Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-07-03 Hearing Transcript - AT&T MobilityUSE 14-048 WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT JULY 3, 2014 AT&T Mobility (USE 14-048) A regularly advertised hearing on the application of was called to order at 10:42 a.m. in the County of Hawai‘i, Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i with Chairman Myles Miyasato presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Myles Miyasato, Charles Heaukulani, Gregory Henkel, Raylene Moses, and Stephen Ono. ALSO PRESENT: Duane Kanuha (Planning Director), Margaret Masunaga (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Windward Planning Commission), Amy Self (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Planning Director, from 9:37 a.m. to 12:25 p.m.), Melody Parker (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Planning Director from 9:13 a.m. to 12:39 p.m.), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Jeff Darrow (Staff Planner), Maija Cottle (Staff Planner), Sarah Hata-Finley (Secretary), Kim Tanaka (Secretary), and Melissa Dacayanan (Planning Commission Support Technician). And approximately 11 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: AT&T MOBILITY (USE 14-048) Application for a Use Permit to allow the construction of a new telecommunication facility, including a 185-foot tall steel monopole with 8-foot tall panel antennas and related facilities within a 5,625 square-foot portion of a 2-acre parcel situated in the State Land Use Agricultural district and the County’s Agricultural 3-acre (A-3a) zoned district. The property is located on the northwest corner of the Rose Street and Hibiscus Street intersection, Crescent (Fern) Acres, Kea‘au, Puna, Hawai`i, TMK: 1-1-038: Portion of 002. MIYASATO: Okay, Item No. 4 on the agenda, AT&T Mobility. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, if I could direct your attention to our presentation, our next applicant is AT&T Mobility. They are requesting a Use Permit for a tower, and this is in the Puna District of Hawai‘i. More specifically, we’re looking in the area of Mountain View and even more specific, the subdivision of Fern Acres—that’s the light blue area here. Access to this area would be from South Kulani Road, which is within the middle of Mountain View area. Just for reference again, the different colors representing County zoning. The lighter blue representing Agricultural – 3 acres. The darker green representing Agricultural – 20 acres, and then along Highway 11, Volcano Highway, you have some residential uses along there. This is a close-up view. This is within Fern Acres Subdivision. You have Hibiscus Street and Rose Street. This parcel is located on the corner of these two streets, and it is identified in a black outline. Zoning for this area is Agricultural – 3 acres. These particular lots are two acres in size. 1 EXHIBIT D They’re quite long, and their actual depth is or length is eight hundred and—approximately 870 feet. Their width is approximately 100 feet. This is the General Plan Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map for the area which identifies this subdivision as Rural. And this is an aerial photo. Again, for reference, we have Hibiscus Street and Rose Street, and the subject property is identified with a black outline. As you observe, there is a single-family dwelling located on the site. The project area is going to be generally in this particular area. There are some dwellings in the immediate area. The applicant is requesting a Use Permit to construct a 185-foot tall steel monopole with twelve 8-foot panel antennas mounted on the top of the monopole. The monopole would be designed to accommodate the placement of other carriers or what we call co-location. In addition to the monopole, the 5,625 square foot or 75 times 75 foot leased area would be used for accessory ground facilities which include radio and battery equipment cabinets and an outdoor emergency generator within an 11.5 foot by 20 foot shelter. The leased area would be fenced within an 8-foot high chain link security fencing. The objective of the request is to improve coverage in the Mountain View area. Coverage will be improved to provide better call quality within the homes as customers depend more on cellular service over land line telephone services in Hawai‘i. Lastly, the proposed project will increase data speeds for Internet connection, video services, and phone applications. This is the site plan that was submitted within the application. It’s a little light, but Hibiscus Street is on the upper portion of the right side of your map, and then we have Rose Street. You, access to the facility will be off Rose Street. There is the existing dwelling, and this is the project area. This is a closer view of the project area which shows the tower as well as the accessory ground equipment. You’ll notice that the leased area is quite larger than the equipment and the tower and that’s to be able to accommodate future co-locators that come onto the tower to be able to put their equipment. This is a elevation view of the tower. And, in this process, the Fern Acres Community Association did comment. They had met with the Applicant and had requested that either a monopine or a monopole be used for this particular project, so the Applicant has submitted several photos identifying what these look like. So, this is a monopine. As you can see, you can see the panel antennas on the top. This is a monopalm. I’m not sure if that will work here in Hawai‘i, but—and with that, the Planning Director is recommending approval with conditions. We do have two pieces of correspondence that came in after the application was submitted to the Planning Commission. One is the “no effect” letter from the Department of Land and Natural rd Resources, State Historic Preservation Division. This is dated June 23, 2014. And lastly was the submittal from the applicant in regards to stealthing the tower with a monopine or a monopalm. 