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Home My WebLink About2009-10-21 KCDP Minutes Final Kona Community Development Plan Action Committee County of Hawaii MINUTES Meeting Date: October 21, 2009 Time: 2:14 p.m. Place: Keauhou IV – Sheraton Keauhou Resort & Spa Keauhou-Kona, Hawaii 96740 Roll Call: 1Members Present: Fritz Harris-Glade, Maralyn (Marni) Herkes, Michael Matsukawa, Ken Melrose, Robert (Bob) Ward, Janice Palma-Glennie 2Absent/Excused: Bo Kahui 3County of Hawaii: Amy Self (left at 2:37pm), Alex Frost (R & D), Kiran Emler (DPW) 4Planning Department: Deanne Bugado, Rosalind (Roz) Newlon, Bennett Mark, Margaret Masunaga, Keola Childs, Ron Whitmore 5Recorder: Angie Gee 6Public in attendance: Tom Witten (PBR Hawaii), Terry Dunlap, Roy Tanimoto, Earl Matsukawa, Ron Friman, Emma Friman, Lauren Yasaka, Margaret Wille, Tracy Fukuda (Wilson Okamoto), Michael Riehm, Nancy Pisicchio, , Fred Housel, Jim Greenwell, Howard Blackson, Suzan Henderson (Place Makers), Nathan Norris, Riley Smith, Brad Kurokawa, Cindi Punehaile, Donald M. Fujimoto, Ian K. Costa (COK – Kauai), Kelly Greenwell, Michele Otaki (signed in at 3:00pm) (Ron & Emma Friman left 2:50pm) (Jim Greenwell left at 3:34 p.m.) Ken Melrose: Welcomed everyone to this special meeting of the Action Committee. The County and Place Makers requested that the Action Committee meet at the beginning of the Honokohau Transit Oriented Development (TOD) charrette so that the Action Committee could be informed of the process and can participate from the beginning of the programmed activities. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC REGARDING ITEMS ON AGENDA Margaret Wille: Formerly with South Kohala CDP Steering Committee, currently on Board of Directors for Waimea Community Association and various other community groups. Testified as Co-chair of Waimea Planning and Design Review Committee and as a active community member involved in the start of the implementing of the South Kohala CDP. Commended the Committee for its start and stated that all of the other CDP Action Committees will be looking at the Kona CDP AC for direction and guidance. Ms Wille pointed out that one of the common themes of all the CDPs is public trust and precautionary principal. Requested that the actions and activities of the Committee be published and available for the community/island to access, she was directed to the website (the County of Hawaii, Boards and Commissions for the agenda and minutes and the Hawaii Community Resource Center, www.hcrc.info for the agenda, minutes and other current information). ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS None. NEW BUSINESS Planning Department. 1) BJ Leithead Todd was unavailable due to being asked to attend County Council Meetings. Protocol for Kona CDP Action Committee Members. 2) Amy Self stated that she needed to clarify two sunshine law issues. a)If more than 2 committee members show up at a public meeting (for example a County Council or Planning Commission Meeting) and one of the committee members chooses to testify, they could be in violation of Sunshine Law. Should there be a reasonable expectation that the issue of whatever you are testifying about happens to come to the Committee later for some sort of recommendation or action then you could be in violation of Sunshine Law. Marni Herkes requested clarification that should committee members don’t testify and just show up. Amy Self stated that was fine. Ken Melrose requested clarification in the context of what was just stated and the agenda for Place Makers for the Honokohau TOD Charrette that will be occurring during this coming week where there are open public and design session meetings, would three Action Committee Members be able to participate at any one time. Amy Self stated from her understanding with the Planning Department, whatever comes out of the charrette is going to be adopted as Planning Department Rules and will not come before the KCDP Action Committee to discuss. b)When Action Committee Members testify as individuals at any kind of board meeting, councils, or committees, you have to remember you are wearing “two hats”. For example, if you are testifying in front of the Planning Commission or Council, it’s not good enough to tell them you are testifying as an individual and another sentence later you tell them you are a member of the Kona CDP Action Committee, that’s what’s going to be remembered and misleading. If you are testifying as a member of the public, you can do that but do not state that you are a member of the Kona CDP Action Committee unless the Kona CDP Action Committee takes a vote to have a member of the Action Committee represent its view in front of a body, then it’s completely fine. You want to say you are testifying on behalf of the Action Committee and this is the view of the Action Committee. Ken Melrose commented so the instruction from Counsel is we say, “I’m Ken Melrose. I’m testifying as to my opinion.” Amy advised that this is the correct action. Presentation on Honokohau Transit Oriented Development Charrette by Place 3) Makers, Inc. Suzan Henderson of Place Makers, Inc. gave overview of 2 step process that the community will be experiencing during