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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN PC 2019/01/22 2018-2020Committee on Planning 2nd Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawai i January 22, 2019 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Planning was called to order at ORDER: 1:01 p.m., in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Ms. Ashley Kierkiewicz, Chair. R(1T T CAT T Present: Ms. Ashley Kierkiewicz, Chair Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member Ms. Karen Eoff, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Member Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS COMMUNI- CATIONS: The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. The following individuals registered to speak in regards to Comm. 50, and came forward when called by the Chair: Jon Olson. Eileen O'Hara. The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Communications. Comm. 50: REQUESTS AN UPDATE BY THE PLANNING DIRECTOR ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ORDINANCE NO. 18-114, RELATING TO SHORT-TERM VACATION RENTALS, WHICH TAKES EFFECT ON APRIL 1, 2019 From Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, dated January 2, 2019. (Note: Comm. 50. 1, from Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz dated January 22, 2019, transmitting presentation material from Planning Director Michael Yee, was circulated.) PC -2 January 22, 2019 Motion to Close File: Mr. Richards moved to close file on Comm. 50. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. (Note: At this time, Planning Director Michael Yee came forward to address the members of the Committee.) CHR KIERKIEWICZ: Director Yee, thank you so much for making the drive out to present to us today. I realize that we are at about a half -way point between passage of Bill 108 and its implementation on April 1st. I, like many of my colleagues here, have many constituents inquiring what is the process, what sort of documentation is needed to take advantage of registering a short-term vacation rental. So just wanted to get up to date on the hard work that you and your team have put into this registration process. So without further ado, thank you. MR. YEE: Okay, thank you. First, I forwarded two documents to you folks today. One is, the Short -Term Vacation Rentals Questions and Answers. This has been floating around kind of in draft form for quite a while. I've made couple of changes to the last version that was making its round, added some contact information on the last page for folks. But I would say this is ready for public consumption now. And again, it's not saying anything new from the bill, but trying to put in a format, hopefully the general public can hopefully understand better. The second document I handed out was a flow -chart. The main author of it was Roy Takemoto from the Mayor's Office, so thanks to him for putting it together. But it tries to outline the flow of, you know, what category do you fall into if you're—you know, what kind of permit, nonconforming, do you need to get. So hopefully, it provides more direction to folks trying to understand where they fit into the vacation rental bill. I want to start with—yes we've been busy trying to craft the revised Rules of Practice and Procedures for the Planning Department. The first draft has made its round through Corporation Counsel. We've received comments and are looking to create the next draft here very shortly. At this point and time, the schedule I'd like to follow—so by State statute, I only have to provide 30 -day notice for aone hearing at the very least on a rule change. In this case, we certainly want to have more engagement in that. So even prior to April 1st, we will conduct two preliminary hearings on the rules. One will be Thursday, February 28th. I believe it got set for Kona, here in the chambers, at 5:30, and then the next day, Friday, March 1st, here in Aupuni Center, at 5:30 p.m. This will be the first chance for folks to be able to see the draft. We would certainly have the draft well in advance at these two meetings. So they can come to the meeting, provide comment, and then we could provide additional revisions to a final draft. That then we would hope—we are planning on scheduling for April 2nd. So the day after the bill takes an effect, we would have a meeting in Hilo. One meeting only, to kind of finalize the rules. Page 2 PC -2 January 22, 2019 They would get filed by the end of the week, then 10 days with the Clerk's office, and then they go into full effect by Monday, April 15. But let's back up. So right now, we're sitting at January 22nd. We hope to have drafts available to the public within a couple of weeks, and then they should prep for the meeting at the end of the month, February 28 or March 1st. Like I said, we received initial comment. We're still making some additional revisions, so it's not ready to be distributed this week by any means, but we're getting close. With that, I wanted to highlight a couple of key things that have come up as we've been working on these rules that are probably burning on people's minds. I think, first of all, trying to sort out the ag issues, which one of the testifiers talked about ag changes with the State. I have not seen the bills, but generally, even before the legislature session was starting, we had put forth that we were interested in the statute to change the requirement of three islands to open it up to Hawaii Island. So certainly, conceptually, we are in support of that. I have recently met with the