2018-01-09 Kailua Village Design Commission Minutes

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Applicant: Kurt Klimt, Architect Landowner: Lili‘uokalani Trust TMK: (3) 7-4-010: 007 Location: 74-5564 Kaiwi Street, Kailua-Kona, HI 97240 Mr. Dunlap displayed some site photographs and the applicant’s site plan, floor plan and exterior elevation. He described the proposed project, and noted that the proposed addition would not be very visible from the street. He also showed the applicant’s color selection sheet, and said that at this time only the new portion would be painted, but that the applicant intended to paint the entire structure when funds became available. Mr. Keith Akiyama of Hawai‘i Gas introduced himself as operations supervisor. He said that Hawai‘i Gas had relocated its customer service operations from the subject building to the Crossroad Shopping Center, and that the remaining crew had moved into the former customer service area where they could use a new entrance as proposed. He also said that with the relocation of five employees, the current occupancy of the building was down to about 13, and that the company was not planning to hire additional workers. In response to Chairman Dahlberg’s question about parking requirements, Mr. Dunlap said that an increase of the square footage of a building would generally impact parking requirements, and that another factor was the number of employees working in the building. He said that he was not certain at the moment whether or not the existing parking would satisfy the requirements, but that it would be reviewed and addressed during the Plan Approval process. Upon inquiry by Chairman Dahlberg, Mr. Akiyama said that the bathrooms were not intended for the public use; further, since the relocation of Customer Service a gate had been installed, for which one had to have the passcode to enter the facility. Commissioner Hetherington commented that it would be nice to get the entire building painted, even though it had already been mentioned that that was a plan for the future. Mr. Akiyama confirmed that the proposed addition would be painted to match the existing building. It was moved by Commissioner Hetherington and seconded by Commissioner Ching that the Commission forward to the Planning Director a recommendation for approval of the proposed project as presented. Commissioner Van Pernis, acknowledging that the matter of parking was not within the purview of the Commission, expressed, however, his concern about street parking. Ms. Bugado noted that the subject property was an existing facility that already had a parking lot, and that based on the small size of the building relative to the number of existing parking stalls, it did not appear as though there would be a large amount of additional parking required under the Plan Approval review. In response to further questions from the Commissioners, Ms. Bugado said that there should not be any grandfather issues in terms of parking calculation for this application, that the property was considered industrial for which the parking calculation was one stall per 400 square feet, and that while the number of employees might be taken into consideration, the baseline requirement was calculated based on the square footage of the buildings. Mr. Dunlap commented that another 2