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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-06-17 KAMIGAKI SPP1115 PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI€I HEARING TRANSCRIPT June 17, 2005 A regularly advertised hearing on the application BURT KAMIGAKI (Formerly MICHAEL BELL „ SPP No. 1115) was called to order at 2:00 p.m. in the King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel, Kamakahonu Ballroom, 75-5660 Palani Road, Kailua-Kona, Hawai€i, with Chairman Fred Galdones presiding. PRESENT:Fred GaldonesABSENT & EXCUSED: Hannah Springer Jeffrey McCallC. Kimo Alameda Rene Siracusa AndrewIwashita Allen Salavea William R. Graham Rodney H. Watanabe Chris Yuen, Deputy Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner Kiran Emler representing Department of Public Works And approximately 17 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: BURT KAMIGAKI (Formerly MICHAEL BELL „ SPP No. 1115) Request to amend Special Permit No. 1115 previously granted to Michael Bell for a gas station, 3,000-square foot mini-mart, self-storage facility, and related improvements. The request is to 1) delete the self-storage facility; 2) change the mini-mart to a 15,600-square foot market facility; and 3) construct a 2-story, 5,760-square foot structure for a commercial retail and office use. The gas station will be retained. The property is located on 1.88 acres of land situated within the State Land Use Agricultural District at the corner of Hawaii Belt Road (Highway 11) and Lotus Blossom Lane, Hawaiian Ocean View Estates Subdivision, Kahuku, Kau, Hawaii, TMK: 9-2- 93:47. GALDONES:Commissioners we are on agenda item number 4. Applicant is Burt Kamigaki formerly Michael BellSPP No. 1115. This is a request to amend Special Permit No. 1115 previously granted to Michael Bell for a gas station, 3,000-square foot mini-mart, self- storage facility, and related improvements. The request is to 1) delete the self-storage facility; 2) change the mini-mart to a 15,600-square foot market facility; and 3) construct a 2-story, 5,760- square foot structure for a commercial retail and office use. The gas station will be retained. Norman. EXHIBIT C 1 HAYASHI:Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chair. Going to the location map the subject property is indicated by this red dot. It is situated along the mauka side of the Hawai¡i Belt Highway also known as Mamalahoa Highway and also Highway 11. This would be in the Hilo direction and this would be in the Kona direction. This particular area is the Hawaiian Ocean View Rancho Subdivision. We also have the Kula Kai View Estates Subdivision and the Kona Garden Estates Subdivision. The green shaded areas on the mauka side are the lots within the Hawaiian Ocean View Estates Subdivision, which the subject property is a part of. Adjacent and to the north, excuse me west is the Ocean View Town Center, which currently houses the Ace Hardware Store as well as some other retail outlet. Further towards the west at this particular intersection is the Pohue Plaza which includes the Ocean View Mart market and some other commercial establishment. The Applicant is requesting that the current permit be amended by deleting the south storage facility and replacing the 3,000 square foot mini mart to a 15,600 square foot market and that is indicated in this yellow outlined area. Also proposed is to construct a 2-story, 5,700 square foot commercial retail structure which would house uses such asareal-estateoffice,financialinstitution,restaurant,videorental,personalserviceslikea hairstylist, tourist shop and other type of uses, similar uses. The Applicant also intends to retain the gas station that was previously, which was just approved under the current permit. The height of the proposed building would be approximately 26 feet and the maximum allowable height within this area would be 45 feet so theyre well below the height limit for that area. This proposed facility would employ approximately 30 full-time individuals and the cost of development would be about 3.5 million dollars. The property would access again going to this map, the site map this would be the Hawai¡i Belt Highway going towards Kona and this would be again in the Hilo direction. This is Lotus Blossom Lane and access would be from Lotus Blossom Lane at this particular location in the mid-section of the property. There are no public water system for this area so private water tanks will be constructed to accommodate the uses within the area. The Planning Director is recommending approval of this amended request with revised conditions to the original permit. And Condition, excuse me with the revised con- yeah, conditions to the original permit. And if I may direct your attention to proposed condition 2 or amended condition 2. We had made some changes to that particular condition and at the very end we would like to also add and this is the last sentence and it will include the following: ‚Landscaping shall be indicated on the plansƒ and the bracketed area are to be deleted ‚for the purpose of mitigating any adverse noise or visual impacts to adjacent properties.