2012-11-15 Leeward Exh A - Riverbend

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FUKE: If there are specific technical questions on the traffic, fortunately, we do have the traffic engineer, Bruce Witcher, who prepared the traffic studies for both this project, as well as the next one that’s going to come up before you. I’d like to just kind of preface by saying that first of all in terms of the park site selection, I mean, you know this has been going on for like five or six years, and the community at that time was really like at a loss, you know, trying to find where would be the appropriate location for a park site. And quite frankly, Councilmember Hoffmann had some heartburns about this area because one of the, expressing the same kind of concern that one of the testifiers stated, specifically how can children, you know, riding their bicycles or walking to that area, you know, safely come to that area. But I think that after they looked at all of the available properties in that area, I think the decision was like, it’s really like no choice, you know; if you want a park, that’s probably, and given the landowners and landownership tenure in that area, that’s probably like the only location. So it’s not like the ideal location but, you know, given the situation, that probably might be the only option. Waikoloa Mauka, you know, the owners of the property on the south side of Waikoloa Road, they said that they were willing to also provide land because they own land like above of the Stables, and then the community said, well, it’s a little bit too far because we want it close to the community, etc. etc., and so finally, long story being short, I’m repeating myself, it was kind of like that area. It was kind of too bad that some of the testifiers, you know, did not necessarily participate, you know, like in those discussions; but if you talk to other people, then regrettably they are not here but, you know, some of the participants at that time would probably, you know, kind of attest what I’m sharing with you right now. I do have an article that was published in the North Hawai‘i News, and it appeared in July 2011, and it was a presentation of this plan here, you know, with the community. And so it, you know, and this plan was prepared only after a number of, like, after trying to figure out where the park is going to be and how we are going to fund it and so on and so forth, and so then we came up with this master plan. So prior to submittal, you know, we kind of like had it vetted by whoever was attending, you know, with the community at that time, and overall the community, the sense I got, and I’ll make a copy of this article for you, it showed that they were relatively supportive of the overall concept. The other thing related to traffic, too, is like, you know, in addition to the traffic study being done, this project was also vetted from a traffic standpoint by the South Kohala Traffic Committee, and if you’ll notice, their comment, they said that they conditionally supported the application; the condition being making sure that, you know, there are certain things that are taken care of, and a lot of the things, a lot, I think almost all of the recommendations or the conditions suggested by the South Kohala Traffic Committee are embodies in one form or another as part of your conditions. The last point I’d like to make is, maybe this is really like a question to be directed to Mr. Emler, but there is this condition that states that access to the property from Waikoloa Road and Paniolo Avenue, including the provision of sight distance, channelization, etc., etc. shall meet with the approval of the Department of Public Works; my question is like when you look at sight distance requirement, do you necessarily look at like where the proposed intersection is going to exit to Paniolo Avenue and Waikoloa Road, or do you also take into consideration existing driveways like existing accesses prior to telling the applicant this is where, you know, this is where it’s acceptable. GIFFIN: Ki, will you come up to the lectern and address that? EMLER: Well, we, too, had quite a concern about this development because of the existing accesses for Waikoloa Highlands Shopping Center across the street; they’ve already got two full movement accesses there on Paniolo Drive. They’ve got two, or they’ve got one full movement on Waikoloa Road as well and then one right-in/right-out on Waikoloa Road; so there is some relief for 18 EXHIBIT A