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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-03-18 TWDC PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT MARCH 18, 2005 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of WDC PROPERTIES, LLC SPECIAL was called to order at 10:16 a.m. in the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel, PERMIT NO. 538) Hau/Lehua Room, 62-100 Kaunaoa Drive, Kohala Coast, Hawaii, with Chairman Fred Galdones presiding. PRESENT:Fred GaldonesABSENT & EXCUSED:Rene€ Siracusa C. Kimo Alameda Earl Fujikawa WilliamGraham Jeffrey McCall Francis Smith Hannah Springer Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner Kiran Emler representing Department of Public Works And approximately 18 people from the public in attendance APPLICANT: WDC PROPERTIES, LLC (SPECIAL PERMIT NO. 538) Amendment to Condition 4 (extend life of permit for 10 additional years) of Special Permit No. 538, which allowed the establishment of a heliport and related improvements on 9.8 acres of land within the State Land Use Agricultural District. The area involved is the existing heliport located at the Queen Kaahumanu Highway ƒ Waikoloa Road junction, Waikoloa, South Kohala, Hawaii, TMK: 6-8-1: portion of 43. GALDONES:Will the Hawai i County Planning Commission come back to order. Commissioners, we are on Agenda Item No. 4. Applicant is WDC Properties, LLC (Special Permit No. 538). This is an Amendment to Condition No. 4 (extend life of permit for 10 additional years) of Special Permit No. 538, which allowed the establishment of a heliport and related improvements on 9.8 acres of land within the State Land Use Agricultural District. Jeff? DARROW:Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could direct your attention to the location map on the board, the location of this application is in South Kohala, more specifically in the Waikoloa area. This line running in a northeast-southwest direction is Queen Kaahumanu Highway. This blue line running in a mauka-makai direction is the Waikoloa Road, and this red dot signifies the area of the application. It is located at the corner of Queen Kaahumanu Highway and Waikoloa Road. This is the area of the heliport that sometimes you might pass there and see all the helicopters on the side of the road. EXHIBIT D The Applicant in this case, WDC Properties, LLC, is requesting an extension of their life of their permit for 10 additional years, until June of 2015. The Applicants have come in for several time extensions or requests to extend the life of their permit and have been granted five years for several amendments. This request is for a 10-year period. There is one change I€d like to make to the Recommendation, and this is located on Page 5, just a minor change. In the paragraph that begins with Based,‚ that€s located on the upper portion of the Recommendation, it says, second line for an additional five (5) years,‚ if we could change five (5)‚ to ten (10) years until June 30, 2015.‚ The Planning Department has not received any letters of opposition or support for this application. The Planning Director is recommending approval of the 10-year additional life to the Special Management, correction, the Special Permit, for Condition No. 4. Any questions? GALDONES:Commissioners, any question of Jeff? Commissioner Alameda? ALAMEDA:Jeff, I€m just wondering if you add all the extension requests what would wecomeupto,withthe,andwiththe10? DARROW:Well,thepreviouspermit,correction,thepermitwasapprovedin1983-. ALAMEDA:Right. DARROW:And, so, up to this point we€re talking a period of over 20 years. The actual extensions, we have our first extension in 1990 for 5 years, we have an additional one in 1995 and now we have one for a 10-year request. So that would be a 20-year time that we are extending the life of this permit. But, again, that was 7 years prior to that as well. ALAMEDA:Okay. GALDONES:Thank you, Jeff. Commissioner Fujikawa? FUJIKAWA:In the year 2000, 2001 or 2000, wasn€t there an extension at that time? DARROW:Correct, 5-year time extension. FUJIKAWA:It was a 5-year, so already, what, 5 years. Thank you. GALDONES:Jeff, during this period of, so it was 22 years now. Were there any complaints about their operation from the public or the neighboring properties? DARROW:I believe there were some correspondences that were submitted at the times of the requests, but the requests were approved. As far as our records show, we don€t have anything from the public regarding this. GALDONES:Thank you. Seeing no further discussions or any questions from the Commissioners to the Applicant -. 