ƒ And this is the new section that we had proposed initially, ‚In accordance with the requirements of the Planning Departments Rule 17 Landscaping Requirementƒ and wed like to add to that to read ‚In accordance with the requirements of the Planning Departments Rule No. 17 Landscaping Requirement Standards for Village Commercial Zones adjoining a RS zone.ƒ And this is consistent with some of the language that we have used recently over the past couple of meetings. And also in light of the suggestion or recommendation by the State Department of Transportation in its memorandum, recent memorandum requesting that TIARs be submitted. We are recommending that a new condition 13 be included and this would state, ‚A Traffic Impact Analysis Report or TIAR shall be submitted for the review and approval by the State Department of Transportation prior to receipt of final Plan Approval.ƒ And conditions 13 through 16 would be renumbered accordingly. Are there any questions at this time? GALDONES:Commissioners any questions of Norman? EXHIBIT C 2 SIRACUSA:Yes. GALDONES:Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:I was looking at the letter from Anthony Ching from the Land Use Commission and his concerns about the way that this is going with a- amending a Special Permit instead of doing a boundary amendment. And I was wondering if you could explain to us the ramifications? HAYASHI:Well basically what theyre saying is that we should be considering urban redistricting for areas such as this. In this particular case this is just an amendment to a special permit. So I think for this particular case I think what were doing right now is the correct procedure. Its not something thats done out of the ordinary. However, because this area is now General Planned for Urban Expansion Area at some point in time areas such as this, we may wanttocomeinforazonechange.Recommendthattheycomehereforzonechangeinsteadsay for- from Agricultural to perhaps MCX or a neighbor, a Village Commercial zoned district. But I think they just wanted to express the concern that areas such as this perhaps should be placed in Urban district. GALDONES:Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Maybe to clarify so youre saying now if someone came in wanting to do the same thing on another lot next to this one you would recommend they go for a zoning change. HAYASHI:Thats something we need to discuss internally amongst ourselves as to the proper procedure the procedure that should be used. MCCALL:Thank you. YUEN:Whats happened over time is that youre, weve created a commercial center in Ocean View by Special Permit. There are a number of reasons for that Im not really going to criticize them. One of the reasons is that there wasnt ever, there wasnt a General Plan designated area. Another reason was that theres been a County Council policy against rezoning in areas without a public water system like Ocean View. On the other hand from a practicality standpoint and the issue, and from the standpoint that we have a big community out there that should have some commercial enterprises the County made a decision to let these begin and to go ahead through Special Permit so we start this. And then we see you know this application here, people applying for Special permits because thats the way theyve been approved in the past. We, as Mr. Hayashi said, we are intend in the Planning Department to sit down and talk about this and give some people some clear direction in the future as to whether we would say, no we think we should, you should go to a rezone. We will try to get the Council to adjust its policy on water for situations like this where there clearly is a need for central commercial area. We have laid it out in, now in the General Plan expanded the Commercial Area there. The clear direction is for businesses to come in to Ocean View in this area. So the thrust of what, I dont, I have to agree with the thrust of what the LUC Executive Director is saying. Special Permits are EXHIBIT C 3 not a way to create; to have a big commercial area by Special Permit is really not the way the system is supposed to work. I wanted to explain some of the history of how we got here and why were still going along with this process and this application but at some point really we have to make a decision in this area and perhaps some of the other areas whether we say, uh, uh, Special Permit is not the right way to do it go in, come in for a