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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-10-17 TCOUNCIL-CONCURRENCY PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT OCTOBER 17, 2008 A regularly advertised hearing on the AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 25 INTIATED BY THE COUNTY COUNCIL REGARDING CONCURRENCY CONDITIONS was called to order at 9:57 a.m. in the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel, Hau Room, 62-100 Kaunaoa Drive, Kohala Coast, Hawaii, with Chairman Rodney Watanabe presiding. PRESENT: Rodney Watanabe ABSENT & EXCUSED: C. Kimo Alameda Lani Bowman Takashi Domingo Frederic Housel Andrew Iwashita (from 10:17 a.m.) Shelly Ogata Rell Woodward Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel  Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner Maija Cottle, 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: Our second item of the day, this is a County Council initiated amendment to Chapter 25. And I believe Mr. Yuen is going to expand on that. By the way, this is our second reading, so we would take action on this. YUEN: Yes. This is the same item that we discussed two weeks ago in our Hilo meeting. This is a Council initiated amendment to the Zoning Code, Chapter 25, and so it has to be reviewed by both the Planning Department and the Planning Commission, and a recommendation sent to the County Council about this bill. I did discuss it at the last Commission meeting. I’ll be happy to take questions on it; I didn’t want to spend a lot of time discussing it further today unless the Commission did have questions. If there were members of the public here, I would spend a little more time on it. But in a nutshell it says that rezoning shall not be granted in a district unless certain criteria are met on a level of public facilities. And there’re specific criteria for the number of police officers, the number of police stations per district, the number of firefighters per fire station, the acreage EXHIBIT B 1 of park space and the availability of wastewater treatment facilities. We are making a negative recommendation on this. Our take on it is that it creates – in most districts of the island because of the level of facilities, in actually all districts of the island at least one of the criteria are not currently met – so in effect it would create a zoning moratorium in all districts of the island. At the same time we don’t see how it directly leads to having more firefighters, police officers, parks or wastewater treatment facilities. These are facilities which are under the control of the County; if it feels that it needs more fire stations, it has the ability to budget and build more fire stations or hire more police officers. And finally, we have the community development plans, two of which have been passed and two of which are in the works, which have land use patterns called for, growth control measures called for; but it would involve some rezoning in order to implement the land use patterns that are outlined in those development plans. For example, in the North Kona area we have transit oriented development areas that are currently in Agricultural zone, and to have this preferred growth model those would have to be rezoned. So I would be happy to take any further questions on this. And we are asking that the Commission take a vote on this and basically vote to send a negative recommendation. The part that the Department thinks that we can work on further is the standards for parks; that we could amend the park dedication ordinance to have more specific parks requirements with new developments. WATANABE: Thank you, Mr. Yuen. Do we have any questions of Mr. Yuen? Yes, Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: No, I don’t have any questions, but if it were comments, I have comments. And actually this is the first time I’ve ever done this; I actually wrote down things. Normally I just speak off the cuff. But I’m very strongly in favor of the Director’s negative recommendation. As my fellow Commissioners know, I tend to call things the way I see them and at times I get a little bit brash. I’ll try to keep my comments civil; by that I mean I just wouldn’t use the expletives that I would normally use if I were discussing this with friends at my home. And you know, I’ve seen some absurd bills come before us, but this one is approaching ludicrous speed. There is absolutely nothing in this bill which is beneficial to the citizens of the County, the failing economy in our State or the County government itself. This bill is a dead skunk that the Council is trying to hang around our heads. And let me count the ways: The bill would establish arbitrary county-wide quotas for park space, fire and police service, and sewer service. Why do we need to bother to work on community development plans if County Council has already decided what infrastructure and services we all need? And this is a cookie- cutter approach; it’s a one-size-fits-all approach. And it’s absolutely inappropriate. Every district and the communities within that district are different and have different needs and priorities. To