2 SMITH:Chair? GALDONES:Commissioner Smith? SMITH:I have a question. Do we have any communications from Homeland Security regarding that area? DARROW:No, we do not, Commissioner Smith. GALDONES:Commissioner Smith, is there a concern? SMITH:I think there should be. DARROW:TheApplicantis,thisfacilityisactuallyaquasi-publicfacilitywhichis licensed by the Department of Transportation, andit€s monitored by DOT as well as the FAA. So as far as Homeland Security is involved with FAA and DOT, I€m not sure about the connection. But as far as the direct connection between Homeland Security and this particular operation, maybe that would be better directed towards the Applicants. GALDONES:Thank you. SMITH:Thank you. GALDONES:Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:Jeff, when analyzing requests for time extensions such as this, in addition to taking into consideration any unusual trends or conditions or needs that affect the Applicant directly, is there an analysis of any changes of use on surrounding properties, like perhaps expansion of residential areas which may have been free from noise or visual pollution in the original application but may be existent now? DARROW:Yes, all, all those matters might be taken into consideration when looking at the request. SPRINGER:Thank you. GALDONES:Jeff, I noticed in the Recommendation, the first amendment was made 2 years after the first approval; and subsequent to that, it was in the 5 years€ sequence. Any reason why we are considering granting a 10-year extension instead of a 5-year as has been the practice? DARROW:This is a request from the Applicant. We could have, the Planning Director could have requested that just a 5-year extension be granted. But because of this continual coming before the Commission for these requests, it appears that there hasn€t been any significant impacts from this facility during these times that a 10-year period appears to be a good amount of time to allow for the next extension to come in. 3 GALDONES:Just for my information, Jeff, I€m just building upon Commissioner Springer€s earlier comments that if there are other developments later on down the road that may surface and that this venture here somehow gets, seems to be getting in the way, is there a way to reject or revoke that permit that we have already approved? DARROW:It has been brought to my attention that Condition No. 11 would apply to that situation. If I can read it, it states, The applicant shall be responsible for operating the heliport facility in a manner as represented to the Planning Commission, including good faith negotiations with qualified helicopter tour companies, and prescribed under the conditions of approval of this permit. Non-compliance with these representations or conditions of this permit shall cause the Planning Director to schedule a public hearing on the matter before the Planning Commission to determine whether a violation has, in fact, occurred.‚ GALDONES:So Condition 11 is interpreted to apply in that kind of a situation that there€sapossibilityofrevokingthepermit?Ismyunderstandingcorrect? DARROW:Itappearsthatitwouldbebasedonnon-complianceoftheconditions.I don€t know about, maybe the Planning Director could answer this more directly, but we might need to look at a possible additional condition or the possibility of limiting that extension to 5 years. GALDONES:One moment. Any further questions, Commissioners? Mr. Yuen? YUEN:Yeah, I have to say that a, if, say a project came in that was nearby this and it was, say, a residential project very close that was not compatible with the heliport, we could not make, we could not say, well, this is condition applies so the heliport has to shut down. We would have to take the heliport as a given in the operations and deal with that in, in respect to the other application. I believe that the same applicant owns the neighboring property; and that is a factor in our consideration or recommendation of 10 years on this. GALDONES:Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:While Condition 11 pertains to violations, Condition 10 seems to take into consideration a listing of all complaints. And I wonder if the Director can explain to us how that list of complaints might be acted upon if the number or nature of complaints become alarming or significant. YUEN:If the complaints were with respect to things that were not violations of the permit or some other kind of actual rule, if it€s, we couldn€t take any enforcement action. There€s a series of conditions of the permit, if we get complaints, we find that the complaint shows that they€re violating the conditions of the permit, then we could revoke the permit. If they show that they€re violating some other rules and regulations, there€s a catch-all, and we could also revoke the permit for that, like they€re flying too low, some place else, that kind of complaint. But if it€s just a, if it€s a complaint of something that people really don€t like but it does not violate any of the specific conditions of the permit, or any other rule or regulation that applies to their operations, then we just