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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-01-06 TYAMADA WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT JANUARY 6, 2011 YAMADA & SONS, INC. (SPP 10-110) A regularly advertised hearing on the application of was called to order at 9:06a.m. in the County of Hawai‘i, Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i, with Chairman Zendo Kern presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Zendo Kern, Dean Au, Takashi Domingo, Wallace Ishibashi, Stephen Ono, and Rell Woodward STAFF PRESENT: Julie Mecklenburg (Deputy Corporation Counsel), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Phyllis Fujimoto (Staff Planner), Maija CottleJeff Darrow (Staff Planner). And 12 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: YAMADA & SONS, INC. (SPP 10-110) Application for a Special Permit to allow for the establishment of a quarry and related uses on 14.99-acre portion of a larger 2,500±-acre parcel situated within the State Land Use Agricultural District. The project site is located to the south of the Hilo Sanitary Landfill and adjacent to the K: 2-1-13: Portion of 2. KERN:We’ll call up the first applicant, oh, excuse me, we’ll have the staff presentation for Yamada and Sons (SPP 10-110); and Maija will do that. Thank you. COTTLE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everyone. Happy New Year. COMMISSIONERS: Happy New Year. COTTLE: The first application is a special permit request for a quarry in the South Hilo district. The applicant is Yamada and Sons. And if I can direct your attention to the screen, the location of the subject property is outlined in red in the middle of the slide; and the property is currently zoned Agricultural 20-acres. Most of the properties surrounding it are also Agriculturally zoned. You can see up in the north edge of the slide here, northwest edge of the slide is Industrially zoned lands. And just to help orient you here, the highway runs in a north-south direction off the slide here. Then you see Railroad Avenue. Walmart and Home Depot are also off the slide in this area over here, actually a little bit further down here. And then Leilani Avenue comes in right here at the top of the slide. And if you follow Leilani, the area where the red cursor is now is the location of the Hilo Rubbish Dump. And then if you go a little bit further on the Rubbish Dump Road, the current Hilo Landfill is in this general area here. So if you follow the road even further south and then head to the east, you see the subject property. There are also three other quarries located nearby. The General Plan designation for the property is Important Ag land which is shown in the light green. And the applicant is requesting a special permit to establish and operate a quarry on about 14.99 acres of land. They’re going to use the quarry material for their general contracting business, and to sell to the general public. All of the quarried material would be hauled to the site to the applicant’s baseyard off of Railroad Avenue where it will be crushed. And they’re proposing to operate the quarry from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and there would be no retail sales on the site. 1 EXHIBIT A This is an aerial photo of the area. It’s a little bit dark; but, again, you can see the subject property outlined in red; and I’ll also show you the general location of their baseyard. It’s right about here. So the quarried materials would be hauled from this location, along Rubbish Dump Road, and then into their baseyard area here. And this is a photo of the site. And the Department is recommending that the Planning Commission approve this permit request. I also th want to bring your attention to three correspondences that we’ve received. On December 28 in rd your folders you should have a letter from Council Member Yagong. Then on January 3you th should have a memo from the Planning Director. And January 5, a follow-up letter from Council Member Yagong. Are there any questions? KERN: Any questions for staff? Seeing none -. DOMINGO: Yes. KERN: Oh, Commissioner Domingo. DOMINGO: Maija, could you explain that letter from the Planning Director. COTTLE: From the Planning Director? DOMINGO: Yes. COTTLE: Sure. The letter is responding to a newspaper article that ran about the quarry; and there were some misleading information in the article. The impression was that the County had some control over the subject property and it’s also partly in response to Council Member th Yagong’s letter dated December 28. His concern was that the, if the Commission were to approve this permit, we would, the County would be giving up some control over the property so we wouldn’t be able to use it for cover fill for the quarry, I’m sorry, for the landfill expansion if the County were to expand the land further south. And since