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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-03-02 TBILLS (2) PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT MARCH 2, 2007 A regularly advertised hearing on the COUNTY COUNCIL BILLS 318 (CHAPTER 25 - CHANGE OF ZONE CONDITIONS), 319 (CHAPTER 23 - SUBDIVISION), 328 (CONCURRENCY CHAPTER) AND 329 (ADEQUATE PUBLIC FACILITIES CHAPTER) was called to order at 1:37 p.m. in the County of Hawaii, Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawaii, with Chairman William Graham presiding. PRESENT:William GrahamABSENT & EXCUSED: C. Kimo Alameda TakashiDomingoAndrewIwashita Alvin Rho Rene€ Siracusa Rodney Watanabe Rell Woodward Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner And two people from the public in attendance INITIATOR: COUNTY COUNCIL Review and comment on a draft ordinance (Bill 318) amending Chapter 25 (Zoning Code), Article 2, Division 4, Section 25-2-44, Hawaii County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended) relating to conditions of change of zone (adds requirements to existing provisions within the Zoning Code relating to conditions on change of zone ordinances regarding water supply and transportation improvements or strategies be made concurrent with development associated with any change of zone in order to manage growth and coordinate the delivery of government services). INITIATOR: COUNTY COUNCIL Review and comment on a draft ordinance (Bill 319) amending Chapter 23 (Subdivision Code), Article 2, Division 1, Section 23-13, Hawaii County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended) relating to Large Scale Developments (adds requirements to existing provisions within the Subdivision Code relating to large scale developments regarding water supply and transportation improvements or strategies be made concurrent with development in order to manage growth and coordinate the delivery of government services). 1EXHIBIT D INITIATOR: COUNTY COUNCIL Review and comment on a draft ordinance (Bill 328) amending the Hawaii County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended) by adding a new chapter relating to concurrency (establishes a concurrency management system and prepares a public facilities improvement plan to fund and maintain county-wide facilities and services). INITIATOR: COUNTY COUNCIL Review and comment on a draft ordinance (Bill 329) amending the Hawaii County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended) by adding a new chapter relating to adequate public facilities (relates to adequate public facilities for the identification of infrastructure and services necessary to support new development and the establishment of a policy as to when and how these improvements and services will be constructed and maintained). GRAHAM:Our agenda for this afternoon is going to be new business. There are four draft ordinances in the Hawaii County Code known as Bill 318, Bill 319, Bill 328 and Bill 329, all of which are initiated by the County Council. I think we have it written on the agenda the specifics of each bill so probably I don€t need to speak of them at this point. I think our Planning Director Chris Yuen is going to give us a little rundownonthesebillstostartwith.Andourintentionisgoingtobetotaketestimony and consider these bills some today, but then carry them forward to our next meeting in Kona before we take any action on them. And because these are ordinances our actions I presume will only be recommendations. Chris? YUEN:Yes. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members of the Commission. As your Chair said that this is to consider four separate bills that are all on the subject of concurrency or adequate public facilities. As is our normal practice when things have an island-wide significance, like an overall change to the Zoning Code or the Land Use Procedures, we will want the Planning Commission to hear these in meetings on both sides of the island. We are up close to, we actually passed the timeframe for dealing with these; and the County Council has extended the time. But the last time that the Commission will have to look at these and vote on these will be the next meeting on th March 16 . So these will, you know, go back up to the County Council with a recommendation from the Planning Commission. In brief and before I spend a little time giving a summary of these, our recommendation is basically negative on all four bills. We have a revision to Bill 318, which follows some of the basic ideas of Bill 318 that we would support. All of these bills are on the subject of what people call concurrency or adequate public facilities. And any one of them would be a very fundamental change in the way land use approvals and decisions are made. So the basic idea behind concurrency or adequate public facilities is that the level of public infrastructure should track along with development. And by public infrastructure it can mean all kinds of things ƒ roads, water, sewer, schools, and the like. And as I said in the recommendation nobody would disagree with that as a matter of general principle. The gist of the bills though is what happens when you have a land use changelikeazoningchangewherethepublicfacilitiesarenotuptopar.Andtheidea behind the bills is that you would have a pause, or you would have a denial, or you would 2EXHIBIT D have a delay in the implementation of the project until the public facilities got up to speed, up to a certain level of service. And I think what I€ll do is, you know, there is a pretty extensive write-up on these bills, rather than repeat the write-up I€ll just give a gist of each of the bills. Then I think we do have public testimony on this; and I€d also be happy to take questions at the end of the talk I€m giving right now or at the end of public testimony as well. Bill 318 applies to roads and water; and it applies at the stage of rezoning. It€s not terribly specific about what the developer is supposed to do. It doesn€t say who does the traffic study but it says that if the Level of Service is E or F that the Director shall make sure that there are strategies or improvements in place to mitigate the traffic problem before the occupancy of the development takes place. Just to say a little bit about Levels of Service, I hope I can remember to do this, but beforeyournextmeetingwe€llgiveyousomethingthatdefineslevelofserviceforroads. I think we gave a brief verbal description of this, but there are traffic manuals that talk about Levels of Service for roads going from A to F. They€re defined differently from intersections, highways and freeways. For an intersection the Level of Service is defined as the delay that you have; or in terms of missed cycles, like if you stop at a stop light and then you don€t get through on that cycle and you have to