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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-07-17 Leeward Exh A (Amend Zoning Code App Review within Special Dist LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT JULY 17, 2014 PLANNING DIRECTOR INITIATED AMENDMENT A regularly advertised hearing on the TO CHAPTER 25 OF THE HAWAI‘I COUNTY CODE, RELATING TO REVIEW OF CERTAIN LAND USE PERMIT APPLICATIONS WITHIN A SPECIAL DISTRICT was called to order at 09:35 a.m. in the West Hawai‘i Civic Center, Community Center, Building G, 74-5044 Ane Keohokālole Highway, Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i, with Chair Brandi Beaudet presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Brandi Beaudet, Collin Kaholo, Barbara Nobriga and Thomas Whittemore ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Thomas Hickcox ALSO PRESENT: Bobby Command (Deputy Planning Director), Margaret Masunaga (Deputy Corporation Counsel), Larry Brown (Planner) and Noriko Sauer (Commission Secretary) And two people from the public in attendance. 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. BEAUDET: First agenda item today, initiator Planning Director, the Planning Director has initiated the following amendments to Chapter 25, Article 2, Division 7 “Plan Approval” and Article 6, Division 1 “Planned Unit Development” of the Hawai‘i County Code 1893, relating to the review of Plan Approval and P.U.D. applications within a special district where design guidelines and/or standards have been adopted by the Council. COMMAND: And, Mr. Chairman, I’d just like to point out that that’s probably “1983,” rather than “1893.” BEAUDET: Ah, okay. COMMAND: I guess it’s a typo. BEAUDET: And just joining us is Margaret Masunaga, Deputy Corporation Counsel. Thank you. Staff? 1 EXHIBIT A BROWN: Good morning, Chair Beaudet and Members of the Leeward Planning Commission. Good morning, my name is Larry Brown. I work in the Long Range Division of the Hilo office in the Planning Department. And before you today we have a piece of legislation that’s being introduced as part of an overall package for the Pāhoa Village Design District. The four pieces of legislation are shown on the slide, part of this very brief PowerPoint presentation we have for you. The four pieces are the one before you today, the, what we call, the Design District Plan Review ordinance; the other three pieces include the Pāhoa Village Design District ordinance, and the third one is the Pāhoa Village Design Guidelines, being adopted by resolution, and the fourth one is the Pāhoa Village Signs ordinance. And we’ll talk a little bit more about each one of those as we proceed. So the Design District Review ordinance, the primary features, as you can see hopefully at least on the top part of the screen, requires review of development projects within special districts against adopted design guidelines and/or standards. So what that’s saying is is that any special district created under the Zoning Code, Article 7, for which there are also adopted design guidelines or standards, would be subject to the review processes outlined in this ordinance. It also amends application requirements for Plan Approval and Planned Unit Development applications for projects that are within those design districts, and also subject to the design guidelines or standards. It also amends processing requirements for Plan Approval and P.U.D. applications, mainly providing a process or means by which local community design review boards can be established and provide, have an opportunity to review and comment to the Planning Director on individual applications subject to the design review. It also articulates process for review by local design review committees, which is what I just said. We noticed in our presentation to the Windward Commission that we did have an error that needed to be corrected; it was the intent of this ordinance to not have any impact or affect on the Kailua- Kona Village Design Commission. And so we had to add some language to Section (h) of 25, Part (h) of 25-2-71, at the bottom in red, which specifies that this process is not applicable to any special district having adopted design guidelines and/or standards established under this chapter prior to the adoption of this sub-section. And we made similar language changes to 25-6-7, Part (a), regarding Planned Unit Development applications. The Windward Planning Commission approved the first one, but this was a last minute error that we noticed, and this correction was not presented to them; but it is being presented to you, and this is the form in which we hope to present it to the Council, with an explanation as to why there is a difference. The other piece of legislation, the second one in our package, four-piece package, if you will, is the Pāhoa Village Design