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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-05-19 Leeward Exh A (Amend SPP 714) LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT MAY 19, 2016 DANIEL SHEEN (formerly TAKESHI A regularly advertised hearing on the application of KUDO) (Amend SPP 714) was called to order at 9:35 a.m. in the West Hawai‘i Civic Center, Community Center, Building G, 74-5044 Ane Keohokālole Highway, Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i, with Chairman Keith F. Unger presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Keith F. Unger, Nancy Carr Smith, Collin Kaholo, Scott Church, Barbara Nobriga and Sonny Shimaoka ALSO PRESENT: Danny Patel (Counsel for the Commission), Duane Kanuha (Planning Director), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Jeff Darrow (Planner), Maija Jackson (Planner), Christian Kay (Planner) and Noriko Sauer (Commission Secretary) And approximately 80 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANTS: DANIEL SHEEN (formerly TAKESHI KUDO) (Amend SPP 714) Request to amend Special Permit No. 714, which allowed the establishment of a coffee mill, office and general store on .643-acre of land situated in the State Land Use Agricultural District. The amendment request seeks to extend the permitted operational hours for the general store from its current 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. period to a proposed 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. operation. The property is located along the west (makai) side of the Hawai‘i Belt Road (Highway 11), approximately 900 feet south of the Middle Keʻei – Highway 11 junction, Honaunau, South Kona, Hawai‘i, TMK: 8-4-006:053. UNGER: Agenda Item No. 1, Applicant Daniel Sheen, formerly Takeshi Kudo, Amendment SPP 714, request to amend Special Permit No. 714, which allowed the establishment of a coffee mill, office and general store on .643 acre of land situated in the State Land \[Use\] Agricultural District. The amendment request seeks to extend the permitted operational hours for the general store from its current 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. period to the proposed 5:00 to 10:00. The property is located along the makai side of the Hawai‘i Belt Road, approximately 900 feet \[south\] of the Middle Ke‘ei–Highway 11 junction, Hōnaunau, South Kona, TMK: 8-4-6: Parcel 53. At this time staff will be making a presentation in regard to this application. Thank you. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Members of the Planning Commission. I apologize for my voice; I lost it and found it, now I lost it again. Hopefully, it’ll come back. We’d like to welcome our newest Commissioner, Commissioner Carr Smith. We’d like to thank you for your service to our county and to our community. Thank you. With that, if I could direct your attention to our presentation. As mentioned, our first applicant is Daniel Sheen. He is requesting an amendment to Condition No. 4 of Special Permit No. 714. The area of the subject property and application is within the South Kona District of Hawai‘i. 1 EXHIBIT A More specifically, we are looking in the area of Hōnaunau. This is approximately 900 feet south of Middle Ke‘ei Road, and it is identified with a small black outline. This is on the Highway 11, or Hawai‘i Belt Road, between the 105 and 106 mile marker. This is a closer zoomed-in map; this is our County Zoning Map, which identifies the different County zoning districts in the surrounding area. The light green in which the subject property is also identified, is Agricultural 1-acre, no, 5-acre, I’m sorry. The little darker shaded green on the lower end is Agricultural 1-acre, and up on the upper left hand corner is properties zoned Ag 3-acre. And as mentioned, for reference this is Hawai‘i Belt Road. This is located right on Hawai‘i Belt Road. This is our State Land Use Boundary Map; the entire property and surrounding area is Agriculture. This is our General Plan Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map; this identifies the property and surrounding areas as Important Agricultural Land. This is an aerial photo. For reference, again, Highway 11 running through the middle of the map. The subject property is identified roughly in the red outline. There are a number of structures on the property: A coffee mill, an existing dwelling, an office building, and the general store. The applicant is requesting an amendment to Condition 4 of Special Permit No. 714 to extend the permitted operational hours for the store from its current 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. period to a proposed 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. operation. The applicant is requesting to extend the hours of operation to fairly compete with neighboring businesses from Kealakekua to Captain Cook, whose hours average between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. Additionally, the extension of hours would promote their business during times when tourists are travelling to and from the Volcano National Park and Hilo. Additionally, it would attract local commuters on their way to and from