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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0555.009 2010-2012 SAM COOPER PO BOX 7730 HILO, HAWAII 96720 PHONE/FAX 808-969-6833 E-MAIL September 5, 2012 Dear County Council, Regarding Bill 178, Rezoning RS10 to RM-3, TMK3/2-2-038:17 located at 1623 Kino'ole Street Hilo, Hawaii 96720. This rezoning should be denied for the following reasons. There was a community meeting held May 10th 2012. The developer presented paperwork to the attendees regarding their development. Here is my response to their talking points.. Quite a few of the neighbors I have spoken with feel the same way. 1. Business Operations- House Rules and Behavior Standards. Quiet hours after 9:00 PM. Resident Manager, Video surveillance cameras on property. 2. Noisy and drunk students. We ban night time parties and public alcohol & being drunk by resident manager, house assistants and video surveillance. Violations will result in fines. My response to items 1 & 2. Resident and guests are not subject to the developments rules and regulations outside the development on public property. This will result in more traffic. Screaming, fighting, drinking and drunk driving will occur. Our neighborhood is quiet and safe. Our public safety will be endangered and quality of life will be affected in a negative way. 3. Density / Parking comparison. Our property is less dense than Hale Haumanu, Tobi Hale and University Palms. My response. They have increased their parking to 35 spaces so this will increase traffic. There is no on street parking. Here is a comparison they did not share. Site location and the developments set back to other properties. The developers site is located in a existing single family residential area comprised of 39 homes. 6 homes have no setback from the property. On the other hand Tobi Hale, University Palms and Hale Houmanu impact 10 Comm. No. S ' Ref.To: lf/PL Ref. Dates 0 5 2012 homes together. These 10 homes have set backs from 50 ft to over 200ft feet away from Tobi Hale, University Palms and Hale Haumanu. The Hilo Buddhist Temple is located behind Tobi Hale and Hale Haumanu so there is a large green belt. Across Uluani Street behind Tobi Hali is a block long apartment building Hilo Hale. Hale Hoaloha on W. Lanikaula and the corner of Uluani Street. There are also some commercial properties in the same area. This is good planning. This is a neighborhood of student housing, apartment buildings and commercial units. There are actual sidewalks on some of the streets in the area. Safe ingress and egress at the buildings. The streets are safer for people walking and riding bikes. Is it good planning to put an apartment building in the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood? Is it good planning to put apartment building that has a dangerous ingress and egress? Is it good planning to put a apartment building on a street with a dangerous street shoulder that creates public safety issues? 4. Noise and Privacy Barriers. A 6 ft solid fence and a full and tall landscape trees and plants. My response. A 6ft solid fence will not reduce noise and the landscape will take at least 10 years to give any privacy if the landscape is not affected by pests, diseases, die back or drought. Noise levels will not be reduced to a great degree even with a mature landscape. At this time our neighborhood is very quiet. The noise level will be high to extreme for the properties located next door to the apartments during the day and in the evenings. Another noise issue to be addressed is the Hawaii County' barking dog ordnance. I have dogs as well as 3 other neighbors located next to the development. Our dogs will bark non stop if the apartments are built. Dogs bark to let us know when people are around our property and are needed in this time of increased home robberies that could include violent home invasions. Will Hawaii County grant us a variance to this law and any future barking dog laws? Will Mr. Winegar or his agents go to court for us and pay any and all fines due to our dogs barking due to his apartments. 5. Traffic: Busy 8 AM and 5 PM. These are mainly work commuters and school staff at a choke point in the city. Housing students in the neighborhood reduces car traffic as they do not need cars. My response. With parking increased to 34 cars traffic will be increased at all hours. The development has the potential to house over 100 people and with guests perhaps 200 people will traffic to and from the development by car, bike or foot. Kino'ole Street from Kawili Street to Puanako Street is very unsafe for people walking and riding bikes. The shoulder is so narrow 2 people can not walk side by side. Bike riders have to stop their bikes or ride in the street when people are walking on the shoulder. Vehicular traffic has to veer into the center lane or into the opposite lane to avoid hitting people riding bikes or walking down the street. When people with young children are walking or ridding bikes the danger is even greater. This creates a public safety hazard and liability issues for all in the futurel A crosswalk with flashing lights would need to be installed at Ohia and Kino'ole streets so the public can safely cross the street as there is no crosswalk on Kino'ole Street between Puanako Street and Kawili Street. Shoulders need to be widened for public safety. 