District ordinance, and what this does is actually creates a new special district under Article 7 of Chapter 25, called the Pāhoa Village Design District. It also provides exemption from off-street parking requirements for special properties within the old village core, acknowledges adoption and applicability of architectural design guidelines for the Pāhoa Village Design District. And it also provides for recognition of community based local review of development projects in the Pāhoa Village Design District. And one thing I would add to this is that the entities in Pāhoa, which are essentially community associations that have recently formed or have been in operation for quite some time, are being encouraged to draft and approve operating guidelines and procedures for their local design review board that can be approved and presented to the Action, approved by the Action Committee for the Puna CDP, and to the Planning Director and 2 EXHIBIT A his selection or his valuation whether this group is appropriate for doing design review for the community. This gives you an idea of the area that these design guidelines would be impacting. This is Pāhoa Village. The old village core is right down here. The new development is all going on out here, the Mālama Marketplace, the Woodland Center where the new Longs is, and commercial development is also being occurring right here and is under construction right now. Rezoning was recently approved for a little over nine acres here for the Bryson Kuwahara shopping center project that’s going in. And the purple line is the design district. So these design guidelines and the processes articulated in the ordinance would apply only to properties within this area. The red line out here, looking at it from the bigger picture perspective, is the Pāhoa Regional Town Center master planning area. This is, so these design guidelines and establishing this design district is a piece of this bigger master plan that we are initiating for Pāhoa Town to provide standards for growth, Pāhoa sees for growth, and infrastructure development concurrency, financing, all those good things. The Pāhoa Village Design Guidelines, those are passed from the Council’s Planning Committee rd with a favorable recommendation for adoption by resolution on June 3 of this year. They will be on the full Council’s agenda tomorrow for a first and probably final reading when we expect them to pass that; so the design guidelines are expected to be adopted tomorrow by resolution by the Council. They provide architectural, they are primarily architectural in nature, but do include some guidelines for layout, development layout, the siting instructions where parking ought to be and things like that, within the guidelines themselves. The guidelines are voluntary in the sense that you don’t have to incorporate all of the design elements that are proposed in the design guidelines, but you have to come up with a project that basically incorporates enough of them that the project fits within the immediate surroundings. So the idea was to create, or to preserve, the architectural history, if you will, of Pāhoa, which dates back more than a hundred years, and to not only protect what’s already there but to preserve that sense of place and identity for the future to create a brand, if you will, for Pāhoa, which hopes to be able to do more than just serve as a nice place to go have dinner. The signs ordinance, the fourth piece of our legislation will be, is an amendment to Chapter 3 of the County Code, which is known as a sign code, establishing a Pāhoa Signs District under the Chapter, that includes some special signage regulations that would be applicable to Pāhoa only. And that would, we propose to send that on to Council, along with this ordinance that you are looking at today, as well as the Pāhoa Village Design District ordinance, as three pieces going in concurrently. This is to give you an idea of where Pāhoa’s responsibility is, or what its role is, as a regional town center. You can see Pāhoa here, the village, and what you are looking at is an aerial; there is Cape Kumukahi, and this is coming back towards Hilo, this is heading out towards Kalapana. These numbers represent the number of lots in the subdivisions, not outside of the subdivisions but within the subdivisions, that are within the projected service area of Pāhoa as a regional town center. So 23,000 lots, best estimates right now is that maybe a third are developed; the rest are vacant lots, so all you’ve got to do is go get a building permit and build your house. And so we are looking at an existing population in excess of 20,000 people depending on this village or travel all the way to Hilo for access to goods and services. So if you, even right here in Hawaiian Beaches, Hawaiian Shores, and Hawaiian Parks, 3,900 