2012-12-13 Leeward Exh B - Bill No. 291

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BOWMAN: I have a question, and I don’t know if I can ask the question on the Planning Director’s alternative bill. May I? COTTLE: Let’s check with Ivan. TORIGOE: Really I would discourage any detail discussion regarding the Planning Director’s bill because it’s not agendized at this point. BOWMAN: Right. Okay, I’ll wait till next time. Thank you. GIFFIN: Any other questions of Maija, Commissioners? BOWMAN: Oh -. GIFFIN: Lani. BOWMAN: I do. Just out of curiosity, how many P.U.D. permits, about, are reviewed during a year? COTTLE: They are fairly rare; I would say two to three a year. LEITHEAD TODD: Well, I think this past year we probably, either that were, they might have originated in previous years, but I think we had about four or five that we’ve been, either approved or are in the pipe there – two that are currently in the office, one is Waiki‘i and the other is Puakō. And at the request of the Action Committees, we changed notification processes in our office so that when we send letters out to agencies for comment, like Department of Health or DPW, at the same time that letter goes out to the Action Committees with a brief description of what the application is, and then they can determine if they want to have it agendized and a presentation. So most recently we had a presentation on Puakō 1010 to the South Kohala Action Committee, and we have to do a presentation, which is scheduled, on the Waiki‘i P.U.D. Unfortunately, for the South Kohala presentation, we didn’t have a quorum from the Action Committee; but the Sunshine Law allows you to go ahead with the presentation for the members of the public that were there. And at the request of the Department, the applicant also met with the Puakō Community Association to address their concerns. And so there have been certain things that have been tweaked in the Puakō because their basic concerns there had to do with sight distance and setback from the highway and also whether there would be a future road connection consistent with the CDP, which the applicant is agreeing to dedicate to the County once somebody decides where the alignment is. So what we’ve done is we’ve tweaked the process to try and involve the Action Committees a little bit more. The basic problem was that when we mailed notices out to agencies, by the time we were getting down to doing our, you know, semi-monthly notice to the Action Committees, the time to comment had really, you know, kind of evaporated; so we are doing it upfront. The basic concern I had is that previously there had been a bill that the Council had wanted to take all subdivision approvals and have those go to the County Council rather than through the Department; they would have come to the Planning Commission, they would have then gone to the County Council. And the problem was that the County Charter was amended, I guess, back in the 1960’s where it specifically set out that the subdivision approvals were within the Department. And there is also language that says variances are within the Department. And at the time the 4 EXHIBIT B