the County as no control over the property, the State owns the property and Yamada and Sons has a land license from DLNR to quarry the property, we, the Director was clarifying that since we have no control over the property this wouldn’t affect, the approval of the permit would not affect cover fill for a future quarry. And, in fact, if the County wanted o get cover fill from another area, the State has said that we would just need to go through the same process that Yamada and Sons went through and do an environmental study and get a land license to quarry another area of that large 2,000-acre property. DOMINGO: Thank you. COTTLE: Okay, you’re welcome. KERN: Okay, any other questions? Seeing none, thank you, Maija. COTTLE: You’re welcome. KERN: Can I please have the applicants or their representative come forward. And I’ll swear you in at this time. Would you please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? OKAMOTO: I do. PEDERSEN: I do. 2 EXHIBIT A KERN: Okay, very good. And before you begin with your testimony, please give us your name and address. Thank you. OKAMOTO: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission. I’m Alan Okamoto. I’m the attorney for Yamada and Sons. My address is 187-Kapiolani Street, Hilo. And with me today is Mr. Les Pedersen, who is Yamada and Son’s representative assigned to handle this particular quarry operation. His business address is 7633-Kanoelehua Avenue, Hilo. KERN: Very good. You may begin with your presentation. OKAMOTO: Okay. I’ll keep this fairly brief. We have reviewed the Planning Department’s background report and their draft recommendations that were submitted to the Commission. We are in full agreement with the recommendations. The report correctly states the situation. What I would like to do is have Mr. Pedersen give you a brief explanation of where Yamada and Sons is and the importance of this quarry site. They’ve been at it for close to six years now, and over the passage of time things have changed a bit. So we’d like you to understand just what’s happening with them and what the effects would be as far as proceeding with this site. So, Les, if you could. PEDERSEN: I’d like to thank the Planning Commission for hearing our application, and the Planning Department Staff who just really did an excellent job. I was very impressed. Most of you know our company. We’ve been around a long time. We’re a responsible company and we made contributions to the community by supplying needed building materials and by employing a lot of families in the community. Being a responsible company, about six years ago we recognized that there may be a situation coming where we would not have a supply of rock, and so we initiated contact with the Department of Land and Natural Resources to see if it’dbe possible to get a piece of property from the State that we could quarry. That, as Mr. Okamoto mentioned, we started that process about six years ago; and we really didn’t dream it was going take this long before we’d be before the Planning Commission. But the way things go, here we are. You know, during the entire process we’ve just done things by the book, you know, negotiating with DLNR, doing the environmental assessment. We needed the right to quarry the property at auction for significant rights, and now we’re properly applying for a special permit. Our company needs a quality source of rock in order to survive. All of the products we make are dependent upon rock; and we currently don’t have any property that we can quarry. So without a permit approval, once we use up the inventory of rock we have now, we’re done. We’ve already either laid off orhadn’t replaced about a half a dozen workers. And if we don’t have a source of rock, inevitably more will go, eventually maybe our entire workforce. If we don’t have a source of rock, if that were to occur, of course, workers would lose jobs, also the community at large. You know, we’ve been a big player in the competitive market for a long time. If we don’t have rock we disappear, prices go up, both to the community and the County. The County also uses a lot of the kinds of products that we produce. So our need for the approval of the permit is urgent. And we respectfully request that the Planning Commission approve our request as soon as possible. Thanks. KERN: Very good. Thank you. Any questions from fellow Commissioners? Mr., Commissioner Woodward. WOODWARD: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I had a question. You mentioned, and I am upset but not surprised, let me say, to hear that it took you so long. And what I’m interested in is to see where that delay was. Six years is inordinate. If you’re looking at just a piece of property 3 EXHIBIT A you want to get, whatever studies are necessary, and a land lease, that takes six years, all through DLNR I assume. Is that correct? OKAMOTO: If I