2019-03-21 Leeward Exh B (Discussion on condition deadlines)

Home

on focus, but you find it also, you find it in property tax abuse, and as it relates to Agricultural zoning and so forth; you find it in vacation rentals where they are taking place in violation of CC&Rs and zoning, so forth. So I think that the broadest impact that we hear and that we all feel within the social framework we live in, is that just in today’s world that’s so fast-moving, there’s just not the accountability that needs to take place. The perspective from which I talk from is over 40 years now in Hawai‘i, with the family being raised here and so forth, and really in development, the first ten years in large scale development for developers in Honolulu, on various islands in the last 25 or so, just small stuff in Kona. And I’ve just become increasingly sensitive to land issues as time goes on, and I guess to some extent slightly resentful for people just bring in money, park it, and then get out here, and are here two or three months a year whereas the rest of us live within the community. What I’m specifically sensitive to is in the area of shoreline management area permitting, and I think that we need to have greater accountability here. I just don’t believe – and I had to go through it myself – I don’t believe in automatic time extensions or administrative time extensions \[applause from the audience\] and I believe that the characterization of a project – and there is a difference between large scale and small projects, and I’m going to make a comment about that in a second – but we see a lot of small-scale projects, and there should be very descriptive and specific information on these projects other than two sentences in the summary of the application, that become a condition, number one condition, and a specific time frame that’s generally easy to define for small projects. And any violation of these things as simple as – by the way, you always see that there is a condition for filing annual reports, I can’t believe how simple this is, yet we have seen here where people don’t file even an annual report. If you don’t have a commitment enough to evaluate the project and submit an annual report, then I’m sorry you should, that thing should be revoked. He didn’t comply with the condition. So I think we need to be, we need to hold greater accountability particularly on small projects. But larger projects, which may be under shoreline management permit areas, require phasing, and these things are hard to define in three years or five years or whatever, and so they require a little more imagination on the part of the application and make sure there’s compliance. But in any event I’ll go back and cease my comments here, which is across not only what we are doing here but I think within the communities at large and other areas. The world is moving fast pace, and we simply need to have greater accountability. \[Applause from the audience.\] CARR SMITH: I have a few comments and a couple of questions here. Why is it that commercial developers are not required to pay fees? DARROW: I’m not sure, I mean, it’s just the way that the conditions have been ever since I’ve been working with the conditions. I mean it’s been relative, relational to residential units, and it hasn’t – and I’ve got be honest with you, I had the same question, just recently I was thinking, why didn’t they put an amount – I don’t know if it’s, I mean, they could, you know, I mean they could use square footage as a means of requiring a fair share requirement. But that’s a good point and I think that we should definitely look into that. Thank you. CARR SMITH: I agree, thank you. I have several thoughts here. I’m wondering if a 250-dollar fee is a sufficient amount of money to process something. As a comment, the basic concept of use-it-or-lose-it I think is valid. I think we need to look at and get some feedback from the Planning Director about administrative extensions on whether that is a good idea or whether it’s 22 EXHIBIT B