mandate arbitrary quotas takes local control away and gives it to the County. The EXHIBIT B 2 community development plans are our best safeguard against this tyranny. If the County Council passes this piece of work, we don’t need to bother with community development plans. Your voice has been taken away. And as Director Yuen was saying, no district in the County currently conforms to all of these arbitrary guidelines in this bill. What that means is there can be no change in zoning until these ridiculous guidelines are met. The bill intends to affect a moratorium on zoning changes, using lack of infrastructure and services as an excuse. However, the bill does nothing to address the problems they cite. Specifically, the County Council has adopted arbitrary levels of infrastructure and services, with no way to achieve these goals. No funding provided. If the County Council really feels the levels of service in this bill are necessary, they need to get off their okoles and arrange for the funding. As an example, an elderly couple that comes to us – and we have this happen all the time – requesting a zoning change so they can build a home for their son and daughter-in-law are not going to be able to pay for the County’s deficient infrastructure. And their request for rezoning would have to be denied. In fact, we couldn’t even consider it. And Director Yuen has made a number of excellent points; I would like to quote a few of his remarks in his recommendation with which I heartily agree: “…. this rezoning ban would do nothing to increase the number of parks or police officers. It would penalize property owners by forbidding them from getting zoning changes when they cannot themselves remedy the situation with respect to parks, police, or fire stations.It would, in fact, ban rezoning on the grounds that insufficient developed park space existed in the district, even though the zoning request might include public park lands that would reduce the problem. Rezoning decisions should be made on their merits, guided by the General Plan and Community Development Plans. If a site is not a good one for the development proposed by the rezoning, it should be denied. The denial can be based on many different reasons, like traffic congestion, flooding, historic sites, inconsistency with the LUPAG map, the desire to avoid sprawl or protect open space, and any of the other factors that go into good land use planning …. But this can be addressed when rezoning is considered, rather than apply an inflexible district-wide rule.” And the County Council must have been bored. I really have no idea why they came up with this atrocious plan. It is in fact government micro-manipulation at its worst. This bill has no redeeming social value, is not going to help our people or our communities, and I strongly encourage my fellow Commissioners to send a strongly negative recommendation with regard to this piece of work. And if you really want to know how I feel, just ask me. WATANABE: Mr. Domingo, something to add? DOMINGO: In addition to that, as I said at our last meeting, it was just a cop-out by the Council to come up with this, and they can easily address their concerns in their proposed ordinance by the powers that they already have.And as the Planning Director said and then as Commissioner Woodward said, you know, it would only penalize those who’ve been living here, who’ve inherited properties from their ancestors for many years back and who still hang onto these properties, and now because of the hard economic times we are facing, they feel they need EXHIBIT B 3 to rezone and subdivide their properties for their children; this would make it even harder for them. And what this does really establish, it provides for those who can really afford it – probably those who come from outside of the State who buy property here. They can afford it; they can afford to buy the property, they can afford to rezone it, and for them it would be no problem. What this does is, it further defines the have-nots and between those who have. And that’s very dangerous in our society in which we live, you know, to establish a demarcation line where you have those who cannot afford, those who are poor, and those who are wealthy and affluent who can do anything they want. And that’s scary. WATANABE: Thank you. HOUSEL: Chairman? WATANABE: Yes, Mr. Housel? HOUSEL: I had a question to Director Yuen. I think you did an excellent job putting, compiling the data to show the parks that exist or police situations in every district, and I think that’s very helpful. Do you have any idea if the Council had this information prior to initiating this bill? YUEN: No. I know, I think they consulted with the Fire Department and the Police Department as to what they consider their ideal staffing level is. But beyond that I’m pretty sure that they didn’t because, you know, we went and, naturally in response to having this bill, we had to see, okay, what is the present situation? HOUSEL: Right. Basically, having been a part of the Kona Community Development Plan, I’m a firm believer in concurrency; however, I believe concurrency means providing