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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-09-19 TSKCDP_JT PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT SEPTEMBER 19, 2008 The following is public testimony provided by JOSEPHINE TANIMOTO regarding the SOUTH KOHALA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLANat 11:20 a.m. in the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel, Hau Room, 62-100 Kaunaoa Drive, Kohala Coast, Hawaii, with Chairman Rodney Watanabe presiding. PRESENT: Lani Bowman ABSENT & EXCUSED: C. Kimo Alameda Takashi Domingo Andrew Iwashita Frederic Housel Shelly Ogata Rodney Watanabe Rell Woodward Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel  Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager OgxkkhrEtihlnsn+Rs`eeOk`mmdq Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner Maija Cottle, Staff Planner Deanne Bugado, Planner, Kona Office Allen Salavea, Planner, Kona Office And two people from the public in attendance. SOUTH KOHALA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN Review and action on the draft South Kohala Community Development Plan (CDP) submitted by the South Kohala CDP Steering Committee and its consultant, Townscape, Inc. WATANABE: I do have a special request. So if we could take a moment here. As you know, our sixth agenda item is the final read of the South Kohala Community Development Plan; and we do have Jojo Tanimoto who had signed up to testify but will not be able to stay beyond, I guess, noon or whatever. So she did request that we accept her testimony now – you’ve just received her written testimony – so if that’s okay -. I’d like to swear you in then, Ms. Tanimoto. Can I swear you in? Would you raise your right hand, please? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TANIMOTO: Yes. WATANABE: Thank you. Would you speak into the mike, and state your name and address, and then you may begin your testimony. EXHIBIT C 1 TANIMOTO: Thank you very much. I want to thank all of you first for allowing me this opportunity to speak at this time. My name is Josephine; Jojo is my nickname. WATANABE: Oh, I’m sorry. TANIMOTO: My last name is Tanimoto. Actually, what I wanted to do was commend the consultant and the Steering Committee for the hard work that they did, and especially the Steering Committee because they took Kawaihae out of the South Kohala area and actually recognized a lot of the things in Kawaihae that was not recognized before in documentation. And the documentation is important to all of us in Kawaihae because of the development that’s going to be moving along very quickly within the next few years, within the time span of this document. So having said that, I am a homesteader in Kawaihae Hawaiian Homes. The Kawaihae area actually did not get involved until the middle of last year. So what I need to say is that I was a trustee’s aide for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. I also live in this area. So as you know, there is a lot of information that is privy to people during that time so as not to conflict with anything. I actually had to wait until the trustee had passed away, I was no longer with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and then I could address the issues for the community that we were trying to bring out for about 50 years. So having had Kawaihae inserted is a big opportunity for Kawaihae actually. What I need to do is to ask you to include in these provisions, No. 1 is the opportunity to let you guys consider that Hawaiian Homes actually has a purpose to provide lands for the native families to build homes. But a lot of the documentation in here where it says Hawaiian Homes refers to using Hawaiian Homes mostly for commercial and they’re advocating commercial and industrial. And that’s not the way the conversation went in the Focus Group. Now, I was a member of the Focus Group, and because of my work schedule I did not have any opportunity to go to the Steering Committee meeting. I think I went to the first one; I didn’t know what was going on. So when it got to the Steering Committee, I don’t think anybody from Kawaihae got to go to the Steering Committee. And so the Focus Group, the Steering Committee and somehow this document, there’s a lot of stuff that went on in the Focus Group that isn’t in here. So that’s what I wanted for you folks to consider. The other thing is somehow when I went to North Kohala, if I especially went to the North Kohala meeting, it was, like, “You are not from North Kohala, so you don’t belong in this meeting, your participation is not Kohala.” Now, when I went to the Waimea meeting, I got the same thing over there, too, “You are not from Waimea, so you cannot put Kawaihae inside there,” which is why we were very aggressive in trying to get Kawaihae’s information somehow into the documentation. And so having the Steering Committee at least put us in