2016-02-04 Hearing Transcript - Arrow SPP 09-076 & Rodrigues SPP 15-178

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there exists a legal process; they’re welcome to follow it; and that’s their remedy. And, it just doesn’t make sense to essentially put the Planning Commission or the Planning Department in between the Road Maintenance Corporation and property owners in the subdivision, and to make a condition of the permit that would add to the obligations that the owners already have to the Road Maintenance Corporation. So, it’s just the idea that those should be kept separately and the Road Maintenance Corporation has the rights that it has under the law and under its documents, and there’s no reason to put another layer of County enforcement on top of that. The process has been very thorough, you know, we’ve gone through a contested case hearing. The Commissioners themselves—four of them—sat as the Hearing Officers. That evidence was presented on the record. There was an additional motion for a site visit which was conducted. The site visit gave some of the residents of Ocean View an opportunity to testify. They routinely or uniformly testified that they benefit from having the quarries there, that it gives them a source of material that they actually use day to day in maintaining their driveways and their homes, creating gardens in their homes, that it’s an economic benefit to them not to have to bring cinders and soil from other places on the Island. One thing that one of the people mentioned that I, frankly, haven’t even thought of before is that when you bring soil from Waimea or from other parts of the Island, you bring with it weeds and nematodes that are not otherwise native to Ocean View. If you take your cinder and soil from Ocean View, then you’re not bringing any additional pests into the environment, and I thought that was an interesting point. I hadn’t thought of it before, frankly, but it’s, it seems clear once you, once they say it. So, you know, we’d like to really thank the Commissioners for their time and energy in this. It was an extended process, a thoughtful process. There was a lot of testimony. The one issue that still exists is Arrow, and I believe the Rodrigues, you know, would prefer to see Condition 4 provide that there be 8-foot setbacks rather than 15-foot setbacks from the property lines for the quarrying activity. Arrow will accept, you know, happily accept the Special Permit with the condition as currently drafted, but we did want to point that out and say that the 8-foot setback would be more uniform, more consistent with grading requirements in other areas, and would adequately protect it. There’s testimony from Mr. Dahlberg who is a professional engineer on that. So, we would request that Condition 4 be modified, but as I said, you know, in our proposed conditions that were attached to our proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, it was worded as the condition is currently worded in the proposed Decision, and we will accept that, but we did want to raise that issue. And, again, you know, just thank you very much. It’s been a long process, and I’d like to thank the Planning Department and the Commission staff because it was really conducted very well. The site visit was conducted very professionally, and I just really appreciate the time and energy that everybody’s put into this. Thank you. 8 EXHIBIT D