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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-10-03 TPUNA CONGRE PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT OCTOBER 3, 2008 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of PUNA CONGREGATIONAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH (USE 120)was called to order at 11:02 a.m. in the County of Hawaii, Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawaii, with Chairman Rodney Watanabe presiding. PRESENT: Rodney Watanabe ABSENT & EXCUSED: Lani Bowman C. Kimo Alameda Takashi Domingo Andrew Iwashita Shelly Ogata Alvin Rho Rell Woodward Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Staff Planner Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner And six people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: PUNA CONGREGATIONAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH (USE 120) Amendment to Use Permit No. 120, which allowed the development of a church and related uses on 4.9 acres of land within the Single-Family Residential 10,000 square feet (RS-10) district. The request is to delete certain uses and activities previously granted. Also requested are amendments to condition nos. 4 (time extension – construction time requirement), 5 (revision to original plans), 6 (deletion of second driveway access) and 12 (allow additional administrative time extensions). The property is located along the southeast side of the Old Volcano Road, in close proximity to the Keaau Town Center, Keaau, Puna, Hawaii, TMK: 1-6-3:95. WATANABE: Let’s proceed to Agenda Item No. 7. This is Puna Congregational Christian Church. Looks like there’s a Use Permit No. 120. Mr. Darrow. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I can direct your attention to the board. The next applicant in this case is the Puna Congregational Christian Church. They’re requesting several amendments to conditions of Use Permit No. 120. The area of this application is within the Puna District, more specifically we’re looking at the Keaau town. This is the commercial area within the Keaau Town Center. You’re going to have McDonalds right in this approximate location, the Puna Police Station. This is the Volcano Highway, Highway 11; and then from Volcano Highway you have the Old Volcano Highway that runs into the middle of Keaau town. The application, the subject property is identified with a black outline. It is zoned Single Family EXHIBIT B 1 Residential 10,000 square feet, and you have Agricultural 20-acre property in the rear of the property. We have an aerial photograph of the subject property. We have the Old Volcano Highway, coming off of Volcano Highway, and we have the subject property identified with a red outline. There is an improved driveway access as well as parking. We have the multipurpose structure and an existing classroom pavilion that’s located on the property at this time. There is still quite a bit of unimproved area on the property. Just for background this permit was approved originally on January 20, 1994 to allow a church and school, temporary hostile type housings, residences and a recreation center on 4.949 acres of land. The applicant is requesting several amendments to the conditions. They’re asking for a 15-year time extension to comply with Condition No. 4 which is the time to complete construction. They’re asking to delete certain uses and activities previously represented and granted, which would be an amendment to Condition No. 5 which is that condition that states that the applicant shall comply substantially with representations made to the Planning Commission. Originally they had represented that they were going to do six phases for this project; and it’s identified in the background what those phases were. The applicant is requesting to delete the phasing aspects, and to remove certain aspects of the project, and to add new structures and uses to the project. Additionally, they’re requesting to delete the requirement for a second access as required by Condition No.6. The reason why this second access was placed in there is because the applicant on Phase IV was planning on increasing the school activity to the property to include kindergarten up to high school which will include 200 students. So the traffic portion of it would have been a lot greater, so they required a second access. They’re requesting to delete that portion of the permit. So at this point they’re also asking to delete the requirement for the second access since they’re not going to be doing the school. Lastly, they’re asking for an amendment to Condition No. 12 which is our administrative time extension condition. The current Condition No. 12 allows for administrative time extensions for each condition except for Condition No. 4. They’re asking for that portion to be deleted so they can have an administrative time extension for Condition No. 4 in case the project isn’t completed in 15 years. This is a site plan of what we’re looking at currently, as well as proposed. On the top of the map we have the Old Volcano Highway. Again, we have the improved access, the improved parking area. They are planning on putting future parking identified on the bottom portion of the map and the left portion. All the areas identified in blue are constructed. This would be the multipurpose building, the classroom office building and a pavilion. All the buildings in red are proposed. This is going to be the new sanctuary, two stories. They are also planning on having a multipurpose building with office, I believe, and also an additional