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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-07-18 TCOUNCIL-REZ PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT JULY 18, 2008 A regularly advertised hearing on the COUNTY COUNCIL INITIATED CHANGE OF ZONE (REZ 08-000079)was called to order at 10:15 a.m. in the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort and Spa, Keauhou III and IV, 78-128 Ehukai Street, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, with Chairman Rodney Watanabe presiding. PRESENT: C. Kimo Alameda ABSENT & EXCUSED: Lani Bowman Takashi Domingo Andrew Iwashita Shelly Ogata Rene’ Siracusa Alvin Rho Rodney Watanabe Rell Woodward Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner  Maija Cottle, Staff Planner Deanne Bugado, Planner, Kona Office And approximately ten people from the public in attendance. INITIATOR: COUNTY COUNCIL (REZ 08-000079) Change of Zone for 37.88 acres of land from a Single-Family Residential 15,000-square foot (RS-15) to a Residential and Agricultural 15-acre (RA-15a) district.The property involved, owned by Kohala LLC, is located along the southwest (makai) side of Akoni Pule Highway and st the Kohala Ranch Subdivision, Kahua 1, North Kohala, Hawaii, TMK: 5-9-1:8. WATANABE: This is a very interesting one; Agenda Item No. 3 is a very interesting one. We’ve already addressed this in the past. The original application was one that we struggled with from Kohala LLC, and I think you are all familiar with the circumstances here. It was passed on to the County Council, and now we have a County Council initiated Change of Zone recommendation, REZ 08-000079. Now, earlier I had been informed by the applicant’s representative that he had already prepaid for vacation and he wasn’t able to back out without, you know, a substantial financial loss; and he had requested a continuance, I believe, through the ndnd August 22 – I believe it is – yes, August 22 meeting. It’s my understanding that the Director is recommending an unfavorable recommendation on this. I didn’t feel it was within my authority to make a decision as to whether we would continue it on our own without approaching all of the Commissioners; so here we are at this juncture where we need to decide whether we EXHIBIT C 1 need to continue it or not. Typically, we do continue. However, before we take a vote on that, let me take a little latitude here, and let the Director present us with his side. YUEN: Yes, and I’m not going to talk about pros and cons of the issue itself very much, but I did want to suggest that the Commission discuss this and take a vote on it today rather than continuing it. And the issue itself has probably set the record for appearing the most times on the agenda of the Commission of any single piece of property.What happened here is, as you know, I initiated a rezone of this property to RA 5-a, and there were a number of split votes essentially at the Planning Commission on that – some of you were in favor and some of you were against – and it went up to the Council with a negative recommendation. I should also mention that the applicant has asked for a time extension on the RS-15, and that has gone up to the Council – and I’m trying to remember – I know it was voted against by the Council at the Planning Committee; I can’t remember if it has actually been completely voted down because it would go from the Planning Committee to the first reading. Now, getting back to the rezone to 5 acres, the Council amended that to rezone to a 15-acre minimum lot size, which would allow – rather than a subdivision to seven lots of the 5-acre zoning – it would allow a subdivision to two lots. That’s a Council initiated rezoning, and I advised the Council that, because this was a major amendment to the bill that went up to them, that it should come back to the Planning Commission for – I’m sorry, guys – but for the Planning Commission’s review because it is something that the Planning Commission has actually not ever looked at – the question of whether it should be rezoned to 15 acres. So this is being processed as a Council initiated amendment. The applicant is not the property owner; the applicant in effect is the County Council. The rules are that you have 120 days from the time the Council sends it back, the total nd timeframe, to send it back up to the Council. So it came on May 2 to the Planning Department; nd so the Planning Commission does have until September 2. The Planning Department’s recommendation is negative for the reasons stated. We still believe in the 5-acre zoning, at proposal, and hope that the Council changes its mind and goes to 5 acres rather than 15 acres when this goes back to them, as it ultimately will with a recommendation. So it’s not up to -, normally a rezoning is initiated by the property owner and, yes, if the property owner wants a delay, that’s fine. I have to -, a couple of just timing things, the August 22 meeting is quite full on the agenda; we’re going to have two Community Development Plans on that agenda to look at. The votes, and just if the people sitting here at the Commission vote consistently with their votes that were taken before, it’s possible that this would go up to the Council with a negative recommendation, which is the most that the property owner could hope for at the Planning Commission. That’s the only thing the Planning Commission can do, which is have a positive recommendation or a negative recommendation. If the Planning Commission takes a vote and there are not fives votes for a positive or a negative, then it would continue to the August 22 meeting. But I’m making a pitch for the Commission to talk about it, take a vote; if you have five votes for a negative recommendation, it goes up to the Council with a negative recommendation. WATANABE: Mr. Woodward. EXHIBIT C 2 WOODWARD: Mr. Chairman. Yeah, Mr. Yuen is right; we have beaten this horse to death. I mean, it is probably the single most over-talked item on this Commission. And we sent a default negative recommendation when the Director planned to change it from RS-15 to Ag-5, and then the Council trumped that and decided they are going to make it Ag-15. I’ve made my feelings known on this. I really think retrospective downzoning is a problem. And I didn’t like it when they were talking about zoning it to Ag-5, and I really don’t like it when they are talking about, you know, making this 37-acre property only useful for two lots. So I think we’ve got to decide it today, and send it back to Council. You know, it’s in Council’s court; I mean, they can do what they want. But I think we need to make a recommendation today. WATANABE: Okay. Do we have any further comments on this? So we’d like to attempt to do this? So okay, let’s