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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-04-05 TMAKAALA PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT APRIL 5, 2007 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of MAKAALA HAWAII, INC. (SPP 07-000041) was called to order at 11:03 a.m. in the County of Hawaii, Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawaii, with Chairman William Graham presiding. PRESENT: William Graham ABSENT & EXCUSED: C. Kimo Alameda Takashi Domingo Andrew Iwashita Alvin Rho Rene’ Siracusa Rodney Watanabe Rell Woodward Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner And 10 people from the public in attendance APPLICANT: MAKAALA HAWAII, INC. (SPP 07-000041) Special Permit to allow the retail sales, farmer’s market and related parking on approximately 3 acres of land situated within the State Land Use Agricultural District. The property involved includes the existing Hilo Coffee Mill operation located between the 12 and 13 mile markers of Highway 11, Olaa Reservation Lots, Puna, Hawaii, TMK: 1-7-10: por of 16. GRAHAM: Our next agenda item is a special permit. The applicant is Makaala Hawaii, Inc. This is a special permit to allow the retail sales, farmer’s market and related parking on approximately 3 acres of land situated within the State Land Use Agricultural District. It involves the existing Hilo Coffee Mill operation located between the 12 and 13 mile markers of Highway 11, Olaa Reservation Lots in Puna. Jeff, please? DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, if I can direct your attention to the location map, the area of this application is within the Puna district of Hawaii. More specifically we’re looking at Hawaii Belt Road or Volcano Highway, Highway 11 running in an east-west direction. This is above Kurtistown, this would be in the Mt. View area, just before South Kulani Road. It will be located on the makai side of the road. It’s just on the border of the old Volcano Highway. The area of the application is identified in the orange dot. The dark green zoning identifies the zoning as Agricultural 20 acres. You’ll notice that just on the border to the west is, it borders several Single Family Residential properties identified in yellow. Looking at the submitted plot plan, the applicant in this case, Makaala Hawaii, is requesting a special permit to allow retail concession, certified kitchen, farmers market and related parking on EXHIBIT B 1 approximately 3 acres of land within the State Land Use Agricultural District. On the map on the upper portion we have the identified Hawaii Belt Road, Highway 11. We also have the intersection of the old Volcano Road. The applicant will be utilizing the old Volcano Road for their entrance off the highway. Recently this portion of the road to their driveway has been paved by the Department of Transportation. Looking overall on the site plan, we have the proposed retail concession area as well as the processing facility. We have an existing warehouse which is used as a mill facility. We have the proposed parking area as well as the layout for the farmers market, and also an existing greenhouse. The area of the special permit is identified up to this point. My mistake by outlining the blue for this entire portion -- It actually comes to this area. The applicant has informed me that they have recently already conducted a metes and bounds survey by a licensed surveyor, which they haven’t even gotten approval yet and they’ve already complied with the condition. But in that process they found that it actually is a little larger than 3 acres. It’s closer to 4 acres for this particular area. So the Director wanted me to mention that to you. The applicant is requesting to utilize a 700-square foot area of the existing 1300-square foot structure that’s being utilized for a dwelling and a processing facility. So they will be utilizing the area that was used for the dwelling for the retail concession area. And within this retail concession area, there is a certified kitchen that is also located within there. The applicants are also requesting to utilize a 3,000 square foot area for a farmers market; and this will include up to 20 stalls, each stall will be approximately 10 feet by 10 feet in size. The layout is shown here. This will be conducted only on the weekends, Saturdays and Sundays. Again, we have the parking area. Looking at the floor plan submitted by the applicant, this is for the existing structure. On site the 7500-square foot area for the proposed retail sales is identified in red. There are pictures that are being passed around to the Commissioners that show this area as well as the existing processing facility, and the access, and other areas on the property. Since this application has been submitted to the Planning Commission, we have received a comment letter from the State Land Use Commission dated March 28, 2007. We were hoping to receive comments from the Department of Transportation regarding access. As of yesterday we didn’t but the applicant was nice enough to forward us a copy of an email which gives us some indication of what the Department of Transportation is looking at in regards to conditions. This