded X area and not the actually Zone AE. MCCALL:Okay. DARROW:Flood zone. And I believe the Applicant's representative is -, has more information. YUEN:If I could follow up with how that's handled in the conditions of the rezoning. Until -, this -, what we are being submitted is not official. There's a process for them to get a map revision of the official map. It involves review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Then -, and it also requires notice to the adjacent property owners because when they change their map of where the water goes on their property, they may be saying that the 3 map should be revised because the water really goes on somebody else's property, so we have to let that other person comment on that. Either way, we are recommending a condition that there would be no construction of single family dwellings and related improvements or other substantial buildings or subdivision roads within areas designated AE, and AE is an actual floodway where water is, where water can be expected in high rain events and flood events. Where the shaded Zone X, Zone X is the area that's outside of the flood area, but the shaded area could be on a fringe of flooding where you might expect to see some water. And so either whether the map is revised or not, that would be a condition. If the map is not revised, the result would be that a number of the lots that are shown could not be built upon. SPRINGER:And that's Condition O that the Director is referring our attention to. Thanks, Chris. Commissioner Kubota. KUBOTA:Yes. This morning, this is directed to Director Yuen. This morning I'm in receipt of a transmittal from a Ruth Robinson, and she raises concerns about the incremental rezoning type of zone changes that are being considered in this area as it affects the entire, I guess, the whole area that we're talking about at this point, as it relates to traffic congestion and safety. Have you -, would you like to respond to that, because I do have concerns myself? YUEN:It's a legitimate concern, but the law does permit them to bring this in, this 15-acre increment. KUBOTA:It brings to mind some years ago under a different administration when we were talking about zone changes in the Anekona Knehoa Subdivision area. We attempted to zone change the whole gamut of it, and it didn't fly, for some reason. Have we considered looking at zone changes -? I know they have the right to incrementally do it, and 15 acres or less you avoid the State Land Use Commission, and so I'm not faulting the owners, but I'm just wondering if there is a better way that we can, we as responsible planners and Commissioners, can look at the kinds of probable impact that these developments can have. We keep talking about it, but you know, we keep adding more fuel to the fire, and I'm just wondering if the Director can give us some direction on how we can look at these future requests for rezoning, other than 15 acres, less than. YUEN:You are absolutely right, it would be much better to look at things on a broader, on a regional level and do planning on that basis. The system, as it exists now, and has been practiced, is very much applicant driven. KUBOTA:Right. YUEN:And parcel by parcel driven. We -, in considering revisions to the State land use law, this is -, we've sent in -, and just so you get an idea of the bigger picture. There 4 is a working group that is considering revisions to the State land use law, mostly in the agricultural area. One of the suggestions that we are making as a Department is that the system should work more to encourage redistricting of land use -, say from agriculture to urban, on a pro-active level in advance of individual applications so that you can look at these things in a group rather than on a one-by-one basis. So the specifics of how to do that, like everything, the tricky part is the details, but it is -, as a matter of overall approach and policy, something that we're trying to do. SPRINGER:Mrs. Kubota, any follow-up? KUBOTA:Yeah. Well, no, I was just reminded that at the last meeting that the past practice is not necessarily the best practice, so I thought well, we could find a creative way to attack it, go for it. SPRINGER:I share Mrs. Kubota's concern, and even changing the zoning of large tracts of land would not necessarily address the issues of infrastructure development, would it, Mr. Director? YUEN:No, it wouldn't, but you -, it enables you to say -, I mean the ideal way to do it is to have -, when you're having -. The problem is that you have scattered pieces of property that in themselves are not going to support major improvements, so we need a more -, as far as infrastructure planning and implementation, we need more effective ways of bringing in these various properties to fund the improvements that cannot be justified by the individual projects one by one. SPRINGER:Thank you. Any other Commissioners, questions or comments? DARROW:Ms. Chairman? SPRINGER:Yes, Jeff Darrow. DARROW:If I could just follow up on Commissioner Graham's question, it appears that you're looking at approximately 400 to 500 lots located in this area. That's not including The Pines, which has quite a number of units, as well as Aloha Kona, and so you're looking at quite a number of impact -, lots that are impacting this particular intersection, as well as the areas that are obviously going to be coming in for rezone and subdivision in the future. GRAHAM:Thank you. DARROW:If I also can bring up one point, and I'll defer the rest of that to the Applicant's representative, they did bring up the fact that there's a possibility of putting in ` another mauka-makai access road to Queen Ka`gtl`mtGhfgv`xhmsgdetstqd+`mcHllmns completely, have all the details on that, but I know it's to the south of these particular subdivisions. And so that may be a possibility that may be able to alleviate some of these 5 problems that they're going to face in the future. But, again, the Applicant's representative can go into more detail as to where and when that may occur. SPRINGER:Thank you, Jeff. Commissioners, any more questions or comments to the Staff? If none, will the Applicant or the Applicant's representative and all of those who signed up to testify or wishing to testify on this agenda item, please stand and raise your right hands. I have 11 folks that have signed up so far. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on ` this matter now before the Hawaii County Planning Commission? MOOERS:I do. TESTIFIERS:I do. SPRINGER:Thank you. Please be seated, and we'll call on you following the Applicant's discussion with us. You have received the Background Report? MOOERS:Yes, I have. SPRINGER:We look forward to your comments. MOOERS:Thank you. There is obviously a great deal of comment on this application, and I would really like to address some of the issues that Commissioner Kubota raised and Commissioner Springer and the Chairman, excuse me, Planning Director Yuen. This area from Palani Road south below Hienaloli Road is slated for urbanization. Every plan, State and County plan calls for that. The opposition that I've received in letters and comments are all related to infrastructure issues. We can lament the fact that as projects come forward one at a time in this piecemeal approach that it's very difficult to provide the infrastructure because each 10 or 15 or 20 or 30, 40-lot subdivision in and of itself doesn't create serious issues. The entire area does. ` When you have situations where you have large landowners, say in Kapolei on Oahu, in which you're looking at thousands of homes being constructed, it's very easy to plan for infrastructure at that time. You design your roadways, your sewer systems, your water systems to accommodate the volume or the size of the project that you project. The problem we have here on this Island, and particularly in this area, is the land ownership pattern is such that you don't have very many large landowners, so there's not one landowner who can stand the bite for a new intersection or who can stand the bite for a new reservoir or water lines. And then we get into the situation we're at today. I submit that this project will actually go a long way towards addressing those infrastructure concerns. If you look at the proposed conditions, you'll notice that the first condition related to water, let's see if I can pull that up. Excuse me a moment. It says the effective date of this ordinance shall be the date when the Applicant and the Department of Water Supply finalize an 6 agreement for water system improvements for the proposed subdivision. That sounds like a somewhat standard condition, in other words, the zoning's effective when you can prove you have the water. If you allow me, I'd like to go over to the map. SPRINGER:Please do. MOOERS:The water system in this area is inadequate. The water pressure right ` now for this area is pumped up off of Queen Kaahumanu Extension, and that has limited development of this area for quite some time. The well sites up above Mmalahoa Highway that feed down through there, the Department of Water Supply needs additional corridors, they need additional storage, and the storage is also -, acts as pressure breaks along the system. In order for this project to occur, there will be substantial, substantial improvements required in order to provide water. This is not a case where the developer can pay the $6,000 per unit and move forward. They are going to have to put in major reservoirs. The only way that that project can occur is that there's going to be -, have to be contributions by other developers. This project cannot foot the bill on its own. In addition to that, other developers in the area, and Kamehameha Schools owns this property here, there are other properties below the highway here that have been permitted already, there have been discussions with the Department of Water Supply in order to form a district, liken it to an improvement district, in which all of the proposed developments would be allowed to put their facilities charges into the development of this system. So in other words, in order for this project to occur, you're going to have to have other parcels developed. That forces this developer to create an improvement district that will address not only the water but also roadway improvements so that the other projects can occur. This project cannot stand on its own. It cannot move ahead until the water system's done. The water system can't be developed until other improvement -, or other projects move ahead and they can participate as well. And this is what is, I actually think going to be beneficial for the community because then we will get an additional mauka-makai connector. In some of the letters I've read, the Kona Traffic Safety, they had indicated that they thought that there should be another access point here on this parcel immediately to the north. This is a State highway. The Department of Transportation indicates this is a controlled access highway. They indicate where the access points are permitted on that highway. They will not permit an access point here. They do have permitted access points further to the south, and so those are the alternatives that have to be explored. Any other questions about that aspect of the project? I'll go back and address some of the conditions. SPRINGER:Members? Thank you, Greg. MOOERS:There are some specific conditions maybe I should address in there, that require the improvement of Hienaloli Road from Nani Kailua Drive through the subject property. I know there was that issue was raised in a couple letters I saw. The existing 7 condition of Hienaloli Road is substandard and that is one of the conditions of approval is that that road would have to be improved, as well. SPRINGER:Greg? MOOERS:Oh, I'm sorry. Jeff asked if I would address the drainageway. Previous rezoning, this RS-20 that was done for the Waltons, one of the conditions of approval required that a drainage study be prepared and submitted to the Department of Public Works. Mr. Jeffrey -, I don't know if it was Mr. or Dr. Jeffrey Casburn did a drainage study, and that drainage study did show a realignment of the drainageway, and a letter has been submitted to the Department of Public Works, also been submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers for a letter of map revision that would amend this alignment. As Mr. Yuen pointed out, the condition as written is pretty clear that there is no development allowed in the floodway, so if for some reason the Army Corps did not approve the realignment, that would dramatically reduce the number of lots that could be developed in this subdivision. SPRINGER:Greg? Thank you. You referred us to one of the conditions that addressed off-site improvements. I'm wondering if -, just to make sure that I'm on the right page, if that's Condition I. MOOERS:That is correct, I and J. SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioners, do you have any questions or comments to the Applicant at this time? Commissioner Graham. GRAHAM:Greg, one thing that jumps to my attention is I believe the existing subdivision, like Kona Heights or like RS-15s, and Jeff showed us the new ones that went in just below, the RS-20s, so it feels like you're really representing a high density RS-10 that doesn't really conform with the neighboring areas, and it feels to me as a Planning Commission representative, like the neighbors are sort of a constituency who are already there, so I'm concerned about the higher density and their concerns. MOOERS:Well, to be honest, the density is there to try to increase the number of facilities charges and water that will help pay for the water system. The higher density, and I think you'll see this throughout this area, is that the increased number of lots is what will pay the, for the roadways. The impact related fees, as you recall, the impact related fees which are now $9,000 a unit would obviously be substantially higher in this case than if it were half the density. GRAHAM:Okay. Thank you. DARROW:Could I make a -, interject for a moment? SPRINGER:Sure. 8 DARROW:These areas here are zoned RS-15. The Kona Heights Subdivision is actually zoned Ag-5. In looking at the sizes of these lots, they range from 7,500 square feet on up to over 10,000, so they all -, these are also non-conforming smaller type of residential lots that are located directly adjacent to this subject request. SPRINGER:Thank you, Jeff. Commissioners, any questions or comments? Seeing none, Greg, at this time, I'd like to ask you to step back and I'd like to invite the first six of 12 testifiers forward. In order of signing up, Andrea Tischler, Joel Gimpel, Laurel Gregory, David Kish, Lawrence Goff, and Alex Thropp. We'll begin at the right side of the table, and each of you in your turn, will you please state your name, your resident address, and proceed, speaking directly into the microphone, please. TISCHLER:Yes, good morning and aloha. SPRINGER:Good morning. TISCHLER:My name is Andrea Tischler, and I live up on Lopeka Place, ` 75-5784 Lopeka Place. I'm a newcomer to Hawaii, but I've grown to love this Island very much in the short time that I've been here. I'm not very familiar with the way these proceedings go, but so that's why I'm here to find out. I bought my house on a cul-de-sac street, Lopeka Place, which butts up against to the proposed building site. My house is actually right on the border of the project. I'd like to show you some photographs if you don't mind. This is -. SPRINGER:Can you speak into the microphone, please. You can bring it with you. TISCHLER:So my house is right up against where this proposed building site is, right at the end of the cul-de-sac. I have some great concerns about this project and the size of it and how it will affect my house and apparently the other residents, I don't know, in the area. And my first concern is the quality of life issues that such a large project presents. This is going to be site preparation for years and road construction and, of course, when the actual houses are built, this is going to take a long, long time and it's going to really be a lot of equipment. I hear a lot of construction all around me going on, and when I drive down the highway I just can't believe the amount of construction that's going on here now, and so I'm ` just really kind of shocked coming to Hawaii thinking, oh, this is such a beautiful, tropical place, and quiet and sleepy Kailua and everything, and gosh, it's all construction everywhere you go. My second concern is for the increase of traffic, and I guess that was expressed before, and how this is going to impact Nani Kailua, which is the main access road. I see a bus, school buses drive up Nani Kailua dropping off the kids every day, and I am concerned that there are safety issues around much more traffic going up Nani Kailua to get to this site. 9 And one of my biggest concerns is that because there is so many, so much building and it's happening so fast, I don't see the highway construction that's going along with this. I mean I'm from California, and we build these big freeways and everything and then we can build new housing construction sites, but I don't know how all of the roads, the current roads, are going to accommodate all of the thousands of new homes that are being built here. The din of traffic and the congestion of the cars is almost now unbearable, and I wonder if it could get any worse, and apparently that's what's going to happen here on this side of the Island. Another thing that I look at when I look at the proposal is that I don't see any parks or any buffer zones or anything, it just seems like everything is totally built out. As the gentleman was mentioning, that they made this really a dense construction site because they want to be able to pay for the water and the other access roads. But it seems like the lots 1 through 8, which border the Kona Heights, is a beautiful natural feature, and I've got some photographs if you are passing those photographs around, looking out from my lanai, like there's big, beautiful mango trees and there's beautiful rock formations and so forth, and I go out there sometime and I think, this is so beautiful and there are so many trees and beautiful birds that like sing, you know, in the morning time and it's just an absolute gorgeous place. To tear down these trees to -, and to build houses on these lots just seems like, it seems somewhat appalling to me, on such a nice feature of the land. So what I would suggest that if this is going to go through, and I don't know whether you have the, you know, the authority to do this, but I would suggest that Lots 1 through 8 become a buffer between the new development and Kona Heights just because I think we need to keep some of this beauty that is here. And I would also strongly urge you to consider just how fast development is going here. And this I know is slated for an urban area, urban development, but you know, this is just the beginning of things that are happening up here. I'm wondering whether maybe I should have bought here so quickly. So I would appreciate if you would consider this, and mahalo for giving me the opportunity to testify before you. SPRINGER:Thank you for testifying. Commissioners, any questions or comments to the testifier? Thank you. If you could please state your name and address. GOFF:Yes, thank you. Good morning, my name is Lawrence Goff. I live at 75-318 East Kakalina, which is on the south side of Kailua View Estates area, built to an area that's called the Kealoha Subdivision. And I don't live directly adjoining this application, but I live below it, and I certainly am -, do live adjoining to some of the other applicants that have been previously approved. My concern is, as has been expressed, that this is incremental rezoning without any impact study. I appreciate the Applicant is aware of those concerns and has looked at them, but they're basically saying trust me, it'll be okay, and no studies have been done, and I'm not comfortable with that. Trust me has been used too many times for too many situations. 