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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-08-26 SPP 05-012 Motorsports PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT AUGUST 26, 2005 MOTORSPORTS PARK HAWAII (SPP A regularly advertised hearing on the application of 05-012) was called to order at 9:40 a.m. in the King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel, Ekahi Ballroom, 75-5660 Palani Road, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, with Chairman Fred Galdones presiding. PRESENT:Fred GaldonesABSENT & EXCUSED: C. Kimo Alameda Hannah SpringerRene€ Siracusa Jeffrey McCallRodney H. Watanabe Andrew Iwashita AllenSalavea William R. Graham Chris Yuen, Deputy Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Kiran Emler representing Department of Public Works And approximately 15 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: MOTORSPORTS PARK HAWAII (SPP 05-012) Application for a Special Permit to allow the establishment of an off-road vehicle recreation facility and related uses on 14.9 acres of land situated within the State Land Use Agricultural District. The property is located along the south side of Saddle Road in the vicinity of Nohonaohae Cinder Cone, approximately 1 mile from the Saddle Road ƒ Mamalahoa Highway (Highway 190) junction, Waikoloa, South Kohala, Hawaii, TMK: 6-7-1: portion of 3. GALDONES:Commissioners we are on agenda item number 3. Applicant is Motorsports Park Hawai i, SPP 05-012. This is an application for a special permit to allow the establishment of an off-road vehicle recreation facility and related uses on 14.9 acres of land situated within the State Land Use Agricultural District. Jeff? DARROW:Thank you Mr. Chairman. Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the Planning Commission. If I may direct your attention to the location map on the board. The area of this application is within the South Kohala district of Hawai i more specifically we€re looking in the area of-, where Saddle Road meets Mamalahoa Highway near the West Hawai i Concrete area, identified here in red. The applicant in this case Motorsports Park Hawai i is requesting a special permit for 14.9 acres of land to allow the establishment of an off-road vehicle recreational facility. The applicant is requesting this to be able to provide a suitable area for its members to operate and enjoy full size and mini motorcycles as well as all-terrain vehicles EXHIBIT B 1 or ATV€s. The are is approximately 1 mile away from the intersection of Saddle Road and Mamalahoa Highway on Saddle Road. The nearest dwellings are located in Waikii Ranch, which is approximately 3 miles away on Saddle Road. If I may direct your attentionto the plot plan submitted by the applicants. Saddle Road is identified on the right side of the map. The 14.9 acres is identified in blue and this would-, there would be an entrance area of approximately 600 feet into the area off of Saddle Road that would provide a long area for vehicles coming onto the property to be able to get off Saddle Road. Theoff-road area, the track area is identified in this area. There will be a parking area identified here and as well as additional parking. This area here is a Cinder pit for a previous quarry that was established in this area previously. The Department of Land and Natural Resources had sent us a letter, the Division of Forestry and Wildlife. They had identified endangered plants that are located on the Nohonaohae cinder cone as well as Puu Papapa. And in response to that we€ve listed conditions requesting that the applicant maintain an existing fence that€s running along the north boundary of the cinder cone to keep patrons from going up to the hill. We€ve also included conditions requiring fire suppressionaswellaspre-suppressiontypeofactivities.Oneisafirebreakthatwillbe maintained around parking areas as well as the off-road riding area. This will prevent if any fires do happen to break out there will be a firebreak in place to prevent the fire from endangering these plants that are identified on the cinder cone. There are also other types of pre-suppression fire suppression conditions including maintaining a 25,000 gallon water tank on site for dust control and for fire prevention to be able to have a cache of tools on hand to be able to stop any type of fire that may break out. There are also roadway conditions in case later on down the line the road situation turns into be a little more than, a lot more increased traffic on Saddle Road then the Department of Public Works has the authority to step in and request certain improvements on Saddle Road. We have recently; just this morning received a letter of support from Parker Ranch, more specifically Brandon Beaudet who is the Land Resources and Facilities Manager. If I could read this into the record it states, To Chairman Galdones. The purpose of this letter is to support Motorsports Park Hawai i in their application for a special permit that will allow the establishment of an off-road recreational facility on Parker Ranch lands. Parker Ranch believes that this type of facility will provide for a safe and controlled environment for off-road enthusiasts and will also help to alleviate some of the unauthorized use of private lands for these kinds of activities. Mahalo.