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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-10-03 TCOUNTY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT OCTOBER 3, 2008 A regularly advertised hearing on the AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 25 INTIATED BY THE COUNTY COUNCIL REGARDING CONCURRENCY CONDITIONS was called to order at 2:19 p.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 Takashi Domingo C. Kimo Alameda Frederic Housel Andrew Iwashita Shelly Ogata Rell Woodward Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Staff Planner Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner And no one from the public in attendance. INITIATOR: COUNTY COUNCIL Amendment to Chapter 25 (Zoning Code), Article 2, Division 4, Section 25-2-46 (Hawaii County Code 1983 (2005 edition, as amended) relating to concurrency conditions for parks and recreational facilities, wastewater treatment facilities, and police and firefighting facilities. WATANABE: Agenda Item No. 11 is initiated by the County Council. This is an Amendment to Chapter 25 (Zoning Code), Article 2, Division 4. This is the first reading. YUEN: Right. WATANABE: So there will be no decision made. We’re just going to have staff explain this proposed amendment to us; and we’ll hear it again at the next Kona meeting. So with that, Mr. Darrow, are you going to do the explaining on this or is -? DARROW: The Director will be. WATANABE: Director, Chris? YUEN: I will. EXHIBIT E 1 WATANABE: Okay. WOODWARD: Where did everybody go? Nobody cares? YUEN: Nobody is interested in this bill which would end all necessity for the Planning Commission to meet about rezonings for many years to come? So, it’s very interesting. But this is an overall amendment to the Zoning Code that has been proposed by the County Council. Very often, you know, the Planning Commission deals with individual rezonings; and also amendments to the Zoning Code itself comes to the Planning Commission for consideration before the County Council takes final action on it. Examples of overall amendments that you’ve looked at would be things, the parking requirements are contained in the Zoning Code. There was a Council-initiated bill to look at the parking requirements that the Planning Commission considered. Eventually it failed when it went back up to the County Council. Well, this is a bill that was initiated by the County Council. It was passed in Committee to have a resolution to have this bill be considered by the Planning Director and by the Planning Commission. So the draft bill is now contained in Exhibit A, and also the Planning Director’s background and recommendation. What it says is that rezoning shall not be granted in any district unless there are adequate public facilities as determined by the various departments; and it covers the areas of parks, police, fire, and wastewater. It starts off, if you read the bill carefully, it starts off saying that the adequacy shall be assessed; but then it goes on to say that the standards by which it shall be assessed shall be based on certain standards that are contained in the bill.And so adequate park facilities are defined as a minimum of 5 acres of public park facilities with developed recreational facilities per thousand residents in a district. So to do a professional job of seeing what this means we did an analysis in the Planning Department of how many developed park facilities we have. The bill doesn’t further define what should be considered as developed. But generally we look at, certainly, if you had a ballfield, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, some other kind of developed facility, that counted as developed. Even beach parks with facilities like Onekahakaha we counted as developed. We didn’t actually do this, we mostly worked from an analysis that had been done in 2000 in support of the General Plan. So large open area parks like Kekahakai State Park, Kalopa State Park, do not generally count as developed. So much of the park acreage got counted out of the bill. So what we concluded in doing that analysis is that the parks were short in all districts of the island, except North Hilo which has a very small population and has Laupahoehoe Park, and South Hilo which does have quite a large amount of developed park facilities compared to other districts on the island. Then for police it said one manned police station per 12,500 residents and three police offers per thousand residents. What we did, and we had to first assume that Council meant authorized positions rather than the actual number of hired bodies. There are often vacancies and so you don’t have that many hired bodies. But it’s also, you know, it can change on a day-to-day basis. So we also did an analysis of the sworn numbers of police personnel; and, again, the County would be short of three per thousand in all districts of the island, except North Hilo and South Hilo. South Hilo is a little misleading because, and also North Kona is a little misleading, because many functions are handled out of South Hilo District and out of North Kona District and they serve the other districts. For example, a Puna vice case is done by vice officers EXHIBIT E 2 assigned to the South Hilo District. So in the way this was counted, it meant that there are more officers in South, it looks like there are more officers in South Hilo or in North Kona. So, again, the County was short. And there’s also the statement of one manned police station per 12,500 residents, it’s actually one manned station per district. So every district that has more than 12,500 residents is short. That would include South Hilo. And then, finally, a minimum of five firefighters per shift and 15 firefighters per fire station per district; and, again, the same analysis. Most of the fire stations had 15 personnel per district, except Laupahoehoe station. So that means when you add all these things up it means that all districts don’t match the standard. And so you would end up barring rezoning in all districts of the island. The recommendation is negative. If it’s meant to get the County to have more police and firefighters we can’t see how stopping rezoning leads to that result. If the County sets a goal of having a certain number of police officers per district it should fund having that number of police officers and go out and hire them, same thing with firefighters, and having certain number of police stations. That’s really up to the County to go and do. So the result of this is negative. In looking at the park situation, we could improve how we handle parks in rezonings and in