the charrette – 1) that they shall be calibrating or customizing the Kona Community Development Plan’s Village Design Guidelines to fit the nature of Kona and 2) that they will be master planning the Honokohau Transit Oriented Development (TOD) utilizing the development Kona specific calibration. The Village Design Guidelines (VDG) were based on the Smart Code and taken from a national standard model. The focus is on getting the community voice to help shape physical data: setbacks, civic space, etc. First thing is based on concept of transect (natural habitat) that shapes human habitat – density, heights, setbacks, civic spaces, thoroughfares, etc., a lot of different terminology. Traditional historic developments change based on urbanity – looking at calibration we have highways, boulevards, avenues, commercial streets, drives, streets, roads. Need to know what is appropriate where. Parks are handled differently. VDG referred parks to as civic space and also mandates that at least 5% of every neighborhood is developed as usable, flexible, civic space so that could be a green, square, or plaza. Things make them different are size, open or natural and determine which ones are appropriate. Terminology for building disposition: edge yard (setbacks all the way around), side yard (zero lot on one side or duplex), rear yard (townhouse or anything attached where only open space is in the back) or court yard (open space is in the middle). The thing you'll notice most like historic villages are private frontages. What happens between building and lot line in the front are not usually mandated in development standards. Process is that the first 2 days will mostly focus on getting the VDG to fit Kona and last 4 days designing Honokohau TOD. Just to clarify that the areas that are being master planned during this process are not the entire TOD but a portion of whose landowners agreed to participate in this innovative process. In United States statutory law, you are not allowed to plan somebody else's land. Mr. McLean has thrown his parcels in the pot as well as DHHL, the parcels adjacent to Civic Center site. These lands will be the heart or the most intense areas of the TOD. The circles are symbols to determine actual limitations for Honokohau TOD. Rule of thumb of identifying a TOD is to have a half-mile walk from actual transit stop in any direction. Since this particular TOD it’s also designated as Regional Center Development (RCD), because of the location of the Civic Center (which will be a regional draw) then the area defining this TOD is quite linear along mid-level road and half-mile out south of parkway and up to a mile toward north and ½ mile mauka, makai. Then determine limitations based on topography, barrier (mid-level road itself with current configuration), and property lines. The job of PlaceMakers is to be very clear about benefits of the developing the land utilizing the TOD model. Ken Melrose added the third component of your engagement is to be helping the department figure out how to implement this process and Design Center. Suzan Henderson agreed and stated absolutely and all day Friday morning the team will be meeting with the Planning Department, Howard Blackson will be presenting how to design under the Code and Suzan will be presenting application process and review plans, analyze, and afternoon meeting with Council people, Director of Public Works, Fire Marshall, Chief of Police, whole list of people involved with the approval process. Marni Herkes commented on the whole goal is setting the plan out and have developer follow the plan – a process on how to move over the barriers. Suzan Henderson stated there are a number of really good techniques that were written into the KCDP. KCDP set up a Design Center that would help the developers walk through the process and then secondly a part of the model code is called Consolidated Review Committee (CRC) to sign off on a plan. Ken Melrose requested clarification regarding the explanation of the Honokohau TOD and pointed out that the TOD will potentially be formed to look oblong more than circular. Susan Henderson agreed and stated that the topography of the land impacts how TOD will look. Ken Melrose also noted that the Honokohau TOD sits in the middle of “3 pearls on the string”, with the string being the Mid-Level Road, pretty close between Hina Lani, Palani and Makalapua Streets are fairly close. If the TOD is shaped to be too oblong, questions in process is how do you deal with edge, how do you maintain with separation. Suzan Henderson stated they talked about this subject this morning with Roy Takemoto. Ken Melrose clarified and pointed out to the committee that Roy Takemoto (a former Executive Assistant under Mayor Kim and former Planning Deputy Director) worked closely with the KCDP Steering Committee through development process of the KCDP, along with Tracy Fukuda, Earl Matsukawa (Wilson Okamoto) and Nancy Pisicchio. Suzan Henderson: The whole issue of the edge, the way the model code is written is based on Transfer of Development Rights (TDR). In the State of Hawaii in general and on the Big Island in particular, that doesn't work. TDRs work on low density and very high land