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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-02-06HEARINGTRANSCRIPT-WAIAKEAUKABIBLECHURCH USE 13-045 WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT FEBRUARY 6, 2014 Waiākea Uka Bible Church (USE 13-045) A regularly advertised hearing on the application of was called to order at 9:20 a.m. in the County of Hawai‘i, Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i with Chairman Wallace A. Ishibashi, Jr. presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Wallace A. Ishibashi, Jr., Ronald Gonzales, Charles Heaukulani, Gregory Henkel, Myles Miyasato, and Raylene Moses. ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Stephen Ono. ALSO PRESENT: Bobby Command (Deputy Planning Director), Molly Stebbins (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Windward Planning Commission), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Jeff Darrow (Staff Planner), Maija Cottle (Staff Planner), and Sarah Hata-Finley (Secretary). And approximately 15 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: WAIĀKEA UKA BIBLE CHURCH (USE 13-045) Application for a Use Permit to allow the establishment of a church and related improvements on approximately 1.85 acres of land within the Single-Family Residential 10,000-square foot (RS-10) zoned district. The property is located behind the YMCA on the north side of West Lanikāula Street and west of the future Kapi‘olani Street extension, Waiākea Cane Lots, Waiākea, South Hilo, Hawai‘i, TMK: 2-4-056:030. ISHIBASHI: Next agenda item, Item 2. The Waiākea Uka Bible Church. Maija. COTTLE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning. ISHIBASHI: Good morning. COTTLE: The next application is a request for a Use Permit, and the applicant is Waiākea Uka Bible Church. The subject property is located in the Hilo District, I’m sorry the South Hilo District, and it is located near the University in Downtown Hilo, where you can see the property outlined in red on this slide, oops, and just to orient the Commissioners, Kapi‘olani Street runs through the middle of the slide in a north-south direction. You have Lanikāula Street fronting the property and wrapping around to Mohouli Street. So the University Campus is located just south of Lanikāula Street in the area shown on, in purple on the map. The subject property and the surrounding properties are currently zoned single family residential and that’s shown in kind of the yellow mustard color. And then there’s an area in brown that’s multi-family residential zoning to the south-east of the property. 1 EXHIBIT B I should also say the, the YMCA Building is located between Lanikāula Street and the subject property. The General Plan designation for the property is Low Density Urban. Low Density Urban allows single family residents, residential uses, as well as community uses, so the proposed church would be consistent with the General Plan designation. This is an aerial view of the property. Again, you can see the property outlined in red. It has been grubbed and graded recently, I think, prior to January of last year. And you have Lanikāula Street running through the bottom of the slide. Then you can see the YMCA building. The property does currently get its access off of Lanikāula in this area here. They have an easement over the YMCA driveway, so there’s an entrance in this location, and then it loops around and there’s an exit only. The applicant’s requesting to establish a church and related improvements. Those will include a 3,200 square foot church sanctuary building that includes an office for the church, an approximately 2,000 square foot building that will include a kitchen, restrooms, classroom, nursery, and storage for the church. And then in the future, they would like the ability to add an additional building to accommodate the needs of the church expansion. That would be about fifteen to two thousand square feet. And they’re also proposing on-site parking and landscaping as required by the Zoning Code. Church services and classes and fellowship would be held Sundays for about 250 congregants, mainly between 9 and 1. And then Bible classes would be held at various times during the week for about ten to twenty participants. This is a site plan that the applicant submitted. It’s kind of oriented opposite of the previous slides but you can see Lanikāula Street on the right side of the slide. The future Kapi‘olani Street extension is shown on the top of the slide, and then you have the YMCA building over in the right corner. You can see the existing entrance only driveway of the YMCA and the loop around to the exit through their parking area, and then the subject property behind that. So, this is what the church is proposing. They’re proposing to access through the YMCA parking lot and extend a driveway into a new parking area for the church. You can see the main sanctuary building that they’re proposing as well as that smaller building to accommodate Bible classes, restrooms, as well as a nursery. And then off to the left side of the slide, you have an area for a future building. Once Kapi‘olani Street extension is constructed, which is anticipated to be done fairly soon within the next few years, the church would like to get access off of that extension as well which would be along the top of the slide. I’m assuming they’re going to propose just to punch through in this area here into the parking lot. This is a view of the YMCA entrance, so Lanikāula Street is very far in the back here. This is their entrance. It’s an entrance only, and the subject property, I was standing on the subject property looking back at the YMCA parking lot here, so this gives you an idea of the topography and slope of the property as well as where the access will be in the future. This is the exit driveway with, again, Lanikāula Street very far in the back. So the, one of the driveways to the church property, would be in this general area here. And then, this is a view looking to the west. This is the US Army training property in the back. And then the future driveway for the church would come off in this area here. And then this is a view looking towards where the future Kapi‘olani Street extension would be along the tree line 2 EXHIBIT B here. You can see the existing YMCA building on the right side of the slide, and then this is the church, the church property in this area here. So, the Planning Department is recommending approval of the Use Permit with conditions as we recommended in your report. And, so you should have the Background and Recommendation Report, and then we also did receive some comments from Water Supply after we mailed the report to you, and we would actually like to add one more condition in light of those comments from Water Supply. You see on your goldenrod recommendation, Condition 3 is related to water. It includes our standard backflow prevention assembly condition. We would like to add a condition right before that so it would be a new Condition No. 2. Or I’m sorry a new Condition No. 3 and then everything else would be numbered after that, renumbered after that. And the new