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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-06-02 Windward Exh C (Item 1 Bath PL-SPP-2022-000010) WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI`I HEARING TRANSCRIPT JUNE 2, 2022 A regularly advertised hearing regarding the application of STEPHANIE BATH (PL-SPP- 2022-000010) was called to order at 9:17 a.m. in the County of Hawaii Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawaii with Vice-Chair Michelle Galimba presiding. COMMISSIONERS IN ATTENDANCE: Michelle Galimba, Gilbert Aguinaldo, Lauren Balog, Louis Daniele III, and Dennis Lin ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Wayne De Luz ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: Dakota(Cody) Frenz Esq. (Counsel for the Commission left 9:21 a.m.), Malia Kekai Esq. (Counsel for the Commission from 9:21 a.m.), Jean Campbell, Esq. (Counsel for the Planning Department), Zendo Kern (Planning Director), Christian Kay (Planner), Jessica Andrews (Planner), Tracie-Lee Camero (Planner), Clinton Mercado (Planner), and Melissa Dacayanan-Salvador (Windward Planning Commission Secretary) APPLICANT: STEPHANIE BATH (PL-SPP-2022-000010) Application for a Special Permit to allow a home occupation for a massage therapy establishment on a 3.0-acre property in the State Land Use Agricultural District. The subject property is located at 16-2059 Moho Road, approximately 0.37 miles from its intersection with Ale Road, Hawaiian Acres, Kea`au, Puna, Hawaii, TMK: (3) 1-6-045:007. Secretary's Note: "—" indicates that there were technical and/or internet difficulties, which made the conversation inaudible. GALIMBA: We'll now move on to new business. Our first item of business is applicant, Stephanie Bath, PL-SPP-2022-000010. Application for a Special Permit to allow a home occupation for a massage therapy establishment on a 3.0-acre property in the State Land Use Agricultural District. The subject property is located at 16-2059 Moho Road, approximately 0.37 miles from its intersection with Ale Road, Hawaiian Acres, Kea`au, Puna, Hawaii, TMK: (3) 1-6-045:007. We'll start with a staff presentation by Jessica Andrews. KAY: It's just going to be one minute while we share the screen to Zoom. I'll be with you momentarily. Tracie, can you see that on your end? CAMERO: Yes, I can. KAY: Okay, thank you 1 EXHIBIT C ANDREWS: Thank you Christian. Good morning, commissioners, Chair, Vice-Chair, Director Kern. Good morning, everyone it's nice to be back in person and see everyone's faces. I'm presenting an application for a Special Permit for Roy and Stephanie Bath. Thanks for your patience while we get everything running here. Okay, this is the location map for the subject property and the subject property is shown with the red dot there. It's in Hawaiian Acres. The applicant's request. The applicants are requesting a Special Permit to allow a home occupation for a massage therapy establishment on approximately 5,720 square feet of a larger three (3)-acre property in the State Land Use Agricultural District. As part of the Special Permit application the applicants are requesting to allow a home occupation for a massage therapy establishment within a 68.8 square foot portion of an existing single-story 688 square foot dwelling that's under construction on the subject property. The dwelling consists of two (2) bedrooms, one (1) bathroom, a living room, kitchen plus a 96-square foot covered lanai. The applicants are proposing to convert the smaller 68.8 square foot bedroom into the area for the massage therapy home occupation use. Other components of the project include the existing driveway and a proposed parking area for a total of 5,720 square foot permit area. The applicants do not intend to hire any additional employees and hours of operation will be limited to between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday by appointment only. Occasional Saturday appointments will be scheduled to accommodate clients unable to schedule during weekday business hours. The applicants anticipate from zero (0)to five (5) clients per day and the applicants intend to complete the permitting process for the proposed home occupation by August of 2022 and will complete construction of the dwelling thereafter. This shows the County zoning and as you see the subject property outlined in red is zone Agricultural-3 acres (A-3a) as is the entire surrounding area. The State Land Use Boundary designates this as Agricultural and the General Plan LUPAG which is the Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide designates this property and the area as Extensive Agricultural or EA. Here is the applicant's proposed site plan. This shows the subject property. It's a long narrow parcel and the existing residence let's see if this pointer will work is here. Right about in the center of the property and the driveway is down the left side out to Moho Road which is here. The applicant's floor plan shows the revision on the upper right side which would modify this existing bedroom. The smaller bedroom as the home occupation