wait a cycle, then that puts you in a different level of service. For highways, it€s defined as the amount of time you spend following closely behind another car; and there are quantitative measures of how to get to this. And there can be some play in how a traffic engineer will define a Level of Service at a particular location, but it€s relatively objective. In Levels of Service, F is the worst; and F is essentially like gridlock where you have constant stop and go movement, you don€t have any flow of movement. E is close to F, as E is also bad. D is slow, congested, but you do have movement. So, anyway, so Bill 318 applies at the rezoning stage and it€s something that would say that you would have this traffic study at the point of every rezoning. The revisions to 318 that the Department is proposing have a threshold. And rather than say that every rezoning would have to do this study, it applies more to the larger rezonings. And the threshold is a project that would generate 100 vehicle trips in the peak hour. This is not something we made up. This is the Institute of Traffic Engineers, Transportation Engineers rather, that suggests this as a threshold for when a local government should require a traffic study of a new development. And then it talks about traffic problems being either local or regional. An example of a local traffic problem would be if you have a shopping center and the traffic study says that the people turning out of the shopping center are going to have to wait a very long time to make the turns. Then the revised version of Bill 318 says that, as an ordinary thing, the developer should take care of the local mitigation; and that might be a thing like adding an additional turn lane out of the project or adding an additional lane on the highway immediately fronting the problem. The bigger issue really is when the traffic problem is regional, as it is in several areas of the island right now. Then the ordinance, Bill 318 on the Council€s side as I said is a little vague as to what is supposed to happen at that point. The ordinance that we€re proposing says basically that you have to do something specific, like build a portion of 3EXHIBIT D the regional road network to mitigate the problem, or you wait until improvements have been made that take away the Level of Service deficiency. SIRACUSA:I -? YUEN:Yes? Why don€t we take questions. We can take questions as I go along. You have a question? SIRACUSA:Okay. It€s my impression that when you€re talking about roads here you€re only talking about major arterials, County and State Highways, and not smaller roads which may be County-owned but would go into say cul-de-sac subdivisions. Is that a correct assessment? YUEN:No. As far as the regional roads, yes. It would only be the arterial roads,themainhighways.Itsaysarterialandcollectorroads.Butyouwouldstill,ifyou had a project on a small street that could generate 100 or more trips per day (sic), this would say you should do a traffic study; and if that would congest that road, then you would do the local mitigation for that. But you wouldn€t have somebody go fix, well, you can make them fix the road that they€re on as part of the local mitigation. SIRACUSA:I€m thinking in terms of roads, obviously I€m thinking of roads where I live, single lane dirt road; and 100 trips per a day is ridiculous. I mean when five new subdivisions were approved, you know, 20 cars made a humongous difference. And so it seems that you€re not taking scale into consideration here, that in some areas 100 trips may be a perfectly reasonable way of gauging this. But in other areas, 50 or even 20 trips would be a tremendous impact. And there doesn€t seem to be a lot of flexibility. And when I was reading through here, and you talked about things being vague. To me, it was that they were allowing for some flexibility because some of these situations are so different from one community and one area to another. And how do we walk that thin line of balancing, you know, being really specific and on allowing enough variation to allow for different regions and their own specific layouts and problems? YUEN:None of these bills is intended to answer all of the issues that may come up during a rezoning request. So, for example, in a situation you gave where if somebody is applying for a rezoning on say a one-lane road that is just not suitable for that level of development, then regardless of whether you have a concurrency ordinance or not, the right response is to deny the rezoning because the road is not adequate to serve the proposed project. The reason to have a cutoff for doing the traffic report is that the traffic report studies congestion. The TIAR may refer to the type of road that€s in front of the project, but the TIAR only tells you about congestion. The TIAR doesn€t tell you, you know, there€s a 40-foot drop off the shoulder. Okay? So it doesn€t solve those kinds of issues. And those things are still out there; and you have to use common sense and judgment in analyzing any rezoning. This only deals with the question of traffic congestion and how it may affect the local and the regional road networks. 4EXHIBIT D GRAHAM:Chris, let me just give you a little, an overall pitch or read on this, and you tell me if it sounds right, like I€m thinking of it right. Like this is an ordinance which the County Council would presumably pass but the County Council is also the body that passes the rezonings. So the County Council is kind of telling itself I can€t pass rezonings in certain situations if I pass this law. But they could just as well just not pass it under certain situations anyway. YUEN:Right. And that goes to a question of whether you adopt something like this as an ordinance or whether you adopt something like this as a guideline that you use in evaluating rezonings. And in discussing this, in the background, for example, I try to point out that, recognizing that there€s a highway problem in Kona, for several years the rezonings, the really larger rezonings have typically involved road conditions or have had affordable housing objectives. And this is a policy that€s underlying some of the decisions and the recommendations that we€ve made without it actuallybeinganordinance.SotheCouncil,yes,theycouldadoptthesethingsasa policy. There€s some desire of the Council Members to adopt an ordinance that has the effect of limiting their freedom of action, the freedom of action of the Council in granting rezonings. GRAHAM:Thank you. DOMINGO:This would apply to all rezonings, or is it limited to size in number of acres, or -? YUEN:Well, the Council€s Bill 318 would apply to all. The Director€s revisions would kick in the TIAR, the study requirement only for larger projects, this 100 vehicles per day (sic) threshold which for a single family residential project