‚ The Planning Director is recommending that the Planning Commission approve this special permit request. Are there any questions? GALDONES:Commissioners are there any questions of Jeff? Seeing none will the applicant or his representative please come forward? Good morning Mr. Crawford, could you please raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai i County Planning Commission? CRAWFORD:I do. GALDONES:Could you please state your name and your residence address? EXHIBIT B 2 CRAWFORD:Mark K. Crawford and my residence is 81-1207 Greenwell Mountain Road, Captain Cook, Hawai i. GALDONES:Mr. Crawford have you received a copy of the background report and the recommendations? CRAWFORD:Yes I have. GALDONES:Do you have any comments to those documents? CRAWFORD:Actually we€re very comfortable with the list of the conditions as set out by Director Yuen and his staff. And, you know we€re trying to promote a safe environment for families to come and pursue the things that make them feel happy, such as riding off road motorcycles and ATVs and that€s what we€re about. GALDONES:Thank you. Commissioners are there any questions of Mr. Crawford? CommissionerGraham? GRAHAM:Mr.Crawford.It€sreallyourissueisjustalanduseissue.Butjustfroma little bit of familiarity in Hilo with the drag racing circuit and all that where there€ve been some kind of personal discord going on between who€s in charge of this and is it going to be authorized by this and all. I just want to stick my nose a little bit into the idea of how you folks are going to run this and you being from Captain Cook and not from the Waimea area there may be no potential for this kind of problem here I don€t know but I would appreciate it if you had anything to comment on that. CRAWFORD:Commissioner Graham, we are a non-profit organization. We€re a private club and we plan to have people, can only participate on the facility if they are members of the club. So it is entirely up to the club to run this. We€re not involving any other government agencies. And you know we€re-, many of us have children who do this. I do it myself and what we€re trying to do is keep from having people who want to be legal being illegal and having people building these tracks in their backyards and pissing off neighbors. So that€s what we€re trying to do. Going forward it€s hard for me to look in the crystal ball and say how well we will run it as a club. We€re hoping to get involvement from motorcycle shops and ATV shops and after market people. And having them involved and give us some financial backing to be sure we do it properly. But you know things can happen it€s just how you pick your Board of Directors and your leaders to be sure that they€re committed to carrying it forward, which the people in this room are committed to doing that. GRAHAM:I know there€s a lot of interest in North Hawai i. Waimea particularly and Kohala and all in these sort of things so I€m very much in favor of what you€re trying to do. I presume there€s organizations up there also right now that are running events here and there on private property or whatever. Are you in contact with some of the North Hawai i people so that you can get a little bit of their input on how you folks plan to administer this site and all? EXHIBIT B 3 CRAWFORD:Well actually MPH has been a supporter of the recent Keiki Motorcross races that are being held at the arena at Parker Ranch. And those have been very successful. Those races were held as a purpose for generating startup money for Hawai i Racing Association as a fundraiser for them. And there are those other organizations that bring their clubs who have indicated a willingness to work with us and make this happen. We€re plan to pull in as many people as we want, as we need to make this happen because it-, we have an opportunity to have this special use permit and push it forward because there is a need and we hope that we can pull these people together. The reason that the track is sort of in the middle of the island, we thought it would be appropriate to pick a piece of property that was Class D agricultural land to begin with. Something that was previously disturbed the quarry operation and it just happened to be located from where we live. And we think we€re capable and we have the backing to manage and run this properly. GRAHAM:Thank you very much. I know on the recommendations and your proposal isonlyforweekends.Isthata-doyouseethatasaprobleminthefuturethatyoumight-,ifyou are successful on the weekends you want to be doing it during the week one night or something like that? CRAWFORD:We may come back to the Planning Commission and to the agencies and request. But we thought that in all fairness we needed to demonstrate that we could actually run this thing and manage it. And then with a track record then you have a track record you have some couple of years of actually running and managing events and safety seminars and things of that nature. Then you come back to the Planning