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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-04-01 TMOYLAN PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT APRIL 1, 2004 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of PATRICK AND THERESA MOYLAN was called to order at 2:43 p.m. in the County Building, Councilroom - Room 201, (SPP 04-016) 25 Aupuni Street, Hilo, Hawaii, with Second Vice-Chairman Hannah Springer presiding. PRESENT:Hannah Springer ABSENT & EXCUSED: Fred Galdones C. Kimo Alameda Bill Graham Andrew Iwashita Jeffrey McCall Allen Salavea Rene€ Siracusa RodneyWatanabe IvanTorigoe,DeputyCorporationCounsel Christopher J. Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner And approximately 28 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANTS: PATRICK AND THERESA MOYLAN (SPP 04-016) Special Permit to allow the establishment of a cabinet shop on 2 acres of land situated in the th State Land Use Agricultural District. The property is located at the southern corner of 37 Street and Melia Street, Orchidland Estates Subdivision, Keaau, Puna, Hawaii, TMK: 1-6-8:102. SPRINGER:We€re on AgendaItem No. 6, Members. The applicants are Patrick and Theresa Moylan (SPP 04-016), a Special Permit to allow the establishment of a cabinet shop on 2 acres of land situated in the State Land Use Agricultural District. The property is located at the th southern corner of 37 Street and Melia Street, Orchidland Estates Subdivision, Keaau, Puna, Hawaii, TMK: 1-6-8:102. Jeff? DARROW:Thank you, Madam Chair. SPRINGER:You€re welcome. DARROW:Good afternoon, Commissioners. If I can direct your attention to the locationmap.TheareaofthisapplicationiswithinthePunaDistrictofHawaii,more specifically we€re looking at the Orchidland Subdivision and the Hawaiian Paradise Park Subdivision.Thiswhitelinetravelingthroughthemiddleofthemaprunninginanorth- west/south-east direction is the Keaau-Pahoa Road (Highway 130). The area of this application EXHIBIT F th would be on Orchidland Drive onto 37 Avenue; and it€s identified on the corner of Malia Street th and 37 by a red dot here on the map. If we could focus on the site plan submitted by the applicants, Patrick and Theresa Moylanhave submitted a specialpermit application and they are requesting for a cabinet shop on 2 acres of th land within the Orchidland Subdivision. Again, this is on the corner of 37 and Malia Street. It€s a two-acre parcel located within the State Land Use Agricultural District and the County Ag-3 District. At this time, access to the property is from Malia Street. Identify, the driveway is identified in brown. There€s an existing 5-bedroom 2-bath residence, identified here in red, and the existing cabinet shop. The Moylans have been operating this business for approximately 13 years. It€s a family-owned and operated business, and they€ve built up quite a reputation for affordable and quality cabinets within the Puna district. They€re requesting to legitimize this operation. Again, it€s family-owned and operated. The Moylans have eight children, seven of which are living at home. And I€m not sure how many, I think four, four of the children work in the business, but I€m sure as they get more, and more will become a part of it. The Director in his recommendation had briefly discussed about home occupations within the Agricultural District, and this is a good example of that type of operation that we€ve been seeing throughouttheAgriculturalDistrict,thatinaresidentialzonethiswouldactuallybeconsidereda permitted use where they would just sign a home occupation declaration and comply by those rules. In the Agricultural District, they would have to go through a special permit. Conditions of approval that have been addressed deal with heavier landscaping. This is landscaping that will be similar to a Limited Industrial zone next to a Residential zone, so they will have to comply with a much stricter landscaping requirement. We have conditions regarding air filtration systems, sound as mentioned in the last application, as well as limits on hours of use and employees. The Planning Director is recommending that this application be approved by the Planning Commission. Are there any questions? SPRINGER:Commissioners, any questions for staff? Commissioner Siracusa. SIRACUSA:What is the standard type of landscaping requirements for, and then you said for an Industrial area that will be applied? DARROW:It€s quite extensive. It€s listed in our Chapter 17, but they have stricter requirements than just a landscaping buffer in an Agricultural zone for this type of -. It has to do with the types of, the amount of area that has to be put in there to be able to minimize the impacts of the surrounding properties. As far as the specifics, it€s quite detailed and it€s listed in order to -. SIRACUSA:I don€t need specifics. I was wondering just general things like how deep, you know, from the property line, how many feet in, that sort of thing. DARROW: Yeah, I€d have to pull up the Code to be able to briefly describe that. But it€s, I was looking at it last night and I was saying, oh, this will be addressed in plan approval. 2 Andif Iwas to try to explain it, it€s quite detailed. But what I can do is look it up and then bring it out. If you want, I can pull up the County Code. SIRACUSA:Thank you, Jeff. SPRINGER:Other Commissioners, are there questions of staff at this time? Let€s give Jeff a moment to refer to his file to answer Commissioner Siracusa€s question. YUEN:This is for, the way this would work under, the rule is written for different kinds of zones. So for the side yards and the rear yards, we would make this be landscaped the same as a Light Industrial adjoining a Residential; and this would require opaque screening up to six feet high, in other words, a continuous, at a low level up to six feet high. Then intermittent trees that would create an intermittent block up to 20 feet high with gaps of no more than 10 feet. Then the front yard is less, and you can use existing woodlands for this. You don€t have to plant somethingifyoualreadyhavetreesorothervegetationthatcreatesthiskindofseparation. SIRACUSA:Thankyou. SPRINGER:Commissioners,arethereanyotherquestionsforstaffatthistime? Seeing none, will the applicant or applicant€s representative please come forward. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I have another member of the public, Miya Pawn, who has -. PAWU:Pawu. SPRINGER:Sorry. PAWU:Miya Pawu. SPRINGER:Miya Pawu, okay. PAWU:That€s a u‚ at the end. Sorry, my writing is -. SPRINGER:That€s okay. If at this time I can swear you both in at the same time, could you both please raise you right hands. And do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawaii County Planning Commission? PAWU:I do. SPRINGER:Thank you. Beginning with you, sir, could you please state your name and residence address for the record. MOYLAN:Patrick Moylan, PO Box 1306, Pahoa Hawaii. SPRINGER:Thank you, sir. Did you receive the Planning Department€s background report and recommendation? MOYLAN:Yes, I did. 3 SPRINGER:Doyou have any comments to make? MOYLAN:No, no comments. SPRINGER:Commissioners, do you haveanyquestions of the applicant? Seeing none, at this time I€d like to call our member of the public forward. PAWU:Good afternoon, Chairperson and Members of the Commission. My name is Miya Pawu. My address is PO Box 1707, Keaau, HI. And I come before you today representing the community of Orchidland. I am the president of Orchidland Community Association, so my testimony is on behalf of the community and not just my personal belief. SIRACUSA:Excuse me, could you speak louder, please. PAWU:I€msorry.Thisisthefirsttime,Ithink,Ms.Siracusa,I€vebeenaccused for speaking too low. We are generally supportive of our members supporting their families without commuting, without adding to the burden on our roadways. Our questions regarding this application, and we were not, usually we€re given a copy of everyone of these because every property in Orchidland borders the roadways and we are, the Orchidland Community Association is the owner of the roadways or they administer the roadways. The roadways are owned in common by our members; and therefore we are the administrative body in charge of them. Our questions regarding this particular special use permit are noise, which I believe this Commission has addressed adequately. We do want to question how much traffic this will generate. Because if it€s going to, it appears that they do mostly wholesale orders and therefore there won€t be a lot of extra traffic generated to the property. So that may be a minor concern; and maybe this gentleman could answer that. And our last question, and we€ve had problems with this in the past with other special use permits, is that we do feel it€s unfair to charge a commercial operation the same road maintenance fee as a single family residence. We have a fee schedule that has been established, voted on by our members at a vote counted by the League of Women voters, and duly approved by our entire membership. A project such as this would have a fee of approximately five times what a standard home would be. A standard home fee currently is $65, it€s going up to $70. So they would be paying road fees because of the trucks bringing things in and out that do put extra wear on our roads of approximately $300 a year. And I believe that that was put as a condition of their special use permit. If they pay the fees as the Board may designate, then we would have no further comments on this particular issue. And, in fact, we are in favor, again, of our members being able to support themselves within our community. SPRINGER:Thank you, Mr. Pawu. Are there any questions for the testifier, members of the Commission? Commissioner Siracusa. SIRACUSA:Well, I have two questions. One is for Mr. Moylan; and that is if that would be agreeable to him, that extra fee. And then I€ll ask one of Mr. Pawu. MOYAN:Yeah, that sounds very reasonable. That€s fine. 4 SIRACUSA:And then, Mr. Pawu, would, is there any assurances that you could offer Mr. Moylan or this Commission that your Board would not decide to suddenly jack up the rates by an incredible amount and, you know,once it€s a done deal? PAWU:To answer your question, Ms. Siracusa, we, to get any changes to any amount it must be first proposed at a general meeting of our membership, then -. First it must actually be approved by the board of directors, then it goes to a general membership meeting, and that after the general membership, at that meeting it has approved any changes in fees, it goes to the entire membership, all 2,400 members for a written vote that is counted by a mutual third party. And that is the only way that we increase fees. SIRACUSA:Thank you very much. And I€m glad to see that you have a process in place. PAWU:Thankyou. SPRINGER:Thankyou,both.Commissioners?CommissionerIwashita? IWASHITAI€mnotsurewhoI€mdirectingthisconcernto,maybetotheDirector. And that is, the way I read the proposal right now, there€s no limitation on the total use of the 2 acres of the property. Maybe I missed it, but just as the prior matter that we had, it seems like we ought to have a square footage kind of limitation on the area of the land that can be used for this cabinet shop, because it has a two-story dwelling on it and has an existing permitted use already, I guess. YUEN:We could do that, but we do have a limit on only one employee besides household members. That does tend to keep it to just the people living on site. SPRINGER:And that€s Condition No. 8. Follow-up, Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Yeah, I see that. Okay. Thank you. SPRINGER:You€re welcome. Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:It seems to me I remember in issues we were dealing with before, maybe in Hawaiian Paradise Park or something, that kind of agreements between a property owner and the road association, the private road association, are really not proper material for us here in the Planning Commission to sort of, you know, require or anything like that. So I think whatever, I€d like to hear the Planning Director€s commentary whether he thinks I€m correct. But it seems to me it€s like an issue that you folks can work out with each other. But it€s not something we€re likely to make a part of our requirement. SPRINGER:Mr. Yuen? YUEN:I can€t remember. I might punt this one to Corporation Counsel as to whether they think if, like now we have an agreement, if they did not agree, would we be able to put a condition like this on a special permit? 5 TORIGOE:Yeah, I think this came up with respect to the other special permit with the Fire Mountain up in Volcano, and they did not have an agreement; and the Corporation there really did not have a process in place; and so it was really kind of tenuous. YUEN:I think actually, though, we did want, we as a Department wanted to have them, some set level of greater responsibility. So I think we can put it on as a condition. It€s part of, I would tie it in with not adversely affecting surrounding property, which would come into the roadways that are maintained by the community association. So I think the Commission could put this, could make a reasonable condition on a special permit that the applicant do something, whether it€s pay more fees or do some additional maintenance to a privately owned road, to offset the impact that they may have to that road. SPRINGER:Having heard the concerns, Mr. Director, is that a condition that you would add? YUEN:That sounds reasonable. SPRINGER:So that would be a new condition or would it be an addition to one of the existing-? YUEN:It€dbeanewcondition. SPRINGER:And the gist of that new condition, Jeff, do you have some sort of language in mind yet? DARROW:If this would work for the Commission, this would be an added Condition No. 10, and then all other conditions after would be renumbered, The applicant shall be required to pay the road maintenance fee to the Orchidland Association for commercial standards.‚ Is that the correct wording, commercial use, commercial standards? PAWU:Sir, it would, we have varying standards. Obviously, it would be unfair to charge this gentleman the same amount we would charge a gas station or something that would generate much more traffic. We have a scale, it€s actually a fixed table that has been approved by our membership; and we wouldn€t envision with the other restrictions on the special use permit that they would ever exceed the category they€re in now. So I would say that we€re safe to consider it that way. DARROW:Okay. So commercial standard would be the correct wording? YUEN:What is the name of the category that you use in your -? PAWU:It would be -. YUEN:Fee schedule? Go ahead. PAWU:It would be, I believe, a home use business. DARROW:Home use business. 6 PAWU:And we have a different think from home use business versus commercial business, such as a nursery; and as they go up to commercial, retail, or industrial use that brings in higher and higher amount of traffic, we have to be aware, and it€s my responsibility as president, to be aware of liability, trash, traffic and other impacts on the single family residences so that they€re not paying the burden of a commercial development. YUEN:So it would be the fee schedule that applies to a home use business. SPRINGER:Thank you. Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Yes. I had a question about whether or not the special use permit is transferable if they decide to sell their property. SPRINGER:Mr.Yuen. YUEN:Yes.Alloftheselandusepermits,includingrezonings,aretransferable.It goes with the property. SPRINGER:Commissioners, are there any further questions for the applicant, the testifier or the Planning Department staff? So what we have now before us is the special permit application of Patrick and Theresa Moylan (SPP 04-016). As a special permit, this may be approved by the Planning Commission. Is there a motion? GRAHAM:Yes. SPRINGER:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:I move that we grant the special permit application of Patrick and Theresa Moylan in Puna to allow them to operate a cabinet shop on their land in the agricultural district, along with the conditions given to us by the Planning Director, with the modification by adding the road use fee that they will be providing to the community association. SPRINGER:And that€s a new Condition 10. Thank you. Is there a second? ALAMEDA:Second. SPRINGER:Moved by Commissioner Graham and seconded by Commissioner Alameda that the approval, that the Hawaii County Planning Commission approve the request of special permit application SPP 04-016. Is there any further discussion? Commissioner Siracusa. SIRACUSA:Should we specify that this would be the new Condition 10 and the other conditions following that would be renumbered accordingly -? SPRINGER:That€s in the record and that€s -. SIRACUSA:For clarity? 7 SPRINGER:And that€s fine that you have reiterated that. Commissioners, any further discussion? Jeff, thank you. DARROW:Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Alameda? ALAMENDA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Salavea? SALAVEA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:Aye. DARROW:And Madam Chair? SPRINGER:Yes DARROW:The motion passes with amendments, eight to zero. MOYLAN:Thank you. SPRINGER:You€re welcome. Thank you. You€ll be informed -. PAWU:Thank you. SPRINGER:You€re welcome. You€ll be informed in writing of our decision. 8 The discussion ended at 3:06 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, East Hawaii Secretary 9