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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-12-01 tchapters23 25 27 PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT DECEMBER 1, 2006 A regularly advertised hearing on the AMENDMENTS TO CHAPTERS 23 (SUBDIVISION), 25 (ZONING) AND 27 (FLOOD CONTROL) was called to order at 1:10 p.m.in the County of Hawaii, Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawaii with Chairman C. Kimo Alameda presiding. Kimo AlamedaWilliam R. Graham PRESENT: C. ABSENT & EXCUSED: Fred Galdones Andrew Iwashita Jeffrey McCall Alvin Rho Allen Salavea QdmdlRhq`btr` Rodney Watanabe Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher J. Yuen, Planning Director Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner No one from the public in attendance. INITIATOR: PLANNING DIRECTOR Amendments to Chapters 23 (Subdivision), 25 (Zoning) and 27 (Flood Control), Hawaii County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended) to reduce potential water pollution, in compliance with “New Development Management Measures” required by Section 6217 of the Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments. ALAMEDA: We’re moving along to Agenda Item No. 7, Planning Director. Staff? HAYASHI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have assigned this to the Planning Director, so he’ll make the presentation. ALAMEDA: Mr. Director. YUEN: Yes. These are some amendments to Chapter 23 which is the Subdivision Code), Chapter 25 the Zoning Code and Chapter 27 which you don’t usually look at which is the County Flood Control Code. This is just, you don’t have to work too hard on this today because this is one of these things because it’s general that we want to have it heard on both sides of the island. I don’t see anybody here that seems to be interested in this. But we will be hearing this th again at our Hapuna meeting on December 6, and that would be the first time we would ask you to take action on this. EXHIBIT B 1 The Federal Government has a requirement that is meant to reduce water pollution from developed areas, specifically meant to reduce water pollution that can come from surface water into streams, lakes, the ocean, other natural bodies of water.This fits into a whole program covering what people call non-point source pollution. That is a point source is like a factory or mill that discharges effluent through a pipe into the ocean, or sewage treatment plant would be an example. Non-point source pollution is runoff from Ag fields, from construction sites, from subdivisions and the like. In the development phase, say when the ground is being cleared, that’s usually covered by what we call an NPDES Permit or national pollution discharge elimination system permit; and that’s usually tide to a grading or grubbing permit. The Federal requirements though also cover once there is construction on the site. So we were a little bit behind in doing this, and so we have to bring these amendments forward. One of the penalties is that if we don’t do this we could lose funding for the coastal zone management program which has about $300,000 a year coming into the Planning Department and supports some of the staff and our activities including our SMA permits that you see here, that some of the funding for doing that program is with this Federal funding. So the idea is that you have to not just let water run off directly into the ocean or into a river, it has to have some kind of filtration or treatment. And the method that fits in best to what has been done typically in Hawaii County is to have it go into drywells. The drywell is just a pit typically 10 to 20 feet deep that the surface runoff goes into the drywell; and then this has the effect of a treatment, or the filtration, that’s required. Because before, at the bottom of the drywell is rock, and then so the sediment and other suspended solids will get filtered out by the rock before it flows into any kind of bodies of water. The Federal government, the standards expect you to treat just the beginning amount of rain, the first amount of rain that falls, not cover all your flood waters with this. But the simplest way to do this was to just tie it into the County’s existing practices for flood control. And what the practices were -- And this is not, we’re putting this in an ordinance, this has been a matter of practice but it hasn’t actually been an ordinance of the County -- is that a developer is expected to provide drainage into a drywell system for what’s called the one-hour ten-year storm event. And what this is means is it’s the storm that has a 10 percent chance of occurring in any given year and the amount of rain you would expect in the heaviest one-hour of that storm. And actually it’s quite a bit of rain water. They have a chart for the island and it comes to two inches an hour in Kona and five inches an hour in Hilo. They have a chart that covers the whole island for this. So we are simply putting this requirement in formally in Chapter 23, you see the amendment there. The Subdivision Code currently has a very general statement of the developer/subdivider being required to provide flood control to the satisfaction of DPW, this is Section 23-92. This would make it much more specific and say that they have to provide the storm drainage and it has to go into a drywell, rather in a filtration system. So that covers all subdivisions. Then the Federal government, the standards also makes you require, require you to cover other kinds of urban development. And there are some significant kinds of development that don’t involve a subdivision. For example, an office building, apartment building, they don’t usually have a subdivision associated with that. It’s just one ownership. But you might have a big building that’s under, that’s being developed. So almost all those kinds of developments need a plan approval from the County. And plan approval is covered by Chapter 25 of the Zoning Code. It’s a stage where the Planning Department looks at a building. We had some discussion of plan EXHIBIT B 