1999-09-08 Charter Commission Minutes

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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 8 of 45 East and West Hawaii Commission. One relates to the creating of a new Division of Permitting within the Department of Public Works and I believe Jiro Sumada provided you with some information earlier on the request to create a new division. RAY: Yes, actually just verbally from Public Works and then, I believe, actually it was Planning that gave us an initial kind of rough outline of what that would look like. So we have yet, just so you know, to receive anything in detail from the Public Works Department, so we are still waiting for that. GOLDSTEIN: That’s one. The other relates to the Board of Appeals if such a new division is created. What might happen to it and what we’re suggesting happen to the Board of Appeals. We also touch upon, as number three, the issue of concern over a holdover provision for appointees to Boards and Commissions, and again, this is to help the situation where we operate the Boards and our Commission with a full number of members present. As Commissioner Tanaka has said, we are operating with less than the nine members on the Planning Commission and that has presented some problems with respect to making sure that we have quorums, making sure that there are enough members to vote on issues. And of course, our comments on the Planning Commissions for East and West Hawaii. So, if I can get into detail. We have provided you with specific Charter Amendments that would effectuate some of these, for example, the creation of a Division of Permitting within the Department of Public Works. And basically, they would be taking over the functions relating to subdivisions, the subdivision code and some of the administerial actions that the Planning Department presently handles. Things like the Ohana permits, farm dwellings and plan approvals, and also variances. Again, we have provided you with possible amendments to specific sections and so you can go over them at your leisure. One of the things in creating this division. We have outlined areas in which, maybe, amendments could be made but there is also another approach, and this is the approach that the City and County of Honolulu took in consolidating its Permitting and General Planning Departments into one. Their Charter allows the Mayor to make and restructure his departments on his own, and so the Charter could also be amended to give the Mayor here similar kinds of powers rather than having to go, for example, through the strain of a Charter Amendment. That’s how he accomplished his consolidation. RAY: ‘His’ meaning Mayor Harris? GOLDSTEIN: Yes. He recently went ahead and consolidated a General Planning Department with the Department of Permitting and Processing, which involves all of the permits, subdivisions, and things like that. Everybody’s under one now. RAY: Has there been any substantive discussion between you and our Department of Public Works in terms of how they see this thing working? GOLDSTEIN: Yes, we have discussed this with Public Works to the point of even taking a look at the possibility of which positions actually would be housed in this new division. Should something like this go through, that, of course, would also require us go and consult with the Unions to make sure that that’s okay with them too. RAY: If you have any questions as we go through these proposals, it might be easier to keep track of them if we go ahead, so Mr. Balog, you had a question? BALOG: Just one question. If you’re consolidating Permitting with what the Planning Department does with Public Works, as far as I’ve heard, a lot of people complain that Public Works is too big already to file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 9-8-99.html7/1/2011