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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-01-13 Leeward Exh A - PARKER RANCH LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT JANUARY 13, 2011 PARKER RANCH (SPP 10- An advertised status hearing and action meeting on the application of 108) was called to order at 9:45 a.m. in the King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel, Ballroom I, 75- 5660 Palani Road, Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i, with Chair Geraldine Giffin presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Geraldine Giffin, Lani Bowman, Thomas Hickcox, Frederic Housel and Richard Nelson EXCUSED: Brandi Beaudet and Wayne Iokepa STAFF PRESENT: Julie Mecklenburg (Deputy Corporation Counsel), BJ Leithead Todd (Planning Director), Jeff Darrow (Staff Planner) and Maija Cottle (Staff Planner) PARTIES PRESENT: Sidney Fuke (Applicants representative), Nahu representative) and Sandra Song (Attorney for Nathan, Cheryl, Royce and Charlene Intervenor) And three people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: PARKER RANCH, INC. (SPP 10-108) Pre-hearing/status hearing and action meeting regarding application for a Special Permit to allow for the establishment of light industrial and commercial office uses within existing structures and the use of an existing rodeo/equestrian facility for special events, all of which are situated on a total of approximately 14.897 acres at the Parker Ranch headquarters and rodeo/equestrian facility complex in Waimea. The project site is situated approximately 4,300 feet north of the Waimea- Kohala, TMK: 6-7-001: portion of 25 and 6-7-002: portion of 17. GIFFIN: I would like to go on to our new business item. The applicant is Parker Ranch; they are here for SPP 10-108. This is a pre-hearing/status hearing and/or action meeting regarding the application for a special permit to allow for the establishment of light industrial and commercial office uses within the existing structures and the use of an existing rodeo/equestrian facility for special events, all of which are situated on a total of approximately 14.897 acres at the Parker Ranch headquarters and rodeo/equestrian facility complex in Waimea. Staff?Maija? COTTLE: Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. GIFFIN: Good morning, Maija. th COTTLE: This item was continued from the December 15 hearing, and it was a continued contested case hearing. It’s my understanding that the applicant and the intervenor have come to some agreement. But I’d like to check with the applicant and the intervenor to see whether they are going to proceed with the contested case hearing or whether we can take action on this item. 1 EXHIBIT A GIFFIN: So, Maija, are you saying I should call them up? COTTLE: Yes, please. GIFFIN: Will the applicant and the applicant’s representative and the intervenor please come up? You have microphones. Please raise your right hands. Do both of you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai‘i County Leeward Planning Commission? FUKE: I do. SONG: I do. GIFFIN: Okay. Starting with you, Sandy, will you please state your name and your address? SONG: My name is Sandra Song. My address is 10 Kamehameha Avenue in Hilo, Hawai‘i. And I represent the intervenors, the Hirayama family. GIFFIN: Thank you. Sid? FUKE: Good morning, Madam Chairman and Members of the Commission. My name is Sidney Fuke. My address is 100 Pauahi Street in Hilo, Hawai‘i. And I’m representing the petitioner, Parker Ranch, Inc. The representative is also here; she is Ms. Nahua Guilloz. GIFFIN: Thank you. Maija, did you want to go ahead and pose the question? COTTLE: Sure. I just wanted to check to see with Sandy if the intervenor wanted to continue with the contested case hearing or if I can go ahead and proceed with the presentation and presenting our revised recommendation. SONG: We’ve been, the Hirayama family and Parker Ranch have been talking about resolving this. Parker Ranch has, based on our discussions and agreements, made revisions to its application, and the Planning Department has also revised its proposed recommendation. Based on this, my client is withdrawing its application. And I do know your staff asked for a written withdrawal ahead of time, but in speaking to your counsel, I asked if a verbal withdrawal would be acceptable today. So we are withdrawing our request for contested case hearing; you may proceed with action on this matter. COTTLE: Thank you. GIFFIN: Thank you, Maija. Do you want to go ahead? COTTLE: Can we, Julie, can we just go ahead and proceed or does the Commission need to take any vote on withdrawing the contested case? No? Okay. Would the Commission like me to do a presentation of the application? GIFFIN: Yes. 2 EXHIBIT A COTTLE: It’s been a couple months; so it’s good to refresh everyone’s memories. All right. The subject property is located in Waimea. It’s outlined on the slide in black. Yalahoa Highway running in a north-south direction into town, Farm Road. The new in-town