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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-03-05 HearingTranscript - Hamakua Harvest SPP 14-175 WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT MARCH 5, 2015 HĀMĀKUA HARVEST, INC. (SPP 14- A regularly advertised hearing on the application of 175) was called to order at 9:50 a.m. in the County of Hawai‘i Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i with Vice Chair Raylene Moses presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Raylene Moses, Charles Heaukulani, Gregory Henkel, Donald Ikeda, and Stephen Ono. ABSENT & EXCUSED: Myles Miyasato. ALSO PRESENT: Duane Kanuha (Planning Director), Danny Patel (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Windward Planning Commission), William Brilhante (Assistant Corporation Counsel for the Planning Director), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Jeff Darrow (Staff Planner), Maija Jackson (Staff Planner), Sarah Hata-Finley (Commission Secretary). And approximately 8 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: HĀMĀKUA HARVEST, INC. (SPP 14-175) Application for a Special Permit to allow the establishment of a farmer’s market on a 6.7-acre portion of two parcels totaling 32.96 acres of land situated within the State Land Use Agricultural District. The subject property is located northeast of the Hawai‘i Belt Road (Hwy 19) and Honoka‘a-Waipi‘o Road (Māmane Street) intersection, Pā‘auhau, Hāmākua, Hawai‘i, TMKs: 4-4-005:008 & 009. MOSES: Item Agenda No. 3, Applicant Hāmākua Harvest, Inc. JACKSON: Okay, the next item on your agenda is a request for a Special Permit. The Applicant is Hāmākua Harvest. The subject property is located in the Hāmākua District, just outside of Honoka‛a town. You can see the property outlined in black on the slide. The Applicant’s actually leasing three properties from Kamehameha Schools, but they’re requesting to do the proposed farmer’s market on just two of those properties—this, this property shown here in the little triangular piece at the bottom. The remaining portion of the property that they’re leasing will be used for agriculture. So the subject property has access off of Māmane Street which runs through the middle of the slide here out to Waipi‛o, and then you have the Hawai‛i Belt Road, Highway 19, runs along the south side of the property. And, you can see the light blue on the slide shows that the property is zoned Agricultural – 40 acres. This is a zoom in here. Also, the nearby residences are zoned Single-Family Residential – 10,000 square feet, and there’s a little subdivision of larger lots zoned Agricultural – 1 acre just at the intersection of Māmane and the Hawai‛i Belt Road. 1 EXHIBIT C So, I tried my best to kind of outline the Special Permit area that the Applicant is requesting. You can see that on red, outlined in red on the slide. The General Plan designation for the property is Low Density Urban which is shown in the light mustard color that allows for Single-Family Residential at a lower density as well as convenience type commercial uses. The remaining portion of the property is designated Important Agricultural Land, and the property is in the Agricultural District, the State Land Use Agricultural District, which is why they are requesting a Special Use Permit. This is an aerial view of the property. I didn’t outline the whole property, but it’s in this general area here, the larger property. And then the Applicant’s proposing the farmer’s market in this general location here on the property. You can see that there’s no existing structures at this time. And, there is a, there is an old camp road that comes off of Māmane Street here, and traverses the property in a mauka-makai direction. Hard to see because it runs along the gulch here. And then there’s another old camp road that just goes from the highway to Māmane Street. So, the Applicant is requesting to establish a farmer’s market on a 6.7-acre portion of roughly 32-acre property within the State Land Use Agricultural District. The market facility would also be used for Agricultural related weekend workshops, informational booths, and youth activities. The market will be an all-weather, open-sided, cross-shaped structure, totaling about 4,000 square feet. It will initially house approximately 20 vendor stalls but will be designed in order to expand to accommodate more vendors in the future. And, the marker would be held on one weekday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and one weekend day between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. The Applicant would also like to respond to the needs of the community in the future by adding a third market day during non-peak traffic hours. They estimate approximately 100 to 200 customers will attend the market during the weekday market, and 200 to 300 on the weekend. And, access will be from Māmane Street which is a State roadway. There is a 20-foot wide gravel driveway that extends off of Māmane Street, and all parking will be provided on site. The Hāmākua