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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-06-02 THirayama PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT June 2, 2006 HIRAYAMA BROTHERS A regularly advertised hearing on the application filed by ELECTRIC, INC. (REZ 06-000034) was called to order at 1:46 p.m. in the County Building, Councilroom - Room 201, 25 Aupuni Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i with Chairman C. Kimo Alameda presiding. PRESENT:C. Kimo AlamedaABSENT & EXCUSED: Bill Graham Jeffrey McCall Rodney Watanabe Fred Galdones Andrew Iwashita Allen Salavea Rene’ Siracusa Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher J. Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner And approximately 8 people from the public in attendance APPLICANT: HIRAYAMA BROTHERS ELECTRIC, INC. (REZ 06-000034) Change of Zone from a Single-Family Residential 10,000 square feet (RS-10) to a Neighborhood Commercial 20,000 square feet (CN-20) district for 20,000 square feet of land. The property is located along the west side of Manono Street, approximately 200 feet north of the Kekuanaoa Street – Manono Street intersection, Waiakea House Lots, Waiakea, South Hilo, Hawaii, Tax Map Key: 2-2-34.13. ALAMEDA:Let’s move on to Agenda Item No. 4, Unfinished Business, Applicant: Hirayama Brothers Electric, Inc. (REZ 06-000034). Staff? HAYASHI:Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to refresh the Commissioners’ memory, this th particular application was before the Planning Commission on May 5. The applicant’s property is located along Manono Street. It’s indicated by this blue dot.And the applicant’s proposal was to construct a 7,200-square foot one-story building which would be divided into several bays of 900 square feet for commercial/retail uses. th The Commission, there was a motion to recommend approval of this application at the May 5 meeting; and the vote was taken. The vote was recorded as four ayes, one no and one abstention. So, at this time, we put it back on the docket for consideration by the Planning Commission. Just as a matter of information, this particular application was filed with the Planning Commission on 1EXHIBIT A th March 30, so this would be the last meeting at which time that the Commission would decide on this application. ALAMEDA:Okay. Any questions, Fellow Commissioners? Norman, did anything change in terms of from the last time that we should be aware of? HAYASHI:We haven’t received any kind of correspondence, no communication from the applicant regarding this application. ALAMEDA:Okay. This is basically same information, Round 2? HAYASHI:That’s correct. ALAMEDA:Okay, seeing no questions -. SIRACUSA:Well -. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Siracusa. SIRACUSA:Yeah, Norman, didn’t we get a letter from April Romero that came after th the -? It was dated May 18, so it came after the last Planning Commission meeting when we reviewed this -. HAYASHI:Oh, yeah, I’m sorry. We did receive that letter from April Romero dated May 18, 2006, expressing her concerns regarding this particular petition.All of you received a copy of that letter. ALAMEDA:Yes, we did. Thank you, Commissioner Siracusa for pointing that out. That’s what I thought. Other questions? Seeing none, will the applicant or the representative please come forward. Mr. Fuke, we already swore you in and we know your address, so Round 2. Do you have anything else to add or take away? FUKE:Yes. Since there are like two new Commissioners over here, I’ll just kind of like summarize and just maybe clarify one item. One is that the proposal called for initially 7,200 square feet; and that was predicated upon having the parking being one for every 400 square feet. And upon closer examination, and I think this point was brought up at the last Commission meeting, that, in fact, the required parking stall is one stall for every 300 square feet. So given the current proposal by the applicant, what this would amount to is that if they have 18 parking stalls it would mean like a reduction of two bays, so approximately the size of the rentable area would be reduced from 7200 down to 5400 square feet. Other than that, I think that, you know, we talked very briefly about like the whole notion about like the future of Houselots. And there were some questions about like perhaps there should be a moratorium, so on and so forth, or until a CDP is developed. And, obviously, like from our perspective unless a moratorium is officially declared and legally declared by the County 2EXHIBIT A Council, then, you know, obviously there is an obligation and there will continue to be applications filed with the Planning Commission and with the County, and this is one of them. And in light of that, whether you have a CDP or, you know, if you’re going to prepare a CDP then generally the CDP is designed to implement and to further provide land use definition to the General Plan. And so obviously you can’t have a CDP that would, you know, if the General Plan designates this area Medium Density then obviously the CDP