it works out to about 150, to a project with 150 homes or lots, multi-family would be 225. So it would only kick in for what is to us a larger scale of project, not the kind that you see every day, every application. DOMINGO:But the Council€s version of the bill would involve every application for rezoning? YUEN:Yes, that€s what it says. DOMINGO:And that€s my fear because we€re precluding those rezonings of a, you know, mom and pop who has a fairly good sized lot and they would like to subdivide it or rezone it and subdivide it for their children. If this precludes it, then it€s going to be hard. And what will happen is they€ll go to the Council and complain to the Council, and then you€ll have the pressure to do something, where, in fact, it was of their own ordinance that precludes them from considering that rezoning application. I can see and appreciate the concern that the Council has in regards to, for the reason in coming up with such a major -, although there are some reservations on my part, and I see from yours. 5EXHIBIT D In 1977 in Kona there was a study done by the State. And they were to try to determine the carrying capacity for South Kohala, North and South Kona, and to consider other probable kind of industries that would impact the region, and more so with the tourism growth and more so with the fact that they were building the Queen Kaahumanu Highway. And once that had finished, it would attract a lot of demand for development. The study would have helped the decision makers to determine when there is an overload in infrastructure. And then sensing that or foreseeing the overload then there were actions that they could take to help address the anticipated growth. But that has never happened. Probably the study was completed, but I don€t think it went any further than that. And if that was done at that time it would have been, I think, more helpful for decision makers to make more sound decisions. My question is does the County have a planning and growth management policy? YUEN:Well,it€sintheGeneralPlanbasically.Iwouldsay,youknow, the land use system works more by controlling where development occurs rather than by how much development occurs. DOMINGO:That€s why I asked the question. YUEN:The County has added typically, actually very consistently for the last three decades, added about 29,000 people a decade. About 2/3 of the population growth of the County every decade has been from people moving into the island, and about 1/3 from the excess of births over deaths. There€s also people who move out but you have net inmigration to the County. You don€t have an ultimate growth control in a sense of having a quota on the number of people who get to move to the island. There€s freedom of movement in the United States; and many people have chosen to move to the island for reasons, whether it€s clean air, clean water, nice place to live, all those kinds of reasons. Now that being said, there are land use decisions that can affect the overall level of growth. For example, the basic decisions to make the Kona coast the big resort area, to make the South Kohala and North Kona coasts big resort areas were made in the sixties, and then followed-up on by the State in making the Queen Kaahumanu Highway and opening the Kona Airport. All of these things lead to resort hotels being produced on the Kona coast but then needed employment and attracted people to the area. You know definitely they spurred growth, and they€re what I call growth-generating decisions. Some kinds of residential subdivisions, let€s take Hokulia, there€s a growth generating development in the sense that the people who are going in there would not necessarily be moving to the island or buying lots on the island if they weren€t one acre lots around a golf course done by a well-known developer. So you can make decisions that consciously generate growth. If I were to say, you know, what is my policy, I€m not a pro-growth person. I€m a person that wants to see the quality of life preserved on the island. I think that that growth is a big challenge for that. And so I generally, particularly in the employment situation that 6EXHIBIT D we€re at on the island, I€ve personally been opposing development that has the effect of generating more growth. For example the project, the proposal to have 2,000 timeshares, 600 hotel rooms around Honokohau Harbor, if you do that, you must find a workforce. You must import a workforce to fulfill that development. You don€t have 2,000 people running around who are looking for jobs working in a timeshare. So that€s a growth generating kind of a decision. But, by the same token, you can€t control people that decide, you know, they decide to retire in Hawaii. They open up the West Hawaii Today to the real estate ads and find a place to live. Now many places try to control growth and development by limiting the number of sites that you can live on. To give you an example, somebody had me, said I should go look at this plan for a place called Sanibel Island, Florida. Sanibel Island, Florida is a little island that€s off the coast of Florida. They have a bridge that goes from the mainland. And they have a plan, they have an overall plan; and it says 7,000 residential units can be builtonSanibelIsland,Florida;andtheyactuallyholdtothatplan.Andapparentlyit€sa very nice place to live, but very, very expensive. But I can tell you though, and I did a little more research because I can tell you exactly what happens at Sanibel Island, Florida every day. There€s a bridge, and over that bridge come all the people that clean the homes, work in the yards, are the police officers and are priced out of living in Sanibel Island, Florida. So if you adopt the growth control strategy, you can adopt a growth control strategy for regions that you€re going to hold growth in a particular region; but you have to make some accommodation. We don€t have an away‚ where those other people are going to come from and nor do we want to have that attitude. So you have to then have a strategy for how are you going to have affordable housing for the people that you€re trying to keep in your community. The other thing to note about that strategy is we€ve let a lot of things out the door already. You know, on this island we have something like 40,000, 50,000 vacant lots that were created in the fifties and sixties that people can move to. So we are really past the point where a strategy that€s based, a growth management strategy that€s based on a cap on the number of units that you allow, and that€s how you€re going to hold your population down, will work. So within that framework though, you know, as I say we€re not trying to, there are communities that will encourage any kind of economic development because they€re desperate for jobs and activity. There are places that