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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-11-18 Leeward Exh A (Public Testimony re Items 1 & 2) LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII TESTIMONY TRANSCRIPT NOVEMBER 18, 2021 Public testimony regarding the applications of KAUPULEHU LAND LLC (PL-SLU-2021- 000001 and PL-REZ-2021-000006)was called to order at 9:40 a.m. via live stream online meeting, with Chairman Michael Vitousek presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Michael Vitousek, Shani Armbruster, Barbara DeFranco, Mahina Paishon-Duarte, and Faith "Faye" Yates ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Clement"CJ" Kanuha III ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: Dalilah Schlueter, Esq. (Counsel for the Commission), Jean Campbell, Esq. (Counsel for the Planning Department), Zendo Kern (Planning Director), Maija Jackson (Planning Program Manager), Christian Kay (Planner), Jessica Andrews (Planner), Tracie-Lee Camero (Planner), Eric Cook (Planner), and Noriko Sauer(Commission Secretary) APPLICANT: KAUPULEHU LAND LLC (PL-SLU-2021-000001) Application for a State Land Use Boundary Amendment from Agricultural to Urban for 2.653 acres of land. The subject property is located at 64-983 Mamalahoa Highway, approximately one mile east of its intersection with Kawaihae Road, Pu`ukapu Homesteads, South Kohala, Hawaii, TMK: (3) 6-4-024:027. APPLICANT: KAUPULEHU LAND LLC (PL-REZ-2021-000006) Application for a Change of Zone from an Agricultural-5 acre (A-5a) zoning district to a Neighborhood Commercial-10,000 square feet(CN-10) and Single-Family Residential-10,000 square feet(RS-10) zoning district for 5.349 acres of land. The subject property is located at 64- 983 Mamalahoa Highway, approximately one mile east of its intersection with Kawaihae Road, Pu`ukapu Homesteads, South Kohala, Hawaii, TMK: (3) 6-4-024:027. Secretary's Note: "- - -" indicates indiscernible speech due to internet/technical difficulties or simultaneous talk. VITOUSEK: Beginning with Item 1 and 2, Kaupulehu Land, State Land Use Boundary Amendment and Rezone the first testifier we have is Ceci Davenport. Is Ceci Davenport available? DAVENPORT: I'm here, can you see me? VITOUSEK: I can't see you, but I can hear you. 1 EXHIBIT A DAVENPORT: Okay, Okay, thank you very much Commission. Can you hear me, Mike? Okay thank you. VITOUSEK: Yep. DAVENPORT: Thank you very much Commission. A couple of concerns that I have. I live in the immediate area; I am a long-time resident of Waimea. My family has been here for many, many generations. Some of the big concerns are the traffic. Traffic is incredibly, incredibly congested through this area. Traffic flows very, very quickly, through this area. If you can imagine a half a mile,just picture a half a mile in your mind. That would be from Kamamalu from the Police station up to the subject property. Currently, there are forty (40) driveways, 40 driveways going in and out allowing traffic in and out of that very, very small stretch of highway. There have been numerous accidents. People jockeying for positions. There's no center lane and even creating a center lane, I think would even make it worse. Having a traffic light would not alleviate the problem. I think just increasing more commercial in this area would not be good, would not serve the community and especially this neighborhood well. Secondly about four (4) or five (5) years ago we had heavy, heavy, heavy rains in this area. It came down from Minit Stop, it crossed the street, it just missed the Kawano property, it went directly through Metzler's property, right through the front of his two (2) homes, his existing homes there, went right over to the former Parker Ranch house and into Yamaguchi's and then it flooded Yamaguchi's. So, my other concern is how is he going to or how is the County or Metzler going to prevent the flow of water? It didn't go down the highway, down Mamalahoa. It went across people's properties and affected their properties. Third, my concern is the increase of noise. If he is able to build those three (3)buildings plus the parking lots those parking spaces and more residential in the back that increases the surrounding neighborhood to more vagrancy, to security, to safety and I just don't think look, we all know why he is doing this. He has no vested interest in the town of Waimea other than a financial interest. He is not in the community, he is not of the community, and so I say to keep this property Ag as it has always been. Having 3 rented horses on your property is not Ag. That is not the best use of that property. It should be to somebody who cares, who wants to, who wants to serve this community properly. Grow vegetables, grow fruit to have a small business to not depend on imported food. I know the County, the County, State they preach sustainability all of this stuff importation of food. Well, let's support that, let's not support somebody else coming in and 3 more big buildings there, more business, more people, more traffic, and more noise. So, I implore the County, the Commission members please to be responsible. You have a responsibility, a duty and an obligation to serve this community well and I hope my testimony today that everybody has their listening ears on and their minds open, hearts open and does right by this community by Waimea, and I thank you very, very much. VITOUSEK: Thank you. Next up, we have John Kawano. KAWANO: Hello? 