should not reflect a use like Industrial which would be incongruous with the General Plan, because the overriding document, as I understand, would really be the General Plan and not so much the CDP. So, relative to that, the General Plan designation in this area is Medium Density. It’s basically suggesting some sort of like a Mixed Use. And I would like to just kind of submit that the requested use would be consistent, you know, with the concept of a Mixed Use Medium Density. It’s close to a Residential area. There are performance standards, you know, relative to setback, height and landscaping; and there’s going to be road improvements fronting the property. So I think generally it kind of fulfills the concept of a Mixed Use in this area. And so with that, I think, I’d be more than happy to answer questions. ALAMEDA:Other questions -? WATANABE:Yes. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Watanabe. WATANABE:Just for clarification then, Mr. Fuke. So the application should read basically for 5,400 square feet of Commercial area? FUKE:Well, actually, the application is still for Neighborhood Commercial. They had originally proposed, you know, for graphic purposes to show like what could be done on the property. And the original plan was to have a 7200-square foot structure. But just given what the Code requirements are that that would not be -. WATANABE:Feasible. FUKE:Feasible, correct. And so I just wanted to clarify that. WATANABE:Okay. And, secondly, you know, I’m reading through this and it seems like you, I guess it’s self-imposed, but you’ve put in a 25-foot height restriction? Is that correct? FUKE:It’s not self-imposed. But if this is what the Commission wants then, again, like going back again to the other issue on Dr. Adee’s application since the property is zoned for Single Family Residential then the applicant would have no objection to capping it at the Residential height which would be 35 feet, as opposed to the CN which allows for 45 feet. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Yes, two things. One relating to the landscaping, I can’t see it from here if you have indicated any areas for landscaping on your site plan. 3EXHIBIT A FUKE:Yeah, the site plan is really prototypical; and as I indicated earlier, Commissioner Siracusa, there’s going to have to be some substantial adjustments to what you see over there, you know, in light of the fact that they were going to have to reduce the size of the bay or the project to accommodate the required parking. But over and beyond that, the Planning Department has a rule what they call a Rule 17, which I’m sure you’re very familiar with, which requires landscaping fronting the property and to the rear, and added landscaping . requirements to properties that are Residentially zonedAnd in this situation here, unless the property to the, I guess, to its north side, which is now being proposed for Commercial rezoning, you know, which was approved recently by the Council, is rezoned, you know, they would have added landscaping to that section. And to the rear definitely they need to have added landscaping. That prototype plan that’s on the board does not really reflect all of the required landscaping, as it doesn’t reflect all of the required parking. SIRACUSA:So just to clarify and for the record, what we’re looking at is the plan that we looked at before for the original plan -. FUKE:Correct. SIRACUSA:Before the size, the number of bays was reduced, before the size was reduced? FUKE:Correct, that is correct. SIRACUSA:We are looking at the old one and not at a new one? FUKE:Correct. SIRACUSA:Okay, thank you. FUKE:The only thing that will probably remain constant is the applicant’s representation about having a single story structure in that area, correct. SIRACUSA:Okay. Second question, but I would like to ask it of Kathy Hirayama, if she doesn’t mind coming up and being sworn in. ALAMEDA:Ms. Hirayama, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Hawaii County Planning Commission? HIRAYAMA:I do. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Would you please state your name and address for the record. HIRAYAMA:My name is Kathy Hirayama, 514 Kalanikoa Street. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Commissioner Siracusa? 4EXHIBIT A SIRACUSA:Yes, thank you. Last time we were here it had been mentioned that there had been a rental unit, a Single Family Residence on this property that had been demolished. And I asked your husband if it was demolished before or after you acquired the property. And he just said that it had been demolished before you acquired the property. And what I wanted to know was, because we are concerned about, you know, single family housing in the area, we want to encourage that still, if you could tell us why the structure was demolished. HIRAYAMA:Actually, Commissioner Siracusa, there were two homes on the property. SIRACUSA:Thank you for correcting me. HIRAYAMA:One was in the back and one was in the front. They were both in a very unsafe condition. And because we had problems on Kalanikoa Street, the house across