Commission. We thought it might have been inappropriate at this time to ask for, ask for the moon so to speak. We€re just trying to get ourselves started, get established but we could come back as the need permits to ask for more hours to run the operation. GRAHAM:Good, thank you. GALDONES:Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:Thank you. I see on Condition number 5 that spark arrestors shall be required for all off-road vehicles. How is that enforced? CRAWFORD:We€re going to have to have that spark arrestors listed as one of the conditions as membership. And then we€re going to have to do our own tech inspection to ensure that people have spark arrestors installed on their equipment. Most of the equipment does come with spark arrestors but there€s you know, there is off the market equipment that doesn€t have it but we€ll ensure, we€ll do our job to ensure that those spark arrestors are in place because we don€t want to have a fire. SPRINGER:And so would that take place as vehicles come onto the site? CRAWFORD:It would take place prior to an event as vehicles come onto the site from time to time and it would be up to our club to manage that and be sure that that€s in place. EXHIBIT B 4 SPRINGER:Thank you. GALDONES:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Thank you Mr. Chair. Actually I have a question about because the applicant is a non-profit and a lessee and not the owner of the property, whathappens if the applicant loses the lease? Does the special permit still apply to the land? Or is this a special permit that-, you know and what if the club falls apart and it€s no longer there, what happens to the special permit? YUEN:Well the special permit does run with the land, it€s not specific to this particular club so if they lost the lease for example and Parker Ranch wanted to have a different operation out there or different organization run it then, then they could do that. And I think you€re actually bringing up something that I€m not sure that we have stated that this is a non- commercialevent,thatit€sanon-commercialpermit.AndIthinkthatwouldbe,that€stheintent right? CRAWFORD:Right, this is a non-commercial permit. You know it€s not- the club is not out to, with respect to the earlier permit this morning about changing the land use to develop a commercial area, we€re not about making money. I mean we€re going to make a little money but it€s a non-profit so we€re going to have to plow it back into the organization. I can assure you the start up costs; insurance wise and things of that nature that we will have to carry to protect our landowner are huge. And probably after the first 3 or 4 years of running if we had some money left over then we€ve actually done something pretty good. But most likely we€ll break even and asking for donations as we go along to run this thing. YUEN:Now I-, in trying to figure out how to state this I need to understand whether, you are going to charge admission or is that a possibility here? CRAWFORD:Well we would charge, and we haven€t set the amount but the plan is to charge a membership fee. So, if a-, Director Yuen you wanted to bring your motorcycle in and have the day, we€d ask you to become a member and you€d pay a fee for membership. Then as you come into the gate we would probably ask you for fee for that day, a nominal fee, 2 or 3 dollars or something like that so we can cover cost of water, cost of ENT or track workers and things of that nature. When we have an event, an event could be anything from a safety seminar to a competition to a- those type of things, then we would charge an entrance fee at the gate. Again a nominal thing to cover our insurance for that day and to cover water, porta potties ad those type of necessities. Okay, does that quite answer your-? YUEN:I understand. I€m just a- see, I just have to figure out how we€re going to have this idea that being non-commercial but you still-. And I understand charging a fee, I don€t think that makes it-, in my mind that doesn€t make you commercial but I have to, I€m trying to figure out a condition here. Are you a non-profit corporation organized- do you have non-profit corporation status in Hawai i law. EXHIBIT B 5 CRAWFORD:Let me ask that question? Everybody€s nodding yes. I didn€t know the answer to that question. It was a group nod. GALDONES:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Just for me to get a sense of the scale of the operation. I€ve driven by the keiki-? CRAWFORD:Keiki Motorcross? IWASHITA:Keiki Motorcross. I€ve driven by that area while it€s been going on and I seen all the tents up and it seems like a pretty big event. So like how many people you know are there when I drive by? There seems like there€s a hundred pop up tents set up. CRAWFORD:Youknowonanevent,eventdayatKeikiMotorcrosstherecanbeup over 200 participants and their families and moms and dads, uncles and aunties and everything. Typically for us during a year where we just have an open ride on the weekend we don€t anticipate that type of crowd being there okay. During an event we€re going to have to work with County and be sure that we have necessary signage, traffic