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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-12-04 Hearing Transcript - Thy Word Ministries USE 18-075WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT DECEMBER 4, 2019 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of THY WORD MINISTRIES WAIKOLOA DBA THY WORD MINISTRIES KAT (USE 18-000075) was called to order at 9:02 a.m. in the County of Hawaii Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawaii with Chairman Joseph Clarkson presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Gilbert Aguinaldo, Dean Au, Joseph Clarkson, Thomas Raffipiy, John Replogle. ABSENT & EXCUSED: Donn Dela Cruz. ALSO PRESENT: Michael Yee (Planning Director), Malia Hall (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Windward Planning Commission), Jeff Darrow (Planning Program Manager), Maija Jackson (Planner), Christian Kay (Planner), and Sarah Hata-Finley (Commission Secretary). And 11 members from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: THY WORD MINISTRIES WAIKOLOA DBA THY WORD MINISTRIES KA`U (USE 18-000075) Application for a Use Permit to allow the establishment of a church and related facilities on 3.098 acres of land within the Single -Family Residential -10,000 square feet (RS -10) zoning district. The property is located on Arena Road, approximately 750 feet southeast of its intersection with N5'51ehu Spur Road, N5'51ehu, Ka`u, Hawaii, TMK: (3) 9-5-021:035. CLARKSON: The first and only item on the agenda is an application from Thy Word Ministries. It's a Use Permit, No. 18-[0000]75, and Christian Kay will now make the presentation about this application. KAY: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, good morning, and good morning to the Members of the Windward Planning Commission. I feel like it's been a couple of months since I've seen your bright smiling faces so I'm glad to be back with you. If I can turn your attention to the screen, as the Chair stated, this is a Use Permit application for Thy Word Ministries Waikoloa doing business as Thy Word Ministries Ka`u. The subject parcel here outlined in red is located in the Ka`u District of Hawaii Island; more specifically, in N5'51ehu Town. For reference, we've got Mamalahoa Highway running generally eastwest through the slide, and the subject property takes access off of a series of private roads. This is the N5'51ehu Spur Road here that turns into what's known as Arena Road that leads to the subject property. For further EXHIBIT A reference, the N5'alehu Park is located mauka of the subject property, and the rodeo arena is directly mauka of the subject property. The Applicant is requesting a Use Permit to allow the establishment of an 8,400 -square foot church and related improvements on 3.098 acres of land. The request includes the following improvements. The church building, including a 3,780 -square foot sanctuary with a stage, pastor's office, sound room and nursery, with the remaining 4,620 square feet of space dedicated to a foyer/greeting area, a certified kitchen for church use only, a multi-purpose meeting and dining space, a children's church classroom, nursery, storage, and bathrooms. The parking area surrounding the church with a total of a 106 regular parking stalls, and six handicapped parking stalls and a loading zone and proposed septic tank and leach field as well as rainwater catchment tanks for fire suppression and non -potable water and a sealed, food grade tank for potable water and certified kitchen use. The Applicant proposes the following services and classes—services, classes, and activities for the church facility. Sunday church services will start at 8:30 a.m. for a prayer meeting followed up by praise and worship practice. The main service will start at 10 a.m. and end at noon. The Applicant expects a "pot blessing" gathering to take place every other Saturday from noon to two pardon me, every Sunday from noon to two. They are also proposing smaller evening classes and gatherings four nights a week, including Bible study on Tuesdays, hula and singing classes on Thursdays, praise and worship classes, and men's and women's ministry meetings one other evening a week each. Evening activities are anticipated to host about 15 to 20 participants and will run from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The Applicant also anticipates hosting occasional larger church functions, social and spiritual gatherings, fellowship functions, meetings, and special events. According to the Applicant, the facility, including certified kitchen, will be for church use only, and will not be rented for profit. The zoning of the subject property and the area directly mauka is Single -Family Residential – 10,000 square feet. Under this zoning designation, a church is allowed with a Use Permit. To the west of the property is some Village Commercial. The Open further mauka of the subject property is consistent with the park, and there is some other Village Commercial further west. To the east, directly to the east of the subject property is a County drainageway, and that's this parcel here. And, then, further east