the street from us where vagrants were living in it -- we had to tell the owners that please do something about it; so they did demolish the house across the street from our 514 residence on Kalanikoa -- so we were afraid; and because it was very dangerous, it was an unsafe condition. And we’re always aware of safety; and we didn’t want, you know, homeless people to go in there and just occupy the residence and cause a more dangerous situation. So that’s why we demolished both houses. Actually, we told the Fire Department to go and practice on the houses if they wanted to, but they said they didn’t do that any more. So we had to hire somebody to demolish both houses. And then we had to straighten up the area so people wouldn’t go in there. We tried to make it safe, that’s all we did. SIRACUSA:Thank you. But I wanted to clarify because we had some concern here that we didn’t want to set a precedent whereby someone would demolish the houses first so that the Commission couldn’t say, oh, we want to retain affordable housing in Hilo, and do that as a way to get around things. But obviously these houses were no longer viable for human habitation, so I want to thank you for bringing that out and explaining that more completely to myself and the rest of the Commissioners. HIRAYAMA:Thank you. ALAMEDA:Thank you, Mrs. Hirayama. You can stay there. We might have further questions for you. Any other thoughts or questions? Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:I have a question. Is it my understanding that if we were to use the current zoning height limitation which is 25 feet that would be, I mean, excuse me, 35 feet that would be acceptable to you? HIRAYAMA:Yes, because -. WATANABE:Cause I don’t see that as one of the conditions. But I’m hoping that we can generate enough votes -. HIRAYAMA:Yeah, well, at the last Commission hearing there was something mentioned about the height. And I think one of you, I don’t know who, mentioned that if we could live that height or, so we agreed. 5EXHIBIT A WATANABE:Thank you. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:Follow-up for the Director. Would it be appropriate at this time to make some of these revisions, such as the 5400 square feet, you know, revising that from the 7200 square feet, and also possibly crafting an additional condition for the height limitation to the existing zoning to reflect 35 feet? YUEN: The height limitation whenever the Commission is ready to make a motion, that could be included as a new amendment, a new numbered condition. The square footage is not actually in the conditions or in the ordinance itself. It’s just their presenting a concept; and typically the applicants will have some kind of concept that they bring. But unless there are special conditions of zoning attached to the ordinance, the concept can change. And so, for example here, they presented a concept of a 7200-square foot building, that doesn’t mean that they can even get a 7200 -. I just pointed it out that it looked to me like the parking wasn’t going to work for that size of building. But I also have to mention to the Commission not to get, to always keep in mind that when you make a rezoning, particularly to a Commercial rezoning like this, you’re rezoning it; and unless you say you must build no more than 5,000 square feet, which has been done in special circumstances, that there’s a lot of things that can happen. They can make a multi-family building here, you know, they can make an apartment building. How many square feet we got on the site? FUKE:It’s roughly about 22,000 square feet. YUEN:You can make a 16-unit apartment building, for example, with the CN zoning, three-story walk-up apartment building. Example, you can make an office building. They’re presenting a building that will be divided into several bays. You can make a building that has only one tenant. WATANABE:So we should view this more as an entitlement issue than site specific as far as the proposed plan? YUEN:Right. Unless you’re going to put in special conditions of zoning that greatly limit the uses the Commission should always look at these as something that is being zoned to CN and the five years from now could result in a project that is quite different than what is being presented as a current concept. WATANABE:Thank you. ALAMEDA:Any other questions? Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:I just wanted to address the comments made by Mr. Fuke about how the Community Development Plan works with the General Plan, and which is really the basis for my opposition, one of the basis; and that is the General Plan includes 15.1, Community Development Plan, as part of the plan implementation. And this is the law. It states a 6EXHIBIT A Community Development Plan may contain detailed land use zoning guide maps, called LUPAGs now, plans for roadways, drainage, parks, other infrastructure and public facilities, architectural design guidelines, which is no where found in the General Plan, planning for watersheds and other natural features, and other matters related to the planning area. As this language would apply to the Houselots area, in my mind the most important language in here in terms of what the Community Development Plan can do under this language is establish architectural design guidelines. In other words, this may be simplistic, I recognize that. But if you don’t do anything, you know, we allow this and other entitlements to go through, if we change all of Manono Street to CV, or CN, or whatever it is, we’re going to end up with Kihei Road. Okay? No question about in my mind, that’s what we’re going to end up with. You know, our system does not allow basically for anything else. Parking is going to be required, you know, they’ve got to put in the parking lots.Where do they put it? They put it up near the road; and basically you’re going to end up with a strip mall. So architectural design guidelines in a Community Development Plans allows the community there to say we don’t want it to look like Kihei Road, we want it to look like Downtown Hilo, we’ll have storefronts, sidewalks, maybe make the sidewalks 6 feet instead of 4 feet, 8 feet instead of 4 feet, you know, we want a walkable community, we want on-street parking all along these businesses, and we want a municipal parking lot some place where other people can come to the community to shop. Those are the kinds of things that the Community Development Plan under the way the law is written now clearly provides a way to get to that place; and, in my mind, that’s what should be done. If we keep granting these entitlements, which Chris pointed out that’s what we’re doing, right, if we grant this application then under 25-5-92, permitted uses, no, wrong, where am I, oh, here, 25-5-102 you can have a service station, you can have a convenience store, you can have a group living facility, you can have offices, theater, lots of uses that maybe the Hirayamas are not going to do. But some point down the road this property is going to be sold, I can guarantee you that, maybe not by the Hirayamas now but after they pass away. Maybe the family doesn’t want to do it any more for whatever reason, you know, it’s not going to be in their family, somebody else is going to do it; and any of these uses, whoever buys it is not locked into this commercial space that’s being proposed. And any of these uses would be allowable. That’s what we’re being asked to do. And in my mind it’s a much better way to proceed in terms of our community and how we want this community to look in 10, 15, 20 years, right, to get the Community Development Plan done and then it will be more specific with architect -, it can be, with architectural design guidelines and so forth.And the Hirayamas and other people who want to develop their properties on Manono Street and the rest of Houselots and the rest of Hilo will have a very clear idea, right, and the backing of the community under the Community Development Plan to get it done. There won’t be this process, you know. With pretty much the Community Development Plan in place in my mind it will be law. It will be passed by the Council and so they would be entitled. If it ends up, you know, there’s going to be a commercial place, so be it. That’s how it’s going to be. And the guidelines and what architectural guidelines the developers would need to meet would all be there and they could go forward in a straight forward manner and create a community that the community wants and not a Kihei Road strip mall. 7EXHIBIT A ALAMEDA:Commissioner Siracusa? IWASHTIA:If Mr. Fuke wants, I brought it up to address Mr. Fuke’s comments on that. So if he wanted to -. ALAMEDA:Okay, any feedback, comments? FUKE:Well, I guess, several things. I think if I, I don’t have that before me but I’ll just trust what you just read. And if I heard you correctly, you know, relative to like the architectural design, I think the operable verb was “may” as opposed to “shall.” Is that correct? IWASHITA:That’s correct, the community has the opportunity. FUKE:Right, right. Well, as I understand in any Community Development Plan, you know, and you also kind of pointed it out too as I understood what you read, is that the Community Development Plan, you know, really emanates from the General Plan, because I don’t think the Community Development Plan can trump the General Plan. It can provide further definition to it because the General Plan by its very nature is intended to be relatively broad. And you can have a Community Development Plan that may or may not reflect specific design restrictions. And I think that if you’re going to have specific architectural designs, then I think that probably the more appropriate tool would be to have further development plans for a particular area, case in point, Kailua-Kona. Kailua-Kona has a special design plan cause it was deemed to be in the whole scheme of like Kailua or in the whole scheme of Kona this is like a very special area. And so there was like a special design plan complete with all of the kinds of things you’re talking about. We talked about the type of street furniture, the width of roads, so on and so forth. So the Kuakini Highway