control and also if you notice the 600 foot area there for marshalling vehicles off the highway and getting into the parking area, Jeff could you point that out? That€s going to help us out but we could have you know 3 or 400 people there on an event day you know. And that would be a good thing and we think the area-, this area is actually larger than the Keiki Motorcross area. And, we feel very comfortable with that, with the parking and where we can handle that fairly easily. But that wouldn€t be typical you know we wouldn€t have 300 people there 52 weeks out of the year. I mean be honest with you in the beginning you€re going to see an increase, people are going to be very interested and then it€s going to taper off. IWASHITA:So in your estimation, based on your experience what would be like the maximum capacity of you know, that this area could hold in terms of riders and a crowd? CRAWFORD:This is going to be a guess on my part. I€m going to say probably maybe 250 riders and maybe another 250, maybe another 300 people. IWASHITA:Are you going to have parking? It doesn€t look like-. CRAWFORD:We have 4 acres of parking there okay. And so we can fit the people in-, this track area is actually a little bigger than a similar facility on Maui and a similar facility on Kauai. And they€re able to have crowds are actually larger than that in there. IWASHITA:When the track is completely developed will there be any flat you know, any brush or anything that could ignite within the track area? CRAWFORD:Well that€s an interesting question, let me speak a little bit about to the track. The track is actually going to be on natural terrain. We have no plans to change the grade because actually that€s why we picked the area because it has, has undulating terrain, ups and EXHIBIT B 6 downs and things and that€s what we actually like. And so, you know as far as vegetation to answer your question, if it€s a requirementfor us to have a vegetation free area we€re happy to grub the area and keep the vegetation clear as a fire hazard. But we don€t want to be caught between agencies with respect to erosion control. You can have a clear area. We€re going to have to do some things about erosion but we don€t want to have a stipulation saying well you can€t have any grass or anything growing on there and then have another agency saying well look you guys have-, cause you€ve cleared the grass you€ve created an erosion hazard. We€d like to work with people but we€re happy to take all the grass off the entire place to drastically reduce the hazard of fire. And, we€re happy to do that because we don€t plan to change the grade at all. We€re not going to be I€m going to say, grading the land to make a track. We€re actually going to use the natural terrain, add a few obstacles here and there and that will be the track. The track is actually something that can change from time to time because it is using the natural terrain. Did I make myself clear? IWASHITA:Yes. CRAWFORD:Okay,thankyou. GALDONES:CommissionerSpringer? SPRINGER:QuestiontotheDirector.Doesthecommentonthenon-commercial activity have to be in the form of a condition or could it be written into the narrative on the yellow sheets? YUEN:I€d like to draft a condition because that€s really what€s binding on the applicant. And what happens with these applications you do, you know you have the application in front of you, you get into a certain mind set because you have this applicant but it is something that could evolve into something quite different. So I think we should have some kind of condition that talks about it being non-commercial without preventing them from charging membership fees or entrance fees to spectators for example. SPRINGER:Thank you. GALDONES:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Where- do the spectators have bleachers and things like that now for- at the Keiki Motorcross or do they just you know, stand around the track? CRAWFORD:They did a little bit of both, because the bleachers were in place there for the rodeo activity, Keiki Motorcross people do sit in the bleachers. But most of them tend to hang around the outside of the arena and sit on the fence. At various facilities like this across the United States you know as they, they do have bleachers and they would be the aluminum football type portable move um in, move um out kind of a thing. But for us, it€s going to be people you know coming and having a family day. Bringing your pick-up truck, bringing your tent, putting your lawn chairs down and watching the fun and activity go on and then everybody moving out from there. We really don€t intend to build an Indianapolis 500 racetrack kind of EXHIBIT B 7 thing. You know because that€s not- it€s an outdoor area that will remain an outdoor area. And that€s not even in our scope of thought. Hawai i racing association has, they€re moving ahead and doing the best they can to do their facility out here mauka of the airport and wesupport them in their effort. But that€s, we€re not about building bleachers and havinggarages and paved areas and things. We€re going to do an outdoor thing and leave the land pretty