lots, Nānāwale Estates, 4,300 lots, this is just a portion of Orchidland, Ainaloa and Hawaiian Paradise Park, 9,600 lots. So it’s quite a large area that this has to, there are no other real commercial centers in this part of the island; the next closest one is in 3 EXHIBIT A Orchidland roughly six miles from Pāhoa towards Hilo where there is a small general store, a Blaine’s restaurant, and a gas station and Mini Mart. This is the fun part, just some graphics to show you what kind of architectural features in Pāhoa the community wants to preserve and see perpetuated as the development continues to occur in the village. The, I don’t know if anybody has ever been here, but the Akebono Theater has been there for quite a long time; it’s right next door to Luquin’s Mexican Restaurant – the best Mexican restaurant on the island. This is the main street of Pāhoa Town, one side of it. From a different angle. What’s unique about this, and not necessarily just Pāhoa because this occurs elsewhere on the island, but notice that the buildings share similar features, canopies over the sidewalk. The buildings don’t all look like they were built at the same time by the same builder, developer, whatever; they have an individual character all their own, and this is a big part of what the people really want to preserve and see perpetuated. This is the conceptual renderings that were recently done by Bryson Kuwahara for his big nine plus- acre commercial project out on the Hilo end of town, which was originally the kind of structure that I just mentioned; it was your typical building, one or two-story buildings, that look like a metal barn, more or less, with no real character to them. And he has voluntarily agreed to work with the Pāhoa Steering Committee and comply with these design guidelines. And so this is the revision to his conceptual plan that he has come out with, and you can see how it very much resembles what exists in downtown Pāhoa now. There is another view of part of the development that he is putting in, which will include the first real supermarket in southeast Puna. So, anyway, that’s my presentation. If you have any questions? BEAUDET: Thank you for the presentation. Commissioners, any questions of staff? WHITTEMORE: You know, I was just curious, the review commission for Pāhoa, the advisory commission, are they appointed by the Mayor also, or is this -? BROWN: No, the way it’s structured to be set up is that once design guidelines have been adopted, and the special district is created, design district, then the Director is supposed to go to the Action Committee for the Community Development Plan, in which the community is situated, and ask for their recommendations as to who should be serving as the design review committee for the local community. And the community itself will select who is going to sit on their review board, and they will manage it. It will not be a County agency, and they will be serviced and supported by the local associations or groups that agree to take on the responsibility. So, no, they won’t be appointed. It will not be the same as the KVDC. WHITTEMORE: Okay, I had one other question. I’m assuming that this correspondence, there is a th correspondence of June 12; it was from Myles Miyasato, or was directed to, excuse me, from Charles Maas. Is, and I assume that Charles is sort of leading the charge with the Pāhoa community advisory group, or -? BROWN: Charlie Maas is the member of the Pāhoa Steering Committee, who served as principle author of the design guidelines. WHITTEMORE: Okay. So this document I assume is their draft of the guidelines that they want to follow? 4 EXHIBIT A BROWN: Yes, I have the copy with me here, if you would like to -. WHITTEMORE: I just wanted to get some clarification on one of the items that was in here. This is on Page 5 -. BROWN: I’m not sure what you are referring to. Is that -. Okay, I think I have it now. WHITTEMORE: On Page 5, it’s under the, actually it starts on Page 4, the Historic, Cultural, and Scenic Resources. No. d. under 2.1.2. Objectives, is, it says, “Adopt ‘kanaka’ building code standards ….” Can you describe for me what that is and what the application would be, and how that fits with, I support it certainly but I’m just curious how it fits in with building codes and, you know, for insurance liability issues and things like that? BROWN: Yeah, that’s something that would have to be worked out, you know, in the process of deciding what those kanaka building code standards actually are, and how they would fit in to the existing building code. So definitely a process that we’d have to go through to come up with those. WHITTEMORE: So their intent is to conform with County building codes, but still be able to have the ability because, I’m just, I’m looking at the application, because it sounds like