2 EXHIBIT D With that, that concludes our presentation. Thank you. MIYASATO: Commissioners, any questions for staff? Would the Applicant please come forward? SOUZA: Good morning. MIYASATO: Good morning. Could you please raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai‘i County Planning Commission? SOUZA: I do. MIYASATO: Could you please state your name and address? SOUZA: My name is Rebecca Souza, and my address is 143 Kaimi Street, Kailua, Hawai‘i 96734. MIYASATO: Go ahead. SOUZA: I’m here today as agent for AT&T. I work with Cascadia PM, and we are proposing this monopole to better serve the Fern Acres/Mountain View area. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. MIYASATO: Commissioners, any questions for the Applicant? I have a question. You know, I have a letter from the Department of Planning [sic] Works of an outstanding Building Permit that has not been completed for an existing structure. Are you aware of that? SOUZA: On the property itself? MIYASATO: TMK, Building Permit No. 981371. And it says prior to any new permit application and issuance, we request that this issue be addressed prior to any new permit application and issuance. SOUZA: Okay, I have not seen that, and I’ve not been provided it. I’m not sure what that refers to. We have done no construction. MIYASATO: Okay, and there’s one from Department of Land and Natural Resources. If there are any exterior lights, problems for young Newell shearwaters in flight may occur. Determined by a blinding light and flying into utility wires and poles, trees, and buildings, so there’s a concern by Department of Land and Natural Resources, too. SOUZA: My understanding was that the Department of Land and Natural Resources had no objection per their latest correspondence. st MIYASATO: Okay. This one is dated May 21. 3 EXHIBIT D rd SOUZA: The last correspondence I believe was dated June 23. MIYASATO: Okay. DARROW: If I could address those. The first matter is in regards to the actual existing structure on the property, the single-family dwelling. So, the Applicant would need to work with the owner of the property to make sure that they finalize their Building Permit, and that was in Exhibit No. 2 from the Department of Public Works. And that’s kind of occurs quite often, you know, there’s structures on the property that are, just need to go through the final permit process. The comment from Division of Forestry & Wildlife, what happens is, you have certain towers that are a certain height that require lighting. In this particular case, because the tower is under 200 feet, they usually don’t trigger that requirement for lighting, so this, at this point, it’s not really a concern. We can add a condition that if the Applicant is proposing to have any type of exterior lighting, we can ask them to aim it downward, which is their—their request within there. But, it’s, it’s pretty tough. Usually, once they go over 200 feet, FAA gets involved. They want particular types of lighting and stuff, and apparently that seems to work, this red flashing light doesn’t seem, I guess it doesn’t attract the birds as much as a continual white light. MIYASATO: So, I guess my thing is we’d be able to take action on this without this issue being resolved, and that would just be for the Planning Department to follow up? DARROW: We--we could add a condition or amend a condition that the Applicant finalize all Building Permits prior to Plan Approval if that would be, if that would please the Planning Commission— MIYASATO: Okay, thank you. DARROW: And then, as well as if-if, if the applicant says that there might be exterior lighting, we could ask that the exterior lighting be faced downward or shield it. MIYASATO: Okay, thank you. Any further questions for the Applicant? Okay, thank you. SOUZA: Thank you. MIYASATO: Okay, we have one testifier, Frank Battaglia, Battaglia. Could you please raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawai‘i County Planning Commission? BATTAGLIA: Yes, I do. MIYASATO: State your name and your address please. BATTAGLIA: I’m Frank Battaglia, and physical address, if that’s you want, is 11-3286 Hibiscus Street. Well, the reason I came to this hearing is I, it was only a matter of weeks ago that I, several weeks ago, that I discovered this planning sign about a tower, and you know, I 4 EXHIBIT D have no aggression toward the individual who owns the property of the proposed tower. He’s doing nothing wrong but taking advantage of a situation or opportunity to produce some I’m sure needed income but possibly at the expense of his own family and his own informed choice, so what am I talking about? The problem I have is that initially, he was told to send a letter to neighbors around him of a distance of 500 feet. That might work for other proposals, but for a cell tower, it’s a little different. He did not make up that distance, so I don’t hold that against him. There was some unresearched rules of engagement which bear no sensibility and scientific study regarding the tower’s EMF radiation. The fact is there are not many homes in this 500- foot area, but