is some residences. And, then, makai of the subject parcel is zoned Agriculture. The State designation for the subject parcel and much of the surrounding land is Urban as indicated in the red color, and there's a small portion of Agriculture on the lower right-hand corner. The General Plan Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map designation for the subject parcel is split between Low Density Urban indicated in the mustard color, and Medium Density Urban indicated in the orange color. EXHIBIT A 2 And, so we've got a couple of aerial photographs. On the upper left is kind of a more zoomed out showing the subject parcel in proximity to some of the other uses. Again, we've got the Na`alehu Park here with the Mamalahoa Highway running generally eastwest through the top of the slide. The private roadway is connecting to the parcel coming down this way. The drainageway here running to the east of the subject parcel. And, then, if we look at the zoomed - in photograph here will also show that the subject parcel includes a community cemetery that has undergone archaeological inventory survey, burial treatment plan, archaeological monitoring plan, and during construction of the church, there will be a monitor on site, as required by those plans, and an archaeological monitoring report after construction and the church is done. So, that's kind of been some of the hold-up with the application that came in last year, is dealing with the SHPD issues, but those have been sufficiently dealt with. At this point, again, we've got the drainageway here to the right, and some of the residences to the east of the subject property. Here is the Applicant's proposed site plan. Again, the main road is Mamalahoa Highway, is up here. Access is going to come through into here. The site plan shows the cemetery and the 30 - foot buffer that is required under the burial treatment plan. The church building will be here surrounded by parking, and it's about 148 feet from the eastern property line, and the water tanks and septic system and everything will be located here toward the bottom of the property. Not shown on this, but in the report and in conversation with the Applicant, there are in the report, it says ten shipping containers, about 20- to 40 -foot shipping containers on the property. When we went out initially a couple years back, there were three there. There have been, since been a few more that were acquired by the church. In talking with the Applicant this morning, there are actually only eight there right now. Some have been moved, and there's a condition of approval in the permit that indicates that prior to submitting plans for Plan Approval, they need to either remove the remaining shipping containers or get them permitted, get a Building Permit through Public Works. So, pardon me here, a few photographs. So, this is a view of Arena Road looking makai. This is the Hana Hou Restaurant again for reference. So, this is a one -lane road that's about 13 to 18 feet of pavement. One of the requirements here is going to be to bring that roadway there's a, they have a 20 -foot easement. He's going to bring that roadway up to Fire Department access road standards which is 20 feet of, not necessarily paving, but all-weather materials to allow for Fire Department apparatus to get down. Here is a view of the Na`alehu Spur Road. Hana Hou Restaurant is here now and looking mauka toward Mamalahoa Highway. And, farther down, here's a view of the entrance to the property at the end of the pavement looking makai, and then a view of the property entrance looking mauka. Just to give you a sense of what that access point looks like. Oops, sorry—and, here is, on the upper left is a photograph of the proposed building location generally in this grassed area with parking surrounding it. The orange fencing you see here is that delineation of the 30 -foot buffer around the cemetery. Here's just a view of that community cemetery. There's been quite a bit of work done by the community to bring the cemetery back. It was overgrown pretty significantly. So, there's been a lot of work done there, and on the EXHIBIT A 3 bottom left, we see a view of the proposed church location looking makai toward the ocean and then on the bottom right. This is generally looking eastward toward the drainageway, and this is just to give you a sense. There were some letters of opposition that we received back in 2018 by folks who lived in the subdivision across the drainageway. Concerns about traffic, concerns about noise and the like. We looked at this. We looked at the proposed location of the church and the distance away from the property line, the drainageway. There is vegetation on either side and a berm on this side of the church property so outside of our normal conditions for landscaping and the like, we didn't think any additional conditions were necessary to deal with noise and view issues. And, we haven't heard back from those same folks who had opposition earlier when they sent out their second notice for hearing. The Director is approving, or pardon me, recommending approval of the Use Permit request with