will welcome the nuclear waste dump, you know, whatever. And I don€t think we€re that kind of a community at this point. DOMINGO:You know, time and time again we hear that there€s a certain project that would generate jobs, and I€ve heard that many times. But even today I€m still hearing that very same, one of that very same reason that development should occur because it€ll provide jobs. And what€s happening is that when those projects are approved, jobs are available for people who live here but certainly by the same token it attracts people from outside of the State to move here. And, of course, those who moved here are described within several categories. Those who are really rich who can come here, buy a place that costs millions of dollars, live here for a short period of time, for a season, and go back to their other home. And there are those who come here who can just afford to buy and manage to live here and eek out a living. And those who come here cannot even afford to buy homes. So that creates a problem, you know, the problem 7EXHIBIT D of availability of housing and even to the extent availability of homeless facilities for people who move here. As I look at it, as I look at it from my point of view, you know, it would definitely be at an overload. When you speak of the local and regional traffic when you go to Kona, you have to waitoveran hour from Matsuyama Store to get down to Kailua Village; and by the same token with Kamuela from Hawaii Prep going to the intersection in Kamuela, it takes you one hour, 45 minutes to an hour toreach there. So, again, for me the quality of life has been impacted, my quality of life has been impacted. And then when you look at people who live here who want to buy a home, now for instance in my community there are people who worked in the plantation. They were fortunate that when the plantation had closed they had to pay only $1100 for the surveying and the documentation, and they owned their house and lot. Today, some of themhaveforeclosedontheirpropertybecausefindingthattheyhadsomeequityinthe homes they overspent and now they€re under foreclosure and they lose the property. And there are those who in turn improved their property a little bit and have sold their home for $250,000 plus dollars. They can get more for that. You know, that€s a problem we€ve seen because the demand for housing has increased to the extent that, you know, it kind of, the supply is just not there but the demand is there and people are willing to pay for it. And that again impacts our real property taxes that we pay. When I had my place appraised just last year when I refinanced my loan, I was surprised that it was worth that much. I didn€t imagine that it was worth that much. Then I looked at other properties in my surrounding area where it has been sold, and I would do some research, and then I find that the price was so astronomical that it€s sad. Everything is going out of whack right now. And when you find the median income housing in the Big Island is about probably $450,000 to $500,000, who€s going to afford that? You know, those with medium income probably they can inch out their way. But those who are less, way less, who are just making a living, they can€t even get a house, they cannot even pay the rental. And that€s why throughout this whole state there are problems with the homeless; and it€s not low income, it€s the homeless ones who are in need of those help. So, you know, again, I look at this and I think what we have before us is something that would bring out these issues for discussion and for consideration. And then when the time comes, if and when we have to make some major decisions then these things, you know, will help us determine that. And what€s why I asked if we have a growth management policy. As you indicated, you know, in such a way we have. But it would have to take someone who would become familiar with the Land Use laws, the General Plan and other issues to determine whether or not we have a controlled growth plan or not. And I was thinking might be if we can come up with some policy statement or document that would just state clearly, okay, this is what we want. And might be this can be done in the next General Plan review. But I think it should come out and specifically state, you know, what the goals are. Sometimes it€s so vague and hard to understand what the real message is. 8EXHIBIT D YUEN:Well, I think the things that you€re talking about are some of the concerns and issues that led to these bills. The question is what are the solutions? Because not every solution is the right one. The housing, we did take a major step two years ago in revising the affordable housing policy. Before there were loopholes that let almost everybody get out of affordable housing. Because we have a demand for land here, a very strong demand for land from people who have a good deal of money, typically often moving from areas that are more expensive than this island. And yet we have on this island a low wage base, you know, the kinds of jobs that are here are typically lower wages, and they pay lower wages than California, for example, for the same kind of work. We€re always going to have this affordability issue. So we€ve made requirements that you have, you know, that you must set aside a certain amount of affordable housing. Youknow,Igaveyouapacketofthingsfromwhenyoustarted.Ididwritealetteron the Kona Community Development Plan saying they should talk about this issue of growth very explicitly, because I don€t think it is explicitly discussed in the General Plan, and really talk about desirable levels of growth. You do always though have to understand that there€s only so far you can go with controlling it through the land use system. Because it€s almost like you have a, you have the power through the land use and zoning to put it in certain areas, to encourage that growth be in some areas and not in other areas. There€s the power to encourage preferred types of growth, you know, preferred types of density, neighborhood layouts, whether you have cul-de-sac layouts or you have grid interconnected layouts. But we really do not have a way of turning off the spigot. There€s an aspect of this that you can€t control; and if you€re trying to control it by limiting, by really restricting zoning and land use, then it€s especially important to work on the affordability side. Because when you reduce supply and you can€t do anything about demand, then price has to go up. WOODWARD:Let me just ask one question to clarify. You€ve been talking about 100 trips per day. Here in the paper it says 100 trips per hour during peak hour which would be considerably more than -. YUEN:If I said per day I was misspeaking, it should be in a peak hour. I hope the write-up says 100 per hour. It should be 100 per