there’s a lot of homes in that Fern Acres area. It gives AT&T a step up in their request to have a tower because they’re not enough people knowing about this tower. And that means not much adversity. The community was really not informed. There’s people who live way up beyond that tower, excuse me, beyond that sign, proposal sign that have never seen that tower because they don’t come that way or up that way. Moving on to the next concern, now if this gentleman chooses to have this tower on his property and is aware of the health possibilities that could occur, it’s his choice, but here’s the concern. If the tower is approved, it does not give any neighbors any choice of choosing their poison. I considered this myself as an alternative site, but then I thought about and did some research on this and I’m not so sure for myself if I had the chance to have an alternative site at my property, but they’re not benefitting financially like this good gentleman is, but are forced to subject themselves to the negative possibilities of having this tower. I look at it this way. We all choose our poisons. I smoked, that’s not good, but I don’t drink. I choose my poison of choice. Do you drink? That’s your poison of choice, but the fact is, it’s your chosen poison, and it’s, it’s not having it forced down your throat. I feel that anyone who’s in a three quarter mile radius of this tower should be compensated monthly or a lump sum check for having to be exposed to this radiation voluntarily or not. Now, if AT&T is a responsible organization, and if they are hell bent on having this tower in this geographical area, then I feel the people who have no say about this and are exposed to such EMF radiation—and it’s, it’s a lot—should at least receive some sort of stipend for the possibilities of ill health. I use a figure of three quarter of a mile radius because studies have said that an area of about 1,800 feet is a ground zero area of such EMF on a tower. How about our real estate values? Do you think having a tower is a good selling point, for example, for homeowners. Now, I’ll just make this quick and quote, an Australian study found that children leaving near TV/FM and broadcast towers which emit similar radiation as cell towers develop leukemia at three times the rate of children living seven miles away. A German study cited that cancer rates tripled among people living within 400 meters of cell towers. Those within 100 meters were exposed to radiation one hundred times normal the levels— MIYASATO: --Excuse me, could you please summarize, please? BATTAGLIA: Excuse me? MIYASATO: Could you summarize? BATTAGLIA: Well, I’ll summarize it. I mean, I’m here cause I’m probably the only representative in Fern Acres because not everybody has—the summarization that not everybody 5 EXHIBIT D in Fern Acres, I don’t need paperwork, not everybody in Fern Acres has been informed, okay? You’re talking about an area where he had to put a notice of only five, between five hundred feet from his residence, okay. The radiation from this tower can affect cattle, children, livestock, sure it’s gonna be great to have a tower that will provide for better reception, cell phone and what not, but I don’t feel, and this is a private community by the way. I don’t know how this got through Fern Acres unless some ponds are being greased, when I heard of the thing, I said oh gee that sounds nice, maybe I can make some money, maybe as an alternative site. Then I read all the stuff, and said you know, it’s not worth the money, and even if I had a tower on my site, I would be forcing AT&T to make known to these people of what studies have said. They’re not gonna say that cause they want a tower up there. But there are, this is more research than not then that proves that there is you know damage from EMF radiation then there’s not. They like the tower of that. I understand why. It’s a money making deal for the company. That’s business, capitalism. But this is a small community. It really is. And there’s 2,000 residents there by the way. That aerial view shows like hardly any houses around Rose Street and Hibiscus. There’s plenty around if you move on with that aerial camera and you see how close this is. It will be nice that it would be decorated to look like a pine tree or something or whatever, but I am concerned about the radiation. I am concerned about the uninformed public. I think I’m the only one here that came for Fern Acres which means that nobody knew about this. They figured, good, you know, nobody knows, we’re not gonna get any adverse reactions to this, and concluding a—you know, it’s not just that, it’s the way they went about this, and if it’s a different issue about building a house or something, all right people five hundred feet away. Okay, we’re talking about a tower that emits EMF radiation. That’s like microwaves. It’s not like your little microwave. This is a little more than that. And over a period of time, people get leukemia and the guy, I mean I have nothing against him. I hope he does well if he gets the tower. I understand that he’s got grandchildren that live there or come there. He’s a teacher for some counseling Hawaiian. I’m a little worried about the kids in the neighborhood. I put my greed aside, and I was actually talking to consultants and said, well I’ll be an alternative of this site, you know—it was need-- MIYASATO: --Excuse me, sir. You need to summarize-- BATTAGLIA:--not greed. Summarization is that there was not enough notice given to the people of Fern Acres for a tower. Not enough notice. There was not enough. And where it was located, not many people have seen that, and they also should have put out a notice to everyone in Fern Acres, we’re considering putting a tower up but we want you to know that studies say there could be some ill health effects from this. I feel like helpless as one person here talking for this, but I am talking for the community that are deaf ears at this. I think that AT&T should have been a little bit more informative about this tower and the possible EMF effects of the radiation. Thank you. MIYASATO: Commissioners, any questions? Thank you. BATTAGLIA: Thank you. MIYASATO: Commissioners, any discussion? Commissioner Henkel. 