say we are going to attempt to do this. We haven’t had the presentation yet. WOODWARD: Oh, we have somebody to present? WATANABE: Well, we don’t have the -. WOODWARD: We’ve been presented before. WATANABE: We don’t have the property owner here, but maybe we can have Mr. Darrow summarize what is, I think -. WOODWARD: Rehash. WATANABE: Yeah. DARROW: I’ll make this short and sweet. WATANABE: Vividly in our subconscious. WOODWARD: I’ve seen this before. DARROW: Okay. A lot of the same pictures. The next agenda item is a County Council initiated Change of Zone, which is actually an amendment to the Planning Director’s bill that went up to the County Council with an unfavorable recommendation, which was by a no- action vote. The Planning Director’s request was a Change of Zone from RS-15 to RA 5-acre, as the Planning Director has mentioned; the County Council had amended that to from RS-15 to RA 15-acres, and at this time it has come back to the Planning Commission for review. The property is located within North Kohala. This is located just northwest of Kawaihae, more specifically, it’s directly across Kohala Ranch Estates. The property is identified with a black outline. The color of the zoning is darker yellow, which signifies the RS-15 zoning. The colors around the map identify the surrounding zoning; the light green is Agricultural 5 acres, the blue is representing Agricultural 3 acres and the dark green is representing Agricultural 20 acres. County Council is proposing an amendment to the Planning Director initiated bill, Bill 237, EXHIBIT C 3 which proposes a Change of Zone from RS-15 to RA 5-a; they are further downzoning the property from RS 15 to RA 15-a. This is an aerial – just something that we came across – it kind of shows the different developments in the area. Again, we have Kohala Ranch. The subject property is identified right in this particular area fronting the entrance to Kohala Ranch Estates. We have another aerial that shows you the property from a helicopter view. The Planning Department’s recommendation is to send an unfavorable recommendation to the Hawaii County Council. Are there any questions? WATANABE: Any questions, Fellow Commissioners? None? Okay. Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: May I make a motion? WATANABE: I have – thank you – but -. WOODWARD: You have testifiers? WATANABE: Thank you, but I do have someone signed up to testify. WOODWARD: Oh, okay. WATANABE: Mr. Isaacs, yes, would you come up to the table, please. I need to swear you in, Mr. Isaacs. So would you raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? ISAACS: I do. WATANABE: Thank you. Would you provide us with your full name and address prior to providing your testimony. ISAACS: Michael C. Isaacs, North Kohala, Hawaii. Hawi. WATANABE: Okay, you may begin. ISAACS: I’m here today to represent myself and nine other seniors and kupunas from North and South Kohala, who have testified before the Council, supporting the downzoning of Kohala LLC to Ag-15. I brought a clip of a DVD that Bill Walsh did along the coast in the particular area, and I would like the Commission to look at it. It’s very condensed -. WATANABE: Would you assist him, Mr. Darrow? ISAACS: I’m sorry the quality is not good, but that’s the best we could do. But it describes the impact to that particular area over the years, and Mr. Walsh is the moderator. (There was an audio presentation by Bill Walsh, which was too muffled to identify the words.) EXHIBIT C 4 WOODWARD: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say this is completely unintelligible to me. I haven’t heard a word. I’ll ask Mr. Torigoe about electronic testimony. But this is unintelligible, and I think we are wasting our time. WATANABE: Mr. Isaacs, you know, generally when we allow testimony, we put a time limit on the testimony; and I feel that’s how long that clip runs, yeah. (Mr. Isaacs turned off the audio presentation at this point.) And with that in mind, you know, generally our time limit is between three to five minutes. I would like to point out, I think we have the general gist of what the clip was about because we did have a report and we did have the opportunity to review that report on numerous occasions, as we already indicated, because we reviewed this particular application a good number of times. So I realize you are looking at the flood situation. Do you have anything further to add to the clip? ISAACS: Yes, I’d like to comment basically on that. WATANABE: Briefly? ISAACS: Very briefly. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. ISAACS: What you are seeing there is accumulation of damage over the years. And normally, normal weather patterns, rain and stuff, the coral gets ruined. What’s happened over the years is that as development has increased, so has the damage to the reef at a rate substantial. But what you didn’t see is that it does move out to the depth of 65 feet where you have coral reefs out there that are also impacted and dead because of the sediment that is coming down from the developments mauka of Akoni Pule. My point is that the closer you get, the harder it is to mitigate any kind of situation once you start developing, and the damage will be even worse. Thank you. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Do we have any questions for Mr. Isaacs? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony, Mr. Isaacs. It will be reflected in the record. Okay, well, as we’ve discussed earlier, we’ve rehashed this particular item on numerous occasions. Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: Yeah, I would like to support the Planning Director’s recommendation that we send a negative recommendation to County Council regarding REZ 08-whole bunch of zeros-79. That’s pretty much it. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have a second to that? DOMINGO: Second. WATANABE: Mr. Domingo. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion on the table. Is any discussion necessary? Or shall we take a vote? Mr. Darrow. EXHIBIT C 5 DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that, I’ll take the roll call, or the vote. Commissioner Woodward? WOODWARD: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Alameda? ALAMEDA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ogata? OGATA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Rho? RHO: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes, six to zero. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. This is kind of unusual because we didn’t have the landowner’s representative here. But I guess -, the Council initiated this; so they’ll get it in writing. The discussion ended at 10:38 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, West Hawaii Secretary EXHIBIT C 6