infrastructure as you are building developments or immediately prior – not catching up. So I think this is somewhat misguided; even though it probably has a good intent to try to make a difference, try to improve things, I don’t think it’s appropriate. And so I don’t believe the result is appropriate for what they are asking to do here. So I fully support your negative recommendation. And I would like to ask if you would include your data in the negative recommendation to the Council, so they do understand what the negative impact is on, if indeed they do choose to pass this. YUEN: Yes. We would normally repackage what we present to the Planning Commission. If the Planning Commission is favorable, in addition to comments made by the Planning Commission we normally repackage the records, recommendation as part of what we send up to the Council. So that would all go up to them. HOUSEL: Do you believe it would be appropriate to make a recommendation in our response here that they really, to satisfy what their intent is here, either the Council or the next administration to build a plan to catch up for future concurrency, but -? YUEN: Yes. And just talking generally about what the Commission can do in a situation like this, if the Commission has other things besides what’s in the Director’s EXHIBIT B 4 recommendation that the Commission would like to send, that’s quite a correct thing for the Commission to talk about, and then we would try to – you don’t have to work out the exact language – we would try to work it into our letter to the Council that this is what the Commission thinks ought to happen. HOUSEL: Okay. WOODWARD: Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Yes, Mr. Woodward? WOODWARD: I would like to strongly suggest that the Council pay attention to the community development plans. Why are we bothering to do then, if they are going to adopt a county-wide policy like this? They need to take advantage of the infrastructure requests that are in each of the community development plans and not approve a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach like this. So my suggestion would be the County Council just cool their jets and look at the community development plans and not put forth some ridiculous bill like this. WATANABE: Thank you. Any further -? WOODWARD: And that’s the way I feel. WATANABE: Toned down, of course. Any further comments? Okay, well, I tend to agree. And I think the problem with catching up here is that we haven’t been able to pass the impact fee, we have no set structure for funding any of this, and currently as zoning changes occur, we are, based on either the community development plan or the General Plan or input from the Public Works, etc., making requirements of the developers to put into place some of the infrastructure that is lacking at the developers’ cost. I realize it’s being passed onto the final consumer, but we are, in lieu of having, you know, an effective impact fee, we are using that process. And I think, again, this bill, while it addresses the lack of infrastructure, does not address how it will be attained or funded. So I agree wholeheartedly with the negative recommendation. And if there are no further comments, then I’ll entertain -. Ms. Ogata? OGATA: I move that the Planning Commission send a negative recommendation to the Council on the proposed amendment to the Zoning Code with an emphasis on -. WATANABE: Focusing on the community development plans -? OGATA: The community development plans. WATANABE: Yeah, okay. Do we have a second to that? DOMINGO: Second. WATANABE: Okay, thank you, Mr. Domingo. Any further discussion on this? Okay. Mr. Darrow? EXHIBIT B 5 DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The motion before us is to send an unfavorable recommendation to the County Council with an emphasis on the CDPs. With that, I will take the roll call. Commissioner Ogata? OGATA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Bowman? BOWMAN: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Housel? HOUSEL: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Woodward? WOODWARD: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes, six to zero. WATANABE: Okay, great. We have one final agenda item – very short day today – those would be the minutes -. YUEN: Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Yes? YUEN: I just wanted to make a little comment on, actually it pertains to the last item, and just as a matter of background and perspective. I think the bill was motivated by a desire to make public facilities parallel with growth in the various districts on the island. And people in all districts, I think, are dissatisfied that generally public infrastructure hasn’t kept up, and I think, particularly in the fast growing areas of the island like Puna and West Hawaii. The difficulty is that almost all the growth takes place on entitlements, either subdivisions or zoning, that were granted quite a long time ago. One of the biggest areas is all the preexisting lots of subdivisions that people can just move into, you know, Hawaiian Paradise Park and the like, and that accounts for at least 50 