is an email, let’s see here, it has my name on the top and it’s from the Hilo Coffee Mill. And on the bottom portion of page 1 you’ll see the conditions that the Department of Transportation was looking at. The Planning Director is recommending that the Planning Commission approve the special permit with conditions. Are there any questions? GRAHAM: Any questions, Commissioners? WATANABE: Yes. GRAHAM: Commissioner Watanabe. EXHIBIT B 2 WATANABE: Yeah, within that email the Department of Transportation indicated they would be favorable with the new access to the old Mamalahoa Highway. But they also indicated that they would like to see a condition placed in there regarding construction of a left-turn storage lane into the mauka access when traffic demands reach those volumes, and that it isn’t currently there. But it sounds like they’re expecting us to, you know, add a condition like that to this. Is that correct? DARROW: Correct. Yeah, we do have a condition currently that states that the, Condition No. 9, the applicant shall construct all improvements and comply with all requirements of the State Department of Transportation for access to the project site. We do not have anything specific as we just received this last night. GRAHAM: Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA: Yes. I’m looking at the letter from the Land Use Commission, and they made two recommendations here. One is that the County consider a condition providing for an agricultural conservation easement or other similar mechanism to insure that the undeveloped portions of the parcel remain so for the life of the special permit. And the second one has to do with the CZM, and they believe that the applicant should provide this assessment before any action is taken on the application. So I would like to ask the Director if he would explain why there aren’t any conditions referring to those two suggestions. GRAHAM: Mr. Yuen? YUEN: On the question of the easement for agricultural purposes on the remainder of the property, it is our understanding that the applicant may want to expand it some time. That would be a separate decision but we don’t want to necessarily foreclose that with this application. On the issue of the coastal zone management, this is a misunderstanding that frequently comes up, particularly when these applications are not professionally prepared, as this one was not. There’s a coastal zone management area and a special management area. The coastal zone management program covers the entire island. There are objectives of the coastal zone management program. So every application has to fulfill those objectives. It’s not a special regulatory requirement but the application should discuss how the application is consistent with the CZM program requirements. There’s a list of these and we will typically see these in an application that spells out how they are followed. There’s also the special management area or the SMA. When you’re in the SMA as the Commission is familiar, then you need an SMA Permit. You need a special permit called the SMA Permit. This site is not in the SMA so they do not need an SMA Permit. SIRACUSA: Thank you. GRAHAM: Other questions? Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The present operation there has been permanent under a special permit? EXHIBIT B 3 DARROW: The present operation was issued a violation notice. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. The applicant in this case, Makaala Hawaii is the parent company of Hilo Coffee Mill. Currently Hilo Coffee Mill is operating a retail concession on the property, if I’m not mistaken. And there has been a violation notice issued.As part of the requirements or conditions of that notice of violation is for the applicant to come forward and apply for a special permit so that they can legitimize the current operation. And so that’s why they are here before us today. DOMINGO: For how long have they been doing it without being caught? DARROW: I don’t think it has been that long. They actually had come to the Planning Department prior to operations, and I believe there was some misunderstanding in regards to what was allowed and what required a special permit. It gets a little difficult when you’re dealing with agricultural uses on a property and certain people feel that certain types of activities are considered a permitted use in the agricultural district. Selling coffee products has been a matter of disagreement or even misunderstandings between applicants and the Planning Department for some period of time. DOMINGO: How many zoning inspectors do we have at the present time? DARROW: At the present time, unfortunately we have lost our West Hawaii Zoning inspector so presently we only have one zoning inspector. But we are in the process of hiring two additional zoning inspectors. DOMINGO: You know, with this application and the previous ones that we’ve considered, it somehow indicates that we should increase our inspection on, you know, approved permits. And I think they should be taken seriously; otherwise we’ll be confronted with the similar kind of issues where we find people doing things unknowingly or intentionally without any permit. This whole concept reminds