2011-08-18 Leeward Exh A - HIHS - Laserfiche WebLink

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COTTLE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, everyone. Our next application is a Special Permit request. The applicant is Hawai‘i Island Humane Society. The subject property is located in the North Kona District. And you can see the subject property on the slide outlined in red. You have Kuakini Highway running in a north-south direction through the middle of the slide, and then you can see King Kamehameha III Road running off to the left side down to Keauhou, as well as Māmalahoa Highway just makai of the subject property. And the current zoning of the property is Agricultural-5 Acres that’s shown in the light green, and surrounding properties are also zoned Agricultural-5 Acres, as well as Agricultural-1 Acre zoning to the north and to the west. The State Land Use District for the property is Agricultural, again, that’s shown in green, and then you can see some Rural District classification to the north and makai of the highway. The General Plan designation for the property is Important Agricultural Land that’s shown again in the light green, and then there are Rural designated areas and Low-Density Urban nearby that’s shown in the yellow. The property is located just outside of the Kona Urban Area in the Kona Community Development Plan; the Kona Urban Area, you can see, is the red outline. So the applicant is requesting a Special Permit to establish an animal sheltering facility. The property is twelve acres in size, and the components of the project will include reusing some of the existing structures on the property that were associated with the former bonsai visitor center. There’s, I think, three or four existing structures that will be renovated and used as an administration building, a welcome center and a cattery building. The existing restroom building will continue to be used as a restroom. And then they are also proposing to construct new buildings for an education center, a veterinary clinic, a dog kennel building, and a retail area and a caretaker’s cottage. There is also going to be some outdoor features to the project that will include an approximately two-acre dog park, and a large equine park and stable, a small animal park for, like, hamsters, guinea pigs, little creatures, and walking trails. They are also, of course, proposing additional parking and landscaping on site. And in addition to that request for the new Special Permit, they also are requesting to revoke the existing permit for the property. The original permit was granted in 1985 for the bonsai visitor center, and then it was amended twice – once in 1990 and once in 2000 – to allow a coffee processing facility and a self-storage facility. So these uses haven’t operated on the property for quite a while and the applicant has no intention to re-establish the uses, so they are requesting that that permit be revoked. This is a site plan of the proposed animal sheltering facility. You can see Māmalahoa Highway on the bottom of the slide; actually Kuakini Highway is at the very bottom, then Māmalahoa Highway. You can see the driveway access kind of in the middle of the slide with some trees lining the sides, the parking area, and then all of the existing structures are shown in yellow. And again – that print is really small, so let me get my close-up view here – so the existing structures, again, will be used as an administration building, a cattery and a welcome center. And then the proposed structures are shown in red; you have the education center near the parking lot just below the parking lot, the retail area below the parking lot, and then the red building up above towards the top of the slide that’s going to be the veterinary clinic, and then the little half-moon shape near the clinic is the dog kennels, and then off to the side of the dog kennels in light green you can see an exercise yard for the dogs. And then the other outdoor features are the large equine park, which is just to the left of that, and then down in the bottom left corner is the approximately two-acre dog park. And then you can see the natural area at the very top of the slide, is going to be used as just natural walking trails. 2 EXHIBIT A