connector road runs just north of the property. And the subject property is zoned Agricultural 40 acres that’s shown in the blue. Most of the properties surrounding it are also agriculturally zoned except for to the north there’s some Single-Family Residential zoning, which is shown in yellow. The General Plan designation for the property is mostly Low Density Urban with a little bit of Important Agricultural Land to the south, which is shown in light green. And the Community Development Plan Waimea Conceptual Map calls for the preservation of the historic race track complex at the subject property that’s shown here. The applicant has, as Ms. Song had mentioned, they have revised their request. So I’ll just go ahead and read their current request. It’s to allow light industrial and commercial office uses within the existing structures. And the permit area would now be reduced to 7.757 acres of land. And they would like to allow office and related uses for businesses that may not necessarily be agricultural related in the existing 8,000-square foot headquarters office building, as well as allowing light industrial and general commercial uses such as vehicle and equipment repair and maintenance shops and general warehousing and storage in anexisting 9,000 square-foot warehouse and 15,000-square foot maintenance building. So what they’ve done is they have withdrawn their request to use the rodeo arena area for special events. This is a site plan that the applicant submitted, and you can see the area, the permit area, is outlined in red. This is the location of the existing maintenance shop and warehouse building, and then further to the south here is the existing headquarters building, which they would like to use for office uses. The current driveway is located in this location here, and we did do a modified condition, or a revised condition, for a driveway connection off of the new connector road in this area here. This is an aerial photo of the property; you can see their race track, the existing driveway off of well as the headquarters office up here. And this is a photo of the headquarters office building. And this is a view looking at the warehouse here and the maintenance shop building in the back, and then turning around to the west you see the riding stables area here. And this is a view of the entrance of the driveway on the highway looking west. And a view looking north, you can see the driveway coming off to the right here. The Department is recommending that the Planning Commission approve Special Permit 108 as recommended by the Planning Director. And we do have a revised recommendation that we submitted to you – it’s on light yellow paper. We’ll get the lights up in just a minute here – thanks, Jeff. And I’d just like to go over that for a few minutes, if I could. The applicant also submitted a th letter dated January 6 that you should have in your folders, and the letter goes into some discussion of the agreement between the applicant and the intervenor, and also addresses their request to withdraw the special event component. And also attached to that letter is an email from Sandy Song with the executed third party agreement between Parker Ranch and the intervenor. So in light of that, the Planning Department revised our recommendation, and there are revisions throughout the text mainly pulling out the special event component and any reference to that. And then if I could just direct your attention to the conditions. We did remove Conditions 5 though 9 on the goldenrod recommendation; those were all related to special events, so we didn’t feel that they were 3 EXHIBIT A relevant any longer, so those have been removed. We modified what was the old Condition 10, and that’s now Condition 6, that has to do with the construction of a new driveway connection to the in-town connector road, and the applicant has agreed to construct that within two years from the effective date of the permit. The Department of Public Works and the Police Department had both made recommendations for this driveway to be relocated. We also added Condition No. 3 which is, “None of the buildings shall be expanded to provide for additional areas of office or light industrial uses on the property, nor shall any new buildings for such uses be permitted.” And then I just have one new correction that just came to my attention this morning; for the new Condition 6 related to the new driveway connection, Public Works had recommended to the Department that the current driveway actually be permanently closed once that new driveway connection is constructed. So I did check with the Director and the applicant, and they were both agreeable to modifying that condition. And I think if it’s okay with everyone, it could read something like, keeping the first sentence as it is and then the second sentence, “Upon construction of the driveway, the current emergency purposes.” GIFFIN: Could you say that again, please? COTTLE: Sure. Keep the first sentence as is, and the second sentence would be, “Upon closed except for emergency purposes.” GIFFIN:And then what about the remaining part? COTTLE: There is nothing after that. You mean the sentence before that? GIFFIN: Yeah. COTTLE: That would remain the same. GIFFIN: Okay. COTTLE: And that’s all I have to present. Are there any questions? HOUSEL: Maija, the existing entrance, is it gated? Is there a gate there? COTTLE: I don’t believe there is, but maybe we can check with the applicant on that. HOUSEL: Okay. GUILLOZ: It is gated. FUKE: It’s gated. COTTLE: It is gated. HOUSEL:It is gated. Okay, thank you. COTTLE: You’re welcome. 