values. Hawaiian Homeland issues, there’s a high density permitted in urban areas by right. If get rezoned to mix-used (multi-family residential), there's not enough of a need for density for anybody to transfer ownership from one owner to the other. Where it will work to do actually transferring density within a single ownership to maintain an edge in Greenfield development that would work very well then the owner can put the density in the center. Take off the TDR terminology, it’s a legal entity, huge onus on the county for administration, setting up the legal mechanisms, huge expense. There are simpler ways to still achieve what you’re looking for. Mike Matsukawa commented since he will not be at session on Friday, how do you intend to convince the Public Works people who are set in their ways on the edge. Suzan Henderson Something that was done just recently in concert with a firm called DBZ who wrote the Model Code is for a small community in New Mexico called Taos who had us build them a Public Works manual for the Smart Code. Generic manual out there, public domain, if County of Hawaii is interested in calibrating to how it works, it would be a huge step forward. Ken Melrose asked about resource management. Suzan Henderson defined Resource Management as being a very generic term for all things that people have an interest in preserving, i.e. cultural, archeological, environmental, sustainability issues all fall under resource management. Then ask people concerned with issues to help with calibration specifically regards to list of civic spaces in the model code which likely is incomplete along with other historical gathering places not in model code to be included. Economic Development meeting is another very generic term of local business owners, local development community. Business owners in particularly who are concerned with things like parking, location, sight, block widths, what affects retail and offices. Tonight, Hazel Borris is going to walk us through a series of images, what's good, what's bad then vote. Panel discussion on feedback and all data will go into calibration. Tomorrow night, after all data gathered in first 2 days, will give summary table at 6:00 p.m. Thursday our first cut interpreting on what you told us then 30 min presentation and then open house to discuss further. Suzan Henderson then went over talk story schedule. Ken Melrose asked what are the outcomes after the process. Suzan Henderson replied at that point there will be a final pinup on work in progress and physical plans at a 1 to 200 scale. This is a illustrative plan that has no regulatory guidance and may change dramatically. It will show roof tops of all buildings, all parking, street trees, which will be real pretty and could use for marketing. The regulating plan shows pedestrian sheds, required mandatory shop fronts, all special requirements will be on regulating plan. Will have 3 water color illustrations showing street views of what plan would look like. A specialist/architect, whose specialty is local vernacular architecture will be studying tone for architecture. Building elevations, street sections, thoroughfare assignment map, civic space plan, blow up of possibly transit plan and a few axon matrix (3 dimensional aerials). One use that is very common in Kona is areas designated or zoned industrial and that has a huge retail component in them. We could set up special district for mixed use industrial and can design that in pedestrian friendly manner. Ken Melrose commented this Code as you calibrate this section becomes the new bench mark not just for Honokohau. Everyone gets judged and it’s important that that be considered. Suzan Henderson noted that Place Makers will be having a working lunch with Race Randle and the Forest City Team (they are working on the Kamakana Villages in Keahuolu) on Monday. They are the best resource on the ground. Suzan Henderson then introduced the PlaceMakers Team present: Howard Blackston, who worked for PDR in Honolulu and has been a long time Hawaii fan; Geoff Dyer will be doing a physical plan for TOD, he has extensive experience with TODs and brings a lot of experience; Nathan Norris is an attorney but his day job is working as a developer and brings tremendous value to the table in discussing with community what their implementation strategy will be; Hazel Borris is Managing Principal from Winnipeg, Canada whose specialty is economic development, sustainability issues and traded energy, she will be facilitating the meeting this evening and the resource management meeting tomorrow morning. Three more of PlaceMakers Team will be arriving on Friday. The first 3 days are educational and last 4 days planning part on the schedule. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC REGARDING ITEMS ON THE AGENDA None. ANNOUNCEMENTS Ken Melrose notified the committee the next meeting will be on Wednesday - October 28, 2009 at Mayor's Conference Room (Hanama Conference Room, Suite 103). ADJOURNMENT There being no further business, Ken Melrose adjourned meeting at 3:42 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Angie Gee, Recorder A T T E S T: Ken Melrose, Chair Kona Community Development Plan Action Committee