2014-05-15 Leeward Exh A (SPP 14-161)

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WHITTEMORE: Question of staff, I guess, is one of the things that got my attention in this request was the length of time from the time the warning letter went out to the date we are looking at today. And I guess my question is, what is the standard policy in the Planning Department with respect to that? Once the warning letter goes out, are the applicants allowed to continue to operate as an illegal bed and breakfast until such time as it’s agendized and the Planning Department takes action? And, you know, this seems like an awfully lengthy time from the time the warning letter went out to when here today, so. DARROW: Okay. Unfortunately, I can’t speak directly in regards to what happened between the date that the warning letter was issued to the date that the Special Permit could come in, I mean, in regards to the warning letter matter. I can speak to the fact that the applicants, after this warning letter happened, they had several processes they had to go through. And this is unique to their situation because of the location they are in; they are within the Kahalu‘u Historic District, No. 1; No. 2, they are in the Special Management Area. So there were these extra processes and layers that they had to go through before they could actually submit the permit. There were some questions on our part that we had to deal with. But through the process they were continuing to do what we asked them to do. They had submitted a draft application. The first thing they did was they had submitted a request for the Special Management Area Minor Permit, which took some time. They did get approval of that. We cannot accept this application until that process happens. We struggled with whether or not this had to go through an Environmental Assessment, but we were able to find out that this particular property, through the subdivision process, had previously gone through an EA, and so that took care of that situation. When they came in originally for the first draft, there were some things that we wanted them to address before we would accept the application, so we returned it and then they resubmitted it. So I would have to say it’s not all the applicants’ fault for this delay, that it was the processes they had to go through, as well as us returning the application. And I can’t recall offhand if we returned it once or twice. But it’s the process we go through. A lot of times, even without a warning letter, sometimes we won’t accept an application the first time, especially when the applicants are doing it on their own; they usually aren’t familiar with the entire complexity of submitting the permits, and so we have to return it and kind of give guidance on redoing the application and then resubmitting. But as I mentioned previously, going through this process, they have been consistent on addressing all the issues we’ve asked for. Thank you. BEAUDET: Commissioner Giffin. GIFFIN: Mr. Chairman, I’d like to ask Jeff if, to the County’s knowledge from the onset on September 6, 2011, till today, were they able to operate illegally? DARROW: In the past, and I don’t know if there was an actual determination made in regards to this situation, but in the past when we had this situation, as long as it wasn’t a significant impact type of use, that the Director, as long as they were active in getting the correct permits, that they would allow them to continue, with the understanding that if at the Planning Commission they did not receive the approval, they would obviously have to cease and desist. But that’s been the standard in the past. There are situations where we’ve asked applicants to stop because the use was significant, creating significant impacts. In this particular case, usually B&Bs, have minimal impacts. 11 EXHIBIT A