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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-10-22 TPLANNING A regularly advertised hearing on the PLANNING DIRECTOR INTIATED AMENDMENT TO THE ZONING CODE was called to order at 4:21 p.m. in the County Building, Councilroom- Room 201, 25 Aupuni Street, Hilo, Hawai`i, with Chairman Fred Galdones presiding. PRESENT:Fred Galdones ABSENT & EXCUSED:Bill Thibadeau C. Kimo Alameda Earl Fujikawa William Graham Jeffrey McCall Ren° Siracusa Hannah Springer Francis Smith Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher J. Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager PhyllisFujimoto,StaffPlanner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner And 3 people from the public in attendance GALDONES:Commissioners, we are on Agenda Item No. 6. The Initiator is the Planning Director. This is an Amendment to Section 25-5-152(a) of Chapter 25 (Zoning Code), Hawaii County Code, by including commercial excavation‚ as a permitted use within the General Industrial (MG) district. Norman? HAYASHI:Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. I€ll just make this short. The Planning Director is initiating a change to include commercial excavation‚ as a permitted use within the General Industrial zoned district. As we have reviewed the Code that was adopted back in 1996, we found that quarrying or commercial excavation or, as the definition is, the removal of natural materials for profit or commercial purposes was not a permitted use. This is as a permitted use. So, basically, we are saying that it should be included and, therefore, the Planning Director has initiated this change. Any questions? GALDONES:Norman, will this require any action by the Commissioners? HAYASHI:This would be a recommendation by the Planning Commission and it€ll be forwarded over to the County Council. EXHIBIT D SIRACUSA:Just a question of definition. Removal of natural materials, how would that compare with, say, mining, or are they going to be considered equivalent? HAYASHI:Mining or quarrying, is that your question? SIRACUSA:Yes. HAYASHI:Yeah, that would be included as mining or quarrying of natural material. GALDONES:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:I€m certainly okay with the gist of it. But only I€m concerned about, I don€t have a, as clear a sense of where are the General Industrial lands as the Planning Director does. But if it€s just a permitted use and requires no Use Permit, I can imagine there may be operationswithintheGeneralIndustrialcategoryrightnowwhereifsomebodywalksinright next door and builds a quarry it would be very harmful to them; but I might be wrong on that, I don€t know. Should it be something that requires a Use Permit or something whereby we can€t, we don€t wind up with two conflicting issues? Just thinking about the quarry issue we had down in Ka`u before, you know, about the dust and all that. I don€t know, that€s just my concern I want to bring up. YUEN:Well, as to where the General Industrial zones are, no, I don€t want to answer that off the top of my head. I know that, one, that there is a MG in Shipman Business Park, correct, Norman? HAYASHI:That€s correct. YUEN:And then near Hilo Airport would be in the vicinity -. HAYASHI:That general area is designed General Industrial. YUEN:And there€s a recent, what actually, one of the things that brought this forward was the Honokohau Business Park where the current quarry is north of Kailua-Kona. That was being quarried on a Conservation District Use Permit, Norman, is that right? HAYASHI:That€s how it was initially permitted, correct. YUEN:Yeah. And so that, that gets rezoned to General Industrial and it still could continue as grandfathered. But then you have this question about expansion and new equipment and the like. So that€s one of the things that brought this forward; and it should be a permitted use in a Heavy Industrial zone, which is an area where potentially noxious industrial uses are generally allowed. All our recent quarries have been and actually done by Special Permit in the Ag District, because that€s the only way you can actually do a quarry, is to go in Ag. The noise and dust impacts have overall State Department of Health regulations that would control those. I can€t tell you exactly what those are, but those will be the level of control. 2 GALDONES: Further discussion? If none, the motion would be in order to accept the amendment and to forward that to the County Council with a recommendation of approval. Commissioner Fujikawa? FUJIKAWA:I make a motion to accept the amendment and forward it to the County Council. GALDONES:Do I hear a second? MCCALL:Second. GALDONES:It has been moved by Commissioner Fujikawa, seconded by Commissioner McCall, that the Amendment to Section 25-5-152(a) of Chapter 25 (Zoning Code), Hawaii County Code, be approved with the recommendation for approval to the County Council.Furtherdiscussion?Hearingnone,CommissionerSiracusa? SIRACUSA:Yeah.Icanforeseesome,Imean,someindustrialusesaremorenoxious that others and I can foresee some possible situations down the road where somebody would want to put a quarry right next to another industrial facility that wasn€t anywhere near as noxious. And from what I€ve seen, the Department of Health regulations are a long way away from really mitigating things like noise and dust. So I€m wondering if we€re not opening up a can of worms here; and I don€t feel comfortable with this. GALDONES:Any further discussion? SPRINGER:Mr. Chair? GALDONES:Commissioner Springer? SPRINGER:While that use might be permitted within this zoning, it would still need to come forward for approval, so, just with that in mind. GALDONES:Commissioner McCall? MCCALL:Maybe just to add to that, I mean, yeah, it still would need to come for approval. And it still, I mean, to me, if there is, if there€s an area that should have, you know, if there€s one area where we€re going to put quarries, I think that, you know, the General Industrial would be the place. I€d much rather see it there than in Ag. So -. SIRACUSA:Yeah, I was just under the impression that if we pass this, then they would have to come to us for a Special Permit. It would be automatically permit, is that -? YUEN:That is correct, that is correct. It would not, the only, once you are a permitted use, the only further review of this would be what we call Plan Approval, but that would not, that€s not a public process. And it would more, it would mean more looking at how 3 theaccess road was functioning, rather than the impact on the neighboring properties. So that would, that is the effect of this, is that it does not have any further public review; it€d be listed as a permitted use. SIRACUSA:In that case, I would feel more comfortable with not passing this so, because that way we would have a little more control over extenuating circumstances. GALDONES:Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:Well, personally, if the Planning Director€s comfortable, I would be comfortable with it. But it seems to me an alternative would be it€s a permitted use that requires a Use Permit. That€s the way things were, are in a number of things. So if the Planning Director thinks that€s more appropriate, you know, that sounds good to me, but that is an alternative. Rather than saying no or yes, we could have the middle ground, which is it is an approved use butittakesaUsePermitfromthePlanningCommission. GALDONES:Furtherdiscussion?CommissionerSpringer? SPRINGER:ThePlanningDirector€sresponsetoCommissionerGraham€sproposal? YUEN:Youknow,let€sdeferthisitemandletmethinkaboutit.Itisworth thinking about it, and it€s a little late in the day. GALDONES:Okay. The Planning Director has requested deferment on this subject matter and has removed it from the agenda. Therefore, there will be no motion to entertain, procedurally, that we will hold this in abeyance. SPRINGER:Do we need to move to defer? GALDONES:Seeing that, being that he is the maker of it, he€s the initiator, he has removed it, I do not see the need unless counsel states otherwise? TORIGOE:Well, I think just for the record, would anybody object to there being a deferral for that purpose? No, okay. Then you got a consensus on that. GALDONES:Okay. The discussion ended at 4:31 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, Secretary 4