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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-07-18 THPA PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT JULY 18, 2008 HAWAII PREPARATORY ACADEMY A regularly advertised hearing on the application of (SPP 08-000059) was called to order at 9:43 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 Cd`mmdAtf`cn+Ok`mmdq+Jnm`Neehbd And approximately ten people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: HAWAII PREPARATORY ACADEMY (SPP 08-000059) Special Permit to allow the establishment of an energy laboratory, faculty housing and associated school uses on approximately 13 acres of land situated within the State Land Use Agricultural District. The project site is located adjacent to the existing Hawaii Preparatory stnd Academy campus, Waiaka 1 and 2, Waimea, South Kohala, Hawaii, TMK: 6-5-1: portion 3. WATANABE: We are on Agenda Item No. 1, New Business. This would be an application by Hawaii Preparatory Academy; it’s a Special Permit 08-000059. And with that, I’ll turn it over to Maija. COTTLE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hawaii Preparatory Academy is requesting a Special Permit to allow the establishment of an energy lab, faculty housing and associated school uses on a 13-acre portion of what is the existing campus that’s 101.61 acres. The property is just west of the town of Waimea, and it is northeast of the intersection of Kawaihae Road, which runs east-west here, and Kohala Mountain Road, which heads off to the north. The zoning of the property is both RS-, I believe it’s 15 – I’m sorry I can’t see it very well here – and the portion of the property that they are requesting a Special Permit for is this area in green and that is zoned Agricultural. EXHIBIT A 1 So just to kind of recap, they are requesting a Special Permit for a 5,500-square foot energy lab, and faculty housing will consist of about 15,000 square feet, associated school uses. The area of the Special Permit request is in the northeast portion of the property; it’s outlined here in red. And the energy lab is proposed just underneath where the “R” is listed and the faculty housing where the letter “N” is listed here. We have an aerial photograph, and it shows the existing campus and then the area of the Special Permit request here. So the energy lab would be around in this area and the faculty housing a little bit to the east. Also just to let the Commissioners know, we did have a petition for standing in a contested case that was submitted by Mr. Rice; and he did withdraw that petition just recently. The Planning Director is recommending approval of this Special Permit request. WATANABE: Thank you. Fellow Commissioners, do we have any questions for Maija? Seeing none, then I guess you may be seated. And Mr. Mooers. Oh, you’ve got a whole contingent. We are not on the CDP yet. MOOERS: We’ve got to carpool. The cost of fuel is so expensive now, I can’t come alone anymore. WATANABE: Okay, yeah, it’s amazing what we do when gas hits $5 a gallon, yeah? Okay, would you all raise your right hand, please. May I swear you in. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? APPLICANTS: I do. WATANABE: Thank you. And I think you are all familiar with the process. So whoever is going to begin may begin, but would you state your name and address prior to your testimony. MOOERS: My name is Greg Mooers. My address is P. O. Box 1101, Kamuela, Hawaii. WIECKING: Dr. Bill Wiecking, 65-1225, Hokuula, Waimea, Hawaii. MELROSE: Ken Melrose, 81-950 Onouli Road, Kealakekua. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Mr. Mooers, have you had a chance to review the Director’s recommendations? MOOERS: Yes, we have. Obviously, we are very supported by this. We thank the Director for his positive recommendation. We do support the conditions as proposed. I would like to address one issue on Condition No. 9. Condition 9 basically is a reporting requirement, asking for a summary of compliance with the conditions prior to the operation of the facility. EXHIBIT A 2 One thing I wanted to make sure and make clear is that this could be an incremental development because we are looking at two projects really on the site; one is the energy lab, which we have funded and will be moving ahead very quickly, and the other is faculty housing which will follow along possibly in the next couple of years. So we would like to be able to report and operate the energy lab prior to concluding the construction of the faculty housing. So I just wanted to make sure that the language that is expressed here reflects that understanding and if there needs to be an amendment, that it be addressed now because we want to be very clear that the energy lab will be developed considerably in advance of the faculty housing. WATANABE: Okay. Mr. Mooers, you did mention two to three years potential delay for the faculty housing but the -. MOOERS: Or possibly longer. WATANABE: Oh, possibly