HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-07-03 Hearing Transcript - PD Initiated Amend Chap 25 PVD & Special District
WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION
COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I
HEARING TRANSCRIPT
JULY 3, 2014
(1) Planning Director Initiated Amendment to
A regularly advertised hearing on the
Chapter 25 of the Hawai‘i County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, As Amended) (Review of
Development Projects Within a Special District) and (2) Planning Director Initiated
Amendment to Chapter 25, of the Hawai‘i County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, As Amended)
(Pāhoa Village Design District)
was called to order at 12:38 p.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), Daryn Arai (Planning Program
Manager), Jeff Darrow (Staff Planner), Maija Cottle (Staff Planner), Larry Brown (Staff Planner-
Long Range Division), Sarah Hata-Finley (Secretary), Kim Tanaka (Secretary), and Melissa
Dacayanan (Planning Commission Support Technician).
And approximately 2 people from the public in attendance.
Note: The Commission heard Item Nos. 7 and 8 together.
INITIATOR: PLANNING DIRECTOR
An ordinance amending Chapter 25 (Zoning Code), Article 2, Division 7, Section 25-2-71
(Applicability-Plan Approval required), Section 25-2-73 (Reserved), Section 25-2-76 (Action of
Plan Approval application), Section 25-2-77 (Review Criteria and conditions of approval); and
Article 6, Division 1, Section 25-6-3 (Application for P.U.D. permit requirements), Section 25-6-
7 (Reserved), and Section 25-6-10 (Criteria for granting a P.U.D. permit) of the Hawai‘i County
Code 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended). These amendments would create a process within the
Zoning Code that requires the Planning Director to review and consult with a local design review
committee for certain land use permit applications situated within a special district to promote
consistency with applicable adopted design guidelines and/or standards. (Item No. 7.)
INITIATOR: PLANNING DIRECTOR
An ordinance amending Chapter 25 (Zoning Code), Article 3, Section 25-3-2 (Designation of
Special Districts); Article 4, Division 5, Section 25-4-59.2 (Exceptions to Off-Street Parking &
Loading Requirements); and Article 7 (Special District Regulations) of the Hawai‘i County Code
1983 (2005 Edition, as amended), relating to the establishment of a special district to be known
as the Pāhoa Village Design (“PVD”) District that includes a process for community review of
project applications and plans, and to provide distinct requirements for Off-Street Parking and
Loading in the PVD district. (Item No. 8.)
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BROWN: Good afternoon.
MIYASATO: Item No. 7 on the agenda, Planning Director ordinance amending Chapter 25. Go
ahead.
BROWN: Good afternoon, Commission Miyasato and Commissioners. My name is Larry
Brown. I’m a planner in the Long Range Division of the Planning Department, and I’m here to
present to you the two pieces of legislation being introduced to provide a process for community
review of design guidelines for special districts that have design guidelines that have been or
standards that have been adopted by the County Council either by resolution or by ordinance.
You have two agenda items here that I’m going to be talking about within this one presentation
cause they’re directly tied to each other, and that’s Item 7 and 8 or your agenda. The two pieces
of legislation before you today are number one and number two in red, the design district plan
review ordinance and the Pāhoa Village Design District ordinance, and they’re part of an overall
package that includes two other pieces that will not be coming before the Planning Commission.
And the number three is the Pāhoa Village Design Guidelines which are being introduced to the
Council for adoption by resolution, and we’ll talk a little bit more about those in a minute.
The Pāhoa Village signs ordinance which is an amendment to Chapter 3, the Sign Code, is going
to be introduced concurrent with these ordinances to the Council once they pass out of the
Commission. The Windward Commission hears both items one and two. The Leeward
Commission will only hear item no. 1 as it may have impacts island-wide.
It worked--cool. So, the first one is the design review ordinance. I’ve just highlighted some of
the features—the primary features—of this ordinance indicating that it will require review of
development projects within any special district where adopted design guidelines or standards
have been adopted by the County Council. It also amends application requirements for Plan
Approval and for Planned Unit Development projects that will provide the additional information
necessary to do design review because normal plans that are submitted don’t necessarily include
the kinds of architectural drawings or color or building material type information that would
typically be required under those Plan Approval or PUD permit applications.
It also amends a process for requirements for Plan Approval and PUD applications that provide
for a means of local community review and comment on proposed projects. And this is
something that’s really important to the local communities where new development is occurring.
