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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN PCIA 2024/10/01 (2022-2024)Policy Committee on Infrastructure and Assets 18t' Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii October 1, 2024 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Policy Committee on Infrastructure and Assets ORDER: was called to order at 9:06 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Chair Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Vice Chair Ms. Cindy Evans, Member Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Member Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member (via videoconference from Kona) Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member STATEMENTS The Acting 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: (There were none.) Bill 204: AMENDS CHAPTER 24, ARTICLE 10, DIVISION 1, OF THE HAWAI`I COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO SPEED LIMITS Establishes County speed limits of either 25 or 35 miles per hour for certain portions of the Akoni Pule Highway between Highway 250 and the Polulu Valley Lookout. Reference: Comm.1046 Intr. by: Ms. Lee Loy (B/R) Motion to Approve: Ms. Evans moved to recommend passage of Bill 204 on first reading. Seconded by Ms. Kagiwada. CHR. LEE LOY: Ms. Evans, I know this is in your district. Please, lead our discussion. PCIA-18 October 1, 2024 MS. EVANS: Thank you. We have Director Pause. Would you please come forward? Thank you. So, just a background, the State of Hawaii worked with. our Public Works department and they swapped roads in the Kohala region. We accepted this road from the state, and then that meant that we really had to pass this legislation so that we could put in Code what the speed limits are on this new section of the highway that we took. I wanted to turn it over to Steve because we did hold a town meeting on this, and I'd like to just input what the process was. (At this time, Public Works Director Stephen Pause came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. PAUSE: Steve Pause, Director of Public Works. Yes, we did hold a town meeting or got with the community to talk about this. There was some concern about the existing speed limits, and we had our Traffic folks go out and take another look at it. I think ultimately, what really came out of this was to do some speed reduction in the vicinity of the middle school. So, we are in the process of doing that both with some lights as well as I think we're going to put in an elevated crosswalk in front of the middle school. That work is pending because right now we have repaving scheduled for a large portion of the road that heads towards Pololu. So that work, I think I, of course, bounded with Council Member Evans, is scheduled for some time here in October or November, right after we finish down in Puako which is another area in your district. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, it's just a matter of clarifying that we did take another look at the speeds and then codifying this because this is a section of road that was part of that road swap from 2022. MS. EVANS: Okay, thank you. The bigger question for me is I believe where the school is at, the speed limit didn't change but it will change in the sense that you're going to put that it's a school zone and during school hours the speed is reduced. Is that correct? MR. PAUSE: That's correct. There'll be improved markings to identify that during school hours, the reduction to 20, and like I said, the elevated crosswalk and the flashing beacons. MS. EVANS: Okay, thank you, thank you very much. Thank you, I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Anyone else? MR. INABA: Herein Kona. CHR. LEE LOY: Mr. Inaba. Page 2 PCIA-18 October 1, 2024 MR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Director Pause, we keep getting these changes, and I want to make sure that we are taking a uniform approach to the mapping just so that we are able to understand clearly. How are the numbers on the map designated in comparison to the bill? MR. PAUSE: The numbers on the map should align with the text that's in the bill. The text that's in the bill was drafted, I believe, by the same Traffic folks who prepared this map. So, if there's an issue there let me know, I can take another look at it. MR. INABA: Okay, so when we look on the map, the southeast bound, there's 25, 35, 25, 35, those correspond with —because the bill sections aren't numbered, they're just bulleted, and we have a 25 miles per hour section and 35 miles per hour section. I just want to make sure that we always have a uniform approach, and not just us, but the public is able to tell what's happening in the bill versus the map. So, can we maybe just get this reviewed and if we can maybe clarify or make it more clear for the Council hearing? That'd be helpful. MR. PAUSE: Yes, Council Member, we can do that. I'll double check that here and then report back. Thank you. MR. INABA: Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Ms. Evans, did you have a follow up? Alright, seeing none, we have a motion on the floor to forward Bill 204 to the Council with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor please say "aye." Vote on. Bill 204: The motion to recommend passage of Bill 204 on first (Approved) reading was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Villegas, and Chair Lee Loy — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 3 PCIA-18 October 1, 2024 Bill 205: AMENDS CHAPTER 24, ARTICLE 10, DIVISION 5, SECTION 24-279, SCHEDULE 27, OF THE HAWAI`I COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO PARKING ON PAVEMENT PROHIBITED AT ALL TIMES AND CHAPTER 24, ARTICLE 10, DIVISION 5, SECTION 24-280, SCHEDULE 28 OF THE HAWAI`I COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO NO PARKING AT ANYTIME Establishes parking restrictions for certain portions of Opelo Road in Kohala. Reference: Comm.1047 Intr. by: Ms. Lee Loy (B/R) Motion to Approve: Ms. Evans moved to recommend passage of Bill 205 on first reading. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. CHR. LEE LOY: Again, Ms. Evans, your district. Please lead our discussion. MS. EVANS: Thank you very much. This is a really interesting situation. The traffic going into Waimea from Kawaihae Harbor, it keeps increasing and we also have kind of a major increase in farmer's market traffic and usage of our ball field. So, what happens is because of this intensity of use, people are using a side street to kind of go around. So, it's kind of like a local knowledge bypass. What happens is people are going up and down Opelo Road going pretty fast, and that road had not had stripes on it for width reasons; they didn't have the white stripes on it. So, that was one of the issues of people speeding and using that more and more. So, what got highlighted and why it came to our attention is that Merriman's is in a building in this shopping center, retail center type facility. Merriman's has been there for years. Well, there's another building that's also in the retail shopping center, and the owner of it has rented that space to other food vendors. So, now instead of Merriman's just being there, we have two other food vendors that are serving food at night, during the day, and having events, and all of a sudden, we're having these issues with parking. So, what was happening is, instead of parallel parking down the road, first of all, there were no stripes on the road, but they were, to gain space, they were doing angle parking. What was happening is the back of their cars and their trucks were actually out in the road, and they were on the pavement of the road. So, we were getting complaints that it was an unsafe situation. So, that brought attention for the traffic safety to go out and review it. The other thing is Board of Water Supply, who is right across from Merriman's, people, when they were doing the angled parking, they actually pushed the fence. There was a chain linked fence, they actually pushed the fence in the land, into the Board of Water Supply land so that they could try to get their trucks off of the pavement. So, now we had a bent fence. So, it's kind of like, you know, the Page 4 PCIA- 18 October 1, 2024 situation doesn't work. There's not enough land to do angled parking. We sent out Traffic Safety out there to analyze it and they came tip with this solution, which I think is working for the safety of the road, but we haven't been able to resolve the problem of the parking situation blowing up, which is what I've brought up a couple times in Council. My concern is we approve these retail centers, but we don't know in the end how it might get used. Now we have three restaurants and it's not working and so, parking is everywhere, on the highway, on the side streets, there are no lights, people crossing roads at night in the dark. I'm hoping that we can bring together all the parties and have a bigger discussion. Unfortunately, this used to be county road, it's now a state highway. This was the swap, the road that's in front of Merriman's. So, this situation really needs to be looked at. But this is the side road, Opelo Road, that everybody is using that created this kind of very unsafe — again, the angled parking, they were parking out into the street. So, I hope I explained it, Steve. Maybe you could add. (Note: At this time, Public Works Director Stephen Pause came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. PAUSE: No, you did great. I think hopefully, the map shows, and I have a blown -up version of it if you want to circulate it. As you captured, the issue fundamentally is cars parking on pavement and that's very clear in our Code in Section 24, that cars cannot park on pavement. A bunch of local folks took some initiative and put signs on fences and such to encourage angled parking, and that actually made the situation worse. I've got some pictures that I can share with you as well. The short of it is we needed to do something, and we did receive a number of complaints. We needed to do something to get the vehicles off the pavement. There are shoulders there, and by marking, by putting stripes, we are able to keep two lanes of traffic open and pushing the vehicles off the pavement so they're not parking on the pavement. They can park on the grass; we have this in numerous other locations. The angled parking, I think which is not allowed by Code, actually probably exacerbated the problem. If you take a (Ford) F-150, even with the space that you have on the side, it's still going to nose, or the boot will stick out into the lanes of traffic. So again, Traffic did take a good look at this; they came up with a striping and signage. The good news is the road is safer and they also cleared some areas where there were line of sight issues for people coming out of driveways. The road itself is safer but as Council Member Evans mentioned, this doesn't address what might be a greater issue which is just the overall act of parking for the businesses that are there. MS. EVANS: Thank you, I yield. Page 5 PCIA-18 October 1, 2024 CHR. LEE LOY: Great. Any other Council Members? Ms. Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. I read the testimony provided by the manager of Merriman's that said that they are concerned about this exacerbating their parking situation even more. Was there ever any consideration of saying like only compact cars can park here and no going into the roadway so that we can maximize the parking without having trucks in the roadway? Was that ever part of the discussion? MR. PAUSE: I don't believe Traffic ever specifically looked at that issue. If you were to take a look at the vehicles that are parked, there's a mixed of compact cars, mid -size cars, small trucks, and large trucks. So, I don't believe they ever made an attempt to differentiate between what types of vehicles could or could not park there. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Are the compact cars, I can't see the picture, are they in the roadway? (Director Pause takes picture to Council Member Kagiwada). Yeah, the truck is seriously the biggest problem in this picture. Okay. Yeah, I do see that there is concern about this really exacerbating the problem. Is there a solution to the parking issue? MR. PAUSE: The only solutions that the county can really work on are ones that are within their control; county streets, county right of ways. As Council Member Evans mentioned, Kawaihae Road is a state road. What is allowed or not allowed is really the call of the DOT (Department of Transportation). And then there are issues with just private landowners and workers, and again, Council Member Evans and I had a number of discussions about workers at Merriman's and the other restaurants and things that are there. But ultimately, I think the community needs to get together to maybe solve some of the issues around parking. What we've done here is the best we can do to accommodate parking in concert with safe travel lanes on Opelo Road. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, so your team is saying that no matter how people park there, if they're off the pavement even, it's still not something they want to see happen. Is that — MR. PAUSE: No, I think getting them off the pavement to keep the two lanes of traffic safe, creating a space where line of sight for people coming out of driveways, I think that really was the driving force. I mean, there's nothing in our Code that allows angled parking here. You could clearly adjust that, but again, when I challenged our Traffic folks, would angle parking work better, their answer was no, at least from a safe standpoint and with the amount of real estate we have on the shoulders, that they felt it was in the best interest to have parallel parking along the sides. Page 6 PCIA-18 October 1, 2024 MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. In some of these pictures it looks like the parallel parking is still problematic. MR. PAUSE: That's correct. But again, with the signage, proper signage telling people, "Hey, you can't park on the pavement," as you look at those pictures, there appears to be enough room, they just need to pull further off the road. MS. KAGIWADA: Right. Yeah, definitely. I'm just wondering if reducing the number of parking spaces to go parallel is really the issue. You never tried signage that tried to just get people to not park on the pavement, even allowing them to continue the angled parking? MR. PAUSE: Again, there's nothing in our Code that allows angled parking there. In the best judgment of the Traffic people from a safety standpoint, they felt what's being proposed here is the best way to go. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Well, I'm going to listen to the parking and the traffic experts here, but based on these pictures, I feel like maybe there's a way to get a little more parking out in the area and try to relieve the concerns of the — MR. PAUSE: Sounds like a Saturday field trip for Council Member Evans and I to go out there and bring our wheels. MS. KAGIWADA: That's right. Okay, have a great time. Maybe you'll get some really delicious food while you're out there because there's some good restaurants there. MR. PAUSE: Thank you. MS. KAGIWADA: Alright, I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kagiwada. Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Mr. Pause, thank you for being here today. I'm thinking about what is being said. How does the county gauge how many parking spots are necessary for businesses as they walk in the door? I'm thinking about our parking island -wide because Jenn's (Kagiwada) thinking — MR. PAUSE: I'm not an expert, but I think that would fall under the purview of Planning. MR. KAN EALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's what I was thinking too. MR. PAUSE: It's relative to issuing permits and such for businesses. Page 7 PCIA-18 October 1, 2024 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, I'll follow up with Planning, thank you. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you. Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah, thank you for asking that question, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, parking being a top -of -mind concern in Kona as well. But there is a line of responsibility for the business owners and for the landlords of these properties and shopping centers as they're renting them to tenants, with having adequate provisions of parking for customers of said businesses that rent from them. It's a challenging dance that we're doing as an island and community because it's private property and the responsibility falls to them and the overflow falls to the public which can cause unintended dangerous circumstances with some of this parking. I like the creativity about only for compact cars, but in Waimea, compact cars aren't very popular. So, you're going to have more of the big trucks than not. So, I just recognize and want to thank Traffic Division for navigating this challenging path to ensuring health and safety and protection on our public roads. And I also want to put a call out there for the property managers and the landlords as they're making decisions on renting commercial spaces to restaurants and whatnot, to take into consideration the burden of providing enough parking spots and how that really does fall to them. So, just kind of a dance we all get to do but thank you to Traffic for trying to navigate best outcome on this one. I appreciate it. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you. Ms. Evans. MS. EVANS: Yeah, so I had the Planning Department go out and evaluate the site. They looked at the square footage, they looked at the number of parking stalls and said that it's always based on, I think it's like per 300 square feet or whatever, you have to provide x amount of parking. So, they met the —so it was built. The parking lot meets the requirements the Planning Department had. I know this came up when we were looking here in Hilo at potentially doing a rezone. Someone was here and there were concerns by the neighbors well yeah, you're going to have one restaurant but what happens if you bring in a second, but then we never did get an answer that day. But this is a situation of what really happens, is if you have a popular restaurant, you have two restaurants at night doing evening meals you could potentially really impact the neighborhood, and that's really what has happened here. I think everybody wants to be good neighbors, but the reality is that overflow now is on the state highway. It's running down on both sides of the state highway. People are talking to the neighbors now and are parking cars now in the front yards of people's houses. So, I talked to Merriman's and asked their manager if Page 8 PCIA- 18 Vote on Bill 205 (Approved) October 1, 2024 they would be willing to host a meeting where we could talk to the owners, but down the road because between Merriman's and Parker School, you have Red Water Cafe, you have Moa Kitchen, you have Hawaiian Style Cafe, you have all these restaurants at night, and if everybody shows up and it's a popular night, the whole place is chaos. I mean the whole thing is chaos. So, I think the State Department of Transportation really needs —unfortunately or fortunately, they're going to be a big player on helping us try to find a solution because my community, through a traffic safety improvement study, wants to have complete streets. They want to have a bicycle lane, and they want to have sidewalks. That particular part of the highway, there is no there's just two shoulders. So, if you take away a shoulder to give a bike lane and sidewalk, they're taking away parking. So, it's only going to get more exacerbated. So, this is a problem that is festering that's going to need a lot of work. Thank you. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Evans. Anyone else? Alright, seeing none, Director, I just want to take a moment to thank the department for advancing the bills. When I started, we didn't even have maps. So, there was no way to orient the members of the Council. So, I really do appreciate your Traffic Division and how they've really grown into this position. I'll definitely have staff coordinate with you, as Mr. Inaba mentioned on the previous bill, to make sure that there's clarity between the language in the bill and the exhibits that are provided. So, I'll definitely have my staff reach out to you on that issue. In addition to what we're talking about now, there are a number of other tools of traffic calming devices that I know Traffic Division has with vertical delineators, alternative striping, just visual prompts to help slow people down. A sign is great because then we can ticket but there's other self -resolving visual prompts that are available and maybe we could also throw that into the tool belt when you're looking for solutions as far as parking. With that, in support of this bill and look forward to having my staff work with you as we move this up to Council. Council Members, we have a motion on the floor to forward Bill 205 to Council with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor please say "aye." The motion to recommend passage of Bill 205 on first was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kdneali'i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Villegas, and Chair Lee Loy — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 9 PCIA- 18 October 1, 2024 ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 9:32 a.m., Chair Lee Loy adjourned the MENT: meeting. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you. and Assets SL/jm (Date) Page 10