percent of home building on the island. So there is really no way to touch that; that’s a reservoir of growth that exists. The second big area is the resorts, which were EXHIBIT B 6 mostly zoned in ’60s and ’70s like Mauna Lani, Waikoloa development. Waikoloa Village was zoned in 1969. The interesting thing is if you go back and look at those old zonings, they are like three pages long after, you know, they go through the property description but then there are hardly any conditions, requirements and the like. So within, say, a particular, like a resort, they may have had requirements in the resort but they didn’t have any off-site types of requirements, affordable housing, build a road, those kinds of things. Then from about the late ’80s, mid to late ’80s on, you’ll see typically zoning does have a lot of requirements. A lot of those projects actually haven’t been built or have been built out really slowly, and partially sometimes because they have a lot of requirements on them. And my take on this is that, first, there is going to be a period in the next few years of an economic downturn, and people will come in with rezonings and in many cases bad projects in bad areas, because the pendulum will have swung where people are more concerned about economic development, economic growth, you have tendency to approve some of these. There really isn’t a necessity to approve anything to have construction and development because there really is a lot built into what’s already been approved. So people have to be careful of this in the years that come, to not burden the County with bad projects that were approved because of an immediate economic climate. At the same time we have to recognize that even, you know, by putting a stop to zoning, you are not going to stop people from moving to the island and creating a continued need for improving public infrastructure. So there is no land use tag that solves that problem; that’s a problem that has to be solved by the County and the State actually going out and building roads and schools and parks and the like. WATANABE: Yes, Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: Mr. Chairman, if I could comment on Director Yuen’s comment. I would agree with basically everything he says. There need to be controls. But the problem is, this – to use Barack Obama’s analogy – is using a hatchet when you need a scalpel. And you know, the parents who want to build a house for their son and daughter-in-law, and to do that they have to rezone their small piece of property, are not going to be able to do it because of this bill. So it is inherently unfair. And I have no idea on earth why the County – like I said, they must have been bored – I have no idea why the County Council put this bill before us. It’s the worst piece of legislation I have ever seen come before us. WATANABE: Thank you all for your comments. I tend to agree with a lot of those. I think, though, you know, again, they had an opportunity to pass some sort of impact fee; it’s not been passed. With regard to the Director’s comments, as far as the resort zoning that’s already in existence, we have an opportunity to impact that because they still require an SMA, and so – most of the time anyway, they still require an SMA – so you know, that’s where we can make some difference there. But anyway, I don’t think it’s within our power to resolve. Certainly, they’re going to have to look for a means to finance all of this. Mr. Housel, it looks like you have some comments. HOUSEL: Yeah, a question to Director Yuen. Because you are a short timer, will you present this, our recommendation to the Council? EXHIBIT B 7 YUEN: I’m not sure it would make a Council agenda while I’m still Director. What happens is, we are pretty quick, the Department; you take a vote, we make the recommendation letter, we prepare it for the Chair to sign, the Chair signs it and sends up to the Council, and they are pretty quick on getting it to their agenda. But you know, it may make their second Planning – then it goes to the Planning Committee of the Council – it may make a second meeting in November, but I’m not sure it would. HOUSEL: I think that would be really important to the Council to understand, you know, exactly why the Commission gave it a negative recommendation, if at all possible. YUEN: I think, you know, the letter is supposed to explain it, so it shouldn’t be a matter of my personally going there. I do go to, typically, go to the Council meetings or the Planning Committee, when they consider planning related bills. But I have no, I think that the recommendation that we send will both summarize very well the views of the Commission and of the Planning Department. HOUSEL: Okay, thank you. WOODWARD: Just a quick question. I assume that the County Council will have minutes from this hearing. Is that correct? YUEN: Yeah, those are also included. WOODWARD: Okay, thank you. WATANABE: Your voice not for naught. Okay. I think we are all in agreement, and we probably have beaten this horse to death. The discussion ended at 10:22 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, West Hawaii Secretary EXHIBIT B 8