6. Drainage. We will follow plans and recommendations from professional engineer and hydrologist. My response. Mr. Nash, their engineer states in his report dated April 2, 2012 that the site has excellent drainage. He is using studies and computer models that are broad in scope and are not site selective. According to staff at Isemoto Contracting, Delima Drilling and from a USDA geologist extensive core samples would need to be taken from the site to determine if there are areas of blue rock or impervious plates of rock which would impact drainage. Health and safety issues can arise from their septic systems failing in times of heavy rains and flooding. My yard and my neighbors yard would be contaminated from raw sewage. I met some surveyors Mr. Nash hired to take some measurements at the site. The surveyors told me Mr. Winegar wants to remove some sections of the guard rail and retaining wall that was built in 2008 as his driveway is not wide enough to meet code due to the 6 ft set back the driveway has to be built away from the neighbors property. Removing a section of the wall may impact the entire wall if we were to have a major earthquake. Mr. Nash's surveyors also do excavation work and they informed me that core samples would need to be taken to try to determine the drainage at the site. Mr. Nash has not addressed ground water coming down from Waikea Uka and the issues that will arise from the ground water in times of rains and heavy flooding. My neighbor's property behind me and my property may take weeks to drain. It took over 4 months for water to drain from my property and the Winegar property after the Kinoo'ole Street improvements were installed in 2008. After presenting evidence to Hawaii County they took steps to resolve the issue. Even the best engineering designs are subject to human error. After completion of the project my yard was lowered by 2 ft. Once again Hawaii County took steps to correct the issue. After the issue was corrected the lowest weep hole on the retaining wall was 2 ft under ground. 7. Issues A. Will your property values decrease? Studies say no. My response. Once again studies are being used that are broad in scope. My property value will greatly decrease and so will the properties located next door to the apartments. We would have to greatly lower our selling price to induce someone to buy a property next to an apartment building. B Do you want more students in your neighborhood? University increases students not building houses equals more traffic. Housing students in your neighborhood reduces car traffic. New property tax revenues may be used for traffic mitigation. My response. The existing and any future increase in traffic that commute to the University commute to the school cue on different routes not just on Rini()'1e Street. Traffic will be increased by the apartments since there al 34 parking spaces and the guests trafficking to and from the apartments so traffic will not be decreased. Traffic comes and goes and other than the morning and afternoon commutes there is not a lot of traffic on the street most of the time. Traffic from the apartments is 24 / 7 and will create noise, nuisance and public safety issues. Property taxes are put into the general fund and chances are slim that any would be used for traffic mitigation in our neighborhood. C. Development remains students only. Restrict the land to student housing. My response. First of all the apartments are subject to rental and housing laws so it is not student housing and anyone who qualifies can rent an apartment. The apartments will rent to students and their immediate family (dependent children, spouses and civil partners) which can result in 3 to 5 people living in each bedroom which can result in over 100 people living at the apartments. His proposed restriction is for 10 years which is a short period of time. After that we may be faced with a low income apartment complex. I did contact a Mr. Miles Nagata head of UH housing here in Hilo and a Mr. Brian Minaii from the Office of Capitol Improvements regarding the Winegar project and they had no knowledge of the project. Until) Tuesday as stated in today's paper the University had no knowledge of this project. -t�l- T i--� Z v ti c'4 s G G'4 '3GrG ���� Pl2C/5- (. 70 64 /5'v i;crvi C it</15,1_ 7744- - -1. /0 I feel a 25 % reduction in the size of the apartment is not enough as it will r- minimize all of the negative issues with this project by 25%. T r-r- �`z I am for student housing. I would not object to Mr. Winegar subdividing his property into 4 TMK's and building 4 single story single family homes. This would resolve a lot of problems such as tearing out a section of the guard rail and wall as his driveway would be to code. Public safety would not (31= impacted to such a great extent. The property would fit into the neighborhood. • . - - •-• . This is an example of good planning. First and foremost in you decision today should be the quality of life for our neighborhood and public safety. Thank you for you time and consideration in this matter. Sincerely, Sam Cooper