2013-02-07 Windward Transcript Glover

Home

LEITHEAD TODD: I do. AU: Okay, please state your name and where you reside. LEITHEAD TODD: Bobby Jean Leithead Todd, Planning Director, Hilo. BRILHANTE: Good morning, Commissioners, William Brilhante, Deputy Corporation Counsel, on behalf of Ms. Bobby Jean Leithead Todd, Director, Hawai‘i County Planning Department. LEITHEAD TODD: I think what has been left out in some of this conversation is the fact that over the years on several occasions the Land Use Commission has expressed their concern over what they view as parceling out of applications to avoid having to go to the Land Use Commission. And in this case what you have is not necessarily the applicant but you have the property owner who is successively giving these, you know, licenses or permits out on a larger parcel, and then not master planning the property, which is what the Land Use Commission would like to see. In Kona, we had a parcel that was a 60-acre parcel that was subdivided into four slightly less than 15-acre parcels. Now those we went ahead and did the rezoning applications on. But we had letters from the Land Use Commission expressing their concern that the combination of subdivision of the land and then subsequent individual applications within a close proximity of time in a matter of a few years looked like it was trying to avoid going to the Land Use Commission, and that they have stated that, you know, we need to look more closely at applications. And this precedes this application. We have another application in another part of the island where there were two different applications that were previously approved. When we looked at ongoing operations there, we basically told the operators that because the two separate permits looked like they were utilizing the same 120 acres for some of their joint activities that they should apply. And on our urging they are, in fact, applying to go to the Land Use Commission to incorporate the larger parcel. So this is part of a pattern of our trying to pay more attention to the concerns of the Land Use Commission. And there have been, you know, phone calls, and emails over the years, and in letters that they’ve submitted. And they’ve also brought this up when, you know, we’ve met with them in Honolulu to discuss -. They’ve ask staff for land use, and for the Office of Planning -. In this particular case, the applicant came to us before submitting an application and we urged them to go to the Land Use Commission because of our concerns. So this was not a surprise to them. The denial should not have been a surprise. Cause we, in fact, told them when they met us before submitting an application that we believe that this should go to the Land Use Commission. Instead, they decided to submit an application for a special use permit. We had raised these concerns. We, because of the prior, you know, concerns we had from the Land Use Commission, staff decided that they needed to call and make sure that we weren’t going to, you know, have a problem with the Land Use Commission; and they sent their written, you know, confirmation that they had some issues. So as a result of that we came with the recommendation that this be a denial. So this is not a surprise to the applicant. This was one of the things that they knew could happen when they came to us. 6 EXHIBIT A