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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-07-18 Leeward Exh A - Teshima LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT JULY 18, 2013 HAROLD TESHIMA (REZ-13-165) A regularly advertised hearing on the application of was called to order at 10:00 a.m. in the West Hawai‘i Civic Center, Community Center, Building G, 74-5044 Ane Keohokālole Highway, Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i, with Vice Chair Brandi Beaudet presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Brandi Beaudet, Thomas Hickcox, Richard Nelson, III and Thomas Whittemore ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Geraldine Giffin ALSO PRESENT: Bobby Command (Deputy Planning Director), Margaret Masunaga (Deputy Corporation Counsel), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Jeff Darrow (Planner), Kiran Emler (Department of Public Works, Engineering Division) and Noriko Sauer (Commission Secretary) And approximately 50 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT:HAROLD TESHIMA (REZ-13-165) Change of Zone from an Agricultural–5 acres (A-5a) to a Family Agricultural–2 acre (FA-2a) zoning district for a 2-acre portion of a larger 7.662-acre parcel. The property is located along the northeast (mauka) side of the Old Government Road (also known as Hooper Road or Hooper Villa Road), approximately 900 feet north from the intersection of Kuakini Highway and Hawai‘i Belt nd Road, Maihi 2, North Kona, Hawai‘i, TMK: 7-9-003: Portion of 033. BEAUDET: Second Agenda Item this morning will now be the application of Harold Teshima, REZ-13-165, for a change of zone from Agricultural-5 acres to Family Ag-2. Sorry, one second. I’m sorry, I’ll continue again. Change of Zone application REZ 13-000165 for a change of zone from Agricultural-5 acres to Family Agricultural-2 acres, FA-2a, for two acres, for property located along the northeast side of the Old Government Road, Hooper Road, approximately 900 feet north from the intersection of Kuakini Highway and Hawai‘i Belt Road, and located in North Kona, TMK: 7-9-003: portion of 033. Staff? DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I can direct your attention to our presentation. As mentioned, our next applicant is Harold Teshima requesting a change of zone. The area of this subject request is within the North Kona District of Hawai‘i. More specifically, we are looking in the general area of Honalo where Kuakini, Māmalahoa and Old Māmalahoa meet. The subject property is identified with a black outline, and again, we have north at the top of the map, south on the lower, west on the left and east on the right. This is a closer view of the subject property, identified with a black outline. Honalo would be just to the south of the property. For reference you might be familiar with the Kona Coffee Villas project, the multi-family affordable rental project, that’s located directly across the street. For reference we have Kuakini Highway, we have Old Māmalahoa Highway, and we have Hooper Road, which is a narrow road that provides access to the subject property. Again, the different colors on the map represent the zonings in the area; the 1 EXHIBIT A lighter green, which is the subject property, represents Agricultural-5 acres, the darker green represents Agricultural-1 acre, and even darker green is Agricultural-20 acres. There is some Multiple-Family Residential zoning, as well as some Commercial and Resort zoning in the area. This is the State Land Use Boundary Map; the green represents Agriculture and the pink represents Urban. The subject property does have a small portion of Urban located on it; a majority of it is located within the State Land Use Agricultural District. This is the General Plan Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map; the mustered color represents Low Density Urban for single-family type uses, the green represents Important Agricultural Lands. Approximately more than half of the property is affected by the Low Density Urban designation. This is a close-up aerial of the property. Again for reference, we have Hooper Road providing access, we have Old Māmalahoa Highway, as well as Kuakini where they all meet at the junction. This is the Kona Coffee Villas multiple-family residential project. And the subject property is identified with the black outline. There are two permitted dwellings on the property; one is located in the rear of the property, the other one is located near Hooper Road. The applicant is requesting a change of zone from Agricultural-5 acres to Family Agricultural-2 acres for a two-acre portion of the 7.6-acre parcel of land. The reason for the request is that the subject property is jointly owned by various members of the Teshima family. Family members, Yoshiyuki and Irene Izumi live on a mauka five-acre portion. The landowners wish to subdivide the property consisting with their proportional interest in the land for estate planning and real property tax purposes. Should the rezoning and subdivision get approved, the applicant would secure his two-acre interest in land fronting Hooper Road while the Izumis would retain the balance. This is the applicant’s site plan submitted with the