me of the present Legislative session to which there was a bill permitting Ag tourism with activities such as gift shops or selling souvenirs and other things, and food. And I think the original bill also stipulated overnight accommodations but that has been withdrawn in the final draft. I’m wondering if the Planning Department or the administration is contemplating and following up on this, and would we be coming up with an ordinance which would govern practices such as this. GRAHAM: Mr. Yuen? YUEN: Yeah, I’d be happy to take that. Two or three years ago the Department did come up with a draft bill on agricultural tourism. This was to try to define a range of Ag Tourism that could be done without a special permit and a certain cutoff point where you would. Because our belief is that there should be a range of things that’s allowed on a farm but to a certain point and allowed as a permitted use. At a certain point it should come under more public scrutiny and more attention through a process like this special permit process. So we did a draft bill. It went through the Planning Commission. It was an amendment to Chapter 25. When it got to the Council there was frankly opposition from both some advocates of Agricultural Tourism who thought it was maybe a little too strict and some people who object to Agricultural Tourism operations in the vicinity of their homes. So it was stuck; and it has been stuck for about, it hasn’t come unstuck for about two years. In the meantime the Legislature EXHIBIT B 4 passed this bill the last session. The effect of the bill is that to legitimize Ag Tourism without a special permit the County needs to pass an Ag Tourism ordinance. There was an Ag-Tourism Conference, I gave a talk at the conference a couple of months ago and discussed with the group, this is a group of mostly farmers who are interested in promoting agricultural tourism, the fact that they need to work on an ordinance to give an idea of what the issues would be, what the Department could support in an ordinance; and I know that they formed a committee to try to move this forward. Because at this point for people to do, there are certain things that you can do that are like Agricultural Tourism but we wouldn’t call it that. You can do those without a special permit. But for the typical kinds of things that people want to do like farm tours, selling specialty kinds of products, selling things outside of just processed goods that they prepare on their own farm, you’d have to come here for a special permit. So that’s where that stands. GRAHAM: Thank you. DOMINGO: Yeah. By speaking to some individuals I find that it’s an issue that’s very sensitive, especially to the farmers and those neighboring properties who may have to encounter more traffic or like for instance in this case buses, tour buses would be driving in, you know. And the question is how far do we take it when we consider these things. And I hope that as they consider drafting the ordinance, the suggested ordinance for the Planning Department to consider, I hope they would also include the participants. You know farming consists of a wide array of practices; and I think it should have all of those people involved in this particular discussion so that all concerns and all avenues of concern may be considered. GRAHAM: Any other questions for Jeff from the Planning Commissioners? I want to remind the people in attendance today that I don’t have anyone signed up at this point in time for public testimony. But if anybody wants to give public testimony on this item please go over and sign up, sign the slip, and leave it at the corner with Sharon. All right, at this point would the applicant or the applicant’s representative please come forward. Could you both raise your right hand so I can swear you in. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth today before the Hawaii County Planning Commission on this matter? TESTIFIERS: Yes, I do. GRAHAM: Thank you. This is your opportunity to explain to the Commission what you’re doing, your circumstances. And also either of you could start as you wish, but please start with your name and your address, and then go ahead with your testimony. Thank you. PATTON: Thank you. My name is Katherine A. Patton. My address, my home address is PO Box 1030, Kurtistown 96760. First thing I’d like to do is just thank the Planning Department for putting up with us for the last probably six months to a year and helping us get through everything, getting through the application process. It has really been appreciated. We started off, I’d like to if I could give just a second’s worth of history. We started off in the coffee business purely by accident and opened up a shop in Hilo in mind to make a better spot, you know, another spot for Hilo and for local folks. We have never been too much into tourism. It has really been more about the local community and what we can do to help and make it better for East Hawaii. We live up in Mt. View. We started this business because we wanted to help the local farmers. The local farmers are really good at farming but not necessarily good at marketing their product. So we got started. That’s how Hilo Coffee Mill actually got