longer. This is the first time; so you would have an extension of 5-year discretionary extension, so -. MOOERS: Yeah, no, I understand that, Mr. Chairman. The concern I had was -. WATANABE: Yeah, I understand that, with regard to the report, so I was going to ask the Director if he had any objections. YUEN: No, that’s fine. I think we can simply say that “prior to the start of the operation of each increment of the project, the applicant shall provide, in writing,” – and then take the word “final” out, and then say – “a status report ….” MOOERS: That would be supported by us. Thank you very much. WATANABE: Okay. Fellow Commissioners, do we have any questions for the applicant or the applicant’s representative? Would any -. MOOERS: Mr. Chairman. WATANABE: Yes. MOOERS: We do have an exhibit I’d like to have Mr. Melrose share with you, which is a photograph of the area on the campus currently without the energy lab, and then we have Photoshopped on a model of the structure so that it would give you an idea what the visual impact of this would be. And this model is to scale and is located in the correct location. This photograph was taken across the street from the Waiaka area, roughly I guess by the transfer station road. So this is what you would see if you were traveling up and down Kawaihae Road. So the energy lab would be placed above the existing faculty housing in this area, and still well below the tree line that demarcates the property line. ALAMEDA: Mr. Chair. EXHIBIT A 3 WATANABE: You still have some landscaping condition, though, yeah? MOOERS: Oh, yes, absolutely. WATANABE: Rule 17, yeah? MOOERS: Yes, yes. No, that would be applied. WATANABE: Okay. Mr. Alameda. ALAMEDA: In addition to that question, and that’s scaled to size, yeah? MOOERS: That is correct, yes. ALAMEDA: Thank you. WATANABE: Okay. Do we have any further questions? Yes. YUEN: It might be worth mentioning that the South Kohala Community Development Plan does have a puu protection zone, and they have a line drawn where they are trying to protect the views, and it is above this property, just slightly above this property, in the draft Plan. And you will be seeing that in your August 22 meeting. MOOERS: And to point out I have had meetings with Mr. Bruce Tsuchida who is the planner or the consultant for the South Kohala Community Development Plan, and have expressed our interest in this project and explained how we would use the property because the Academy does have land that extends all the way to the top of the puu behind the campus as well. But we have supported the Community Development Plan and their desired to preserve those puus. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Do we have anyone else, any other questions? Seeing none, I guess you all may be seated. Mr. Melrose, you had signed up to testify. Are you going to -, oh, was that just for -? MELROSE: No, that wasn’t -, I got the process wrong; I haven’t been around that much lately. MOOERS: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Could I have Dr. Bill Wiecking make just a couple of brief comments about the energy lab? We’ve talked about the energy lab here, but we haven’t really explained exactly what that is and why the energy lab needs to be located where it is; and I think he can very briefly explain that to the Commission. WATANABE: Thank you. Yes. EXHIBIT A 4 WIECKING: Good morning. Thank you for your time on this. We could have picked many other locations on the HPA campus that would have been more central, but one of the reasons that we picked this location was its proximity to the prevailing winds, which average about 22 miles per hour in that location. Our goal is, going back a few years, to make HPA completely energy self-sufficient within the next five years, which is a very ambitious goal. And in order to do that, what we have to do is we have to set up a station or an energy lab to study the energy uses on campus, which is really one of our main goals. We have three main goals: One is education for the students – of course, that’s our mission – the second is to study the energy uses on campus so that we can make ourselves energy self-sufficient, and the third is an outreach to the community. So this will be a model, not just for how to do this in an education setting but if you were to put up any sort of enterprise, a college, a school, a business, how could you make it completely energy neutral? And this is going to be using the latest in the alternate energy and energy conserving technologies; it’s going to be -, the LEED certification of this building will exceed that of the Gateway Center down in Kona at the Lanihau site, using the latest in the developments and conservation but also in production of energy on site. The faculty housing that we are planning ultimately will incorporate what we learn from this energy lab, as well all of the other expansions that we do on the K-through-8 integration of the campus. So the slide