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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-08-01 Hearing Transcript - Earl & Jolene Lanning SPP 19-000207WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT AUGUST 1, 2019 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of EARL AND JOLENE LANNING (SPP 19-000207) was called to order at 9:35 a.m. in the County of Hawaii Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawaii with Chairman Joseph Clarkson presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Dean Au, Joseph Clarkson, Donn Dela Cruz, John Replogle. ABSENT & EXCUSED: Gilbert Aguinaldo, Thomas Raffipiy. ALSO PRESENT: Michael Yee (Planning Director), Malia Hall (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Windward Planning Commission), Jeff Darrow (Planning Program Manager), Christian Kay (Planner), Alex Roy (Planner), Jessica Andrews (Planner), and Sarah Hata-Finley (Commission Secretary). And 17 members from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: EARL AND JOLENE LANNING (SPP 19-000207) Application for a Special Permit to allow the establishment of a lunch wagon and related improvements on 13,135 square feet of land in the State Land Use Agricultural District. The subject property is located on the south (mauka) side of Waipi`o Valley Road just north of its intersection with Kukuihaele Road, and about 800 feet east of the entrance to Waipi`o Valley, Lalakea, Hamakua District, Hawaii, Tax Map Key: (3) 4-8-004:024. CLARKSON: The next item on the agenda is an application for a Special Permit to allow the establishment of a lunch wagon and related improvements, and I'll ask staff to make a presentation about this application. ROY: Good morning, Commissioners. Today I present to you a Special Permit application for Earl and Jolene Lanning. The project location here, I think a lot of us know this area. This is the Waipi`o Valley overlook, and the project parcel is about 700 feet east of the overlook and the entrance to Waipi`o Valley. The Applicant is requesting to install or place a 16 -foot long by 8 - foot wide double axle, we're calling it a mobile lunch wagon or lunch truck, and the development of six parking stalls on the parcel for visitors. Here's a site plan of the proposed development. A couple interesting points this access to the parcel is a deeded access through the adjacent tmk, which is established already. Here we can see the proposed location of the lunch truck and then the parking stall area. A quick note is that this is actually not State Highway Route 240. The highway actually ends around the corner, and that's Waipi`o Valley Road. 10,141111.11 1.1 Here's a site plan of the actual interior of the proposed lunch wagon, but I was told by the Applicant that this, while a common set up, it may be altered, interior to fit the needs of the Applicant and what they plan to serve. Here's the zoning of the surrounding area and the parcel. You can see the parcel here in the middle, so all the blue area is zoned A -40a so Agricultural — 40 acres. Here's a strip of Open. That's around Waipi`o Valley, and then towards Honoka`a is the [Single -Family] Residential — 15,000 or RS -15, and you can see that kind of in the town area. The State Land Use District is Agricultural for the majority of the surrounding area with Conservation along the coast and Waipi`o Valley and then the RS area appears to be within the Urban State Land Use District. Our General Plan LUPAG calls this area Important Agricultural Lands. As you can see, it's open along the coast. Conservation in the valley, and then Low Density Urban in the proposed town center area. Here is an aerial photo of the site in its current condition. There's a little more grass right now. This kind of shows it a little dirty, but the grass is growing on this top here. There is a small structure. Other than that, the site is undeveloped, barring some minor landscaping. Here's a site photo standing on the street looking towards the parcel. This is the entrance, that easement area that I pointed to on the site plan. This is how visitors would enter the property to visit the lunch wagon. Here's kind of across the street looking down Waipi`o Valley Road. You can see off in the distance the beginnings of parking for the overlook area. So, you can tell how close it is to the overlook. Here's looking the other direction. State Route 240 kind of ends right about here. There's some signage, and then Waipi`o Valley Road continues on at that point. Off to the left here is the road down to Honoka`a Town. This signage here for cafe has nothing to do with the property. In fact, we were unable to locate where that cafe actually was pointing to. The Planning Director's recommendation is to approve with the conditions stated in the Background, and at this time, I'll take any questions that you may have. REPLOGLE: I have a question. Could we look at the aerial photo? I would like you to show yeah, where is the entrance on that? I can't make it out. ROY: It's a little bit hard to see. It's covered over by vegetation, but it's right there. You can kind of see the gray area. There's a patch of grass, so it's right about there. So, it crosses through this parcel and surrounds the subject parcel. REPLOGLE: Okay. EXHIBIT B 2 ROY: But, it's right about there, and that is deeded access— REPLOGLE: Okay. ROY: available to the Applicant. REPLOGLE: Thank you. ROY: Yeah. CLARKSON: Any further questions? I have a question. What is the speed limit on that curve there? ROY: I think its 25 miles an hour. It's coming down the road. I stood out there for a little while, and there's yellow signs yeah that say 15, I believe, right there you can see one on the curve. Oh, that's