2013-02-07 Windward Transcript Glover

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VITOUSEK: Yes. AU: Okay, thank you. VITOUSEK: Okay, so I’m not a high tech guy, and so if it’s okay, I’m going to refer to the aerial photo to sort of orient what -. You know, the reason that we’re here is because the County Planning Director has recommended approval of a number of a special permits and the Planning Commission has granted numerous special permits of less than 15 acres. In fact, in this area, as you see -. NOMURA: Microphone, please. VITOUSEK: And so, so there’s -. This is the project site. It’s 10 acres, as we stated, not 14.9 acres. It’s 10 acres because it’s the balance of this lower leased area from Kamehameha Schools. And so the County had previously granted special permits of 14.9 acres here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. And I don’t know if the County has a permit for its own quarrying operation there. But basically the approach of allowing quarrying applications based on special permits for less than 15 acres has been carried on with the County of Hawai‘i for a long time. And so now that Glover has applied for a 10-acre site, that the Planning Department is taking the position of recommending denial of it saying that it should go to the Land Use Commission. And what they submitted to support that was a letter th from the Land Use Commission dated Monday, okay, dated February 4. Because they had sent in a request to comment to the Land Use Commission and Land Use Commission hadn’t commented. And so at the last minute before this hearing they called the Land Use Commission and then asked them if they wanted to comment; and so the Land Use Commission commented on Monday. On Tuesday, the Planning Department issued its recommendation of denial based on a letter that it got Monday; and so that’s why I filed a request for a contested case hearing yesterday. Because you have to understand that this is a radical departure from the previous way that the County has been handling special permits for a quarrying operations in Hilo and other places for the last 20 years. And so we need, and on behalf of Glover, to evaluate why it is that this application is being singled out for a different treatment; and that’s why we requested a contested case hearing. And that’s why we’re requesting a continuance from the Commission so we can meet with the Planning Department, they’ve agreed to meet with us, and see if we can’t find out what’s going on where and why this is such a change from the previous position. You understand what they’re saying is the reason for the change is that they’re deferring to the Land Use Commission. But understand that the Planning Department of the County of Hawai‘i has not deferred to the Land Use Commission in the past. In other words, we have several special permits for 14.999 acres. Whereas, if it’s less than 15 acres the Commission can decide; if it’s more than 15 acres, it has to go to the Land Use Commission. So the very fact that we have all these special permits for 14.999 acre areas show that, you know, they have not had a policy in the past of deferring to the Land Use Commission. So we need, you know, we need time to try to work on this. We need time to try to explore why it is that this one is being treated differently because it really matters, you know. As the, in January of 2011 the Windward Planning Commission granted a 14.999-acre special permit to Yamada and Sons, right here. And so when you’re in business and when you have competitors and when they’re able to get special permits like other people have in the past and then when you apply for 4 EXHIBIT A