that you saw earlier, it looks like this is sort of out in the boonies but what we are ultimately hoping is this will be part of a triangle where we have the K-through-8 campus, the 9-though-12 campus and this building will be the central piece in that. The outreach aspect is very critical to us because it has exposure to sunlight from the south with no impinging trees, which is very important for this; it has clear access to the wind to the northeast from the trades, and it also has access to the hills above if we decide to put an underground or submerged water tank for storage of the energy because one of the bad things about storing energy these days is if you use lead batteries, there is an environmental impact on landfills. We want to make sure that we are modeling best practices with this energy lab educationally and environmentally and on an energy standpoint. So one of the things that we hope to incorporate in this, ultimately to become energy self-sufficient is on days when it’s not windy, we would like to have some banked energy in the form of pumped-storage hydro – water pumped up filled to an underground tank, which you could then use to power the entire campus. To give you a sense of perspective, our electric bill at HPA before the recent hike is $36,000 per month; this is a huge chunk of money that we could be using elsewhere – let me just put it that way. This could be student tuitions; we already have a tremendous outreach aspect to incorporate students from the community or from the Islands, this money could be used to further that. And that’s what we are hoping to do as well as reducing our energy expenditures. That $36,000 a month was based on the HELCO bid for fuel at $60 a barrel, which you know hit $149 a barrel a few days ago before it went down recently. We anticipate that the energy prices on the Big Island will probably continue to increase, and what we are hoping – we didn’t know this at the time, so we sound like really smart, but when we started this, energy was not this expensive – but what we are hoping is that this can become a model for future energy projects in the Big Island, and make the Big Island a go-to place in the world for sustainable energy – a place that companies would want to send their turbines and solar panels to be EXHIBIT A 5 evaluated, and people would want to come to the Big Island to find out how did you do it. And so we may do a lot of things wrong at first time, but we are going to keep very good records and be able to show people how to do it right the next time. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any further questions? Yes, Mr. Domingo. DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Will this system be integrated with the local power company? WIECKING: Yes, Commissioner. We’re going to use what it’s called net-metering, which means that we don’t store the power locally. So right now our net-metering limits are I believe 50 kilowatts and soon to be raised. On Oahu the limit is 250 kilowatts. We’re going to produce 50 kilowatts on site of the energy lab, and what this will do is mitigate our energy draw. If we are spending $36,000 a month on electricity, you know we’re never going to cover all of that. So our hope is to be reducing the load that we have on the HELCO grid. But ultimately, as we build further buildings, but also as we retrofit older buildings, what we are hoping to do is be able to monitor in the energy lab as part of our education program how to make our existing buildings more and more efficient. So for example, if someone leaves an air conditioner on overnight, that will show up on one of the monitors in the lab; the kids could use that as a real life example of how they can make the school more green, and then it can become part of the bigger global picture of the mission. DOMINGO: You know, that’s a concept that can be adopted throughout the communities. And I think what’s probably preventing them from doing this is the lack of so- called technology available to them and the design and the building of it. Can this information be provided to the community at a later date? WIECKING: Exactly. I think one of our visions is that our kids will go out into the community with the tools and the technologies that they become familiar with and be able to give residences and businesses tips on how they can do energy audits, which is what we are in process of doing right now, and show them not just how they can save money or save energy, but where to go to get these technologies locally. So we would actually have on site, locally installed, locally viable, alternate energy sources that our neighbors and the community could then use at their businesses and residences. DOMINGO: Thank you. WATANABE: Okay. That’s it for the questions from -? Thank you then. You all may be seated. I do have two people who have signed up to testify. So may I call up on Dean Macy and Alyssa Evans to come up, please. Okay, I’d like to swear you in; so could you raise your right hand, please. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do. EXHIBIT A 6 WATANABE: Thank you. Dean, you may begin, and would you state your name and address for the record. MACY: Dean Macy. My address is 65-1142 Hokuula Road, Kamuela, HI. And we are just here to further reach on Dr. Wiecking’s three goals of the energy lab of education. So the energy lab is a great way for education of students because it engages the students in the design, construction and evaluation of renewable energy, which is what we are going to need for our future to further keep human existence on this earth. And the energy lab will let the students evaluate everything and see what’s going on, and make HPA a full self-sustainable community, hopefully. WATANABE: Okay. Fellow Commissioners, do we have any questions for Mr. Macy? None? Thank you. Okay, Alyssa. EVANS: My name is Alyssa. My address is P. O. Box 437463, Kamuela, Hawaii. We as students are really enthusiastic about this project. I mean, it’s going to benefit our student body immensely. I mean, I know a lot of fellow students who will be excited to work in the energy lab and use all the resources and everything. And It’s a great example for us to learn from, like, we are already involved in the building and design and all the aspects of it so far. And just keeping along with this process will help us in future and the future if we have any projects that are similar to this, we can use it in our future. And it’s also a great model for the community to follow by, like, it’s a great example for renewable energy sources and the community can come by and see how useful it is and how helpful it is to our school. And we can also involve other schools worldwide, and projects that we start and conduct and research that we -, just different research projects we can conference with other schools worldwide. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Do we have any questions for Alyssa? Yes, Mr. Alameda. ALAMEDA: Hi, Alyssa. First of all, thanks. Thanks for coming. I know you have a busy teenager day, and you took time out to come and share your thoughts with us. That’s awesome. Thank you so much. You know the idea of the -, you guys do like conferencing, you know, where you can talk to other high schools on the TV and you could have the dialogue? EVANS: Yeah, actually at our Sustainability Congress we conferenced with a school in Alaska and also a school in Germany, and we were sharing our ideas within the students, just different ideas that we had for our schools and we were talking about just different projects that we were doing and -. It really got a lot of the students excited and really enthusiastic about this new energy project and stuff. ALAMEDA: Fantastic. Thank you so much. Keep going. EVANS: Thank you. That’s all actually. Thank you, Commissioner. And we really appreciate all your support. EXHIBIT A 7 WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any further questions? None? You may be seated then. Thank you. We are about to enter into deliberation; so I’ll ask the public one last time. Is there anyone else here that would like to testify on this particular application? Seeing none, well, Fellow Commissioners, would you -, does anyone care to make a motion? Mr. Domingo? DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the matter of the Hawaii Preparatory Academy’s Special Permit application, 08-000059, I move for its approval as per recommendation of the Planning Director with one exception and that is on the point 9 that the word “final” be deleted. WATANABE: Thank you. ALAMEDA: Second. WOODWARD: Second. WATANABE: Is there a second? Okay, we have two seconds. Okay, we have a -. Yes, Mr. Director. YUEN: The wording was slightly different than what was just stated. My suggested wording was -. WATANABE: “Prior to the start of,” I think. YUEN: Right. “Prior to the start of operation” – and then you add – “of each increment,” “the applicant shall provide, in writing,” – and then you delete the “final” – and then the remainder is the same. WATANABE: Okay. So is that acceptable? DOMINGO: Mr. Chairman, I restate my motion to indicate what the Planning Director has just stated. WATANABE: Yeah, okay, amended. I’m not sure who seconded, though. WOODWARD: I thought it was me. WATANABE: Okay, good. We have an amended motion. Any discussion on this? Seeing none, Maija? COTTLE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Woodward? EXHIBIT A 8 WOODWARD: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Alameda? ALAMEDA: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Ogata? OGATA: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Rho? RHO: Aye. COTTLE: And Chairman Watanabe? WATANABE: Aye. Okay, so, you’ll be notified in writing, Mr. Mooers. Thank you, and congratulations. The discussion ended at 10:05 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, West Hawaii Secretary EXHIBIT A 9