there separately and addressing a lot of the issues in Kawaihae is something tremendous for the community of Kawaihae homestead. And then what we need to do is to, if you look at the map of Kohala, North Kohala has to share everything with South Kohala. So however we planned for Kawaihae, the intersection to North Kohala and South Kohala, somehow we have to include them because the people from Kohala EXHIBIT C 2 and the people from Waimea are relatives of the people in Kawaihae. So they impact what happens in Kawaihae. I don’t know if I’m getting across to you guys, but it’s important to us guys in that community. So No. 2, I do have stuff like the highway, the electricity, the water, and the wastewater treatment. Now, the wastewater treatment, when the conversation came up in the Focus Group, the answer was they didn’t know. So I’m assuming everybody gets septic tanks nowadays. But what happens to those up above us on both sides, do they still have some cesspools out there, or is there going to be construction of a treatment system that needs to be addressed by the County somehow to protect us down there? Okay, so the other one is the document itself is losing some stuff. Some of the communication that we had is not in here, and the maps that you show somehow is not what physical, if you go there and you take a look at it, it’s not the same thing. Example: there is the Kawaihae lighthouse, now, the lighthouse is depicted below the mauka subdivision; it’s nowhere close there, it’s not even close to the makai subdivision. So it’s very important that the information in this document is corrected because this is probably the first document that’s going to be talking about Kawaihae and it’s my personal opinion that there is going to be a lot of other governmental resources like EISs, Environmental Assessments and different agencies, even the harbor, I bet you, is going to use information from this document and the document is going to be wrong. So if this Planning Commission will include that third condition to put correct information into here – not only in the pictures but in the information that’s given in here, you know. Then there’s also things that I wanted to add, Page 2, I started, I wanted to do a good job for you guys, so I started making a list of stuff to include and what I thought was different, but it was just getting too tremendous a list. Like, No. 1, emergency shelters. Kawaihae has nothing. There is a subdivision for 217 homes that I know of, and the documentation says 214 in here. We are in a tsunami zone; we have no emergency shelters or whatever. So if you know Kawaihae during the earthquake, we’re going to go no place, we’re going to stuck at home. We couldn’t get to the highway cause a policeman told us, “You cannot leave.” The mountain on the highway, Akoni Pule, on the north was broken, so you had to wait for the State Department of Transportation. You couldn’t go south because the bridge was broken. Then you couldn’t go to the harbor, which is the only transportation through Kawaihae on the makai side, and that one was flooded out. And that happens with accidents, that happens with fires, that happens with flooding, that happens all kinds of times. So we need somehow to get an access out of there, or, and, emergency shelters in Kawaihae. Now, Hawaiian Homes has property that we could probably ask them for; but because they have no infrastructure, those things are negligible. So we are asking the County to come up with something, so that if we get stuck at home, I mean, even if we’ve got to go to the water tank at the top of the hill. The water tank is County, cause we get our water from Kohala Ranch in the North Kohala area -. But anyway, stuff like that. So I started making an attachment, but I figured if the Planning Commission will just make that resolution, and add it into today’s discussion, I’ll be very happy. And thank you very much. Any questions? WATANABE: Do we have any questions for Ms. Tanimoto? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. And this will be added to the record, yeah, Ms. Tanimoto. EXHIBIT C 3 TANIMOTO: Thank you very much. I do have one question I’d like to ask for the Planning Director, and that is the Cablevision company put a manhole in what is known as the Kawaihae pond. It is in a flood zone, but there is a manhole on the side of the highway that they got a grading permit for. How can things like that happen? WATANABE: I’m not sure. Are you able to respond, Mr. Yuen? YUEN: No, I can’t answer that. That really is not something that the Planning Department would be involved in. TANIMOTO: Doesn’t the Planning Department give a grading permit, no? YUEN: No. Department of Public Works gives grading permits. TANIMOTO: Oh, thank you. WATANABE: Okay? Okay, thank you very much. The testimony ended at 11:30 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, West Hawaii Secretary EXHIBIT C 4