not a speed limit. That's about what people go. On that area, what I noticed is that pretty much people are going about 20 miles, 25 miles an hour. There were a few people that were heading out of Waipi`o Valley, you know, heading out of town, kind of accelerating possibly up to maybe 25 or 30 on their way out of this area. But for the most part, the speed limit seemed to be upheld. It didn't seem to be an issue. CLARKSON: And, do you have a quick review of the conditions? Any slides that we could quickly review the Director's recommendations for conditions? ROY: I don't have a slide except for that, but we can go through—some of the conditions, of course, are general, but some of the ones that I believe are, staff believes that are important, and I actually have some slides, if I could just kind of skip ahead and I put out some additional pictures here. One issue is the site line from the driveway or access. The picture on the left, I'm standing in the proposed driveway access, and you can only see about 20-25, 30 feet down the road. Cars will be coming from this direction, and like I said, at about 20-25 miles an hour, possibly, so the site line is a concern, and that's why we talked about removing some of that vegetation. In discussions with DPW, their only concern was anything within their right-of-way they would require to be removed. So, vegetation, things like that, would be removed if it's in their right-of-way, but at this time, they didn't they were unable to tell me if that's the case. The next one is another issue. It's on the other side of the property. Here you can see significant erosion and deposition of sediments into the roadway. This is due in part to some of the clearing that's occurred, but just the geology and slope of the site. So, we asked that in order to reduce some of that erosion that some vegetation be planted, possibly ground cover along this area. Let me skip back to—another condition we, special condition that we had in place was—it's unfortunate that we can't see it, but there's a large outfall that—storm water outfall right here that runs across the road. There was some green waste stacked, so we wanted to make sure that that remains clear and open to provide adequate drainage of the area. So, that was another omission that they ensure, that they don't store any green waste at that location, to make sure that that outfall continues to work. EXHIBIT B 3 In regards to the development of the lunch wagon, they will have to get approvals through the Department of Health to establish that. They are going to provide a copy of the DOH support kitchen approval. A lunch truck requires a support kitchen for greywater, for storage for cleaning, and so they have, the Applicant has established a support kitchen in the nearby town, and it appears to be accepted, so as soon as DOH approves of that, we would, we would like to see that prior to the issuance of Final Plan Approval just to ensure that DOH has time to review the project. From within our own Department, there was a condition about signage to ensure that because this area here is not owned by the Applicant, that it doesn't turn into a parking area. That parking is up on the parcel itself, so we're going to ask, we asked that signage be in place just to make sure that the community doesn't get kind of overrun right along that corner. And, I think I put in, and it's reallyI put in a large picture of the entiresorry, the computer is, there we go—okay, so this is standing across the street looking at the project parcel. Just to kind of show you that it's right on a turn, the entrance over here. You know, here would be the entrance, there, so we'd really like to restrict any parking right along that area. Again, it's not part of their parcel so that seems logical. CLARKSON: Thank you. Any further questions for staff? If not, will the Applicant or their representative please come forward? Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter before the Planning Commission today? FUKE: Yes—excuse me, yes I do. CLARKSON: Please introduce yourself, and then proceed with your testimony. FUKE: Sure, good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission. My name is Sidney Fuke. I'm here today really like helping out a the Applicant is a good friend of my, the former Councilmember, Takashi Domingo, and that's the sister-in-law and her husband. So, I was asked to kind of, kind of see if I could, to do some kokua and that's the reason why I'm over here. Along the way, I kind of learned a lot about lunch wagons. You know, we visited lunch wagons all over, you know, the island. There's one right down the street over here, down in the industrial area, and as the staff kind of pointed out, it seems to like, you know, the governing you know entities really like Department of Health, you know, largely from a standpoint in terms of wastewater system, fire suppression, so on and so forth. And, that's why the staff had wisely recommended that making sure that there is that certification before the Planning Department would, you know, so certify its use. I've had a chance to discuss the application and the proposed conditions with the Applicant, Earl and Jolene Lanning, and they found them to be acceptable. I'd like to also kind of note that they are life-long farmers of Waipi`o Valley, and their whole intent and they live right next door to where their proposed lunch wagon is going to be but they are life-long residents of that area, and they are farmers. So, and Jolene, Mrs. Lanning, she had a restaurant in Honoka`a a number EXHIBIT B 4 of years ago, and I think people remember that good beef stew. It's right on the corner of, I forget, right on that main road over