that’s nearing completion is largely a reflection of that Kailua-Village Design Plan. That’s the Kailua Village portion. If you’re talking about like having maybe something similar to like the Houselots area, well, that could conceivably be done. But whether that necessarily should be covered in a broader framework of a Community Development Plan which would thus have to embrace the entire City of Hilo and not the Waiakea Houselots area -. There are other areas that have a specific design plan. There was one prepared, I don’t know if you remember, Commissioner Siracusa, but there was one that may be kind of obsolete, but there was one prepared for Keaau, there was one prepared for the town of Pahoa, there was one prepared for the town of Honokaa, there was one prepared for the town of Waimea. They are all specific designs plans, but within those, and also for Downtown Hilo. And within those broad, you know like there’s a reference to a Hilo Community Development Plan. There’s a Hilo Community Development Plan and there’s also a Downtown Development Plan which has very specific definition, more specific than what the Hilo Community Development Plan discusses. So my sense is like, in response to, you know, since you gave me an opportunity, is that like there is a difference between a Community Development Plan and maybe a more specific district or area design plan that, what you might be talking about. And I guess the only point I was 8EXHIBIT A trying to make, just two general points. One is that if there is going to be like no action taken until, or no favorable action taken at least until the Community Development Plan or a specific design development plan for a particular area is prepared, then I would suggest that it behooves the County Council to make, you know, to assume a position and pass an ordinance or pass a resolution to say henceforth nothing happens in this area. Because until that time happens, you know, like the public doesn’t know how to react, you know, landowners don’t know how to react. You know, do we come in and every time go before the Planning Commission and go before the County and it’s almost like a crapshoot? You know, you don’t know whether you’re going to go up, you don’t whether you’re going to go down, in spite of how good a case one can make that it complies with the general principles of the planning bible, which is the General Plan. And the other thing, the other point I was trying to make is that if you do, if and when you do prepare a Community Development Plan, that you cannot have, I could not visualize a situation where the Development Plan would allow a use that would not be considered by the General Plan. For example, you have a Hilo Community Development Plan and you, I mean, you know, you have the General Plan and you have a CDP for Hilo. And if you try to designate in the CDP an Industrial area where the General Plan does not suggest that that should be Industrial, then what you’re doing is, you know, you’re having the CDP then guide the General Plan; and that really shouldn’t be the case. So, I mean, that was my whole point. ALAMEDA:Very good, thank you, Mr. Fuke. Follow-up, Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t think anything in my comments suggested the result that you, your last comment suggests. Just to be clear, the language of the General Plan is that the title is planned implementation, how do the general provisions of the General Plan get implemented. And Community Development Plans is the way it’s supposed to be done. That’s how it’s structured. Okay? So, you know, and the General Plan notes that in prior General Plans there were provisions for Community Development Plans which were never done, right, for most of the, well, for most of the island. Like there’s basically just the Hilo Community Plan, right, and it’s resolution, it’s not law. And what this General Plan contemplates is the Community Development Plans will be law. And I agree that it should be because my view is that developers need a clear picture and a clear line on where to go and not to have these questions that you raise; and it’s a legitimate point. From the community’s perspective, right, in my view we cannot keep going down this road saying that, oh, we have a General Plan as long as it fits with that it’s okay. Because we’ll end up with Kihei Road, no question about it. You know, Manono Street will become that way, Kekuanaoa Street will become that way. You know, we’ll create a bunch of Kihei Roads in our town; and my personal view is I don’t want that. And the question is how do you do something different? And if we look at it from the present view, right, and that is what we got is enough, and that owners and developers should be able to go forward relying on what we have now, then we’re going to end up in 10 years like Maui and Kihei, and in 20 or 30 years like Oahu and Kapolei and the Ewa Plain and all of that. There’s no question in my mind that we’re heading down that road. So I don’t know, you know, we really as a community need to make it clear that we don’t want that. I mean