Planning Directors, and we had chimed in that—where it fell, which is Hawaii Island and Maui are very interested in it, but the otherO`ahu and Kauai were not. It makes sense where they fell into in terms of who would qualify for it. I think it's become quite clear that we intentionally were not addressing, in one all-encompassing fashion, with Bill 108, what to do with all the ag lands, where we were not aligned with State law. We realize that was too ahead of its time. We couldn't bite off all of that. And so yes, there's a lack. There are some lack of clarity in some areas, yes, but let's try to clarify what we do. If you're on ag land pre -June, July, I forget the date again, '76, and you have your vacation rental up and working, you're okay. If you're right now sitting on post '76, you were illegal, and you will continue to be deemed illegal. Okay, operation as an overnight accommodation. If you're on a pre -76 piece of land right now, and it's vacant and you want to build a vacation rental after April 1st, it will be illegal, okay. And there was some debate at the time, during the Council meetings, around—and I stated then that if you built something new after an effective date, that would not be allowed. I think, at that time I was making my best opinion on that, and I think Corporation Counsel has reconfirmed that position on my part. With that all said, we all intentionally talked about, especially in the last hearing on the bill, that we really needed to pick up the ag issues. We needed to pick up hosted -rentals down the road. So, I don't think that has changed. We stated that from the very beginning that we're going to need areas in Puna, near Volcano, that aren't in permitted areas now that we know should. Whether or not that creates a vacation destination area, such as Kauai creates, or sometimes I call it an overlay area, it's something that we had talked about. But we couldn't bite off Bill 108. With that said, at some point we've got to do that. I will tell you now, though, my department and I are really focused in on just trying to implement Bill 108. So I'm going to ask if the Council really can take this up, in terms of really championing Page 3 PC -2 January 22, 2019 that effort. If we know the last effort took a couple of years, if we start now, hopefully we'll get it done by the time we're pau here. Jon (Olson) had talked about—basically, Jon, the testifier, brought up the issue about quotas. The quota issue was brought up during the bill. It was debated. It was talked about, and we clearly did not go in that direction. The bill provides what it provides. I don't think it's from the Planning standpoint that I can create new rules or whatever to create that at this point. If we feel as if something needs to make sense down the road, then we'll make the adjustments in the second bill, as I just mentioned. But me tinkering around with trying to create quotas at this point would be, you know, frankly, I just don't think I could. I think that's generally it. Any questions? CHR KIERKIEWICZ: Council Members, any questions for Director Yee? Council Member Eoff. MS. EOFF: Thank you, Director. I appreciate that you have timeline to roll out the draft rules to the public and then to be able to implement. One thing that occurred to me from what you just said, would this period during the General Plan review be an opportunity for certain districts, like in Puna or Volcano, to look at? Creating either a wider village commercial zone or an overlay resort or vacation nod. Would this be one way for a community to decide on that? MR. YEE: Absolutely, and that's a quite a viable option to take a look at, at the General Plan, and try to leverage what we can at this point, knowing that's coming around the bend. So, yes. MS. EOFF: I think that's important for communities to realize, also, that there is that opportunity. The other thing is, Mr. Olson did mention that there may be inequity around the island as far as more vacation rentals would be permitted in the future, but we still don't know the current status. Because from the information during the last year or so, or two, it does seem like there's quite a few vacation rentals all over the island, in every district. Until they're registered, we really won't know how many we have anywhere. But our registration process should help us to determine who would become grandfathered in and where all the existing vacation rentals are. MR. YEE: Right. I think you're repeating what we had said many times during the hearing, which was part of this process was to be able to get to a point where people would register, and then we'd have the hard -data and know where people are. MS. EOFF: It would be easier to determine. Yeah, going forward, what we need to do. Plus, I just wanted to mention that Bill 108 does not include where the rental is considered a hosted rental, and that may be something we look at in the Page 4 PC -2 January 22, 2019 future. But for now, people are still able to host visitors or bring in income to their communities through tourists in their own homes or on their own property. MR. YEE: Just remember one thing—so I know fines were talked about during the hearings. We heard from many folks that the fines had to be high enough to change behavior. The initial draft that I've seen, which I did not necessarily agree with, but I'm just sharing with you that staff had put in $30,000 for the initial fine on a violation for vacation rentals. They started with that number because O`ahu's at $20,000; and they thought if that wasn't very