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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-02-24 TInitiator_Planning_Director PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT February 24, 2006 INITIATOR: PLANNING DIRECTOR A regularly advertised hearing on the application of was called to order at 5:20 p.m. at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Hotel, 69-275 Waikoloa Beach Drive, Waikoloa, Hawaii with Vice-Chairman William R. Graham presiding. PRESENT:ABSENT & EXCUSED: Allen Salavea C. Kimo Alameda Hannah Springer Andrew Iwashita Fred Galdones Chris Yuen, Deputy Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel And approximately 10 people from the public in attendance. INITIATOR: PLANNING DIRECTOR Amendment to certain sections of Chapter 23 (Subdivision Code), Hawaii County Code 1983 (2005 edition) regarding the subdivision review and approval process, including but not limited to information required for the submittal of an initial subdivision application, revision to certain time requirements, grades and curves of streets, and housekeeping‚ changes to the languages withinvarioussectionsofthecode. GRAHAM:Wehaveanadditiontoouragenda.Idon€thavethewriteupwithmethis second but perhaps Mr. Yuen can explain the addition to the agenda. This item is initiated by the Planning Director and it refers to an amendment to certain sections of Chapter 23 of the Subdivision Code of the County regarding the subdivision review and approval process. And then I believe we€re going to have public hearing on this here and also at our next meeting in Hilo. And then eventually the County Council will take action on this. So, go ahead Mr. Yuen and give us a description please. YUEN:Yes, this is an amendment, proposed series of amendments to the subdivision code and we€re not expecting action by the Planning Commission today. We wanted to have hearings on this on both the West side and East side of the islands. This has, the write up says it€s brought on by Hawaii Supreme Court decision, which said that the County has been processing subdivisions for about 30 years is not right. In a nutshell the subdivision code that we have was written in 1967. And if you read it carefully it indicates a process where the applicant would submit a relatively complete subdivision map including a fairly detailed specifications of EXHIBIT 1 how they were going to build their roads. And then this would be reviewed and then approved. And there€s a lot of information that that€s supposed to be on a preliminary plat that says it shall be on the plat. In actual practice at least since the 1970€s what€s submitted in a preliminary plat you will have a road and you will have a general layout of the subdivision and much of the information that would not have the level of detail called for by strict reading of the subdivision code. This goes back, I talked to Sidney Fuke who was a Director in the 70€s and this goes back at least to Sidney Fuke€s time. And it has been a more practical way of doing subdivisions because it€s actually premature to engineer the roads before you have approval of the basic layout. Sometimes a subdivision comes in, the subdivision map comes in for initial review and sometimes the department will require changes to that. For example to connect the road to a road on an adjacent property or at a different location. So there are often changes on the plat and if you had spent the money to engineer your roads before hand if would€ve been wasted. Also the Department has typically waived some minor deficiencies in the plat. For example, just to give one example it calls, the subdivision code says you€re supposed to show zoning on adjacent properties.Wellweknowwhatthezoningisonadjacentpropertiesfrominformationthatwe have in our own office and so rather than be nasty and send the map back to the subdivider or their surveyor we would often accept it and then have, have the information on when their map is finally approved. This sort of things the Supreme Court says we can€t do anymore and it creates a problem for a number-. We have several hundred pending subdivisions in the office, which may not comply. And there€s also a lingering question about subdivisions that have been approved that don€t comply. So what we want to do is amend the subdivision code to fix all these problems. And so in doing so we went through and we found a number of things that have been not been typical practice and so there€s a series of amendments here and I€m going to try to quickly go through and explain what each one does. I know it€s been a long day but I do think to be fair to everybody I want to explain this. The first one is at the bottom of page 2 and the top of page 3 of the handout. The subdivision code specifies maximum grades and curves. As we were just discussing these have not been followed over the years. They, they do, there is an out that says that they can be, variations can be permitted to meet unusual conditions. Well, an unusual condition is usually that the ground is really steep and the parcel is kind of narrow. So and that tends to come up all the time. So rather than specify this in the code we simply say that it shall conform to accepted engineering practices determined by the Department of Public Works. And they do have a manual for how they. This doesn€t leave it wide open. They have a manual and there are national standards that they can use. The next one is just to cross