2 EXHIBIT A VITOUSEK: Well, I can hear you very faintly. KAWANO: Hello? DAVENPORT: John, maybe get off your speaker and just go on to regular phone yeah. VITOUSEK: If you're together, he could just sit where you're sitting. DAVENPORT: Oh, okay, John come, you can sit here. Okay, here,just put my headsets on. KAWANO: Good morning, everybody. VITOUSEK: Good morning. KAWANO: Sorry, there's something going on with my phone. My name is John Kawano, I've lived here next to the Metzler of property for 3 generations. I have 3 concerns with this property and like Ms. Davenport said number one (1) is the flood impact, number 2 is the effect on traffic and number 3 is how would this effect our future zoning for Ag? Would this open up a floodgate for other people to just go "hey, I have Ag-5 let's slice this and dice this. So, number 1, let's go with number 1. There is an AEF floodplain running down Mamalahoa Highway. This is the overflow from Lanimaumau Stream. It starts at the Fukuki property, TMK: 6-4-024:016. It egresses onto Mamalahoa Highway, runs down Mamalahoa Highway like Ms. Davenport said. My question is, I want to go on record to request a FEMA impact this property will have on the other properties below the Metzler property. Because I've seen it rain here and I've seen just the egress right now it's encroached on HPM. It's flooded HPM, it's flooded NAPA, it's flooded Ululani Plaza. So, that's my real concern is public safety on this thing. How is it going to impact the rest of the establishments below this project? The floodplain runs past Metzler's property. Are you going to require him to put in sidewalks? If so, are you going to require him to put in drainage to control this flow? And it's going to go 2 ways the floodwater will either egress this property or it'll run from his property and add to the flooding downstream. So, I'm saying a FEMA impact study will be probably in the County's best interest and Mr. Metzler's best interest for liability in the future. And then number 2 if you require Mr. Metzler to put in sidewalks here so, we go into the sidewalk issue. When they did the Waimea improvement with the sidewalks in town there came the American Disability Act. They had to narrow the egress between each opening of the sidewalk. So, ACE Hardware, HPM, Ululani Plaza when cars coming out the other car coming in has no room to come over the sidewalk. They have to climb the sidewalk. So, if you have this Metzler project with these sidewalks traffic is going to stop. It will stop traffic and it's going to be a problem. So that's my second issue is the traffic. How would this affect the traffic? And then, my third issue is how it'll affect zoning? Will this project affect Ag-5's where people going hey Metzler did it, we can cut up our Ag-5 into 2 10,000 square foot lots? So, those are my 3 issues on this project, thank you for your time. I hope they get addressed and that's about it, thank you very much. VITOUSEK: Okay, thank you so much for your testimony. 3 EXHIBIT A KAWANO: Okay. VITOUSEK: Next, we have Myron Lindsey? Is Myron online? LINDSEY: Yes, thank you, Commissioners, can you all hear me? VITOUSEK: Yes. LINDSEY: Okay, thank you very much. Sixth generation Lindsey's of Waimea. First Lindsey's to come into the State of Hawaii. Presently I reside in Waimea below I don't know if you know the Merriman's Restaurant area whatever. But my biggest concern at this point and at this time is the traffic. Waimea is an artery. It's major artery for transportation between the east and west. We have 2 ports, 1 in Hilo and 1 in Kawaihae. Which we really should be thankful for because it brings in our goods, consumer goods. The challenge with that is presently as it is, we have containers that are being shuttled between east and west, Kawaihae and Hilo on a daily basis, including evenings and nights. Constant trucks running at a high rate of speed in this area from the Police station and all up and throughout their destination. So, this is a big concern for me, I have a property directly across the street from Mr. Metzler and I'm very concerned about this traffic increase. Right now, it is pretty unbearable and there's no, how should I say there is no control of monitoring the speed in that area. I was told by a reliable source that works at one of the ports that a trucker out of Hilo is compensating his drivers well, per load. So, the more loads you make during the course of the day, the more you get compensated between east and west, this is just an incentive for more traffic at a high rate of speed in that particular area. So that's one of my biggest concerns as we go forward what we need to do really Commissioners is to really have a comprehensive impact statement. A study and I'm pretty sure we have some studies on record, but we're at a point right now, where the State is not going to have a bypass road like they were looking at going through Hawaiian Homes Land. I've been on several committees in Waimea with the Hawaiian Homes Association in addressing this issue of a bypass road alleviating the traffic through Waimea but that's not going to happen really. So, what's going to take place in the next five (5), ten (10), fifteen (15), twenty (20) years let's project out and see what's going to take place. Like Ms. Davenport said, we need to keep this area Ag and Mr. Kawano said we need to keep this area Ag. I know the original owners that own this farm and that's one of my biggest concerns. The other concern that I have is really having a zone in Waimea for businesses. I don't think we should have any more businesses, commercial businesses from the Police station going east towards Honoka`a. This was all Ag land in the past and I think as much as possible we need to keep this Ag. So, anymore commercial I don't look upon it as good