effective, then they needed to think about increasing it. They gave me a starting point to think about increasing it. So I know people have been really worried about where we were going to land on fines. We definitely are clearly looking at different fine schedule from other zoning violations. Something that—in our research that we've been doing, we're also looking into when people—let's say in the future violate on a new property, on a new vacation rental. For instance, other islands will put a restriction on them being even able to apply for registration. So if you're caught illegally doing something, then you can't register for two to five years, depending on the infraction. So, we're looking into that and whether or not we can do that here. But again, trying to get need for enforcement that keeps people from doing things we don't really want them to do. So again, that's all the homework we've been doing behind the scenes. MS. EOFF: Thank you. Before I yield, I just wanted to say thank you very much to you and your department for all the hard work you've put in. I think the Question and Answer sheet that you gave us today will be really useful for us to share. Now that it's a public record, we can share it with people who are still wanting to be more informed or get clarification. I really appreciate that you have something for us to go public with now, because I know we were working on this for quite a while but not sure if everything was exactly accurate. But now that you have it, I think that it really helps. MR. YEE: Yeah, so let the public record reflect to that. There are many people working on this, behind the scenes, that really do the hard work. Maija Jackson, Christian Kay, Anne Matsunaga, Norren Kato, just to name a few, that really put in a lot of time. Tracy (Camero), in the Hilo office. Many thanks to them for doing the hard work. MS. EOFF: I just wanted to express that, too. Even though today, you know, the testifiers were focused on expanding some of the opportunities, I just want everyone in your department and all of us here to know that I've gotten quite a few mahalos and thank yous from just regular people that live here, residents that were very happy that we were able to adopt Bill 108 and begin to regulate vacation rentals for the other reasons, whether or not that they are exactly wanted or handled properly. They've caused some problems. So I think that we did aI feel Page 5 PC -2 January 22, 2019 we did a good job, trying to balance all the needs. But I just wanted to say that there are a lot of people that are very happy that we're moving forward on this regulation. Thank you. CHR KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Council Member Eof£ Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director Yee, for being here. I wanted toactually, Ms. Eoff talked about it, with a General Plan update. I think there's a huge opportunity for us to kind of expand those growth bubbles in areas that don't necessarily kind of fit into this, so she put that thought on the table. But I also want to share, just from a broader perspective, that we now have the Mass Transit Plan, which would actually lend itself to identify these areas in our rural communities that actually create transit orient destinations, and then maybe fit those bubbles around the Mass Transit Plan. Because we're going to have two parts, right? One is creating the space for vacation rental, but then handling the infrastructure that goes with it. I have complete faith in your team, at the Planning Department, to get those two documents together and then drive some of those General Plan bubbles going forward. I want to talk a little bit about what we have before us, which is Bill 108, and getting those rules and regulations in, because everybody's already looking to the next step. We've talked about this a little bit, which is the bandwidth that your department had. So just from a practical standpoint, can you help share with us just the amount of work that has to go into? Just wedging Bill 108 into a system so that we can really understand the level of detail and hard work that you folks are really going through so that bandwidth is getting stretched. MR. YEE: Well, thanks for acknowledging that. I think we don't always have the resources we want right at our fingertips. There are many barriers to getting to that, you know, even just from an HR (Human Resources) standpoint. Not that HR is the problem, but even making sure there's a qualified, let's say employee pool for this kind of staffing that we'll need. We did in our budget request seven positions, okay, and that would be funded through the registration fees and a portion of fines and stuff, hopefully will cover that over time. The positions included an intake person, like a counter person, LUPC (Land Use Plan Checker) as we call them. Second position would be inspectors. Third was a Planner III. Right now we have—we go from a Planner I to a Planner IV. We have nothing in between. And that's great, it's just internal problems with assessing planning and other things. So this is an opportunity to get that Planner III, who would then focus in on the nonconforming certificates; so something that's not a straight registration that an intake person can just sign off on, would then have to go to a Planner. In this case, we don't need to hire another Planner to sort through this stuff, when we need somebody that has some planning Page 6 PC -2 January 22, 2019 experience to get into nonconforming uses. Possibly, a Special Use Permit, if we're going