4 EXHIBIT A GIFFIN: Any other questions of staff? Getting back, Maija, to the Condition No. 6, why did the two agencies encourage us to close the old driveway and include in the condition a connection between the old driveway up to a certain point to the new highway? LEITHEAD TODD: Maija, can you go back to the picture that shows where the road is, as well as the driveway? COTTLE: Something like this? LEITHEAD TODD: Yeah. COTTLE: This is where the current driveway is – right about here. road that gives you the opportunity to have new access, you try to eliminate or reduce driveway accesses close to that intersection because what you don’t want is, you know, traffic going in and out of the road and then traffic going in and out of the driveway that’s substantial. So when there is an opportunity to direct the traffic onto the side road, generally you’re going to get that kind of recommendation from traffic engineers, because it reduces the opportunities for the traffic coming in and out of that driveway on because somebody driving there only has to worry about people the driveway for, you know, if you have a rodeo event, if you’ve got something where significant traffic is being generated, you want to try and direct the traffic o GIFFIN: Maija, then, what about the gate? Would that be adversely affected? COTTLE: Well, the gate would be closed, if the driveway were permanently closed. GIFFIN: No, I understand that, but right now it’s gated, right? COTTLE: Yes. GIFFIN: So, would that be eliminated totally? LEITHEAD TODD: The gate would remain. And the only reason that we are leaving emergency is, you know, I’m just thinking if there is something happened that somehow messed up Ala Street or, you know, sometimes we have accidents that occur and then the existing access is blocked off and you might have, the people who were working in that area might need an alternative exit, and sometimes, like, you know, something falls down on Palani and traffic is messed up – so those are the kindsof situations, since they have an existing driveway. But most of the time that would just be gated, and it would only be in an emergency situation where they weren’t able to do the access off of Ala 5 EXHIBIT A GIFFIN: Thank you. Any other question of staff? None? (After speaking to the Director and counsel,) Sid, I was just asking them if, protocol, we ask the applicant to speak first. So in that regard, please. FUKE: Thank you very much. In response to some of the questions raised by the Commissioner, specifically in regards to the termination of the existing driveway access, I think the Director explained it very well, and I think in addition to that what compounds the situation, the existing situation; so I guess the proximity aspect kind of really complicated the matter. And the applicant has no objection, you know, to the proposed amendment to the recommendation, you know, which is to call for the termination, except for emergency purposes, of the exiting driveway. The other thing we’d like to suggest is that on Condition No. – just for clarity sake – on Condition No. 7, it readsright now that “Access to the project site shall meet the requirements of the Department of Transportation.” “Transportation” suggests like it’s the State, but that section of the driveway falls under the County jurisdiction; so we’d like to suggest that that be changed to “the Department of Public Works” to make it clear rather than “Transportation.” And just a general comment. What’s motivating this application is that Parker Ranch, as you all know, have had to, you know, regrettably scale down some of its cattle operations, and then its existing facilities were predicated upon, you know, just having a full-blown cattle activity, ranching activity; however, as you know, because of this scaled-down version their facilities are currently underutilized, you know, both the headquarters, the existing maintenance area. So what they want to do, you know – they’re probably at this point in time maybe about 50 percent occupied – and so what they want to do is be able to fully, more fully utilize the existing facilities. And so what the Hirayamas have proposed, you know, in terms of recommended condition, the applicant had no objections largely because that was the intent anyway; they were not going to expand or, you know, construct new buildings so on and so forth. So again, you know, the applicant essentially wants to utilize, you know, more