2017-01-05 Hearing Transcript - County Council Bill 227 Draft 2

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In, on January 8, 2013, the Council's Planning Committee voted to forward a negative recommendation on Bill 266, Draft 5. On January 23, 2013, the County Council voted to postpone indefinitely Bill No. 266, Draft 5 in order to allow the Council to introduce an alternative bill, No. 25, Draft 2. And, this is Exhibit No. 5 within your Background. The bill was presented before the Windward and Leeward Planning Commissions who both forwarded a favorable recommendation to the Hawaii County Council. Bill 25, Draft 2 was postponed to the call of the chair on August 6, 2014, and was never taken back up at Council. So, that brings us to today. So, we—the Hawaii County Council initiated Bill 227 and has sent down Draft 2 to the Planning Commissions, to the Planning Director. The Planning Director reviewed it. These are some of the key points of Bill 227, Draft 2. It attempts to make the permitting process less burdensome by providing changes to the plan approval section to only require applicants to submit plan approval prior to construction or installation of a new structure or for any addition to an existing structure that exceeds ten percent of the existing structure. Additionally, the bill offers an option to the applicant to request a waiver from the Planning Director from the requirement of a site drainage plan upon providing evidence to the Director's satisfaction that there would be no significant run-off resulting from the proposed development. Lastly, Bill 277, Draft 2 creates a yearly registration process along with a $100 processing fee, which includes submitting financial records and a daily visitor count annually. These are some of the key points of Bill 227, Draft 2. The, there have been changes to the agricultural tourism definition to include agricultural based commercial operations. This is a use that was permitted by the Hawaii State Legislature, and it allows roadside stands, retail structures, as well as food establishment, food establishments as part of an agricultural use as long as they're using locally grown or items produced locally within those particular structures. The problem with our County is, is that it's not clear that, it wasn't clear in the bill that this needs to be directly related to a working farm as is, as—it is clear that agricultural tourism was to be connected to a working farm. So, the attempt here is to be able to tie these into together so that they would be both connected to a working farm. Also, within the definition, it was, there was a section that did not include educational tours sponsored, conducted by public and private schools located within the County. This was a little unclear, but we think the reasoning was is that that's permitted already under State law. So, they were just trying to separate them. There's agricultural education tours and there's agricultural tourism. Additionally, there was new added definitions for agricultural products and agriculturally related product, projects. And, again, as we mentioned previously, the Plan Approval Section changed so that not all operations have to submit Plan Approval, but just those that do a new structure or changes to an existing structure that it exceeds ten percent. 3 EXHIBIT C