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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN PCPLUD 2024/08/20 (2022-2024)Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use, and Development 19' Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawaii August 20, 2024 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use, and ORDER: Development was called to order at 11:03 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Chair Ms. Cindy Evans, Member Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Member Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Vice Chair Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Member (via videoconference from Hilo) Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member (via videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member (via videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: The following individuals registered to speak and came forward when called by the Chair: Caryl Burns: Ken Wills: (representing Kapua Gulch Farms, LLC) Linda Halbritter: Claudia Schimmer-Keawe Debra Greene: (representing Safe Tech Hawaii) Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in opposition. Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in opposition. Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675,398), in opposition. Bill 194 (Comm. 985), comment. Bill 194 (Comm. 985), in support. PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 Pamela Sue: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), comment; Bill 122, Draft 2 (Comm. 676.13), comment; Bill 127, Draft 2 (Comm. 694.8), comment; and Bill 134, Draft 2 (Comm. 741.4), comment. Kalei Kailikini: Bill 194 (Comm. 985), in support. (representing the Purdy Ohana) Priscilla Basque: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), comment. Heather Korotie: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), comment. Janice Palma-Glennie: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), comment; Bill 122, Draft 2 (Comm. 676.13), comment; Bill 127, Draft 2 (Comm. 694.8), comment; Bill 134, Draft 2 (Comm. 741.4), in support; and Bill 194 (Comm. 985), in support. Chuck Flaherty: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), comment. (representing Sierra Group Hawai'i) Joshua Mehalick: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in opposition. Donna Grabow: Bill 194 (Comm. 985), in support. Kelly Reyes: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in opposition. (representing Hoomaikai Blessings) Celestino Reyes: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.3 98), in opposition. Megan Isaac: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in opposition; and Bill 194 (Comm. 985), in support. April Lee: Bill 194 (Comm. 985), in support. Jim Marquez: Bill 122, Draft 2 (Comm. 676.13), in support. Chris Hirose: Bill 194 (Comm. 985), in support. John Casey: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in opposition. John Chung: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), comment. Page 2 PCPLUD-19 BILLS FOR ORDINANCES: August 20, 2024 Susan Higa: Bill 194 (Comm. 985), in support. Naomi Melamed: Bill 194 (Comm. 985), in support. Edward Britton: Bill 194 (Comm. 985), comment. Pamela Punihaole: Bill 127, Draft 2 (694.8), comment. Rhonda Lindquist: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in opposition. Erin Gallogly: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), comment. John Hall: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in opposition; Bill 122, Draft 2 (Comm. 676.13), in opposition; and Bill 194 (Comm. 985), comment. Alexa Boyer: Bill 122, Draft 2 (Comm. 676.13), comment. Gordon Lindquist: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in opposition. Mark Van Pernis: Bill 121, Draft 2 (Comm. 675.398), in support. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. If we could start at the top of bills for ordinances. The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Bills for Ordinances. Bill 121: AMENDS CHAPTER 25, ARTICLES 1, 4, AND 5, OF THE HAWAI'l (Draft 2) COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATION RENTALS AND HOSTING PLATFORMS Repeals Section 25-4-16 through Section 25-4-16.3 relating to Short-term Vacation Rentals and establishes new provisions for Transient Accommodation Rentals and Hosting Platforms for Transient Accommodation Rentals. Reference: Comm. 675.398 Intr. by: Ms. Kimball and Ms. Kierkiewicz Referred to Planning Commissions: January 30, 2024 Postponed: July 8, 2024 (Note: There is a motion by Ms. Kimball, seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz, to recommend passage of Bill 121, Draft 2, on first reading.) Page 3 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 (Note: The following Communications transmitting proposed amendments to Bill 121, Draft 2, were circulated: 1. Comm. 675.399, from Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, dated August 19, 2024; 2. Comm. 675.400, from Council Member Heather L. Kimball dated August 19, 2024; 3. Comm. 675.401, from Council Member Heather L. Kimball dated August 19, 2024; 4. Comm. 675.402, from Council Member Heather L. Kimball dated August 19, 2024; 5. Comm. 675.404, from Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, dated August 19, 2024; 6. Comm. 675.405, from Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, dated August 19, 2024.) Relinquish Chair: At this time, the Chair relinquished the chair to Vice Chair Inaba. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Let the record reflect at 1:00 p.m., I've assumed the Chair. And with that, we'll been going for a little while. We're going to take a short 15-minute recess for restroom and quick refreshments, and we'll be back in session at 1:15 p.m. Mahalo. Recess: At 1:00 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 1:16 p.m. ACTING CHR. INABA: Calling this meeting back to order. The time is 1:16 p.m. We are on Bill 121, Draft 2, and this is the Policy Committee on Infrastructure and Assets. We have a motion on the floor, and I believe we have amendments to take up. So, Council Member Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you. I think with the leeway of the Council, just want to spend a minute more broadly talking about the bill before going to some of these amendments. You know, first of all, there was some comments made with respect to the tax class classification associated with transient accommodation rentals (TAR). And it is true that if you operate a transient accommodation rental on your property, even though it's your primary residence, you do lose that homeowners tax class. You don't lose your exemption, you get a proportion of your exemption, but you do lose the homeowners tax class, which does have some benefits associated with it as we all know. And I just want to note that that is not something that Bill 121 does. That is already law, per Chapter 19. And one of the things that I think is really important with respect to Bill 121 is if we can actually register everyone and determine you are owner -hosted, you are Page 4 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 operator -hosted, you are unhosted, then we can look at doing things like bringing down the tax rate for owner -hosted, which I think is the objective for a lot of us here. We can't do that until we get everybody registered and identify what they are because I can tell you what, somebody will take advantage of that loophole if we don't have everybody clearly registered. And that gets me to enforcement and, you know, part of the struggle that we've had is the program is underfunded as far as the enforcement and the ability of the Planning Department to check some of the conditions that we have already in place. But the conditions we have already in place are very difficult to enforce in the first place. So, there's two kinds of sides to that coin. I do want to share that, you know, there are some loopholes with the current Bill 108, folks saying that they are hosted when they are actually unhosted, and so they should have registered under Bill 108. Folks that are saying that they only rent for more than 30 days but actually, "Oh, the guest leave after a week stay," you know, right. We have that kind of thing happening. So, you know, while this bill has a lot of things going on, it is necessary to be thorough here so that we can fully control and register and understand the market that we have. Again, there's been several comments with respect to the fees and the economic study. I continue to attest that the economic study, while important when we think about particularly those tax levers at a later point, are we going to make the owner -hosted a little bit lower versus the unhosted, you know, those things just getting everybody registered. And this is the point that I want to make to the folks that are —well, the remaining testifier in the audience, is that if you are operating legally, there is a pathway for you in this bill to register your TAR and to allow you to continue operating. And I will just make one final point with regard to that is I have become extremely frustrated with some of the entities out there that are intentionally sharing this information about this bill with the intent to scare people and keep people a bit naive, like some of the folks in the room here. This bill allows folks that are operating legally right now to register, either they're grandfathered in, if they're owner -hosted, they can do it at any time. That's why the economic study is important for future actions, but this is a registration process of existing TAR's. Okay. So, that's it. I'm going to go to amendments. There's still a couple other items. For the purposes of expediting this, we're going to start with 400. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kimball moved to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, with the contents of Comm. 675.400. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIMBALL: So, I will identify this as a housekeeping bill. Based on some of the testimony that we had last year in both written and verbal testimony, there was a need to sort of tweak the definitions of "event" and "gathering". So, working with the Planning Department and LRB (Legislative Research Branch), Page 5 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 that's the first part of this here, is really to just distinguish those a little bit differently. In the second section of this amendment, we've refined the wording around home exchanges. One of the things that has come up is initially the home exchange program worked basically like, I want to stay at your house in Paris, you want to stay at my house in Hawaii, we'd trade, right? What has started to happen is that like I want to stay in your house, so my house is open, I get points for when somebody stays at my house and that other person gets points for their house. And so, it's not a one-to-one exchange anymore. It's actually become sort of an STVR (Short -Term Vacation Rental) rental with points instead of with dollars. So, this makes it clear that it's really just that one-to-one type of exchange that is exempted from registering as a TAR. The next amendment just adds to the language around the code requirement. It adds that the code requirements should be met at the time of construction. I will say Council Member Kierkiewicz has a later amendment to remove the code requirement out entirely, but since this has other housekeeping elements, I'd prefer to say that we pass this amendment but then if we want to come back and take that out, we can do that either —we'll have to get some guidance from the Clerk if we can do that with Council Member Kierkiewicz's amendment or if we have to come back and do it at a later time. The renter limit, just for consistency's sake, we're just going to refer to one section in the "good neighbor standards" as to how the occupancy limit is calculated. That paragraph in the "good neighbor standards" does allow for there to be some discretion from the director for different types of dwelling arrangements that might allow for more or fewer folks. The fourth one again refers to that renter limit and the director's discretion, just to clarify that. And then the last item here — Point of Order: MS. VILLEGAS: Point of order. Just a request. Could you go by the numbers we're referring to here. That would just be easier. MS. KIMBALL: I'm sorry. Okay. Number four has to do with that at the time of issuance, that rental limit number will be calculated. So, when they go and get their registration. So, we're at number four of this amendment. And then going to Section 6 here of the bill, adding in an exemption for folks that are listing just their own property or they're managing a property, and they list that property. So, we're kind of trying to distinguish between the hosting platforms and their monthly reporting requirement versus folks that just have a webpage for their TAR, so they won't have to do any reporting, versus like a realtor or a property manager that maybe has five to ten properties, they're going to have to just report to us on an annual basis, the properties that they've been listing. So, that's an Page 6 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 exemption that is tied to this section of this bill related to hosting platforms and their reporting requirements. So, I'll try to go through the other ones more slowly. This one is mostly housekeeping. I'm happy to take any questions. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. We'll start over in Hilo, any discussion? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair Inaba. Just to the maker of the amendment, Section 4 exemptions, Section A, just for the wording, this division shall not apply to an owner, property manager, or real estate salesperson or broker advertising for no more than one transient accommodation rental under their ownership, management, or operation. I think our last meeting, where Holeka got rid of some of the shall not apply to for no more than one. Is there a simpler way to put that and am I reading this the way that it's meant to be, and then what is the purpose of this exemption? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you. So, I'll start with the easy question, which is the purpose. The purpose is we have this section that requires hosting platforms, so websites that are advertising TAR's to report on a monthly basis. This is meant to target like Expedia, VRBO, Airbnb, but the language is general enough that it could be interpreted to include people that just have a website for their own TAR. So, we want to exclude them from having to register and having to report. Now there are folks that are realtors or property managers that list on a website say five or ten transient accommodation rentals, we do want them to report but we don't need them to report monthly. They just need to report on an annual basis, and we don't really need them to register either. We just want to make sure that we're getting that data from them on an annual basis. That was the easy question, that's the purpose. The second part, in terms of the language, yeah, I know it's clunky. That's kind of where we landed with LRB. I can look at it again and try to make it even more clear. Happy to take suggestions on that. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kimball, for that. I think you've clarified it for me that if there's a way to simplify the language, then great. If not, that's pretty clear. I think your description helped me a lot. Thank you. I yield, Chair. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Council Member Lee Loy. Page 7 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. I just, on the same section of exemptions, it's mentioned in Part (b)(1), the report required shall be filed or submitted on an annual basis no later than January 30. Just trying to understand how we got to that date because I think there's 31 days in January and if it's actually tracking from another section of Chapter 25. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, that's an error. Thank you for catching that. There's no reason it shouldn't be the 31 st. The concept being just a month after the year is done, you would report for the previous year. So, happy to make that amendment in a subsequent draft to the 31 sc MS. LEE LOY: Sounds great. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. We are going to head over to Kona back here. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Yes. Planning Director, a couple of the suggested amendments are offering up at the discretion of the Planning Director. So, with that in mind, discretion, would you see yourself doing rulemaking or what would you use to guide you in terms of your discretion? (Note: At this time, Planning Director Zendo Kern came forward to address the members of the Committee) MR. KERN: Good afternoon, Chair, Members of the Committee. Zendo Kern, Planning Director. Thank you for the question. I think that's —how would I do it? I would look at how I would want to be treated or how I'd want a family member to be treated or how I'd want somebody I really care about to be treated and if it was a slight adjustment that was very much consistent with the intent of that section of the Code,1 think that's where discretion could happen. I think that's somewhat subjective to the person. MS. EVANS: And if they're in violation, do you think there's a certain number of violations and then all of a sudden, they lose their ability to have the short-term vacation rental? MR. KERN: Yeah. I think that's one of the good provisions of this updated code is there is a timeout period if somebody isn't behaving correctly. So, in my experience, we've seen folks that might have an error, and it was completely an accident, like they missed the date, they forgot it. That's one thing. When you see a consistency of behavior that is not lawful, that's a different story and that's where we would move to suspend, or timeout, or revoke if appropriate. Page 8 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MS. EVANS: Okay. Is that action —I'm just curious that your staffing and your time to actually take action on something like this. And the appeal process, if they disagree with you, how would that look? MR. KERN: If Bill 121 is passed at some point, then we would be looking to bring on additional staffing. We did get the staffing allocated just not funded yet. So, we'd be able to ramp up hiring on that. Again, hiring's been challenging. So, the goal is to have it right set so we will be able to go through enforcement and go through appeals and go through all those processes. It's how it's being designed if we can get the people. MS. EVANS: The other thing is there was a comment on restroom limit, I believe, right, restroom limits. Is that discretion? ACTING CHR. INABA: There's a — MS. EVANS: Renter limits. ACTING CHR. INABA: Yes. Total number of renters allowed in a building. MS. EVANS: And total number of renters might be dependent on your restrooms too. But how do you see this playing out with the cesspool obligation to convert to cesspools? Do you think that if they haven't converted to cesspools and you're looking at the number of renter limits on, I mean, in some ways they kind of are tied together because of the capacity and requirements of cesspool conversion. MR. KERN: Can you repeat the question? MS. EVANS: (inaudible) Because of restroom, if you're going to do renter limits — if L - . 1 MS. EVANS: It's usually based on your septic system and what your system can manage. But now that you have this layer of you've got to get off cesspools, are you going to tie that at all to it; do you see no reason to? MR. KERN: So, when you bring up the question about the discretion and those also have set renter limits, right, to two per bedroom, two in the main area. If you're looking at discretion, if the main area could handle, maybe it's a larger area and they're asking for two more and they had the adequate wastewater system, that might be an area of discretion. If they're asking for more and they were on a cesspool, I'd probably say no because of the cesspool issue. Maybe when they upgrade their wastewater system, if the house could hold that capacity, we could look at that. I think in these cases where if they change any of their living area or either their home through a permit, that's going to trigger the Page 9 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 wastewater conversion as well. So, right now in this amendment, it's not contemplated to tie the wastewater component to the renter limit. MS. EVANS: Okay. Alright. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Evans. We'll now go to Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah. Director Kern, can you just delve a little deeper on the question from Council Member Evans about it ending up being to the discretion of the director, which right now is you. But this is legislation that would, you know, carry forward potentially until there was another administration, so could you repeat what your answer was on how you would decide that? MR. KERN: So whenever there's discretion, I think we need to look at what the intent of that section of the code is, right, and what's being asked for. And I think when you're looking at discretion, it's not about me, it's about whoever can sit in this seat and what they would have there. When I'm looking at discretion, I'm looking at again, how would I want to be treated, how do I want a family member to be treated, that side of it, and then looking at the intent and the capacity. So, in the case of the visitor limit, we would look at if somebody was asking to exceed that, right, that's where the discretion would come in. Right now, based on the house I can have eight people and they're asking for twelve, right, so we would look at that. Is there enough actual spatial area to handle that additional two people, would there be enough parking; how is the water; how is the wastewater; how's the impact of that going to be looked at? And if all the impact is negligible and there's not an issue, and it's consistent with the intent of that section of the code, I think that would be considered. If it wasn't, then I would say no I don't think that would be an area to provide discretion. And I also think that you have to go through that filter of any discretion because it could also be appealed right, and you don't want the Board of Appeals to look at it and say, was this made with the intent and based on use and the impact, and if it was, it would probably hold up on the appeal, and if it wasn't, I think that probably the appeal would not go in the director's favor. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Thank you. My concerns were for subjective, subjectivity, right, when we're creating a law that's supposed to be objective and finite. But as you said, there would be discrepancies or disparity. And so, taking into consideration the intentions or the special circumstances around short-term vacation rentals or transient accommodation rental. Okay. I'm going to leave it for here. I still have concerns and some questions moving forward, but thank you for your answers on that. I yield. Page 10 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: Heading back over to Hilo. Council Member Kaneali'i- Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI'l-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. One section caught my attention other than my previous question. Section 2, transient accommodation rental must meet health, safety, Construction Code requirements established by law with the addition of language at the time of construction. To the Planning Director, is there a follow up by the department on suitability of the establishment to house individuals after other than, this house was built to a standard in 1996 and still meets the standards of 1996, or are we going back and looking to make sure these homes are able to hold people safely? MR. KERN: I believe the intent would be that it met the Code at the time that it was built. MR. KANEALI'l-KLEINFELDER: Agreed. I agree with that reading. My question for you is, you know, if the house was built 20 years ago, and we're approving the transient accommodation rental, does the department review the home or what is the process for you folks? MR. KERN: No, we wouldn't be reviewing the home. In this case, they'd be doing their declaration. If there were any issues with the home itself, that would be more of a Building Department issue. So, we don't really deal with the Code and the structure from the Planning side. MR. KANEALI'l-KLEINFELDER: Okay. To the maker of the bill, does Bill 121 address the home itself through a different division of our government? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder, just want to make sure we're speaking to the amendment? MR. KANEALI'l-KLEINFELDER: Yes, Chair Inaba, speaking to Section 2 regarding the health, safety and construction code requirements established by law at the time of construction and trying to nail down which department is actually engaging whether they meet those requirements. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you. So, the way that Bill 121 in this version that was brought before Council was drafted, we are considering this as a registration process and not in any way a permitting process. And so, we are asking folks to tell us that at the time that it was constructed, it was built to code, not whether or not any permits were issued or final permits, or anything like that because we are just registering it. DPW (Department of Public Works) would still have authority to address the issue with respect to building permits. It's similar to like RPT Page I 1 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 (Real Property Tax), they will charge you taxes based on the structure on your property. They are ambivalent to whether or not it's permitted. That's kind of how this bill is set up too. It's just saying yes, it was built to code at the time, but we are not requiring that permit. That's not coming from Planning. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Interesting. Thank you. I yield, Chair. ACTING CHR. INABA: Alright. We're going to make our way back to Kona. Any further discussion on this amendment? Alright. With that then, I will share my thoughts. Regarding the definition of event, we're saying that it means a formal and public assembly generally by invitation, and I just see that as a little problematic because I see that as almost opposite. It's public but yet you have to be invited to it. We know that a wedding that they'll have a hundred people is not a public event. So, I think the word "public" needs to be removed. And then looking at the term for "gathering", the last term we used there for activities consistent with residential areas is "educational instruction". To the maker, what was the intention there? Because I was trying to look through permitted uses of the residential zoning district and I don't see educational instruction as one of them. But could you just speak a little bit to the intent of that activity? MS. KIMBALL: The intent of that was to cover sort of informal activities like a book club or ukulele lessons or, you know, something along those lines. I can see where your conflict might be thinking about the way that might be interpreted more broadly to be like running a school, which would not be what we wanted. So, I'm happy to look at that language. ACTING CHR. INABA: Okay. Perfect. Yes. I like the further refinement, just have an issue with that one term there. And then, when we look at Section 4 of this amendment regarding the establishment of the renter limits, we're saying that unless established otherwise by the director at the time of issuance of the rental registration number. So, should anything change, let's say we have a three bedroom house, the rule would be eight people. The only time it could be more than eight people was when they first applied for registration based on what's stated here. Is that the intention? MS. KIMBALL: There's a section that's called the "change of information section", not in this amendment, but in the bill itself. I'll pull it up for you in a moment. But it allows for people to come in and revise those numbers. Like for example, if you had two kids and one went off to college and you rented their room, and then the other one went off to college and now you're renting two rooms, you could go in with a change of information and it wouldn't be a whole Page 12 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 new registration. It would be that change. So, there is an opportunity to redo that calculation. ACTING CHR. INABA: Got it. So, I'm just wondering if this language in this section here could be more in line with that discretion because this makes it seem that only at the time of registration can the director have the discretion. After that, it's set to the two times the number of bedrooms plus two. So, if it exists elsewhere, I think we can make the language here be reflective and, you know, in line with the other section. And then lastly, regarding the exemptions. I think it's just, looking for the —the division shall not apply to an owner advertising one or less, you know, just that word tweaked there I think is necessary because it is difficult to read. So, those are my thoughts on this amendment. And I guess, how would you like to proceed? MS. KIMBALL: While there are corrections, my preference would be to get this into the bill so we have our draft three that we're working off of and then I will make these additional language changes. ACTING CHR. INABA: Okay. Is there any further discussion on this bill? Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yes. And correct me if I'm going off here, but when we passed the resolution to do the economic impact study, I thought we were essentially waiting on that to move forward with these bills. Okay. So we are concurrently, is the intention here today, is concurrently to be moving forward with the readings of these bills even though we have not gotten the results of the economic impact study. ACTING CHR. INABA: Yeah. I believe there are some folks who would want to put a halt to the bills and others who would like to see it go forward. But right now we have an amendment on the floor and we're continuing to work on them. So, unless there's a motion to postpone these bills then we'll continue to take them up. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Thanks. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I want to make sure the intent, that there's certain things in the amendment that you'd like to change based on comments, but you'd like to move this forward. So, draft three will reflect this amendment but then you will also be introducing another amendment on draft three to incorporate comments that you heard today. Is that how you'd like to move forward? Just for clarification. Page 13 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. Thank you. Yes. It is our intention to once again keep this in committee. Once we get through this amendment, I can speak to it more broadly about why we're wanting to do that. But since this amendment, since the edits that are recommended by this body as per the discussion right now are primarily editorial in nature for clarification and not substantive in terms of the direction or intent, I'd like to get it in just because it makes it a little cleaner for us to come back and do those clerical edits at the next hearing. But yeah, I intend to postpone it. MS. EVANS: Okay. So, I'm going to be voting no on the amendment with the amendment with the hope that as we go through with all the other amendments that I think we're going to talk about, that when we come back, assuming that you'll postpone it and bring it back, that you'll come back and incorporate all the comments we had today. The things that you've already said you've heard, especially in this amendment, incorporate all that because I have to tell you, I think it's really confusing to the public and I think it's confusing to me that we're moving something forward that we already know we're going to amend and bring back an amendment on what we're amending today. And I just think it starts —all these moving parts it's just a lot for people to follow. And so, there's some of the changes that you want to make I think makes sense, but I already know you're going to amend this amendment. And so, I'm going to vote no and hope next time when you bring it back, you have it in a form you're happier with. So, thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. Just I'll be supporting this amendment. Actually strangely enough for the same reasons that Council Member Evans just said that wasn't supporting it, which I think it gives us a cleaner copy, a little bit more clarity for the public to look at as we go forward, instead of having so many amendments out here. So, it'll make it easier for them to see what we're talking about. I think it's hard when we have all these amendments for the public to understand to really get a grasp of what we're looking at here. So, I will be supporting this and understanding that there will still be a few more changes coming. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Thanks. Just similarly, I think there's some really important amendments that the public has asked for in this that I would like to be done with so that those are no longer a question in people's minds. And the amendments to the amendment I think are relatively a minority of the changes. So, I think it Page 14 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 would be both efficient and helpful to the public to get these amendments that have been asked for into the draft so we can then move on to the other important points that we need to work on. So, I'll be supporting this right now. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, is that your light? No. Alright. With that, I do think that this amendment needs more work and there's two ways to do this. I do support Council Member Evans in just getting it done one time, especially, you know, if we put in words like "formal" and "public', we're locking it in there and I do have a significant issue with that. But I hope that the next amendment that is brought forward can address those concerns that I've shared. So, with that, if we can take a roll call vote, please on Communication 675.400? Vote on Motion The motion to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, with the contents of to Amend: Comm. 675,400 was carried by the following roll call vote: (Approvedl Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, and Villegas — 7. Noes: Committee Members Evans and Acting Chair Inaba — 2. Absent: None. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Council Member Kimball. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kimball moved to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, with the contents of Comm. 675.401. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIMBALL: So, to introduce this amendment, it has to do with specifically with owner -hosted transient accommodation rentals and the ability to use one accessory dwelling unit, additional unit, `ohana unit, no matter what the term is, as a transient accommodation rental so long as that there is no other transient accommodation rental on the site. The reason being that, and that was an amendment that we've made recently to Bill 123. And while I recognize that there is some consternation about that concept, I think what's important to understand is that if you had somebody that lived in their home, and they had an `ohana unit and you said you can't rent the `ohana unit as a TAR. What they would be able to do is redesignate and say that the home that they're living in is the `ohana unit and then the other home is the primary residence. And then they would be able to rent it. And so, the fact of the matter is that folks were already able to do that using that mechanism. So, what we're doing now is we're basically just being really clear. Okay, you can do one. It could be the primary residence, or it could be the `ohana, or it could be the ADU (Accessory Dwelling Page 15 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 Unit), but you have one and that is permitted. So that's one piece of the amendment. The second piece of this amendment has to do with how we're handling a nonconforming use certificate. So basically, a nonconforming use certificate is a situation where we're essentially grandfathering in and saying, this is a nonconforming use but you're going to get a permit to do it for, you know, it's tied to your property. So, since we no longer need the nonconforming use to grandfather in folks that have an 'ohana or and additional dwelling unit that is being used as a TAR, because under the old format they would have. We're saying we're actually using the nonconforming use to address one of the other issues that has come up, which is when you have a TAR on an adjacent property. And so, what this basically says is that for folks that have their primary residence and then they have a TAR on their adjacent property, they will be able to get this nonconforming use period —during this period of time to allow them to continue to operate and can call that a hosted rental. The reason that this is important is because in some areas of our County, particularly in Council Member Kierkiewiez's district, people cannot get commercial and homeowner insurance through the state insurance program right now. That means that they cannot consolidate the two lots, which would be the appropriate way to manage this because they know they can't get insurance. And of course we don't have control over the insurance. So, this is a way to deal with this. But what it does is it doesn't say that you can keep doing this. So, what we don't want to have happen is for people to buy the home and buy the lot next door, put a TAR on it, and say it's adjacent, we're hosted, right. So, this is kind of just a one time, grandfather folks in, and then it won't be allowed as a hosted rental going forward. That is the primary change that is proposed by this amendment. I will also note that it does propose allowing owners to be away for up to 30 days and still qualify for the owner -hosted. They just have to let the director know in writing that they're going to be gone, who is the reachable person while they're gone. We had talked last hearing about doing like a rider for this, but we decided it was just cleaner to say, okay, this is one of the standards of operations you get to have up to 30 days per year where you can make a TAR that is hosted available. So, anyway, curious to see what people think about this direction. ACTING CHR. INABA: Starting here in Kona. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: It's a lot. A lot of moving parts. There're three different things going on in here, totally different parts. The first one, I understand what you're trying to do and no issues on that one. The second one, this nonconforming use certificate, you said that you were trying —is that the one that you were trying to address the problem with getting insurance? Was that brought forward by the insurance industry or it's some people have told you their story, "We just can't Page 16 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 get insurance. We have the lot next door; we're using that as our TAR but because they're separate TMK's (Tax Map Key) we're not getting recognized?" Was that the problem? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, if I might. Thank you. MS. EVANS: Yeah, thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Council Member Evans, just to kind of elaborate. It is very difficult to get homeowners insurance in areas of Lava Zone 1 and 2. Not only is it very expensive, but the options are very limited. One of the vendors is through HPIA (Hawaii Property Insurance Association), that is a state -run insurance association. The problem with that particular insurance provider is they do not provide commercial insurance in Lava Zones 1 and 2, and that is very problematic. And so, this particular amendment would resolve for situations where folks are operating in Lava Zones 1 and 2, and they would not have to compromise their insurance policy. They would still be able to maintain their homeowner's insurance and operate their transient accommodation rental with this fix. MS. EVANS: So they could get insurance? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes. They would be able to maintain their homeowner's insurance policy. MS. EVANS: Who's confirmed that? Is that an insurance commissioner confirmed that? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Evans, I want to limit the back and forth. MS. EVANS: Yeah, I just want to make sure that I hear you and it sounds reasonable, I just want to make sure it's been validated by the insurance commissioner or someone. I just want to make sure when it's applied. Okay. And then the last one is to the director. It looks like it's another requirement that people would have to let you know. The way I understood it, is they'd have to let you know when they're off island and how do you see that being enforced? MR. KERN: So, this would be a person that's doing an owner -hosted or hosted TAR, and so technically they need to be onsite or around. So, if this goes forward and if they wanted to go say on a vacation for two weeks and they were not at the home, they would notify us saying they're going to be on vacation for the two weeks. And so at that point we'll have that on file and if we receive a complaint Page 17 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 that is not being hosted at that time, we would have basically the grounds to say, well no, right now they're in compliance with the Code because we got notified they're gone for two weeks. Now if someone is doing that and we're not notified, they we would be issuing them a letter saying that you're in violation of this section of the Code. You're running an un-hosted transient accommodation rental. MS. EVANS: Okay. To the maker, if they're gone for 30 days and the refrigerator stops or freezer breaks; can they call up the Planning Director and say, "What are we going to do?" I've just got to run it through, the "what if' scenario because you're saying it's okay. Because if you're owner -hosted, there's an assumption there's someone onsite to take care of this. We're not requiring if an owner leaves, to have someone available? Because I know when you're not an owner -hosted you have to have someone on island that they can contact. So are you anticipating this for an own -hosted if they go away for vacation? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yes. It does say that part of what they're required to communicate with the director is the reachable person that will be the point of contact for the transient accommodation rental while they're away. MS. EVANS: Okay. Good. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Wow, talk about making mud muddier. You know, as much as I really want for there to be parameters and more solidification and more security and more support for the people in our County as related to short TAR's, I feel like this, at this point, I can't keep up with it. I have people who are experts in the field who can't keep up with it. And with regards to this specific amendment, in my mind, if you're gone and you get to pay the rates as being a hosted vacation rental and you're gone for 30 days, don't rent your vacation rental while you're gone for those 30 days, or have somebody stay at your place so it remains hosted. I get concerned we don't even have enforcement in an effective capacity of our current Bill 108, and here we are creating a policy for quite frankly minutia of people's activities when they're running short-term vacation rentals that I don't think we can effectively or efficiently, or even if it's appropriate for the County government to be this far into people's daily lives. It feels a lot of "big brother" to me. So, I get what you're doing in trying to find any and all the things that come up and find solutions for them. I suppose out of principle for me, it's not really possible with life. So, I get really concerned and tend to want to step away because I just don't think the County can do it. I don't think we are doing for Page 18 August 20, 2024 Bill 108, and I understand the intentionality is to get these things passed so we could have the resources and the staffing to actually effectively enforce what's already there. But I just feel like this is getting any "little could be, would be". Do we have to make a law for every "little could be, would be"? I suppose I get a little frustrated because I have sat here and when other people tried to make laws or bring up policy to solve some of the problems that constituents were asking for, we're pretty much told, we don't make laws just for the "could be, would be" of small communities. So I just feel a lot of conflict about creating policy around all these small exceptions for the norm. And I feel like while the intentionality, and this I firmly believe, and I'm grateful for the intentionality of these amendments is to simplify or try to get through those issues. Yeah, it's not feeling that way to me. So, I can only imagine how it's feeling to other people. So, I won't be supporting this amendment at this time. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Villegas. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. I agree with much of this amendment, but I also have challenges around supporting the 30 days being a kind of switching over from an owner -hosted to an operator -hosted rental. It just seems complicated to me, and I've always seen the owner -hosted rentals as very different in a lot of ways than the operator -hosted and the unhosted rentals. I actually am going to be proposing an amendment around that. But I do not want us to —if we're going to give lower costs and we're going to see owner hosted in a certain way, than I agree with Council Member Villegas that those people can just not rent short-term when they're on vacation or when they go away for, you know, short periods of time. It's an owner -hosted rental and that's how it, I think, if that's what it is, it should be treated that way throughout the year. So, I won't be supporting this amendment, although I agree with the first couple parts of the amendment. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Checking in with anyone else in Hilo at this time. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. You know, this one is interesting. I'm more interested in the first Section 25-4-16.1. So, to the maker, I'm walking through this in my head. I heard your comments in the beginning as far as opening the amendment. What caught my attention was not wanting to allow kind of a successive build of rentals that are touching another property or within 200 feet of a dwelling. Except, I don't see anything here that contains that idea. It's just you have to be within 200 feet of a dwelling. And I'm looking for the restriction in this because to me it looks open-ended right now, that if you have a home and you have a property next door and your house is within 200 feet Page 19 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 of the other building, I'm using the words building site, that you could do that across multiple properties. I don't see a limit. Could you please help me understand the limit that is in place? Because that's what I understood from your opening statement. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thanks. Just to clarify, the limit is on the ability to do this in the future, so they have to actively have the transient accommodation rental operating at the time of this ordinance being adopted and be within 200 feet of the primary residence. There actually isn't a limit as far as the number of adjacent properties. It's just that moving forward, this would not be an option for folks that are starting up new transient accommodation rentals. Does that make sense? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, okay. I got you. So, you're saying that if you were in existence, and let's say you had a property and your home where you live touches let's say three other properties, each one of those buildings being 200 feet from your residence, you could have three unhosted vacation rentals because your property is within 200 feet of those other buildings, correct? MS. KIMBALL: That is how it is worded right now, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: But the limit would be that this doesn't apply to new? MS. KIMBALL: It would have to be in operation at the time of the adoption of this ordinance, yes. So, in the future, folks wouldn't have this option to put a TAR on an adjacent property and call it hosted. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Are we sticking with the same effective date? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, are you speaking to the bill as a whole? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes. ACTING CHR. INABA: I don't believe there's any change in this amendment. MS. KIMBALL: There isn't. But the effective date is still I think it's June 30`h So, when we get to the near final version of this, I will have to put forth an amendment to change the effective date. Page 20 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MR. KANEALI'l-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. That's helpful. I yield, Chair. ACTING CHR. INABA: Any other discussion from folks who haven't had a chance yet? Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks, Chair. I'm going to be supporting this, kind of Kdnalua, yes. I think there's been things we like and things we don't like. I do appreciate the clarity around that section that was just discussed on the nonconforming use. I think similarly to my colleague Ms. Kagiwada, it's like, pick a lane and stay in it. And this ability to kind of cross lanes is not what we're trying to do because back to the original intent, this was a process to register, I kind of want to get back to that, so we know what we're dealing with and then we know how to tax it and do other things around it. So I'm going to be supporting this but I'm also hearing very loud and clear from both the makers that there'll be still more tailoring and edits as we move it along. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Coming back to Kona, Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Okay. Thank you. Since I don't have the whole Code in front of me, I was just thinking this one section that we were just talking about of being within 200 feet of the owners primary residence, how this may impact another section of the Code where we were looking at zoning possibly being also kind of an overlay as to what we're agreeing and disagreeing to because we're going to allow TAR's in urban zones but maybe not in this zone. And so, if you're planning on applying this to every single zone in our County or will there be maybe another restriction or exclusion because of us doing something based on zoning back? This is to the maker. Because a lot of times when you do this it may —I'm just wondering if it's going to inadvertently affect another part of the bill. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball, briefly. MS. KIMBALL: It shouldn't. I will say that Council Member Kierkiewicz's alternative proposal for vacation nodes is another way to address this same problem. MS. EVANS: Okay. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: I guess like a number of other Council Members; I like the first part and not so much the second. So, I'm not sure how we'd want to proceed on Page 21 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 that, whether we could bifurcate this somehow or just bring it back with just the first part. ACTING CHR. INABA: Any further discussion, Council Member Kimball? MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. I'm willing to pull this after you've had an opportunity to weigh in and separate the two parts. Yup. Want to hear what you've got to say. ACTING CHR. INABA: Alright. With that, I guess, refresher please. The 200 feet came from a different part of the Code or why it was specifically 200 feet? MS. KIMBALL: Actually, I pulled it out of thin air. ACTING CHR. INABA: Okay. MS. KIMBALL: It has no basis in anything. Actually, I intended if we wanted to include this part, like that was one of the metrics that we needed to discuss was what was appropriate there. We didn't want to say like it's a half a mile away and it's quote, unquote, unhosted now, right. But I don't know what that right metric is, but maybe that's a discussion for another time after I separate these two. ACTING CHR. INABA: Okay. Got it. And yeah, I do think that we're going to create more problems when we try and allow owner -hosted to be gone and having them report to the Planning Director and staff already get lots and lots of correspondence, so I don't think that would be helpful. But I am in support of the first part of this amendment, which makes it clear that they can continue to do what's already kind of been in process. So, with that, I hope to see this amendment broken apart and we can take up the first section. With that — MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. Withdraw Motion Ms. Kimball withdrew her motion to amend Bill 121, to Amend: Draft 2, with the contents of Comm. 675.401. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Alright. This is the fun one. Okay. This is the last one of mine. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kimball moved to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, with the contents of Comm. 675.402. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. So, one of the big changes that Bill 121 proposes is that the transient accommodation rental be defined as less than 180 days. This Page 22 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 again is not something that the department and I agreed upon and there has been some back and forth about this already. We heard last time about the confusion that it causes for folks from Real Property Tax standpoint when 180 days for us is considered a long-term rental, less than that is a short-term rental, they lose some of their benefits, and what implications that has had as far as taxes. I like the 180 days because it aligns with the TAT (Transient Accommodation Tax) law, it allows with the language in the HRS (Hawai'i Revised Statutes) about what a transient accommodation is, and then it aligns with that language in Chapter 19, with respect to property taxes. So, what this amendment proposes is that if we are to stick with 180 days, basically we have three options. We have three options. One is to stay at 30 (days), which is what we were at, right, with Bill 108. One is to go with 180 days and just let the chips fall where they may and see if we get sued. We probably will. Not the worst thing in the world but it probably will happen. Or there is the third alternative here which is to say, we are going to open up the unhosted nonconforming use based on the fact that folks who can prove that they've only rented for more than 30 days since Bill 108 took effect, then they can register, get a nonconforming use certificate and be accounted for as an unhosted transient accommodation rental. So basically, we're back when Bill 108 was adopted, those folks would not have been required to register because they were renting for only more than 30 days, so in order to give them a chance to register and basically grandfather them in in the same way Bill 108 did. We provide that nonconforming use certificate for folks that can prove. Again, they would have to prove that ever since Bill 108 was adopted they have only rented for more than 30 days because otherwise they wouldn't been in violation of Bill 108 and operating illegally. So, this is the third option. Again, we can go back to 30 days, we can just see what happens, or we can put this into place as a mechanism to grandfather those folks in. Happy to take questions. ACTING CHR. INABA: Alrighty, we will start in Hilo. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. I like it. I like the grandfathering in and letting people have the chance and making sure that we make it fair for everybody who might have missed that opportunity. I think that's really what we should be aiming for here. We want to make it fair, but we also want to get to the place we want to get to, which I believe is the 180 days. So, I fully support this one. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Lee Loy. Page 23 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, thank you, Chair. In support also. I think the nuances between Bill 108 and where we're moving towards, this fills that gap as my colleague mentioned. Thank you, to the makers, to being create around this solution but keeping us moving forward. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: I have some serious concerns about this because I wonder how many short-term vacation rentals this actually could potentially include. So, my red flag goes up, is to how many people are actually renting for between 30 and 180 days since Bill 108 passed. I just don't know that there's a significant number. I mean, this is where I would want to see some data. Do we know, is there any? I know I hear of traveling nurses; I know I hear of those kinds of circumstances. But here's my big concern, you know, District 7 has the highest percentage of short-term vacation rentals on the island. There's a benefit to a lot of the people, some of them sitting here, who rely on that. I have family members that rely on that income for them to be able to retire. But conversely, we don't have anywhere for people to live. And I'm not saying that, you know, solving the short-term vacation rental issue is going to open up — you know, we've heard from a lot of people who are not going to do long-term rentals if this isn't a short-term vacation rental. But the purpose of Bill 108 and its authors having done all that work to get it across the finish line was to support people that lived in residential zones, who are being negatively impacted by the behaviors and this huge growth of short-term vacation rentals in residential neighborhoods. So, that was kind of that purpose, right, is to allow people that lived in a neighborhood to once again live within a community instead of living essentially feeling like you're at a hotel with noise and no accountability, nobody to call. So, all these different parameters were created. What I have concerns about now, and then, you know, people were grandfathered in if you were in a resort node you were in the right zoning, otherwise you got a nonconforming use pen -nit. And I apologize if all my terminology is exact. But for me, that was my understanding, and my support of the legislation was actually to serve our residents here and then not punish those that were hosting authentically short-term vacation rental in their house. I have concerns about us all of a sudden us opening up Pandora's box again. And with a General Plan that has still not been approved, people in my community are very concerned about some of the different terminologies for zoning areas and for that area to then become opened up again, and for homes outside of resort nodes and that have not already got the nonconforming use to then be allowed to jump in again. That's not, okay, well that's —if that's my perception, that's a lot of the perception of the community and that is my real struggle with trying to pass legislation that's this big and this convoluted with this many nuances, and affects Page 24 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 my district as heavily and intensely, and the constituents of District 7 as much as it does. I apologize if it's my human incapacity to process all of these potentials, but I feel like I'm constantly looking for what am I missing; what's coming down; I want to protect the people who are relying on this industry. I want to eliminate the loopholes for those who have predated upon our community and our real estate industry, and somehow find —I don't want to open us back up to the vulnerability of more nonconforming use permits being given to people because I don't have an understanding of how many. I just feel once again, there's just a minutia in there and in my experience sitting here we're not supposed to write policy for that. So, my humble, honest confusion and concerns. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you, Chair. I definitely understand that feeling. We're working on a watch here. It is very intimidating sometimes reading this language. And also, I think I asked the question last time about in the context of this, 30 versus 180-day quandary and I don't think anybody really knows because we don't have the registration of everyone to be able to answer that question, I believe, was the answer that I got. However, I think amendment is good and that it will just take care of that problem, however small it may be, it is a significant problem and that it could get us into a lot of difficulties that could just be taken care of by this language. So, I'm in support of this tweaking just to keep us out of that, hopefully, keep us out have that particular difficulty of potentially being sued. Thanks. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Director Kern, can you please share the department's position on this particular amendment? I'll just say straight up that I don't support it, I'm a fan of the 30 days, and I do share the concerns of my colleague Council Member Villegas about opening it up to more unhosted. We don't know if that means a handful or a few hundred. And that is a lot of potential housing for, you know, residents. Again, would just appreciate the departments viewpoint on this amendment. MR. KERN: Sure. Thanks for the question. I think we still stand that we would prefer the 30 days because that was kind of the die that was cast, understanding that if that's changing and I think there's much bigger discussion when RPT came up last time and it just kind of expanded that conversation even more. So, if it's going to change, I think something like this is really important. I don't believe it's a huge number of folks. Page 25 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 When we first started, when Bill 108 came out, there was about 950 STVR Nonconforming Use Certificates (NUC). So, that's the ones that receive the NUC's. That's not the permitted areas, And that was split about 50/50 East and West. Over the time, we've seen that drop down to about 750. Again, still split about 50/50. It's hard to say the exact number of folks but I think there's enough that are operating at this level that it merits folding them in. I think that's the right thing to do with land use. If there's a use that's out there to either fold them in or create that class and create another class of nonconformity I think would be challenging. And so, if the bill maintains as it is at 180 and 180 would then kind of reset. Bill 108 probably should've been 180 at that time. And if that were the case, these people would've actually been folded into it at that time. And so they would've been taken care of. And so, I think changing course midstream if you will from 30 days to 180 days, the department would want to lean towards trying to get everybody to fit in where they would've already. But my preference is to still stay at 30 days. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah. That's my preference too. And, you know, when I just think back on the public testimony that's come through there are a lot of folks that actually requested 30 days. I did not see this particular idea pop up too many times in testimony. I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Chair. ACTING CHR. INABA: Checking back in Hilo, any further discussion? Alright, coming back to Kona. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I was kind of looking at the last amendment and then looking at this amendment and you're proposing to cross out "owner -hosted" and "operator -hosted" and change it to "owners". If we go that route, then I'm assuming it will have to be changed maybe in other parts of your legislation. Are we starting to mess around with terminologies that might affect other sections? That's my question to the maker. MS. KIMBALL: No. It should be consistent based on the other amendments that I've provided in Communication 675.402, We did check for consistency. MS. EVANS: So, all of a sudden, I'm seeing —I'm just reading some of the amendments we've had today and I'm seeing unhosted transient accommodation, now I'm seeing existing owner -hosted, operator -hosted, now owners of —I don't know. I'm just saying there's a lot. There's a lot going on today with like things getting crossed out and new terms. And again, it's a lot if you don't see it all collapse in one. So, I understand why you want to move the these forward, but it really is a challenge when we see these different terminologies. Thank you. I yield. Page 26 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Council Member Kimball, anything further? MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. I just wanted to, again, kind of restate the purpose of this amendment. But before I do, Director Kern, I've asked Deputy (Jeffrey) Darrow to look at this, but do you off the top of your head know how many STVR's we've got registered, whereabouts we're at? MR. KERN: In totality of nonconforming as well as registrants, we're probably in the 6,500 range in total. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. MR. KERN: About 750 of those being the NUC's. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. So, we're at, as far as ones that are registered with the department, about 6,500 approximately; all of them. MR. KERN: Yeah. MS. KIMBALL: Based on DBEDT (Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism) and some analysis coming through Airbnb and Expedia, and other, they estimate we're at about 7,500. So, that gives you an idea that there are about a thousand STVR's out there that are not accounted for. Some of them could be hosted; some of them could be this 10 days or more, or 30 days or more. So, that's the mystery. We have some suggestion that maybe the more than 30 days number is around 250-300, but until we actually enact a registration process to capture those, we wouldn't know for certain. And so, one of my objectives here with this bill and all of this stuff is once we have a clear picture, right, of who is doing what; who's operator -hosted, who's owner -hosted, who's unhosted; who has a nonconforming use, we can separate them and we can start to pull the levers of the property tax, right. And so for your folks that you're talking about that are operating a transient accommodation rental on their property to make ends meet, we can bring theirs down. Whereas, if we have unhosted rentals, we can bump that up a little bit. But until we've teased apart these different types, we aren't going to be able to do that. And so, the amendments to the Code that Council Member Galimba and Kagiwada have been working on to provide benefits for folks doing long-term rentals, like that's teasing apart that piece. And that's all based on the 180 days. So, what this amendment does, again, is it just says, if we went back in time and said, "Okay, Bill 108 is going to actually be 180 days instead of 30 days," it would allow those people that didn't register then because they thought they didn't need to because they were renting for only 30 days or more, to register Page 27 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 now. It's somewhere in the 250 to 1,000 range, I think, is as close of a guess we can get to right now. ACTING CHR. INABA: Further discussion? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chair? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. To the maker of the amendment, where is the dates allowable for the nonconforming use? MS. KIMBALL: It is, just give me a moment. So, it would be there under Section (b)(2). The building site was regular use as a transient accommodation rental before the effective date of this ordinance and at no time after April 1, 2019, was there a transient accommodation rental rented for any period of 30 days or less. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then the registration portion under Section 25-4-16.6 relating to June 30, 2024. Do those two sections clash with each other or those are still allowing the same, that people can come in now and register? MS. KIMBALL: That is still allowing the same thing. Those dates, too, since they're fixed will have to be adjusted at the point where we get closer to finalizing this bill. But they do play together. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So, those dates need to be adjusted in my mind. If we're saying they can still come in and register but Section (a) under 25-4-16.6, says you have to register before June 30, 2024, or no; am I reading that incorrectly? ACTING CHR. INABA: You're reading it correctly, Council Member Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder. Those are dates that the maker is saying needs to be adjusted because they were originally drafted as one of the original bills. We're going through the slow process. So, when we get towards a point where we know some version of this is going to pass then we can set the date at which they would need to register before. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I got you. So basically, that bill hasn't passed, anything's open game right now but we are creating these pockets of ability for folks; but our dates are off. MS. KIMBALL: I would also —if I may, Chair, comment? Page 28 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: Sure. MS. KIMBALL: There's a difference between acquiring the nonconforming use certificate and registering your TAR. So, registration is a different activity than acquiring that nonconforming use certificate. The dates should line up, but they don't have to. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Any further discussion? You know, with the rest of these amendments I just want to state that when I make comments, I'm going to not allow further discussion like we're supposed to. So, Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yes. Just wanted to share the information I've just received via the Deputy Director Darrow, the active number of transient accommodations is 4,442, and again, the Hawaii Housing factbook estimates that we have 7,500. So, you can do the math and it's actually closer to 3,000 that we don't have accounted for in any type of registration at this point. I yield, Chair. ACTING CHR. INABA: Alright. Thank you. Question? There'll be no further discussion. For the last section in this amendment, it's saying that if at any time an unhosted rental with a nonconforming use is found to be rented for rental period of 30 days or less, are we speaking to in the future or are we talking —okay, in the future. But the definition of the TAR right now is 180 (days) so, if you could just please refresh my mind on why it's 30 (days) in this section? MS. KIMBALL: So, this is intended to limit folks that didn't register under Bill 108 because they were intending to only do 30 days or more, they get the nonconforming use certificate, but they can only do 30 days or more because that's what they signed up to do when they didn't register under Bill 108. So, this restricts them to continuing that activity. ACTING CHR. INABA: Understood. Thank you. With that, we'll take a vote. Mr. Clerk, roll call please on Communication 675.402. Vote on Motion The motion to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, with to Amend: with the contents of Comm. 675.402 was carried by the (Approvedl following roll call vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kimball, Lee Loy, and Acting Chair Inaba — 7. Noes: Committee Members Kierkiewicz and Villegas — 2. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 29 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, with the contents of Comm. 675.399. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. This is in regard to Section 25-4-16.7, the rental registration process. I had introduced an amendment at the last committee meeting regarding this, got feedback from my colleagues, and I'm reintroducing this based on department feedback. I'm actually requesting that we remove the requirement of submitting a floor plan showing the location of rooms for rent and layout of the transient accommodation rental. Again, wanting to peel back some of the layers of bureaucracy and requirements of folks that are registering their transient accommodation rental. In discussions with the Planning Department, the director confirmed that it is not necessary as part of the registration process to require this information. So, just looking for my colleagues' support. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Any discussion? Starting in Hilo. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you to the maker for introducing this. I am in full support, but I had a different approach on this and this was in relationship to crime. And I know there's a lot of information out there on the internet and this is just one more tool that, I think, provides a lot of safety for users. So, I am in support of this amendment. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Alright. All those in favor of amending Bill 121, Draft 2, with the contents of Communication 675.399, please say "aye." Vote on Motion The motion to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, with to Amend: with the contents of Comm. 675.399 was carried by the (Approved) following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, Villegas, and Acting Chair Inaba — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, with the contents of Comm. 675.404. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. Page 30 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. This is in relation to registration requirements. I am proposing removing the requirements regarding construction codes. Again, do not think that it is relevant to be providing, you know, building permits to the Planning Department as part of the registration process. Again, I think this will just help to make a much more simplified registration process for our transient accommodation rental owners. Director Kern, just want to make sure that your department is in support of this particular proposal? MR. KERN: Yeah, we're in support of that simplification. Thanks. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Looking for my colleagues' support. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Any discussion? MS. KIMBALL: Here. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yes. So, Council Member Kierkiewicz and I, of course, worked very hard on this deal but we didn't agree on everything, and this is one of them where I've maintained that I do think it is important that folks indicate that the dwelling accommodation was built to code at the time that is was constructed. As much as I think people have the right to offer transient accommodations on their property, I think that the folks that are coming and staying in these transient accommodations also have a right to expect certain things with respect to safety, and plumbing, and electric, and things like that. And so, again, the way we've worded this is you need to provide the declaration that says I've met health and safety requirements, it was built to code at the time that it was constructed; doesn't say anything about having a final permit or the final certificate of occupancy, any of that. I just think that it's important to say that yes, there was an attempt to build this to code at the time that it was constructed. This is a commercial activity. We wouldn't allow any other commercial activity in a facility that wasn't built to code and so, I'm not comfortable saying that we're going to allow that with this registration process. That's where I'm at. Thank you. ACTING CHR INABA: Further discussion? Council Member Kagiwada? MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. I'm in support of this. I think it's going to be hard to get people to register as it is. I really want to encourage them to do so, and I think this will help people get there. I also think it's possible that you could've bought a house recently and not know exactly what was done at the time of building and not necessarily be able to get your hands on all that documentation. So, I'm in support of this. Thanks. Page 31 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI'l-KLElNFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Just to the maker, is this amendment actually amending language that we amended with the contents of Communication 675.400 about 30 minutes ago. It doesn't read the same anymore, and I am having some heartburn with this idea that we are going to remove this as well as having the Planning Director say he approves of this amendment when he has acknowledged that he doesn't actually oversee the Construction Code elements but more just the Planning side of the situation. So, to the makers, trying to find you a way forward but for right now, I cannot support this because we've already amended this section and for the other reasons I've stated already. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Before we proceed, Mr. Clerk, if you could just remind both the body and the public when we are taking up amendments that affect the same section, how they are to be read? MR. HENRICKS: In this instance —County Clerk Jon Henricks. When I look at the amendment that Mr. Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder referenced to that Paragraph 2 of (Section) 24-4-16.5, the touching different sections of the same sentence. So, if this amendment were approved, Draft 3 would read, the transient accommodation rental must meet health and safety requirements established by law at the time of construction. So, in essence, while the amendments overlap, they don't contrast. So, they can layer upon one another. That does get challenging at times to digest and understand where things are and this is a very, I think, a good salient point, Mr. Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder, so it's good to inspect these things. And I'm asking after this is all done, we get a Draft 3 that somebody who is very smart and familiar with this bill takes a very close look to make sure that we did do, you know, trying to make sure that the amendments did not contrast and if they did it was clear that these amendments contrast, you need to pick between them. But in this instance, we're okay. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. So, just wanting to clarify so everyone is clear that we're essentially accepting the underlined — MR. HENRICKS: In summary, it works sometimes but not others. It works this time. ACTING CHR. INABA: Yeah. Alrighty. Is there any further discussion? Council Member Galimba, and then I'll head back to you in Hilo. Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. I'm not sure who I'm asking this to so I'll just ask it and maybe I can get a little help with that. So, this will say, must meet health and safety requirements established by law, you just said, at the time of Page 32 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 construction, and I'm just wondering if I could get a little more detail on what that would be; what would be the health and safety requirements. I mean, I'm not asking for them in detail, but would this be Department of Health, health and safety? Perhaps I'm asking this of you, the maker. Can you give me a little more detail on what that would mean, practically speaking to comply? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Sure. And, you know, I'm going to ask Council Member Kimball to weigh in on here but when I think about public health and safety; do you have a smoke detector that is installed in your household, which is, I think, you know, a safety measure. And this is something that is modeled after I think the County of Vale, which you know, provided for a declaration process of providing some kind of checklist that folks review and take into consideration as they, you know, establish their vacation rental. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. So, the testifier earlier, Heather Korotie, she had provided in her written testimony a number of examples of the declaration, which kind of speaks to the typical health and safety requirements, not necessarily exclusively tied to residential dwellings, but to accommodations. So, things like a fire extinguisher, carbon monoxide detector, having multiple methods of egress, not having windows blocked, egresses blocked, stuff like that. That's one of the reasons why when we had the conversation before, I wanted to keep the declaration in there because it really helps people understand what they should have if they're offering overnight accommodations for folks. So, that's kind of an example of what we're looking at there. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. Yeah. I think that is important. Director, I think you looked like you might have something to say? MR. KERN: Yeah. I'm happy to add to it. I think it's getting covered up there. It's really the egress, the smoke detectors, the carbon monoxide detectors, railings, those basic elements to, if something goes wrong, the people have notification of it and there's a way to get out. And that if you're going in and out of the home, it's generally safe. To me, those are the key health and safety factors. MS. GALIMBA: Okay. So, in this version I don't see a declaration component. Is that somewhere else? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: It should be there on Page 2. Again, I'm trying to provide changes for two different sections within the bill. MS. GALIMBA: Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Just wanted to check on that. Page 33 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: Alright, heading back to Hilo. Quickly, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Planning Director? MR. KERN: Yes, sir. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Just going back to what I originally said. So, previously when we talked about this, construction codes, and that kind of thing, I mean, you kind of said, "Not our kuleana. That's more Public Works." Correct? MR. KERN: Yeah. The Building Code, that is a Public Works jurisdiction. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then, as far as health and safety, the things that have been mentioned, fire detectors, carbon monoxide detectors; that is covered by the Planning Department? MR. KERN: No. Those things are generally covered within say a final building permit and final inspection, in addition to say like Department of Health on wastewater, having an adequate septic system. So, if I could maybe expand a little bit. The previous (Bill) 108, there was specific language in the saying they had to meet all final inspections. There was no conversation with Department of Public Works at that time. So, it's basically an impossible task. And what we're looking at now is some version that's being molded into something that I think is workable. And if we're going to go further into discussion around Code then I think that Department of Public Works should opine. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. That's kind of where I was heading. And that's why I'm asking. Is Public Works available; are they in the Kona Chambers? ACTING CHR. INABA: No one from Public Works is currently here. Not sure if anyone is tuning in online but if we get someone to join, we'll let you know. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. I would urge this body to be careful when we start removing requirements. I mean, any other sector, whether it's travel, whether it's, you know, restaurant business, I mean, anything, there's going to be requirements to make sure that all safety precautions are being met. And I don't want to be onerous on behalf of the rentals or the folks providing them, but I do want there to be a level of public safety that's inherent. When we start removing Construction Code requirements, when we start removing other portions of the language that revolve around the construction of the building itself, I would really be hesitant to say yes to something like this because you are basically saying —sorry, this Council would be saying, any building would go as Page 34 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 long as it meets health and safety without a real clear definition of what that means. So, again, I'm not going to say yes to this bill, sorry this amendment, especially without hearing from Public Works, and even maybe after hearing from Public Works. But I would urge other Council Members to do the same. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Alright. Heading back to Kona. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: As Council Members, we get to set the policy. We get to decide how simple or how complex we want these processes to look like. And in reviewing a number of different processes across the country, I would say that ours tends to be a little bit more on the complicated side. There are counties where you just have to register your status if you're making over $10,000 a year operating a vacation rental. And so, again, as somebody that just wants to keep things simple, this is one way that we are, I think, addressing some of the concerns that our community members have, you know, brought forward as, again, just trying to simplify the process. I don't want to belabor the discussion, Chair, so if we could move on to a vote, that would be great because we still have one more amendment to get through. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Evans, briefly. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I just love those 1950 plantation style homes in North Kohala. They're the best. You know, I can just see people running, you know, if they fall in and they're looking for whatever —it's a rental. I understand the health and safety. I actually understand what Member Kierkiewicz is getting at. 1 guess the bigger question is will there be an inspection or is this just to make sure it's meeting health and safety. Again, it's the workload, right, and who would do that; would that be Public Works that inspect it to make sure it met health and — so are we creating another inspection? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Evans, there's no inspection. They're just filling out the documents and verifying, what's the correct term, declaring declaration that they are — MS. EVANS: It's a self -declaration? ACTING CHR INABA: Yes. MS. EVANS: Okay. And how about if they've done things to the building and didn't get a building permit, and they're out of compliance with building permit? There's nothing in here that comments on — Page 35 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MR. KERN: They would basically be declaring that those improvements met basic health and safety standards. What we saw a lot in the last go around, I want to say the general building was permitted and then there might've been like an unpermitted lanai or an unpermitted something on there, but it was generally kind of what we would normally find in the community as a regular deck, just didn't get a permit. MS. EVANS: So, unpermitted or permitted, we're just saying they're declaring whatever they've done meets health and safety? MR. KERN: That's my understanding of it. MS. EVANS: And how will we through rulemaking or whatever; what will we do to give them that checklist? Will they have an owner checklist that's says you have a, you know, a smoke detector that works, the battery, you know it not works, you know, check, check, check. And at that point, based on, I don't know, liability or, I mean, again, how does that, I don't know. Can I ask Corporation Counsel, if we do self -declaration that it's safe and then in fact something happens, is there any liability on the County because we've accepted this self - declaration? (Note: At this time, Corporation Counsel Elizabeth Strance came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. STRANCE: Elizabeth Strance, Corporation Counsel. Normally, on the self - declarations there'll be fine print that if something is being made under penalty of perjury or other types of things, so there is language of declaration. In the old days, you would have specific language, and it would notarize, but that's not required anymore. There're just the magic words of declaration. And so, I think that the exposure of the County is minimal if it's receiving information under declaration of it being true. So, government cannot go out and check the statement that every person makes at some level if there's a requirement. We have to take people at their word and normally the County goes through extra step that permits were issued or other things are issued, that the person signs some sort of declaration. So, that's what I would expect here. The County's not making any kind of warranty to the public about the conditions of property. It's just issuing a permit that allows somebody to use their property for certain purposes. MS. EVANS: Yeah. I have no problem approving this other than should we put in Code that in the form approved by the County or in some other —you don't have to add anything, you know, implying the owner is responsible or we don't need to add a disclaimer in the Code or something by doing a self -declaration? MS. STRANGE: I don't think so. The Code doesn't state that in other areas. Our office usually views those types of documents where we would request that kind Page 36 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 of language in the forms. So, there are lots of forms that the Planning Department utilizes that aren't forms that the content is dictated by this body. MS. EVANS: Okay. Alright. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Alright, with that, we will MS. VILLEGAS: Chair? ACTING CHR. INABA: Yes, go ahead. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah, we can go to the vote. But I won't be able to support this until we get some kind of an answer from DPW. I'd like to see what Director Pause would have to say. And based on what it seems to be the strategy today is to bring forth these amendments and postpone. Perhaps there is a chance for this to be withdrawn and brought back up at the next round with Mr. Pause here to give us an answer? So, that's just my recommendation. I won't be able to support this under these circumstances. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Alright. The maker of this motion would like to proceed. So, Mr. Clerk, if you could do a roll call vote, please, on Communication 675.404? Vote on Motion The motion to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, with to Amend: with the contents of Comm. 675.404 was carried by the (Approvedl following roll call vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Acting Chair Inaba — 6. Noes: Committee Members Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder, Kimball, and Villegas — 3. Absent: None. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, do we need a break? ACTING CHR. INABA: We have one last amendment for this bill, right? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: We do. ACTING CHR. INABA: I see. Let's take a five-minute break. I think there's going to be a lot of discussion around this one. Page 37 PCPLUD-19 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. ACTING CHR, INABA: We will be back in session at 3: 10 p.m. Recess: At 3:03 p.m., the Acting Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 3:12 p.m. August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: We are on Bill 121, Draft 2, which has been amended a few times today, and we have one last amendment I think to take up on this matter. So, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, with the contents of Comm. 675.405. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I really appreciated getting everybody's feedback at our last committee hearing on the proposal of creating Visitor Destination Areas (VDA) rather than identifying communities outright in an amendment. At least wanted to create a framework and guidance around what would constitute a visitor destination area, and then it would be incumbent upon the Council or Planning Director to initiate an ordinance to add a community to this particular section. I do want to request that the Planning Director provide mana'o on the framework that we're setting with the visitor destination area. Again, this is in recognition of the number of transient accommodation rentals around our island. We do not want to be establishing anymore resort areas because that would mean the buildout of hotels. But there is a need for visitor accommodations in communities especially in communities where there are recreational facilities or landmarks that are very attractive to our visitors. So, creating this framework, one of the things here that really makes a VDA unique is that after January 1, 2025, the only unhosted transient accommodation rentals, these must be owned by someone whose primary residence is Hawaii Island. And this ensures that truly our local residents are going to be benefiting from something like this should they choose the opportunity to have an unhosted rental in a visitor destination area. Looking for everyone's feedback on this proposed idea. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Director Kern, would you like to chime in before we open it up to discussion? MR. KERN: Sure. Thanks for the opportunity. Yeah, we're generally supportive of the framework. I think this sets up a mechanism to move forward with the VDA's, vacation destination areas. I think the language in there that specifies either an area that is kind of saturated with short-term vacation rentals already, Page 38 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 which is kind of one mechanism that you're going to find in certain parts of the island that'll be nonconforming use certificates, and then having the ability for other areas that are more rural in nature that are kind of further away from accommodations such as cultural, like say Volcano and what not. I think it makes a lot of sense bringing it forward, getting these brought in to the visitor destination areas. That's going to be, you know, that next step. But we're supportive of the framework. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. We will start over in Hilo. Discussion? Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. In support. I was just curious as to the boundaries. You listed seven and I was just wondering if it was following some kind of cadence as far as jurisdictions or senate districts. I was just trying to understand it. And moreover, just when we start looking at broader pictures of funding or resources to help support these things, if they were in alignment with something else? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. In response to your question, I was modeling this after what we did with Bill 125 and the bicycle bill. And so, this listing of community actually reflects how we have organized out traffic schedule, Council Member Lee Loy. But if you want to offer an alternate? MS. LEE LOY: I might. Let me think on that a little bit. There's a song playing in my head about the districts of Moku 0 Keawe. But I might. But for right now, in support. I think this is exactly where we wanted to go as far as encouraging this type of activities in certain districts. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I like the framework, but I don't like the purpose. Bear with me as I explain. I think that we went through this destination management plan process because our island, after the experience living on an island through COVID (Coronavirus Disease), didn't have the visitors. How pleasant it was to go to our beaches and our places to recreate and how much we loved not having all the visitors there. But we want the visitors to be here because they contribute to our economy. What I would like to see is visitor destination areas that are not in proximity to our beaches and our landmarks, and the places that our people that live on this island want to enjoy so much, that why would we put these vacation rentals in the places that we want to recreate. Yes, we could have visitors. I love the idea. I like the idea of visitor destination areas, but why not cluster them in places away Page 39 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 from the places that we, who live here, want to be at. So, I like the direction but not the purpose, And I would like to see it changed and go in another direction. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah. Thank you, Council Member Evans. I just had to go back to the purpose of Bill 108, which was to limit short-term vacation rentals into certain areas and categories. Creating a whole other category to me seem antithesis of the purpose of putting a cap on our short-term vacation rentals. While we were here a number of years ago, Council approved for a zoning change to build 1,000 more timeshare units in Waikoloa. So, we have passed all this legislation to create more space for visitors to go to and yet we continue to complain that there's no place for locals to live. So, I don't think that this is the direction we need to go. I think that while the intention may have been to, you know, open up certain areas that don't have this already, I also —Corporation Counsel Judge Strance, I just have some questions about the legality of this legislation. This amendment actually falling into Bill 121 and if this doesn't actually belong somewhere else in our Code. MS. STRANCE: Thank you. Elizabeth Strance, Corporation Counsel. I didn't have a chance to research this proposed amendment. I saw it just today. I think the issue is whether this bill constitutes such a new amendment and idea that it requires considerations by the Planning Commission. Like I said, I haven't researched that yet, but the concept of a visitor destination area isn't part of the original bill and part of it might involve how far you can stretch the idea of transient accommodations that have folded into the current bill. And so, I don't want to render an opinion that I haven't researched, but it is a concern. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Thank you. Well, that actually validates my concerns, is that I do think that this is something that should go before the Planning Commissions and that this overreaching for and not appropriate, therefore, to be included into Bill 121 at this time. So, with that, I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kaneali'i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI'l-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Yeah. I'm in agreeance with Council Member Villegas. To the maker, what was the intention of removing the applicability of Sections 16.1, 16.2 and 16.3, 1 mean, they're really the heart of this TAR bill, which was all the breakdown of owner -hosted, operator -hosted and unhosted accommodation rentals? It was interesting that this amendment actually says that those three sections shall not apply to TARs within a visitor destination area. What was the thought process behind that, please? Page 40 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: In response to your question, that is in relation to the nonconforming use section of those parts of Bill 121. So basically, transient accommodation rentals in a visitor destination area would be a permitted use. They would no longer be nonconforming. So, this would essentially be a district overlay, and this is actually something that I think was conceived when —this idea was conceived when Bill 108 was actually first before Council, but no one was really able to kind of get the framework right. So, trying to hammer it out with everyone here. MR. KANEALI'l-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. It's an interesting idea. I can see the applicability of some of the areas in Puna, specifically. I do have concerns along the line of Ms. Villegas, as far as what we're hoping to do with this bill and what will be done with the inclusion of this amendment. So, very much in the air right now about supporting this amendment. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. You know, one of the things that's nice, and I mentioned this the first time Council Member Kierkiewicz brought something like this up is that it does live in Chapter 25, which means any amendment that would propose an area that would be a visitor destination would have to go through the Planning Commissions by default because it's an amendment to Chapter 25. So, that's one of the key pieces here is that no area could be considered by the Council until it actually was reviewed by the local Planning Commission. And I think there's a lot of value in that especially when we say it's literally it's the west, leeward or windward, right. And each area of this island is different when it comes to transient accommodation rental needs. As Council Member Villegas has noted many times, she's already got a bunch of them. Other areas not so much. And yet, you know, one of the things that I think we hear again and again when we talk about this bill is that there are areas of this island, Puna, Hdmdkua Coast, Volcano, other parts, that don't have hotels right now; people don't want hotels, but they are not places for people to stay. And we need some level of that. And so, providing these visitor destination areas is one mechanism to do that. There has been an economic analysis done for Maui around the Minatoya List, which is actually quite interesting to read, but it incorporated some analysis with respect to our County. And let me just throw out a number there, which is that 43.7 percent of the visitor accommodation nights on this island are in transient accommodation rentals. That is much, much higher than any of the other islands. We have more people in this type of accommodations. It does account for Page 41 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 $1.3 billion of revenue for this County and that's not all just —that's revenue across buying food and the lodging and all of that kind of stuff. So, it is a significant portion of the industry. One thing; so, I like the concept. I do want to suggest just a tweak in the language of that purpose paragraph, areas with high concentrations of transient accommodation rentals, and then there's an "or", I would personally like to see the fact that have the high density of existing accommodation rentals be like one of the absolute must criteria, without the "or." And then the others could be in; possibly these things too, right? But that first one, maybe there's even a threshold, you know, a certain percentage of the properties in the area are transient accommodation rentals. But I don't want that particular one to be an "or." Yeah. That's my only suggestion. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. Very interesting proposal. I'm not totally sure how I feel about it, but I do see some relevant ways to possibly move forward for specific areas on our island. I guess I'm also of the mind that opening up to more transient accommodation rentals right now when we're just trying to get a handle on what we have and register people. I'd rather do that first, I think, and see what we have, what we're dealing with and then look at this as a next step perhaps. I will say I really like Number 2, under Section 25-4-17.1, that you've added. I think that's very clever. If we could add it to the whole transient accommodation rentals, I think it would be great. But, yeah, so, I'm not sure that I'm ready to say, let's move forward with this at this time. But I do like your thinking behind it, and it does sound very interesting to me. So, I'll leave it at that for now. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Any further discussion? Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah. You know, what just strikes my heart and mind is after coming through COVID, we as a people, an island, and a state, directly recognize our desire to diversify our economy and move away from such reliance on external visitor economy. And yet my challenge here is the intentionality of the policy, my understanding at first, was to put guardrails to ensure that we were taking care of our people, our maka`ainana and our kama`aina and the people that live here, and yet here we are potentially expanding reliance and potentially just because visitors want to stay somewhere, doesn't mean they get to. If our hotels are in a certain place and this is where you stay. When I go to another state or another country, sure it might be nice if there was something there, but it's not. And that's part of what protects the place from being inundated and it keeps neighborhoods sacred and small towns sacred and special for the people that live there and not just an existence for those that visit. And yes, it is economy and Page 42 August 20, 2024 yes, it can be an economic driver, but I feel like —I mean, even the moto of the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) is now to manage tourism instead of marketing it. So, I question the intentionality for these policies that seem to be headed in the opposite direction. And I just really felt like I needed to say that because to me it's counterintuitive to what everybody talks about no more sprawl, and put it all in real densely, and yet, but we're going to sprawl access for visitors into small rural communities. They don't get to stay everywhere. That's where the people that live here get to stay. So, that's just my mana`o for now. I yield. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. And we will wrap up on this Council Member Galimba and then Council Member Kimball. MS. GALIMBA: Thanks. Yeah, this is a, I think, Volcano is pretty much the poster child for this because it is a major national park that everyone wants to go and experience. And so, there is a number of folks in the community that would like to this and there's a number of folks that don't want to see it. So, that would definitely have to be hashed out. But I think there is a part of this that also sort of that prevents a hotel or another hotel from being built there. So, there's a part of it that I think is protective of a community as well as potentially being detrimental, if it is used wrongly. So, I think I'm going to support this and trust in the communities to make that delineation. So, I think it can be very helpful to try and put the TAR's in a defined area and thereby preventing it from spreading further. So, I will be supporting this, but I also can understand some of the arguments being made today against it. Thanks. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: I'll wait until we get back to the main bill. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Alright. Any further discussion in Hilo? I don't see any so, yeah. I think the framework is good and as to your additional finetuning of the districts, mentioned by Council Member Lee Loy, maybe we can take that up at the next reading. With that, Mr. Clerk, a roll call vote please. Page 43 PCPLUD-19 Vote on Motion to Amend: (Approved) August 20, 2024 The motion to amend Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, with with the contents of Comm. 675.405 was carried by the following roll call vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, and Acting Chair Inaba — 5. Noes: Committee Members Evans, Kagiwada, Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder, and Villegas — 4. Absent: None. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. With that, we're back to Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended. Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yes. Thank you. As mentioned earlier, the intention is to yet again keep this here in Committee. Obviously, we have a couple of additional amendments to make. I'll bifurcate that for the previous one that we looked at today, and then make the editorial changes. I did want to also mention that one of the reasons we're continuing to hold this off and I wanted to highlight it with respect to Council Member Kagiwada's comment regarding Section 25-4-17.12, which requires the transient accommodation as the principle residence. And this ties in also with our intention to treat operator -hosted and owner -hosted as two different types of transient accommodation rentals. And Council Member Evans, last time you brought up the issue of constitutionality and if there were any illegal issues around that, we are still exploring that, is what I'll say. There are jurisdictions that have had trouble legally with distinguishing between the two, and there are other jurisdictions that have been successful. I think the key issue is that the test, as I understand it from Corporation Counsel (Jean) Campbell, is that we have to show that there is a local benefit by treating them differently that we cannot achieve in any other way and therefore would require sort of a frustration of the commerce clause. I think there is a strong argument to be made that when we talk as a body about generational wealth, local people being able to stay here, pass things on to the next generation, homeownership provides that and that provides a distinction between owner - hosted and operator -hosted. I have to say to my colleague, the intention is to prevent the proliferation of transient accommodation rentals. I hope everybody had a chance to see John Oliver's presentation on Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. But basically, we're a State and now a County that was developed with a government structure that was promoting extractive industries at the time, the plantation industry, which was replaced with the tourism industry. We are still dealing with the impacts of those extractive economies, and this is a very, very difficult ship to turn. This requires deep structural changes. And so, as much as I acknowledge that this is a meaty, Page 44 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 complex, difficult bill, I can assure you with all my heart that the intention here is to turn that ship and prevent the further extraction from our local community from investment owners in our County. And if there are any benefits to tourism, let those benefits be available to the local residents and not from people that are just investing in Hawaii. So, i just want to acknowlege everybody. I realize this a lot in one bill. I really appreciate the dialogue around all the amendments and everybodys willingness to continue to work on it. But I just want to assure those in the room that the intention here is to make sure that the impacts of tourism are managed and the benefits of tourism are something that is accessible to the members of our community as they are. So, with that, I would like to make a motion to postpone Bill 121 to September Yd. MS. KAGIWADA: Chair? MS. KIMBALL: Yes. Sorry. I'm not the Chair. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. I just wanted to comment on the main bill, and it has a lot of relevance to do with what Council Member Kimball was just talking about. I've always, as we've started, you know, from the beginning when we started looking at this, really in my mind the difference between owner -operated and either the unhosted or the operator -hosted. To me, the owner -hosted is very different and I've always seen it as very different because it really is, and when I look at who's testified in front of us, it's those folks that, to me, have the stories that resonate the greatest with me. And so, I would love, and I don't know, I can either bring an amendment next time or can just throw this out here for the makers to consider, but I would love to see the initial registration fees and the annual registration fees be reduced for owner -operator to really make those accessible to aunty who's renting a room of her child who's gone off to college, and is not making a lot of money but does it to survive. Or those coffee farmers, or the other people that we've heard from. So, I would propose an initial registration fee for owner -operator to be $100 and annual registration to be $50. That would be my proposal. And I'm happy to write up the amendment and see if it flies. But I wanted to just put that out there for the makers as well because this is your bill, and I know you've considered these things greatly already and, you know, I know you must have reasons for the amounts that you chose. But that's just how I'm feeling based on everything we've heard and going forward. So, I'd love to hear anymore on that. Thank you. Page 45 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada, thank you for bringing that forward. In the interest of time, it seems that the introducers will be taking that up and we'll have it up for discussion at our next meeting. So, there was a motion to postpone Bill 121, Draft 2, as amended, to our September Yd Committee meeting by Council Member Kimball and a second by Council Member Kierkiewicz. Any discussion on the postponement? All those in favor, please say "aye." Vote on Motion Ms. Kimball moved to postpone Bill 121, Draft 2, as to Postpone: amended to Draft 3, to September 3, 2024. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Kagiwada, Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, Villegas, and Acting Chair Inaba — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. INABA: And we'll move right on along to Bill 122. Bill 122: AMENDS CHAPTER 25 AND CHAPTER 14, ARTICLE 4, SECTION 14-20, (Draft 2) OF THE HAWAI'I COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO THE REPEAL OF BED AND BREAKFAST AS A PERMITTED USE Repeals all provisions that allow for Bed and Breakfast establishments. Reference: Comm. 676.13 Intr. by: Ms. Kimball and Ms. Kierkiewicz Referred to Planning Commissions: January 30, 2024 Postponed: July 8, 2024 (Note: There is a motion by Ms. Kimball, seconded by Ms. Galimba, to recommend passage of Bill 122, Draft 2, on first reading.) ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. I'm going to suggest that we postpone this. Bill 121 and 122 should really run together. There's one comment that I wanted to just make for clarity because I think it came up in the testimony and also some of the comments from the body. Bed and breakfast (B&B) is not exclusively limited to owner -run. You can have a bed and breakfast that is run by an operator. I just want to make sure that —it is not exclusively somebody's home to run a B&B the way that that part of the Code is written now. So, again, the Page 46 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 purpose of Bill 122 was that because there was a registration process for hosted and operator -hosted now in Bill 121, there was no need for a second process, which is Bill 122, the bed and breakfast. If we were to not sunset the bed and breakfast Code, I do want the rest of the members of this body to be aware that this would be another pathway for operator -hosted, in other words, investor - owned. Operator -hosted is a possibility in the bed and breakfast code. That's the only comment I wanted to make. I'm going to postpone this to September Yd too, unless there's any further discussion before we do that. MS. KAGIWADA: Chair? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. I just wanted to ask for clarification because it's also come up to me from a couple constituents and I believe I understand it, but I would like it stated for the record, that Section 8, this refers to existing bed and breakfasts that are permitted and that this means that the TAR regulations, including the fees, if Bill 121 passes, do not apply to these existing bed and breakfast. The annual fees or the initial registration fees. That they are grandfathered in and can exist as they are. So, I just wanted to ask that for the record and see if I could get a clarification. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yes. It's not correct to say that they're grandfathered in. It's more correct to say that their existing permits to operate a bed and breakfast will be honored and will continue to be honored, and they run with the property. So, they are not becoming TAR's, they are staying B&B's, but they will not have to do anything additional to keep operating, except now that they are going to fall under the same standards of operation in terms of the quiet hours and signage and all of that, but they will —the bed and breakfast permit is in perpetuity. MS. KAGIWADA: And they will not have to pay that initial registration or annual fees? MS. KIMBALL: That's correct. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Thank you so much. I just wanted to clarify that for the record. Thank you. I yield. MS. VILLEGAS: Quick question. ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Villegas. Page 47 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MS. VILLEGAS: Quick question. One of the testifiers spoke about being in the process of putting one together. How does that affect that person's circumstances, if you don't mind answering that? MS. KIMBALL: I think Director can answer that better than I can. I think if it's been issued, it's been issued regardless of whether or not the building is complete. But if we need to tweak that, that's one that I have no problem tweaking. But you can clarify that, please. MR. KERN: Yeah. I definitely think there's maybe an opportunity for little tweak. But the primary thing is that they have that entitlement. The entitlement is the approval of the use pen -nit or the special permit or whatever existed to say, you can do this now; you have a special permit number; you have a bed and breakfast number; you're moving forward. They may not have had all of their building plans done and everything complete CO (Chief Officer) but once they have that entitlement, that should lock them in. That would be the intent. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you. MS. EVANS: Chair? ACTING CHR. INABA: Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: I would like to make an amendment to the motion. ACTING CHR. INABA: The motion currently is to forward this bill. Point of Order: MS. EVANS: Clerk, can you amend a motion? MR. HENRICKS: Not the motion that's on the floor right now. The motion on the floor right now is — MS. EVANS: Is to postpone to a certain day. MR. HENRICKS: No. There has not been a motion made to postpone yet. MS. EVANS: I'm sorry, what? MR. HENRICKS: Would you like to? ACTING CHR. INABA: Motion on the floor is to forward Bill 122 to Council with a favorable recommendation. There's not been a motion to postpone that I've acknowledged. MS. EVANS: I thought she was postponing. Okay. Page 48 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 ACTING CHR. INABA: We are postponing. But I haven't acknowledged the motion yet. MS. EVANS: But it's not, that's not —okay. Okay. Alright. So, I want to speak to it then. ACTING CHR. INABA: To the motion to forward to Council? MS. EVANS: Right. ACTING CHR. INABA: Yes, go ahead. MS. EVANS: Okay. I would really like the Council to consider holding this to the call of the chair, sometime in the future after, if we move forward with the economic study, I think the bed and breakfast is a niche. I think it's served its purpose well. And my understanding from people who have bed and breakfast, that it's a very difficult thing to get from the Planning Department, that there's so much that they have to do to ever get the bed and breakfast designation. It is a product we've had in Hawaii for a long, long time, and I do think it serves a different niche and it's been pretty successful. I want to ask the Planning Director; I'm told that it's very hard to get a bed and breakfast. It might be a special use permit that you have a lot of requirements on them. MR. KERN: I think people have different experiences on the level of challenge with it. There's an application process and there's information that needs to be provided that we can put together a complete application with the department and then make its way through to the respective Planning Commission to approve it. There's a fair amount of work that does go into it. MS. EVANS: That's what I've understood. And I'd just hate to see us combine these two right now. I like where we're headed with the TAR bill, but I think we should hold on the bed and breakfast at this time and postpone it to the call of the chair. That is what I would prefer. Thank you. ACTING CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Evans. With that, Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. Chair, motion to postpone to September 3rd. I do want to just keep these two together for the time being. I appreciate Council Member Evans' recommendation. Page 49 PCPLUD-19 Vote on Motion Ms. Kimball moved to postpone Bill 122, Draft 2, to Postpone: September 3, 2024. Seconded by Ms. Galimba and (Approved) carried by the following roll call vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Kagiwada, Kaneali'i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, Villegas, and Acting Chair Inaba — 8. Noes: Committee Member Evans — 1. Absent: None. Excused: None. August 20, 2024 CHR. INABA: With that, at 3:50 p.m., I'll be handing the Chair back to Council Member Kierkiewicz. Relinquish Chair: At this time, Acting Chair Inaba relinquished the chair to Chair Kierkiewicz. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Let the record reflect I have resumed the chairmanship of Committee at 3:51 p.m. Next order of business please. Mr. Clerk, Bill 127. Bill 127: AMENDS CHAPTER 25, ARTICLE 2, DIVISION 4, SECTION 25-2-44, OF (Draft 2) THE HAWAI'l COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO CONDITIONS ON CHANGE OF ZONE Requires the Planning Director to include time constraints for the completion or satisfaction of conditions imposed in change of zoning district ordinances that do not revert zoning to a previous zoning district designation or an open zoning designation. Reference: Comm. 694.8 Intr. by: Mr. Inaba Postponed: February 7, July 9 and July 23, 2024 Referred to Planning Commissions: February 20, 2024 (Note: There is a motion by Mr. Inaba, seconded by Ms. Galimba, to recommend passage of Bill 127, Draft 2, on first reading.) (Note: Comm. 694.9, from Council Member Holeka Goro Inaba dated August 20, 2024, transmitting proposed amendments to Bill 127, Draft 2, was circulated.) CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Mr. Inaba, we have a motion on the floor, but I also see that you've transmitted an amendment. Do you want to just go ahead and move that in? MR. INABA: Yes, please. Page 50 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 Motion to Amend: Mr. Inaba moved to amend Bill 127, Draft 2, with the contents of Comm. 694.9. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Mr. Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. So, this bill we held over one month, I took this to both Planning Commissions, and they did recommend taking up the recommendations that the Planning Director had shared. So, what is contained in this communication speaks to the tolling provisions. So, the language here Director Kern and staff provided kind of like three sections on tolling and what happens and an auto -reversion. What this amendment does is kind of combine all of that language into one section. So, essentially, this amendment is saying that when an application or plan review is in the hands of government agencies that time wouldn't count towards the timeline allotted to an applicant. And to prove this time that the agencies had their application, they would have to include, you know, a screenshot or evidence of that delay. And it makes it very clear that if any of the conditions of a change of zone are not met by the end of the allotted time or the applicant has not requested an extension by that deadline, then the ordinance is null and void and the zoning reverts back to the previous designation that it was right prior to the change of zone ordinance that is currently on the land. So, this is for discussion. Again, we've kind of had this discussion on tolling over the last couple of years. I personally, still think that we've provided a framework for extra time to be secured in a fair way. But I wanted to bring this language forward to see if it's something that the Council would want to support and, you know, I could still support this bill with this language. So, opening it up to the body for discussion and happy to take any questions. And actually, before I give up the floor, Director Kern, did you want to add anything based on what you folks submitted and what you see here in the amendment? MR. KERN: Thank you, Council Member. I think you did a good job explaining it. And it's basically, you took those three, you put it into one. It hits kind of the tolling, the time extension, and the auto -reversion, which were all concerns. So, happy to answer any other questions. Thank you. MR. INABA: Thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Anyone here in Kona, questions or comments on the amendment? Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yes. So, just to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, I'm going to use an example. Let's say there is a project that its' time extension Page 51 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 expired, correct. And so, what this means is that it immediately reverts back to its original zoning? MR. INABA: I prefer to has the Planning Director answer this. MS. VILLEGAS: Sure. MR. KERN: Yeah. If this bill passes as its amended right here, then any future change of zone going forward, we would put a time condition on there and it would be subject to these conditions. And if it didn't get done in time, then it would revert back to its original zoning, and we avoid the properties going into a state of limbo or the stale ordinance that we've talked about many times. MS. VILLEGAS: That we're dealing with under a lot of different circumstances at the moment. MR. KERN: Correct. And it would then, if somebody came in for that, it would basically be a new fresh application instead of a time extension from a previously expired time condition. MS. VILLEGAS: That sounds absolutely amazing. Thank you for bringing this forward. I have heard for years this be requested from people. And so, thank you for putting this into words and articulating it so it encompasses those three issues that we're dealing with, so that we can put some of this stuff to bed and save developers, purchasing pieces of property with expired zonings. They can go into it knowing what they can expect and bring forth something that's fresh and new instead of digging up old carcasses and trying to sell it to us as brand new babies. And, yeah, I'm just grateful for this. So, thanks for wrapping this all into one piece and look forward to moving this forward in Council. I yield. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Anyone in Hilo, on the amendment? Okay. Anyone here in Kona? Director Kern, does your staff have everything it needs, resource wise, to be able to implement what is being suggested here? There's a lot of tracking and then notification of applicant. So, I'm assuming that we need time, software, to kind of pull all of this together. The reason why I bring that up is I would hate for there to be some kind of technicality that an applicant can like bring forward and appeal a decision that's coming from the Planning Director as it relates to zoning reversion. MR. KERN: I think the biggest, you know, component to that is that notification of the timing coming up. I believe with the, you know, this is where it's not fool proof, with the technology that we have and we're continuing to refine and adjust, my hope would be that any of these would basically have an auto email, auto letter that would go out. We'd hit a trigger, you know, a year before the zoning's going to say expired and see nothing's happened, we would send an email as well Page 52 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 as a letter. It's making sure that we have that mechanism in place for that trigger. If it's just an email and a letter, I don't have a problem with that. We'll have, you know, form letters for that. It's just a matter of making sure we're capturing it. It's the 100 percent consistency that I think is going to be a little bit harder to guarantee. But with anything, we'll do our very best. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. I appreciate the positive attitude in making this happen. By our next convening on this particular measure, could we just get a little bit more detail from you in terms of what it's going to take to implement this. The reason why I'm asking is I hate unfunded mandates, right. So, if there is a little bit of extra that you're needing in your budget to invest in software or an 89-day contract for somebody to pull all this information together, let's invest in that. MR. KERN: Yeah. I think what we're actually going to be doing is coming in and potentially asking for another team member next go around, just as we have kind of the cumulative impact of all of the movement coming along. I think we're going to possibly need that. Even from the standpoint of our staffing right now is set that 100 percent of that work is based on 100 percent of those team members. But if we don't have those team members, we're not quite right. So, we try to figure out right size staffing to accommodate vacancies. But that's a conversation for another day. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Thank you. There is a motion on the floor. All those in favor — MS. LEE LOY: I'm sorry, Chair. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes. Go ahead, Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Director, in support of this amendment. I was just curious as to the language on the tolling is one part. Contained within this amendment, if any condition has not been completed, but then it offers —say there's 10 conditions to be completed and they completed five of them, they would still be offered the opportunity to do a time extension? MR. KERN: Yes. So, the mechanism is just different. So, this incorporates the previous legislation that was done. So, if they need a time extension, they'd be notified, it'd be done prior to the time lapsing, and then they would come to Council and say, "Hey, we're requesting the time extension," as it was contemplated in the previous bill. MS. LEE LOY: Perfect. And then just as a matter of mechanics, often times a change of zone regulatory pen -nit, there's an annual report that's required at the end of every year. Is this a space or an opportunity — Page 53 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MR. KERN: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: Because here's where I'm at. Often times we can't control the other side of the counter. And what this does is, when an applicant comes forward and there's agencies reviewing that application, the clock stops, right? On the other side of the counter is the applicant, and I'm trying to ensure that the applicant will also be forthright about providing that annual progress report at the end of every year, which would then serve as a nice space for the department to provide that tickler or that notice back to the applicant saying, "Hey, we have this condition contained within your zoning ordinance and if you're not going to comply, the property is going to get reverted back or here's the process for our time extension." MR. KERN: Yeah. I do think that's a good mechanism. Where I find the potential challenge is when we're thinking about kind of the two universes of change of zones. We kind of have the larger ones, that are going to be more like a professional developer style, and then we have the mom and pop folks, right? And the professional side of it is a lot more custom to do on the annual progress reports. They have mechanisms in there and they're much more maybe aware of what's going on throughout that duration of those years. Where we see it being a little bit more challenging is on the smaller scale, more family based side of it. Best of intent —like we just saw that one some forward for a reversion from RM (Residential Multi -family) to back to RS (Residential Single-family), right. They're not always as consistent with the annual progress reports and that's where I need to find that kind of, that reassurance, setting them up for success. And then to your point, trying to have that mechanism to keep them engaged or aware as we move through this, and then to also have that notification so we're communicating clearly. Right now the department doesn't communicate if your timing's coming up. It's just, it's pretty much on the applicant to maintain that. So, let me think about that a little more. I'd also appreciate any thought from your folks' side of how to right size that APR, Annual Progress Report, or APR, based on the applicant. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. Thank you for that. Absolutely. Because we just know that they're due annually at the end of every year. And to the point that Ms. Kierkiewicz is mentioning, if there's resources or some kind of software or something that provides that tickler to alert staff and the applicant, you know, we want people to be successful, right? We don't want to set them up for failure. In support of this. Let me think on that a little bit and the mechanics of kind of implementing this. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Council Member Evans, you have the floor. Page 54 PCPLUD-19 August 20,2024 MS. EVANS: I have a question on the way it's written. So, there can be tolling based on required plans, reports, studies, submitted, approved, denied, or returned by a government agency, which would then put the ball back in the court of that applicant, which then may have to go redo, hire another consultant, appeal the decision by the government agency, which drags it on. But then, the next sentence is the one I'm kind of wondering if the language is clear enough. It says, if any conditions have not been completed by the deadline, or if a time extension has not been submitted, the Planning Department shall revert, will inform the applicant its null and void. In your opinion, it says if any conditions have not been completed when the reality is in the sentence up above it says, it could get delayed for years actually because you might get denied by an agency, go back, denied; back and forth, back and forth. It could extend for years. So, what's happening here is what we're saying to the applicant, it's almost like the very beginning. The applicant needs to know that they can keep asking for an extension request over and over until they get all their conditions met? Because if there's seven conditions and they have five and they can't quite get those last two, and they're coming up on that deadline to meet those conditions, they're going to ask you for an extension. So, they can come back several times? I mean, what would the extension period be if they had two agencies that continue to go back and forth with and appealing the government, let's say a federal agency or state agencies decision? MR. KERN: The appeal side of it, I think that might be a different story. But in the processing side of things, you know, if you're processing, you're in SHPD (State Historic Preservation Department) review, you're in Public Works review, that time isn't counted against your overall timeframe. Alright so, let's just say we have a project that comes in, we say we only believe it's a ten-year timeframe to get it done. Any time that it's within those agency review, we're not counting it against that ten years. So, they might end up with a total 12-year timeframe over on that. The Planning Director doesn't grant time extensions, so we wouldn't do that, we would confirm that they're working with the agencies and the agencies consistently —we would basically confirm what they're representing was true, that it was with DPW for three months, was it with SHPD for a month, yes. If they're looking for a time extension outside of that, then they're going to come through and they're going to submit it to us to give to the County Council, and the County Council would then issue that time extension. If none of that happens, then it would just revert back to its original zoning. MS. EVANS: I just got hung up on the word "or." If any conditions have not been completed by the deadline or if a time extension has not been submitted. Page 55 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MR. KERN: So, if the conditions haven't been met or a time extension hasn't been sought and granted, then it's going to be two options, you're either getting it, asking for time, if that doesn't hit, it's done. MS. EVANS: So, a developer could drag their feet in terms of all the conditions they have to meet and all the tolling because they're —the only reason is because a lot of federal and state agencies require quite a bit, you know, and they keep asking for stuff. So, I'm just wondering if in some ways you could probably drag it out if you wanted it to, but basically, you're just coming to you saying we just can't seem to meet these conditions, but we keep trying. So basically, there's a proof part to this, which I think maybe what Member Lee Loy is trying to get to. You'd have to prove that you're actively seeking that permit or that application from that agency and having an annual report shows your progress to it. MR. KERN: Yeah. I'm kind of confused about the process of continually meeting these conditions. You have rezoning ordinance that would be granted; you have those conditions, the person's going through it and the entities going through it, they're working with the agencies; we're not counting that time. MS. EVANS: Okay. It could take a while. I can tell you, at SHPD you could take two, three years. MR. KERN: And that's kind of the intent of the tolling. If you're coming in and saying, hey, ten years is where we believe it should be in, and if it sits at an agency for three years, is that fair to the person? And that's where the tolling, I think creates a little bit more equity. MS. EVANS: Right, but if the three years is within the deadline period, it doesn't matter. But you're saying if it takes three years to get SHPD, they automatically get another three years? MR. KERN: Yes. So, then they would come in, you know, in a perfect world they're getting everything done, if I'm giving a ten-year timeframe on it, they're getting everything done in five or six years. But if everything's getting pushed, things are taking time, they're going to come in and they're going to say, hey, we're getting close to our timeframe, they're going to show us the ins and outs of the application they've submitted, and then we would do the analysis on that time and adjust their time accordingly to not count those agencies review against their time. That's the tolling. MS. EVANS: I just know being a staff person in government and trying to understand language, sometimes one sentence you'll have staff sit in a room for two hours trying to figure out how to apply it because they didn't quite get it. That's why I'm kind of playing around with the idea of kind of, you know, you get into it, it's a ten-year timeframe and you get stuck for a little while. And Page 56 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 when you get stuck does it automatically give you that extension or do you always have to come in like, I think Member Lee Loy was trying to say, is if you have an annual update on where you're at on all those conditions it looks as though your intent is to truly move forward on the project. Anyway, thank you. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: There is a motion on the floor. All those in favor, please say "aye." Vote on Motion The motion to amend Bill 127, Draft 2, with the contents to Amend: of Comm. 694.9 was carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kimball, Lee Loy, Villegas, and Chair Kierkiewicz — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Back to the main motion. Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Yes. Thank you. I'll just kind of recap and relevel us. We took up Bill 194 in the previous Council term where we weren't allowing administrative extensions anymore. We also allowed a new method for securing extensions via resolution from the Council to preserve the integrity and the conditions of the original change of zone ordinance. What we're doing here is providing both flexibility and a hard deadline. You know, if folks are running into some issues with agencies reviews, they can get that little extra time from the department as it approaches, and if they fail —and they can also, again, with the Code, come to get up to the original timeframe from the Council as an extension. And if they don't do either of those, then we see the auto reversion where we are going to get rid of this stale ordinance problem we've been experiencing. And to Council Member Evans' comments, we did have staff sit in meetings for hours already on this. So I do want to thank Tracy (Camera), and Director Kern, and all the folks in Planning, Deputy (Jeffrey) Darrow, Corporation Counsel as well. We've kind of gone through and thought. So, it's been a team effort. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. You know, I'm sort of a little bit split on this. I kind of —the logic of having timing conditions, a time requirement on a condition, I get that, but the other part for me is sort of more philosophically, that we're just continuing to march down a road where we're making it harder and harder to basically build houses in this County. So, I'm not going to be supporting this Page 57 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 based on that. I do support the tolling. I think that's good if we're going to have time conditions, they should definitely stop and start based on outside conditions. But again, sort of the entire framework for me is becoming overly cumbersome of these change of zones where the conditions then becoming this huge fight that we have that is just increasing the reputation of our County as a place that's impossible to build on scale, which is something that we need. So, a bit of a protest vote. Yeah. Thanks. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: We settled on the one -quarter mile because when someone comes in to do a change of zone, they're required to notify the landowners around them and to post that sign up on the road. And so, we felt they're already, staff was already looking at this information and they didn't feel like it was a heavy lift for them because that's why we kept the distance, which is already manageable— CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Council Member Evans, we're on Bill 127. MS. EVANS: I'm sorry. I'm on the next one, Bill 134. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Getting ahead of yourself. MS. EVANS: I'm sorry. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: It's okay. Are you done? MS. EVANS: But I do want you to know, we vetted; definitely, I'm sure he did too, in his bill. But we spent a lot of hours with the Director's staff on these bills. Thank you. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Anyone in Hilo? Bill 127, Draft 2, as amended. No comments there. I'll be supporting this. I think it reflects the reality of what's happening on the ground, is we need some developer accountability. But also, there is just something so wrong about our processes and folks that are trying to build housing should not be penalized when agencies sometimes take years to review their portion of this process. So, I am with you, Council Member Galimba, but I do think that if this is something that the department can support, get behind, and is feasible to implement then, you know, I think this will help to increase transparency in the community. But also, again, development time where other agencies are reviewing documentation would not count against the developer. So, I appreciate having that clarification here. Alright, there is a motion on the floor to forward Bill 127, Draft 2, as amended, to the Council with a favorable recommendation. Mr. Clerk, could we do a roll call vote, please? Page 58 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 Vote on Bill 127: The motion to recommend passage of Bill 123, Draft 2, (Draft 2) as amended to Draft 3, was carried by the following roll (Approved) call vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder, Kimball, Lee Loy, Villegas, and Chair Kierkiewicz; — 8. Noes: Committee Member Galiniba — 1. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Next order of business, Bill 134. Bill 134: AMENDS CHAPTER 25, ARTICLE 2, SECTION 25-2-42 OF THE HAWAPI (Draft 2) COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO AMENDMENTS INITIATED BY PROPERTY OWNERS AND OTHER PERSONS Adds a provision requiring the Planning Director to submit a subject area building entitlement report to the applicable planning commission and the County Council for each change of zoning district application. The report would identify permits, approvals, or other lawful entitlements allowing for the construction of a building or buildings on any parcel of land within a quarter -mile radius of the parcel for which the change of zoning district is sought. Reference: Comm. 741.4 Intr. by: Mr. Inaba and Ms. Evans Postponed: March 5, 2024 Referred to Planning Commissions: April 2, 2024 ;and Comm. 741.5: From Mayor Mitchell D. Roth, dated July 26, 2024, transmitting for Council's consideration and action, letters from the Windward and Leeward Planning Commissions. (Note: Comm. 741.6, from Council Members Holeka Goro Inaba and Cindy Evans dated August 19, 2024, transmitting proposed amendments to Bill 134, Draft 2, was circulated.) Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to recommend passage of Bill 134, Draft 2, on first reading. Seconded by Ms. Evans. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Council Member Inaba. Page 59 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MR. INABA: Thank you. We did forward this to our Planning Commissions. You can see the original language of the bill is there and we had good discussion. The Windward Planning Commission ended up forwarding an unfavorable —well, going back; the Planning Department reviewed, and the Planning Director submitted his report to the Planning Commissions, requesting an unfavorable recommendation be forwarded to the Council. The Windward Planning Commission met and did forward an unfavorable recommendation on Bill 134, and then we subsequently in that time had time to come up with some language to clarify the intent and make it a little bit more, I guess, possible, for the Planning Department to take up. And that language was then proposed to the Leeward Planning Commission, who forwarded a favorable recommendation to the Council. So, where we are today is we have an amendment to Bill 134, and I'd like to make that motion to amend with the contents of Communication 741.6. Motion to Amend: Mr. Inaba moved to amend Bill 134, Draft 2, with the contents of Comm. 741.6. Seconded by Ms. Evans. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. The original bill, as you can see, sought to have the director identify all buildings, excluding the existing buildings that are legally permitted to be constructed on parcels within a quarter mile of a subject or an applicant's parcel. That is just not possible with the information and data that the Planning Department has access to, and it was a little difficult to try and loop in DPW into this bill. So, what is being proposed via this amendment is sharing and identifying any properties within one -quarter mile of a subject parcel that have undergone a change of zone, giving us the status update of that change of zone to include any conditions that may or may not have been completed yet and the expiration of those ordinances, as well as any lots within the quarter mile that have zoning that would allow subdivision to occur, and identifying the total number of lots that could be created from that original lot. So, it just gives us a better picture of what is around a subject parcel when we discuss it. And I would like to give the opportunity to the Planning Director to share anything he'd like on the amendment that's before us today, which is again kind of what the discussion at the Leeward Planning Commission was centered around. So, Director Kern. MR. KERN: Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. I think we're getting closer. We've come a long ways on this one, lots of meetings. I think we're getting much closer. Honestly, I've been feeling like this one, I've been in a bit of a vacuum on, just timing wise and personal things that have come up. If I could, I'd like a little bit more time just to kind of digest this with the team and come back with some better discussion. Again, I think we're getting much closer to something that's achievable and will provide some good information. Page 60 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 MR. INABA: Thank you, Director Kern. Is another two weeks good enough? Okay. I'm happy to hear any other feedback from the Committee. And again, the intent of this bill is to give us a framework of potential impact of a change of zone ordinance that we're considering in light of other applications that have been granted in the surrounding areas. So, if anyone has comments on the distance, or anything that might need to be included that isn't, please share that and we can take that up as part of our discussion with Planning in the next two weeks. Thank you. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Any comments on the amendment? Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Chair, thank you. Yeah, starting where Mr. Inaba dropped off, which was the distance. You know, whatever distance it is, I do like when it's consistent with other stuff that we do. So, when we do a notice to surrounding property owners in an urban district, it's at a certain feet, or an ag district. That would be one area I think I would just want to see some consistency to. And then I do like the other potential conditions of approval that have not yet been met. And I think with the subsequent bill that we were talking about, I think this is the area, Director Kern, if there was software or staffing, or like a program analysis to help us identify an area where these conditions, for example, road widening, would happen. We could then, from a government perspective, start to provide resources and funding in areas to help ensure that everybody's meeting the various conditions of approval in a particular area. Those are my suggestions. If I have anymore, I'll definitely offline share it with you. But my biggest concern is the distance, that it's consistent with other applications that we have. I yield. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Anyone else in Hilo? No lights on. Here in Kona? Council Member Inaba, given the Director's desire to mull this amendment over with his staff, do you want to withdraw and reintroduce in two weeks? MR. INABA: Postpone the bill? CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Withdraw this amendment so that they can weigh in on it because it sounded like you didn't have a chance to look this over with your staff, Director? MR. KERN: Yeah, what I'd like to do is review it and then offer some comment on it, some feedback, maybe some language. MR. INABA: Sure. We'll withdraw the motion. Page 61 PCPLUD-19 Withdraw Motion to Amend: Motion to Postpone: August 20, 2024 Mr. Inaba withdrew his motion to amend Bill 134, Draft 2, with the contents of Comm. 741.6. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Could I have a motion to postpone Bill 134? Mr. Inaba moved to postpone Bill 134, Draft 2, to September 3, 2024. Seconded by Ms. Villegas. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Any discussion? Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you. As we've been discussing this particular bill, I kept thinking about how valuable this would be, this data would be, in like a decision matrix type environment. So, very thrilled that you're going to postpone this now to the third because we have the Decision Theater folks coming in that same day to give a presentation and they are funded to provide us with potential decision support through ASU (Arizona State University), which people have mixed feeling about ASU, but I like them. So, glad to see this is going to be on the same agenda because I think we could have a really nice digital tool to play with, to look at, for future zoning, rezoning, ordinances based on some of the stuff you're collecting. So, yeah. Thank you. I yield. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Anyone else on the postponement? Seeing none, all those in favor of postponing Bill 134 to the September 3rd Committee meeting, please say "aye." Vote on Motion The motion to postpone Bill 134, Draft 2, to to Postpone: September 3, 2024, was carried by the following roll call (Approved) vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder, Kimball, Lee Loy, Villegas, and Chair Kierkiewicz — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Mr. Clerk, final item on the agenda, Bill 194. Page 62 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 Bill 194: AMENDS CHAPTER 25, ARTICLES 1, 2, 4, 5, AND 7, OF THE HAWAIJ COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO TELECOMMUNICATION ANTENNAS AND TOWERS Amends the definition of "telecommunication antenna" and adds a definition for "telecommunication tower", expands plan approval requirements, allows for telecommunication antennas or towers in any zoning district upon approval of the Planning Director, and revises siting, design, and operating regulations to align with State law. Reference: Comm. 985 Intr. by: Ms. Evans Motion to Approve: Ms. Evans moved to forward Bill 194 to the Planning Director and Planning Commissions. Seconded by Ms. Galiinba. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: You're welcome. MS. EVANS: Thank you to everyone who testified this morning. I just wanted to give just a brief history because some of us have seen that there is a cell tower, communication tower, bill that has been forwarded to the Planning Commission also by the Planning Department. So, just to why are they looking kind of parallel. So, I wanted to tell the history of this. About a year ago, my constituents in North Kohala and constituents in South Kohala who didn't even know that they were on the same page or had concerns about these towers, came to me and said they were really worried about the cell towers. And so, I started doing my research and I ended up drafting a bill, which I finished in December, and I forwarded to Corporation Counsel for review. And about a month later I believe it was Corporation Counsel called me and said that the Planning Department was working on updating the telecommunication antenna —they wanted to make some changes to the Code because the state legislature had passed a new bill called Chapter 46-89, for your reference. Basically, what that bill did is say that you have to —if somebody comes and applies to put in a tower, the decision has to be made within 60 days, or it's considered an automatic approval. Currently, the way we have it in Code, it's a special use permit. Now, when I was looking at my bill, I didn't even know this existed, so I was looking at it from a totally different viewpoint. I think this is really important for Page 63 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 everybody to know, I wasn't working on Chapter 46-89. I didn't even know that had been passed by the legislature. What I was trying to do is look at the Code to determine what we had done in Code. Come to find out, there was almost so little written in Code, it was kind of surprising. And so, I've spent several months, a lot of constituents and staff time, looking at what other states, what other cities, what the Federal Communications Commission allows and doesn't allow because, you know, they kind of rule on this issue. And so, what you're seeing before you is what I believe is bringing our Code very current, which is being done all across the United States, and that is, all local jurisdictions have the right to set up standards and to put in restrictions on the placement of towers. But it's very important, we cannot stop towers. The federal law and congress has made it very, very clear that the deployment of broadband and towers, we cannot stand in the way of that. But we do have the right to set standards and also application requirements. And so, just so you know, for the public and for my colleagues, is it's really, if you're coming, which is going to go from special use permit to plan approval now because of the 60-day requirement in Chapter 46. So, it's now moving from special use permit to plan approval. But because of it, we have rights to tell them if you come in and apply, this is the kind of information we want, this is standards that we believe that we will make our decisions based on. I think you will like it. I worked with our Fire Chief. This, actually now they're going to be required to submit a fire safety plan, which I think is, you know, one of the real benefits of doing this after what happened in Lahaina. And what we're doing is they have to come in front of our fire chief and tell them what they're going to do because these towers, a lot of them, have generators, and they have equipment buildings that are at the base. The other thing is sometimes they're out in an environment where around them they should be managing their landscape. They also should be required to make sure that access by fire trucks to get to these areas where these towers are located that they have reasonable access in case we have to fight a fire out where they're at. But there's all these kinds of requirements and conditions. But I think, like I said, we have spent hours trying to vet this. I have talked to the PUC (Public Utilities Commission), I've talked to DLNR (Department of Land and Natural Resources), the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), the Federal Communications Commission. We've tried to look at all other counties. Again, we've tried everything and anything to make sure that we don't overstep our legal authority. I believe Corporation Counsel and the Planning Department were both given opportunities to vet my bill. And so, anyway, I feel it's gone through a lot of review and I'm looking forward to the Planning Commissions review and input. Thank you. Page 64 PCPLUD-19 August 20, 2024 CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Council Member Evans, your time is up. We have our Planning Director and Deputy here; want to give you both an opportunity to weigh-in on this bill and also confirm, you folks initiated a bill regarding telecommunications as a Department that's currently being reviewed by Commissions. I just want to confirm that? MR. KERN: Yes. So, I guess I'll start with that. The department has been working on legislation related to cell towers for quite a while. We've been acutely aware of (Chapter) 46-89, and really knowing that we need to make some adjustments to work with that provision because currently we're not set up well for it. So we've been working on that, moving it forward. We're aware obviously, Council Member Evans has that as well. Ours will be coming out to the Windward Planning Commission at the beginning of September. And we look forward to reviewing this bill, providing a background report, and recommendation, as we normally do. Very thorough. And then we'll route that through the Planning Commissions, and then it'll make its way back to here and we'll have much more to offer at that time. And ours will then also make it to you folks, and there'll be two bills. My understanding is there are some similarities. There're also some differences. And we're looking forward to that conversation. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. So seeing as we'll see both versions of a bill to regulate telecommunication antennas and towers, unless anybody has comments or questions that they really want to get out there, I can just take the vote to move this to Commission and Department for their review. Folks are nodding their heads. They like that approach. Okay, We'll reconvene on this in a few months after we hear back from Commission and the Department. Again, there is a motion on the floor to forward Bill 194 to Planning Commissions and Planning Director. All those in favor, please say "aye." Vote on Motion The vote on the motion to refer Bill 194 to the Planning to Refer: Director and Planning Commissions, pursuant to Section (Approved) 25-2-43(b) of the Hawaii County Code was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder, Kimball, Lee Loy, Villegas, and Chair Kierkiewicz — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 65 PCPLUD-19 [O'Nallem JUVIRLINN August 20, 2024 There being no further business, Chair Kierkiewicz adjourned the meeting at 4:36 p.m. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: Great job, everyone. Thank you. wp--� Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Chair Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use, and Development AK/tk -(Date) Page 66