10 ` I -, my understanding partly comes from a West Hawaii Today article that said this application was for 42 lots. I understand today they've now managed to squeeze in 43 lots. It is a high density application. This, in addition to previously approved applications, four or five by the same developer, which I begin to wonder if they're not making the applications small in order to bypass constraints, I understand there is a constraint that if an application is over 100 lots, impact studies are required. Well, this application is not 100 lots, it's 43. However, this brings to a total of four or five applications that have been requested in the same area, all of which impact Nani Kailua, and in total, I believe they go over 145 lots. I think if this Commission was looking at an application for 145 lots, there would be a requirement for impact studies, traffic, environment, water, sewage, education, social services. None of this is being required because it's incremental rezoning. I believe Director Yuen is well aware of this and is trying to address it and is limited by the law, and I understand that. I'm not opposed to development. This is people's ground and they own it and they're certainly allowed to sell it and develop it and make money off of it. I'm here, as many others, by the same process. Nevertheless, without proper impact studies, I am concerned about the impact of this incremental rezoning. I would ask, at a minimum, that if the study does have to go forward, that we consider Commissioner Graham's concern about the density. Rather than saying we want to make it high density, so trust us, it'll be okay, say let's -, until we have something concrete that will show what's -, how the impact is going to be addressed, until that happens, let's at least compromise and keep it low density. Let's not go to RS-10, let's keep it RS-20. That is consistent with some of the other rezoning, and it at least minimizes the continual impact. And hopefully, over time, Director Yuen will have a process put in place that will properly address the impact of these incremental applications. I do -, there was a letter written by one of our neighbors to Director Yuen, and a copy to some of the other members, I have a copy which I'll submit to the Commission today, I only have one copy, I'm sorry, just to show that there are many, many, many other neighbors in the area that I am here to represent, as I'm sure most everyone else is, that couldn't make it today. So there's a large number of residents that are very concerned about the impact of this incremental rezoning in what is already admittedly a very heavily urbanized area with one access street. There was also a comment about a possible future access to Queen K that the State may or may not approve. Here again, trust us, it'll be approved down the road. Well, if we're going to approve development based upon future access, I am not comfortable. The access should be a requirement of the development. If the State has to approve that, get the State approval first. Anyway, those are my comments. I would ask that you strongly consider a condition that this be rezoned RS-20 at a minimum. My preference would be that impact studies be required, also, but at a minimum that it be lower density. Thank you. 11 SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioners, are there any questions of the testifier? I have a question of the Director given the testifier's recommendation for the RS-20 designation. Can you make a comment to that? YUEN:They say there are two things that people in America hate about the way land use planning is done or the way development occurs, one is sprawl and the other is density. If you're going to have this become a residential area, you -, the purpose of making residential areas is to put people, is to get people to live in them. You make all residential areas 20,000 square feet lots, they're considerably more expensive, for one thing, both because of the land area that's taken up and secondly because you have, you -, essentially, you're putting the same amount of roadway in and water lines in but only serving half as many pieces of property. SPRINGER:Thank you, Director Yuen. Commissioners, any questions or comments? Okay. Next, please, your name and address and then your testimony into the microphone. THROPP:Thank you. My name is Alex Thropp. My address is 75-5792 Lopeka Place, and that's the cul-de-sac at the top of Kona Heights, the last one. And is that all I'm supposed to say to check in? What was the other -? SPRINGER:Yes, and then -. THROPP:My address and my name, right? SPRINGER:Yes, and then speak into the microphone. THROPP:Right. I am here today to object to this plan. I think whoever drew this out is only interested in packing and cramming as many houses into 14 acres that could possibly be. And before -, and not to mention the two neighbors on my right, I would first of all like to go on record saying I agree with everything they've said so far and concur and rather to be repetitive, I am agreeing with all their comments about the incremental zoning, the piecemeal zoning of this swatch of land that goes up next to ours. And I'd like to furthermore say that I'm not against growth, but I think this design and this project plan that this map here, whoever drew this, I'd like to ask what these two tee-shaped roads are inside the circle, if someone could explain what that, what those are. May I point to them? SPRINGER:Jeff, are you able to identify? THROPP:Right. Right. There's one up to the left there. To me, I thought they were just side streets, but I'm not sure. If you can see to the right there, Lopeka Place is the last cul-de-sac there, the round one, exactly, and it's a nice flowing circle. And this thing seems to be a very skinny tee, and there's two of them inside this with all these houses packed in there. What are those exactly? 12 DARROW:They identified as -. SPRINGER:Jeff. DARROW:Roadway lots, so they are accesses to these properties inside here. THROPP:Right. And that tee shape, how would you turn the car around to get back out? How would that happen? Is anyone here that could -? DARROW:Yeah, the Applicant's representative. SPRINGER:Yes. THROPP:Okay. DARROW:Can address that. SPRINGER:Yes. THROPP:So that's a question for him? DARROW:Right. SPRINGER:Yes, and Mr. Thropp, when the Applicant's representative returns to the table. THROPP:Okay. SPRINGER:We can bring this question up to him at that time. THROPP:Okay. SPRINGER:We can take notes on your questions for him. THROPP:So just continuing on, I'd just like to say that we have a very peaceful neighborhood. The traffic flow -. They have everyone coming into this access, There's only one way out there at the top, and they intend to use Hienaloli to get out either to Aloha Kona Drive to go to the bottom or Nani Kailua to the single traffic light at the bottom. And 43 lots, that's going to at least be 80 cars, averaging two per house. And I just think that the design and the density of it is really outrageous and it doesn't have -. The whole concept of the circle and these two tee roads with these people stranded in the middle, I think there must be some kind of law with Civil Defense for evacuation or emergency vehicles, how they would -, in case there was a brush fire, an earthquake, how would these people get out? They would be 13 trapped inside as far as I'm concerned. I would like to say that that -, when I saw this design, this plan, that's the first thing I noticed. How are these people going to get out of there i there's a brush fire or an earthquake or something? We have many tremors on this hillside. I've been there 11 years. My house is right on Lopeka Place but I'm to the outside, to the right, to the south a little bit. Yeah, a little bit farther up, right there, and we bought our home -. Thank you. We bought our home there 11 years ago. And this Hienaloli Road is just a blacktop access road now, and to have all these cars coming in and out of that one little, that one little entrance there I think is very bizarre and very dangerous, in fact. And not to mention the amount of cars that would be coming in and out and using the single traffic light at the bottom of the hill in the morning and coming up in the afternoon trying to get home to this neighborhood, highly densely packed neighborhood. So my point is that the design of Kona Heights, the whole -, with Aloha Kona Drive, are all cul-de-sacs, sweeping cul-de-sacs, you can see two of them on the map there, which all the houses have great access. You can turn around, they're very safe. A fire track can come in and turn around and access all the houses. The police can come in. We have neighborhood watch. This high density plan with this one access road going out I think is very dangerous. SPRINGER:Thank you. THROPP:And I don't agree with the plan and I am very against it and I want to say that. And I testified to the one that was approved off of Melelina at the last conference that went through, and I missed out on the bottom one, but it seems like each landowner is trying to skirt the law and making this whole neighborhood in pieces so that they don't have to follow any of the rules or the legal situation. And as this gentleman to my right pointed out, to build a high density neighborhood like this with no road out or no suitable road out, I think is very foolish. It's like the cart before the horse. I mean why would you build 43 homes, highly densely packed like that and not have a way out to the highway, a suitable way out or in, for that matter? Because that Hienaloli Road does not go out to Henry Street or anywhere else, it just goes south to the right and it's a very small, simple road, it's not a major street. SPRINGER:Thank you, Mr. Thropp. THROPP:So I appreciate any of your concern. I want you to think of our position. We're not opposed to having homes built, but we need to do it in a proper manner, and this to me is very outrageous and not proper at all and it shows me that the landowner is just interested in making money and it's a greedy project. SPRINGER:Thank you. THROPP:Thank you. 14 SPRINGER:Commissioners, any questions or comments for the testifier? Commissioner Kubota followed by Commissioner Graham. KUBOTA:Not to the testifier, but to Jeff. SPRINGER:Thank you. KUBOTA:Regarding the exit and egress and ingress, that one is one? Where's the other one? DARROW:This is the only access into this area represented on the subdivision map as well as the conditions on the ordinance. KUBOTA:I see. And the -. DARROW:Hienaloli. KUBOTA:Hienaloli, that leads down and -. DARROW:This road -. KUBOTA:On this map? DARROW:Yeah, this road -. KUBOTA:On this map? DARROW:This road leads to the south and it passes Aloha Kona Drive and it comes to -, why don't I take a look at the location map. KUBOTA:On that one. DARROW:Yeah. You would travel to the south. You would pass Aloha Kona Drive. You would come to Nani Kailua Drive. You would turn makai and then you would access the highway through the intersection located here. KUBOTA:And is that the only mauka-makai exit for -, at this point? DARROW:Yes. KUBOTA:Thank you. SPRINGER:Commissioner Graham. 15 GRAHAM:Alex, we can see a lot of these issues on the paper and all that you're bringing up and all, but the one thing we cannot know is what it's like to live there. So can you give me some sense, if you've been there for 11 years, if you had your property, what the traffic situation is like day-to-day? THROPP:Well, the design of Kona Heights, where it dead ends there at the top at Aloha Kona Drive, the Aloha Kona Drive goes all the way down almost to the highway and then there's Welo Street and you cut over a half a block, and that feeds into the bottom of Nani Kailua Drive. So when I go out, I don't have to go on Hienaloli to the top. I could, but I don't have to, and I can go down Aloha Kona, then cut over on that side street at the bottom and then go out at the traffic light. But it still remains that Nani Kailua is the only way to get out at the bottom. And right now, it seems to be flowing pretty well, but this development would piggyback on to that as a way to get out, so that's my concern that they don't have their own road. And it's been discussed that the State won't allow a north in and out access, which would make -, it's very commonsense to me, which would be on the north side of the lower part of the development that's already under construction. And that would make the most sense. And run it right up on the north side of the hole so they could just go down the hill on their own, have their own in and out road, as we have Kona Heights and as Nani Kailua residents have Nani Kailua. Kailua View Estates, I'm sorry, they have their Nani Kailua. So there would be three, if, you know, east-west, up and down the hill exits and accesses. But now these people are -, want to use ours and they want to make 43 houses and throw it on to ours at the top. Then they have a project in the middle that was approved and then at the bottom, then there's two pieces missing from in between. So when that comes up for application, then they're going to ask to come through. It's the same way. It's just, instead of developing the whole strip up and down the mountain, they're doing it in four or five different pieces, and they claim it's different people but I don't know if that's true, because I think th developer might be the same. But my attitude is that they -, each neighborhood should have their own way in and out on this many homes, and that's what I think. I think to add it on to our neighborhood and my neighbors' road is not right. GRAHAM:Yeah, I -. THROPP:It doesn't flow right. GRAHAM:I understand that. I think the consideration maybe that the State has or I would have as somebody who doesn't live there, is where there's, you know, a hundred or several hundred people coming down wanting to get on and off the highway. THROPP:Right. 16 GRAHAM:There's also thousands of people that are using the highway going north- south. THROPP:Right. GRAHAM:So when you put in extra roads and extra lights and stuff like that, it jams everything up for everybody else. THROPP:Right. GRAHAM:So it's a real tough trade-off to make that. THROPP:Right. GRAHAM:Thank you. SPRINGER:Commissioner Kubota. KUBOTA:I just -, I sympathize and I feel for the people that live there, but you know, when you look at the situation realistically, the developers are not to be faulted for piggybacking on your mauka-makai road. The Department of Transportation will not allow them to have another access onto Mmalahoa Highway so, therefore, they have no other choice but to come into the now established egress and ingress. SPRINGER:Thank you, Commiss -. KUBOTA:Is what I understand it to be. SPRINGER:Thank you, Commissioner. THROPP:But wouldn't you agree that for 43 homes, one little access in and out would be -. KUBOTA:Right. THROPP:Very dangerous? KUBOTA:That point -. THROPP:As far as Civil Defense and evacuation, emergency vehicles? KUBOTA:Yes, that -. THROPP:Ambulances? 