there and that intersection. But, anyway, like it's, the whole idea is to find better use for their products that they grow in the valley, you know, whether it's the poi, the taro rather, the ong choi, the warabi, and so her being naturally like an excellent cook, you know, just trying to find better ways to utilize their crops in addition to selling them at the farmers' market and other outlets. So, I think that, you know, like there was a question about like sight distance. I think that what was really telling was one of the photos that you had there, you know, as you exit out onto the Kukuihaele Road or the main highway, I think you saw the sign that the speed limit there was 15 miles an hour. I think that as you enter into the Kukuihaele Village, it's in a residential area, so the standard residential speed zone would be 25 miles an hour. You have a condition that the staff is recommending which suggests that, which mandates rather that like a sight distance and use analysis be done, and I think that even if Department of [Public] Works is stating that, you know, they are not really concerned about like the vegetation on the property, I think that when you go through kind of like a preliminary site analysis, if it shows that the vegetation on the subject property has to be, you know, cleared so as to provide better sight distance, especially for cars exiting the property and getting onto the Kukuihaele Road, I think that's going to have to be done. But, at this point in time, we don't know yet, because that so-called technical studies have not been done, but it will be done as a condition of the approval, if the Planning Commission approves the request. So, other than that, you know, there are like a number of peopleI'm glad to be here that, for once to have like a lot of people supporting the project over here unlike other projects that I've worked on. So, with that, if there is any other questions, then I'd be more than happy to answer. AU: Mr. Chair, question. Mr. Fuke, I fully support this project. I was there just recently, and we need things like that down there. My concern, though, is parking. Can you address that situation, because, you know, people park all along the side of the road, and during peak hours, there's cars going all the way up there, and I'm assuming that cars will be parking on the facility FUKE: On the property, correct AU: on the property for the people going down to the lookout, so can you justI guess my question to you is have you addressed that with the Applicant? FUKE: Yes, there, you know, the property is more like 13,000 square feet in size, and so, all they are going to do is put like a lunch wagon and there is like ample room, you know, on the property itself. The staff is also recommending that no parking be allowed on the easement that leads to the property, but just the basic property itself is the, you know, the aerial would show. There's a lot of, there's ample room on the property. I kind of wanted to note also that Department of Health, again, trying to study a little bit further on lunch wagons, they say that, you know, if you're going to, if it's considered like a restaurant where you have facilities where people sit and eat and, you know, do their thing, then there is a mandate for like restroom EXHIBIT B 5 facilities. But, on the other hand, if it's purely like on a take-out basis like what you see down right here at the Bay Front area, there is no like restroom requirement except for the employees. And, in this situation over here, the employees live right next door, so. AU: Okay, I guess more my question is, is the Applicant going to allow people to park there that are going down to the valley, because that is going to tie up parking and FUKE: Oh, no AU: their facility. FUKE: It's purely, it's exclusively for—it's not going to be a commercial parking lot. It's exclusively for patrons that will frequent the lunch wagon. AU: Okay, thank you. CLARKSON: Any further questions for Mr. Fuke from the Commission? If not, thank you. FUKE: Thank you. CLARKSON: At this time, we will take public testimony. We have four testifiers who have signed up. Will Dwight Vicente, Darde Gamayo, Valerie Poindexter, and `I`ini Kahakalau please come forward? Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter before the Commission today? GAMAYO/POINDEXTER/KAHAKALAU: Yes/I do. VICENTE: [No response.] CLARKSON: Thank you. We'll start to my left, your right, and please introduce yourself. Use the microphone when you are speaking, and proceed with your testimony. We'll give everybody three minutes. KAHAKALAU: Aloha mai kakou. My name is `I`ini Kahakalau. I'm speaking on behalf of the Kahakalau `ohana that has lived at Kukuihaele for the last 26 years now. We are two doors down from Aunty Jolene, and three doors down from the proposed area, so this is like `ohana to me, and I'm very excited for this project: (A) So, I don't have to cook sometimes! I can just go. You know, we are a very rural community, but we are basically all `ohana. Literally and, of course, in that bigger sense, we also know how to live off the land, and Aunty Jolene has always done a great job in using food from the `aina, and it gives opportunities for even other farmers who share what they may have overflow ofulu, all that kind, holo, all that kind of stuff. You know, a lot of people will be able to eat from here, but one thing that I'm also excited about is that Kukuihaele is predominantly a village full of kupuna, and there aren't too much keiki in this area anymore, not too much children, and so, having an opportunity for them to grab something to eat, having somebody run food to them, you know, it's to me, it makes me feel good knowing that