2013-07-18 Leeward Exh B - Hualalai Partners

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ARCHIBALD: Aloha. Andy Archibald. I’m a resident of Hualālai Colony. BEAUDET: Thank you. Mr. Murata? MURATA: Thank you. Commissioners and staff, good morning. I have submitted my written testimony, and I assume that you have read it, so I’ll just expand or augment on that. And I also would like to in my summary adlib on some of the drawings that were presented on the slides. I express my perspective not as a resident in the vicinity of the project but as a member of the troubling public on Hualālai Road, and that’s my focus. Hualālai Road has been a country farm road with farm residences, and here and there the, what I call the donkey-engineered road is narrow and winding. And many things have happened; more houses have been built and there are more intersections, which make the road, which raises some traffic safety issues to me. So with that, that’s becoming problematic because of the creeping urbanization. One of the drawings showed the green, the Land Use Pattern, and pink also; what I see is lots of pink and less green, which means more concrete and more asphalt and more urbanization. So if it continued to do that and that kind of buildup occurs and if the infrastructure is not addressed property, that’s going to be bigger problems of traffic movement and traffic safety. I would like to say that, to the deciders, that, of this application, please, please give a balanced consideration between urban growth and the public infrastructure needs. Thank you. SCHULMAN: Good morning and aloha. In keeping with the Chair’s request we limit our comments to three minutes or less, I’ve submitted written testimony. My summary is as follows: I’ve been a 23-year resident of Hualālai Colony and I’ve traversed Hualālai Road numerous times, more numerous to mention. And in the 23-year experience, I’ve experienced various traffic conditions, flooding, debris crossing the road. I think we should all be clear on matters, which are not in dispute: 1) It is a substandard road, no question, two lanes. There are no shoulders whatsoever to accommodate accidents or breakdowns of vehicles or emergency vehicles if traffic gets congested. The roadway in my 23 years of experience has been resurfaced once, and currently has numerous dips and potholes. Yesterday I counted the number of blind curves as I drove up from the Queen K to Hienaloli Road, which is the crossroad from my subdivision; there were eight blind curves. The concern I have is totally on public safety. The existing proposed connection from the subdivision of Hualālai Partners is unclear as to how it intends to merge ingress and egress traffic from Hualālai Road into the new subdivision. What are these improvements specifically going to be? Are they going to dedicate land along Hualālai Road as a shoulder, as an emergency merging lane? How are these issues going to be addressed? It’s unclear. And given the number of accidents, which have occurred over Hualālai Colony Road, excuse me, Hualālai Road over the last 20 years in my experience, and the number of vehicles that careened over the embankment and lodged themselves in the gulch makai of Hualālai Road, this is a serious traffic hazard. And if you doubt in future that the addition of 800 units of traffic per day, emanating from not only the Barrett project but the three other contiguous lots, which are fully together, let’s make no mistake about it, they are all going to feed into Hualālai Road because currently there is no other access. You are going to face a wrongful death action, I guarantee it; I guarantee there will be an accident, there will be a design issue brought up, and the County and the developers will be sued. So I implore the County to consider the specifics of what safety improvements can be made to Hualālai Road so as to accommodate merging ingress and egress traffic from the subdivisions, all four subdivisions. Thank you. 13 EXHIBIT B