could respond. Well, in this case it did take that time. If you look in the background stuff, the environmental assessment was done in 2006, I think. But basically this is a private company,so what we can do is get the groundwork set and ask nicely if we can be given the opportunity to bid for the license. I’m not sure why it took the extra time. I don’t think Les knows either. But that’s why we’re in a bit of a crunch, as far as the time, at this point. I mean we’re okay. I mean they had to bid, the bid, as Les said, a fair price; and they’d like to go. I’ve never quite been sure of why government takes as long as it takes in this state, but it does. It does. So we’re just kind of grateful we’re still operating. We’re not shut down yet. WOODWARD: Well, I compliment you. You definitely played nice. I don’t think I would have, but you played nice; and you eventually got where you wanted to go. But this is part of the problem, and we recognize it. And that’s why sometimes, you know, squeaky wheel gets the grease. I’m sorry to hear that that happened to you but, asI say, not surprised. Okay, thank you. KERN: Any other questions? I have a quick one. The employees that were laid off in this last little bit, are they going to be hired back when, if, you’re able to acquire this property? PEDERSEN: We will, we do expect that we will be increasing our workforce again. Being as our quarry operation is totally shut down right now, it’ll take us a little time to kind of get the ball rolling again. But, yes. KERN: How long is that time going to take to get the ball rolling? PEDERSEN: My own question is that I, I don’t know. KERN: Just a ballpark. I’m just curious on how -. PEDERSEN: Few months. KERN: Few months, all right, cool. Thank you. Seeing no other questions, you gentlemen can have a seat; and we’ll move forward. OKAMOTO: Thank you. KERN: And, for the record, there are no testifiers from the public to testify. So, I’d be willing to entertain a motion. WOODWARD: Yes. KERN: Commissioner Woodward. WOODWARD: Mr. Chair, I recommend that in the matter of the application,Special Permit 10-110, for a special permit for Yamada and Sons, that the Windward Planning Commission approve the special permit with the conditions as stated by the Planning Director. DOMINGO: Second. KERN: Very good. So we have a motion that has been seconded. ISHIBASHI: Second. 4 EXHIBIT A KERN: Igot a second, sorry. Any discussion? DOMINGO: Mr. Chairman? KERN: Yes, Commissioner Domingo. DOMINGO: Just one comment here. Notwithstanding the fact that we had two letters from the Councilman, it’s obvious to me that it gotten kind of confused. Because I read that letter at home and tried to digest all of that with regards to the application, and then I’m looking at another letter which has completely turned it around. You know, sometimes I don’t appreciate people when they make comments shooting off from the hip without doing any research; and that’s what has been done here. I mean there should be more responsibility on the part of officials who come up with statements such as this which impacts a big business and its employees. And then to make a recommendation as such that was made to us is unfair. And I hope, I hope that the elected officials would be more responsible in the comments that they make. KERN: Very good. Anyone else? Commissioner Ishibashi. ISHIBASHI: Thank you, Brother Chair. Just echoing Brother Domingo’s statement. I don’t know why Brother Dominic never came out with his letter in the newspaper retracting his first letter. So it’s something that we shouldn’t be playing the newspaper against, against this Commission. This Commission is well respected, and I commend all of you for the work that you do. To put us in that predicament is not fair and it’s uncalled for as an elected official. He should have done his homework, and he would have found out that it’s a State property. The County has no say in that thing. So, and that should come in the paper, too. But you like to play the role, you like to publicize this thing, which is uncalled for -. So I just wanted to make that comment. I’ll be voting in favor of this motion. KERN: Very good. Any other comments, discussion? Seeing none, Maija. COTTLE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Woodward? WOODWARD: Aye COTTLE: Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Au? AU: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Ishibashi? ISHIBASHI: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Ono? ONO: Aye. COTTLE: And Mr. Chair? 5 EXHIBIT A KERN: Aye. COTTLE: Okay, the motion to approve passes six to zero. KERN: Very good, it passes. You’ll be notified in writing. OKAMOTO: Thank you very much. PEDERSEN: Thank you. KERN: Thank you. The discussion ended at 9:26 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, Secretary Windward Planning Commission 6 EXHIBIT A