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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-11-15 Leeward Exh C - Hussey LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT NOVEMBER 15, 2012 ELWIN F. HUSSEY (Amend REZ 655) A regularly advertised hearing on the application of was called to order at 12:31 p.m. in the West Hawai‘i Civic Center, Community Center, Building G, 74-5044 Ane Keohokālole Highway, Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i, with Chair Geraldine Giffin presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Geraldine Giffin, Lani Bowman, Brandi Beaudet, Thomas Hickcox, Richard Nelson, III and Thomas Whittemore ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Wayne Iokepa ALSO PRESENT: Ivan Torigoe (Deputy Corporation Counsel), BJ Leithead Todd (Planning Director), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Jeff Darrow (Planner), Maija Cottle (Planner), Kiran Emler (Department of Public Works, Engineering Division) and Noriko Sauer (Commission Secretary) And approximately 17 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: ELWIN F. HUSSEY (Amend REZ 655) Amendment to Condition C (time extension to secure final subdivision approval) of Change of Zone Ordinance No. 07-106, which amended Change of Zone Ordinance 02-21, which amended Change of Zone Ordinance 98-87, which amended Change of Zone Ordinance 90-008, which rezoned 28.832 acres of land from an Agricultural 20-acre (A-20a) to an Agricultural 3-acre (A-3a) zoned district. The property is located along the southeast side of Ala Kahua Drive, approximately ¾ mile mauka of the Ala Kahua Drive – Akoni Pule Highway intersection, Kohala Estates Subdivision, Kahua, North Kohala, Hawai‘i, TMK: 5-9-007:007. GIFFIN: Commissioners, we are on Agenda Item No. 3. The applicant is Elwin F. Hussey. He has applied for an amendment to Condition C, the time extension to secure final subdivision approval, of the Change or zone Ordinance No. 07-106, which amended the Change of Zone Ordinance 02- 21; I mean it goes on and on and on. But you can go ahead, Jeff. DARROW: Thank you, Madam Chair. GIFFIN: You’re welcome. DARROW: Good afternoon, Members of the Planning Commission. If I could direct your attention to our presentation. Our next applicant is Elwin F. Hussey. The location of our application is within the North Kohala District. More specifically, we are looking at the Kohala Estates Subdivision. The different colors on the map represent the different types of zoning in the area; mainly the light-shaded green, dark green and different shaded blues are Agricultural; the yellows are more Residential in zoning. Our subject application is identified with a black outline area. Again, for reference we have the Kawaihae-Māhukona road, Highway 270, running in a north-south direction. We have the Kawaihae Boat Harbor that’s located at the lower portion of our map. This large area is Hawaiian Homes Land. And we’ll zoom in a little bit so you can get a clear 1 EXHIBIT C picture. Again, on the left side of the map we have the Akoni Pule Highway, Highway 270. Access to the subject property will be from Ala Kahua Drive, and that is located in this general area. Again, for reference we have the different color zonings, different colors for the zoning, and we’ve actually placed the identification of those zonings on this particular map. This particular subject property was part of Unit 1 of Kohala Estates Subdivision. We also have Kohala by the Sea Subdivision. On the lower portion we have Kohala Waterfront. This is the General Plan Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map of the area. It identifies the area as Extensive Agriculture. For reference we also have Rural on the lower portion of the subdivision and Low Density Urban along the makai side of the highway. This is an aerial photo of the subject property. Again, we have Ala Kahua Drive on the upper portion of the map. The property is identified with the black outline. And you’ll notice the improvements on the property of certain drainage improvements, as well as road improvements, that have been done. The applicant is requesting a five-year time extension to comply with Condition C of Change of Zone Ordinance No. 07-106, which states, “Final subdivision approval shall be secured within five years from the effective date of this amended ordinance. Minimum lot sizes shall be determined by calculating the total land area within the proposed lot lines exclusive of easements for access and drainage purposes and future road widening setback areas.” The subject property is approximately 28 acres in size, but because of the encumbrances on the property, the applicant has submitted a request for an eight-lot subdivision of three-acre lots. Final subdivision approval should have been secured by August 14, 2012; we do have a current pending subdivision, which has received tentative subdivision approval, and so, again, they are just coming in for a time extension. The reason for the request is that, “Due to the economy, the feasibility of the project is low. Such a long sustained recession could not have been foreseen by the” applicant. “Considerable jobsite construction work has been done, including drainage way bridges, culvers, extensive grading and utility