work for an early snack or a take-out meal. It would also create more jobs in the Captain Cook area. This is the applicant’s site plan. For reference, again, on the lower portion of the map is Highway 11. The general store is identified with a red outline. The yellow identifies the existing parking stalls on site. These are some site photos. This is on Highway 11 looking at the general store; you’ll notice that there are existing raised curbs in front of the store. This is the coffee mill; currently, the applicant has by request of the Planning Department coned off this area until we can resolve the parking issue in front of the mill. This is looking at Highway 11, as well as the general store and the identified ADA parking stall. And this is looking north along Highway 11, with the coffee mill on the left side. These are some of the parking areas; just for reference this is, right here in this general area on the site plan, so patrons would come from the highway down a narrow roadway to park down below and then walk up to the store; this is this general area here, this picture. And then this is the narrow roadway to and from the parking area. The Planning Director is recommending approval with updated conditions. The Planning Department has submitted a revised recommendation, which is yellow, as well as in discussions with the applicant and concerns regarding parking, the Planning Director has made an addition to Condition No. 4, and what that addition is, it should be a green sheet that is with the Planning Commission. It states that “All parking shall be on-site within the parking stalls identified on the 2 EXHIBIT A submitted site plan in the amendment application on November 3, 2015.” That was the site plan that was referenced in the presentation. “There shall be no parking along Māmalahoa Highway, except for the identified ADA parking stall,” and then the Planning Department has added, “unless otherwise permitted by the State Department of Transportation and approved by the Planning Department through the issuance of Final Plan Approval as specified by Condition 2.” The reason for the addition is that there are concerns parking along the highway, safety concerns, not only from the Planning Department but also from the Department of Transportation, that when you park, you are not supposed to back out onto a main highway. So they are able to work out a situation where that will not occur with the Department of Transportation, and then they would resubmit with Plan Approval identifying those parking stalls. Since the background and recommendation has been passed out to the Commission, we have th received correspondence from Larry Baird, dated April 11. We’ve also received a response to Larry Baird’s letter from the applicant, dated May 9, 2016. We’ve received two letters, two additional letters addressing concerns from the Department of Water Supply as well as the th Department of Transportation, dated May 9 from the applicant. Then lastly we did receive a no-effect letter from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, State Historic Preservation Division. With that, that concludes our presentation. Thank you. UNGER: Thank you. Commissioners, any questions? DARROW: Thank you. UNGER: At this time I’d like to call up the applicant or the representative, please. SHEEN: Good morning. UNGER: Good morning. Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth before the Planning Commission? SHEEN: I do. UNGER: Thank you. Please state your name and your residence. SHEEN: My name is Daniel John Sheen, Jr. I reside at 83-5530 Middle Ke‘ei Road, Captain Cook, Hawai‘i 96704. UNGER: Great. Thank you. This is your opportunity to further explain your application. SHEEN: Okay. So we’ve been operating the business now at the current approved hours with very little success. There’s been very, very little food establishments in that area, and there’s been a lot that have been going out of business recently; there’s two that are currently for sale and are out of business. And we believe that the only way to try to keep this going is to increase our morning hours and catch some of that south Ka‘ū traffic coming in in the morning for some of our value-added products from our farms or coffees or pastries, again, for a snack in the 3 EXHIBIT A morning on the way to work. There is no great meals, no dinners, lunch and dinners in that area as well. So we do have a kitchen there to do that. So I guess our main thing is to provide value-added products from mine and other local farmers that we purchase from. And we are currently working directly with over 50 local farmers. During the season we buy from probably over 150, 200 local farmers. So it’s an outlet for our products. To continue to promote 100- percent Kona coffee in the region where it’s grown, known as the Kona Coffee Belt, and to exercise the historic buildings and the historic mill and bring those up for tourist interest, again, creating more local jobs. We currently employ 25 fulltime employees that reside in the Captain Cook area. And, again, just to continue to create more local jobs. So it seems like our 8:00 a.m. hours we are missing the