They want to make sure that it fits in to their community, and so this is a means to give them a
voice in that whole process. And, it also, well that’s actually going in to explain what number—
the last bullet item was all about.
Now, we do have, we found a glitch in the amend—in the proposed ordinance, and if you go to
Section 25-2-71(h) which is a new section being proposed for this section of the Zoning Code,
the intent was to not impact any existing special districts. There are only three others. One is the
Kailua Village District, Special District; the Downtown Hilo Special District, and the third one is
the University Special District. So, the Pāhoa would be the fourth one.
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Kailua-Kona does have design guidelines that were adopted within the context of a master plan
that was adopted by resolution in 1996. And, they have a design commission, that’s actually a
County-appointed and service commission that we did not want to impact, have any effect on the
process being proposed for Pāhoa, and other communities that might follow later on, would not
provide for a County-appointed and serviced, if you will, or managed commission. So, we had
to add the language in red to make it clear that this does not have any impact on any existing
special districts with adopted design guidelines that were in existence prior to the adoption of
this subsection so that we’re proposing as an amendment to the overall ordinance package being
presented to you.
The second ordinance has to do with the Pāhoa Village Design District ordinance which is to
create Pāhoa Design District under Article 7 of Chapter 25. Right now, it’s being proposed as
strictly a design district, and that it would provide, it does provide for some exemptions to off-
street parking requirements for specific properties within Pāhoa, the existing Pāhoa old town
village area where the lots are so small, and most of them are already built out, that there’s just
no way to put parking there. We have contingency plans in our overall Pāhoa master planning
effort to provide for public parking, so that, that amendment was put in there for that. That
would allow them to get through the Plan Approval process if they will want to redevelop or one
of the vacant lots wanted to get developed.
It also acknowledges adoption and applicability of architectural design guidelines for the Pāhoa
Village Design District, which as I mentioned earlier, have already been submitted to the
Council, and as a matter of fact, were unanimously approved with a favorable recommendation
by the Planning Committee on Tuesday, so it’s going to the full Council, probably for their next
hearing in Kailua-Kona.
And, lastly, it provides for recognition of community based local review of development projects
in the PVD. The, as I mentioned earlier, so this is where the process is defined on how these
community review committees might be formed and recognized by the Planning Director and
then how they will be, interact with the Planning Department in the design review process.
This is a map of Pāhoa, and with a little—yep, oh there, well I saw a red light someplace—I lost
it. If you can see the red line surrounding the greater areas labeled the Pāhoa planned area, that’s
the area that our master plan is proposed to provide a master, well a master plan, a strategic
master plan for that area, and that’s not really what we’re here about today. It’s the—what are
you pushing—oh, okay—it doesn’t like me—hey, there it is, okay! I love technology. Ask my
boss if I text—no. Forget this. The purple line, the purple line is actually the, is the design
district that this ordinance adopts, and it’s described in the ordinance in text, and these are the
properties where, that would be impacted by the design guidelines. This is a, to give you a—
why am I seeing that text on there—oh, this is the design guidelines, I’m sorry, that the
background picture is supposed to be more washed out and so you can actually read the text—it
looked good on my computer. That’s fine. Oh, anyway, I can’t even read that.
The architectural design guidelines—they not only provide standard, not even standards, but they
provide some guidance as to what kind of architectural features are being recommended for
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developers to incorporate in their projects. No specific minimum number of the architectural
features are required. It’s just that they need to end up with a final product that fits in its
environment. It does also include some guidelines for project layout on the site. In other words,
they’d like to see the parking not between the street in the building wherever possible, but to
have it behind or off to the side so in all, a lot of this has to do with the need to be flexible with
the project that’s being proposed, the site that they have to work with that to end up with a
finished product that doesn’t result in a streetscape where you’re walking down the sidewalk and
to get to the building, you have to walk through a sea of parking stalls to get there.
Again, my background, okay. The sign ordinance is, like I said, to be submitted concurrent with
these two ordinances proposing amendments to Chapter 25. They’re some specific signage
restrictions that the community would like to see imposed in Pāhoa that are not covered under
the current Sign Code, and they’re relatively minor, but if you don’t have them there, then
they’re not enforceable.