fully utilize what’s there right now, and that’s the intent. The applicant also realizes that the special, the use of the rodeo had created some problems in the past, you know, not so much the rodeo activity but when it was used for concert, and itcreated a lot of problem, which also created heartburn for the applicant itself;so they were sensitive to what the Hirayamas’ concerns were, and so having the facility be used as a special venue and removing that component from the application was really not objectionable on the part of the applicant, so -. With that, I guess, you know, that’s pretty much like all we have to share and, you know, we respectfully request that the Commission favorably consider the application and the conditions as proposed by the staff and amended. GIFFIN: Commissioners, any questions of Sidney Fuke. BOWMAN: I have. GIFFIN: Lani. BOWMAN: A couple questions. So special events does not include rodeos? FUKE: It’s our understanding that the existing rodeo facility is already a permitted use. 6 EXHIBIT A BOWMAN: Okay. I know in the past there were like motorbike, motocross events that, I know on Sundays that seemed to be very popular and also were family events. Do you know if those types of events are included in a rodeo type of arena array? FUKE: I really, I have to defer that to Nahua. GUILLOZ: I don’t think so. It’s a -. GIFFIN: Maybe I should swear her in. Nahua, could -. Your other hand. GUILLOZ: Oh, other hand. GIFFIN: Thank you. I have to find the wording – hang on. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai‘i County Leeward Planning Commission? GUILLOZ: Yes. GIFFIN: Please state your name and your address. GUILLOZ: My name is Nahua Guilloz. My address is 73-1105 Ahulani Street, Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i 96740. GIFFIN: Thank you. Did you hear Commissioner Bowman’s question? GUILLOZ: Yes. GIFFIN: Okay. Why don’t you go ahead and provide the answer? GUILLOZ: The motocross is no longer being done, and I don’t think it is an agriculturally permitted use. GIFFIN: Madam Director. LEITHEAD TODD: Agriculturally zoned land is allowed to do open-area recreational activities. And so without knowing more about what specifically was held there, I couldn’t really give you an opinion on whether that is a permitted or not permitted use because it would depend on the extent of the activity, the frequency of the activity, how often they had held it in the past. Generally, we’ve taken a position that rodeo events in rodeo arenas, which have been in existence for many, many years and have been kind of part and parcel of the ranching and cattle industry, that we’ve viewed those as either open-area recreational activities or somewhat of the type of activity that you expect in conjunction with the cattle. And also in many cases these activities predate us doing any zoning laws or defining what occurs in agriculture – asyou know, rodeo in Waimea probably goes back well over 100 years and predates many of our zoning ordinances – which doesn’t mean that somebody holding them shouldn’t consider it and take precautions to make sure that they are not impacting the neighbors. GIFFIN: Negatively. 7 EXHIBIT A BOWMAN: I guess my comment was, being that I live in the country and there are very few places for young people and their families to legally ride and, you know, not only, I think they are ATV’s and dirt bikes, and if you look at many other ranches, they are using ATV’s and dirt bikes for their ranching; so I’m not, you know, lobbying for it or against it, but just to make a comment on that. And I do have one more question about the vehicular maintenance repair shops, equipment maintenance repair shops, general warehousing or storage: Would this be for the ranching operations or as a commercial operation? FUKE: The latter –commercial operation. They already have their ranching operations maintenance and all that stuff within those two existing structures. But it’s not full right now, so they were looking to go into the community and have the community come in to that area on a commercial basis. BOWMAN: Okay, and the uses then would be only those allowed in the agricultural area for those -. FUKE: They would be allowed only, the request is to allow those activities within the existing structures. BOWMAN: Okay. LEITHEAD TODD: They will be commercial in nature and similar to what you’ve approved for other auto repair businesses. What you have here is similar to, I guess, when you were looking at the DeLuz application where there had been an existing business and he was doing something within those existing structures that were farm buildings originally. And so – Maija, if you go back to the photos – if you look at the, especially when the lights go dim, you look at those structures, what they would be hoping to do is that those bays, or those sections, of those buildings that they are currently not using for their ranching operations, would be available for lease to someone who was in a business and wanted to do some automobile