Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-01-19 tnewuniv PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT January 19, 2007 A regularly advertised hearing on the AMENDMENT TO THE ZONING CODE RELATING TO A NEW UNIVERSITY (UNV) DISTRICTwas called to order at 10:03 a.m. at the King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel, 75-5660 Palani Road, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, with Chairman William Graham presiding. PRESENT: C. Kimo Alameda ABSENT & EXCUSED: Fred Galdones William Graham Alvin Rho Andrew Iwashita Rene’ Siracusa Jeffrey McCall Rodney Watanabe Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner And approximately 12 people from the public in attendance. INITIATOR: COUNTY COUNCIL Continued hearing on a draft ordinance amending Chapter 25 (Zoning Code) of the Hawaii County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended) relating to a new University (UNV) District. GRAHAM: Our third item on the agenda for Unfinished Business this morning is a continued hearing on a draft ordinance, which amends Chapter 25 of the Zoning Code relating to a new University District. And the initiator for this proposed ordinance is the County Council. Norman? HAYASHI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. This particular matter is continued from the last Hilo meeting. And if you recall, there was one member from the public, I believe, a student from the University that testified on this proposed bill. The Hawaii County Council had submitted Bill 326 related to a new University District to the Planning Director and the Planning Commission for their review. And the bill was submitted to the Planning Director on October 17, 2006. Basically the bill states that university and college campuses should be treated distinctly from other zoning districts currently identified in Chapter 25, which is the Zoning Code. Bill 326 as drafted by the County Council, and you do have a copy of Exhibit A, basically provides for the types of uses that would be permitted in the new University District; it also establishes a height limit of 45 feet, except for a height limit of 120 feet in the City of Hilo and 90 feet for areas designated High Density Urban on the General Plan LUPAG map and this would include Kailua-Kona; it establishes a minimum building site area requirement of 7,500 square feet, a minimum building site average width of 60 feet, in other words that if you were to subdivide the property, the frontage would have to be 60 feet; and it also establishes a front or EXHIBIT B 1 rear setback – it’s not a front and rear setback – it’s a front or rear setback of 15 feet and no side yard setbacks except as required by the plan approval; it also states that all plan approval is required for all new structures and additions to the existing structures. Now the Planning Director has reviewed the Bill 326 and agrees that the new University District is warranted. The Director, however, is recommending the following changes to the bill that was submitted by the County Council, and you have a copy of Exhibit B, which highlights the proposed changes by the Planning Director, highlighted in red: Basically, under the permitted uses section, the Planning Director is adding other uses, such as student health clinics, university credit union, post office, fraternity and sorority houses and student and employee apartments and houses, under the permitted uses section; as far as the height limit, the Planning Director feels that an overall height limit of 60 feet would be more than adequate; the minimum building site area is also proposed to be 10 acres by the Planning Director, except that if someone were to lease a lot from the university or from the landowner, then the lease lot may be 7,500 square feet, for instance, if Pizza Hut wanted to come and establish a franchise and/or establish a facility on the university site, then it could be subdivided into a 7,500-square foot lot; and the minimum yards, the Planning Director feels that it should be a front and rear setback and that should be a 20-foot setback; and also the sides would be minimum 10 feet; and finally, the Planning Director feels that a maximum of 20 percent of a University District’s land area may be in commercial use, and the Planning Director is also authorized to vary the parking requirements for on-campus housing, offices and pedestrian-oriented commercial uses. Again, this is a continued hearing and the Planning Director is recommending that the Planning Commission send a favorable recommendation on the Council’s bill with amendments that he has proposed. GRAHAM: Thank you. Do you have any questions from the Commissioners? Norman, I would just like to ask you as a fast speaking in a common sense way, what’s the real rationale and the real need for these minimums: The building site area, the building site average width, the yard? Something like the maximum height allowed is real obvious to us all, but can you just give us a little sense of that? HAYASHI: I think what they wanted to do is -. For instance the minimum building site area, we didn’t want some University District to be only, say, 7,500 square feet; we felt that the university and typical complex would be minimum 10 acres. If you look at the Waiakea High School complex, as the Planning Director previously indicated, that is about 10 acres in size, so we used it as the comparable. That would give adequate land area to establish some of these proposed permitted uses within a University District. And as far as the setbacks, I think we need to set a minimum; I think the minimum setbacks of front and rear 20 feet and 10 feet on the sides are comparable to our current Single Family Residential Zone District, and we don’t want a building to be set back right next to a residential property or the like. GRAHAM: Okay, thank you. On the building site area where you suggested the 10 acres and we have in here that if it’s a lease lot, it may be only 7,500 square feet; if I had a problem with 