take it as noted. And it€s something that could be brought up at a time when the permit is renewed, and that could be taken into account and say, well, people are not happy with this, even though it doesn€t violate any of the conditions. You 4 don€t have to renew it at that point. But I wouldn€t say that we have the right to just, we don€t have the right to take enforcement just on the basis of complaints. GALDONES:Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:Regarding Commissioner Smith€s concern with Homeland Security, was that taken up by the Department in their analysis? GALDONES:Jeff? DARROW:No, it was not. This Homeland Security is relatively a new, because of terrorism and everything, so it€s kind of something new I€d say. Unfortunately, I did not look at that when looking at this application. I€m not sure if the Director looked at that. But, again, this facility is monitored by several Federal and State agen -, by the FAA and DOT, which I would believeHomelandSecuritywouldbetightlyknitwiththoseorganizations. GALDONES:CommissionerFujikawa? FUJIKAWA:Yeah.Ijusthaveacommentaboutcomplaints.Ibelievethatthis operation has been in business for quite awhile here now and I€m pretty sure that they know how to follow their rules and avoid any problems. GALDONES:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:I wanted to just indicate that I certainly am much more in favor of a 5-year permit than I would be of a 10-year permit for a number of reasons. One is the land use reason, the surrounding land uses, and the fact that there€s a lot of stuff being proposed in the Waikoloa area. Another has to do with the whole operation of the aircraft. Once they€re in the air, that€s really under the jurisdiction of the FAA and not ours. And so when the County doesn€t receive complaints, I don€t think it€s indicative of, you know, the operation of the aircraft. However, in the earlier days like back in the late 80€s and maybe the early 90€s, I, myself, and a number of people in North Kohala saw a number of activities by the tour helicopters and I€ve witnessed a tour helicopter harassing the whale for quite a while off Honokane I can€t say it . came from this airport. And I think judging that I do not hear these kind of complaints in the community more, I think that the aircraft operators have probably done a much better job in recent years than what they used to and I€m thankful for that. And for that reason I€m certainly willing to support extension of this permit, but I do have some sense that perhaps in the past the Planning Commission even though they€ve been asked to make it indefinite, I€m always stuck with the 5 years and I think maybe the 5 years is also conducive towards an extra incentive for the operators to more carefully follow their flying rules and restrictions also. So I certainly am in favor of the 5-year. But we€re going to hear from the Applicant, too, so I€ll wait for that. GALDONES:Any discussions? Seeing none, will the Applicant or his representative please step forward? BAIL:Good morning. 5 GALDONES:Could you please raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai i County Planning Commission? BAIL:I do. GALDONES:Could you please state your name and your residence address? BAIL:My name is Lisa Bail. I€m an attorney with Goodsill Anderson Quinn and Stifel. I€m here to represent the Applicant; and my residence address is 581 Uluhaku Street in Kailua. GALDONES:Ma€am, have you received a copy of the Background Report and also the Recommendations, and do you have any comments to them? BAIL:Inshort,wesupporttheBackgroundReportandRecommendationthat this permit be extended for a 10-year period. I would like to speak to some of the issues that are good issues that the various Commission members have raised in the last few minutes. If I could, we do have several people from Blue Hawaiian Helicopters, the current facility operator, here this morning to show their support, but they can speak to some of the operation€s issues and especially the security issues that have come up. And if I could I€d like to invite them to sit with me at the table and speak. GALDONES:Please do so. Ma€am, I€m sorry I didn€t get your last name. BAIL:My last name is Bail, B-a-i-l. GALDONES:Okay. Ms. Bail, since they are going to be providing testimony, I need to have them sworn in. Could you please raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai i County Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS:I do. GALDONES:Could you state your name, for the record, and your residence address? LINCOLN:William Lincoln and 777 South Kihei Road, Kihei, Hawai i 96753. GALDONES:Thank you. Sir? CHEVALIER:David Chevalier, 640 Cross Road, Kula, Hawai i 96790. GALDONES:Thank you. Ms. Bail, you may proceed. BAIL:I wanted to speak first to the issue of the 5-year versus the 10-year extension of time. My