17 KUBOTA:That is a concern. But I just wanted to restate the reason why they need to come into Hale -, Nani Kailua is that they don't have a choice at this point. You know, they're prohibited from having an access. THROPP:But I think the approval of this many homes in the neighborhood, they should have a plan, a future plan and a road access before this development is granted. It's a reverse. SPRINGER:Thank you, Mr. Thropp. THROPP:Like I said before, the cart before the horse. I think that's wrong. SPRINGER:Thank you. DARROW:Could I interject? SPRINGER:Jeff. DARROW:I'm sorry, Madam Chair. Just to bring to your attention that this is not what we're looking at. I mean even though this is a proposed subdivision layout, this could completely change at subdivision process. So even though it's represented the way it is, there's a chance that when it goes through subdivision review and comments come back from the different agencies that things have to change here. SPRINGER:Thank you, Jeff. The next testifier please, if you could state your name and your address and speak into the microphone. GIMPEL:Yes. Aloha and good morning, I'm Joel Gimpel. I live at 73-4686 Hina Lani Street, which is not in this neighborhood, but I am Public Affairs Chair for the Kona Traffic Safety Committee. This relatively small project can't be viewed by itself in a vacuum. And although the developer proposes only 43 lots, access to the project, as you've heard, will involve Hienaloli- Kahului Road and Nani Kailua Drive, which is the only access to Highway 19 for the existing Kona Heights and Kailua View Estates Subdivisions. I note also that because the projects have been small in scale, this is the third rezone in the area without a traffic study in less than two years. Nevertheless, there are now 75 homes with more anticipated using Nani Kailua Drive. That road, however, is too steep to be a legal collector road, because the grade may be no more than 10 percent. And the area residents are already trying to deal with traffic, safety, speeding, and noise concerns. Now more cars, school buses, commercial and construction traffic that will be generated by this project will simply mean more problems that should be addressed before development begins, not after. In 18 addition, Hienaloli-Kahului Road requires improvement from the subject property past Aloha Kona Drive to Nani Kailua Drive. Now the Applicant states that he's working with nearby landowners to create a new second ` collector road to Hawaii Belt Road, Highway 19, south of the Nani Kailua intersection. Access to this new proposed collector, and it's possible really, from the proposed development will require construction of a new road across the old railroad right-of-way, which should be a condition of approval. But this, even if accomplished, will not help those persons desiring to travel north on Highway 19 toward town. They'll still use Nani Kailua Drive because it is farther north than this new possible connector. Further, another access to Highway 19 will probably require signalization to assure safety. So in view of these concerns and issues, the Kona Traffic Safety Committee urges that the Planning Commission require the Applicant to provide the necessary road infrastructure before home construction commences as a condition for approval. That infrastructure should include a primary collector road with necessary signalization north rather than south of the development, and improvements to Hienaloli-Kahului Road to Nani Kailua Drive. Further, the use of Nani Kailua Drive by construction traffic should be limited until the new collector road is completed and then prohibited. Thank you for your attention, and I'll be pleased to answer any questions that you may have. SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioners, any questions or comments for the testifier? KUBOTA:I would like to have the Planning Director respond to his comments. SPRINGER:Good. Mr. Yuen, Commissioner Kubota would like you to respond to the testifier's comments, and we have his written testimony before us. YUEN:The connection to the -, to Kuakini north of the project, north of the Nani Kailua Drive, one -, number one, you have the difficulty, mentioned earlier by Mr. Mooers with respect to permitted access points of the State Department of Transportation; two, it requires construction of a property, I'm not sure of the ownership of the property, but it would be other private property, possibly not owned by this individual; and three, it would require bridging the Hienaloli Drainageway, an extremely expensive proposition. Thus, I think it's only to be expected that all residential development south of the drainageway will eventually access the highway south of the drainageway rather than there being some bridging of that drainageway. SPRINGER:Commissioner Kubota, follow-up? KUBOTA:One of the suggestions made by Mr. Gimpel, was it? GIMPEL:That's correct. 19 KUBOTA:Was that the -, that this new subdivision has its own egress and ingress farther north and you touched on that. We have problems with the Department of Transportation in that and the drainage. He also suggested that perhaps Nani Kailua, the main road, lateral access, be used by the construction trucks and so forth, traffic, only until such time as the infrastructure is built to accommodate this new subdivision. Can we block off roads from usage by vehicles in that nature? I mean it's a public road, isn't it? It's not a private road. Does anyone have the right to say it's prohibited? YUEN:I know what you're saying, but I think in theory you could put a condition on a rezoning regarding uses of roads by construction vehicles for that. KUBOTA:Oh. YUEN:Because -, as a condition of rezoning. It would be a violation by the landowner. We would expect the landowner to make the construction company comply. The police could not cite the construction vehicles on the road going back and forth because of it being a public highway. As long as they -, as long as those vehicles complied with the normal vehicle code. You could, in theory, make a condition of a rezoning. In practice, in this case, I don't see how they're going to get construction vehicles up there without using Nani Kailua. KUBOTA:Well, I -. YUEN:Or they could go on Aloha Kona, parallel -. KUBOTA:There was -, it was even further than that. YUEN:Yes. KUBOTA:Mr. Planning Director. As I understood, his suggestion was that in the interim, the construction vehicles use Nani Kailua, but after the infrastructure is set for their own subdivision and they have egress and ingress of their own, that the use of Nani Kailua be prohibited. And I understood that to mean for the residents, as well. GIMPEL:No, I meant -. KUBOTA:I may have been wrong. GIMPEL:That would be prohibitive for construction vehicles. KUBOTA:Truck -. 20 GIMPEL:Until the infrastructure, the separate access road would be completed, then I would limit the use of construction vehicles on Nani Kailua. I recognize that they would have to use Nani Kailua until the second road -. KUBOTA:Yes. GIMPEL:Would be completed. KUBOTA:Yes. GIMPEL:But it should be limited as far as times of the day, for example. KUBOTA:What was your prohibited comment? GIMPEL:Prohibited use of construction vehicles once the secondary road is completed so that Nani Kailua isn't saddled with heavy construction vehicles with -, and having a grade greater than 10 percent. It's very noisy and very, very dangerous. KUBOTA:It's hard to enforce that, isn't it? YUEN:I think what he's asking is that if there were a second access, that the construction vehicles would be directed to go on that access. It can't be enforced on the road itself, on the police level. It could be enforced on the development level in a sense that the developer would be expected to inform the construction companies that they are not supposed to use a certain road and that if they do, then it would be a violation of the rezoning ordinance. KUBOTA:Right. YUEN:I don't think it's a practical suggestion in this case. KUBOTA:Thank you. SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioners, any other questions or comments for the testifier? If none, thank you. Sir, could you please state your name and address and speak into the microphone. KISH:My name is David Kish. I live at 75-360 Aloha Kona Drive, Kailua- ` Kona, Hawaii. First of all, I want to agree with everything that's been said so far, and I won't belabor those points but maybe I can put a few twists on a few of them that haven't been mentioned. First of all, incremental zoning is the big issue here, and we should not be considering this just as a subdivision of about 43 lots. It truly is a subdivision. When you look at the others that have been approved in here in the last year or so, of in excess of 100. Whether the number is 107 21 that was mentioned in the newspaper or 175 that was mentioned earlier today, it is clearly more than 100. Now Director Yuen said that without having a subdivision of 100 homes, you're not required to do a traffic study. That is, in fact, what the rules says, required. You may still do a traffic study though. And I think the requirement or the job of the Planning Commission, as Commissioner Graham said, is to represent the constituency that's already here and not have all these things development-driven or developer-driven, instead be driven by the desires and the needs of the people who are already here. So you have the ability to do a traffic study. You have approved other zoning in the area that coupled with this one will be over the 100 home limit and, in fact, being responsible planners, you should in fact do that major traffic study and solve some of the problems that you've heard here today. Number two, we've heard about infrastructure being planned and the developer's Applicant representative said that one of the reasons the property is proposed at R-10 is to pay for all of the infrastructure. And to pay for the major infrastructure, additional developers will have to be asked to throw money in a pot, and then some of the things like water and street improvements can be financed. In fact, the County could bond the whole area now, bring in those developers, sell bonds in increments to be able to finance infrastructure in the area, including additional roads, and do that before the development is approved and before any ground is broken for new homes. Then as developers came in to request land use changes, zoning changes, they would already know that the infrastructure was there, the neighborhoods would know that the infrastructure is there, and the things that we're talking about today could be in place to enhance this kind of development and not be doing it piecemeal. Number three, we've talked about what's possible with the State and what's not possible with the State, and I understand why the State would not want to have access points along the major highway every few feet. On the other hand, if you look at that highway, it is currently proposed and budgeted to be expanded from Henry Street toward the airport and made into a four-lane road. It will be expanded south to a four-lane road in the foreseeable future, maybe five years, maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years, but the traffic on that road is very significant, and as you increase more residential zoning and commercial zoning along that road, there's more traffic and it will, in fact, be widened. It is highly likely that the State, and I think everything is negotiable with the State, it is highly likely that when that road is turned into a four-lane road at some point in the future, that additional access could be allowed, both north and south, major intersections on that road. And I think it's again the responsibility of the Planning staff and the Planning Commission to talk to the State about that and see if that's possible, make that a condition of this rezoning. Approve it, approve other rezonings in the area, but make it a condition that they are only acceptable and building can only start when the major north-south road, the highway, is 22 improved to four lanes, which would allow access and ingress into this property and other properties that go east-west along this corridor, one of which is proposed today. It's also been mentioned that, you know, it's hard to change things that -, some of these street patterns once the streets are in. Well, in fact, in just recent months, a couple of the streets that originally were on the County plan to cut through from north to south, Melelina Street and Kawena Street, have been dead ended. We were here at the Planning Commission less than a year ago talking about the rezoning of property at the north end of Melelina for 17 residential lots and, in fact, that has been approved for 20 residential lots of R-20, not R-10, which I think talks to the density issue. Director Yuen, or Planning Director Yuen said, you know, if you want density, you got to have people in there, and R-10 is better than R-20 to get density. Well, that wasn't the argument when the previous property came in for R-20 and the pro further down the hill directly adjacent to the highway came in for R-20. Those were points at which you could have asked them for R-10 and you didn't, so instead it is developer driver and not planning driven. But my points on the streets is we were told when we came in and talked about Melelina, and some people wanted that a cul-de-sac and some people wanted it a through street, we were told that the County required Melelina to eventually be a through street and it would not be a cul- de-sac. It has since been approved as a cul-de-sac, and so 20 homes are planned on a cul-de- sac at the top of Melelina that eliminates that as a possibility of road access into this new development. Similarly, down the hill on Kawena Street, a similar situation happened where when that was recently rezoned to R-20, Kawena Street on the County map for years has shown going through further to the north, and now that has been approved as a cul-de-sac, I'm told at the Planning Department, and that won't go through any further. So again, that's one that could have gone have gone through and alleviated some of this problem. Kakalina Street, the same way. That currently still shows going through to the north, although there are two properties directly to the north that are zoned A-5, and if those were to come in for residential development, I suppose there could be the same kind of discussion about truncating Kakalina and turning that into another cul-de-sac. So you do have opportunities to affect transportation plans to these new developments in the area if you want to. You can do that, and you should do that. Finally, with regard to an environmental concern, it strikes me that all of these new properties are being rezoned and permitted without any kind of sewer systems. The proposal is to put some kind of drainage septic tanks or cesspools or something to that area. Certainly, cesspools are less acceptable than septic tanks. But here you are on the edge of a major hundred-year flood plane drainage path, putting in either cesspools or septic tanks that eventually will allow effluent to get into that drainage ditch, and that drainage ditch is eventually going to run down into the ocean and that's a problem. 23 You are probably aware that in the year 2005 there's a major EPA directive nationwide that requires the disconnection of all gang cesspools everywhere in the United States, and there are lots of those on the Big Island. One of the solutions to that, unfortunately, is for people to disconnect major gang cesspools, and you have a lot of those here on the west side and in Kona, and create individual cesspools. Well, I fail to see how that solves the waste problem, but it also creates an opportunity for you to talk about financing new sewer systems. And I think as planning and growth continues in the Kona area, eventually you will get to the point that you will look back and say, gee, we made a mistake. We should have put sewers in back then and we didn't. And I think this is an opportunity on this development and future developments to the north of this to think about that sewer system and use the EPA requirement of 2005 as kind of a catalyst to get that done. Thank you. SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioners, any questions or comments of the testifier? I have a question, in particular with regard to the testifier's comments. Director Yuen, could you respond to this notion of the County having a bonding program of the area to finance infrastructure development. YUEN:You can do improvement districts. They take a great deal of work to put together and ultimately require the consent of the affected landowners. SPRINGER:Thank you. Other Commissioners, questions or comments? Hearing none, thank you for your time and your comments. And finally, ma'am, could you please give us your name and your address and speak directly into the microphone. GREGORY:My name -, is this on? Yeah, okay. My name is Laurel Gregory, and I live at 75-5850 Lulu Place. Lulu Place is in Kailua View Estates. It is at the top of the subdivision, and I abut the Kamehameha lands that run directly south of Kailua View Estates. Many of my neighbors have spoken eloquently on several of the points I wanted to make. I just have a few extra comments. One Commissioner, Mr. Graham had asked about what it's like to live in the neighborhood. I've lived there for five years. I use Kailua View Estates as my main ingress and egress. I can tell you that the gentleman to my right here who spoke about the fact that these streets, both Aloha Kona and Kailua View were never meant to be large traffic collectors. Both are very steep. Nani -, or excuse me, Aloha Kona does have sidewalks, but it is much steeper than Nani Kailua and frankly if you were going to live in this subdivision, you would probably bypass Aloha Kona, drive directly to Nani Kailua because it's merely one block or, you know, to the south, and go down Kailua View Estates feeder which is Nani Kailua. On the other hand, Nani Kailua isn't quite as steep but it does not have sidewalks and one of the previous speakers mentioned that kids