that route. So, we asked for a Planner III. Then there's a Planner there's seven position thatI'm forgetting in there somewhere. Oh, it is a PlannerI want to say it was with the Planning Commission folks that handle special permits. So, we made the request. Those seven positions wouldn't be formally funded into the next budget cycle, so that's July. So the question came up, whether I charge you. No, we've got to start the work now. The work has already begun. How do we get to this point? Conceptually, Finance—and we assume HR will get onboard with, let's say 89 -day contracts, where we can bring folks on as we need to. So that could be on intake. It could be on the initial registration period. So depending where we need those positions, we can do it. Just last week, we clarified. Instead of trying to fit it into the current position, called Land Use Plan Checker, we would create probably a new position. That was just Vacation Rental Intake, or something. That clearly defines it separately so that we don't get into hang-ups with HR and union. All these fine details to kind of get something takes a little work. Position -wise, we've been doing the work in-house. I think we're okay for now; but clearly as we get closer to April 1st and that registration takes off, we're going to need to have some bodies. I know from my experience that you don't just ask for these people appear the next day. So we've got to be on the ball here, and that's couple of weeks that we wouldn't be able to go out and start identifying the job descriptions, position descriptions and get that going, even if it's for an 89 -day contract. So I think generally speaking, we're going to fill some near-term stuff with 89 -day contracts. The big question mark is around whether we're going to see folks that have nonconforming issues. Things that they deny, appeals, and what kind of workload that will create. Certainly, on the other islands, appeals have just bogged other counties. You know, they have like 30 or 40 appeals sitting on their docket right now. I'm hoping we don't go there as deep. Because we didn't try to bite off on everything on this island that's going to keep us from having too many contested cases and appeals, and so on and so forth. But that's guess work on our part. I will say I spent a great amount of time rereading and reading what has happened in San Diego, Lake Tahoe. They passed some things, and now they're having to pull them back. Because I'm always interested. Like if we build something solid, and I feel as if we have. Again, we'll see in reality how that really works out. But I feel as if we're not going to be inundated with other kinds of cases that bog us down. Again, if we do, luckily you folks embedded in the bill an account to help in that direction. So if we at some point, we need more legal help or whatever, we have some resources to do it. Again, timing is everything in terms of the collection of registration fees and other things we're working with Finance. But, I'm sure we could overcome those challenges. Page 7 PC -2 January 22, 2019 MS. LEE LOY: We are in the middle of a legislative cycle, and there was talk about some existing measures coming forward. But I want to go back to something that was proposed last Legislative Session, which was the platforms. Has any thought been given to revisiting that piece of legislation, where they would have to identify, you know, that they are a certified transient vacation rental on the platform? And your thoughts on maybe trying to get back to something that went through a process already MR. YEE: So the other Planning Directors and I get together usually at the beginning of a Legislative Session to talk about collaborative, you know, initiatives on certain kinds of bills. This isclearly, the vacation rental was one of the top or two or three that we discussed last week in Honolulu. Clearly, Maui is leading the charge, and we were behind the scenes. I'll be honest, I haven't had time to read in detail the bill. But, they were bringing it back. I'm going to ride their coat-tails a little bit in terms of—all the other islands are looking for much stronger enforcement, so I can't imagine what they're suggesting is, and you know, be something that really benefits us. So I would say all four Planning Directors were certainly on top of wanting to get something submitted this year. I think Maui's legislator was going to bring it forward. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Director Yee, for being here. I yield, Chair. CHR KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Ms. Villegas, you have the floor. MS. VILLEGAS: Aloha, Michael. Thanks for being here today. I just had a quick question, and I wanted just some clarification because I had thought about these rules being still under some kind of potential editing and then them being presented on February 28, but then Councilperson Eoff mentionedI just want to make sure that I don't present or share these with the public in any capacity, if it's not supposed to be. MR. YEE: Yeah, you do not have the rules in front of you. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. MR. YEE: You only have the Q&A (Questions & Answers), which is fine to distribute. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. I'm sorry, Q&A. Okay, got you. MR. YEE: Yeah, that's fine. And just to clarify again, we're working on the internal review of another draft right now. I hope to finalize that in the next week or two. So then it will be distributed with the public, within two weeks at the latest, I think, for folks to have time to look at and to comment by February 28. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Page 8 PC -2 January 22, 2019 MR. YEE: Actually, I should note that we found out that, usually for rule changes, we thought that it would—our current rules were that we need to provide a 20 -day notice. In reviewing our rules, we found that they were out of date. It's a 30 -day notice, so we'd be coming out with a 30 -day notice of that February 28 meeting. So again, I don't have to have a draft ready by then, but we will try to have it soon after, if not by then. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you. My apologies. So this information isI'm free to share with constituents if they have questions? MR. YEE: Yes, and you're most welcomed to add your phone number to the last page. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay, thank you. I yield. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Anyone else? Ms. David. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair. Director Yee, thank you for explaining this process. It makes it a lot clearer. Now that we're all done with it, this is like the final push home. I have one question. Talking about providing copies of the rules to the public before the public hearing, how we will that be for the public's information. Would you be posting that somewhere on your web? How will you provide it to the public before your public hearing? MR. YEE: Clearly, we would post on our website, would be one avenue. I think, clearly we would have distributed it out among you folks to share with any constituents that you know. That's our general way of doing it. MS. DAVID: Okay. MR. YEE: That we're also open to you know, it's not as if the Planning Department does rule changes very often. A lot of the staff that worked on this hadn't been through a rule change before with the department, so it's kind of new to us. But again I just want to point out that in the past, it was just one hearing. That's all you needed to have, and I clearly sat there and said that we needed more than that, and we need to clearly not be something, where something is coming in more as a final piece of work that, you know, we're just trying to get a rubber- stamp from everybody. So that's why we're having two hearings prior to the April I" effective. And then wanting to roll out, hopefully, a final draft that takes in everybody's comment on April 2nd. So I've made adjustments, and to try to be able to provide that community input. Page 9 PC -2 January 22, 2019 MS. DAVID: Okay, and that's really great of you folks to do that, Just so that we get all the information out as much as possible. Website, and you'll be sending us a copy? MR. YEE: Yes. MS. DAVID: Okay, great. Thank you very much. I yield. CHR KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Ms. David. Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair; and thanks, Michael, for being here. Again, kudos for working hard and trying to get this done. I'll echo what Council Woman David had said concerning the aggressive position of trying to get outreach and get community input because then it gets really important. We discussed this before, and I just wanted to put it out, so it's a reminder. You and I discussed a vacation rental in Puna district that had converted to long-term because of the lava inundation. Those are the things that are going to need to be addressed. They did that to help the community. I know it's on your radar, but I just wanted to remind everyone that those are things we have to give little bit of latitude in there. I read in here, where it's the one year, if you cease operation for one year, I think we just to be mindful that it may be a little bit longer in that situation. So, putting that on the table. MR. YEE: Yeah. And again, I will reiterate that we are not to punish those folks. MR. RICHARDS: Right. MR. YEE: That we're trying to help out lava victims and had to take their short-term vacation offline during this period. MR. RICHARDS: Actually, just for the Council, for the Freshmen, this is an individual kind of vacation rental in the greater Puna district for a long time. They converted it to help out a family per rental, and they did the right thing. We just need to make sure we don't penalize people like that. Thank you. I yield. CHR KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Hi, Mike. How are you doing? MR. YEE: Great. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Good to see you. I have a few questions for you. Some are easy, some are—like one is a little bit more interesting. First question, who—as we get further down the line, who actually polices the fines and fees and goes through the process of collecting or not collecting, or keeping track of people who need to be kept track of? And when can we get to see the Page 10 PC -2 January 22, 2019 nonconforming use certificate? Like in any industry, people can start prepping to see what's involved in getting that certificate, being that Puna and the whole island has been—will be affected by this change. And we've lost a large percentage of our industry or short-term vacation rentals in Puna, specifically. Like you're saying, you're having a meeting March 111. Good to have some of these basic forms ready for people to view, so they can see it. Start getting ready immediately. Do you have input for that? Or directions, so I can direct people as we start getting questions. And thank you again for this. Because I watched Bill 108, and it kind of advanced to through the stages