rezone. GALDONES:Further questions of Norman? Seeing none, will the Applicant or his representative please come forward? Mr. Fuke I need to swear you in. FUKE:Okay. GALDONES:Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai¡i County Planning Commission? FUKE:YesIdo. GALDONES:Mr.Fukecanyoupleasestateyournameandyourresidenceaddress? FUKE:Sure.GoodafternoonMr.Chairman,MembersoftheCommission.My name is Sydney Fuke. Im representing the applicant, Burt Kamigaki this afternoon. My residence address is 1358 Melemanu Street in Hilo, 96720. GALDONES:Mr. Fuke have you received a copy of the background report and the recommendation and also you heard the amendments to condition number 2 and the adding of the new condition number 13 and do you have any comments to them? FUKE:Yes. Initially Id like to acknowledge the absence of Mr. Kamigaki. He was here earlier this morning but unfortunately he had a flight to catch so he had to leave but we have his designated representative, official representative which is his wife and probably more significant representative. But yes, prior to his leaving and even you know before today he did get a chance to review the Staffs proposed recommendation as well as conditions. And also I had preliminarily reviewed with him the additional condition with respect to the preparation of a Traffic Impact Analysis Report as was being recommended by the State DOT. And that, that too was deemed acceptable. Id like to note that as, you know in response to some of the dialogue between the Commissioners and the Staff is that this is really like an original Special Permit thats been amended and true its amount to some amount of expansion. But in conjunction with the expansion since the permit was approved back in I guess 2002, like over the last 3 years the Commission has you know through the recommendation of their staff you kind of sort of like cranked up the conditions. And so I notice that there are like seven new conditions and plus the one with the, the Staff just recommended just shortly you know you basically like have 8 new conditions that were absent with respect to the original Special Permit. So I think that all things considered the issues relative to infrastructure and other related land use issues through these additional 8 conditions I think would be well accommodated. GALDONES:Thank you. Commissioners are there any questions of Mr. Fuke? Commissioner Siracusa? EXHIBIT C 4 SIRACUSA:Mr. Fuke I waswondering how come the applicant decided to go with 3 catchment tanks rather than attempting to drill his own well on the site? Would you explain that please? FUKE:I think that just to do the exploratory and if successful a well on the property would amount to like about, probably like about 2 or 3 million dollars. And you know just for 1 project of this nature to absorb such a high magnitude of infrastructure cost I think would be prohibitive. And so what he plans to do is to have like about 2 or 3 catchment system, maybe 10 or 15,000 gallons each that would be specifically earmarked for fire fighting purposes. And then there would be like a separate catchment system that would be set aside for potable purposes. In addition to that I think he was planning to have a, some of the potable water also provided by like calling in from the Department of Water Supply system to assure its high level of quality. Being that its a commercial establishment there is a higher requirement for potability. GALDONES:AnyfurtherquestionsCommissioners?Seeingnone.Theresamember of the public who has signed up to testify on this subject matter. Mr. Fuke you may remain there. Kim Takemura? MEMBER OF PUBLIC:Shes left. She left. GALDONES:Oh thank you. Okay are there any other members of the public wishing to testify on this subject matter? Hearing none Norman? HAYASHI:Yes Mr. Chair. I just wanted to add that we would like to further amend condition, new condition 11 regarding the Traffic Impact Report. Added to the first sentence we would also like to add that the Applicant shall construct improvements at Highway 11, at the Highway 11, one second. The Applicant shall construct improvements to Highway 11 at the intersection with Lotus Blossom Lane shown to be necessary by the TIAR and required by the State Department of Transportation. GALDONES:Okay. Mr. Fuke? FUKE:Can you read that again Norman? HAYASHI:Ill read the complete condition, new condition 13. A Traffic Impact Analysis Report shall be submitted for review and approved by the State Department of Transportation. The Applicant shall construct improvements to Highway 11 at the intersection with Lotus Blossom Lane shown to be necessary by the TIAR and required by the State Department of Transportation. So basically the TIAR indicates that, and DOT requires improvements at the Highway 11 