do collect there to be picked up in school buses, etcetera. We've had recurring problems with people speeding on the hill. In fact, finally, a couple months ago, a four-way stop was put in about half way down Nani Kailua, which no one has mentioned yet, which I think is kind of interesting. That does tend to slow traffic 24 down a little bit. Now I believe my subdivision is talking about asking for a second four-way stop a little bit farther up the hill. We talked about impact on the road of construction. I can tell you that a couple weeks ago somebody went up the hill and either dropped a lot of big rocks or something but not too far from the intersection of Hienaloli and Nani Kailua. Now there's a series of chips out of the road that runs for about 100 feet, and it's either rocks that fell off a truck or a piece of large earth moving equipment, you know, that slipped its whatevers. So that's the kind of stuff that, you know, you do start living with when you have a street that's -, it's a basic blacktop road, it's 30 years old. One of the previous speakers spoke about earthquakes. We've had three in the last month. If you look at the top of Nani Kailua, you will notice that the weeds are starting to grow out of all the cracks which, you know, is kind of scenic in some ways, but it does tell you that the road is -, it's been a long time since it's been repaved and it's probably needing some attention, particularly at the upper, steeper end of it. So those are some of the things about those two roads that I'm concerned about. I also am concerned as my neighbor is about the fact that all these subdivisions were approved with no thought to the fact that eventually they could connect together in the up-hill mauka- makai kind of way, even if that wasn't the main feeder, but if it was some sort of an emergency arrangement when you needed to get people in and out of those developments or up and down the hill. I'm very dismayed to hear that these recent developments have made those connector streets, possible connector streets into sub-cul-de-sacs. I would urge -, one of my questions for the group is how you follow this through the system. We have a demonstration of what the subdivision might look like with this circular arrangement, and yet you say that this can change as it goes through the process. And as a citizen, I would kind of like -, I'll have to ask the Planning Commission or someone at a later date how you follow that, because it's really a shame that all of these have gone through with no thought to the fact that you could do a mauka-makai inter-connection, even if you're not connecting down to the highway below but you're feeding people down through their own neighborhoods and then you're feeding them onto Welo, which is how Welo works on the other side on Nani Kailua,. It feeds through Hoene, which Hoene is a C street that actually acts as a second road for Kailua View Estates in terms of emergencies and what not. One point about water, I'd like to concur with the developer's representative about water. I live at the top of the subdivision, and there are times when I can't water my garden because I don't have enough water pressure, so I can tell you that water pressure is indeed a problem up there. A couple of other comments, we keep talking about Hienaloli. One question I have is Director Yuen mentioned that Hienaloli will never go north, is essentially you're saying, it's a very expensive proposition to bridge that, the water drainage. And yet on the County plan it shows that Hienaloli eventually is supposed to go over and connect around Kealakehe. And yet there's been no discussion of that. We keep talking about it as if it's a dead road and it'll 25 never go through, and yet it's on the County plan. So I'm questioning why it'll never be built if it's on the County plan because it's too expensive to do that, bridging of that drainage. That brings me to the idea of another collector further south which is great for the people who live south but has nothing to do with these particular subdivisions. Hienaloli, when it runs to the south, it connects, it becomes, it's the old railway right-of-way. There was a sugar mill up there many, many years ago. It cross -, it turns into dirt, it crosses a single lane railway bridge, it goes for dirt for a couple hundred yards more, and then it turns into a paved County road that services some very expensive subdivisions, Huallai Colony and some others that connect out to Huallai Road. So I think we're failing to look at Hienaloli in its more global sense. Whichever way you go, it's going to cost a lot of money to pave Hienaloli because of the drainage on the north side; there's another drainage where that railway bridge goes over on the south side. So my question is, since I abut the Kamehameha lands, I don't see any other place where a collector road could be discussed about except that Kamehameha piece of property which is an 88 or 80-some acre property that does go all the way down to the highway. It would be the easiest fix in terms of numbers of property dealers that you -, property owners that you would have to deal with plus everything south of that is already into Huallai Colony and Wehilani Estates, and they're private roads, private access roads. By the time you get past that, you're almost to Huallai Road. The Gomes brothers own a piece of property there, I believe, right on the corner of Hienaloli and Huallai. So those are some of my comments and then my questions about Hienaloli and where would this collector be? It's not on the County planning documents that I've ever seen. And to whom would it serve since it actually runs farther south rather than heading north which, as you mentioned, most people doing business are heading, they're heading north to this, to the Kailua center. Thanks. SPRINGER:Thank you. Mr. Yuen. YUEN:Just a couple of things. You are correct that the County has a long term plan that Hienaloli would be extended north and it would require bridging the drainageway. The point that I'm trying to make is that it's much too expensive a proposition for the development of either this particular subdivision or, in fact, the whole group of lots that are that have been rezoned on that border of the drainageway to the south that we're talking about. As far as the -, I think the idea behind a second collector is that it would serve potential development of that Bishop Estate property. GREGORY:Does that mean that the collector is in -, on the Bishop Estate property? YUEN:I don't have any details on that. 26 GREGORY:And how would I find that out? YUEN:You could talk to Mr. Mooers. GREGORY:Okay. SPRINGER:Thank you, Mr. Yuen. Commissioners, any questions or comments for this testifier? Hearing none, thank you all, and if you can step back from the table. At this time I'd like to take a five-minute recess while we prepare for the next six public testifiers. RECESSEDThe Chair called a short recess at RECONVENEDThe meeting reconvened at SPRINGER:While we're settling ourselves, I'd like to call the Hawai`i County Planning Commission meeting back to order, and the next individuals who have signed up to testify are John Darnall, Ruby Darnall, Lunakanawai Hauanio, Ann Goody, Kathleen Abood, Rab S. Puri, and J. Curtis Tyler. All of you who are in the room, could you please come forward. Norman, if you could invite -, thank you, Curtis Tyler in. I'm just going to start at the right-hand side of the table, whatever order you sit in. And I believe that Curtis Tyler is outside, so we'll just wait a moment while we invite him in. Welcome, Mr. Tyler. TYLER:Madam Chair, would you like to swear me in before I sit down? SPRINGER:I'll be swearing you and your cohort at the table in at the same time. TYLER:Okay. SPRINGER:Would you all please raise your right hands. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai`i County Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS:I do. SPRINGER:Thank you. We'll begin at the right of the table. Each of you in turn, could you please state your name and address clearly into the microphone and give your testimony. Thank you, sir. J. DARNALL:My name is John Darnall. I live at 75-370 Aloha Kona Drive. I just want to say it's great to live in a country where we have the ability to have public discourse without reprisal on either side of the table, and I just was just mentioning to one of my friends here that this is -, we've traveled quite a bit and been in lots of countries where 27 things like this could be followed by any number of really unkind things happening to people, even up to the point of losing their life because they would disagree or have opposition to particular points that the public officials might have. And so I just appreciate the fact that we have the privilege to live in a country like this. We're part of this community that -, and we're concerned about this incremental zoning, as you've heard. I would just like to say that lots of smart people spoke on this today, and I'm not going to reiterate all the things that they have said, except to the point that this, I believe, is a public safety issue for our community. When the County allows a developer to participate, as this one has, in step-by-step, taking small parcels and incremental zoning and to thwart the overall intent of the law, which is to provide the opportunity for communities to be able to study and to find out if there's traffic problems, if there's going to be traffic problems with health and the Police Department and Safety and Fire and so on, and also for entrances into major highways, that's a public safety issue. When we have cesspools as the option rather than sewer systems that have the possibility of leaching into our marine structures and into our water tables, that's a public safety problem. When the community is not built to enable the Fire Department, what's proposed here, even though they have come and said well this might change later on, this is what we have to look at, not something else. And so we have to go and say this is what they're proposing. And when you look at this, that's a fire safety problem. That is a safety problem. When fire can jump from a community that cannot be effectively fight a fire because the Fire Department cannot enter and move their trucks and their equipment around effectively, the potential of that fire to jump to other communities, that's a public safety problem. When schools are overburdened, it's a public safety problem. When the developer skirts the spirit of the law for the letter of the law, and for the bottom line only, and does it with a wink and a nod from our public officials, that's a public safety problem. The developer states that there is no impact on the schools, that the water will be taken care of sometime, some way, by some kind of an arrangement that's going to come and that is not shown to be an effective in a place, that is a public safety problem. When the community continues to grow without the appropriate taking of the time to put the infrastructure into place, this is a public safety problem. I understand it costs a lot of money to run roads. We all understand those things. But at some point, somebody has to say this is public safety here and we cannot continue to permit, we cannot continue to make zoning changes until these things are taken place. Let's not say we're going to solve the problem someday, somehow, and in the meantime, keep permitting and permitting and permitting and rezoning and rezoning and never addressing the real problem which is the infrastructure. Every time I come to these meetings, it's the same thing that comes to the forefront. You guys must get sick to death of hearing these kinds of things being brought, so let's figure out a solution. You're the guys in the driver's seats, somehow there needs to be a solution. Business is going to do what business is going to do. They're going to make jobs, they're going to make money, and that's a good thing and that's what it does. But it's not a good thing when they are a poor corporate citizen. And this developer, by what they are planning on doing here, increasing the density and without any regard for the things like, you know, buffer 28 zones or green zones or parks, and the implication that somehow it'll all work out, that is not being a good corporate citizen, and it surely doesn't reflect the spirit of aloha that we have all come to enjoy and is a privilege to have lived here. We've raise our children here, been here over a decade, you know, this is why we love to live here. And this kind of attitude by corporations and by developers that come in is not the spirit of aloha towards these communities. And ladies and gentlemen, you are our last line of defense against these hazards that have impact upon our community. Others have addressed it in a very practical, pragmatic view. I'm looking at this and presenting to you the emotional side of it. Trucks running -, Commissioner Graham asked what's the traffic like? It's horrible. You have to be really careful when you back out of your driveway. You have to be very careful that there's not a multiple ton truck full of gravel pulling up your steep grade of your -, up past your house every morning. It starts early in the morning and it runs all day long. This is not a good -, going to be a good thing for this community, and unless the infrastructure's put in to support it, my recommendation is that the infra -, the re-permitting be denied, the rezoning be denied and that it be conditional that it would be given at such point at which there is sufficient infrastructure to support the growth of this community in a way that is reasonable and it adds to the quality of life rather than detracts from it. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioners, any questions or comments for the testifier? Thank you. Ma'am? R. DARNALL:My name is Ruby Darnall. I live at 75-370 Aloha Kona Drive. And even though we've been here for over 13-14 years, we've lived on Aloha Kona Drive for over six years. And to go with what Graham was saying, what is the quality of life there, when we first moved in over six years ago, it was a very quiet community and very safe on the roads and on the streets. Now we all know that Nani Kailua is supposed to be the main road up, but in reality, there's a -, Aloha Kona is extremely heavily trafficked because people don't want to stop at that stop sign. And I'm glad -, I mean she wanted to mention no one said anything about the stop sign. I understand why they had to put it in. Aloha Kona was a major thoroughfare that everybody drived as fast as they could possibly get from the bottom of the hill to the top of the hill, and it was extremely dangerous for the children getting on and off the bus, wanting to even walk across the street, or pets that happened to be in the neighborhood that might get out accidentally. And so they needed to put a stop sign there. Okay. But now people don't want to stop there, so what do they do? And major construction trucks do not use Nani Kailua, they use Aloha Kona. Aloha Kona is being completely tore up because of the trucks going up and down it, and nobody's repaving it. Nobody's coming and saying, oh, gee, we tore up your road building our project but, you know, too bad your road's tore up. I don't see them coming and resurfacing when they finish with the road. And I don't think that the County can afford to resurface it every single solitary time a developer goes in and there and tears it up. That's an unreasonable request of the County. 