understanding is that the reason that we have a time limitation on this period that we need to continue to seek renewals for is so that the Commission can revisit these very issues. The reason we have come in for a 10-year extension of time in this instance as opposed to the 5-year extension of time in the past is that the various Waikoloa entities are the landowners of the surrounding properties. Those lands are designated for urban development, 6 thatis a potential someday. But with the ownership of 31,000 acres in this area, I can confirm that there are no development plans for the immediate surrounding properties within the next 10 years, which is why we have comewitha 10-year extension request at this point in time. I€ll let the heliport operators speak to their citizenship in the community, if you will. But I think everybody, including the Applicant here, recognizes that to have a successful facility you also have to be a good neighbor. In this case that means restricting the flight paths. They€re certainly a recognition of the residential areas up in the Waikoloa Village area, the flight plans for the heliport, avoid those areas, also avoid the areas makai of the highway and over the highway itself. There is noise abatement technology that the operators can talk about that they implement on their helicopters. And I will let them respond to your questions regarding Homeland Security issues as they can speak to it better than I can. LINCOLN:Mr. Chairman, Mr. Smith, your questions about the Homeland Security issuesarehandledthroughtheFederalAviationAdministrationandthey€reapplicabletothe State or Federal facilities. As far as the aircraft being off of those facilities, we work with their primary operations inspector and we have internal security programs, both at the heliport with security controls at all hours and for the aircraft operations. It€s all inspected and part of our plan with the FAA. SMITH:Thank you. The concern was how do you operate your security? LINCOLN:Well, we do it internally as part of our company, but the security requirements for the light helicopters as ours that we operate has not been fully developed by the Homeland Security and transportation security agency because they€re still dealing with larger air carriers and aircraft -. SMITH:Yes, I understand that. But can you describe your internal security -. LINCOLN:Oh, our internal policy, yeah. SMITH:Correct. LINCOLN:All our aircraft are secured at night at the heliport and we have 24-hour security at the heliport with our maintenance facilities and with our ground staff. SMITH:I understand that, but how about passenger security, I mean -. LINCOLN:Passenger -, security is brought on with identification of the passengers to the people who book the aircraft and then again at the facility. We identify the individuals with driver€s licenses and with reservation confirmation of where they€re staying. SMITH:You have methods of discovering weapons on potential passengers? LINCOLN:No, there€s no provisions for us to have the authority to do screening such as that. We€re not allowed to open someone€s bags or to do any frisking cause we€re not law enforcement personnel. The transportation security agency has not addressed going to that level, to the small aircraft at this time. 7 SMITH:Okay. Can you answer this question. If you€re operating from the tarmac at the airport, would you be required to do that? LINCOLN:No, not our size aircraft. SMITH:All right. Thank you. GALDONES:Ma€am, anything further that you would want to speak on? CHEVALIER:I might just offer the factthat our Blue Hawaiian Helicopters as the primary operatorat the heliport has taken the lead in quiet technology development. We worked with the manufacturers as part of the helicopter tour operator committee of HAI, we work with all, we went to all the manufacturers and asked for quieter a aircraft. Cause we€ve been around since€85operatingandwerememberverywelltheproblemswithnoisethatreallypeakedinthe mid-to-late 80s and we realized that we needed to have a very good noiseabatement program which has, we put a lot of effort into. We meet the secondTuesday of the month and discuss any noise complaint that may have come up. But, moreover, we€ve, we went to the manufacturer with a couple of the other leading operators around the country and we committed to the purchase of quiet technology if they would build it. They did and we€ve invested almost $20 million over the last four years in upgrading our fleet to the new EC-130 quiet technology helicopters. These are approximately 50 percent quieter than any other tour helicopters now out there. So, it€s, we put our money where our mouth is and we€re very, very dedicated to noise abatement. As you see, you don€t have complaints at Waikoloa. I know there was a mention of maybe the, you guys don€t get the complaints but