2012-02-02 Windward Transcript Graphic

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COTTLE: And, welcome back, Commissioner Domingo. It’s good to have you here. DOMINGO: Good to be back. COTTLE: We missed you. Before I go into the presentation, I just want to bring your attention to a few items of testimony that have been submitted. Exhibit 11 and Exhibit 12 are letters from Stephanie Salazar and Russell Doi. And in those letters they question whether or not it was appropriate for the Planning Department to accept this application on behalf of the Planning Commission. The reason they are questioning that is because not all of these properties are owned by the applicant, Graphic Images. There is a road lot identified as Parcel 3 that is owned by the Margaret Hirose Trust. We did not get authorization from the Hirose Trust because there are no living successor or trustees to get authorization from. So the Department felt that it was appropriate in order to preserve the existing entitlements that were granted to the original applicant to go ahead and accept the application and move forward with its processing. And I don’t know if the Director wants to add any more to that or -. KERN: Madam Director? LEITHEAD TODD: Yes. When this issue came to my attention we kind of looked at it in terms of the fact that the Trust has not, there has been no activity to name who the beneficiaries of the Trust are, it’s a very small piece of this ordinance. The Graphic Images is not going to be using that property or doing anything with it. And I felt that it was appropriate to allow this to go forward because in the absence of someone speaking legally on behalf of the trust moving this forward preserves the property value of the trust, cause as most of you know when you have a rezoning it increases the value. If at some time in the future the potential beneficiaries actually get action to be legally recognized, they can petition to have the property rezoned back to its former classification. But at the time that this was originally done it was done with the consent of the then trustee for this particular piece of property. It also became a problem that do you hold up or prevent the property owner of the other parcels from seeking amendments which applied to their four pieces of property because the potential beneficiaries of the trust have not sought to get any kind of legal declaration done as to who actually is the beneficiary who can speak on behalf of the Trust. So I’m trying to weigh all of those equities. I thought it was best to allow this to proceed and bring it before the Planning Commission, and then ultimately in front of the County Council for a determination. And then at some point I guess if the beneficiaries are determined, they can then make a decision as to what they, whether they want to develop their property or whether they want their property to go back to its former classification. KERN: Any questions for the Director? Commissioner Domingo. DOMINGO: I can understand and appreciate what the Planning Director has just stated. But I’m concerned that in the future, in any case if I am -. I live in Hamakua and there are certain residential lots that I have, and there are parcels, overhead parcels between me, my residential lot, and the highway or the driveway going to the parcel. Would you folks go ahead and also rezone or take any land use action on that property which is not totally owned by me or those surrounding property owners? LEITHEAD TODD: Well, this is a situation in which at the time of the original action there was a trustee and the trustee consented to this action and to the rezoning. Since then both the trustee and the 2 EXHIBIT A