started. EXHIBIT B 5 And we were in the Shipman Industrial Park just roasting coffee and established the wholesale business. When we found the opportunity of a piece of land up in Mt. View that came available to us, we as well as our partners all live in that area, and it was a perfect opportunity for us to start our own farm. We still to this day hope that we can continue to buy from local farmers, which is what we do now. We buy from many, many farms from Kauai, Maui, Molokai, and Oahu now, as well as the four districts here on this island. We sell quite a bit of their product wholesale to different restaurants. We have an internet business that we do as well. And we’re hoping that with this permit we will be allowed to have a small retail area where we can sell items that are related to agriculture and the things that we are growing on the property, as well as items that promote our business, you know, coffee mugs, t-shirts or helping to be able to sell coffee and items related to that. So we’re also with the farmers market. We are hoping that’s also just a way for us to help the Mt. View area. Right now if anybody wants to go to a farmers market they travel to Keaau or to Volcano; and we thought if we could put something small in there that it would be an asset to the area. So with this permit we’re hoping to be able to do that. GRAHAM: Thank you. BAYSA: Good morning, aloha. This is a great opportunity, thank you very much for listening to us. My name is Jeanette Baysa, mailing address is PO Box 1030, Kurtistown, Hawaii 96760. Just to elaborate a little bit on what Katherine has said, is that we really do live and work in our community and hope to promote agriculture, all forms of agriculture, and to allow those lands that used to be in sugar cane, which is where our property is located now, go back to what it used to be before which actually was coffee. I’m not sure if you folks know the history of coffee on this side of the island but there was over 6,000 acres of coffee growing just between Hilo and north of Volcano prior to the 1900s. And we’d like to bring that back. Now that sugar cane isn’t here any longer, we’d like to give that back to coffee. Also, to let you know that the area we’re located in has been designated as part of the State’s Enterprise Zone and we have also been approved for the Enterprise Zone classification. So that’s a just another bit of information for you on that. We welcome any questions at this point. Thank you very much. GRAHAM: All right, thank you. Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What agricultural products are you raising on the property right now? BAYSA: Currently we’re growing coffee, cocal, pineapple, and tea. DOMINGO: Do they produce right now or are they just the beginning stage? BAYSA: Our coffee is within one year of producing. Our pineapple we’re doing an experiment. We’ve gotten a few pineapple fruits come up. Kathy just mentioned to me also we’ve got some mac nut trees as well growing. DOMINGO: How many mac nut trees? PATTON: I believe we have about 10 right now. EXHIBIT B 6 DOMINGO: Okay, thank you. GRAHAM: Further questions, Commissioners? SIRACUSA: Yes. GRAHAM: Commissioner Siracusa. SIRACUSA: In your application you say that you’re selling coffee from other farmers because your plants aren’t of an age yet to be producing. Does this mean that once your plants are old enough and start producing you will no longer be selling other farmers’ products or will you continue to do that? PATTON: That’s a great question because our goal has always been to continue to sell other coffee farmers’ products. We really, it’s just something we’ve always wanted to help out with. We don’t want us to be our only sources of coffee. We want to continue to help them. If I can share just another second’s worth of something that we did. It started probably about four years ago. We had coffee farmers coming to us from Kau that were ready to give up. They didn’t want to do this any more because they weren’t getting enough money for their product and there wasn’t even any recognition at all for the Kau coffee product. And we began on faith buying from them, paying them a really small amount. They let us have credit with them. And as we sold their product we paid them. We have more than doubled our price to them now. We were paying the Kau farmers, the Puna farmers and the Hamakua farmers the same amount of money that Kona farmers are getting today; and we’re really proud of that and we hope that with this permit we’re allowed to continue to do that. GRAHAM: Thank you. Any other questions from Commissioners? We do have two people signed up to testify today. So I think you all can go back now and we’ll take our two testifiers. And thank you for your comments. I have Ronit Sanders and Mark Power. SANDERS: It’s not on this issue. GRAHAM: Oh, that’s my mistake. Thank you. All right then. SIRACUSA: I’m willing to make a motion. GRAHAM: We can start with a motion, fine. Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA: I move that the application for Special Permit (SP 07-000041) be approved based on the Planning Director’s recommendation and proposed conditions. IWASHITA: Second. GRAHAM: Moved by Commissioner Siracusa, seconded by Commissioner Iwashita. Mr. Watanabe? EXHIBIT B 7 WATANABE: For clarification purposes, would we want to edit that from 3 acres to 4 acres? SIRACUSA: I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear that. WATANABE: I said for clarification purposes maybe we should edit, you know, change that from 3 acres, approximately 3 acres to 4 acres because we just heard Jeff Darrow say the survey indicated it’s closer to 4 acres than 3. SIRACUSA: Are you making that as a friendly amendment? WATANABE: Yeah, I’m suggesting that as a friendly amendment. SIRACUSA: I will accept that as a friendly amendment. IWASHITA: I also on the second. GRAHAM: Fine. I also wanted to point out I never specifically asked the applicant if they were comfortable with the conditions that have been suggested by the Planning Department. So I assume you are? PATTON: Yes. GRAHAM: Thank you. Mr. Darrow? DARROW: If I could bring to the attention of the applicant about the issue you had brought up earlier regarding the boundary, if you wanted to raise that matter. PATTON: Should I come back up? GRAHAM: Yes, you may come back now. This is Ms. Patton. Go ahead, please. PATTON: Yes, thank you. One of the conditions was that we comply with a commercial land being next to a residential land and to do the landscaping that’s required for that. And I took a look at that yesterday cause it was just something recent that I had seen. So I took a look at that yesterday and we are absolutely willing to do that. That isn’t a problem at all. But we do have a neighbor that, I think Jeff can point out right there, that we have a neighbor that’s there that doesn’t want us to do that.Because we’ve cleared all that sugar cane and they sit up just a little bit above us, and it’s a beautiful view. And they don’t want us to put anything up there. We’re happy to do it. Well, I shouldn’t say we’re happy to do it because we want to keep peace with our neighbors and they don’t want us to do that. So we were thinking if there’s some possible way that rather than, we have a letter from them stating that. So if there was some way that we could say, you know, in these conditions that as long as those neighbors are there and are willing to leave it the way it is, that we could do that. But should we ever have somebody that wants us to do that we’re more than happy to do it. GRAHAM: Mr. Yuen, do you have any -? EXHIBIT B 8 SIRACUSA: Can the Director respond to that? YUEN: Jeff, could you point out on the map what side of the property they’re talking about? DARROW: It looks like that’s going to be on the eastern boundary that’s adjoining the Single Family Residential zone. In the pictures that were passed around, I was able to take a picture of the nearest neighbors; and it’s approximately in this area. And so it’s, you know, pretty close to their processing facility. So it looks like it would be on the eastern boundary, southeastern boundary. YUEN: Being that it doesn’t affect the public, if it was something along the highway I would feel differently about this. We do have a letter though. You know subject to verification, I’d be fine with amending the condition to say that “Along that property boundary the landscaping could be deferred as long as the adjoining neighbor does not want it.” GRAHAM: Would that be all right with you, Ms. Patton? PATTON: Yes. SIRACUSA: I would be willing to amend my motion to include the Director’s wording on landscaping. IWASHITA: I’ll accept that as the seconder. GRAHAM: All right, so that motion is amended and the seconder agrees with that amendment. Is that all right with you Ms. Patton? Does that address the issue properly? PATTON: Yes, it does. Thank you. GRAHAM: Thank you. DOMINGO: Mr. Chairman? GRAHAM: Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: You know somewhat of a concern is the fact that they have the retail which would be selling souvenirs. They’re also providing for restaurants and that there is all the things that, most all of the things, majority of the things they’ll be selling would be those which are not grown on the property, yeah. And I’m wondering if I had a property along the Hamakua coast which may consist of 4 or 5 acres and if I grow some vegetables or macadamia trees or coffee, would I be qualified for a special permit to establish a similar kind of situation that we’re considering right now? I mean, may be Mr. Yuen can answer that. GRAHAM: I think you can apply for the permit. Maybe you’re asking how would the Director recommend on a certain application? EXHIBIT B 9 DOMINGO: Yeah, if applied, on what basis would I be denied or approved such an application? YUEN: Your question and thought process is exactly the same as the thought process that goes in looking at this application and looking at others. We actually have recommended denial of some applications based on site, based on site specific issues. The aspects of this that weigh in its favor are the tie-in to an agricultural processing facility that seems to be a bonafide agricultural processing facility that, you know, they have a coffee roasting enterprise that is in support of agricultural uses. This is primarily, the way it’s presented it’s limited