repair. And that would perhaps solve some of the problems that we are having in Waimea with the availability of this type of facility because there seems to be a demand in Waimea for some ability to go have your vehicles looked at. GIFFIN: Commissioner Bowman. BOWMAN: Thank you. I do understand that. I just know that some of the concerns with our other applicants was, you know, affordability of the commercial area. Is that, and that area is cement, right? Concrete or -. Blacktop. FUKE:Asphalt. BOWMAN: Asphalt, okay. And, you know, one of my maybe concerns would be the traffic in and out as far as -. Can you tell me about how many bays there would be available for that kind of business? FUKE: I don’t know how many bays per se, but the warehouse right now is 9,000 square feet; so if you assume, like – my understanding in talking with the applicant is that all of the facilities are basically like 50 percent occupied right now – so if the warehouse is about 9,000 square feet, I 8 EXHIBIT A would assume it’s about like 4,000, 4,500 square feet. The maintenance garage is about 15,000 square feet, so you would be looking at 7,000 or 8,000 square feet of potential leasable area. BOWMAN: In both areas, in both, you mention -. FUKE: There are actually,like,two major structures in that particular area, correct. One is the maintenance garage and the other one is just a general warehouse. BOWMAN: And the general warehouse is also 50 percent occupied? FUKE: More or less, yeah. BOWMAN: So if you’ve got 15,000 plus 9,000, right -. FUKE: So cumulatively you might be looking at about -. BOWMAN: Twenty-four, 12,000. FUKE: About 12,000 square feet, correct. BOWMAN: And do you know approximately like -. I’m just trying to get a feel for the traffic and, you know -. What is a normal, like,car repair shop – about 1,000 or 2,000? I’m sorry I don’t know. Maybe -. FUKE: You mean in terms of the volume of traffic coming in? BOWMAN: Well, just how many different businesses there would, you know, potentially be. FUKE: Oh, I see. I think about 1,000 to 1,500 square feet for a small business would probably be the size; so you might be looking at, assuming that they have about 12,000 square feet of leasable area, you might be looking at anywhere from maybe, what, eight to ten different businesses that could come over there. BOWMAN: And the road coming in, the access road, will be paved? Is that -? FUKE: The existing driveway is paved all the way to the different facilities in that area. BOWMAN: Right. FUKE: The concern that the community and also the staff and the Police and the Fire Department raised was in relation to, because of the added volume of traffic coming in,to have it relocated to Ala BOWMAN: And that will be paved. FUKE: Oh, yes, correct. BOWMAN: Okay, thank you. 9 EXHIBIT A GIFFIN: Commissioners, any other questions? Commissioner Housel. HOUSEL: Following what Lani was asking, I have some concern. I believe, the exit or entrance , t FUKE: At this point in time it’s 45 -. HOUSEL: Right. FUKE: Yeah, I,you know, at the last meeting, I checked it again; it is 45 miles. My sense, however, at some point in time – and then, you know, Mr. Emler is here from the Public Works Department –, that’ll probably at some point in time be reduced to 35. HOUSEL: Oh, in that area. Okay. FUKE: I used more heavily. FUKE: Twenty-five. HOUSEL: Twenty-five, okay, so itoa now. FUKE: Yeah, because it’s within a residential zone. HOUSEL: Right. Do you know how many vehicles currently use the entrance now? HOUSEL: No, no, the entrance to Parker Ranch. GUILLOZ: I would say about 30 with the Ranch vehicles; each of our cowboys has a vehicle, and then the administrative staff. HOUSEL: Okay, so approximately 60 car trips per day then roughly? GUILLOZ: Yeah. HOUSEL: With the additional tenants, would that double, then,you expect? FUKE: Conceivably it could double because, you know, if you are looking at the buildings being only 50 percent occupied right now, so -. HOUSEL: Is there, I know there is a sign by the entrance, is there any other signage that indicates that people may be turning into the driveway there? 10 EXHIBIT A GUILLOZ: No. FUKE: I don’t believe there is any other signage aside from just the, you know, Parker Ranch headquarters sign. HOUSEL: Okay. That’s my concern. With the increased traffic at least for the next two years, or approximately two years, that more traffic coming in and out of there, especially since there is no left turn lane there and no, you know, speed ramp or anything like that, that possibly could be a safety problem, you know, with the increased traffic. FUKE: That’s one of the reasons why, I believe, the staff had a proposed condition that the access driveway, if any improvements would have to be made, it would have to be subject to Department of Public Works’ approval. HOUSEL: Okay, okay. I understand. Thank you. BOWMAN: Isn’t it -. May I just make a comment? Because I -. GIFFIN: Commissioner Bowman. BOWMAN: The –what do you call – the speed changes about a couple hundred