10 acres and I wanted to get a University District for my 10,000-square foot lot, couldn’t I just kind of lease it to my friend here, Ivan, and have him apply for a University District, and sort of circumvent the intent that way? EXHIBIT B 2 HAYASHI: If the lot is already existing, there is nothing to prevent anyone from coming in for a University District zoning. However, when we review it, we look at the lot size; and based on what the proposal is, we may recommend denial of the rezoning request, since the lot is too small for what is being proposed. GRAHAM: Okay. HAYASHI: I don’t know if that answered your question. GRAHAM: Well, it certainly answers it partially. I’m just wondering whether this very substantial split we have here is really just not asking for, you know, someone to sort of end-run it, that’s all. HAYASHI: I think basically the intent was to accommodate private, as well as public, larger type of universities to be established within an area, and I think most of these would require larger lots to accommodate whatever permitted uses would be in the zoning district. You’ll have your classrooms, you’ll have your athletic fields, you’ll have some of your commercial facilities, dormitories, as well as students and faculty housing, so you need a lot of area for a University District. GRAHAM: Yeah, I certainly feel the same way, and my sense of the intent of this of the least for 7,500 square feet might be if you are the university and you want to lease a portion of your place to me to run a bookstore or something, you can lease that 7,500-square foot parcel to me and run a bookstore, and I can still keep the University Zoning for that. But it just strikes me that just by having a pure thing in here saying a lease can be as low as 7,500 square feet, it opens up all kinds of other things, too. That was my only concern. Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE: I understand where you are coming from. I sense that you kind of support the proposed changes overall, though. And I think there is also a clause in here which indicates that the maximum private usage other than university is 20 percent of the area. So that to some degree is going to be a controlling factor. And I believe, as far as the 7,500-square foot area that potentially can be subdivided and leased, that was more for support services that students generally need but probably the university would not want to provide because that’s not their forte. And in context of the overall 10-acre minimum size that they are talking about, you know, that would provide for a lot of open area and like the walking paths and biking, so that the students didn’t necessarily have to drive through traffic to get to the university, etc. So overall I sense there is an attempt to create a lot of balance in this. GRAHAM: Thank you. Commissioner Alameda? ALAMEDA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question for Norman. There is another classification in zoning called Project Zoning, which allows some mixed development. Tell me how the University District Zoning would be different from that. HAYASHI: I think the University District would be quite similar to the Project District; except that the Project District basically was we were looking at -, well, that’s what’s in the current Code right now, it allows the landowner the flexibility to later on identify where these single family residential units would be, where apartments that are proposed, there would be also EXHIBIT B 3 allowed commercial development within the area open space. So the intent behind the Project District was to give them the flexibility and later on come in administratively to identify where these various types of uses would be allowed, and that would be granted by the administration. ALAMEDA: Follow-up. GRAHAM: Yes, go ahead. ALAMEDA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So would you say that the University District type of zoning is more specific and more restrictive than Project Zoning? Is that safe to -; I’m just trying to conceptualizing it in my mind how they are different. HAYASHI: Yeah, I think the University District would -, well, there are a number of permitted uses, but they would have to be university related, except that there may be some support commercial type of uses. ALAMEDA: Okay. Thank you, Norman. GRAHAM: Thank you, Commissioner Alameda, for those. Do you have any further questions from the Commissioners? And I don’t believe we have anyone from the public signed up to testify on this today. So I guess we get to open up for a motion. Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE: I move that a favorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council for a new University District as revised in Exhibit B based on the recommendations of the Planning Director. GRAHAM: Is there the second? ALAMEDA: Second. GRAHAM: Seconded by Commissioner Alameda. Any discussions? Do the Commissioners have any comments to make? Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE: Just overall I think this is a good move in that higher learning is a very clean industry and it’s very steady; it’s going to broaden the base – the economic base – but not destroy the environment. And I think it’s just a direction that overall probably the State of Hawaii should be moving in. GRAHAM: Thank you. Any other comments from the Commissioners? Norman, you can take a vote, then, on the motion. HAYASHI: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. And the motion is to recommend approval of the proposed bill as recommended by the Planning Director. Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE: Aye. HAYASHI: Commissioner Alameda? EXHIBIT B 4 ALAMEDA: Aye. HAYASHI: Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA: Yes. HAYASHI: Commissioner McCall? MCCALL: Aye. HAYASHI: Chair Graham? GRAHAM: Aye. HAYASHI: The motion carries. GRAHAM: Thank you, Norman. The discussion ended at 10:16 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer West Hawaii Secretary EXHIBIT B 5