conditions. In our conversations, the Director wanted me to just point out whereas he is supportive of the application, he just wanted to let the Commission know that there are going to be significant improvements, infrastructure that are going to be required to make this site work. That's extending a water line from the highway, the Fire Department access road that we spoke about, the catchment tanks for fire suppression and, you know, kind of getting the Fire Department to approve all that engineering. So, in conversation with the Applicant, we were very clear up front that there were going to be significant investment that would need to be made, and they submitted to us in writing an indication that they understood and that they were willing to make those investments to make this work. With that, I'll end my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions the Commission may have. CLARKSON: Any questions for staff from the Commission? RAFFIPIY: I have a question, Mr. Chairman. I know you kind of point in the general directions where the, on the site map, where the water tanks are going to be, and I'm reading these, the background information, so I understand there's going to be non -potable water and potable water. So, are we talking about two tanks here? KAY: There's actually three tanks. There are two 20,000 -gallon rainwater catchment tanks. They are going to be set aside for non -potable water and water suppression, oh, pardon me, fire suppression purposes. The other thank is going to be a sealed, food -grade tank for potable water, for mainly for the certified kitchen. And, then, they'll have, you know, on average of one unit of water coming down from the highway for potable uses as well. So, basically, another condition of approval in here is going to require water calculations for their proposed usage. So, what that's going to do is indicate beyond—if the use, required use is beyond that 400 gallons a day, then they'll have to supplement it with other non -potable uses as well as the Fire Department is going to chime in and say you need a certain amount of water for fire suppression. So, I believe that's what the rainwater catchment tanks are for. RAFFIPIY: Right, so I see that the water tank, the proposed water tanks are right down below, down right. So, when you say fire suppression, is that for the Fire Department or is that like fire system, fire sprinkling system in the building. EXHIBIT A 4 KAY: I don't believe a sprinkler system is going to be required given the size of the proposed church, so it's basically going to be dedicated water for the Fire Department to come and hook up their equipment to, if there's a fire, to suppress the fire. RAFFIPIY: Okay, so being that the building is going to be more than 6,000 square feet— AGUINALDO: No, three— RAFFIPIY: Or 3,000 square feet. AGUINALDO: Three thousand I think, yeah? KAY: Yeah, it's 8,400. RAFFIPIY: Eighty-four, yeah, it's combined, eighty-four. KAY: Yeah. RAFFIPIY: So, that we'll require to at least provide the minimum, the 2,000 -gallons per minute. KAY: That's correct. RAFFIPIY: So, all that calculations will have to be factored in. KAY: That's correct. So, ultimately, there's another condition of approval that indicates that they need to work with the Fire Department to come up with approved plans for fire suppression and then once they're installed, a letter from the Fire Department to the Planning Department prior to occupancy that indicates that they have met those requirements, yeah. RAFFIPIY: Thank you. KAY: You're welcome. CLARKSON: Any further questions from the Commission? 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? KEALOHA: I do. CLARKSON: Please introduce yourself and where you reside and proceed. KEALOHA: Okay. My name is Frederick Kealoha. I live in Ocean View, and I am with the church, and I'm the one who coordinates the building. EXHIBIT A 5 CLARKSON: Did you receive the Planning Director's Background Report and recommendations and KEALOHA: —Yes. CLARKSON: Are you okay with all of those? KEALOHA: Yes. CLARKSON: Any questions for the Applicant from the Commission? AU: Mr. Chair? CLARKSON: Commissioner Au. AU: Test, test, am I on? I'm just curious. What is, what do you think your anticipated dollar amount for the project is going to be? Have you guys come up with that number yet? KEALOHA: My figures was 800,000. AU: All right, thank you. RAFFIPIY: Mr. Chairman, I have a question. So, Mr. Kealoha, so you have the burial, what is that, the burial plan that, the maintenance plan. You folks have that? KEALOHA: For the burial site? RAFFIPIY: Yeah, do you have a copy of the plan? KEALOHA: Yes. RAFFIPIY: So, who is going to be maintaining the KEALOHA: —The church. RAFFIPIY: The church is going to maintain the KEALOHA: —Yeah, we'd be maintaining the RAFFIPIY: —The burial site. KEALOHA: The burial site, and we were the ones who cleaned the whole site. RAFFIPIY: That's all I have for now. CLARKSON: Any further questions? Do you have anything, Commissioner Replogle? EXHIBIT A 6 REPLOGLE: I have one question, sir. Is everything going to be good if there was a rodeo. I know they don't have