so the 68.8 square feet that was referred to previously is this smaller of the 2 bedrooms in the existing structure. This is the aerial photograph of the subject property, and you see the whole parcel on the left and the blow-up portion with the driveway and the existing structure for the dwelling here and again this is Moho Road. These are some views of the property, so you see looking from Moho Road on the left in down the existing drive up to the house that is under construction and that's shown on the right side and the proposed area for parking is here on the left side of the structure. This is a view of Moho Road. This is the access road on the left that is looking to the southeast with the driveway is about access here and then on the right side this is the drive into the subject parcel right about there and this is looking to the northwest down Moho Road. Right about here on the property sorry on the road where it turns into a paved road. 2 EXHIBIT C So, the Planning Director's recommendation is approval of the requested Special Permit, and I did want to mention that there were a couple items, a couple of documents that were forwarded to the Commissioners that you should have received. They include the applicant's request for revised conditions, an agency comment that was mistakenly not included in the background I think it was DEM comments and additional public testimony that was received after the report was finalized. I'll hand it over to the Chair. Thank you. GALIMBA: Thank you. May I please have the applicants come up to the table. Please raise your right hand so I can swear you in. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth in this matter now before the Windward Planning Commission? S. BATH: Yes. R. BATH: Yes. GALIMBA: Please state your name and the town that you live in. S. BATH: Stephanie Bath, Kurtistown. R. BATH: Roy Bath, Kurtistown. GALIMBA: Thank you. Also, have you received the background and recommendation reports from the Planning Department? S. BATH: Yes. R. BATH: Yes, ma'am. GALIMBA: Do you agree with the Planning Director's recommendations including the proposed conditions? S. BATH: Yes, we would like to amend a couple of those though. GALIMBA: Okay. Please go ahead with your presentation. S. BATH: Aloha Kakou. First of all, thanks for your service on the Commission and I wanted to mahalo Jessica Andrews especially for the work she's done assisting. The Epic system has been in transition and in Kurtistown the signals are not always great, and Jessica was really great in doing her j ob. I want to thank her. When I was a little keiki, my mother had a beautiful voice and she used to sing show music when she was going about her chores and one of the songs that she sang was from savab music. I remember the lyrics, I won't sing it to you, I'll spare you that. But climb every mountain, forge every stream, follow every rainbow till you find your dream. When I arrived in Hawaii forty- one (41)years ago a lot of that was achieved. One of the things that I wanted to do is to create a place out in our community to be able to deliver the level of service that's certainly lacking, and 3 EXHIBIT C it just so happened that seven (7) years ago I got hit by and run over by a truck and I was pretty much debilitated. I realized then if it weren't for dear friends that assisted me in healing for us it would have been a lot harder. But I realized is everything's in Hilo. Everything was in Hilo and long story short we have acquired the parcel and what was a dream actually is a vision that's been realized that I'm really excited about now. I really want to thank Director Kern for the favorable recommendations because it's a sorely needed healthcare service within the community. Hilo for so many years has been taking the brunt of people from everywhere coming into the community using the infrastructure and using the services. With the growth we saw in the census that the growth in Puna is off the charts and growing and so I'm really excited about providing this super low-key level of service to our community and I would ask for a favorable recommendation. Roy and I are here today to answer any questions or concern you might have. As far as the recommendations I have clients that work in Hilo and if my hours are from eight(8)to five (5) it's not practical. It's unreasonable to think they are going to be able to come and I'm doing - home health and I have to go through that traffic and sometimes wait for them to get home before I can provide that home health now. So, I've asked for an amendment on that from 7 to 7. I doubt very much that I'm going to be using those hours every day. The other thing was the signage. A way finder sign was recommended. A twelve (12) by eighteen (18) inch sign isn't really going to cut it because we have to inset it onto the parcel. You saw the picture of the gate, we wanted to put it there, so I wanted to work with Planning and design something that's nice and is small enough but is reasonable enough that people won't be driving down other people's parcels. So, we're