subdivisions. We tend to, for the major projects we have had typically park requirements put into the rezoning. I can’t say that there has been any standard method for doing that; and we probably should have a more standardized expectation of what our park requirements should be in a particular residential rezoning. But the idea that rezonings should be stopped in an area because there aren’t enough parks again does not in itself lead to more parks. In fact, many of the rezonings which have been granted, particularly in the past 15 years, do require, typically the larger residential rezonings, do require park space to be dedicated. And the areas that are short on parks tend to be that way because like in Puna or in Ocean View they’re being developed on subdivisions that were granted in the fifties or sixties, or in North Kona they’re being granted on zoning that was, they’re being developed on zoning that was granted in the sixties or seventies, typically without park requirements. Waikoloa Village is the same situation. So in the end we are recommending negatively on this amendment. This is the first time you’ve looked at it and we’ll have it heard in Kona again before asking the Commission to take a vote on it. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Mr. Yuen? Yes, Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: I don’t have any questions. But are we going to have discussion on this or -? WATANABE: Oh, yeah, we could discuss this also -. WOODWARD: Okay. WATANABE: Although we’re not going to take any action. EXHIBIT E 3 WOODARD: Yeah, well, I look at this and I think this bill is an atrocity. It is government micromanagement at its absolute worst. What they’ve done here is they’ve tried to cast a blanket of uniformed regulations that covers all the districts of the island, and all the districts are different. Why do we bother to do community development plans if County Council is going to tell us how many parks we have to have, and how many policemen, and so on and so forth? I think this is an absolutely atrocious document. And I’m sorry that nobody else showed up to say anything, but they didn’t. That’s my take on it. WATANABE: Mr. Domingo. DOMINGO: Thank you very much. I’m not going to be as critical as the Doc. But to me it’s a cop-out, a complete cop-out by the County Council. I mean a few months ago they said no rezonings in South Kohala and North and South Kona until they finish with the community development plan. That has been completed. And now they come up with another measure like this. It seems like, you know, they just don’t want anything happening on this island. And I for one think that if anything should be considered let’s bring it up on a piece-by-piece basis and consider its merits, you know, based on its benefit to the County and what it can provide for us. That’s why we have people, responsible people, in office and the staff to make these kinds of recommendations and decisions for the people of this island. But just to say completely no, then it’s just a cop-out for them. HOUSEL: Question. WATANABE: Yes. Mr. Housel. HOUSEL: Okay, thank you. Director Yuen, I understand your perception and I agree with you that, you know, maybe one size doesn’t fit all and that, you know, there are short- comings. But do you have any alternative recommendations that, rather than just, you know, unfavorably recommending this? YUEN: Aside from working, I do think that we should work on park requirements - - And there is a Park Dedication Ordinance in Chapter 8 of the Code. That actually is broader than zoning and it applies to new subdivisions and new buildings -- and that would be my main recommendation. All in all though I’m not in favor of the approach of saying no zoning until you have “x” number of whatever as a growth control mechanism. I did write a couple paragraphs on the growth control issues. My approach is we did go through the community development plan process and there is a message in the four community development plans that we passed. There is a pretty clear message on what kind of development is wanted and not wanted. In North Kona actually to implement the community development plans in terms of where people are supposed to go, that will take rezoning. Mostly areas where the plan tries to direct growth are currently zoned Agricultural. In Puna the growth of the area, zoning is almost irrelevant to the growth of the area.Almost everybody is moving into subdivisions that were established a long time ago. Zoning, what the plan calls for that would involve zoning would be Commercial zoning in Village Centers, which would be a tool to really provide commercial and other services to accommodate the population, rather than something that is going to increase significantly the total amount of growth in Puna. It’s just to try to get sites closer to people that you can actually have businesses and offices and the like. So that’s EXHIBIT E 4 much more my approach, is to work from a planning model rather than from a model of do you have “x” level of facilities and if you don’t then stop zoning. Example, you know, let’s take Hawaiian Ocean View Estates. Nobody has ever actually applied for rezoning. You know, you have a little bit of Commercial rezoning at the bottom of Ocean View Estates. So nobody has applied for rezoning in Ocean View, but there are 9,000 lots that people can move to. So you create, you stop, it doesn’t mean anything to stop rezoning in Ocean View but it also doesn’t get them a, you know, police station or a park. So I’m afraid that I don’t really have, aside from recommending that we do look at Chapter 8, much to say that would tweak this approach to something else. HOUSEL: Right. Well, I agree with Commissioner Woodward that, you know, this island is so diverse and each community is different and enforcing a standard on everyone is not probably appropriate. But there obviously are, I mean just looking at the data here, you mentioned the police, there are areas which are deficient in support. And so I’m looking at what would be another approach to try to improve those deficiencies, without using the rezoning as a club. YUEN: Well, on police and fire those are County facilities, and so it’s a financial commitment on the part of the County to go and build the facilities. Typically it’s, those are also easier facilities typically from a land use or EIS point of view than roads. And sometimes, you know, like for an example, trying to build a road in an area, you get stuck because of archaeology, other kinds of problems. So typically if you, if the County is committed to put another