29 And I just wanted to touch on a couple of things besides that. I agree with everything that has been said at this table. I agree with everything that's going on. I am not, by any means against development. I mean that land is up there for other people to enjoy besides me. It's not just my land, and I understand that, and I know that lots of people want to have homes there and they want to live there, also. But a couple of things that really bother me. I have just, not too awful long ago, got back from visiting Florida, and in Florida I stayed in a little town called Jacksonville. And they, also, live solely on cesspools. That was how that entire community was developed. And it's not much larger than our community up there. But you can't drink the water there. You can't even water your lawn. You turn the lawns on, and it smells like sewage. It stinks so bad you can't hardly walk up and down the street. And any hospital or restaurant or other place of business that must have water faucets have to put very expensive filtering systems in their building to filter all of the water because the water in Jacksonville, Florida is so contaminated it is undrinkable. And they're also -, that's what they use in their showers and other places. And it happened not because those people didn't have a right to have cesspools, because that was what was going on, but because their county people, their county officials did not foresee how many more homes were on it, how much more sewage was going through the cesspools, how much more was being added until the system couldn't take it anymore, and then it was too late. My -, what I would like to see happen if putting a sewage system in is completely unacceptable at this point in time, I would think the next best step would be to make it mandatory that they all have septic tanks where at least we don't have that much more seepage going into a system that may or may not continue to hold for us and then have to backtrack later and say now we have a problem, how do we purify it? Let's find out how to keep it pure before we have the problem. And I think requiring septic tanks would be a good middle of the road solution. They're going to have to dig holes to make the cesspools anyway, so just dropping a tank in there is not going to be that much more difficult. That would be my thing on septic. I am also a little concerned that we are building homes without building the roads first. If anybody would take a look at Kailua-Kona, we are becoming gridlocked. You can't hardly get from one end of Kona to the other end of Kona before work or after work. I mean I -, when I first started working in town, it took me six minutes to get to work. It takes me 15 to 20 minutes now to drive the same distance if I go when everybody else is going to work or when everyone's coming home, and that's because our streets are just too small to handle the flow of traffic that we have actually have. And now we're seeing our little community becoming potentially gridlocked also. So it seems to me like if we -, if the County or the State, I don't know who plans these projected streets in a community, but the street in question above where they are was planned, it was planned to go all the way from our division all the way out to Nani Kailua, I mean not to Nani Kailua, to Palani and actually even further on past K-Mart and connect into that road. And I just don't see why, yes, it's expensive, but we all also pay taxes and we also all put 30 lnmdxhmsnsgdoqnfq`l+`mcHcnmls,+Hitrssimply don't understand why that road can't be built prior to any more construction going on in the area other than the contractors don't want to do it, you know. And I realize that it's not their money. I think that probably would be State or County money that would have to build it, I'm not a hundred percent positive. Would it be State money, County money? Would it be a State road or a County road? It would be a County road? Okay, so the money is going to come from the County. But there ought to be some sort of major fees levied on developers. If they're the ones that are going to bring the people, they also ought to bring the transportation. They're not just saying okay, my responsibility stops once I cut up these plots, okay. I no longer have any more responsibility to the community. No, if you're going to make a dense area and you're saying I feel that we need to bring this many people in here, then you need to find a solution on moving those people around, also. It just seems like it's copping out to say I'm no longer responsible. And somewhere along the line, yeah, they are. They're making very good money on the community and on the construction and on what's going on, and they do have an obligation, also, to everybody around, to the State, to the County, to everyone else. And it's my feeling, and that's kind of where I stand. SPRINGER:Thank you. Are there any questions or comments for the testifier? Thank you, ma'am. And now you, if you could please give your name and address into the microphone. ABOOD:Good afternoon, by now, I think. My name is Kathleen Abood, and I ` live at 77-6524 Princess Keeliklani Drive, which is in the White Sands Estates Subdivision, which is a older subdivision which has just been suffering from a very similar kind of ` development plan of incremental development up Laaloa Drive. So for the past I guess it's going on over three years now, every morning from about 4:00 a.m. to quite late into the evening, I'm listening to construction trucks, gravel trucks, various kinds of loud vehicles that are driven up for the construction site that's been going on there, and there's a continuing `` damage to the actual Laaloa Street. At the entry at Alii Drive, there's been accidents there ` because of the gravel runoff onto Alii Drive during the rains because there's no infrastructure development in White Sand Subdivision itself. There's cesspools and septic tanks, but you can't hook into the plumbing that's been put into the subdivisions that are up above. So I think I just wanted to add to the comments that have been made today without repeating a lot of information, that it's very essential for the Planning Director and the Planning Commission to look at these developments with a very critical eye and take a much more pro- active stand about the infrastructure needs prior to development, not after. There's no sidewalks in the old subdivisions, and the kids are coming down from the new subdivisions and having to walk on these gravel-ridden, broken up streets to get to the bus stop to get picked up, and it's a very dangerous situation because the improvements don't happen in the old neighborhoods. The old neighborhoods get worn down by all of the use of the new neighborhoods that are going in above them without more infrastructure, without other entry roads, without any other kind of improvements. There's just this incremental break it down to 31 the smallest possible lot size you can, get as many people crammed in there as you can, get as much money out as you can, and don't contribute to the community in any meaningful way. And you have hundreds and thousands of people coming to this island now, maybe not hundreds of thousands, but tens of thousands of people that want to live here because they ` believe in the quality of life here in Hawaii, that there is aloha, that people care about each other, and it has to start at the planning level. If we're not planning for this influx of humanity that are going to be living in all these homes that are being built, if we're not thinking about the safety of the children, all the extra people in cars, the strain on the watershed here, the drainage, the traffic, the green belts, the historical sites, the loss of plants and animals. If you're not willing to take a stand on the developments right now, we're not going to get any of this back. We're going to continue to have our children getting killed on the freeways because there's no safe place for them to play in their neighborhoods. There's no safe place for ` pedestrians to walk down the street. They're getting run down on Alii Drive. People drive way too fast here, and as long as we keep loading up the streets like this, we're going to continue to have this kind of loss of life for no apparent reason other than bad planning. Thank you. SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioners, questions or comments for the testifier? Hearing none, next, ma'am. GOODY:Good morning, my name is Ann Goody, Dr. Ann Goody. My address is 75-809 Keaolani Drive. And I bring to this public hearing an entirely different scope of testimony. I'm a zoo keeper. I am a federally licensed and permitted rehabilitator of ` endangered species. I am the U.S. Fish and Wildlife designated rehabilitator of nn, io, pueo, and the only person alive today who has ever rehabilitated a juvenile Hawaiian hoary bat. The pictures you see in textbooks on television, in magazines, of a juvenile hoary bat are of the bat that I cared for which is now a permanent resident at the Honolulu zoo. You may have seen her in The Advertiser last week. That was her first public appearance. As the designated expert of the Hawaiian hoary bat, I beg you to please listen to this testimony that I am now about to give. The corridor, the Zone AE marked on the map, is an extremely important flyway for the little hoary bat. The bat feeds usually at the upper elevations, about 1,100 to 1,200 feet. Very little is known about this species. The species survival plan for the Hawaiian hoary bat, most animals on the endangered species list have quite a large plan filed with the species survival plan. The federal species survival plan for the Hawaiian hoary bat is less than an eighth inch thick. That's because we know very little about them. We do from the studies about this little bat that it does feed at about the 1,100 to 1,800 foot elevation. One of its favorite feeding zones is along the Mmalahoa Highway. It loves to swoop along that area in that corridor. It does that during the summer months, the warmer o months, feeds all the way up into Kalko. During the winter months, it loves to come down and feed along the water's edge. You'll actually see them feeding out along here, along the 32 shore, along the coast. It feeds all the way down to the monument. They've been found right along the sand edge. The feed up to the lighthouse, up to OTEC. They're seen along this area. They're also found up around the Hmkua and the Hilo side. We have several distinct colonies, different colorations, different coat patterns. The Kona side is a little smaller than the Hilo side bat. But that's about all that's truly known about them, other than there are some well known corridors of flight. One of them is this drainage area. It's very important to that bat for feeding and for flyway. The bats do fly around residences. They have no problem with residential areas. They do have a problem with dense residential areas. The bats fly freely around homes, agricultural areas, homes that are not too close together. I live there. I have my animal sanctuary just up the road from this. They fly right through our property, dip and skim and take water out of our large wetlands pond where the nn use it for rehab. They'll skim that area, they feed on the small moths that rise up out of the pasture and the grasses. This area is currently used for cattle grazing, and it's quite grazed down right now, but during the time while that juvenile was with me, that one who's now at the Honolulu zoo, Ipo, I used to gather the moths that we fed all up and down Keaolani Drive, the wash area, and this designated property, using a net, skimming those off. ` It's also -, this particular lot is home to a pair of io, one young male that was released four years ago by me after he had been injured. We turned him loose; he's established that territory. This spring he got a mate. It's now an established hunting ground for this pair of birds. Every day, they fly from the lower area of the property, swoop over, they've been seen by all of the neighbors over, they swoop and fly, circle the area, hunting for birds. They're bird hunters. They will continue to fly if there are homes there. If it's designated Ag-1, you know, and there's homes scattered around, they'll continue to hunt for doves. They swoop all the way up, through Keaolani and work their way up. They come back, they roost in a couple of the large trees that are there, actually sleep there. The properties above and over, the one that Dan Bolton owns that now is the nursery at the top of Keaolani, he's already said plans for that are going to be to divide that into one-acre parcels. That's a tremendous amount of additional burden on the roadways of Keaolani or of Nani Kailua coming down. That large parcel directly above, if you can indicate that, that's all going to be divided. His plans for that are one-acre lots. The parcel next to that is a separate owner. He plans to divide that into half-acre lots. That's going to be coming before you at any time, 30 half-acre lots. All that traffic's going to dump down on that little tiny Hienaloli Road and come down Nani Kailua. The bats will still feed on half-acre lot parcels. They'll still fly ` through and so will the io. They won't have a problem with that. But they will have a problem with 10,000 square foot lots. The density is just too much. It will interrupt that, and it will be a problem. Please consider that. Thank you. SPRINGER:Commissioners, any questions or comments? I have a question. For ` either the hoary bat or the io, is this area, the subject area that the Applicant has brought forward to us, is that designated critical habitat? 33 GOODY:When I called the State folks and I also called the Federal folks, I asked them is there a way to find out about designation or asked to have someone come and testify. They said because it was a small size, it wasn't going before the Planning Commission. I ` asked the folks in Oahu. They said that they would need to find the hoary bat expert. They said we'll try to get Dr. Goody to come testify. I said, wait, I am Dr. Goody calling. And they said, well, you need to go and testify. I said, now to get it designated critical habitat would take quite a bit longer and I was only notified of this hearing about 10 days ago. SPRINGER:I see. Could you tell me if there are animals actively nesting in the area? GOODY:Hoary bats don't nest. They roost individually. They don't have designated areas, and they're migratory. They have winter areas where they live and summer areas, and they're only transient through this area. They hunt on it, but they're transient. This is part of the gully area where they fly through. SPRINGER:When you were describing the drainageway as part of the known flyway. GOODY:Flyway, right. SPRINGEROf the hoary bat, where is this known from and is it recorded in any documentation? GOODY:It's been recorded in some of the studies that were done. There were university students that came out and did studies under Dr. Paul Conroy. SPRINGER:Thank you, ma'am. Members, any questions or comments? Director Yuen. YUEN:Yeah, I have a question. Is it generally true that a hoary bat follows drainageways as flyways, or is this something unusual for this location? GOODY:They tend to like to follow areas, open areas of grassland that abut areas of trees or gullies, and I think it has to do with the way that the moths come up, and it's certain terrain issues that they like. What we've seen with other bats is they like areas of terrain. Wherever there's a gully, then usually next to it there's grassland, and for some reason it makes for good feeding. It also has to do with the change of elevation. It may have to do with temperature changes, and it may have to do with that they can find landmarks, that the gully provides a landmark for them that they follow. YUEN:Thank you. SPRINGER:Thank you both. Commissioners, questions or comments? Sir, your name and address into the microphone, please. 34 PURI:Yes, my name is Rab Puri. My address is 75-349 Melelina Place here in Kailua-Kona. I am one of the residents that is quasi, if not totally adjacent to the properties under question. th I am, first of all, very, very delighted that so many people, I'm the 11 speaker and Curtis is to my left, that 12 people have testified. I think I have probably nothing new to say but I would like to reinforce some of the things that have already been said because I think that they're very important. You folks at this table on the Planning Commission -. Am I getting through? Oh, okay. Are the only faces that are available to us as the residents or the public or the constituents, and so we speak to you because you have to be a voice to the Council or to Mayor Kim or even to the State, as the need may be. I think that the issue is very, very clear. The issue is that we are developing on this end of the Island, and we are developing very rapidly. We need to develop very smartly. This is not my word. Some of our politicians have used it before, and that's smart growth. We need to have smart growth. The application that you are looking at does not represent smart growth. We cannot do incremental growth. That word was used today many times. We cannot look at this microscopically. We need to look at growth macroscopically. We need to put the horse before the cart and not the cart before the horse, which is what we are tending to do when we approve four lots and six lots and 40 lots because they don't make incrementally that much difference. We can do this, or as many of the people have said, and rightfully so, we'll degenerate the quality of life. We are degenerating the quality of life. We will leach the waters. We will not be able to dive into -, when we have our triathlon, into the ocean because we leach it, and we need to stop some of this and we can stop it. But we, I think, as a neighbor to this property, and so I've got a self interest, but more than that, I think the interest that you need to represent is for the community, and we need to do this well. Traffic has been spoken to, sewer systems, water, and there are a host of infrastructural issues. And if it takes $40,000 a lot rather than six, then it should be $40,000, and the developers will get that money sooner or later. Maybe they won't sell tomorrow, maybe they'll sell next year, but people are coming and there's a cost of living, and that needs to be paid, not at the expense of the children who literally cannot cross the streets, that have been hit and have been hurt. At 7:00 in the morning when I drive Nani Kailua, I drive at five miles an hour because -, and parents who have to go to work are there, they are watching their children, because they cannot allow them to go until they climb -, get on the bus. And these are real things, these are not imagined. So I think that many of these things have been said and wherever this needs to be escalated, at the County Council level or Mayor Kim's level, or the State level, to get the endorsements, to get the approvals, to get the bonding, and to use Chris Yuen's term, stop the sprawl, we need West Hawaii to do it. He -, our Planning Director was instrumental, I applaud him, I wrote in Today a letter supporting his action when we stopped the CPR process. The CPR process was an 35 incremental process of developing singular homes under this mask of CPR and not doing infrastructural development, and he was very kind and very instrumental in stopping it. Well, this is the same horse dressed as an ox, and we need to stop it, too. And, you know, we can't do it on one lot or two lots or four lots, 143 lots or 100 lots to have traffic studies. You are our voices, you are our minds, you are our brains representing the community. Please look at this macroscopically and see what is happening, where we are going, and do it right. Mahalo. SPRINGER:You're welcome. Commissioners, questions or comments? I just -, sir, I think that your acknowledgment that there are further levels of planning