This is to give you an idea of what Pāhoa’s responsibility is as a regional town center. You can
see, you can probably see where Pāhoa is, they’re pretty much in the middle foreground just
above the yellow text, and the surrounding subdivisions that don’t have any goods, services,
commercial activity, at least not legal, to speak of. About two, roughly 2,300 lots, actually more
than 2,300 lots, the existing population for that service area is already 20,000 people. With
23,000 lots, we’re talking in excess of 60,000 people at buildout. And that’s just from the
existing lots. So, the 9,600 lots in the bottom left, for example, is kind of pointing towards half
of Hawaiian Paradise Park, Ainaloa, a portion of Orchidland. If you look at the 910 lots and the
1,225 lots on the side, right side of the screen pointing down towards Kalapana Seaview Estates,
Black Sands Subdivision, Kalapana area, the 2,200 lots is Leilani; 4,300 lots is Nānāwale; 510 is
Kapoho Vacationland; 3,900 lots is Hawaiian Beaches, Parks & Shores; 180 lots in Waa Waa;
and the 68 is State Ag Lots just outside Pāhoa Town. And that doesn’t count the three hundred
and fifty some odd lots within Pāhoa itself.
This is the kind of architecture. This is the place that the people in Pāhoa want to preserve.
Akebono Theatre--as I understand it, this building’s more than a hundred years old. This is, if
you haven’t been to Downtown Pāhoa, you need to come out and try a restaurant. They’re really
good. But, this is the kind of feel, the small town feel, that the people want to preserve.
This, more examples—it’s not in the best of condition, so there’s gonna be a move to renovate
and upgrade buildings that to make sure that it’s done in a way that the feel and the character of
the Village are retained. Something like having the design guidelines in a review process that
ensures this, this history, this place is preserved as necessary.
More examples—and this is something that we’re very proud of in Pāhoa. Not too long ago, this
Commission and the County Council approved a rezoning request for the Bryson Kuwahara
commercial project, and Mr. Kuwahara and his agents have worked with our Pāhoa Steering
Committee to alter their initial plans to conform to these design guidelines voluntarily. And this
is some conceptual drawings that were just made available to us about a month or so ago
showing how they’ve redesigned them, and you can see that this is, yeah, it’s a shopping center,
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but it doesn’t look like the typical shopping center. Those buildings don’t all look like they were
built out of the same mold.
This, another example of what he’s proposing, and so this will be setting the example for other
developments in Pāhoa. We already have another applicant who is applying for rezoning that
has agreed to comply with the design guidelines voluntarily. Another developer that has already
gotten his, well he’s still in the process of getting his Building Permits to do a medical center just
on the edge of town. He’s voluntarily altered his plans already--his, his architectural plans to
comply with the design guidelines.
And that’s all I have.
MIYASATO: Okay, Commissioners, any questions? If not, we have Jon Olson. Could you
please raise your right hand? Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before
the Hawai‘i County Planning Commission?
OLSON: I do.
MIYASATO: Please state your name and residence.
OLSON: Jon Olson, 13-631 Leilani Avenue, Pāhoa 96778. This is close to home. I’m finally
here, only took 22 years. This started, and I’m speaking to the design district issues, with the
formation of Pāhoa Mainstreet that was created out of a Federal grant. We took the community
input, we did the surveys. The one thing that everyone who commented on, on the process had
to say was, preserve the Village. Mainstreet did another survey in 2000. The population had
nearly doubled. Everybody said preserve the Village. We started again in 2010, did the surveys.
The one thing that everybody agreed was however big the town became, preserve the Village.
That covers it, doesn’t it? That’s what this does finally and it creates it as a function that
government recognizes. Thank you.
MIYASATO: Any questions, Commissioners? Commissioner Henkel.
HENKEL: I’d like to disclose that I’ve known Jon for quite some time and that I recognize—
OLSON: --That’s risky, that’s risky—I give you deniability—
HENKEL: That it’s his, it’s his hard work and mana‘o that has you know kept the lower Puna
from you know becoming like a giant strip mall, and preserving what we have, and I think he
does deserve a great deal of recognition and then thanks.
OLSON: The secret is you keep saying it till they think it’s their idea.
MIYASATO: Thank you.
ONO: Question.
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MIYASATO: Commissioner Ono.
ONO: You know when you want to maintain this kind of environment there, who pays for the
maintenance, the upkeep? Is that the community at large or is the owner of the building?
OLSON (from audience): The owners.
ONO: The owners? Okay, and can the owners do interior wise or exterior wise do any
changes—let’s say, for example, those buildings there, as an example?
OLSON: Yeah.
ONO: They, if I, if I own that building but I wanted jalousies, I cannot put in the jalousie as a
window replacement?