application. Again, we have Hooper Road located at the bottom portion of the map, which provides access. You have the upper portion, which would be over five acres, it would be approximately five and a half acres, which would retain one single-family dwelling. The lower portion of the property would be two acres and would be zoned Family Agricultural-2 acre, and would retain one single-family dwelling. There are two issues that we ran across on this subject application, and just to bring them to your attention, one of them was the comments from the Department of Water Supply; they were not supportive of this application for the reason that they said even though there were two water meters issued to this property, they said that the water, the pressure standards were substandard, the water pressure standards, yet, they still said that there were two water commitments already issued to the property. In reviewing this application and looking at the concurrency requirements in the Code, it specifically states that if the water supply can meet and issue water commitments to the property, then we can go forward with the rezone. The Planning Director feels that as a result of this application, which is not going to result in any additional dwellings, there’s only going to be two dwellings. We have a restrictive covenant condition that will not allow any additional dwellings to be built on either lot, so there won’t be an increase in density; that we felt it would be appropriate to move forward. The other issue is archaeological. Let me just get through this, so, the Department of Land and Natural Resources had requested that an archaeological inventory survey be conducted at the rezoning area. It was, we had approached them and asked them, do we hold off on this application or can we go forward with a condition requiring them to submit the inventory survey; they said that they had conducted a field inspection and they felt that at this time they are looking at mostly walls and things like that. The applicant had actually had Haun & Associates do an arch assessment and give us a preliminary read, which was submitted to the Planning Commission, this 2 EXHIBIT A was dated July 16. It does show three sites on the property, which mainly have to do with walls, and also a basin. They felt that it would be appropriate to submit the archaeological inventory survey prior to the filing a subdivision application. So we had added Condition G to be able to meet those requirements. These are some site photos. This is on Hooper Road, looking towards Honalo, and the subject property would be on your left. As you can see, the road is quite narrow. There is a condition or two that requires a future road widening setback in case there are improvements to this road in the future. This is looking back towards Kailua-Kona, with the subject property on the right side. The Planning Director is recommending that the Planning Commission send a favorable recommendation with conditions to the Hawai‘i County Council. With that, that concludes our presentation. Are there any questions? BEAUDET: Commissioners? DARROW: Thank you. BEAUDET: With no questions from the Commissioners, will the applicant and/or his representative please come forward. FUKE: Good morning again. I so affirm that what I’ll say would be the truth again. My name is Sidney Fuke, and I’m here representing the applicant, Mr. Harold Teshima. He is, Mr. Teshima is also in the audience, he has had the chance to review the staff’s background report and the recommendation, and found them to be acceptable. There’s just several things that I’d like to just point out to the Commission, just additional information, some of which may be repetitive. The property right now is seven acres in size, but then bear in mind that the request is not to rezone the entire seven acres; it is designed to rezone only just two-acre portion just so that they can create a two-lot subdivision. Secondly, it’s that there are two dwellings on the property right now on the entire seven-acre site; one is owned by the Izumis and the lower portion is owned by the applicant, Mr. Teshima. So essentially, if this rezoning is approved and ultimately they go in with the subdivision, it’s a situation where what you see is what you get, I mean, you know, there is not going to be any more additional activity on the property. The other thing I kind of wanted to point out is that relative to the archaeological, there was assessment done by Haun & Associates as the staff pointed out, and what was found was that, you know, based on the State rules on archaeological features, anything that’s more than 50 years old is considered to be, you have to go and officially catalog them and have it recorded. So in this situation what was found was that all of the walls and the cistern, they deal like with ranching activities, and so as a result by the State DLNR rules, they are now, the applicant is now required to conduct an official archaeological inventory survey, and have all of those officially catalogued and so noted. The assessment pretty much concluded that the information would be, the sites on the property are important only from an informational standpoint, and he is not recommending that they preserve or further work be done. The last item I kind of wanted to point out is that when we applied for the rezoning, there were like a number of structures within the two-acre portion. And I just received a copy of a letter from the Planning staff today, saying that all of those non-permitted structures, those issues have all been totally addressed; so as far as any potential, or outstanding rather, zoning violations have all been cured. With that, Mr. Chairman, if there are further questions, I would be more than happy to answer. 