2016-10-06 Hearing Transcript - Council Bill 228 (Hilo Medical Center REZ 14-175)

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REIS, C.: Am I on? Thank you. Good morning. My name is Cheryl Reis, and I live at 65 Punahele Street mauka and immediately bordering the subject property. My neighbor, Mrs. Marjorie Gushiken's house, referenced later, is on the border below the subject property. I thank you for the opportunity to request a denial of this application. The real issue here isn't just whether you will approve a parking lot for a developer because he says he needs one, but you will actually set a precedence for a developer, any developer, to continue as past Planning Commissioner, Andy Iwashita, admonished his colleagues about, for creating problems that penalize neighborhoods that are supposed to be protected by real planning and foresight, to stop developers from overbuilding and riding roughshod over those neighborhoods and correcting their errors to the negative and to the harm to the people, who live there that you're supposed to be here to protect, from bad decisions, and then try to solve these mistakes on the backs of the community with the sanction of the so-called process. We have been voicing our concerns since the first rezoning requests in 1979, 1987, 1994, opposing the approval of a road, not a parking lot—originally part of the project, through the middle of Mrs. Gushiken's home and mine. Since approximately 2004 when rezoning requests began for a parking lot instead of the road, we objected then as we do now to any gross intrusion of traffic—moving or staticthrough the middle of two established homes in an established residential area. As a former District Commander, I reviewed development plans and noted concerns from an HPD perspective. I retired in 1994 as a Hawaii County Police Major and little did I realize that I would still be policing in a different way watching people I care about suffer as a result of indifference and an almost total disregard by some members of this community for others rights and wellbeing. Past Planning Commissioner, Sally Rice, cautioned me to remember that Commercial zoning is cast in stone, and the developers can do whatever they want. I naively replied that Dr. Allan Takase gave his word that he would respect our concerns. She was right, and I was wrong. On October 4, 2007, we received wonderful news that rezoning for the parking lot had again been denied. My daughter and I returned home to share the news with my mom, Bertha Awaya, then 93. On October 5th, the very next morning at 3 a.m., she suffered a stroke. On October 19, 2007, the zoning Board of Appeals upheld the violation of rezoning conditions relative to the operation of an illegal parking lot in that subject property. My mother died that day. She was never again able to enjoy her home, and our last day with her well and cognizant was spent at a rezoning hearing trying to recover our old, good neighborhood. George Gushiken, already ill at home and Mrs. Gushiken's husband, he is now also gone, and my mom suffered greatly from the overwhelming exhaust, dust, noise, and soot generated by Haitsuka's Construction Company and their base yard and Concept Construction's work on the surgery center and rehab, as did the rest of us. 9 EXHIBIT F