OLSON: No.
ONO: No.
OLSON: But what happens behind the façade, that’s up to you.
ONO: Okay, so—
OLSON: I mean, we’re not going to try to tell you what kind of a business or—
ONO: Oh, no, no, no—I guess, I have a situation on Kauai which is a relative of mine, and a
building that’s, it’s considered a historical whatever—
OLSON: Yeah.
ONO: He cannot even insert outlets of jacks for the sockets for the whatever—
OLSON: Oh, yeah, yeah, but this is all different then—you see, we didn’t go for historic
preservation.
ONO: Now, so my question is, when you want to modify something that you’re residing in or
you’re utilizing, do you need permission from somebody else to do that?
OLSON: Other than the, other than the normal permitting process?
ONO: Yes.
OLSON: We will in terms of the visuals from the street looking in—
ONO: --Okay, there is—
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OLSON: --there is, there’s gonna be a committee.
ONO: Interior wise, you have no problem.
OLSON: Interior wise, we didn’t even look to try to do that—
ONO: --I see—
OLSON: That, that’s something entirely different.
ONO: Okay, well I guess for Pāhoa I have a certain affinity to it because I taught there 30 years
ago, and it’s already changing—
OLSON: --yeah—
ONO: --from what I see and I guess as we, as I get older, I suppose, I do want to be nostalgic,
but I’m just wondering in terms of the younger generation if the nostalgia is as deep as us old
timers.
OLSON: Well, having been there long enough to be into the, I guess, pretty close to the fourth
generation, we surveyed the kids. We asked the kids at the high school. They like it just the way
it is just like their parents and their grandparents so—
ONO: Thank you.
OLSON: Yeah.
MIYASATO: Commissioners, any further discussion. We do have letters of support that were
distributed. No further discussion now, I’ll take a motion.
HENKEL: I’d like to move that the Planning Commission submit a positive recommendation to
the Council of ordinance amending Chapter 25, Article 2, Division 7, Section 25-2-71,
Section 25-2-73, Section 25-2-76, Section 25-2-77 and Article 6, Division 1, Section 25-6-3,
Section 25-6-7, Section 25-6-10 of the Hawai‘i County Code 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended).
MOSES: Second.
MIYASATO: Moved by Commissioner Henkel and seconded by Commissioner Moses. Any
discussion?
ARAI: And I just want to confirm Commissioner Henkel and Commissioner Moses that the
motion also includes the amended language to the draft bill as recommended by the Director?
HENKEL: Correct.
ARAI: Commissioner Moses?
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MOSES: Yes.
ARAI: Thank you very much. With that, I will call the roll. Commissioner Henkel?
HENKEL: Aye.
ARAI: Commissioner Moses?
MOSES: Aye.
ARAI: Commissioner Heaukulani?
HEAUKULANI: Aye.
ARAI: Commissioner Ono?
ONO: Aye.
ARAI: And Chairman Miyasato.
MIYASATO: Aye.
ARAI: Mr. Chairman, motion carries with five aye votes.
The discussion on Item No. 7 ended at 1:01 p.m.
MIYASATO: Item 8, Initiator Planning Director, an ordinance amendment Chapter 25. The
previous presentation covered—
ARAI: Yes.
MIYASATO: It’s okay.
ARAI: Yes.
MIYASATO: Commissioners, any discussion? If not, I’ll take a motion.
HENKEL: I’d like to move to submit a positive recommendation to the County Council of the
ordinance amendment Chapter 25, Article 3, Section 25-3-2, Article 4, Division 5, Section 25-4-
59.2, and Article 7 of the Hawai‘i County Code, 1983 (2005 Edition, as amended) to the—I
guess that’s it.
MOSES: Second.
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MIYASATO: Moved by Commissioner Henkel, seconded by Commissioner Moses. Any
discussion?
ARAI: Okay, I’ll be calling the roll. Commissioner Henkel?
HENKEL: Aye.
ARAI: Commissioner Moses?
MOSES: Aye.
ARAI: Commissioner Heaukulani?
HEAUKULANI: Aye.
ARAI: Commissioner Ono?
ONO: Aye.
ARAI: And Mr, Chairman.
MIYASATO: Aye.
ARAI: Mr. Chairman, motion carries with five aye votes.
The discussion on Item No. 8 ended at 1:03 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Sarah Y. Hata-Finley, Secretary
Windward Planning Commission
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