huge surge of local traffic that’s coming from the HOV, you know, Ka‘ū area that works out in town and again on the way back. Opening at five o’clock will allow us to catch those guys on their way, their commutes to work. Our challenge is, we don’t have any foot traffic, and we are limited, there is no, not a lot of sidewalk area, so we are limited to just automobile traffic where we do have parking limitations, and we are currently working with DOT to better that for safer parking — businesses recently closed, more outstanding items — yeah, the Department of Water, working with those guys as well. We have a huge community support; I think you have all these documents that we’ve turned in, hundreds of signatures on sheets of locals and tourists as well that enjoy visiting the coffee shop. Yeah, our positions, okay, that’s mainly what I have, Mr. Unger. UNGER: Great. Thank you. Commissioners, any questions for the applicant? SHIMAOKA: Yeah, I’ve got one. With extended hours, I mean, that’s a lot, I mean you’re almost doubling, yeah, are you planning to hire more employees? SHEEN: Yes, sir. SHIMAOKA: Give me amount how many you are going to — SHEEN: Management thought we could probably use about four more fulltime employees. SHIMAOKA: And you are going to hire within the area there. SHEEN: Correct. Yes, sir. SHIMAOKA: Thank you. UNGER: That’s it. Thank you — CARR SMITH: Chairman Unger? UNGER: Oh, one more, one more question? CARR SMITH: Sorry. I was curious what you sell in your general store; I’m trying to understand why you’d want to stay up until ten o’clock. 4 EXHIBIT A SHEEN: Okay. We are looking at a dinner menu, lunch and dinner. We have one other café in the area that has hamburgers and fish and chips, that type of meals at Ke‘ei right there about 900 feet away down on Māmalahoa Highway; it’s the only other food option other than traveling all the way to Kealakekua, or almost Kealakekua. So we do snacks, wraps, currently on our menu now, and we’ll incorporate meals, hamburgers, hot dogs, fish and chips, again, coming from local products, and we do arrangements of items off of our farms; we have papayas, pineapples, avocados, mangos, and we purchase and implement those into our menus. CARR SMITH: Thank you. UNGER: Have you read the Planning Department’s background report and recommendations, and do you agree with them? SHEEN: Yes, I have, and, yes, I do. UNGER: Okay. Commissioners, any other questions? That’s it. Thank you. You may be seated. SHEEN: Thank you. UNGER: At this time we’d like to open up the meeting to public testimony. I have a Larry Baird as a testifier. If Mr. Baird would come forward at this time. BAIRD: My name is Larry Baird. I’m representing my family as we own the residence that’s attached to the Ka‘ū side of this project. UNGER: Before we get into that, will you please raise your right hand? BAIRD: Oh, sorry. UNGER: Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth before the Planning Commission? BAIRD: I do. UNGER: Thank you. Please state your name, where you reside. BAIRD: Okay. Larry Baird. I reside at 82-1193 Greenwell Mountain Road, Captain Cook. As I said, my wife and family own the property on the Ka‘ū side of this project, and we are greatly impacted. Our house is right adjoining the office thing that you saw on the plat plan. So we are within a matter of a few feet of this operation. We’ve had a lot of issues over the parking for safety reasons, blocking visibility for our property’s access onto the highway; so we’ve been fighting on this for years now. The history of this operation is they don’t abide by the rules. They have opened hours outside of what they are legally allowed to, and this is consistently persisted. Also, on the parking they’ve continued to disregard what was supposed to be clearly that they were not to park on the highway, and they’ve continued to do so even after being fined. You have a copy of my written testimony. I just want to elaborate a little bit on that. I feel that 5 EXHIBIT A Mr. Sheen’s idea that he’s going to get tourists traveling south at five o’clock in the morning is ridiculous; the tourists aren’t there until eight or nine on their way to City of Refuge, Volcano. Locals can’t afford five-dollar coffees; they tend to get coffee and snacks at convenient stores. I don’t see how he is going to capture any of the commuters to the northern part of the employment place by having five o’clock in the morning opening. I feel this is completely unacceptable as is ten o’clock at night. Don’t the owners of a quiet agricultural area have the right to some quietness? This dictates that would be lost. Hōnaunau is not downtown Kailua. It’s not a commercial center. So why should the population that resides in that area have to tolerate this operation? And given the fact that this individual, and I’ve got a picture that I would like to submit in addition to my testimony, and it’s a picture we took, we took of the property signage back in 2014, and it clearly says that he’s open from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.; so he’s been advertising that he has longer hours than he’s allowed to have. On that basis if we can’t trust him to honor the agreements for parking and his time, what is the extension going to do but give him more room to forget the rules he’s supposed to operate under. That’s basically my presentation. UNGER: Thank you. Commissioners, any questions at this time? Thank you. BAIRD: Okay. UNGER: Commissioners, at this time I’d like to request a motion on this matter. KAHOLO: So move. UNGER: To close public testimony. KAHOLO: So move. UNGER: And second? SHIMAOKA: Second. UNGER: We have a motion by Commissioner Kaholo, second by Shimaoka. All in favor? COMMISSIONERS: Aye. UNGER: Oppose? \[None.