yards Waimea side from 35 to 45, right? FUKE: As you are heading out towards Kona, yes. BOWMAN: Yeah, Kona, yeah. So that’s where probably your problem is going to be as making a turn, a left hand turn, into Parker Ranch. And I believe, I mean being there, that the sight distance is very good; I mean it’s not like right around a corner or anything, right? FUKE: It is a straightway in that particular area. I think the other point – and then I’ve got to thank Ms. Song for this, bringing it up – but if you look at the normal business operations, you know, in Waimea, it’s going to be highly unlikely that you’re going to have full occupancy within the next couple of years; I mean, you know, they would be elated, if they got full occupancy, because they need the revenue to kind of help sustain some of their other charitable activities. And so I think it’s going to be highly unlikely. GIFFIN: Commissioner Bowman. BOWMAN: I have a question for the staff, and I’m sorry I forgot to ask it before. I’m just curious. On Page 3, “a portion of an existing garage and parking area associated with the applicant’s headquarters encroaches upon 0.23 acres of” the larger parcel. GIFFIN: Excuse me, Commissioner Bowman. What Page 3 are you looking at? BOWMAN: I’m looking at the background. GIFFIN: Oh, okay, hang on. 11 EXHIBIT A BOWMAN: And I was going to ask this question last time, but we deferred the questions to today. GIFFIN: Okay, hang on. Where are you on Page 3? BOWMAN: Right on the top. GIFFIN: Oh, okay. Go ahead and read your concerned area again. BOWMAN: “However” – the second sentence – “However, a portion of an existing garage and parking area associated with the applicant’s headquarters encroaches upon 0.23 acres of this parcel,” which is the 22,000-acre parcel. Do they need a variance for that or is that something -? I’m just curious. COTTLE: They don’t need a variance for what we’re asking them to do in Condition 2, is that we are asking them to consolidate this main parcel here -. BOWMAN: Okay, great, thank you. COTTLE: With a portion of the parcel to the south. BOWMAN: I just didn’t want something to come up later because that wasn’t consolidated. And I’m sorry I didn’t read that condition. Thank you. COTTLE: You’re welcome. GIFFIN: Director. LEITHEAD TODD: I was going to say that as time goes by and you deal with more ranch land, you’ll find that the ranchers didn’t look at where the parcel boundaries were with surveyors when they put buildings up, and so this is not going to be an uncommon thing; when you come across operations, you’ll find buildings straddle two parcels or partially on one parcel and another. And that’s because they just built it; they didn’t take a surveyor and say this is in part on one land ground to another. So what we typically try to do in these types of situations, and that’s because from our Department we prefer to have a building just on one parcel as opposed to straddling two parcels, we typically will ask them to do a consolidation and resubdivision, so then we can have the building just on one parcel. It also makes it easier for real property tax purposes. BOWMAN: Thank you. GIFFIN: Commissioners, any other questions of the applicant? FUKE: Just one final point. GIFFIN: Mr. Fuke. FUKE: It really complicated the notice to surrounding property owners because we had to send not only within the basic parcel but also with the encroached area, and that encroached area, that parcel 12 EXHIBIT A goes all the way to Waiki‘i; so I was getting phone calls from people who live in Waiki‘i, you know, saying like, “Where is this,” you know, so, well, I had to kind of do all the description. So anyway, it must have been about five miles away that they got notices. BOWMAN: Thank you. Because I’ve come across this before. And I know it’s a problem in the country where people just build whatever, I mean, not whatever but, you know, they own the property; it’s not like they are building on a neighbor’s property. So thank you for the clarification, Director. And I’m sorry you had to go through all that. GIFFIN: No, that’s okay. That’s the process. Any other questions? If not, I’d like to have Ms. Song go ahead and speak to the Commission regarding any other inputs you might have regarding your contested case and the Hirayamas and in particular your objection to Page 20 of the background report obviously – it has to do with impacts on surrounding properties. SONG: Thank you, Madam Chairman and Members of the Commission. As you know, I just earlier withdrew our request for contested case. When we first filed the application, my client –my clients are farmers, and Mrs. Cheryl Hirayama, one of the Hirayama family, is with me today, and they are farmers and they are, they are farmers, I mean they work everyday and Cheryl is not on the farm today because she felt it was important enough to come here –their concern was primarily about the events arena, and part of the reason was, I guess,there had been a rock concert at one point and their irrigation pipe was