here to quench any of the ambers in your minds that might make you apprehensive wanting to grant this. Roy will answer any questions regarding agricultural use, and I'll focus on the MAE. Did you want to add anything? R. BATH: My wife had her practice in Hilo for thirty-five (35)years until she was run over with a truck and then she was unable to come in here. Although she's healed herself. She still has partial PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and doesn't drive too much and to be able to walk to work would be blessing. S. BATH: And a bigger blessing is for the Hele-On bus service to continue. They're doing a great job so that people can access but I'm doing okay. I mean it's a miracle. GALIMBA: Thank you. Commissioners do you have any questions for the applicants or staff? Go ahead Commissioner Lin. LIN: Thank you. A question for Zendo, Director Kern or the Planning staff regarding the sign. If the applicant provides a sketch or a mock-up, is it under your discretion or is it the Planning Commission's discretion? KERN: Right now, the Planning Commission will be making the decision on the size of the sign and location. So, I think it's a conversation that we should get into at this point and probably ask any questions and then move into a motion and discussion about those. 4 EXHIBIT C GALIMBA: Seeing no other questions, Commissioners we need a motion made and seconded before we can discuss. May I hear a motion for action. LIN: I'd like to make a motion. Let me bring it up here. AGUINALDO: Second. LIN: Hold on, Commissioner Aguinaldo. I move that the application for Special Permit, Docket No. 2022-010, be approved with the applicant's amendment for condition on hours and signage, which shall be adopted. GALIMBA: Thank you Commissioner Lin. AGUINALDO: Then I second. GALIMBA: Thank you Commissioner Aguinaldo. Okay it's been moved and seconded. Commissioners any discussion on the motion? LIN: Now I'd like to ask about the sign. GALIMBA: Please go-ahead Commissioner Lin. LIN: What size are you looking at Ms. Bath? BATH: Yeah, that's a good question because I want to do something aesthetic. I have a friend that actually sliced at an angle Albizia and made really nice signs out of the Albizia wood. I wanted to work with her. My goal is to make it as small as we can "—". I'd like to include "Stephanie Bath Licensed Massage Therapist by appointment only" is super important because I don't want people driving down the driveway. Criminals just checking it out or just people coming down while I'm in session. I'm visualizing maybe something about this big and maybe about that big because 2 inches is what's readable right for the regular sign. Not to exceed 2 feet long by 18 inches. How's that? And then the wooden part of the sign from the cambium around the Albizia wouldn't be included in the sign that would just be aesthetics. Is that workable? Because it's about this thick, I think. ANDREWS: Ms. Bath, can you please speak into the microphone. BATH: I'm sorry. ANDREWS: Thank you. BATH: Twenty-four(24) by 18, is that what I said excluding any cambium that's outside of the actual flat surface of the wood. I'm trying to draw a picture here of what I'm visualizing. Can you see kind of that shape? So, it might be 24 inches, it might be twenty-eight(28) inches. I don't know because the wood is variable by about 18 inches tall. I think I could easily get all 5 EXHIBIT C that is the name Stephanie and the word appointment and licensed massage therapist. I'd rather do licensed massage therapist than massage therapy just for the professionalism of it and clarity of it. But if I need to go with massage therapy, I will. If I need to go 12 by 18, I'll do that but the intent of it is so that people can see. GALIMBA: Do we need to get the dimensions into the motion, or can we just say as discussed in there? KEKAL Yeah, I think you can even if you guys want to do a maximum or something like that or a minimum or so it doesn't have to be maybe exactly 24 by 18 but you could say like not to exceed thirty-six (36) by twenty (20) or something just to give her some wiggle room. But it's up to the Commission. LIN: So, we could for more clarification say wording on signage not to exceed 18 by 24 and then give her a little bit of leeway on terms of the wood exterior, I guess. KEKAL Yep. KERN: Madam Chair if I may. GALIMBA: Thank you. KERN: Sure. So just to give a little history around it and happy to have the conversation. So, typically a home occupation does not allow for signage. Granted in the State Land Use Ag District there's no provision for home occupation thus having to come through the special permit process. When we're looking at the application, we were looking at it somewhat based off this home occupation which again would be no signage and I thought it would be important to have some signage there not so much from an advertising perspective but again from a wayfinding side of it. So, if someone's driving down the road they know where they're going to go. I'm not opposed to the amendment. I think it might want to qualify