Harvest project will be a phase development. It will include a site for an annual Hāmākua Agricultural Festival, a demonstration working farm and learning center, a full-service retail nursery, a compost facility, and a roadside market offering locally grown produce and value-added goods, as well as an agricultural processing facility. A lot of these uses are considered permitted in the State Land Use Agricultural District, which is why the Applicant’s just coming in to request the one use that’s not permitted, which is the farmer’s market. This is a site plan, and it’s a little hard to see because of the topographic lines, but I highlighted the driveway in green, so Māmane Street is just off to the left of the slide. The highway runs along the south side in this location here, and you can see a driveway off of Māmane and then a long driveway up to the farmer’s market site. And, I’m going to zoom in to this site in just a 2 EXHIBIT C minute, but before I do that, I want to point out this is the location of the future ag processing facility, which I mentioned was a permitted in the ag district. And then, as I mentioned before, the remaining part of the property that has been leased from Kamehameha Schools will be used for growing orchards and crops. This is a zoom-in version of a site plan at the farmer’s market area. So, the driveway comes up to the site. There is a turnaround to make it easier for vehicles to get in and out. These little numbers of the bottom adjacent to the driveway are extra parking stalls. The main parking area is here, and it’s designed also to have a turnaround so that people can get in and out easily. The proposed farmer’s market structure is outlined in the dark blue here, and then there’s also room for a future addition of additional vendor stalls in the future. This little green, green outlined building on the east side here is a future restroom building. And then this building here is a future plant sales area, and then in the back, you have the plant nursery with the little access road off to the plant nursery. This is a view of the permit area from the highway looking north. I mentioned there’s an old camp road, and this picture is taken standing at that access. The farmer’s market would be built generally in this location here. And then, this is the camp road access off of the highway. Department of Transportation has asked that access to the highway in this area be prohibited. So, we included a condition that this area be gated. And, then this is a view from Māmane Street looking towards the highway. The highway is in the background here. This is their driveway off of Māmane, and you can see the property in the background on the left. This is again a view of the access onto Māmane, so there’s a paved apron coming off of Māmane and then it drops down to a dirt driveway which the Applicant will be placing gravel on. And then, this is a view of that dirt, dirt and semi-asphalt driveway up to the Special Permit area which will be in this area here. The Director is recommending approval of the request with the conditions contained in the Recommendation Report. And, I just want to go back and clarify one thing. When we first received the application, the Applicant requested the market operate on one weekday and one weekend day between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. They did, after reading our Background and Recommendation Report, this week, they did see that they wanted to expand their hours and days of operation, so you should have gotten an email from the Applicant requesting that the Commission consider that. Ideally, they would like to have the option of operating on both weekend days, Saturday and Sunday, and one day during the week. The--the weekend operation would be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. because typically markets start earlier on the weekends. And then, the weekday market would be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. And the Director has reviewed this request and is, is accepting of their request. So, we can come up with some language to modify Condition No., No. 10 if the Commission also agrees with that request. That concludes my presentation. MOSES: Thank you, Maija. Commissioners, any questions of the staff? ONO: One question. 3 EXHIBIT C MOSES: Commissioner Ono. ONO: Could I go back to the first overview. What’s the closest residence development to the proposal. What’s the distance— JACKSON: This one here? ONO: Yeah. JACKSON: Let me check here— ONO: Off the highway going to Honoka‛a town I guess on the other side— JACKSON: Yes, it would be these residents right about here. ONO: Those are residents? There is— JACKSON: Yes. ONO: Oh, okay, okay. JACKSON: They’re zoned Agricultural but they have residences on them— ONO: Oh, okay— JACKSON: --farm dwellings. ONO: I’m just wondering about the traffic. It doesn’t seem to be much of a problem—for the residents. JACKSON: The—let’s see, let’s go back to this picture here. So, the houses I believe in this area sit above the road a little bit, and their access—let me try to see where they access to see whether that would be. You’re right, there is an access road here. So, there would be an increase of traffic coming off the highway entering the site that would affect the residences, but it would be during a short period of time. MOSES: Any other questions for staff? Will the Applicant of their representative please come forward and be seated at the table in front of the Commission? Good morning. 