damaged. So their concern was if there were events happening at this facility and people did not park on site, people got drunk, people didn’t use proper bathroom facilities – they have to follow the special Food Safety Act requirements to be certified to sell their produce and they don’t want anybody getting sick from their produce – but if people started relieving themselves in their field, that could create a problem. If people damage their farm, the produce or their equipment, that would create a problem. So they were very concerned about that. Elimination -. And they also realize that with rodeos people can do that, too, but with the rodeos people bring their trailers, they park on the site, and there is, and that has been available. So with the elimination of the special events facility, that took care of one of the issues. The other issue was, again, traffic. And part of the reason is all of the farms, the Hirayamas,like their trucks with their produce constantly; and if there was a substantial increase in traffic so close would make turning onto the highway very difficult and these farmers have worked very hard to make that land, which was initially very rocky and unusable, to usable farm land. What Parker Ranch was willing to do because of the driveway, the road that exists now, is to create another driveway. And we had a talk about, we had discussions about when that would be constructed; because they also represented to us, to my clients, that this is not going to be in full production at least for a year if not longer, construction of the road within two years was a reasonable compromise. The Departments of Public Works and Fire and the Police Department wanted the main which would make more safety, safety features. So, and the final concern was, is this area going to be converted from agriculture, which it is, which the community always wanted, into an urban area, and encroach on the farms? Now, if the buildings stay the same way and are not expanded, that doesn’t become an unreasonable burden. 13 EXHIBIT A So for all those reasons, because Parker Ranch easily agreed and they said that their application, in their application, they were only going to use the existing facility so they had no problem with the condition saying it would stay within the remaining facilities, they had no problem building an alternative driveway access, which would relieve the traffic problems, and most importantly they deleted the special events facility, which I’ll tell you in my research that’s an urban use and, you know, to do that kind of facility, they should have, in my opinion, should have gone through a boundary amendment and rezoning, but since they agreed to all of these things, my clients are satisfied and will support the application at this time. GIFFIN: Thank you. Commissioners, any questions of Ms. Song? Well, personally, I’d like to congratulate both of you for coming to this kind of conclusion. I personally feel that this kind of, you know, negotiations between two parties, that’s critical to the success of how we go about our business. And so, again, I congratulate the Ranch and the Hirayamas for this kind of negotiation. Thank you. So any other comments or questions? Commissioners, I’d like you to please take a look at the revised recommendations, as Maija said, in the light yellow that was distributed to us, so that we know what we are speaking of. And Julie has just shown me that there is no one here in the public who came to testify, thank goodness. So if there are no other comments, do I hear a motion? Commissioner Bowman. BOWMAN: I move that we approve Parker Ranch, Inc, special permit application, SPP 10-108, with the changes to Condition 6 and Condition 7. I think that’s it. GIFFIN: We added No. 3. Do we have to state that in the motion? COTTLE: No. Condition 3, I had just pointed out that it was not in the original recommendation but it has been added to the revised recommendation. GIFFIN: Right. Okay, then we are just concerned about Condition No. 6 and No. 7, correct? COTTLE: That’s correct. GIFFIN: All right. Do I hear a second? NELSON: Second. GIFFIN: Commissioner Nelson. It has been moved by Commissioner Bowman and seconded by Commissioner Nelson that we approve the special permit application, SPP 10-108. Any discussion? Hearing none, Maija? COTTLE: Thank you, Madam Chairman. Commissioner Bowman? BOWMAN: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Nelson? NELSON: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Hickcox? 14 EXHIBIT A HICKCOX: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Housel? HOUSEL: Aye. COTTLE: And Madam Chairman? GIFFIN: Aye with pleasure. COTTLE: Okay, the motion passes, five to zero. GIFFIN: Thank you very much -. FUKE: Thank you very much. GIFFIN: And I’m sure you’ll get all the documentation that you need from our staff. FUKE: Thank you. GIFFIN: And thank you for coming. The discussion ended at 10:30 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, Secretary Leeward Planning Commission 15 EXHIBIT A