work. Work continues on environmental concerns – storm debris removal from waterways, erosion control measures, equipment maintenance, pasture water system improvements, including enlarged water storage tanks and troughs.” This is the proposed eight-lot subdivision layout. Ala Kahua Road is on your left side of your map. The ordinance allows only one access point on Ala Kahua Drive, which is in this general location, and it has the particular layouts for the eight lots. I’m going to zoom in on the, this is on the northern portion, so you can see the different lots laid out here, as well as the cul-de-sac. This is on the south side, and again you have three lots shown in this area, as well as you can see the drainage easement down below. These are some site photos. This is on Ala Kahua Drive looking makai; the subject property would be on your left side. This is looking mauka; the subject property would be on your right side. This is looking at the subject property from Ala Kahua Drive. These are some site photos that were submitted from the applicant that show some of the site work that has been done. This is some grading that’s been done. This is an overall photo that you can see some of the different grading work that’s been done on the property and also some of the drainage work that’s been done. You can see this bridge and one of the residing donkeys on the property. These are some more drainage works that’s been done. This is actual running water on the property. This is – I hope I can get this right – Keanahalululu Stream; so this actually does run on the property at certain times of the year. There was a storm event, which caused considerable erosion damage to the property, which caused 2 EXHIBIT C them to come in for their previous time extension. Again, this is looking from the bridge, seeing the water flowing on the property. This was interesting that, this is an aerial photo from Google Earth that already identifies the roadway on the subject property. The Planning Director is recommending that the Planning Commission send a favorable recommendation, with conditions. I do have just a little bit of information. The applicant has submitted a letter this morning, dated November 15, 2012, updating the Commission on some of the comments that we had received, as well as additional work that has been done on the property. One of the comments that we did receive, Exhibit No. 10, from the Department of Land and Natural Resources; even though the applicant had received the previous approval for their archaeological inventory survey, they are asking that a qualified archaeologist do a field inspection on the property to determine that there are no archaeological sites on the property. The applicant within the letter states that she has made contact with an archaeologist, Alan Haun, and he will be conducting a site inspection tomorrow on the property. I believe that concludes our presentation. Are there any questions? GIFFIN: Commissioners, any questions of Jeff? Hearing none -. DARROW: Thank you. GIFFIN: You’re welcome. Is anyone in the public who would like to testify this afternoon on this agenda item? Okay, my staff has informed me that there is no one in the public who is here to testify on this agenda item. Will the applicant please come forward. Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Leeward Hawai‘i County Planning Commission? FISCHER: I do. GIFFIN: Will you please state your name. FISCHER: Susan Wells Fischer. GIFFIN: Will you please go ahead and elaborate more on what the staff has said. FISCHER: Would you like me to read the statement, the one-page statement, that I, that you have in front of you? Or I can address any specifics. GIFFIN: No, I think everybody has this in hand; I mean this was distributed to us today. Is there -? Why don’t you just say some general comments in terms of why you are here? FISCHER: Okay. We, obviously, it’s been a long time. Our development has mostly occurred, our construction has occurred in spurts, as the approvals and the plans and approved construction drawings and funding and all these things align; so it has been a little inconsistent, but, for the big machinery. But we have invested quite a lot of funds in this project and a lot of time, especially to make it environmentally conducive to the best standard of the community, and especially in focusing on the Community Development Plan, which was approved in, I think, the end of 2008. And we have, there is a recommended rural infrastructure qualification or characteristics that are recommended in the CDP, and we have tried to include all of them, and with pleasure, because they are really good especially for highly erosive areas like ours. We don’t have much rain, but when we 3 EXHIBIT C do, it’s torrential. We did have an event in October 2006 where, right around the time of the earthquake, where, in fact I think the County experienced a lot of overruns over the highway, Akoni Pula Highway below, and that is the one time when the water did not stay within the bridge that you saw with the donkey. And the engineer has visited the site, and feels that it was, it has nothing to do with the size of the culvert or the bridge – it’s actually aluminum multi-plate with that, it looks like a bridge from a distance, but