hour. WOODWARD:Okay, thank you. WATANABE:I€ve got a question, and this speaks to, I guess it€s page 3 of your recommended Section 25-246, and it comes under E, Mitigation Required. And, so, you know, I believe this is the section that€s referring to like a regional, where you have a regional type of problem. And I wondered if you could express it in maybe some specific terms as far as -. Like we had approved a project, I don€t think the Council acted on that, the project above Lowe€s that was Kona Coffee Plantation or something like that. And with that particular project we also were envisioning a connector road, a north-south connector road. But obviously that developer only has entitlements to a section thereof in 9EXHIBIT D which it really is, as I recall, in the middle because there are other properties. So it would connect to nowhere. We required them to build that connector road at no cost to the County. But is that the type of mitigation you€re referring to here? Would that have satisfied this? Because while in the future some day when it connects it will help with the traffic, it doesn€t address current regional traffic flow, huh? YUEN:Right. That road probably would not count because it€s not in the General Plan Facilities Map. It€s really a local circulation road. It€s a good question. And I went through a mental exercise of thinking aboutsome of the rezonings that have gone through in Kona and how they would fit or not fit this ordinance. That one is a little tricky. That one actually would probably fall under the 100 peak trips per hour threshold. WATANABE:Okay. But then assuming it did meet the 100 peak hour, then it€s either we don€t do a project or rezoning of that nature because it would probably meet that,ortheycouldthengetanexemptionbyprovidingtwotimes,whichis40percent-? YUEN:Fortypercentaffordablehousing,right. WATANABE:Fortypercentaffordablehousingatthe120percentofmedian income. YUEN:Exactly. WATANABE:Okay. So that would be the exemption to that? YUEN:Right. WATANABE:Okay, okay. YUEN:So a project that came into the Kailua-Kona area that had no real opportunity to build something that was going to fix the traffic problem and didn€t want to wait for the widening to four lanes which might improve the level of service, their option would be we€re going to do more affordable housing than required under this bill, double the affordable housing. WATANABE:Right, double the affordable. By the way, I appreciated your write- up because it did provide a lot of insight into the various situations and maybe some of the situations the Council themselves weren€t thinking of, you know, addressing. Cause the Council said, oh, 100 percent of the homes would be 120 percent of median income, but we€re finding in most cases you can€t. So you wind up with half a credit because you€re over 120 percent of median income and just between 140 percent of median income by the time you finish the home, which means it€s impossible to satisfy that. YUEN:Yeah, unfortunately it€s pretty dubious that a project can be 100 percent affordable and make it on its own as a development. 10EXHIBIT D WATANABE:There€s no way. GRAHAM:Chris, also, like probably today the most important thing we can do since we€re not voting is get the public testimony. Should we stop now and get some public testimony, or should I ask the public when they would like to testify, or what do you think? YUEN:Why don€t you take the public testimony, and then we can go back to our discussion and questions. GRAHAM:Okay. Would that be all right? TAVARES:Yes, that€ll be fine. I wanted to hear more of what Chris would like to say, but -. GRAHAM:Well, you can stay around. You€ll hear more. TAVARES:Yeah. GRAHAM:Could I swear you in? TAVARES:Sure. GRAHAM:Do you affirm to tell the truth today before the Hawaii County Planning Commission in regard to this matter? TAVARES:As much as I can I agree to tell the truth in whatever I say. GRAHAM:Thank you. So then could you state your name and address, and then give us whatever kind of input you have on this. TAVARES:My name is Kim Tavares. My address is PO Box 33, Volcano. I live in Fern Forest, upper Puna. I€ve been a resident there since 1996. I€ve been a resident of Hawaii for 31 years and on this island for quite a bit, kind of in love with this island. My testimony today is on all four of these bills also because I am interested in the same things that you folks have expressed so far in trying to limit growth to something reasonable that everybody can live with that still, you know, doesn€t reduce the quality of life for us all on this island. Of course, most of my comments pertain to Puna because that€s where I live. But I think a lot of it can be considered for the rest of the island, too. And since I don€t have the revision that€s in progress right now, I only have the bills that came out from the Council, that€s what I€m commenting on. 11EXHIBIT D And generally my comments related to changing zoning, is I€m against upzoning basically, especially for agricultural lands and lands that are in native forest. I€m trying to preserve that for the future generations for the kids, so they have something to enjoy and be proud of as something unique to the rest of the world. But if we develop over all that it will all be gone, so I try not to make that happen in as many ways as I can. And one of them is I€m involved with the Puna Community Development Plan which is also a big process that has a lot to do with land use and making recommendationsto Planning and to the County Council as far as future growth, growth management, lots of different landuse issues. There€sactually ten different working groups that address all of the issues that we€re faced with in Puna, beingthat the population is growing really fast; and most of it is, you know, people coming from off-island, out of state. There are a lot of things that those people need to know when they move here. And I also work for my community association, the roads maintenance tax office, becausewehaveprivateroads.Wehave45milesofprivateroadsinFernForest;anda mandatory roads maintenance assessment. So I take care of the bookkeeping for that, and the billings, and what not. So I get all the calls, too, because I have the telephone in my house. So people call and they ask me, you know, everything. Its residents, potential residents, absentee lot owners, realtors, mortgage companies, you know, everybody calls me. My job is to take care of the bookkeeping for the roads maintenance assessment; and nobody pays us for anything else except for transferring properties, you know, $25 for a transfer fee if it goes through escrow. But the point is that there€s a lot of burden on our subdivisions, our substandard subdivisions, because of all these new developments, too. So I don€t think that we really need more new