though if it being set back because that's part of the request is that it's not going to be right up front. It's going to be set back. So, I would recommend that there's some clarification on that on how far back you're going to want to set it and then to not exceed the dimensions that you folks are feeling that would be super good with me. It makes sense and I don't have an issue with the hours as well. So, happy to talk more and answer any questions. S. BATH: Jessica, would it be possible for you to pull up the slides of the gate area. ANDREWS: Sure. S. BATH: Thank you. ANDREWS: Just give us a minute here. The front of the— S. BATH: Yes. 6 EXHIBIT C ANDREWS: Okay, here you are. S. BATH: So, what we visualize is when people are coming in, they're coming from this direction so to put it over here wouldn't be as visible as in this section right around here. Gate closes here will be in this area right here I might have to — ANDREWS: Ms. Bath, I can point to the slide if you want to speak into the microphone. S. BATH: So, if you see the little laser thing the area in that direction you can visualize the gate closed, it would be just beyond that. The terrain drops down there so we would have to do it right around those ti-leaves to the right. I'm going to probably have to cut back those ti-leaves and keep them well-manicured. Maybe put some monstera or something there. But that's the general area and I think if it's like not to exceed twenty (20)by thirty-six (36) gives a lot of leeway and we'll try to minimize it. GALIMBA: Could you estimate how far back that is from the road? S. BATH: From Moho Road that's about what thirty (30), thirty-five (35) feet back. R. BATH: I believe the gate is set about twenty-five (25)to twenty-seven (27) feet. S. BATH: Yeah, I was going to get that measurement and I spaced it out, sorry. ANDREWS: I can advance to where the, you can see the gravel up Moho Road here unfortunately I don't have an image that shows exactly where we were just looking. But you can see that's probably at least a distance of fifteen (15) to 20 feet there and the monstera would be kind of setback even further, sorry, but they are not monstera but where the ti-leaves were and the proposed sign location GALIMBA: So, Commissioner Lin would you like to amend your motion to include those specifics? LIN: Yes, I would like to amend the motion to include the dimensions of the sign as discussed and if okay with other Commissioners we, do it as 18 by 24 for the lettering with additional maybe 3 inches or so for the. I think 3 inches would be fine for the exterior. S. BATH: Around? LIN: Yes. S. BATH: Okay, that's workable, that's durable. LIN: So, it shall not exceed those dimensions, 18 by 24 inches with 3 inches additional for the wooden portion. KERN: And would you consider adding in no closer to the road than the existing gate? 7 EXHIBIT C LIN: Yeah. I'm agreeable with that. So, putting is as, what's the wording again? KERN: Yeah, the signage shall be located no closer to the roadway. Should be located no closer than the existing gate. LIN: Yep, no closer than the existing gate. KERN: That didn't come out quite right either. But Jessica will get it squared. ANDREWS: Okay. LIN: Thank you. GALIMBA: I need a second for that, Commissioner Aguinaldo would you be able to second that? AGUINALDO: I second that. GALMBA: Thank you. Okay, we need to take a quick 5-minute recess. We will be back. Vice Chair Galimba called for a recess at 9:44 a.m. and called the meeting back to order at 10:08 a.m. and tabled Item #I on the agenda until later in this meeting and worked through the rest of the agenda items. At 10:40 a.m. this agenda item had reconvened. GALIMBA: Okay, so, we will get back to where we left off with the motion on the floor. Do we have any discussion of that motion? AGUINALDO: What was the motion again? GALIMBA: Go ahead, thanks Jessica. ANDREWS: Should I restate the motion? GALIMBA: Yes, please. ANDREWS: Okay, the motion was proposed or moved by Commissioner Lin and seconded by Commissioner Aguinaldo as follows. A motion to approve the Special Permit application with amendments from the applicant as proposed. With a further amendment to limit the dimensions of the sign to not exceed 24 inches by 18 inches with an additional 3 inches for a border on all sides and the sign shall be located no closer to Moho Road than the existing entry gate to the subject property. GALIMBA: Commissioners any discussion on the motion? 8 EXHIBIT C AGUINALDO: No. GALIMBA: Hearing no discussion, I will ask for a roll call vote by the staff. ANDREWS: Thank you. Commissioner Lin? LIN: Aye. ANDREWS: Commissioner Aguinaldo? AGUINALDO: Aye. ANDREWS: Commissioner Balog? BALOG: Aye. ANDREWS: Commissioner Daniele? DANIELE: Aye. ANDREWS: And Vice Chair Galimba? GALIMBA: Aye. ANDREWS: And the motion passes five (5) to zero (0). GALIMBA: You'll be notified in writing of the decision. Okay, thank you. The item ended at 10:42 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Melissa Dacayanan-Salvador, Secretary Windward Planning Commission 9 EXHIBIT C