growth, so to speak. We should have our business zones in Waimea going towards the airport, I know we're going to infringe on maybe Parker land, but it should be in that area towards the airport. Basically, that's my biggest concern is this increase of traffic, safety for the motorists and pedestrians and the people living alongside the highway. My property if I do build my living room will probably be right at the setback. Okay, which a bus, the main artery, or the main road. You have trucks with high rate of power now. The trucks today to give you an idea what you're dealing with as far as trucks. I 4 EXHIBIT A think they have a limit of an 85,000-pound Gross Vehicle Weight(GVW) and with trucks now in excess of 500 or 600 horsepower they can rev up and pull those loads at a high rate of speed. Time is of the essence for truckers. I was a truck driver in the past. So, we have a scenario here between the 2 ports, high rate of speed, traffic, truckers exceeding the speed limit in that area, which I think is thirty-five (35) I believe we need to monitor that. What I would suggest Commissioners is that again re-emphasizing an impact statement, a comprehensive impact statement projecting out maybe 5, 10, 15, 20 years and then coming to a decision on this matter with Mr. Metzler. That's really all that I have at this point, and I appreciate you allowing me to say my peace. VITOUSEK: Well, thank you very much for your testimony, Mr. Lindsey. I'm moving on to Kristin Counter. COUNTER: Hi, good morning. Thank you for the time today to share my objection to the rezoning and the State Land Use amendment for the Pu`ukapu subdivision. I'm actually born and raised on Oahu and my husband I moved to Waimea in 2019. Really to create a more sustainable future for ourselves and our than 1 year old daughter. Before we left all around us homes are being demolished and monster home after monster home developed in their place. I'm sure you guys have heard about this fiasco happening there. These homes were technically "- - - " and no one stopped them until there was a crisis. Backtracking on that is almost impossible and neighborhoods and infrastructure are pretty much crumbling down around them. We thought we moved away from that, but here we are today. I'm sharing a property line and a private road with the proposed subdivision. And really the bottom line is this. The subject properties are Ag land and we're really not talking about just this parcel, we're talking about setting the precedent for the others surrounding it. Seventeen (17) acres right next door, which is former Parker Ranch land was bought by another developer. He's now also subdividing and based on this application is already talking about changing the land use to create more density. Others have already mentioned that by approving this application it doesn't just mean converting the 5 acres it means setting the precedent to convert another 17 more and then probably more after that. So, it's sort of like the monster homes on Oahu, one after another, after another until somebody finally woke up and said, this is wrong! For Oahu it's too late, but if we can avoid making the same mistake here. In 2002, when the applicants purchase the property and they wanted to subdivide the lot. Actually, personally repealed Ordinance 93-65 and converted the property to Ag. By doing so, they avoided a road widening, a left turn lane, curb gutters and sidewalks, drainage improvement and a traffic signal. "- - - " I think it would be the equivalent of a couple hundred thousand dollars in property tax savings over the next twenty (20)years. So, I don't understand why these aren't requirements now. These improvements are not any less necessary 20 years later then they were when they were established. As others have mentioned the entire property is in a flood zone with additional grading and improvements required to develop the parcels. I have no idea how that flood impact will create more flood risk to the surrounding properties. I suppose others has concerns based on previous flooding history of the property. 5 EXHIBIT A This doesn't seem to be addressed in the application. Whereas Ordinance 93 65 would have required gutters and drainage improvements as well. We do understand and acknowledge that the front portion of the parcel was previously zone Commercial and of course, as we've previously stated that the applicant repealed that to bypass the expensive cost to complete the subdivision. We do not understand why there is an additional right to the Land Use amendment and why it would be granted in this case. I see no meaningful value to the SLU other than apparently money adding the residential lots is not in fact in this quote from the application "add to the local flavor and historical significance of the property". VITOUSEK: So, I think you've already hit the 3-minute mark,please— COUNTER: You let others go over and I'm almost done. I've just got one more thing here. So, many have already discussed traffic and I did read the traffic impact study. It did a good job in counting cars but, it did not practically consider how others come in and out over the 40 driveways down the stretch of road. To wrap up most officials have talked at nauseum about sustainability and agricultural independence and this application is far from that. In addition, I haven't met a single person in this community who wants this, not a single one, thank you for your time. VITOUSEK: Thank you we appreciate it. The public testimony ended at 10:04 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Melissa Dacayanan-Salvador Secretary to Boards and Commissions 6 EXHIBIT A