3 EXHIBIT A BEAUDET: Commissioners, any questions or comments? Thank you, Sidney. FUKE: Sure. BEAUDET: I have the list of testifiers in front of me, and once again no one has signed up, so if there is anyone from the community who would wish to testify, please -. Excuse me, sir, you signed up to testify on behalf of the Teshima applicant? Okay, so we stand corrected. One individual has signed up to testify: Andy Archibald. Would you please come forward, sir. ARCHIBALD: Good morning. BEAUDET: Good morning. Would you please state your name and speak directly into the microphone. ARCHIBALD: Yes. My name is Andy Archibald. I’m here to represent the board of directors of Kona Coffee Villas. And to allay Sidney’s concerns, I am not here to protest -. BEAUDET: I’m sorry, sir. I need to swear you in. ARCHIBALD: Okay. BEAUDET: Would you please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai‘i County Leeward Planning Commission? ARCHIBALD: Yes, sir. BEAUDET: Thank you. ARCHIBALD: Again, my name is Andy Archibald. I’m here to represent Kona Coffee Villas Board of Directors. We do not oppose this project in any way, and we would like to publicly acknowledge we acknowledge and support the Teshima family for their enormous contributions to West Hawai‘i, especially to the one group near and dear to my heart, American Veterans. Our concern is that we have a chance now to ask about Hooper Road. We were notified some time ago that Hooper Road was no longer a County road. And there was some dispute as to the ownership of the road. This concerns us because, No. 1, people in the area behind Kona Coffee Villas have been linked to the burglary ring in Hōlualoa, and we frequently have parties that go late in the night that we believe involve other substances beside beer. There is some concern as to getting police response and/or fire response to anywhere on Hooper Road. So we came down here just to ask you the status of Hooper Road and whether there is anything we can do about the current situation behind us. Thank you. BEAUDET: Thank you. Deputy Director, Bobby, maybe you can comment that, you know, the comment has been heard, and that the County will try its best to address the situation. COMMAND: First of all, regarding the ownership of Hooper Road, if I can ask Ki to make a comment on that. Ki Emler, Department of Public Works, Engineering. 4 EXHIBIT A EMLER: Good morning. I did address that in my comments in my memo to the Planning Director upon reviewing the application. Hooper Road is presently a road that is a government road as designated on the maps, but it’s not currently maintained by the County. I did do some checking with the Highway Maintenance Division, and they are, you know, if a special situation came up and there was a special request for something, that’s a possibility, but otherwise it’s not on the County’s maintenance inventory list at this present time. It is a government road, though. COMMAND: Thank you. The other issue you are talking about is an enforcement issue obviously, and I will make a point of it to speak with Police and ask them to at least give me some sort of idea about what’s happening up there and, you know, if there are any actions being taken to solve your concerns. ARCHIBALD: Thank you. COMMAND: Sure, thank you. BEAUDET: Commissioners, any comments or questions for the applicant? Can I hear a motion? WHITTEMORE: Mr. Chair, I would like to make a motion. I move for a favorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council on the application for the change of zoning on request REZ 13-00165, based on the Planning Director’s recommendations and proposed conditions. BEAUDET: Do I hear a second? HICKCOX: I second, but just a point of order; it’s 000165. WHITTEMORE: Excuse me. I stand corrected there. BEAUDET: Okay. It has been moved by Commissioner Whittemore to forward a favorable recommendation of application REZ 13-000165 for a favorable recommendation to the County Council, and seconded by Commissioner Hickcox. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that, we’ll take the roll call. Commissioner Whittemore? WHITTEMORE: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Hickcox? HICKCOX: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Nelson? NELSON: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman? 5 EXHIBIT A BEAUDET: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes, four to zero. FUKE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and also thank you for allowing this application to leapfrog over the other one. Thank you. The discussion ended at 10:20 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, Secretary Leeward Planning Commission 6 EXHIBIT A