the FAA does. I assure you, whatever, if there, I€m not aware of any complaints. If, and, certainly, you know, if there is, we make very sure that we address that. You know, we€re very strict about enforcing the guidelines that we have to ensure that we don€t have any problems; and, it€s of critical importance to us, I€ll just leave it at that. GALDONES:Ms. Bail, you made mention something about the 31,000 acres. Your property sits in the proximity of the 31,000 acres that€s owned by the person that you€re leasing or the company that you€re leasing it from? BAIL:It€s owned, it would be owned by one of the various Waikoloa entities, which is why we can confirm here today that there are no development plans for those immediate surrounding properties. For example, the, you know, one of the development plans would be the Waikoloa Highlands which is the next agenda item that€s further mauka up Waikoloa Road. It€s not immediately adjacent to the heliport facility. GALDONES:Mr. Yuen? YUEN:We€ve been, we could probably show this on the map. Waikoloa owns up the north-south Kohala boundary, property line, boundary line. Jeff, could you show that. The red dot is the heliport. And then if you look to the right-hand side of that, turn your pointer on the north-south, I€m sorry, the South Kohala/North Kona District boundary line is the property 8 lineof Waikoloa Development. So if you€re going to the right-hand side there, or to the south, that€s, where Jeff has his arrow, would be the closest non-Waikoloa Development property, that€s State property. Then to the north,the colored areas in there, that would be Bridge, right there is Bridge Ainalea, which is not currently developed but is somebody else€s property. That€s the closest to the north. And then across the Queen Kaahumanu Highway, that€s also Waikoloa Development property. So I don€t see the scale on that but approximately -. DARROW:I would say, it€s approximately 2 inches per mile. YUEN:Pardon me? DARROW:Looks like it€s approximately 2 inches per mile. YUEN:Okay. So, you know, approximately a mile to non-Waikoloa Developmentproperty,exceptonthemakaisidewheretheresortiscloser,andso,andthereare other owners within the resort. But along the highway and then on either side and mauka of the property is Waikoloa Development€s. GALDONES:Thank you, Mr. Yuen. Ms. Bail, a couple of questions. If there is any development in the future that arises, what happens, who determines your flight plans so that it€s not a nuisance to the surrounding developments? CHEVALIER:We€ve traditionally worked with the community. If there€s ever a complaint, if there€s ever a concern, we adjust our route to alleviate any impacts that we have on on-going development. GALDONES:Okay. And the other question I have is, what would the, what will reducing the extension to 5 years, how would that impact your application? BAIL:It just means you€ll be seeing me again in 5 years for another extension of time. You know, I was hopeful that we could extend this permit for a period of 10 years, given the landownership situation and the other development priorities that Waikoloa has other than the immediate areas around the heliport. So I think a 10-year period would be appropriate given the history of the facility. Given the current operator at the facility, I think it€s an appropriate extension of time. But certainly it€s to the Commission to determine when they feel the issue needs to be revisited. I would hope they would have, the Commission members would have confidence in our representation that development of the areas immediately adjacent to the heliport is not a priority for us within the next 10-year period. GALDONES:Being that you have been there for something like 22 years now and there isn€t in the Background Report, nor is it mentioned in the Recommendation regarding your operation being a nuisance, so to speak, to the public and statement made by the gentleman that if there is, that you folks have been working closely with the public in case there are any kind of a development or if there€s some noise abatement that has to be taken care of, I personally feel comfortable with the 10 years that you€re asking for. Commissioners, are there any -? FUJIKAWA:I have. 9 GALDONES:Commissioner Fujikawa? FUJIKAWA:I think a 10-year permit will be good because through the years as a Commissioner position, I€ve seen where we had tremendous amount of backlog items and these people have a track record on it as far as being a stable business here. Also, I had a question. I believe it was 4-5 years ago that I brought up the question, is that, your airport, your heliport, can that be utilized for emergency landing for the aircraft that goes to Waimea Airport if in case there€s trouble? CHEVALIER:Yes, absolutely. The, we€ve had the Fire Department land there. We€ve had, why don€t you mention all the different people that land -. It€s open to anybody as a resource. FUJIKAWA:Yeah, I€m not referring to any of the commercial jumbo jet, no. CHEVALIER:No. FUJIKAWA:It€s just those smaller aircraft. LINCOLN:The helicopters can. The airplanes in an emergency, if there was some reasontheycouldn€thaveanyplaceelse,thereisanoldrunway,andtheaircraftcoulduseitin emergencies. Whether it would be a good idea to use that versus the golf course fairway would be up to the pilot to make, but it is no longer an airstrip that€s maintained for airplanes going on. FUJIKAWA:So emergency-wise -? LINCOLN:Emergencies he could if he had no other use, you know, the highway versus that. FUJIKAWA:Thank you. GALDONES:Further questions? Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:A question for Ms. Bail. You have the Blue Hawaiian folks here explaining about their operation and all. Is there any, are you folks committed to that Blue Hawaiian will, in fact, continue to be the operator and the only operator out of this airport for the period of this permit? BAIL:I believe the current condition on the permit requires us to negotiate in good faith with other operators. I believe that€s Condition 11 that€s part of our permit now. You know, we need to comply with that current condition to the extent it remains in the permit, I guess, would be my answer. GRAHAM:I understand. Thank you. GALDONES:Commissioner Alameda. 10 ALAMEDA:I have a question on your thoughts on the probability of another extension after the 10 years. High probability, medium, low? BAIL:Ten years is a long time away. You know, I think a lot can happen in 10 years. I think to the extent that guests of the hotels continue to want to have a nearby resource for helicopter tours and to the extent there€s not more intensive development in that immediate area which would conflict with the use of the heliport as a, you know, as a land use in that area, I think it would be very likely that we would come back for another extension of time in 10 years. I think about 10 years ago, we did come in and asked that the time period be eliminated from the permit altogether and that was not done, which is why we€re here before you today. But assuming the continued viability of the operation and the lack of a conflict, I think it€s very likely we would be back for another extension of time. ALAMEDA:Thank you. FUJIKAWA:I€ll make a motion. GALDONES:Further questions? Further discussion? Hearing none, is there any one herefromthepublictotestifyonthissubjectmatternowbeforetheHawai iCountyPlanning Commission? Seeing none, Ms. Bail, do you have any closing statements? BAIL:I have nothing further to add. Thank you. GALDONES:Commissioners, any further discussion? Seeing none, Commissioners, the Planning Director recommends the amendment to Condition No. 4 be approved by the Planning Commission. Motion is in order. Commissioner Fujikawa? FUJIKAWA:Yeah, I€m going to go with the Planning Director€s recommendation to amend the Condition No. 4, extension of life to the permit, until June 30, 2015, be approved. This is the Special Permit No. 538, request to amend Condition No. 4. GALDONES:Do we have a second? MCCALL:Second. GALDONES:Commissioner Fujikawa, that also includes the amendment that€s stated by Jeff on Page 5, second bullet, the 5 years also be changed to 10 years. Correct? FUJIKAWA:Five to ten? GALDONES:Yes. FUJIKAWA:Yes. GALDONES:It has been moved by Commissioner Fujikawa and seconded by Commissioner McCall that WDC Properties, LLC (Special Permit No. 538) request to amend Condition No. 4 (life of permit) be approved by the Planning Commission. And this shall 11 include for the record the Background Report and the Recommendations, with the amendment, as stated. Further discussion? Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:Kind of a protocol issue. I€m just wondering, you know, if someone like myself who€s not prone to support a 10-year extension but would be for a 5-year extension if, in fact, this 10-year vote should fail, is there a way that a vote can be taken for the 5-year extension? GALDONES:The Chair is prepared to entertain another motion. GRAHAM:All right, thank you. GALDONES:Seeing no further discussion, Jeff? DARROW:Thankyou,Mr.Chairman.CommissionerFujikawa? FUJIKAWA:Aye. DARROW:CommissionerMcCall? MCCALL:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Alameda? ALAMEDA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:No. DARROW:Commissioner Smith? SMITH:No. DARROW:And Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:Yes. DARROW:And Mr. Chairman? GALDONES:Aye. DARROW:The motion passes five to two. GALDONES:Thank you, Jeff. Ms. Bail, you will be informed in writing of today€s actions. BAIL:Thank you very much. 12 GALDONES:You€re welcome. The discussion ended at 10:50 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, East Hawaii Secretary 13