and opportunities for funding beyond the Planning Commission is well taken and, as you decision we make here is forwarded on to the County Council, and that is certainly another venue to offer your comments, as I imagine you may have already. TYLER:Thank you, Madam Chair and Members of the Hawai`i County P Commission. Good afternoon, my name is Curtis Tyler, and I come before you today in my capacity as the elected public servant of District 8 in which this project, this proposed project is located. And may I begin first of all by thanking all the members of the public who have come this morning, those who provided testimony, those who have provided written testimony but have not been here, and I have copies of letters from -, or emails from Royal Darnall, Loyal Darnall, excuse me. SPRINGER:Excuse me? Mr. Tyler, may we have your address, please. TYLER:I'm sorry, yes, Madam Chair, my apologies. My name is Curtis Tyler, and my address is 73-4325 Laka Place; that's my resident address where I occasionally reside. My other address is at the Kona Council office on Nalani Street. SPRINGER:Thank you. TYLER:Thank you, Madam Chair, I apologize. As I started to say, I have received an email from John and Ruby Darnall. We have heard from Mrs. Darnall earlier. I also received a copy of a letter to Mr. Yuen from Charles W. Fleming and Maureen Loo, expressing concern. And, also, I believe that the Hawai`i County Planning Commission and the Department have received a letter from Mr. Mark and -, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Van Pernis, Mark and Christie Van Pernis, expressing their concern. I just want to note that, for the record, since some of these folks have not been here. I'm especially pleased that I am able to be here today to listen to the comments of the -, of my constituents and also the questions and comments of the Director and the Members of the Commission. Indeed, as Madam Chair has pointed out, this body, the Hawai`i County Planning Commission sits today in its advisory capacity to the Hawai`i County Council, and that's why I'm especially glad to be here to have heard these comments because I suspect that some of these persons who have testified will not be at the meetings in Hilo where these will be heard. I hope you will, and if you can't, I hope you will send personal testimony regarding your concerns 36 because sometimes the Council does not receive the minutes of th comments are extremely germane. They are, I'm sure, very -, I know they're heartfelt. I know that they are also -, I believe they are also very widely reflected in the -, certainly the constituency that I represent and many residents of West Hawai`i. Anyone who drives a car, of course, or rides in one would concur, I'm sure. But I have a few comments, Madam Chair, that I would like to make with respect to some of the comments that were made today, and perhaps clarifying some of the previous actions of the Hawai`i County Council with respect to this area. In particular, Mr. Kish spoke about, and others referred to his testimony, that Kawena Street and Melelina Street, which originally had been shown as north-south connector streets were subsequently made into cul-de-sacs. And I wanted to comment -, and that perhaps Kakalina Street would follow suit in the future. And it has been my experience on the Council, within the Planning Commi itself, that with respect to these three streets, we have received testimony from the adjacent residents, at least with respect to Kawena Street, that they did not want that street to go through because of the increased traffic on Welo place and the other areas. We received substantial testimony, and I think you may recall hearing some of that yours Second of all, the Kawena Street proposal to the north, the connection to the north onto -, over the State land and also Melelina Street and Kakalina, as Director Yuen mentioned, would entail very expensive bridges and crossing. That's not to say that they shouldn't be done, as some of you have pointed out. But the Council has come to -, given the width of the drainageway in that area and the cost, obviously, increasing with the wider the drainageway or the wider the width of the stream, the Council has made a decision, at least with respect to this area, that Kakalina Street will be the street that will go to the north. And we have done so in consultation with la consultants of adjacent or current prop -, the ones before you today and others, also in consideration of the roadways that are planned to the north, which have also been referred to today. As some of you know, Malulani Gardens has a major road, north-south road between its phases, and that -, it was hoped that this might connect to that. I wanted to let you know that. We did not simply acquiesce to the wishes of the developer or their representatives. We listened very carefully to the members of the public who live there. We listened very carefully to the Public Works and the recommendations and the constraints which exist with respect to this very major drainageway. Some of -, and some of us here today have witnessed that as a major drainageway more than once in our lives, as I think you've heard me speak before. Second housekeeping -, or the second item I'd specifically like to comment on is your proposed Condition No. R, which relates to the prohibition on second dwellings. I would ask you that before you send this to the Council that you review this very carefully, if not today then perhaps a recommendation, but perhaps today you can do it simply, to make this language in Condition R consistent with the language in the previous rezoned -, rezone condition, it was Condition E in Rezone No. 17. The language do not comport with one another, yet they propose to have the same effect. I would specifically note that CPRs, condominium property regimes are not included in R, which is the old language that used to be used. Condition E in the previous rezone is the correct language, along with the language that the Director and you have -, the Director had proposed and you have approved in previous rezones. This has come up more than once in 37 terms of inconsistency of the language, and I would just suggest that you make those consistent. It's very important as Dr. Puri has pointed out with respect to CPRs. There has been great concern expressed this morning regarding disposal of wastewater, and it is my understanding and belief that none of these properties would qualify for any cesspools. I believe all of them must -, and the proposed conditions indicate that they would need to comply, and the Applicant has indicated that they -, in the response to the Director, that they would comply with the Department of Health regulations. If, indeed, the Department of Health allows cesspools in this area by law or by regulation, indeed, I would agree that is improper. I am building a house at 975-foot elevation, which is substantially higher than this area, and we cannot build cesspools there. We must put in septics, and they must be very carefully monitored, etcetera, so -. And the Director can comment if he wishes, but I believe that cesspools are not allowed and would not be put in. With respect to a municipal sewer system or County sewer system which has been brought up today, I believe that the Department of -, excuse me, the Division of Wastewater under the Department of Environmental Management does have plans for a municipal sewer trunk line to extend along the Queen Ka`ahumanu Extension. It is not currently on the drawing board, well, I mean it's on the drawing board, it's not on the -, it's on the planning board, I don't think it's on the drawing board in terms of there are not sufficient funds. But I would also comment that Mr. Kish mentioned improvement districts as a possibility, and the Director commented on that indicating that yes, improvement districts are possible, however, the coordination between various landowners because it is absolutely imperative because if you don't have it, you can't put a lien on somebody's property without their permission, and that's how our improvement district ordinance works. In Hawai`i, our ahupua`a land units, of which this is a part, as we -, most of us know because of our mountains and slopes, run mauka-makai and they're usually narrow. And so if a roadway is going north-south or laterally across the slope, and unless you have control of all the land, which we do not to the north, as I think all of your know because of the State land there, this makes it more difficult to get everyone together, but I think it's a good idea, and I think, as I'll close here shortly, that this should be something that should come before the Hawai`i County Council and its Planning Committee with respect to the General Plan, and I would urge everyone, including the Commissioners, to come and testify. I understand we're goin th December the 18 and move this forward. Thank you. There were comments made that this body is in the driver's seat and I -, as I said previously, it is I as a -, and eight other members of your community who are in the driver's seat here, and I hope you will continue to express your mana`o, and I include the Commissioners here who I know have grave concerns about some of these traffic, especially Commissioner Kubota, who has brought this up on numerous occasions. The issue of the stop sign, I want to comment here because the Commission has had some previous comments from me. This stop sign was only installed after the Council insisted it be done. It was not supported by the Public Works Department, it was not supported by the Traffic Services Division. In fact, they testified to the contrary and recommended we not do it. We 38 listened to the community, we listened to the traffic safety issues, and we put the stop sign in and, indeed, some people do not recognize the stop sign, some people do not recognize speed limit signs, some people do not recognize personal responsibility. But the fact is that most people that I have heard from have told me that this is a wonderful thing. And this is a classic example of where the people have prevailed over, you know, the technical experts, because this was the right thing to do, this was the commonsense thing to do. And I mention this, Madam Chair and Members of the Commission, not to take up more of your think it shows that a collaborative effort, very simple little item like this, can make a difference. And I don't speak in criticism of the Department of Public Works, because they're engineers and I am not. And finally, I would like to say with respect to the infrastructure deficits, especially as they relate to roadways, that the Hawai`i County Planning Department was successful in getting a grant and has commissioned a study, and some of you may have attended some of the public hearings regarding a proposed roadway circulation plan between Kalaoa in the north, or Kona International Airport and Hnaunau in the south. And perhaps Director Yuen would want to comment on that, but at some point I believe there will be a public meeting to further discuss this and going it forward. And I would hope that each of us here today, as residents, no matter what our callings are with respect to decision making, would come and give this input. There already has been a lot of input. And that's what it's going to take. Someone mentioned fair share assessments. The -, as you know, Madam Chair and Members of the Commission, this Commission does not put on specific numbers with respect to fair share assessments. As you know, the County Council does do so. It's pointed out, approximately $9,000 per lot. I would be a fool if I said that that was sufficient to cover the kinds of impacts that are here. However, we do not have an impact fee ordinance and we tread very carefully with respect to United States Supreme Court decisions as it relates to nexus, and I'm sure that your Counsel here this morning would -, and perhaps has already advised you of this. I would suggest that in the future, Commissioners, you and we, as the Council, in collaboration with our communities, start to put some conditions on our rezonings to ensure that the hours of work for these constructions are limited so they do not disturb the residents. Sunday -, I mean there are projects we know that work seven days a week. They start at 7:00 in the morning, some earlier, and they go until 7:00 at night. I've listened to one right next to my house for about a year. So, you know, we need to collaborate on this. And there was a comment about CPR laws by Dr. Puri, and I would alert this, everybody that's here, that while Director Yuen and Members of the Council were instrumental in passing an ordinance that addressed the CPR abuses, that I would like to advise you that the Real Estate Commission proposed in recent public hearings around the State to negate this entire effort and, in fact, to override the land use home rule authority of your Council, your elected officials. And a number of us went and we testified vehemently against this, including Director Yuen, who came all the way from Hilo. And I think he should be applauded and it should be noted that he did stand up, and I was there along with other people but -. Be in the legislature. 39 Finally, this is final, bad planning -. It was spoken today about bad planning. You've heard it, ladies and gentlemen, I hear it, we all hear it. You folks live it, we all live it, we're part of it, and it -, indeed, we can't turn back the hands of time, but we do have an opportunity coming up with the Hawai`i County General Plan, we do have an opportunity every time there's a hearing, to come forward and share our mana`o. And as the first gentleman at the end of the table here mentioned, you know, in this country, we try to do so with respect for one another and courtesy, and indeed, I believe that has happened. And I think we'll see more of that because there is more responsiveness, and I credit that to members here as well as Director Yuen. And I hope that even though things don't always go the way that we hope they will, because as everybody knows, it takes five people to pass anything in terms of an ordinance, that we will not give up, we will not become impatient, we will not become obstreperous, but that we will, you know, we will come together and say let's find a solution. And I have been more th somewhat obstreperous, and -, or at least very vocal, and I will continue to be vocal, as I hope you will, but I see now with the leadership of Director Yuen and other members of this community that there is hope, and I hope that we will continue to work together and I hope that all of you will come to the Council or at least let us know. Thank you very much. SPRINGER:Thank you, Mr. Tyler. Commissioners, questions, commen Commissioner Graham. GRAHAM:Curtis, I have a sort of cut to the chase comment. TYLER:Thank you. GRAHAM:I know, you know, when I've testified before in the public and all and, you know, we're getting a pretty consistent message from everybody. TYLER:Indeed. GRAHAM:But when you start speaking, you're talking about a difference in Condition R, you're talking about hours of work of construction, so there's a little sort of background feeling that comes through maybe to those who are testifying, like well, this thing seems like it's okay to you because you're talking about making small changes to the conditions and you never have really spoken to the fact of where this is going to go in the Council and how do you feel about this and anything on a consequential issue on this specific thing at this time. So if you had something to offer up in that regard, I would appreciate it. TYLER:May I respond, Madam Chair, very briefly? SPRINGER:Please, Mr. Tyler. TYLER:Yes, thank you, I was going to say that my comments were not in any way a reflection of how I might vote on this, just some concerns, and I wanted to react to my constituents. If I were able to predict what the Hawai`i County Council will do, I guess you wouldn't need any other members, I could just be the one member 40 has been with respect to increased density in the urban core is to approve it with reasonable and conditions as they relate to the health, safety and welfare, and the record is clear on that, Commissioner Graham, with respect to this area. Director Yuen mentioned that, two key things, urban sprawl and density, and they're incompatible in this situation. The issues that the community's brought forward with respect to the infrastructure deficits, I don't know if this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, I don't know, but I certainly intend to speak with Mr. Mooers after this meeting, before it comes to the Council, to talk about and get from him as a land use consultant, and perhaps talk to the owner themselves, the Applicant, say you know, what do you think we should do about this? You've heard the comments and they're very well pointed out, so that is my intention. And, as you know, Commissioner Graham, I listen very carefully to what members of the public have to say, I listen very carefully to what the Director has to say, I listen very carefully to what my colleagues have to say vis-à-vis these kinds of programs. And finally, and equally as important, I think fairness and consistency has always been, you know, my watch, the way I watch things very carefully is fairness and consistency. And -, but I also remember who I work for, and a whole bunch of them are sitting in this room today. Thank you. SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioners, any further questions or comments? Director Yuen, did you have anything to offer? I thought I saw you going for the microphone. YUEN:Oh, yeah, I just -. SPRINGER:Earlier. YUEN:I just wanted to say that the Real Estate Commission, the head of the committee that's working on the revisions called me yesterday and said they were going to back off on those changes. TYLER:Hallelujah. SPRINGER:Thank you, Director Yuen. I just have a question for you, Councilman Tyler. TYLER:Yes, Madam Chair. SPRINGER:Are the comments regarding the `io and the hoary bat a part of your considerations regarding the possible extension of Kakalina over the Hienaloli Drainageway? TYLER:Actually, Dr. Goody had not contacted me regarding these until I walked in the door this morning, immediately when I walked in the door. I'm aware that the `pe`ape`a, the Hawaiian hoary bat, and the `io have, you know, do have flyways, they do have hunting areas, and I have watched their habitats directly adjacent to my home, actually, to the north, be completely decimated and they are not there anymore. So I share the concern of Dr. Goody, and I know that at least the `pe`ape`a is a designated endangered species from the Federal perspective. 