a lot of rodeos, but there is a rodeo on Sunday when you're having service, that's acceptable KEALOHA: Yes REPLOGLE: noise and KEALOHA: —Yes. REPLOGLE: Okay. I just—peace in the community. Thank you. KEALOHA: Yeah, also as far as the containers, the, there's actually going to be five containers that, there's three already on the property, and we're keeping three more just to store material for the, when we start building, because there's a lot of theft in that area that's been happening. So, it's not eight, it's five containers. CLARKSON: And you agree with the condition that KEALOHA: Yes CLARKSON: —you need to follow the permitting regulations KEALOHA: Yes CLARKSON: —for this? Okay. RAFFIPIY: Mr. Chair, I have one more question. Access to the property is coming over several private properties and private roadways. Does the church have the deeds, you know, to have access rights to KEALOHA: Yes RAFFIPIY: go over these private properties KEALOHA: Yes RAFFIPIY: —and roadways? All right. Thank you. KEALOHA: Yes, we do. AU: Mr. Chair, I have another question. In regards to the three letters of opposition back in 2018, I'm assuming they're neighbors. They live around the area. Have you guys discussed with them or you guys have, are they, what's going on with that because Christian mentioned EXHIBIT A 7 that they did not after these letters came in, there is no other correspondence, so can you just talk a little bit KEALOHA: —Yeah. No, we did not speak or have any contact with them The, from what I understand, one of the, the complaints—she lives in Seattle. That's what I understand, and as far as we feel that, it's not a problem, you know, with the what do you call, with the church there. CLARKSON: I have a question for staff related to this issue if they might know. Have you received complaints, any complaints, about activities at the rodeo arena from the residential subdivision that adjoins or is across the drainage area from the rodeo arena? KAY: Not that I am aware of, Mr. Chair. In the complaints about this, one of the things I cited was there is already a significant amount of traffic on the weekends in that area. So, it may be inferred that because there is already a lot of traffic, some of that may be rodeo traffic, but in terms of noise or visual impacts, none that I am aware of. CLARKSON: Thank you. RAFFIPIY: I have a question for the staff. There was some, you know, there was a filing error cited in that, for the, you know, on the opposition letters. What is that? What filing error was that? KAY: Sure, so, in most of our mailings that we sent out, the surrounding property owner mailings, there is a statement on the letter stating that they have the opportunity to file for a contested case, and we include a contested case form. A lot of times that can be confusing to folks who just want to submit written opposition. They have a form in front of them. They fill out the form and submit the form to us. When we see the form that is an indication to us that we need to follow up. If the form doesn't include a $250 filing fee, then we follow up with the complainant and determine whether or not they just inadvertently filled out the form or if they actually want to file for a contested case. In all three cases that we received opposition letters on contested case forms, we determined that there was no intention to actually go through with the contested case, but they just, you know, the information that's on the form, we just wanted to submit to you so you can see what their complaint was. RAFFIPIY: Okay, thank you. KAY: You're welcome. CLARKSON: If there are no further questions for the Applicant or for staff, thank you very much, sir. KEALOHA: You're welcome. CLARKSON: We'll proceed to public testimony now. We have listed here one person who is wishing to testify to this application. Will Dwight Vicente please come forward? Are you willing to be sworn, Mr. Vicente? EXHIBIT A VICENTE: No. CLARKSON: Please let the record show that this testimony is unsworn testimony. Please introduce yourself and proceed with your testimony, sir. VICENTE: Good morning, my name is Dwight Vicente representing the Hawaiian Kingdom. Part of the record, it says that the Royal Patent was granted June 1st, 1869, so apparently these lands are not the illegally ceded lands by the banana republic in 1898. So, these lands actually still fall under the jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom, meaning this, the State Land Use Commission and the State, this Commission, does not have jurisdiction over these lands. These are political questions for the, that fall under the jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom, especially since it was not ceded in 1898. And, the the application that they was just speaking about the opposition would be, they use the term Native Hawaiian which is defined under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. That is, Hawaiian Homes Commission Act is limited to the 1,750,000 acres of Crown and Government lands which was illegally ceded. So the term, Native Hawaiian, and the definition is based on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which