to, apart from incidental items that are like t- shirts with their logo on it, the current permit involves, is limited to sale of agricultural products grown on the island or processed on the island that would be in a certified kitchen, for example. And as far as consistency with the area, there was a, I believe still is, a gift shop I think as a grandfathered use in the area. And these were the basic factors. There’s also, the site specific issues of how you were going to turn off the road, there’s this old Volcano Road so they didn’t have to go turn directly into the property. So there were a number of factors which tipped the scales in favor of this application which might not in another application. DOMINGO: So the site or the area which I might be considering is conducive to what you’re saying. And if I would establish a plant, for instance a macadamia nut processing plant, husking and drying then certainly I would meet that criteria? YUEN: You’d have to go through the same kind of an analysis. But, yes, it could lead to a favorable, you know, with all the factors being the same, the fact that one is, say, on the Volcano Highway and the other is on the Hamakua coast in itself does not change, does not make a difference. DOMINGO: Okay. You know, considering the thought process and the application of such a permit, now the State Legislature as I indicated is considering a bill that would promote Ag Tourism. And one of the particular requirements was that in so conducting a so-called business like this and you’re having tours on the property, that it would have to be pertinent to what you’re growing on the property as a farmer. Now in this case they’re not growing, they’re not using or they’re not selling anything that they’re growing on the property right now. Now how can one rationalize and determine what is proper and not in this case. What I’m afraid is that there might be others who’d grasp at the same logic that you’re giving right now and apply for a similar kind of permit. PATTON: May I answer that? GRAHAM: Hold on a second please. We’re discussing back and forth, and we’ll call you if we need you. Mr.Yuen? EXHIBIT B 10 YUEN: Yeah, I’d be happy to hear what the applicant is saying on this, but I understand exactly what you’re saying. Just to give my personal attitude is I’m not really favorable to roadside business under the guise of an agriculturally-related special permit. So the smoothie operation, just the coffee stand, the souvenir shop, those kinds of things, my view is they generally belong in a town, in a commercial area in a town. Because otherwise you will start to see a proliferation of roadside businesses operating under special permits. On the other hand, this one had enough of an agricultural tie-in to say that, look, this is actually promoting agricultural uses, not necessarily just of this particular property but of other properties that might be legitimately seeking an outlet. So that tipped it in their favor. The applications are not that easy and there are contrary concerns and considerations. I certainly, you know, you don’t want to see a situation on the island where you drive along and, you know, every half a mile there’s some competing operation that’s trying to snag visitors as they drive by. On the other hand, and this is the site where the agricultural groups are coming from. We do have a visitor based economy and it’s very hard to stay in the agricultural business without some kind of value added; and that often involves, you know, being able to target and market to the visitor as a Hawaii product. So this is the balance here on this particular application. Our look at it was that the balance would be in favor of granting it. Depending on the location and the mix of uses proposed, the balance might be struck differently on another one. DOMINGO: Thank you very much for the explanation. I think that has been said and it’s on record. And I think you sense my concern with regards to a proliferation of this kind of a, I’ll call it a business. And then Mr. Yuen can you commit to adding additional zoning inspectors? YUEN: We’re actively recruiting additional zoning inspectors. GRAHAM: Thank you. Any other discussion now as we have a motion on the floor amongst the Commissioners? I think we’re ready for a vote. Jeff. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The motion before us is to approve the Special Permit application with a change to change the permit area from 3 to 4 acres, as well as to include an addition to Condition No. 3 regarding the landscaping buffer along the RS zone property to the southeast, that that particular landscaping requirement will be deferred until a time when it is requested to be put there by the owner. With that I’ll take the roll. Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA: Yes. DARROW: Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Aye. EXHIBIT B 11 DARROW: Commissioner Rho? RHO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Woodward? WODWARD: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman? GRAHAM: Aye. DAROW: Motion passes seven to zero. The discussion ended at 11:45 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, East Hawaii EXHIBIT B 12