our kupuna will be fed and have something to eat and that it will be ai pono. It'd be healthy EXHIBIT B 6 food, because that is so important to keep our kupuna comfortable until their last days. So, I'm in support of this project and mahalo nui for listening today. VICENTE: Good morning. My name is Dwight Vicente representing the Hawaiian Kingdom. This property here is located on government lands that was not legally ceded in 1898 by the banana Republic of Hawaii meaning the State of Hawaii and its agencies, the County of Hawaii, and its agencies are going beyond the limits of the 1,750,000 acres that was illegally ceded to the United States in 1898 by the banana republic, and was rebranded as Hawaiian Home Lands in 1920. So, these lands, this Commission does not have jurisdiction. Just as they was saying the State highway, the State doesn't have a highway there, `cause the State is limited to the Hawaiian Home Lands only. So, there is no jurisdiction. So, do you see the lollipops on the side of the road? They're just lollipops with numbers on. They mean nothing. The courts have no jurisdiction, because the courts are limited to the 1,750,000 acres only. And, these courts are kangaroo courts for the reason being that they are under Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution which is limited to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. There was no amendment to that, or the U.S. Constitution. So, the—and, these lands are the government lands which was not ceded so it still remains, Native Tenant rights to the land meaning that it's self-executing. You don't need permission. You do as you need to do, and that's how it's been and should be. So, with this, I'll end with the reservation of the rights of this Kingdom under the Queen's Protest of January 17, 1893, against U.S. Minister Stevens. It has yet to makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Article III, Section 2, Clause 2, original but limited jurisdiction. The other one is the 1898 Joint Resolution. It's unconstitutional because the banana republic consisted of the U.S. citizens that created that banana republic. They had no jurisdiction. Not even to be here because the 1875 Reciprocity Treaty was not signed by King Kalakaua or the U.S. President, and in 1820, President Monroe appointed John C. Jones as the agent for the U.S., and he was in charge of the missionary family and the U.S. Navy. Here again there is no constitutional authority, and they just shouldn't have done it. No constitutional authority. It was part of the colonial process which it was doing under President Monroe. Thank you. GAMAYO: Aloha, my name is Darde Gamayo. I'm a part-time resident of Waipi`o Valley and Honoka`a now. We taro farm down in Waipi`o as well. We have knownI speak on behalf of my family. My husband is Darren Gamayo. He is the full-time information officer up at the top of Waipi`o Valley, and I come here today in support of Jolene and Earl's application. We need to look at becoming a sustainable island, a sustainable community, and part of living in Waipi`o Valley is what we strive to do. We live off the land, and we use what we have. With the storms coming, with everything that's going on in the world, we need to be able to feed ourselves. The Lannings have done that. They, Jolene has vast experience in restaurant. I could see some of you shaking your head `cause you guys remember the food at Jolene's Kau Kau Korner. I am excited. We are excited, because now if I am in Honoka`a and Darren forgot his lunch, I can just tell him go to Jolene's. He's a few feet away. I don't need to drive all the way over to, to Waipi`o to get him lunch. I'm not jokingI'm serious. EXHIBIT B 7 The—we need to look as `I`ini said, our kupuna are a big part of our community, and I'm not sure on the percentage, but a lot of kupuna live in Kukuihaele, and there are a lot of `em that are shut in, kupuna, because they don't have accessibility to transportation to get to Honoka`a. The closest place to go grab some food is Honoka`a now that the other restaurant that was there, they shut down. So, the availability of them to be able to have something nearby, possibly have it delivered to them is amazing and is great. I support the Lannings in their endeavor to have a food wagon. I know first-hand of the conditions of Waipi`o Valley when it gets busy, when it gets crowded. I know the parking issues. I hear about it every—well, I hear about it five days a week when my husband comes home from work. But, we also see it, and we deal with it all the time, and I think that is, it the lunch wagon is not going to have an impact on that, because it is already beyond that point. You are right. The cars do park up the road and sometime along the highway. That is something that six parking stalls for them is not going to do anything, and they are going to be a take-out lunch wagon, so they are not going to have a dine -in facility. Again, I support their mission and the goal to be sustainable, and I hope that you guys will support them as well. Thank you. POINDEXTER: Aloha, I'm Valerie Poindexter, but I'm here today as myself, as a community member, one that grew up in a time where we were self-reliant. We didn't rely on tourism to survive in our rural communities. We relied on our cottage industries of small "mom & pop" kind of businesses, and a lot of food wagons. I mean, I don't know if many of you were in our rural communities when we used to have the guy coming around selling aku or what kind of fish, or, you know, Hasegawa Store with his wagon with candies and even clothing and shoes and would drive around the communities, and people would, you know, open their homes to these wagons, and we were