police station in Puna, it’s mostly a money issue. You know, you can find the site and do the studies to build it. But you have to pony up the money to build it; and then if the idea is you need “x’ staff, then you have to come up with the money to hire the people to staff it. So that’s really a separate issue than the zoning issue. It’s a financial issue. HOUSEL: Right, right. Thank you. YUEN: And, you know, there are places that will have this kind of an approach. I mean this is not a completely wild idea that somebody came up with here. But where you see it more typically is you have a lot of communities that are basically built out with their current zoning in, like take a mainland community. All right? And so they may have enough police officers and they may have enough firefighters for the community that they have zoned. And then they may pass a bill that says, well, if we’re going to zone to allow the community to expand then we have to concurrently have enough police officers and the firefighters and the like. And I could see it making sense in that context. Unfortunately here we do have a lot of growth built into the existing zoning. So by putting a halt to zoning we’re not putting a halt to growth and expansion. So it’s not that effective as a tool to making sure that our public facilities keep up with the level of development. WATANABE: Mr. Woodward? WOODWARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I would echo what Commissioner Housel just said. And that is the solution to infrastructure is not to penalize people, it’s for the government to get off their okoles and donate, and, you know, pony up the resources to get in more firemen, more policemen. That’s a disconnect. What has rezoning got to do with the EXHIBIT E 5 inadequacies that we have right now? You know, the County government has got to get going and improve the infrastructure. And, like I say, to me it’s a big disconnect. WATANABE: Mr. Domingo? DOMINGO: Thank you. Again, what we’re doing is we’re holding them hostage, the potential subdividers/developers. We’re holding them hostage because we don’t have the facilities. There are numerous ways or financing schemes that can be used and should be looked at. In fact, the impact fees have been instituted to address the lack of facilities in a district; and that’s why there are fees being attached to the ordinance bills today. So, you know, how far do we go in penalizing people who are not at all at fault because of the problems that we already have? Thank you. WATANABE: Mr. Iwashita? IWASHITA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think we all recognize that concurrency is an issue on this island and that something needs to be done about it; and, you know, this is an effort or what’s being suggested arises out of that concurrency concern. I wanted to add my thinking after going to the HCPO Conference and listening to the concerns about peak oil and the benefits of localizing the economy, that in terms of where this goes and how to evaluate this or the concerns about concurrency that this raises, it’s really an infrastructure problem where you’re talking about parks or you’re talking about social service infrastructure, police and firefighters and so forth. The thought I would like everyone to consider is that if we localize and keep the urbanization to a more localized area to the ones we already have -- basically, as the Director pointed out, you know, that we have a lot of development/dwellings that can be built, you know, just based on what’s already approved -- and if we focus on, and my idea, you know, beefing up the CDP process and in the implementation of them and have the communities be engaged in focusing the delivery of the infrastructure in these concentrated areas, then that is the direction in which, if we look at any future proposals for development, to look at it, in that framework to minimize the sprawl, if you will, keep the future development localized to the benefit of minimizing the cost. Cause the infrastructure is going to have to be provided. So to minimize the infrastructure, both social and the parks and schools and all those things, and what would be required, that would be a bigger framework to look at, you know, in addressing these infrastructure concerns and concurrency concerns. Because if we keep going down, you know, the rezoning, whether it’s commercial or residential and that, and we continue to allow, you know, let’s say doing Ag, changing Ag zonings to residential developments and it’s on an essentially a sprawl model so you’re going to end up with Hawaii Kais and Kapoleis and all those kinds of areas; and we definitely are going to be aggravating the already existing infrastructure lag that we have. So, I mean, the concern is there. I agree that this probably is not the best way for us to address these issues. But I think it’s something that we all or, you know, I will continue to focus on in terms of any future applications for change of zone, in particular, that, you know, we get to review. But definitely I think we really, you know, I would focus on these other issues and keeping things localized so that we can -. In the end, you know, we talk about Ag and promoting agriculture. If we keep the urbanization localized then that’s how we protect our Ag lands. Thank you. EXHIBIT E 6 WATANABE: Any further discussion? OGATA: Mr. Chair? WATANABE: Yes. OGATA: I’m just having a hard time understanding or maybe -. Is there some background or history on why they decided to do this this way? I mean what was their motivation behind -? YUEN: Not really beyond what was put in the resolution, no. So we provided that to you. My understanding is, I think I’ve tried to mention just a couple of minutes ago that there are places that have ordinances that are something like this. But you have to look at what their situation is and -. I would say what you usually probably have is kind of a threshold where it ties to a later project. But if you actually were in a situation where your future zoning would control your growth then you would, say, not necessarily bar the rezoning but you would tie in the development of the area to the development of the facilities. But you can’t really, at this point on this island, many parts of the island, you really can’t make that work because of the growth that’s built in to what has already been approved. WATANABE: Okay, it seems like we’re out of discussion. So for the record there is no one signed up to testify for this. The discussion ended at 2:41 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, East Hawai‘i Secretary EXHIBIT E 7