41 GOODY:Both are listed, federally listed. TYLER:So I'm glad there's an expert here in the community I can mentioned to her, I thought it was very important, since she is the designated Fish and Wildlife Service expert in the State, that she come and provide testimony, and I'm glad she did. I thin is a consideration. With respect to the extension of Kakalina, we did not take that into consideration because it had not been presented to us, but I'm sure that we will and we have Thank you. SPRINGER:Thank you. TYLER:You're welcome. SPRINGER:Members, any questions, further questions or comments? Hearing none, or seeing none, Commissioners, if we may have a motion to close the public hearing portion of this agenda item, if there is no one else from the public who wishes to testify. Thank you. KUBOTA:Madam Chair? SPRINGER:Mrs. Kubota. KUBOTA:I move that the public debate be closed for this application. MINA:Second. SPRINGER:Thank you. That was moved by Commissioner Kubota and seconded by Commissioner Mina. Thank you all for your participation. Jeff, may we have -? I'm sorry. We have a motion made by Commissioner Kubota, seconded by Commissioner Mina, all those in favor of closing this portion of the agenda item to public testimony, indicate so by saying aye. COMMISSIONERS:Aye. SPRINGER:Any opposed? Thank you. The public hearing portion of this agenda item is closed. It's 12:40 by my watch. We had made a -, we have made a luncheon reservation for 12:45 with the intention of coming back at 1:45. Mr. Mooers, would you care to make any comments before we break for lunch, we have about five more minutes, or would you like to take it up fresh when we come back? MOOERS:It would probably make more sense when we come back. 42 SPRINGER:Thank you then. This Hawai`i County Planning Commission is recessed until 1:45. RECESSEDThe Chairman called a lunch recess at 12:42 p.m. RECONVENEDThe meeting reconvened at 1:50 p.m. SPRINGER:Thank you for rejoining us. We are going to now continue our discussion of Item No. 4 on our agenda, the Applicant is Nani Kona Aina. For the information of the audience and those participating with us today, we're striving for a 6:00 (skip in tape). To accomplish that, we ask for your cooperation with us, as well. But at this time, we'd like to resume Item No. 4 on our agenda. Mrs. Kubota. SPRINGER:Madam Chairman -. Am I dead? I'm on? I am? Okay. Madam Chairman, I move that we re-open the public testimony part for this agenda item. SPRINGER:Thank you. Is there a second? MINA:Second. SPRINGER:Thank you. Moved by Commissioner Kubota and seconded by Commissioner Mina. Having moved and opened the public hearing portion of this testimony, we invite the Applicant's representative to come forward, please, Mr. Mooers. Mr. Mooers, Commissioners, you've heard the various testimonies and some of the discussion that was associated with them. Mr. Mooers, we did indicate to at least one of the testifiers that some of their questions would be addressed by you at this follow-up period. Would you care to begin your comments? MOOERS:Yes, I will. Thank you, Madam Chair. There were a lot of questions, and so what I've tried to do is summarize them, and if I miss any in specific, then if you can ask me any specific questions I may have missed I'll be happy to direct them, but rather than go through all those pages of testimony and trying to do random item by random item, I'm going to try to make some sense of all this. There seemed to be a great concern about what was called incremental zoning. To be honest, that's the way our process does work is that the applications are brought in increments by landowners as they desire to change the use of their property. This seems to imply that there's no thought given to these, and I think that is an extremely inaccurate statement. The County's planning is really focused with the General Plan. The General Plan document and the accompanying LUPAG maps focus the areas that the County would like to see growth in, and the type of growth they'd like to see. In addition to that, there are elements of the General Plan that make some sort of narrative comments about everything from infrastructure and scenic beauty and any of a number of issues that you are aware of as Commissioners because you see this all the time. 43 This application is absolutely consistent with the General Plan and with the Kona Regional Plan. It's absolutely consistent with the surrounding zoning and uses. There were some comments made about this high density when, in fact, Mr. Darrow pointed out that the adjoining property owners' lots are 7,500 square feet to 10,000 square feet, smaller or equal to these lots. So I don't think there's any question that the proposed land use is consistent with what all government agencies want to see happen in this area. This area should be urbanized, it will be urbanized. There will be continuous applications for other properties to be urbanized in this area. I mean when we look at the type of density that we're talking about, this is where we want the density so that people are not commuting from South Kona. We're not trying to develop other areas or develop urban sprawl, we're trying to focus the growth as all of these plans indicate they should be. The real issue is infrastructural, you know, what sort of infrastructure accommodations are made? What are the deficiencies and how can they be addressed? If we look at the first, and that's water, presently the water system is inadequate to support this project. The developer, in order for this project to occur, must improve the public system to accommodate this project. If he does not, the zoning is not effective. So the net effect of this project will be, in fact, to improve the water system for not just this project but for the entire area. And if this is not the case, the Department of Water Supply will not support the plans and there will be no zoning. The developer has had numerous conversations and contractual agreements with the Department of Water Supply to develop the system. They have identified corridors, tank sites, pressure reducing valve sites to implement the public's plan for water in this area. The benefit to the developer? He gets to develop his property. If he doesn't do it, he doesn't get to develop his property. The second issue is wastewater. There are a number of issues -, or people have made comments about cesspools, septic systems, leaching into the ocean, we wouldn't be able to swim in the bay during the Ironman, etcetera. The Department of Health regulates wastewater disposal. The developer, in the application and as required by the conditions of approval, or proposed conditions of approval, is required to develop a wastewater system meeting with the approval of the Department of Health. The next question and probably really the key element here is roadways. We'll start with the on-site roadways. Requirement of the conditions require that these roadways be built to standards, dedicated to the Department of Public Works, curb, gutter, sidewalks. There were comments made about that fire trucks could not get in here. That simply is not true. The Fire Department has made comments. Any roadway design in these subdivisions must be accessible to fire apparatus, that is a requirement. There was some discussion about this may not be the final subdivision map, and that is true. This is a rezoning process. This is the developer's proposal to develop the lots as shown, but through this process, and through the subsequent subdivision process, all agencies will have an opportunity to comment on that plan, and there might very well be changes recommended. The tee roads that were discussed in there are called hammerheads, that allow cars to turn in 44 one direction, back up, and come out. They might very well require a cul-de-sac at that point. So this lot configuration might change through the subdivision process, and that process is an administrative process in which the Applicant or the developer has to meet all the requirements of all the commenting agencies. There was comments made about the inadequacies of Hienaloli Road. As a condition being proposed by the Planning Director, we would need to improve Hienaloli Road from Nani Kailua Drive not only to the property but to the northern edge of the property. And the assumption is that at some point that road will be continued to the north. This is -, we're not looking at a cul-de-sac in this case. I think the Director made comments about the cost of bridging that Hienaloli Drainageway, and that's a very valid point, but it will need to be bridged at one or more points but not at every cross street, and I think the Councilman for the district spoke to Kawena Street and Melelina Street not being connected. Kakalina Street, my understanding, is to be connected over that drainageway. The other point was made was continuous comments about access onto and off of the Queen ` Kaahumanu Extension. The Department of Transportation controls access to that highway. The developer, nor the County, can unilaterally say that we will connect at some point. The Department of Transportation, when they developed this highway as a limited access highway, identified points along the highway in which they would allow access. The access points here are south of Nani Kailua Drive, not north, not north until you get beyond the State-owned drainageway. So that is not something the developer nor this Commission can implement. We could suggest that you could require it and Department of Transportation would not allow it. The big question we come down to is we have infrastructure deficiencies in the community. Now whether or not this project gets built or not, we have infrastructural deficiencies. The big question is how do we pay for it? For the last 20 years since I worked with the County and on the private side, it's been the same question. We've looked at tax increment financing, we looked at bond financing, we've looked at Mello-Roos financing, and these are all methods of funding infrastructure in an area. You recall that the last administration, Mayor Yamashiro, had even proposed to develop a huge tax increment financing district from Keahole Airport to Keauhou. And at that time there was a hue and cry that this is a horrible thing because he was just going to take care of a bunch of landowners or developers. Maybe as we go forward, we see there was some wisdom in looking at an entire region and trying to come up with a funding mechanism. This developer is trying to work with adjoining property owners to reach a critical mass of development that will allow the implementation of roadway improvements in addition to the water improvements. If they can't, then the project just strangles because this project can't support the water system improvements on its own, can't support the roadway system on its own. These other projects understand to move forward, particularly to the south, that they're going to have to make major infrastructural improvements, as well, and the only way they're going to be able to proceed is if they do it jointly. I think it's a noble effort on this developer's part to try to do that. And I look at this infrastructure issue and I still ask the question, who's 45 going to pay for it? It's very clear the State and the County don't have the resources to accommodate the tremendous infrastructural need we have. I think it's incumbent upon this body, the County Council, to look at the General Plan, implement the General Plan, and do whatever you can to have developers pay for their impacts related to their development, and to -, in doing so, to try to accommodate larger community plans like the water system, the roadway system, to make sure so that the agencies say fine, you extended this roadway from here to here, and the next guy does it from here to here. Unfortunately, we're not developing the whole region at once, so we can't build the road at once, but we can hold the developer to pay for the sections of roadway that will accommodate and implement State and County plans, and I think that's what needs to be done. We talk about impacts in addition to roadways. There is a very significant impact related fee of $9,000-plus per unit that is assessed by the Council, and those fees are used to help implement plans of agencies that those fees are collected for. I guess in some way I would say that I believe this proposed project is consistent with all institutional considerations, all plans. I think it's taking a rational approach to addressing infrastructure needs, and I think it's exactly the type of development we need because I think it helps to move forward to address the infrastructure needs that already exist in the community. SPRINGER:Thank you, Mr. Mooers. Commissioners, any questions or comments to Mr. Mooers? Mr. Mooers, I have a question regarding the hoary bat and the testimony that was heard today. The application, as presented, does not make mention of that species. Do you have any response to the comments by that testifier? MOOERS:Just a couple. I did speak with Dr. Goody. She called me in regards to this application a week, 10 days ago. Unfortunately, at that time, she made no mention of the ` fact that this, that the hoary bat or the io were somehow impacted by the project. She did mention that she was rehabilitating birds and wildlife on her property, and we talked at some length about neighboring properties and what was projected as far as the type of growth in the area, but nothing was mentioned to me at that time, so I am somewhat caught off-guard by it today so I don't have a response to that. SPRINGER:Thank you, Mr. Mooers. Commissioners? Mr. Graham. GRAHAM:Greg, when you first started giving your comments here, you spoke about incremental zoning and that maybe because there's lots of little projects that have all gone together to make the infrastructure deficit that some people felt this was lack of planning but you spoke of the conformity to the General Plan. I think there was another aspect of the incremental zoning which, to me, relates to the 15-acre limit, what's State land use and what's County, and I know some of the testifiers spoke to the fact that the developer or the owner here really owned a bunch of parcels. So, if in fact, one developer owns a bunch of parcels but he's going one parcel at a time to us instead of to the Land Use Commission, that doesn't 46 seem right. But I don't understand the whole ownership and aspect of this thing. Could you shed some light on that? MOOERS:I believe if you had the same owner owning contiguous pieces of property and parceled them into 15 acres that the Planning Department and the Land Use Commission would both comment that that was an inappropriate situation. That's not the case ` here. I have processed three of the rezonings, and I think there were six lots in that ahupuaa ` section between Hienaloli Road and Queen Kaahumanu Extension. The three that I accomplished were for three different landowners, and I know that two other landowners are looking at redistricting and rezoning their property. I don't represent them, they are other owners. GRAHAM:So regardless of the appropriateness, the facts are that it's the not landowner doing this? MOOERS:That's correct. GRAHAM:Thank you. SPRINGER:Thank you both. Commissioners, any further questions or comments? Mr. Yuen, any response? Hearing none, Mrs. Kubota, can we have a motion closing, please. KUBOTA:Madam Chair, once again, I move to close the public testimony portion of our agenda item. SPRINGER:Thank you. MINA:Second. SPRINGER:Moved and seconded by Commissioners Kubota and Mina to close the public hearing portion of this agenda item. All those in favor, indicate so by saying aye. COMMISSIONERS:Aye. SPRINGER:Any opposed? Thank you. We now move on to the application before us. May I have a motion or may I have two motions? DARROW:Madam Chair? SPRINGER:Yes. DARROW:If I could interject, we have had two revisions that have been requested by the Planning Director. 