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? BEACH/GIBSON: I do. 4 EXHIBIT C MOSES: Thank you. You may begin your presentation or testimony by first stating your name and place of residence and speaking directly into the microphone. BEACH: Thank you. My name is Lori Beach. I live in Āhualoa near Honoka‛a. I’m the administrative director for Hāmākua Harvest. We’re a community based organization, and we’re doing this all inclusive ag destination, integrated agricultural hub in order to help support the small family famers in the area as well as to provide educational opportunities to farmers and residents. The farmer’s market is our first pha--, our first phase of this project. We’re really excited about it. We did a community survey back in fall last year, and had over 40 vendors, 40 farmers say they would participate in the market, so it might be a little bit bigger than we anticipated which is great. We appreciate your consideration on the change of times. That also came up during our survey request that an earlier start on weekends would be preferable so we’re responding directly to the needs of the community on that issue. That’s all I have. I want to thank you for your time this morning as well. Would you like to say something? GIBSON: My name is--my name is Michael Gibson. I reside in Pa‛auilo Mauka. I would also like to mention that we’re operating as a hybrid organization, both for- and non-profit. The non- profit portion is essentially it’s really focused on the educational aspects of the project which will, which includes about half of the components of the project including the farmer’s market, including the processing facility. And, we also decided to operate as a for-profit so that we could legitimately demonstrate successful family farming. We would actu—we’re actually steering for thriving family farming. We think we know business well enough to be able to do that effectively, and we have paid very close attention to the agricultural interest of the community over a period of a couple generations now who have spoken very specifically of the features that we intend to include in the project. Thank you very much for your consideration. MOSES: Question, Lori, did you receive the Planning Department’s Background Report and Recommendation? BEACH: Yes, we did. MOSES: Do you agree with the report and Recommendation? BEACH: Except for the times. HEAUKULANI: But including the parking and traffic control provision? BEACH: Absolutely. 5 EXHIBIT C MOSES: Commissioners, any questions of the Applicant? Seeing none, I also see there’s also no public testimony. Do we have a motion? Commissioner Henkel. HENKEL: I move that the application for a Special Permit Docket No. SPP 14-175 be approved based on the Planning Director’s recommendations, findings, and proposed conditions, which shall be adopted. MOSES: Any second? HEAUKULANI: Second. MOSES: It was moved by Commissioner Henkel and seconded by Commissioner Heaukulani. Discussion? No discussion. Motion for approval roll call vote. Roll call vote, please? JACKSON: Thank you, Chair Moses. MOSES: Thank you. JACKSON: I’d just like to ask the makers of the motion whether they would consider an amendment to the condition regarding hours and days of operation so that the Applicant can operate on both weekend days. I can suggest some language if you’re open to that. HENKEL: I would be open to it if it’s okay with the Planning Director. Would you go along with that? KANUHA: Yeah. HENKEL: Sure. JACKSON: Okay, how about for Condition 10, we change it to days of operation shall be limited to three days a week, one weekday and the weekend. Hours of operation shall be limited to 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the weekend, and 10 to 4 p.m. on weekdays? BEACH: That’s great. HENKEL: I accept those changes in the conditions? JACKSON: Okay. HENKEL: Do I have to restate the motion or will it stand? PATEL: No, we just need to clarify if there is still a second. HEAUKULANI: There is. 6 EXHIBIT C JACKSON: Thank you. Okay, with that, I’ll take the roll. Commissioner Henkel? HENKEL: Aye. JACKSON: Commissioner Heaukulani? HEAUKULANI: Aye. JACKSON: Commissioner Ikeda? IKEDA: Aye. JACKSON: Commissioner Ono? ONO: Aye. JACKSON: And Chair Moses. MOSES: Aye. JACKSON: Okay, the motion passes five, zero. MOSES: You will be notified of the Commission’s decision in writing. Thank you. BEACH: Thank you very much. GIBSON: Thank you very much. The discussion ended at 10:09 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sarah Y. Hata-Finley, Secretary Windward Planning Commission 7 EXHIBIT C