6 EXHIBIT D HENKEL: I used to have EMF concerns, or I still do, but I don’t know if you Commissioners will remember last month, we had a representative from a different company, Verizon, here, an engineer. I asked him about it, and he pointed out that, that may have been true of the old analog towers, and most of these studies that you cite might be you know representative of the analog towers. The new towers they put in are digital. He pointed out that if you’re standing next to a tower with your cell phone, that your cell phone is giving you more radiation than the tower is emitting. And it seemed incredible to me, so that’s, that would be my response to you know your concerns at this time. BATTAGLIA (from audience): Well, I have a proposal. Can I make a statement then? Do you— MIYASATO: Excuse me, the public testimony is done. BATTAGLIA (from audience): Okay. ONO: Mr. Chair? MIYASATO: Commissioner Ono. ONO: I just want to make a comment that it’s not that we’re not ignoring the individual that just testified, but we’ve had this kind of a testimony earlier so whatever action we take is not without your input, but I don’t want you to feel that you know, our minds were already made up, and therefore, you, no sense being here, so, thank you. MIYASATO: Commissioner Henkel. HENKEL: Yeah, one, one more point. I mean, I sympathize with you, and I do wish that the cell providers with all the rural land that we have would you know choose their sites a little more distant from populations, it’s kind of quandary that, you know, most everybody uses cell phones, and most everybody wants cell phone reception, but you know, they don’t want the towers near them. MIYASATO: Staff. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, if I could interject with a few proposed condition changes just to address some of the issues that were brought up through the discussion. One of them, Condition No. 2, because of the agreement that has been made with the community association for stealthing the tower, we wanted to make some reference to a monopole or a monopine or a monopalm, and so we wanted to do that under Condition2 where we would, we would say instead of construction of the proposed development, we would say construction of the proposed monopine/monopalm as proposed by the Applicant shall be completed within five years, so we’ll just make it clear that this is going to be a shielded tower. Additionally, there was concerns regarding the open permit. We have a standard condition that we can add. We can add that as a new Condition 4 that would say prior to the issuance of Final 7 EXHIBIT D Plan Approval, the Applicant shall secure and finalize all Building Permits as required by the Department of Public Works, Building Division, so that would address that before they could receive Final Plan Approval. And then lastly, an addition to Condition 6 regarding the lighting. I don’t believe there is any exterior lighting, but just to put it on the record, we could add at the end of Condition 6 all exterior lighting shall be shielded. And hopefully that would address all the concerns. We would renumber the conditions accordingly. MIYASATO: Thank you. Any comments or discussions, staff? Commissioners, for staff? If not, I want to entertain a motion. MOSES: I move that the Use Permit Application 14-000048 to allow the construction of a new telecommunication facility including a 185-foot tall steel monopole with 8-foot tall panel antennas and related facilities within a 5,625 square foot portion of a 2-acre parcel be approved by the Planning Commission as recommended by the Planning Director with the proposed conditions and added conditions as Jeff just relayed to us. ONO: Second. MIYASATO: Okay, we have a motion made by Commissioner Moses and seconded by Commissioner Ono. Any discussion? If not— DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman-- BATTAGLIA (from audience walking out): No, I want to make a last comment. You don’t have to live in that community, we do. Okay? Thank you! Bulls**t! Big money always right over the little people. Those kids will get leukemia at their expense! Thank you! DARROW: Pardon the interruption. As mentioned, the recommendation is approval with the amendments and additional condition. With that, we’ll take the roll call. Commissioner Moses? MOSES: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ono? ONO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Heaukulani? HEAUKULANI: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Henkel? HENKEL: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman. 8 EXHIBIT D MIYASATO: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes five to zero. MIYASATO: You will be notified in writing. The discussion ended at 11:09 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sarah Y. Hata-Finley, Secretary Windward Planning Commission 9 EXHIBIT D