intersection then the applicant would be required to make those improvements, intersection improvements. FUKE:As reflected in the T.I.A.R? EXHIBIT C 5 HAYASHI:Yes. FUKE:Correct okay. GALDONES:Norman this is all going to be encompassed in the new condition number 13? HAYASHI:Yes. GALDONES:Thank you. FUKE:I think that again, just for the record I mean you know. The Applicant can understand and appreciate such a requirement. The only thing I guess for the record we need to note is that you know there are other establishments that uses, that uses, that use I guess Lotus BlossomRoad.Andinadditiontothatthereareanumberofundevelopedlotsinthatareaand so I guess we would respectfully request, at least we need to put on the record that you know the TIAR as we see it would be specifically addressing the added impact created by this project and the mitigation would be appropriately tailored to that and not be tailored towards like what may eventually be envisioned for the whole area because there is always this notion of fair share. GALDONES:Norman would that be the intent? HAYASHI:Yes sir. GALDONES:Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Since your project is encompassed within the bounds of, of that subdivision Im wondering was notice sent to the Community Association and were there any responses? Or have you entered into any discussion with the Board of the Community Association? FUKE:There was no special, separate discussion with the Hawaiian Ocean View Community Association. Letters of notifications, letters of notification were sent to all property owners within 500 feet and also including the roadway, which is partially owned by the Association. But its my understanding theyre looking at the files whatever I received as well as whats in the Planning Department file there were no letters of objection from the Association or those who had received formal notification. HAYASHI:If I may add to that. We did send the original amendment request to the Hawai¡i Ocean View Committee Association for review and comment. We have not received any comments back from them. SIRACUSA:Thank you. GALDONES:Commissioner Graham? EXHIBIT C 6 GRAHAM:Just one questionNorman. Im not as familiar with the TIARs as I am with some other documents that go in as part of these things so just on the surface of it, it sounds a little bit like the Applicant hires somebody to do a TIAR, which will then say how much the Applicant needs to spend improving a road. So that sort of sounds like a real conflict of interest situation Im sure its not quite as bad as it sounds but could you kind of flush it out a little bit for me that way? HAYASHI:Well I believe the procedure is that the Applicant will- consultant to the Applicant will provide a TIAR and that particular TIAR will be reviewed by the State Department of Transportation. Department of Transportation could probably come back and say, oh you, you didnt provide for this- as far as the turning movements that kind of stuff so if you can also include that as part of a revised TIAR. Then once thats done then the DOT could accept the TIAR. GRAHAM:Thankyou. GALDONES:SeeingnofurtherquestionsorcommentsfromtheCommissioners. Commissioners the Director recommends approval of this amended Special Permit. Motion is in order. Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Ill make a stab at it. In the matter of Burt Kamigaki amendment to Special Permit number 1115, I move that we, lets see, I guess I move that we approve the amendment to the Special Permit 1115 with the added changes to number 2 and number GALDONES:Thirteen. MCCALL:Thirteen? SIRACUSA:Second. GALDONES:It has been moved by Commissioner McCall, seconded by Commissioner Siracusa that the application by Burt Kamigaki, amendment to Special Permit number 1115 SP # 1115 be approved by the Planning Commission along with the Background Report and the Recommendation and amendments to Condition number 2 and a new Condition number 13 and subsequent conditions renumbered. Further discussions from the Commissioners? Seeing none Norman? HAYASHI:Thank you Mr. Chair. Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Aye. HAYASHI:Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Aye. HAYASHI:Commissioner Watanabe? EXHIBIT C 7 WATANABE:Aye. HAYASHI:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:Aye. HAYASHI:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Aye. HAYASHI:Commissioner Salavea? SALAVEA:Aye. HAYASHI:Chair Galdones? GALDONES:Aye. HAYASHI:Mr. Chair motion carries with 7 aye votes. GALDONES:Thank you Norman. Mr. Fuke you will be informed in writing of todays action. FUKE:Thank you very much. GALDONES:Youre welcome. This discussion ended at 2:24 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Lynette Sanemitsu, West Hawai¡i Secretary EXHIBIT C 8