developments on the island because I live in one of those subdivisions that€s only maybe, you know, 30 percent full right now. But, of course, that€s not where the jobs are. So there€s an economic thing that has to happen too if we want to do good planning. There€s a whole bunch of things that are involved in good planning for the future. And community development plan working groups have come up, you know, they€ve been working for about a year on different ideas, different things that could possibly work. One of the things the groups have come up with is in doing agricultural parks, industrial parks, and what not, so that we can have some of these issues resolved ahead of time with traffic or what not. But they haven€t, you know, I don€t think they all, those reports are not going to all tell you exactly where they want all the parks to be. There are some suggested places. But I think that once people accept, you know, once those plans are accepted then we could have more discussion about exactly where things should go. Anyway, back to this again. The things that I€m concerned with these bills are that they don€t really steep all of the different types of public services that I would consider essential public services, and a lot of other people would too. And then they state some, but some people don€t. It€s kind of vice versa, you know, transportation and water are big things if you want to develop a community. But if you live in a community where you get three inches of rain a night, every night for a week like we have had in the last 12EXHIBIT D week, then waterlines are not a real important thing. What€s important is to teach people how to do water catchment, and to do water filtration and what not. Transportation, I think the transportation issues could be resolvedalso by having new kinds of sustainable industries that are closer to the people, rather than having the people go on the highway on a daily basis. I have a neighbor that just told me last week that he has to make trips down his bumpy road and please fill the pot holes cause I have to do it six times a day. I have to go out for one kid and drop him off at the bus stop and come back; and the other kid goes to a different school; and then after that they have after- school activities.‚ You know, six to eight times a day going back and forth is excessive for anybody. And if everybody is doing it, that€s why we have a problem. I mean there are too many cars on the road and there€s too much gas being used. So transportation could be solved by bringing jobs closer to people or by public transportation. Butthemainthingisthatinallofthesethingsifyou€regoingtoconsideranykindof zoning changes, anything like that that has to do with concurrency in public services, it should have more public feedback. Because each area is going to be a little bit different. People in different subdivisions have different needs. If the subdivision isn€t there yet, I suggest you don€t make one there. You know, that€s the easiest thing to do, is don€t make a subdivision. Don€t upzone, you don€t have to upzone. Just leave it in agricultural land. This is an agricultural island that I think in the future is going to have to provide for the rest of the state. But if we build over everything, we€re not going to have anything either. So that€s on upzoning. Let€s see -. The other real important thing, the last real important thing, is that when you do consider public services, infrastructure concurrently, I know the County doesn€t have anything to do with what the State can do, but if you€re going to have that many homes here, new subdivisions, people, we€re going to need State services too. You know, we most definitely need schools right now. We need a lot of different things. And so upzoning for any development without a guarantee from the State that they€re going to back up any of their portion of that infrastructure is pretty scary too. So, you know, it€s just really bad. Don€t make new subdivisions if you don€t have to and try to do something for the subdivisions, you know, that already have people that need places to go, and things to do, and stuff like that. GRAHAM:Thanks, Kim. In specific to these four bills that we have before us, is it your feeling that these bills are in essence a good way to try to address the issues you€re talking about? Do you support the idea of bills like this? KIM:Oh, yes. I mean, they€re a great start; but they€re missing a whole bunch. You know, they€re not addressing all of the public services that the people need, you know, realistically. You can€t just say as long as you put in water and make sure the traffic is not bad that it€s a good place to live, cause it still isn€t going to do things for the people. You know, it might do things for retirees that don€t have to worry about getting jobs, that don€t have kids that they have to take to school. But, you know, for families, it€s only going to cause more problems. 13EXHIBIT D GRAHAM:Okay. Do we have any questions? Commissioner Siracusa? SIRACUSA:Yes. Some of the stuff that I scribbled over the margins here on my paperwork had to do with what I felt also as you do that we should be looking at more than just transportation and water. And yet I couldn€t say I wouldn€t want to put down that every area that we€re looking at has to have a park or a school because different areas have different needs. And do you feel that there should be some flexibility built in to add on the possibility of other infrastructure requirements based on individual situations, or do you feel that that would be too vague? TAVARES:It sounds kind of vague. I believe in flexibility. But I think what we have to do first is maybe define the boundaries of a community, and maybe put together community councils or something where, you know, you€ll get good feedback fromthepeoplethatarethereandwhattheyneed.Youknow,forexample,inmyarea,I call Volcano, the Mt. View, my area, upper Puna. It€s a big place, you know. Fern Forest is 8,500 acres but my neighbors are in the subdivisions all around me, too. So, there€s Cooper Center, and that works for Volcano and it works for the subdivisions across the street from Volcano. And then there€s nothing until you get to, Mt. View has a school and a library, but then there€s nothing for communities. The communities are all on their own, all on our own. Our community has a 3-acre lot that they had to sue the developers to get and we haven€t really been able to develop it because we€re not a rich community. So we have a place where the community can gather, but, you know, staying dry might be the question. But other communities, yeah, I think every community kind of has an idea of what they need, what would help their communities better. I don€t know if that answers your question. SIRACUSA:Well, sort of. I was thinking, of