if the community, if I’m a lonely voice out here saying, you know, 9EXHIBIT A we’ve got to do something different, nobody else wants to do it, it’s not going to get done. I realize that. Right? But in my position as a Planning Commissioner I view that obligation to include looking at this big picture and that this process that we’re going through, giving entitlements, right, in these applications for change of zone has dramatic significant impact on the community for the long term. And that if we’re looking long term waiting a couple of years to get a Community Development Plan done for Hilo including Houselots, and I disagree with the comment that, well, you know, it has to be, you have to look at the big picture and Houselots, the people in -. You know, we have these last couple applications a lot of interest from the Houselots community about what they don’t want, right? Hopefully that can translate in a Community Development Plan process to what they do want for that entire area. And it’s significant enough an area, you know, where that, I think the Community Development Plan can address those particular area concerns. It can address like where my present office is, you know, Mohouli, this immediate area, how this area is going to look. It can address these different little pockets of the community that have a long history, that have very interested community members and residents and so forth that will come out and say, you know, in 20 years this is how we want it to look, and this is how we want people to be able to live here. We don’t want it all commercialized, we don’t want it, you know, a Kakaako kind of a place, which Houselots can easily become if we keep going down this road, you know, how Kakaako is today which they’re raising. And so I really disagree that the Community Development Plan is this sort of limited thing that you really cannot rely on it. I think it’s, right now, as far as I’m concerned, really the only avenue that I see that this community can go down to create a future in our community that we’ll like and we won’t look back and say we may as well live in Honolulu, cause that’s what it’s going to be. ALAMEDA:This is an opportunity for questions. I want to limit our opinions to our discussion, if we may. And thank you for being patient with us. Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Well, I’ll keep it very brief because I just wanted to say that in a lot of things I agree with Commissioner Iwashita about the need for a Community Development Plan. And I wanted to once again urge the Director to see about getting some funds to do one for this Waiakea Houselots area. It’s obviously very, very needed. By the same token I also feel that a lot of our problems come from the fact that some of the permitted uses for the various types of zoning don’t seem to really suit the types of zoning they’re set up for. So, for example, you create one kind of an ambiance in a neighborhood when you have some offices or maybe some boutiques and shops like that. It’s not the same ambiance that’s created when you put in a gas station; and yet those are permitted uses in the same kind of zoning. So I really feel that that sort of thing, what the permitted uses are, should be looked at with a view to making some changes for the future so that it will make it a lot easier for us to make decisions based on that. ALAMEDA:Can I ask -? YUEN:Actually I agree with that. I’m not happy with the existing categories of the Zoning Code. The idea behind the RCX zoning was that it was supposed to be a Neighborhood compatible Commercial zoning. So, because you can say, like take the previous application this morning, Dr. Adee’s medical office. Okay, you have a one- or two-doctor medical office in a neighborhood, not that big a deal, especially if it’s a retrofit of an existing 10EXHIBIT A building or a residential building. Gas stations, actually gas stations are not allowed in the RCX but convenience stores are allowed in the RCX. But then there’s a big difference between the classic neighborhood, you know, little neighborhood store where you go in and there’s the ice cream machine and the person standing behind the counter, but it can be anything up to 7-Eleven that stays open till midnight or whatever. This is something we do need to work on; and the idea would be to have a zoning district that is much more limited. It’s peculiar actually, unfortunately the RCX does not, it permits medical offices but it does not permit offices generally; and I don’t understand that because I think that most office uses are more compatible with a neighborhood than many of the uses that are listed in RCX. ALAMEDA:Can I ask our applicants to sit down if there’s no further questions for them? You may be seated. Thank you. I don’t see any testimony. And, you know, this is Round 2 so I hope that we’ll not rehash the same old song, Commissioner Iwashita. So why don’t we -. Go ahead, Commissioner Watanabe. WATANABE:In keeping with Mr. Iwashita’s comments about the design element, I think within the existing guidelines that we have, you know, short of changing the definition of what is allowable in a particular zone, adding the height limitation which would then restrict it to the existing zoning limit, residential which implies 35 feet maximum, I think that kind of addresses the issue as much as we can. And I would suggest that we add a condition stating that the height limitation would be residential, height limit of 35 feet. And maybe that would make this rezoning issue a little more palliative to the Commissioners. ALAMEDA:Does it make it more palliative to the Commissioners? And if there’s no objections to that -. Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:You know, I’m not necessarily really concerned about height as I am -. I would rather have a condition that no parking be visible from the street, you know, something like that where -. You know, because to me those are really my concerns, is that the way all of our laws are written basically we require these big parking lots, well, maybe not big in this sense, but there are always parking lots, and they always put them on the street side. And they always, that’s the first thing you see; and that’s how you get a strip mall, you know; and that’s how it’s done. And aesthetically that, you know, -. I mean, that’s why I made my parking lot, I had to do it, that’s how you had to do it, you know. So to me that’s really more my concern. ALAMEDA:And, Fellow Commissioners, I think rather than perhaps putting on the table an amendment to the condition, I would suggest just make a motion with the amendment in it, then we can vote on that. And if we don’t like it, then we can revisit it. Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Well, I have a feeling that Commissioner Watanabe is ready to make a motion and I was just wondering if he would consider the part about the landscaping, the condition about the landscaping, that he would add that the landscaping be designed not only, you know, 17, but also to make sure that the parking is obscured from the street. ALAMEDA:Discussion? Commissioner Watanabe? 11EXHIBIT A WATANABE:I’m not particularly opposed to that. On the other hand I’m not sure I know how to word that because we did, as you recall, pass a landscaping ordinance. It might be more effective to just ask the Director for some direction as far as, you know, what level of landscaping we would require so that, you know -. In other words, I don’t want to micro-manage this whole process. Let’s make it something broad enough that there is enough flexibility that they can make it aesthetically appealing and still efficient for their purposes. ALAMEDA:Anybody has suggested language on that, Commissioner Siracusa? GALDONES:Mr. Chair? ALAMEDA:Commissioner Galdones. WATANABE:I, you know, like I said I’m not opposed to what you’re suggesting. It’s just I’m not sure how you would word that in. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Galdones. GALDONES:Thank you, Mr. Chair. The opposition or the concern that I’m hearing from Commissioner Iwashita, although he did make an indication that it would be more palliative that something be done to obstruct the view of the parking, but what I’m hearing from him, I don’t think that is his major concern. I think it’s the Community Development Plan in itself that he is concerned with. So I don’t feel comfortable introducing an amendment and Commissioner Iwashita is still not satisfied with the presentation. If he still is in opposition because of what had mentioned, there is no Community Development Plan, then my recommendation is that we should not introduce that amendment to it. That would be my response to what Commissioner Siracusa had mentioned. ALAMEDA:Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:Okay, with that in mind, then let me make an attempt to a motion; and let’s see if we can get something going here. I move that a favorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council on Hirayama Brothers Electric, Inc. change of zone application (REZ 06-000034) with the added condition that the height limitation be restricted to the Residential limit of 35 feet. ALAMEDA:Motion made by Commissioner Watanabe. GALDONES:I’ll second. ALAMEDA:Seconded by Commissioner Galdones. Discussion? Seeing none, staff. HAYASHI:Thank you, Mr. Chair. The new condition regarding the height limitation would be Condition D, and all subsequent conditions will be realphabetized. With that, I’ll call the roll call. Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:Aye. 12EXHIBIT A HAYASHI:Commissioner Galdones? GALDONES:Aye. HAYASHI:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:No. HAYASHI:Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Aye. HAYASHI:Commissioner Salavea? SALAVEA:Aye. HAYASHI:Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Aye. HAYASHI:Chair Alameda? ALAMEDA:Aye. HAYASHI:Mr. Chair, motion carries six to one. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Mrs. Hirayama, you will be notified in writing of this decision. The discussion ended at 11:10 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, Secretary 13EXHIBIT A