it’s really a top-only type of culvert and then the rock walls, the headwalls. The flow, a couple hundred feet mauka of the bridge where you saw the donkey, there is a Y, and it normally stays within the original channel and goes right toward the bridge; but in this exceptional event, while the Akoni Pule Highway was getting overrun in part because of the storm debris, trees and all, which is one of the reasons why you’ll see in our application that we, our ongoing efforts are to keep the gulches clear, so that we don’t have that kind of situation. But what the engineer explained to us happened was that the water went down the diversion, the Y, that’s a couple hundred feet mauka, and then it hit the waterline trench, which was open, and that’s why we had water running where it wasn’t supposed to go. But the picture you saw of the river flowing, that was on October 24; so that was very recent. And we’ve had several flows since the 2006 event, and all the water stayed where it’s supposed to stay. So what we have done to address this biggest concern is that the water stay in the drainage way where it’s supposed to, is that we are – we don’t want to put soil into the waterline trench because then that would just erode, and we don’t want to use small gravel – so we have started with large rocks, which we don’t need a grading permit for, so just moving in a bunch of large rocks. And we are in ongoing discussions with the engineers as to how to prevent the water from going other than where in the original channel. The archaeology is just a matter of 2003; they have new standards, new criteria, so you are probably familiar with other projects that have to have kind of a review. So our biggest concern at this point is the drainage, and keeping the water where it’s supposed to go, because obviously we don’t want to lose any of our soil, and we certainly don’t want to inflict our neighbors downstream with any problems. And an additional thing I would mention about that we have done with drainage, again which was recommended in the CDP, but we did it luckily years ago and it has functioned perfectly, is instead of the four drywells that were required along this road, we put in sedimentation ponds, or retention basins, which people say, well, that would, you know, a lot of people would think that perhaps that would entail a lot of maintenance; there has been zero maintenance, and it’s collecting the soil from the any of the runoff, so giving it time to settle out. And that system works so well that we added another over 20 of these sedimentation basins, which are in tune with the topography, wherever the topography allowed, we put a basin in so that not only are we trying to do what the County requires us to keep the soil out of the ocean from going downstream from our construction zone of the roadway, but also we are trying to prevent any soil from the project itself in everywhere on the project to retain all the soil possible. So this is a very high concern to us, and we will, we are working between the engineers and Public Works to re-approve the plans, and to address these concerns. Thank you. GIFFIN: Thank you very much. Commissioners, any questions of the applicant? Hearing none, and there is no one who is interested in testifying on this agenda item, Commissioners, just as a reminder, this is a recommendation, a change of zone for just Condition C, the amendment to Condition C. The original ordinance was 07-106. And the Director is recommending a favorable recommendation to be forwarded to the County Council. There are some conditions that were forwarded. And I think, Jeff, that’s it, right? DARROW: Correct, Madam Chair. If you’ll notice on the conditions, there’s no changes. And the reason for that is it’s, the way that was worded for the time extension is it says, “this amended 4 EXHIBIT C ordinance,” so it also applies for this particular amendment as well; so we are not changing any of the wording. GIFFIN: Great, great. Commissioners, do I hear a motion? Commissioner Beaudet. BEAUDET: For Change of Zone Ordinance No. 07-106, I recommend, I move for a favorable recommendation of the request to amend Condition C of the change of zone ordinance to be forwarded to the County Council. GIFFIN: Do I hear a second? HICKCOX: Second. GIFFIN: It’s been moved by Commissioner Beaudet and seconded by Commissioner Hickcox that we send a favorable recommendation for this request to amend Condition C of the Change of Zone Ordinance 07-106, and it be forwarded to the County Council. Any discussion? Hearing none, Jeff? DARROW: Thank you, Madam Chair. With that, I’ll take the roll. Commissioner Beaudet? BEAUDET: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Hickcox? HICKCOX: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Bowman? BOWMAN: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Nelson? NELSON: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Whittemore? WHITTEMORE: Aye. DARROW: And Madam Chair? GIFFIN: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes, six to zero. GIFFIN: You’ll be hearing from our Department. FISCHER: Thank you. GIFFIN: You’re very welcome. 5 EXHIBIT C The discussion ended at 12:50 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, Secretary Leeward Planning Commission 6 EXHIBIT C