\] Motion passes. Public hearing is now closed. Commissioners, at this time I’d like to request a motion in regard to the application. Commissioner Kaholo. KAHOLO: I move that a favorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council on the application to amend conditions — wrong, sorry, I apologize for that — Mr. Chair, I move that the application to amend Special Permit SPP 714 be approved based on the Planning Director’s recommendation, findings, and proposed conditions, which shall be adopted, and as the applicant stated he agreed to everything on the revised recommendation. UNGER: We have a motion. Do we have a second? 6 EXHIBIT A CARR SMITH: Second. UNGER: We have a second by Commissioner Carr Smith. Discussion? SHIMAOKA: Yeah, my concern is the last-minute picture that we got. I just have a question because it says to 8:00 p.m. when the testimony was that they were going to 5:00 p.m. So that’s the only question I’ve got. UNGER: Would you like to address that with the applicant, or is this a question — SHIMAOKA: Yeah, I would. UNGER: — for the Commission? SHIMAOKA: Yeah, I would like to address that to the applicant. UNGER: Would the applicant please come back up? You can go ahead and respond. SHEEN: I’m assuming the sign said open until — SHIMAOKA: Yeah, the sign says — SHEEN: — 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. SHIMAOKA: — 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. How long has that sign been advertising like that? SHEEN: We don’t have a sign up. Can I see a copy of that, please? Okay. When we originally opened, we have a second location at the King Kamehameha Hotel, this sign sat there shortly advertising, and we corrected the hours. So this was a sign that we pulled from our King Kamehameha Hotel location where our signs were being made, and they corrected the hours shortly. This might have been out for a day or two until we corrected the hours for our local location. I think, if you look down here, I think it says “At the Kona Beach Hotel.” We are a very small company, so, signage is pretty expensive, so we put that up there and waited until we could afford to put our own signs up. SHIMAOKA: So you are saying this was only up for a like couple days. SHEEN: Correct, if, if even that. SHIMAOKA: Okay. UNGER: Commissioners? I do want to say that I hear the, I hear the complaint and I understand that there have been issues in the past. I will be voting in favor of the motion; I’m hoping that, moving forward with the Planning Department’s recommendations, the parking in the back, I do favor the applicant and the application. But I did want to state that I understand the complaint, 7 EXHIBIT A I’m hearing the complaint, and I’m hoping that things will be resolved moving forward. That’s all. Thank you. SHEEN: Thank you. UNGER: Unless there is other questions. CARR SMITH: Chairman? UNGER: Yeah. CARR SMITH: No questions, but I just — UNGER: Oh, okay, so we do have a motion on the table. Staff, can you call for a roll? DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for clarification, I just want to on the record state that, to confirm that the approval with amendments included the revised recommendation and the revised Condition No. 4. UNGER: Commissioner Carr Smith, did you have something else to say at this time? CARR SMITH: I was just going to state that I will be voting in favor of the amended Special Permit, that I commend him for trying to make a goal of his business and improve it, and just hope that he make sure that he follows all the conditions in the permit and, that’s all. UNGER: Great. Thank you. Any other comments? Staff, roll call, please. DARROW: Again, if could, just for clarification, just confirm that the motion included the revised recommendation and revised Condition No. 4. KAHOLO: Yes, thank you. DARROW: Thank you. With that, we’ll take the roll. Commissioner Kaholo? KAHOLO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Carr Smith? CARR SMITH: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Church? CHURCH: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Nobriga? 8 EXHIBIT A NOBRIGA: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Shimaoka? SHIMAOKA: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman? UNGER: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes, six to zero. UNGER: Applicant, the Planning Department will be notifying you of the decision in writing shortly. Thank you. The discussion ended at 10:01 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, Secretary Leeward Planning Commission 9 EXHIBIT A