out the word improvement plans. Those are not typically submitted with the preliminary plat that was the first part of the application. Then the next on page 4 is to make it clear. The way the procedure was because you were supposed to be submitting really complete application then the County was supposed to complete the review in 45 days. But the typical practice has been to defer, to take it in and then to defer final action while it is being reviewed and this, this spells out that this is a permitted practice. It also says there is also an automatic approval clause and it, in the original, in the subdivision code and this basically says that if the County misses the deadlines and it€s automatically approved that the normal subdivision requirements apply to the plat. So that in other words you€re not going to have a substandard subdivision approved by, just because the County didn€t get to, you know lost it in a pile or somebody was sick the day it was due or something like that. Page 6 is an important clause and that is-. It says that once the Director has accepted the preliminary plat that any, that we waive any defects in it. We can ask for information to fix it but what, we can€t-. Somebody who wants to attack it later can€t come back EXHIBIT 2 like happened in the actual we were talking about, after when the subdivision is well in process and say it needs to thrown out because the preliminary plat didn€t have all the information on it. That€s what, that€s what the sentence at the top of page 6 is. The change on page 7 just changes some of the, the requirements. We, the proposed names are out because we typically don€t have the street names at the beginning those are added later. On page 8 the gist of this is to not require details of adjoining property that, that are currently called for. And to not require detailed descriptions of improvements that will be made by the subdivider. Now I need toexplain that all of this does come in later. There are two main stages in a subdivision. There€s a preliminary plat which has the basic layout and that getstentative approval. And then tentative approval comes with the conditions of how, how much of the basic standard that you have to improve your street to. And then after that there€s final approval which comes after your construction, your actual construction plans have been approved by the Department of Public Works and you have either built them or, to the specifications have bonded them so that they build the construction as guaranteed. So this doesn€t take away the actual requirement to make the improvements.Itjustsaysthatyoudon€thavetoshowwhattheyarewhenyoufirstapplyfor the subdivision in your preliminary. The next, on page 9 it has some details on the final plat that have, they€re not going to be required including approved street names. Again the street names are sometimes added later. There€s a separate street naming process now. And some other and on pages 9 and 10 some other details on the final plat that are not, that are not really necessary and not typically done, have not been typically done over the years. So that€s the gist of these changes. The, page 12 is another important clause for us and that it says that the Director€s acceptance-. When we look at the final plat and start to circulate it we waive technical errors. Again somebody can come back and validate it later because there were things missing on it. We can make the, we can require that those, the County can require that those things can be fixed but they don€t make the plat, the subdivision plat invalid. And those are the major changes and I€d be happy to answer any questions. GRAHAM:If I might, the final thing that you were speaking to there and I was looking at the end of the, the part that€s underlined here. And the Director€s issuance of final subdivision approval shall be valid despite the absence of information required in sections 23-69 and 70. And I think you just interpreted your words as being some technicalities that were missing but it seems that the language could also apply to some very substantive things that perhaps could occur through whatever kind of collusion between some public official and the developer and it seems like if it were substantive issues then they probably should be subject to (inaudible) scrutiny. YUEN:Even with a clause like this if there was something like a bribe given to somebody to accept something that shouldn€t have been. That, that subdivision could still be set aside on those kinds of grounds. What, what if you look at what€s required on 23-69, maybe we could go through them one by one but there are things that say date north point and scale of the drawing. And so what happened is; what€s the potential as a result of the Supreme Court case is that if they left the scale off the drawing the subdivision plat could be invalidated. So we just want to make sure things like that are not going to be a problem. And if you look at them the information required in 23-69 and 23-70 are things that are map issues. They€re not things that are construction issues. In other words we€re not doing anything that waives the requirements that the streets actually be constructed to the standards, they be inspected by the Department of EXHIBIT 3 Public Works that they pass inspection. We€re just; we€re just saying that defects in the way it€s presented on the map will not invalidate the map. GRAHAM:So that in 23-69 and 70 that are cited here wouldn€t reflect on substantive issues on the ground that the public need be concerned about? YUEN:Right. GRAHAM:All right thank you. Any other Commissioner? Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:Chris I€m looking at the correspondence from Kimo Franco. Have you had a chance to review his correspondence and it indicates that he€ll be coming to our Hilo meeting but what are your thoughts on Ag lands and Hawaiian Rights and the Subdivision Code? YUEN:Well,we€re,onthisweare,wehaveaprojecttodoamoregeneral revision to the subdivision code. On this go around we are doing a rush fix so that we don€t have to throw out hundreds of subdivision applications. That€s the gist of what we€re doing. So I don€t want to do anything that changes. I would not; I don€t want to address these suggestions on what we€re doing right now. SPRINGER:Thank you. GRAHAM:Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:I just wanted to comment that, compliment both you and the staff for responding to it real quickly. I read about that, I think was last month and it€s pretty quick the changes that you€re making or proposing. So thanks. YUEN:Well it€s one of the major functions of the department and so we didn€t want it to be held up. We had to make some changes because of the Supreme Court case. GRAHAM:We do have Mr. Emler here from the Department of Public Works and we probably won€t see him in Hilo so Ki I just wanted to offer you the opportunity if you have any thoughts on this since you€re probably way more knowledgeable about it than any of us we would be happy to hear them but if you don€t that€s okay too. EMLER:I€m not sure that the Director has heard the final word from the Department of Public Works on the grades and curbs issue from us yet. This has come up kind of quickly and I think it€s been passed around and I€m not sure the final comment or whether a comment has come out from our Director on this issue or not so that€s the only thing I have to say about it. Although we talked about gates and I€ve been an advocate trying to get gates set back from County roads for subdivision roads and for PUD€s and when there€s a variance that comes up I try to put a comment in on a variance to make sure these gates are set back from the public roads to allow for enough room for a person to enter their driveway and not interfere with the operations of a public road. And I€d like to see something put in to any revisions. I know the EXHIBIT 4 Director€s in a hurry to get this one through and we can address that on future possible amendments but that is something I€d like to put a word in for. Thanks. GRAHAM:Thank you Mr. Emler. But it doesn€t seem like that particular issueis of the magnitude Mr. Franco€s issue is so perhaps it is something you would want to consider at this time? YUEN:Well, I thought we€d been doing that on the tentative approvals, the turnarounds? Well we can, we can on simply by administrative practice so we don€t-. It€s the kind of thing that we would put in the larger revisions the overall reform of the subdivision code but I don€t want to put that sort of thing in on this package. GRAHAM:If there€s no more questions at this time we do have public testimony and on the sign up I have Chris Manfredi. If there€s anyone else who would like to testify on this issuepleasecomeforwardandyoucandothatalso.Mr.Manfrediwouldyoupleaseraiseyour right hand for the oath? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawaii County Planning Commission? MANFREDI:Yes I do. GRAHAM:Thank you. So, if you would state your name and your residence address and then proceed with your testimony. MANFREDI:My name is Chris Manfredi. P.O. Box 1109, Naalehu. I support the Director€s recommendation to the changes to the subdivision code. My opinion is that it€s grossly inefficient to require subdividers to contract for potentially unnecessary redundant irrelevant or premature plan studies and engineering before comments, modifications or requirements by the various regulatory agencies such as Department of Health, Transportation, Water Supply and Public Works. This inefficiency will have net effect of wasting time, money and resources that will contribute to the increased cost of housing to the public. It appears to me that the department has correctly streamlined the process to be practical and efficient to make best use of time and County resources while still maintaining checks and balances that work to prevent the creation of a substandard or inappropriate subdivision. GRAHAM:Thank you for your comments. Any questions from the Commissioners? All right thank you for coming. MANFREDI:Thank you. GRAHAM:I think probably where we go with this is we probably would continue this to the next hearing. Is there any comments before I-, I€ll take a motion to that effect if someone would like-? Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:Mr. Chair I move that we continue this discussion of the amendment to certain sections of Chapter 23, Hawaii County Code to our next Hawaii County Planning Commission in Hilo. EXHIBIT 5 GRAHAM:Do I have a second? WATANABE:Second. GRAHAM:Second by Commissioner Watanabe. Probably a voice vote is okay? So all those in favor please say aye? COMMISSIONERS:Aye. GRAHAM:No€s please? COMMISSIONERS:(silence) GRAHAM:Okaythemotioniscarried.Wewillcontinuethistoournextmeeting. Thisdiscussionendedat5:45p.m. Respectfullysubmitted, Lynette Marushige, West Hawai€i Secretary EXHIBIT 6