this applies to residential and commercial and everything. BROWN: In Pāhoa it does, yes, it does, yeah. WHITTEMORE: In Pāhoa, right, yeah, and if it’s not the building codes, there could be insurance liability issues and things like that, structural -. BROWN: Yeah, the idea here is to have an alternative to the existing code that people could utilize in the Pāhoa Design District. WHITTEMORE: Okay. BEAUDET: Just as a follow-up to the exchange, who would sheriff that? I mean, once the revised building codes were adopted, who would oversee that? Would that be the Building Department? Is that something that’s managed through a sub-committee? I mean, has that been thought through and discussed? BROWN: Well, like I said, the process hasn’t really started on that. But I think it’s obvious at least to me that if the building code is actually amended to adopt alternative standards, then, yes, they would be administered by the Building Division. COMMAND: And, Brandi, I think part of this is, what the agenda item is about is to require Plan Approval for, well, I mean we are talking about P.U.D.s and -. Well, no, let me ask you this now, within the district, the special district, would there be Plan Approval for single-family residences? BROWN: In Pāhoa, yes. 5 EXHIBIT A COMMAND: Right. Okay, so that’s where you would probably get the regulation or at least some sort of oversight on whatever the kanaka code will be. BEAUDET: But these amendments are not speaking specific to the kanaka code. BROWN: No, no. BEAUDET: This is just a dialogue, right? BROWN: Right. BEAUDET: Any more questions or comments by the Commissioners? There has been one person who has signed up to testify. Jojo Tanimoto, could I please ask you to step forward? Please raise your right hand. TANIMOTO: Well, actually, I want to retrieve my request to speak, because I think the agenda took a left turn, because if you read the agenda, it doesn’t say anything about Pāhoa, yeah? So now that I understand this thing is talking about Pāhoa, I -. BEAUDET: It, yeah, it is speaking of Pāhoa, but of other communities around the Island of Hawai‘i, too, so Kailua-Kona is mentioned in the background report, so it does -. TANIMOTO: Well, I don’t have the background report, so when I read the agenda, it says an amendment to the chapter and the section, and so now I’m sitting here and listening to the presentation, it took a left turn. So I had the same question that Mr. Command did after I heard the presentation. But I came because it’s amending the section, the chapter and the section, and ag tourism actually will hit my district in South Kohala, so I had a question according to the way it’s written. But now I understand it took a left turn, I want to retrieve my public testimony, because otherwise it no make sense, I have nothing to say about Pāhoa. So thank you. BEAUDET: Okay, we can remove your name from the list. Thank you. There being no more testimony, before I seek a motion from the Commissioners, any other thoughts or comments before we conclude this matter? COMMAND: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to address real quickly what may be part of Jojo’s concern is that this could possibly affect you, but at this time it doesn’t; if a special district is proposed for South Kohala wherever there is that you are concerned about, then it would directly affect you, right? But at this point I understand what you are saying, it has nothing to, it’s not your kuleana, right, so I understand totally. TANIMOTO: Right, yeah, thank you. BEAUDET: With that, I’d like to ask for a motion from the Commissioners. NOBRIGA: I so move (inaudible). BEAUDET: Can you speak into the mike? 6 EXHIBIT A NOBRIGA: Is it on? Where is our number here? BEAUDET: On Page 11 of the background is the recommendation. NOBRIGA: Regarding the amendments to Chapter 25 of the Hawai‘i County Code relating to the review of Plan Approval and P.U.D. applications within a special district, I make a motion that we approve of this, favorable recommendation. WHITTEMORE: Second. BROWN: Clarification that that’s with the amendments also proposed by the Director? NOBRIGA: Uh huh, yeah. BEAUDET: It has been moved by Commissioner Nobriga and seconded by Commissioner Whittemore. Before, any discussion or comments? Thank you. Staff will restate the motion. BROWN: The motion was to accept the proposed legislation with amendments from the Director to the Hawai‘i County Council, with a favorable recommendation. Commissioner Nobriga? NOBRIGA: Aye. BROWN: Chairman Whittemore, or Commissioner Whittemore? WHITTEMORE: Aye. BROWN: Commissioner Kaholo? KAHOLO: Aye. BROWN: And Chairman Beaudet? BEAUDET: Aye. BROWN: Motion passes, four ayes. The discussion ended at 10:00 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, Secretary Leeward Planning Commission 7 EXHIBIT A