self-reliant because of it. We didn't rely on tourism. Yes, this wagon will feed our visitors, but most importantly, it will feed our community. And, you know, during times of disaster, should we become isolated, it doesn't have to be a storm. You know, bridges could go down for some reason or whatever. Can we—I've always asked every community and even in our Pa`auilo community, should we become isolated, can we survive as a community, and if we have these cottage industries and lunch wagons or food wagons, even ice shave trucksI remember them coming around, and I think we have someone here today who does ice shave wagons, too. And, we can survive as a community, because they always give back. We bartered. We've learned how to take care of each other, and we survive because we had each other, and I think what the Lannings are doing is just that. Bringing back what we had as a preserving that type of culture, and surviving as communities. So, I ask for your support. Thank you. CLARKSON: Thank you, all. Are there any questions from the Commission for any of these testifiers? If not, thank you. Please be seated. Is there anyone else signed up to testify or would like to testify? If not, I'll ask for a motion that public testimony be closed. DELA CRUZ: I move that public testimony be closed. EXHIBIT B 8 REPLOGLE: Second. CLARKSON: All those in favor? COMMISSIONERS: Aye. CLARKSON: Opposed? Public testimony is closed. At this time, I'd like a motion for action on this matter, this application. YEE: Can I comment quickly, Joe? CLARKSON: Please go ahead. YEE: I want to be a little transparent to the public and to the Commissioners today on this application. On face value, it looked like a very straightforward application to approve. But, I want folks to know that there was a lot of debate that went on behind the scenes around this project, and it had nothing to do necessarily with this project specifically, but around the lack of kind of oversight by Department of Health around food trucks around the Island, and the lack of kind of input around safety of the road. And, so a lot of times, Planning is put in this, into this lane where we have to watch out for other people's kind of responsibilities, and we don't want to overstep, but we want to ensure that folks are protected the guests, visitors, drivers. And, so we try to do that, and we try to condition things that seem reasonable. I want to quickly comment that Waipi`o Valley certainly is a precious area, and so there's always thought given to does an activity add value to it or takes away from it. And, at face value, if it's just the food truck, I may not be for it, okay? But, a food truck that is on ag land that is bringing food back from the farm to the food truck and feeding folks locally? Yes. If the focus is around feeding the locals first and tourists second, even better. So, there was a lot of discussion around using ag land that, that is connected, right? To an operation. I want the Commissioners to understand that if I were to get another application on a food truck, that may not have all these connections, I would not necessarily want to see a proliferation of food trucks everywhere around the Island for a bunch of folks to make just money somewhere else, right? We have to find that fine line of what protects our agricultural lands. So, I just want folks to understand that that we were a little afraid of some precedence setting here, but I think we were very clear about why we were approving. There's a connection to the land, it's using local products, it is very integral to the community there, and if we hold to those values on future applications, I think we will go in the right direction. Thank you. CLARKSON: Thank you. At this time, the Chair will ask for a motion for action. REPLOGLE: I would like to make a motion to approve. I move that the application for Special Permit Docket No. 19-000207 be approved based on the Planning Director's recommendations which shall be adopted. DELA CRUZ: Second. EXHIBIT B 9 CLARKSON: It's been moved and seconded that this application be approved. Any further discussion? AU: Yes, I just want to make a comment, Mr. Chair. I share the same issues that our Director has just stated. I do not want to see Waipi`o Valley area commercialized, but I am afraid that this application and approval of this application may set the precedence for future development. So, I'm very glad that the Planning Department is aware of that. We do need to keep that area and a lot of our areas pristine. So, that's the only comment that I have. REPLOGLE: I have a comment as well. CLARKSON: Please proceed. REPLOGLE: I am not in favor of converting ag land into anything but agriculture, based on what was stated here today in terms of feeding ourselves, but in this case just as a little background, I was a cowboy on the Islands for 28 years, and I understand the need to get your products that you produce to market. And, this, in my opinion, is a very good method and mode, and I agree with the rest of the people here that we don't want this to become a food truck heaven, but it is connected to ag, and it is connected to what we produce on our `aina. Anyway, that's why I support it, and I support the Director's opinion on it as well. Thank you. CLARKSON: Any further discussion? If not, please poll the Commission for a vote. ROY: Commissioner Au? AU: Aye. ROY: Chair Clarkson? CLARKSON: Aye. ROY: Commissioner Dela Cruz? DELA CRUZ: Aye. ROY: And, Commissioner Replogle. REPLOGLE: Aye. EXHIBIT B 10 CLARKSON: Motion carries. Thank you. The discussion ended at 10:10 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sarah Y. Hata-Finley, Secretary Windward Planning Commission 10,141111.11 1.1