course we all always think of our own situations that we know best, so naturally I was thinking of mine. And in my community, we don€t have utility poles, so we don€t have telephone service. And we€re in a dead spot so cell phone service is very spotty and unreliable. And that€s one of the types of infrastructure that I feel in my community we would really need because that€s a matter of public safety. If you can€t call the ambulance, you know, or you can€t call for the fire truck it doesn€t matter if the road is adequate, which it isn€t, for fire trucks to come in if you can€t call them in the first place. And so my feeling for my community is we would, you know, besides water which we have plenty of, 200 inches, and besides transportation needs, we would certainly in my community feel that the ability to have some kind of telecommunications contact with the outside world would be one of the necessary infrastructure things that we would think should be in place before more density happens. And so I was just wondering if you had thoughts along those lines. TAVARES:I do indeed. Well, for example, in Fern Forest I guess we pay for our own telephone lines to this, an SSPP Program. I don€t know what that stands for and I wasn€t involved in starting it up. But the people in the neighborhood who live there, I guess when it was first developed, some of them wanted telephone services, so they went to the electric company and got this plan. But what happens is every person who wants 14EXHIBIT D to hook up to those poles now has to -. Well, maybe not for telephones, it€s for electricity. I don€t know how the telephone got there. I think it did just kind of, the phone company just kind of did it maybe. But the electricity we had to pay for our poles andour transformers, and, you know, $2,500 or something that they say we€ll get back if anybody hooks into our transformer, butI€ve never seen that happen yet. SIRACUSA:They usually piggyback. If the phone company puts up the poles, the electric company will say, oh, these poles are not big enough or strong enough for us. But the other way around, if the electric company puts in the poles then the phone company can piggyback onto them; and there is something call the Joint Pole Agreements that they can enter into to share poles. TAVARES:But if the County is going to think about providing any kind of communication for new subdivisions or what not, you know, I say that it should be wireless,internet. GRAHAM:Anyway,Ithinkweshouldtrytostayontopicandmoveforward on these particular bills if we could. TAVARES:Okay. There was some discussion about, there was something about the CIP funds, that these decisions eventually would land up guiding the CIP funds; and that€s another reason why I€m kind of stressing not to make any new subdivisions. You know the CIP funds aren€t covering the subdivisions that are already here. So I really think we need to do a little bit more for our communities first. Thank you. GRAHAM:Thank you. Any further questions? All right, thank you for coming today. TAVARES:You€re welcome. GRAHAM:Chris, you were planning on going ahead individually on the other bills or continuing with this one, or how did you want to continue? HAYASHI:Mr. Chair? GRAHAM:Yes. HAYASHI:Mr. Harris had signed up to speak also. GRAHAM:Mr. Harris, are you ready to share some thoughts? HARRIS:Yes. GRAHAM:Good. Could you raise your hand and swear to tell the truth before the Commission today on this matter? 15EXHIBIT D HARRIS:I do. GRAHAM:Thank you. And could you startwith your name and address please, and then share your thoughts with us. HARRIS:My name is Roger Harris, PO Box 803, Kamuela, Hawaii. I didn€t intend to testify but I think I would like to say a few things. This is a, you know, very sober serious subject; and it€s surprising there aren€t more people here. I guess they feel the action is going to be at the County Council; but you€re a very important part of the system. And I€d like to say that I pretty much support a lot of things the Planning Director said in his position, particularly that he€s fundamentally against all the bills but not against the problems. And, actually, the woman who went before me I think she expresses a lot of things that I believe, too, and that is that there are community based problems and they need community based solutions. An overall concurrency set of bills likethisisjustabigsplatteracrossthelandscapeandamajorchangefromthetradition of planning and zoning that we€ve been operating under in the legal framework for years. So the impact of it is unestimatable actually. And I think you€ve got to be very careful with it. Specifically, I€ll just make a few small points. The bills, a couple of them say that you would be subject to anyone, an applicant, which could include the County of Hawaii who is as you know trying to develop 1200 units in Waikoloa for affordable housing now or any other person. When they come in for plan approval -- it says site plan approval, but I pretty much believe they mean plan approval -- they would be subject to this ordinance. And plan approval would apply to, if you wanted to put in a small convenience operation anywhere, no rezoning, no subdivision, no nothing, if you want to build a school building or a small, you know, anything but a single family residence, you need plan approval; and you would be into this system. And it won€t be long before level of service reaches the critical point. So there€s no way that, I think, the County of Hawaii on its own for instance can magically mandate that the Queen Kaahumanu Highway gets widened before they build, you know, a school in Waikoloa. And so the unintended consequences could be unbelievable. Really what we need is our system that we have now working better. The reason this has come up is because our system isn€t working so good. Public facilities have really lagged, you know, the general private growth or public growth as well. So I would just support dealing with the diverse issues in a diverse way. Community based efforts I see are best. I see really working with the General Plan, the community development plans, the facilities plans and the funding of those facilities as a way to go. I think you have to deal with the fees and how to finance public improvements. Frankly speaking this is as good as it€s going to get. We€re raking in the money right now from property taxes. You should be building, the County should be building roads and parks and everything they can now. You know, if they have to leverage it through bonding and everything, we should be doing it. I think overall planning and the big issues of growth management and how we deal with it, those are huge things that won€t go away; and I think we should deal with that community by 16EXHIBIT D community. But I€m very, very worried and