of the process. I didn't get to actually to vote on it, but here we are again discussing it. So yeah, here we are. MR. YEE: First of all, you should consider yourself lucky that you didn't have to vote on it. Let's start with your first question on enforcement, the who. The standing line we always gives everybody, is that the Planning Department a complaint -driven enforcement division. We don't go around seeking—you know, I don't have staff out there looking for problems. Okay, now if something's obvious and certainly a life-threatening situation, you know, gets recorded. Everything is generated through generally a complaint form or a complaint through another venue email or something; and it generates not a work order, but it triggers an inspector do something. Again, I will also comment that our backlog, on physically going out to something that is not an emergency, life-threatening, or to nature resource or cultural resource, could be upwards of a month, to give you an idea. We're hoping with additional inspectors—and other processors that we get, that when somebody complains about a vacation rental, you can't wait two weeks to figure what was going on, so we'll have to be more responsive than that. But generally speaking, if people are problematic, let's say vacation rentals in a residential zone, we'll pick that case up, and that's up to the inspectors to do all their homework around. When it comes to, let's say just folks not being in compliance, they don't have their they're not paying their taxes, not registered, there are online services which we've already—we will go out with a procurement request for it. We are already talking to the folks that are working with Maui. Kauai has a different vendor. And so we'll do a procurement request, where you'll have these very techie kinds of folks that can go online, pull all the information. They don't even have to really leave their desk, and they're able to figure out who's in compliance, who's registered and who's not, and to develop a list. Maui has been working on this. I think the vendors been working six months at least on it, and they're about to roll out their first series of violation warnings to folks. It's very complicated stuff. It's meant to, in a lot of ways, catch a lot—it's become very sophisticated how you cheat. You don't post pictures of external things, only bedrooms sometimes; but somewhere within the science of it all, they can figure things out. They can figure out where things are located by the way things are put online and stuff. Don't ask me the science behind it. I'm not a techie guy. We Page 11 PC -2 January 22, 2019 clearly will go down that route of having those folks engaged, those vendors engaged, to help us do that kind of work, too. So, there's going to be the proactive side of that, and then reactive side when we get problematic vendors that our staff will generally take care of it. And like I said, we requested more inspectors. Question 2, Nonconforming. When are the rules cut?. I think when it comes to, let's say specific forms, there is a bit of a chicken and an egg thing. We kind of want to figure out what the rules are before we come up with the form; because once you know what you kind of—you're asking for, what you need to ask for, then it informs you what you have to put on the form, to require folks to submit or stuff. Although intuitively know 95 percent of that, we don't know all of it yet. So, we're getting to that point. Like I said, we're on second draft. Once we finalize the second draft, I would ask the staff to start thinking about what those forms look like. I can promise you that the rules will be ready in a couple of weeks for your consumption. I'm not sure how far we'll be around on the forms. But hopefully, in between drafts, or in between meeting getting to the March 1" or February 28h meeting there's alignment to it. That the rules are really reflecting on what will be on the form and what the form—will make sense. How would I certainly know that Council Woman Kierkiewicz has been very keen on wanting to make sure what's implemented out there really works for folks. I'm very keen on that too. That's why I wanted to have these hearings ahead of time of the final one, on April 2nd You know, it will always be fast and furious to the end. Once we have those hearings, to be able to try to finalize forms, get comments from the public to make sure they're working for everyone. Again, you're just going to have to trust me that we're committed to putting out the best forms and process that we can, that people can make sense of. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Yeah, we've got a lot of nonconforming use. Applications coming in, so I would just be ready for that. Yeah, I like that you're thinking ahead, looking for personnel already. I think that is very smart. I do realize how much you put into this, so I concur with all my Council Member folks that I do appreciate what you've done here. Thank you. CHR KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anybody else? Okay, Ms. Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Yee. And maybe this is not for you, but Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder brought up a wonderful point, about nonconforming permits. And Neal stepped into the room, and since you both are here, I wanted to ask a little be about how these nonconforming permits, which he mentioned. I agree, there will be some. But I was wondering if Mr. Tanaka would come forward, and maybe together, right here we can put our heads together on what Page 12 PC -2 January 22, 2019 kind of impacts that will have to our building permit process for people who are trying to kind of meet nonconforming standards. (Note: At this time, Acting Deputy Building Division Chief Neal Tanaka came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. TANAKA: Good afternoon, Council. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Yeah, I'm just here to support. MR. YEE: I first want to chime in on that. The bill and rules are being written that if you're operating without building permits, you're going to be at jeopardy of not being able to get nonconforming use certificate. So if you built the place illegally, operating vacation rental, I'm not going to sit there and say there's not some jeopardy at stake in there. You've had time since this bill got passed, to get in and try to clear up your building permit issues. Doesn't mean everybody will do it. Doesn't mean there will be some panic down the road. I don't know if Neal, you're already seeing an influx of folks coming in right now to try to fix up things or not. MR. TANAKA: Yeah so, Mike and Ms. Lee Loy, we have seen several inquiries, mostly all panic because April 1st is coming soon. For us, we advise these people that are nonconforming to come in, speak with us briefly to see what they have nonconforming, see what they do have on the books. But of course, they're subject to how their structures were built, code compliant or not. And getting them to become code compliant becomes a severe challenge. I'm here just to support, with regards to Mike, how we at Building Division can support you and the bill. Because of course you mentioned staffing. We're going to need to coordinate how we're going to address those complaints or concerns as well, from our end. But of course that's something that we can discuss with our Director, as well. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Tanaka. I know I put you on the spot. But I do think this is where we get uncomfortable a little bit, and then we create opportunities. So I really do appreciate you just putting that on the table. That we as staff and as policymakers are trying to look at the next steps, and then kind of strategically wedge in code -compliance changes. That actually helps not only you folks in the Building Division but the Planning Department as well, and just kind of creates a very bright line on how we get through this process. So, thank you again for being here. I yield. MR. TANAKA: Yeah, I want to underline for those that may watch this, or in the newspaper, that coming in and trying to be compliant with your building permits, if you're having a vacation rental that's going to fall in the nonconforming, you'll want to come in. I know you may be afraid to come, worried about the implications of it, but you're taking a pretty huge risk of not doing so and hoping that you don't get reported and don't end up having to talk to us down the road Page 13 PC -2 January 22, 2019 where we have less options. So I'm going to encourage the public to really come visit the Planning and Public Works departments. CHR KIERKIEWICZ: Any other questions, comments? So my colleagues basically took every single question that was burning in my mind. Clearly, we were all on the same page. I'm very interested, at some point, in taking advantage of the General Plan update process, to kind of direct these vacation rental experiences for people. I know with Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder and myself, many people are going to want to come to Puna and want that authentic experience; and it may involve staying at a hotel, it may involve staying at vacation rental. So, making sure we have opportunities for those constituents would be great. I appreciate the touch points that you have out in community. Coming in February, is someone coming from community outreach? That makes me really happy to see. You know, organizations reaching out into the community to share information and creating a space to gather feedback to really inform the process. It's very helpful that you shared with the bandwidth of Planning Department. I can see that you and your staff are working overtime on all of this on top of everything else that you are doing, so we are here to help to advocate for additional positions as needed. Seeing no more discussion on the floor, all those in favor to close file on Communication 50, please say "aye." Vote on Comm. 50: The motion to close file on Comm. 50 was carried by the Filed following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Lee Loy, Poindexter, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kierkiewicz — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR KIERKIEWICZ: Motion carries. Thank you, Director Yee and Mr. Tanaka, for taking the time to be with us today. MR. YEE: Thank you. ORDER OF The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Order RESOLUTIONS: of Resolutions. (There were none.) Page 14 PC -2 January 22, 2019 BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Bills ORDINANCES: for Ordinances. (There were none.) ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 1:50 p.m., Ms. Lee Loy moved to adjourn the MENT: meeting. Seconded by Mr. Richards and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Lee Loy, Poindexter, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kierkiewicz — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. KIERKIEWICZ: We are adjourned at 1:50 p.m. Thank you. Approved: Ms. Ashley Kierkiewicz, Chair Planning Committee AK/na (Date) Page 15