condition would just, we would use our standard condition that kind of emulates, Item No. 2 in Department of Water Supply’s memo where they request water usage calculations, and there’s an existing meter on the property but it’s limited to 400 gallons per day, and so if, if the applicant submits water usage calculations and they find out that more water is needed, the applicant would have to enlarge or upgrade that water meter. So, we’d just like to add in our standard condition related to water usage calculations. And I don’t have exact language for you, but I think you’ve all seen it before. Are there any questions? ISHIBASHI: Commissioners, any questions? Okay, Maija, I have one. You know on this extension from Kapi‘olani, the road, when we, through that road, were they going to come back or is that included, this punching through and getting access through Kapi‘olani? COTTLE: The Department of Public Works, we checked with them, and they confirmed that the applicant can get access from that future road once it’s built. So the applicant would just have to go in and get a permit from the Department of Public Works to make that connection. Yeah. ISHIBASHI: Good job, Maija. Thank you. Any questions staff? Of staff? Okay, could I have the applicant come up please? Could you raise your right hand? Do you affirm and swear to tell the truth before the Windward Planning Commission over this matter? SAKAI: I do. FUKE: I do. ISHIBASHI: Thank you. Could you state your name and address for the record? SAKAI: Ian Sakai, 187 Ainako Avenue. FUKE: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Sidney Fuke again, same address, 100 Pauahi Street. For your information, Mr. Sakai, is, he’s the pastor of the Waiākea Uka Bible Church. I’d also like to acknowledge the presence of the assistant pastor, Shane Miura, sitting in the back, and one of their more active members of the church, Bill Walters. Just to give you a little bit background about, on this situation, about two, two or three years ago, I was approached by the former CEO of the YMCA, his name is Fred Yamashiro, and so, he was 3 EXHIBIT B explaining this whole property where, you know, I think most of you know that the YMCA is not really doing quite well financially, and so he had asked like what’s the prospect of getting the land subdivided because the Waiākea Uka Bible Church was already utilizing a portion of the YMCA building for its services. So, what the Y wanted to do essentially created a win-win situation where they would have the land subdivided, sell it to them, and in turn, help the YMCA with its financial situation, so on a pro bono basis, I kind of helped them with the subdivision, so then the course of the subdivision, there were like two specific requirements. One was that, that portion that fronts, a small portion that fronts the Kapi‘olani Street extension, there were at the time, the YMCA as a condition of the subdivision was obligated to subdivide that portion and convey to the County so that’s already been done. The other one was that there was a mandate that the sewer line also be connected because at, presently the YMCA is not connected to this, to the sewer line which fronts Lanikāula Street, but with this project here, what they’re going to do, they’re going to collaborate so that such that their facility and the YMCA now would be pretty much like sharing the same trench I guess yeah, so then that kind of helps out, you know with the cost for the YMCA, you know, because they are already long overdue in not hooking up to the County wastewater system. The other thing I kind of wanted to point out was that the, they, subject to the, you know, Planning Commission’s decision if it’s a favorable one that, they’d like to begin construction as soon as possible. As you can see, like by the plans that the staff has shown you, they have, they can just, the design, you know to, a different level and not just only stick drawings but, you know, pretty much the construction rated type of design. They anticipate the first phase, you know, which would consist of the sanctuary and the classroom building to be completed, you know, depending on the outcome again, you know, of this Commission to be completed within a year, year and a half from now, so some time like next year. Probably like a million dollars worth if, yeah. Finally, I think the other thing I wanted to kind of point out was that, you know, the staff had mentioned about the water, the additional condition. The additional condition is fine, I mean you know, it’s totally understandable cause when we did the two lot subdivision, the standard requirement was just to have the 5/8” meter serving both properties. And so depending on the use, then they may have to change the 5/8” meter to like a full inch, and so that’s the reason why the water department would want to have like a water calculation study to figure out exactly how much water you’re going to need, and based upon that, then they’ll be able to determine whether your 5/8” or 1” meter would be required. So, all things considered, I think the staff’s report is very comprehensive, is accurate, and the original conditions and as amended, you know, I discussed it with Mr. Sakai, are acceptable. Thank you. ISHIBASHI: Thank you so much. Any questions of the applicant Commissioners? Okay, seeing none. COMMAND: Mr. Chairman— ISHIBASHI: Yes— 4 EXHIBIT B COMMAND: I just have one quick question. Just for my own information here, how’s the building oriented. In other words, where is the front of the building? SAKAI: The sanctuary, the sanctuary would be facing east toward Kapi‘olani Street. ISHIBASHI: Okay, thank you. We have no one signed up for public testimony. Anybody interested to testify please come up now. Okay, Commissioners, a motion is in order. MIYASATO: I move that the application for Use Permit, USE 13-45, be approved based on the Planning Director’s recommendations and proposed condition with the amendment on Condition 2. ISHIBASHI: Okay, it has been moved by Commissioner Miyasato. GONZALES: I’ll second the motion. ISHIBASHI: And seconded by Commissioner Gonzales. Open for discussion. Any discussion from the Commissioners? Okay, seeing none, Maija? COTTLE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Miyasato, you said Condition 2 but can we say Condition 3 and then we’ll renumber everything after that? MIYASATO: Okay. COTTLE: Okay, is that okay with you? GONZALES: I second. COTTLE: Thank you. All right, I’ll take the roll. Commissioner Miyasato? MIYASATO: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Gonzales? GONZALES: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Heaukulani? HEAUKULANI: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Henkel? HENKEL: Aye. COTTLE: Commissioner Moses? 5 EXHIBIT B MOSES: Aye. COTTLE: And Mr. Chair. ISHIBASHI: Aye. COTTLE: Okay, the motion to approve passes 6-0. ISHIBASHI: Okay, thank you so much. Maija,thank you. You’ll be notified in writing. FUKE: Thank you. SAKAI: Thank you. The discussion ended at 9:37 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sarah Y. Hata-Finley, Secretary Windward Planning Commission 6 EXHIBIT B