2 approval when we looked at the parking for an industrial/commercial building in Kaloko at the last meeting. So that’s a stage where we could look at this and make sure that they had taken care of the site drainage at plan approval. So we’re amending the Chapter 25 plan approval to say that you have to have a site drainage plan, you have to have a site drainage plan approved by the Department of Public Works. And, again, it has the same requirement of draining the one- hour ten-year storm into the drywells. We then noticed that there’s one type of development that can be fairly major that’s not covered currently by plan approval; and that’s major agricultural processing facilities. Those are allowed in agricultural areas. There are things like a sugar mill would be a major agricultural processing facility, a saw mill, other kinds of large processing plants for agricultural products. A cannery could be one, a slaughter house could be one.A dairy building could be a major agricultural processing facility. This is the type of structure that the Federal requirements want you to cover. So we had to, for this reason, and this is something that I have been thinking about doing for some time anyway, is requiring plan approval for those kinds of buildings. And so the Code would be amended so that those would be brought under plan approval. And then the final part of this package that I just mentioned briefly is that the contents of a site drainage plan we put in the Flood Control Ordinance, Chapter 27. And normally you don’t, the Planning Commission does not normally look at Chapter 27. It’s not really part of what you review under your requirements under the Charter. But the whole picture doesn’t make sense unless you see what the site drainage plan looks like; and so that’s why we put Chapter 27 in there. ALAMEDA: All right, Fellow Commissioners, any questions? How about Commissioner Siracusa, then Commissioner Watanabe. SIRACUSA: Isn’t it pretty much a done deal that we have to approve these anyway because otherwise we won’t be in compliance? I mean it’s not like we go out to public hearing and someone says, oh, I don’t like this part or how about adding something like that and we would consider it? Is it, I mean, or isn’t it? YUEN: Well, there are different ways that you could come into compliance. So this is not only, like this is not dictated. The contents of how you do it on a local level are not dictated by the Federal government. You just have to have an ordinance like this. So I wouldn’t say there’s no way to make changes. But you have to have something like this. For example, we’re tying this into the flood program, although the purpose of this is not actually a flood control measure. All right? But the result of that is that we’re actually treating more water with this proposal than the Feds would actually require you to. But since you’re putting it into the drywell anyway and that covers it, why not have the same standard for the pollution control as for the flood control. ALAMEDA: Okay. YUEN: But, you know, it’s not like you must enact exactly these words or else situation. ALAMEDA: Commissioner Watanabe. EXHIBIT B 3 WATANABE: I have only one question and that’s in regard to, you know, in the past we’ve talked about affordable housing and possibly relaxing some of the standards of affordable housing with regard to curbs and sidewalks and stuff like that. Because I’m not sure exactly how much more this all is, this one-hour ten-year flood, I’m wondering if that amount of water can be mitigated by just swales so that we’re not boxing ourselves in where all subdivisions have to have curbs and gutters, you know what I mean, and sidewalks and all of that. YUEN: No, the drywells work with the swale system. And, in fact, if you do, if you have less pavement then you need fewer drywells; but it will not eliminate the need to have some disposal into some kind of a drywell system. WATANABE: Yeah, like in Kona, this is where I live, we have swales, but we also have drywells along the way. And as long as that kind of situation isn’t ruled out I think then we have the potential to lower the subdivision cost and possibly create more affordable housing going forward. Yeah? YUEN: Right. And it can be combined with this, you can still go with a swale system but you would still have a drywell. You’d probably wind up with fewer drywells if you don’t have the width of pavement. ALAMEDA: Questions, Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA: Yeah. So that’s why it is not being required for agricultural land, except for those specific industrial type activities on it. Because agricultural land as a rule doesn’t have impermeable surfaces? Is that the key to it, or the -? YUEN: The Federal program only says that you have to cover Urban development. But these processing facilities, they would consider Urban even though we allowed them on agricultural lands. So then although runoff from farms, especially cleared areas on farms after there has been a plowing or harvesting, although there can be a bad runoff and water pollution problem, that’s not covered by this program at all. And so we’re not addressing that on this set of programs. There’s another program for that but it’s simply, it’s another thing -. There’s not a mandate right now. There are efforts to control that, but it’s not part of this program. ALAMEDA: Fellow Commissioners, this agenda item will be continued next week. If there’s not any more questions or any objections, I’d like to move to next agenda item. HAYASHI: Mr. Chair, before you do that -. ALAMEDA: Sure. HAYASHI: I failed to mention that the draft that we should be reviewing would be this yellow replacement sheet. ALAMEDA: Okay, got it. HAYASHI: So you can throw away the one before that. EXHIBIT B 4 ALAMEDA: Okay, keep the yellow. All right. Seeing no objections, Mr. Director, do you have anything else to add before we move forward? YUEN: No. ALAMEDA: Okay, right. The discussion ended at 1:26 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura East Hawai‘i Secretary EXHIBIT B 5