47 SPRINGER:Thank you, Jeff. DARROW:One of them will be for Condition R, that is the condition that has to do with prohibitation of the second dwelling. We'd like to replace the wording of that particular condition with this wording. I'll go ahead and read it for you. "Restrictive covenants in the deeds of all the proposed lots within the subject property shall give notice that the terms of the zoning ordinance prohibit the construction of a second dwelling unit and condominium property regimes on each lot. This restriction may be removed by an amendment of this ordinance by the County Council. The owner of the property may also in addition impose private covenants restricting the number of dwellings. A copy of the proposed covenants to be recorded with the Bureau of Conveyances shall be submitted to the Planning Director for review and approval prior to the issuance of final subdivision approval. A copy of the recorded document shall be filed with the Planning Department upon its receipt from the Bureau of Conveyances." SPRINGER:And, Jeff, for my clarification, that R that we have before us is to be removed completely and this new language is inserted in its entirety? DARROW:Correct. SPRINGER:Thank you. DARROW:As Condition R. SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioners, any comments on that proposed change by the Planning Director? Okay. Jeff. DARROW:We have one more revision we'd like to add, Condition L, and all other conditions will subsequently move up in lettering by one letter. The new Condition L will be worded as follows: "Should the interior roadway system remain private, any vehicular security gate shall be located a minimum of 60 feet from the Hienaloli-Kahului Road right-of- way, exclusive of gate swing." And that will be a new Condition L, and all following conditions will move up one letter. SPRINGER:Thank you, Jeff. DARROW:Thank you. SPRINGER:Members? Mrs. Kubota. KUBOTA:Yeah, I have a question of our Planning Director. Incremental improvements on the roadway was suggested by the planner. If -. Oh, sorry. If we follow that scheme and have every -, for lack of any better alternative, would that help to resolve some of the issues that the residents feel about infrastructure? He was saying perhaps, you 48 know, incrementally, you hold a developer responsible for the area or the roadway that surrounds his application. Would that in some way help to allev -, if we do that consistently hereafter? YUEN:We do try to identify specific fixes sg`slhfgsadi+that could be done with a particular development, and so that is something we try to do. We did not identify them in this particular case that was commensurate with the project that would really make a lot of sense. KUBOTA:We could add that in. YUEN:If there were something that -. KUBOTA:We could -. YUEN:Something specific that was identified. And, you know, we've done it in situations, made somebody put in a left turn lane, made them pave certain areas of road, and that does exist in this one here where they have to include the Hienaloli-Kahului Road off-site at least as far as Nani Kailua. But as a matter of general principle, yes, we can do that. As I say in this particular case we have not identified a particular project. The project of a second ` collector road to Queen Kaahumanu would obviously, I think, not -, adding that as a condition would simply make this project undevelopable. KUBOTA:Undevelopable. YUEN:Yes. Yes, from a financial point of view. KUBOTA:Yeah, okay. Well, I guess the reason I bring this up as a possibility, not knowing where else to go, is that, you know, it's a perennial problem, infrastructure. Where do we begin? Do we continue to say it's expensive, we can't do it? Where do we bite the bullet and say these are the conditions that must be put in there so that hereafter everything that follows will require conformance to improving infrastructure before we permit development? I mean, we've got to start somewhere and I'm groping. YUEN:The theory of the fair share assessment is that that does -. KUBOTA:I know. YUEN:Contribute money for the regional improvements. KUBOTA:Too slow. YUEN:I should also mention that the County is investing very large amounts of money in Kona road improvements. 49 KUBOTA:No, that didn't seem to go over very, very well. Let's try one more time. I don't mean to be facetious, I know this is a problem, and I feel it very deeply because ` it's not just this subdivision, it's Alii Drive, another one, right? What do we do? I mean the developers have a right. We need to protect the citizenry that live there, the residents that are implicated by our furthering development. Is there nowhere else to go, I mean other than to say no development, put a moratorium on all development? I mean, that -, I don't know that I can bite the bullet to that extent, but I would certainly like to find some way to assure the residents that came to testify today that we are cognizant and we are trying our best and we are taking steps to alleviate the problem for them. I don't know how else to do it. YUEN:Well, there's two aspects of this. There is -. Let me step back, because ` you have to look at the overall question of growth and development in West Hawaii, and in ` Hawaii as a whole. What people are complaining about here today is that they see looming a decline in their quality of life by virtue of more people moving in next to them. That's something that I, as a person here, have been concerned about ever since I was about 12 years old, and personally involved in since I was 19 years old. There is, unfortunately, no ultimate growth control because of the constitutional right of movement of travel within the United States. If we have the ability to make a quota, for example, on the number of people who could move to Kona, I would personally advocate that, and I think it would go a long ways toward solving our planning problems. There is no direct way of doing that. Now -, so where are you? There are some indirect approaches that people would argue for. The indirect approach of trying to absolutely limit the number of building sites that people can move on to, I regret to say is also not going to work. The result is going to be simply that the available building sites are going to be bid up by the people with the most money, and the people without money are going to move to the places that are already zoned and lots already exist but are very, very far a`a, to get to work in Kailua-Kona. So that, as an from their jobs, like Ocean View or Honok approach, is not going to work. So what we're left with on the overall development side is really we have a question of where do people go? Where do we put people? And I'm sorry to say for people that -, and I completely understand, for example, the woman who testified that she has a property immediately adjacent to this. If I were her, I would much rather see this remain as an empty 14-acre field or I would much rather see a buffer zone of no houses against me. Unfortunately, this is a property within the area of Kailua-Kona that is -, should be urbanized. If you are going to put more people in Kona, this is one of the places where they should go by all planning. Then you get to the question of making the proper infrastructure for this. We -, this is where on the site itself, we are making the conditions to improve the roadways within the site, to improve the roadways to Nani Kailua Drive. Nani Kailua Drive itself is not an over full roadway. It's not an ideal roadway because of the steepness and people drive too fast, but that's -, it's not lacking capacity. 50 The final thing -. Then you get to the regional road situation, the highways and the like, and as I say, this is where the idea is that the fair share assessment creates a pot of money that can go toward that. If we had identified a specific fix that needed to be done, we would have tried to put that in the conditions of this rezoning. We can look at that as time goes on, as well. But th and the County does have what -, if you look in the past history of the County in road construction, the County has several major projects that it's committed to doing in the Kailua- Kona area. The Kahului-Keauhou Parkway has been -, the County Council has appropriated the money for that, and federal funding does exist for that. The improvements to Kuakini within Kailua-Kona, also on the books. And the County, you know, is putting major amounts of money into road improvements in the Kona area, far more than have ever occurred in any other kind of time period, like over the last 20 years. It's not a problem that you're going to solve on this 14-acre rezoning. KUBOTA:I know that. But we keep saying that -, keep putting it off. Okay. May I just continue? I have one more question. SPRINGER:Yes. KUBOTA:The -, somewhere in the testimony by the residents, a TIA mentioned. I know that for development over 50, is it 50, the n my mind, we could ask for a TIAR. This one is 43, so none was a possibility to have a TIAR done? YUEN:You actually -, there is no absolute rule on this. There is a guideline of the Traffic Engineering Institute that 100 or fewer should not call for a specialized study, but there is no, there's no absolute, there's nothing written in the County Code as far as there being a cutoff like that. KUBOTA:I see. But if traffic is a problem, and it's a major pro would having a study of that nature to look at the combined collective pattern of that area, would that help to pinpoint some, what shall I say, improvements to the roadway for egress and ingress for all of these people that are involved so that it might take some off of Hale -, Nani -, Nani Kailua and Aloha whatever it was? YUEN:But the TIAR itself will not give you a plan for a better r The TIAR will tell you whether the intersection is currently overburdened. It's possible that a TIAR would -, if the TIAR came out with the conclusion that the intersection was not functioning well at the present, with the present build-out, that it would recommend some kind of improvement to the intersection, which might be something like a left turn lane or a right turn lane or the like. That's a possible outcome of having a TIAR. But it doesn't, it wouldn't, it doesn't tell you you need to put -, where you need to put in more roads or more connections. KUBOTA:What study would give us that kind of information so -? I mean, that's one small step toward solving a problem, a big massive problem. 51 YUEN:We did this, we contracted a study for a circulation plan which was done for us by Bruce Yoshida, and we had a project in Kona over the last few months, and the circulation plan did come out. One of the things it recommended was a parallel road like roughly this Hienaloli-Kahului Road, that it be improved, and that you have a parallel upward connection. That was the -, as far as being relevant to this area, that was the basic suggestion. KUBOTA:And how high on the priority list is the improvement to be? I mean is it just a study and a report and we file it away? How high in priority is that improvement to be? YUEN:It's well down compared to some projects that we think that assured of going ahead, like widening of Queen Ka`ahumanu between Kealakehe Parkway and Henry Street, certain improvements to Palani Road, Kuakini. It is -, it's well down in the list of priorities. SPRINGER:Commissioner Graham. KUBOTA:I'm done. SPRINGER:Thank you. KUBOTA:Please ask somebody else. GRAHAM:Yeah, I want to try to give you my read on your questions, Ms. Kubota. You asked sort of where do we draw the line. I don't feel like I need to elaborate on the importance of the traffic issue just because all these years I've been here, you know, there's been times when people have really talked about jobs, we really need jobs, and we used to have unions here in the audience saying hey, we need this project because of the jobs and all. We don't have that all. We've had times when affordable housing so West Hawai`i, but now we're at a time when congestion, infrastructure, traffic, and safety are really dominating it. So I have the same feeling you do, you kn about it, and it's hard, as you put it, where do you draw the line? Where I'm thinking -, why I'm thinking the line probably should be drawn here is this. If this goes through, you know, 43 more units, there is going to be more people on the roads and that's going to be a very small amount of extra congestion on Queen K H something, and I think that's something that we face all the time. And, you know, I have supported rezonings in this area that I feel that's the case. They're all small, they're going to make a little bit of addition to the problem of the traffic, but is it the place where you draw a line or something? But I think what's different today as compared to those other ones is my feeling was on the other ones, maybe I was wrong, but my feeling was the local traffic situation, the local congestion and safety was taken care of, so a lot of these ones we have approved, when we look at the full local situation, we can see it's not really harming. Whatever harm it's doing on the local intersection, it's balancing with extra outlet for somebody else or improvement to the intersection, whatever. 52 I don't feel that here. I feel that the harm that's being done in the local situation is not being remedied to any substantial degree at all, and I don't fault the developer, because as Chris said, you know, the developer is in a situation where if he were to do what he needs to do, it would make it financially unfeasible. But whether it's financially feasible or not is not my real problem, as a Planning Commissioner. My problem as a Planning Commissioner is, you know, is this an asset or this a liability? And it seems clear to me, especially from the testimony we hear toda that it's much more of a liability than an asset. You also mentioned developers have a right. We approved projects, not rezonings but SMAs and stuff along Ali`i Drive, and in some of those, I don't like them at all, I didn't like them at all, but in fact it wasn't up to me to make a decision about them. They did have the zoning, and so they went ahead, and I voted along with them. But here, the developer at this point has the right to build according to the zoning he has. He doesn't have a right to build according to a residential zoning. And so I don't feel like I'm violating anybody's right by saying the time is not now to build according to a zoning which you don't have now. I think Planning Director Yuen said, you know, this is land that's really appropriate for residential, and I can't argue with that. It's not going to be good farmland. It will be good residential infrastructure we have now, given the ability of the developer to do something to remedy that, I don't feel like the time is now to build this into residential. So I can't support it, and that's the difference I think now. The real difference on the infrastructure is I don't think this project handles the local infrastructure. Thank you. SPRINGER:Thank you. Other Commissioners, comments or questions on this application? My comments are just for myself. I have voted in favor of applications such as this in this region because it's in the urban expansion area. In other instances, I have taken traffic considerations into consideration and voted against. But I believe that the comments re the immediate neighborhood and the questions of safety with regard to travel of the school buses, children before and after school, are tremendously important in this area, and I have reservations because of those concerns that Commissioner Graham articulated so well. Members, are there any questions or comments? Are we ready for a motion? May we have a motion? GRAHAM:I can make a motion that we deny or we forward a recommendation of denial to the County Council on this particular application due to the fact that the local congestion effects cannot reasonably be remedied by this developer with the project he's planning and that we cannot thereby authorize this project to proceed in good faith to the members of the community. SPRINGER:Thank you. Is there a second? MCCALL:Second. SPRINGER:Motion made by Commissioner Graham and seconded by Commissioner McCall to deny this application which is before us now. Jeff? Discussion? Jeff? 53 DARROW:We'll be voting on the State Land Use Boundary Amendment first. SPRINGER:I'm sorry, do we need to have then the motion in a form that addresses -? Bill, we have two -. GRAHAM:Yes. SPRINGER:Actions before us. There are two separate applications. Could you please phrase your motion -. GRAHAM:Jeff, is there a proper sequence? DARROW:We'll start with the State Land Use Boundary Amendment first. GRAHAM:Yes. My motion is that we forward a recommendation of denial to the County Council for the State Land Use Boundary Amendment SLU 03-007 for the very reasons I've stated a few minutes ago when I made the original motion. MCCALL:And I'll second. SPRINGER:Thank you. Again, moved by Commissioner Graham and seconded by Commissioner McCall regarding the State Land Use Boundary Amendment Application SLU 03-007 and the motion before us is for denial. Discussion, DARROW:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Kubota? KUBOTA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Mina? MINA:No. DARROW:Commissioner Smith? SMITH:No. DARROW:Commissioner Springer? I'm sorry. Commissioner Thibadeau? 54 THIBADEAU:Aye. DARROW:Madam Chair? SPRINGER:Yes. DARROW:Madam, the motion passes. SPRINGER:Thank you. We now move to the Nani Kona Aina, LLC Change of Zone Application REZ 03-018. Is there a motion? Commissioner Graham. GRAHAM:Madam Chairman, I move that the Planning Commission sends unfavorable recommendation to the County Council for Change of Zone Application REZ 03-018 based on the reasons I put forth before. MCCALL:Second. SPRINGER:Thank you. Second by Commissioner McCall. So we have now before us a motion to send an unfavorable recommendation of the subject request for a change of zone to be forwarded to the County Council. Jeff? DARROW:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Kubota? KUBOTA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Mina? MINA:No. DARROW:Commissioner Smith? SMITH:No. DARROW:Commissioner Thibadeau? THIBADEAU:Aye. DARROW:And Madam Chair? 55 SPRINGER:Yes. DARROW:The motion passes five to two. SPRINGER:Thank you. Mr. Mooers, you will be informed in writing of the decision of this Commission. The discussion ended at 2:34 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Janet L. Kama, Transcriber 56