wary of putting in kind of just a general brushed lather on top of everybody. As you know, I mean, some of you know, professionally I€m a planner/project manager. I worked at Mauna Lani Resort for a long time and Hualalai; and I€m working on the Hiluhilu project in Kona at this point and a few others; and these kinds of things can have unintended consequences, on the prospects of trying to finance a project. I mean we are into our fifth year of planning and working on the Hiluhilu job, which is putting in $20,000,0000 for infrastructure for the community college and the UH. I€m about to pull the grading permit, just about to get going. We dropped the golf course and we got 15 miles of off-site roads required in our zoning ordinance. It€s a significant project that will take 10, 15 years to develop. I spent a lot of time talking to lawyers and the finance guys in addition to everybody else, the grading permit people and the University people. And their questions always come down to Are you sure we€re all approved, we got final on everything?Youknowwe€regoingtospend$80,000,000hereinthenexttwoyearson this infrastructure. I€m not going to release the money unless, you know, you waive at me and show me all those approvals.‚ And if I have to look at them and say, Gee, Subdivision Increment 8-A, five years from now, may not be approved,‚ what do you think they€re going to say? You€ve got to think about it. Thanks. GRAHAM:Thank you, Mr. Harris. Questions from any of the Commissioners? All right, thank you. Chris, would you like to continue on? YUEN:Yes. Just to finish up on the four bills, I spent a lot of time on 318 because we€re recommending a denial recommendation on the other three, partially because they apply at a later stage of development than rezoning and at a stage wherein many cases there have been financial commitments made to go with a project based on zoning, that then there€s a new requirement that they may not be able to meet, and it also in some cases may be something that€s beyond the ability of the developer to meet at all. So just turning to 319, 319 is very much like 318, except that it applies at subdivisions. And I believe it€s referring to your overall road system that serves the area, not necessarily the road that€s just right up to your project. But if it€s below Level of Service D then you don€t get your subdivision until it€s approved, unless this rather vague statement about strategies or improvements are made concurrent without saying so much what they are. Then 328 and 329 are very far-reaching. They apply at zoning, subdivision and specifically plan approval. Plan approval is a stage of review that€s usually for nonsingle-family dwellings, things that don€t need a subdivision, things like apartment buildings, industrial buildings. It can be a school or other public building. A commercial building gets plan approval. And 328 would say that the Planning Director sets a level of service for all of these facilities, including schools. And essentially if the level of service is either below the desired level or would be made below, to go below it by the development, then the development doesn€t happen until the level of service improves or the developer makes the improvement in question. So the gist of it would be, just to take 17EXHIBIT D an example that€s perhaps an unfair, well, that shows the difficulty for a developer, is say somebody wanted to, had zoning to build a store in Waikoloa Village where there are some commercial zoning already, but the school in Waikoloa Village was over capacity, didn€t have enough classrooms for the kids. Then the Planning Director would say, well, the level of service is not up to par and so we deny the plan approval for the commercial building. That would be an example. Then 329 is similar except that it applies only to roads, water supply, and sewer systems. So, anyway, that€s the summary; and I€d be happy to take anymore questions and get into anything else the Commissioners want to on this. GRAHAM:Commissioner Watanabe? WATANABE:This is more just a comment. Again, on the third (sic) page of the actuallegislation,underMitigationRequired,‚number(2),sothatwouldbe(e)(2),I€m just pointing out that I think you€ve got a typo in there on the third line. It says deficiency is LOS is due‚ and I think you mean deficiency in LOS is?‚ YUEN:I€m sorry, say it again, please. WATANABE:Okay, that€s in the Mitigation Required‚ section, section (e), then No. (2). YUEN:Okay. WATANABE:And the third line on that, and it starts with deficiency.‚ YUEN:Yes, you€re right. It should be deficiency in LOS‚ rather than is LOS,‚ yes, you€re right. GRAHAM:Other Commissioners, any questions? Yes, Commissioner Woodward. WOODWARD:Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Couple points that you made in the recommendation that I think we haven€t really addressed and I think are pertinent, and Mr. Harris brought some of these up. And one is I think this is a good idea, but it gets into some unintended consequences. And one of those consequences I think comes down to the issue of fairness. If you have a situation where you have somebody who wants to build something or develop something, it€s really not fair to ask them to pay for existing deficiencies in the system. I think it€s fair to have them pay for whatever additional burden their facility may put on the community with regard to infrastructure, but not to have them pay for existing deficiencies in our infrastructure. I think that should be handled on a different fashion ƒ funding, bonds, etc. GRAHAM:Thank you. 18EXHIBIT D YUEN:Right. And fairness comes into play much less in a rezoning, from my point of view, because you don€t have to get a rezoning. The County Council can always say this is a bad time, this is a bad place, you don€t get a rezoning. But when somebody already has been zoned for a particular use and then they have a certain set of rules to continue on, then that does become an issue. GRAHAM:Good. Any other questions, comments from Commissioners? Chris, you think we should call an end to these four agenda items then? Are you finished with your presentation, or -? YUEN: I€m sorry, my hearing is bad today, sorry. GRAHAM:Should we conclude our consideration -? YUEN:Yes,we€reaskingsimplythatyoucontinuethisdiscussiontillthe next meeting. GRAHAM:Okay. Could I have a motion to that effect then, that we continue discussion on these four items to the next meeting? WATANABE:I€ll move to continue these four agenda items to the next meeting in Kona. SIRACUSA:Second. GRAHAM:Thank you. Motion by Commissioner Watanabe, seconded by Commissioner Siracusa. All those in favor? COMMISSIONERS:Aye. GRAHAM:Thank you. The discussion ended at 2:45 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, East Hawaii Secretary Planning Commission 19EXHIBIT D