is a homestead program/Indian removal act, because they used it both ways here to get the natives off the lands, the leased lands, agricultural lands, in 1920, so that the terms of the lease as it came up in 1915 to 1920, they would be removed. So, the adverse, the adverse possession could take hold. Then, you got them abandoning the land and put on the list of tears, not Trail of Tears like the Indians but the list of tears where they put you on a—you apply, you get on the list, you probably gonna die on that list. You're not going to be put on the land. So, these lands still hold tenant rights to `em, meaning the people that lived on the land has the right to be on the land. And that's why it's hard to say that people own land. And, they got tax map key on it. A lot of these guys that claim they own the land are foreigners which the treaties all ended in 1897, and then, for the U.S., the 1875 Reciprocity Treaty was invalid because King Kalakaua and the U.S. President did not sign it. And that's where the application of the Northwest Ordinance started in 1875 under the Reciprocity Treaty. So, with this, I'll end with the rights of this Kingdom. It's reserved. Thank you. CLARKSON: Are there any questions for the testifier, Mr. Vicente, today? If not, thank you. Are there any other people wishing to testify on this application? If not, I'll ask for a motion that public testimony be closed. RAFFIPIY: Mr. Chair, can I ask one more question. I'm sorry, but I just— CLARKSON: Of who? Of RAFFIPIY: The owner. CLARKSON: Yeah, please. Mr. Kealoha, could you please EXHIBIT A 9 RAFFIPIY: Mr. Kealoha, there is a grading, there is a grading permit that was outstanding in, back in October that was supposed to have final inspection. Has that been, the final inspection been conducted yet? KEALOHA: Yes. RAFFIPIY: Oh, it is done already, and so KEALOHA: Yes RAFFIPIY: —it's all approved? KEALOHA: Yes. RAFFIPIY: Thank you very much. AU: Mr. Chair, I do have another question. Question for staff. So, I saw that slide with that road that needs to be widened to, for Fire Department standards. KAY: Yes. AU: Can we go back to that slide, please? KAY: The photograph? AU: Yeah, it's on theI think it's the top left picture. So, the Applicant is responsible for widening that road, but my question to you and maybe to the Applicant is who uses that road? Does everybody use that road or is only the Applicant's clients or church people are going to be using the road? KAY: I'll let the Applicant speak to that. KEALOHA: There's a, it's ranch land, and from what we understand, the Chinese own past the, you know, below us, and it's, the ranchers go in and out every so often to take care their cattle. And, that's what I, I know. AU: Okay, I was just wondering because if other businesses and individuals are using the road, then why should the Applicant be bound to be responsible to, to incur that cost? KAY: Because the Fire Code requires it. So, in, as a response to the requirement for Fire Department Access Road when we have permit requests like this, the conditions of approval can be more general --follow all requirements of State, County, and Federal agencies. In the case where infrastructure improvements are going to be necessary, we'd like to point those out, so this is something that the Fire Department in their code says they need to be build and maintain that EXHIBIT A 10 roadway. They are the landowner right now coming in for this permit, and so that's a condition of this permit. If they wanted to work with the other landowners down there to come up with some kind of a road association or shared requirement, that's something they could do, but because we're dealing with this permit right now, that's why the condition. AU: Thank you. CLARKSON: Any further questions? Thank you very much. I started to move to close public testimony, but I don't think we had a motion. RAFFIPIY: So moved. CLARKSON: Is there a second? REPLOGLE: Second. CLARKSON: All in favor? COMMISSIONERS: Aye. CLARKSON: Motion carried, public testimony is closed. I need now a motion for action. REPLOGLE: I would like to make a motion for approval of this Applicant. I move for Application for USE Permit Docket No. 18-000075 be approved based on the Planning Director's Recommendation which shall be adopted. AGUINALDO: I second. CLARKSON: It's been moved by Commissioner Replogle and seconded by Commissioner Aguinaldo. Would the staff please call a roll call vote of the Commission? KAY: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Replogle? REPLOGLE: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Aguinaldo? AGUINALDO: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Au? AU: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Raffipiy? EXHIBIT A 11 RAFFIPIY: Aye. KAY: And Chair Clarkson. CLARKSON: Aye. KAY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Motion carries five, zero. CLARKSON: Thank you. You will be notified in writing as to the action we took today. The discussion ended at 9:32 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sarah Y. Hata-Finley, Secretary Windward Planning Commission EXHIBIT A 12