youth ministry facility. These are site photos, Old Volcano Highway facing towards Volcano. The subject property is on the left. This is Old Volcano Highway facing towards Keaau. Again, the property is on the right; and then we have a picture straight on the property. It shows the structures that are in place. This at this time is the church facility. EXHIBIT B 2 The Planning Director is recommending approval of the request for Condition Nos. 4, 5 and 6 but is requesting denial of the request for Condition No. 12. The Planning Director feels that the applicant should come back after a 15-year period, 30 years is too long of a period to not have them come back to the Commission. Are there any questions? WATANABE: Fellow Commissioners, any questions of staff? Seeing none, and because I have a tendency to forget, for the record there is no one signed up to testify for this. So with that may I call up the applicant and their representative. Oh, just you, Mr. Melrose? MELROSE: Ray is going to sit next to me, just to keep me company. WATANABE: Oh, okay. But you’ll be doing the bulk of the presentation? MELROSE: That’s what he told me. WATANABE: Okay, may I swear you in then. Would you both raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? MELROSE: I do. KLOUNING I do. WATANABE: Thank you. Mr. Melrose, your name and address first. MELROSE: Yeah, my name is Jeffrey Melrose. I live at 1405 Waianuenue Avenue, and I’m a member of this church and representing it in its planning request today. WATANABE: Mr. Melrose, have you had an opportunity review the Director’s recommendations? MELROSE: Yes, we have. WATANABE: And are you satisfied with his recommendations? MELROSE: We have no problem with the recommendations and the denial. We understand the issue of the timeframe. We were just looking to see how often we have to come back through, you know, what’s the will of the Commission and the Director in terms of frequency of coming back for minor changes in this process. But just a little bit of background, the church got this property about 15 years ago after, 15, 18 years ago. They had a church located over where, right in the middle of town by the post office; and with the help from the Bishop Estate moved to this location. And I think when we originally made that move we had lots of big ideas about what kinds of things the church could/should do.And we realized that, now 15 years into this process, we have a strong congregation but there are limitations of resources, and the fact that there’s a new Christian church in Keaau today anyway, it actually eliminated the need for a want to do a school, K-12 school. So we took that off. The parsonage was not a thing that the church wanted EXHIBIT B 3 to actually do. And so when the church came recently to build a youth ministry building we realized that we were at the end of the 15-year timeframe and that we needed to do this extension before we could build the youth ministry program. The one thing I do want to make sure that it’s clear -- and I think it’s clear in our application, I’m not so sure it’s clear in the recommendations -- is that we currently use our classroom for a variety of uses, much the way the pervious applicant is looking to do for a day care and other school uses. So I’m not trying to eliminate the school use of the property when we say we’re taking the K-12 away. We initially had the Keiki College using portions of our classroom on a rental basis to provide services to kids in the region. And I think currently we have, Waters of Life is using the facility for a period of time, again, with the 40, kind of a 40-kid limit in the existing classrooms. So we’re really intending to continue to allow the classroom buildings that we use particularly on Sundays for our Christian education to also be available for other things during the rest of the week. So we continue to do that and just want to make sure that this recommendation doesn’t in any way inhibit our ability to do that. I don’t think it does. And it was clear on our request that we wanted to preserve that, but I want to make sure that we are, you know, not limiting our ability to rent our facilities for educational use. WATANABE: Okay. And, Mr. Yuen, any comments on that? YUEN: Yes, how would we be covering that then? DARROW: The Phase I allowed for that particular use. It was already an existing use. It allowed the 40 students and four staff members as part of this preschool. And so the Waters of Life had sent in a letter requesting, they were looking at different sites; and we had looked at each site and this particular site we had agreed that it did allow 40 students based on the previous approval. They couldn’t go more than that. It would be listed under page 1 of the Background, Phase I. YUEN: Well, I think we can put this, see, none of this is put in the conditions. I think we need to put in the letter that goes out that the continuation of school use within Phase I is still permitted. I think we do need to make this clear. WATANABE: Okay. So you mentioned letter, Mr. Yuen. That would mean you’re not suggesting that a new condition be added? YUEN: Well, see, there’s nothing in the condition that says take out the school. It’s actually in the body of the recommendation. The body of the recommendation gets turned into a letter that goes to the applicant. And so we would just insert something in the letter that made that clear that they can continue to operate a school within the multipurpose building that was approved under Phase I. That’s what you’re asking for, right? MELROSE: What we’re really asking is to have the multipurpose features of our classrooms to be allowed to be used for educational purposes up to a level of 40 students, whether it’s in the Phase I building or in the Christian education building that we’re going to build next. We just want to be able to have those facilities available to the community more than just on Sunday. So we’ll build them. There are certainly good uses that we can make of them. So when we said we weren’t going to do the K-12 school I just want to be really clear that we’re EXHIBIT B 4 not somehow eliminating the ability to use the facilities we have in an educational way for others. So whether you call it a school or whether you just want to give it an educational use category that’s kind of up to you folks. But I want to make sure we’re not going to be precluded by that. YUEN: Well, I think we do need to say something, and maybe the best way then is to say it as educational uses within existing buildings. MELROSE: I wouldn’t limit it to existing buildings. We’re going to build a youth building that’s going to have classrooms and they’ll also be available for that purpose. So I think within the facilities that we build that I wouldn’t want to limit it to just that classroom building that we have. WATANABE: The real key here though, Mr. Yuen, would be the 40 students, wouldn’t it, for the scope? That was included within the Use Permit in Phase I. So -. YUEN: Is it okay then, I mean I’m just still trying, you know -. Cause I see a problem if we just take out the school and then we say we’re taking out a school and then you have a school. So educational use for up to 40 students at a time? MELROSE: That works. And this is just what I wanted to make sure, cause I know that somebody later on down the line might trip across that one. And we’ve been clear throughout that we would try to preserve what was initially Keiki College and as evolved from various users over time. YUEN: And it’s fine with me if the site is used for, you know, for school purposes. That was, there is a shortage of that kind of thing definitely in Puna, and you have a facility that you can use it for. What I take it is that you, because you’re not planning to build a school as described under Phase IV and you don’t want to have a second access which was put in because of the size of the facility, you want to take that out but you still want to have educational use at a smaller scale. And that’s, you know, as far as the Department’s recommendation, that’s fine. It just needs to be clear in the follow-up letter. MELROSE: Great. That’s what we need, thank you. WATANABE: Okay. Do we have any further questions for the applicant? It does not look like it. So unless you have anything to add, Mr. Melrose, you may be seated. MELROSE: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: Okay. Yes, Mr. Iwashita? IWASHTIA: I’m prepared to make a motion. WATANABE: Please do. IWASHITA: With regard to applicant Puna Congregational Christian Church Use 120, amendment to Use Permit No. 120, which allowed the development of a church and related uses EXHIBIT B 5 on 4.9 acres of land within the Single Family Residential 10,000 square feet RS-10 District, I move that the application be approved and based on the recommendation of the Director together with the conditions and, I guess, with the clarification as to the 40 student or educational use that that be made by the Director. WATANABE: Thank you. ALAMEDA: Second. WATANABE: We have a second. Okay, any further discussion on the matter? DARROW: Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Yes. DARROW: Just so I can get clarification. Are you looking at adding a new condition that states educational use for up to 40 students shall be allowed on the property? WATANABE: I believe the Director indicated that that would just be included within the follow-up letter and not stated as a condition on this use permit. Is that correct, Mr.Yuen? YUEN: Right. Because the list of uses are not actually, as far as I can tell, contained -. You know, we have to be careful on how we write this follow-up letter because the list of uses are not contained in the recommendation. You know, what’s left, there’s an original letter that says you get to do certain uses; and then we have a recommendation that says we’re deleting certain uses but it’s not in the conditions, it’s just in the recommendation. So what we have to do is really do a modification. We’ll be sending a letter and we’ll say the permit now, the permit does not allow, was modified so that the hostel is not allowed and the K-12 school described as Phase IV is not allowed, however educational uses of up to 40 students at a time is allowed. WATANABE: Okay, that’s clear then? DARROW: Thank you. WATANABE: So no further discussion? Okay, Mr. Darrow. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that I’ll take the roll. Commissioner Iwashita? IWASHITA: Yes. DARROW: Commissioner Alameda? ALAMEDA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Domingo? EXHIBIT B 6 DOMINGO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Housel? HOUSEL: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ogata? OGATA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Woodward? WOODWARD: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes seven to zero. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. You’ll be notified in writing, Mr. Melrose. MELROSE: Thank you. The discussion ended at 11:23 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, East Hawaii Secretary . EXHIBIT B 7