much the way it is. GALDONES:Any further questions? Mr. Yuen anything further? YUEN:Yes I would simply add a condition that says that the facility shall be operated by a non-profit organization. And there€s a couple of other things that I noticed in, and they may be understood but I think we should mention as-, add to the fire conditions. That the keys to the fire cache and to the gate should be made available to the fire department and DLNR. CRAWFORD:We€re comfortable with that Director Yuen. We, actually one of our membersisafiredepartmentpersonnelandhe€sworkingonthefireplan,whichwe€llsubmitto- as that fire plan is completed. You know we do plan to have that and have the set of keys available to everybody so there isn€t people running around trying to find a key to get in to put out a fire. That€s not a problem. YUEN:That€s terrific. And once there is a water tank out there that€ll be a major asset for any firefighting out there so-. CRAWFORD:Yeah, we do actually plan some of the start up seed money would go directly to putting the water tank. Cause we want to control the dust cause we€re sensitive to people mauka of us and we want to keep the dust down because it is just a- having less dust makes it nicer for everybody to enjoy the facility. YUEN:Good. GALDONES:Mr. Yuen your statement about being a non-commercial is it understood as written or are you advocating adding another condition? YUEN:That would be the intent of saying the facility shall be operated by a non- profit organization. GALDONES:Okay. Mr. Crawford with the 2 additions do you have any further comments? CRAWFORD:No, I€d just like to thank the Planning Director and his staff, Mr. Hayashi and Mr. Darrow for working through something that they haven€t done before. And we appreciate all the help and it€s actually, much to our surprise, has gone fairly well. So, we€re happy to work with you and look forward to having this thing happen thank you. GALDONES:Mr. Crawford in your statement you had mentioned that there would be some portable potties. It€s not stated in the condition but you will be providing that, portable potties at the site? EXHIBIT B 8 CRAWFORD:Yes we will. We€ll have that as you know, that€s part ofone of the things when we talked about fees is that you know to cover those kinds of costs, those out of pocket costs to be sure you have sufficient porta potties there. That€s, but you come in and ride for your day, you pay your 5 bucks whatever the number is and then you go in and you have porta potties. They will be there. We have no intent to put septic systems in or anything of that nature. It€s too onerous at this point. GALDONES:Thank you. Commissioners any further question of Mr. Crawford? If none, we have a Brandi Beaudet. I hope I pronounced that last name right sign to speak. Is Brandi here? BEAUDET:Actually it was a letter of support that I submitted. DARROW:Itwastheletterthatwereadintotherecord. GALDONES:Okay.Notsomebodysigninguptospeak.Ohwellisthereanyonehere from the public to speak on that? Oh I thought Mr. Tavares was going to do it. Okay, hearing none. If there€s no further question of Mr. Crawford. Is there any closing statements before I call for the vote? CRAWFORD:No, thank you. It€s been very nice and we look forward to working with the various agencies and they can just happen to have a good facility for people to come and enjoy off-road activity. Thank you. GALDONES:Thank you. If none. Commissioners the Department recommends approval by the Planning Commissioner. SALAVEA:I€d like to a-. GALDONES:Commissioner Salavea? SALAVEA:-propose a motion. I move that application for special permit docket number SP05-012 be approved based on Planning Director€s recommendation and amended or added conditions forwarded by Director Yuen. IWASHITA:Second. GALDONES:It has been moved by Commissioner Salavea and seconded by Commissioner Iwashita that applicant Motorsports Park Hawai i, special permit application number 05-012 be approved by the Planning Commission as amended by the Director along with the other recommendations. Further discussion? Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Thank you. Mr. Chair, just for the record I€d like to acknowledge all the efforts of all the members of Motorsports Park Hawai i for working on this and I wish you all the success so that it can provide a healthy and good activity for the community. EXHIBIT B 9 GALDONES:Seeing no further comments Jeff? DARROW:Thank you Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Salavea? SALAVEA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Aye. DARROW:Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:Yes. DARROW:And Mr. Chairman? GALDONES:Aye. DARROW:The motion passes 6 to 0. GALDONES:Thank you Jeff. Mr. Crawford you will be informed of today€s actions in writing and I will commend your organization for putting something like this up for your club, you know, growing sport. And we wish you lots of luck and success! CRAWFORD:Thank you very much. GALDONES:You€re welcome. This discussion ended at 9:56 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Lynette Sanemitsu, West Hawai i Secretary EXHIBIT B 10